Eating Less Without Feeling Deprived

Try something for me. Close your eyes and don't think about the purple elephants. Go ahead, do it now. No purple elephants.

Are you back with me? During that first several moments, it can be quite a task to get your mind away from thinking about purple elephants. Does it work to keep telling yourself, don't do it? Really, you are still thinking about purple elephants by struggling so hard to not think about them. Before I made the suggestion, you probably weren't thinking about them and would have gone on with life without thinking about them.

Now try something else. Close your eyes, don't think about purple elephants, but this time, replace those thoughts with fluffy white bunny rabbits. Now close your eyes and remember fluffy white bunny rabbits.

Was it easier to not think about purple elephants? You had something else to concentrate on so that you didn't keep thinking about purple elephants. I find thinking about white bunnies help to get my mind off of what I'm not supposed to think about.

I think this principle is very useful for what I experienced this weekend. I was feeling deprived. I had been really good about eating a low calorie weight loss diet for a while. Then, the deprivation thoughts started to come into my head. You know those thoughts that whisper, "Don't think about the cake that other people are eating. I'm sure they are enjoying it. I might be able to enjoy it too, but I'm not supposed to have it. Just quit thinking about it and it will go away."  That becomes, "I can't stop thinking about it and it really won't hurt to have a small piece." Then that thought turns into, "Well you blew your calories today so you might as well just let loose and get back on track tomorrow." Other thoughts include, "Why am I so hungry right now? It isn't fair for me to keep feeling this hungry. I just want to go back to eating whatever I want. What I was eating before really wasn't that unhealthy."

This weekend I was at a workshop and brought my own food to eat knowing that an unknown lunch was going to be served by the workshop instructor. I ended up eating the food that everyone else was eating that wasn't necessarily healthy, gained weight and felt sluggish as a result. What set that up was a feeling of deprivation. Going there, I had a plan. That plan went out the window when I started trying to not think about the yummy cookies on the table instead of the benefits of the yummy food I spent time preparing for myself.

I kept telling myself, "I deserve this. I have been eating so little for a while now and it doesn't feel as good as those cookies would in my tummy." Then, "I already had a cookie, I might as well have some coffee cake because when is the next time I'm going to be able to have something like that." The strategy of trying not to think about it was useless against what happened this weekend.

With PCOS, I am in a unique position. It is difficult to maintain my weight and extremely difficult to lose weight. I need to have impeccable eating habits. Without those habits, I will gain weight. I cannot just eat healthy foods when I'm hungry and stop when I'm satisfied because my body doesn't work like everyone else's. Unlike others, my body is programmed to gain weight unless I take action and do something about it. It is very easy to feel like this isn't fair and feel deprived as a result. To me, the weight gain wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't come with high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, diabetes and other health risks. 

Well, to counteract this, I have come up with some strategies to cope that I want to share with everyone.

#1 Eat often - Eating a light healthy snacks and small-portioned meals throughout the day is fuel to keep your metabolism burning. Also when I fail to eat at least every 4 hours while awake, I can get hungry enough to not care as much about what is going into my mouth. Hunger drives me to make decisions that I wouldn't otherwise make. When it has been 7 hours since the last time I ate anything, I set myself up to be more likely to say yes to something fast, easing and unhealthy.

#2 Eat fiber - Fiber is found in abundance in vegetables, fruits and whole grains. It helps you to feel fuller for longer. A bowl of oatmeal with berries in the morning lasts me a long time. The American Dietetic Association recommends that we eat 20-35 grams of fiber every day. This means that every meal and snack you eat needs to have fiber. If you eat 5 times a day (3 meals and 2 snacks), you need to have at least 4 grams of fiber every time to eat to meet the minimum requirement. 

#3 Fill up - Speaking of feeling fuller, having foods that cause a slow change to your blood sugar help you to not feel hungry as quickly after eating. They tend not to trigger hormones involved in food cravings. You may have heard of eating a low glycemic index diet. Those include foods high in fiber, lean protein and healthy fats. This is especially important in PCOS because of the high incidence of insulin resistance. Include a balance of carbohydrates, lean protein and healthy fat when you eat.

#4 Appeal to your senses - Eating foods you like is enjoyable. On the other hand, eating something because you have to and not because you want to is a sure way to feel deprived. For example, I love mushrooms. I will eat mushrooms on sandwiches, in salads, in casseroles, and put it in soup. I love the earthy smell and taste. Find foods that appeal to your senses like this. When you find something that appeals to you, savor it. Last week when it was blazing hot, I cut up melon and put it in the fridge. It wasn't hard not to savor cold sweet bits of goodness on a hot day!

#5 Drink water - Water helps you to feel fuller. Also, as I said in a previous post, humans can mistake the thirst signal for the hunger signal. You may feel like going to the fridge to eat when really you need to pour yourself a glass of water. Water also has no calories as opposed to drinking your calories in the form of juice, soda or other drinks loaded with sugar that don't fill you up.

#6 Be light - Lighten up every once in a while. Try not to take yourself so seriously that you are king or queen of restriction. Too much restriction will certainly make you feel like you've been deprived. A guilty pleasure every now and again isn't going to make or break you as long as you can have it without going overboard. Balance is important. For me, I have a couple peanut M&M's off the candy jar on my husband's desk every so often and can appreciate having had chocolate.

Well, I'm off to go put these principles in practice. How do you stop yourself from feeling deprived? Please feel free to add more suggestions. I'm sure there is tons of other really great advice that others have.