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Trying to Lose Weight? Change Your Relationship with Food
Advice from Chantel Hobbs
Take it from Chantel Hobbs, who lost more than 200 pounds by making small “bite-size” changes: food is not your friend, food is fuel.
The problem with most people who struggle with food addiction or weight fluctuations is the stress of what to eat and when. For some reason many people feel they need constant variety to ward off boredom. They believe, wrongly, that food is meant for entertainment, a diversion along the lines of a crossword puzzle or a movie. In fact, diet companies and food-delivery pitch this idea. They want to sell you the dream that you can eat all your favorite foods and still lose weight. But boredom with food is sometimes necessary, because it robs food of its emotional power.
Most of us would not say that stopping at the gas station to fill the tank is a highlight of our day. Because your car needs fuel, you stop on the way home to gas up. It’s not the most boring thing you do, but it’s far from the most entertaining.
Mealtime is like that when you approach food primarily as fuel and not as prime-time entertainment. The other day I saw a kiosk in the mall selling products for “The Cookie Diet.” Seriously. Apparently this diet says you can lose weight while eating cookies every day. I’m no genius, but does anyone think that people who love cookies so much they’d buy into a diet plan based on eating cookies are people who should be encouraged to eat cookies? The marketers of this diet are trying to get you to believe you don’t need to give up anything to get the life you really want. And oh how I wish this were true.
Changing your life means giving up some things you’re attached to. It might be cookies or soda pop or potato chips or veal. It’s never easy. I know firsthand that letting go of something you love, even if it’s just for a season, can feel like a death. However, when you learn to let go of foods that control you, there can be a rebirth. You can learn to have a completely different, healthy relationship with food when you’re willing to let go of the way you loved food in the past. After you set new rules for your friendship with food, everything you have enjoyed can be brought back again, but with moderation.
When I set out to lose weight, my first goal was simply to exercise every day. Just to move for thirty minutes a day for the first month. At the beginning I didn’t change my eating habits much, except I made the commitment to have breakfast every morning. And without exception, for the first month I made good on my commitment to exercise daily and to eat breakfast. There were days when I got my thirty minutes just before midnight, pacing around my cul-de-sac. But because I didn’t try to tackle both exercise and cutting my food intake at the same time, I felt like I could manage it. And I did manage it. For the first time in years, I exercised every day. (If you’re interested in hearing more about this, you can find it in my book Never Say Diet.)
Once the month was over, I decided to build on my success. In addition to continuing the thirty minutes of daily exercise, in the second month I decided to give up something related to food that tempted me. Day by day I said no to all sugary, processed foods. And I began to experience bite-size success each day.
From there, I moved on to predictable, three-hundred-calorie meals. I ate the same turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomato every day for almost six months. It’s actually a very tasty sandwich, but I wouldn’t call it exciting. But then, it didn’t need to be exciting since I had decided that food was not my best friend, confidant, source of entertainment, or a shoulder to cry on. It was fuel.
So… let’s accept that every meal doesn’t need to be va-va-va-voom impressive. For me, drinking the same protein shake and having the same turkey sandwich every day for several months was a good thing. In fact, it was one of the best things I did when I began my self-designed journey. I never had to worry about what to fix for lunch, it was easy to do the grocery shopping, and I knew in advance how many calories I was consuming every day. Food was fuel, what I need to survive. It wasn’t a reward or a way to avoid being bored in the middle of the day. Once I realized that I wasn’t going to die if I had the same thing for lunch every day and that eating boring meals didn’t make me a boring girl, I had the freedom to begin to add some foods that were more pleasureful. But that came later, after I had rewritten the rules of my relationship with food. It was only then that I knew how to enjoy certain foods as a special delight and not as a daily attempt to entertain myself, fight off loneliness, or feed an unhealthy urge.
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Copyright © 2009 by Chantel Hobbs From the book THE ONE-DAY WAY published by Waterbrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted with permission. |
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