The central strategy is of course mindful eating. And I have lots of rules around eating to remind myself to remember to be mindful.
But I also have a number of strategies. The difference between rules and strategies is this: with a rule, you know if you’re following it or not. There’s no measuring or arguing, it’s something you either do or you don’t. A strategy is something to aim for, an idea or a quality that can be present in varying quantities.
Mindfulness is a strategy, because although at any particular moment, you can probably tell how mindful you are or aren’t, keeping an eye on it over time is harder, and the measuring actually gets in the way of being mindful. (If you’re paying too much attention to how mindful you are, you’re not actually mindful of the food.) So there’s degrees. It’s something I aim for.
My other strategies include:
- Smaller portions.
And yes, I did buy smaller plates after reading Mindless Eating. It also means, for instance, more thinly sliced cheese, more veg and less anything else in sandwiches, etc. Also in service of the smaller portions are my - Measuring cups.
When I first got them I felt incredibly nerdy measuring anything other than rice (I have to measure rice to know how much water to cook it with). And to be honest, I still feel a bit nerdy. But it has helped me get a clearer picture of how much I eat. I also checked out how much food goes in my larger bowls versus the smaller ones, and what that same amount of food looks like on a plate. Useful. - 50% fruit/veg.
That sounds like a rule, but because I almost never live up to it it’s more of an ideal to move towards. In cooking, it means less rice/meat and a bit more veg for the stir-fry. When feeling snackish or looking for dessert, I look at the fruit bowl first to see if anything can tempt me. - Get the good stuff.
I wrote about that earlier. If I’m going to eat less cheese/chocolate/cookies/sandwich meat, I might as well make it count when I do. So I get the good cheese, continental chocolate, slightly lush cookies and the tiny pack of duck and orange pate instead of the giant Polish sausage. Nicer food has made my I’m not on a diet diet very bearable. - Slowly.
I don’t just eat more slowly. I shop slowly. I slice the veg more slowly. I lose the weight slowly. And it’s not because I don’t have that little fairy on my back going hurryuphurryuphurryup. I do. I just reason with it until it gets bored and gives up (some people call this non-violent communication. I think of it as “talking at them until they’re bored” because I’m not that much of a hippie.)
So that’s what I’ve been doing. Key question is of course: is this working at all? More on that tomorrow.
Do you use any of these, or have they worked for you before? Am I overlooking something obvious? Let me know in the comments.
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*hee!* The image makes me grin. :-D
I have been using portioning to achieve smaller eating, in a gentle, non-obsessive way, and it has worked for me. Having a portion of something, rather than access to the whole amount, seems to work well. I believe I’ve read that too – serving out plates in the kitchen rather than serving yourself from communal bowls at the table kind of thing.