Something about Brody’s confession of eating his supper, Heather’s supper, part of the sofa, two of his chew toys and a squirrel really disturbed Santa.  Maybe he’ll get his Christmas wish of self control after all…

Over the past 3 days we’ve been in denial, walking the plank and cycling around town all in the name of recognizing our behavior so we can stop the cheat meal from becoming the cheat week.  Right about now I would love to be able to give you some cute little bullets with pat little answers that says if you feel this way, do that or if you feel that way, do this.  Clearly, it’s not that simple so bear with me as I give you some insight as to what you are looking at in terms of moving beyond the issue without really “curing” your ailment.  Remember, all of these issues are conditions of the mind—not body so there is not any physical solution to shut these issues down.

Denial

If you have not had the denial meltdown, yet, you’re going to think you are invincible so anything I say here is moot.  Keep reading my blog until you do melt down and then come back to this and pick up where you left off.  But if you are past the point of thinking you’re Wonder Woman but not so past that you’ve changed your behavior, here are some things to help you through this stage:

• OWN the fact that you are not doing something that is amazing and worth endless praise.  Thinking that everybody should notice how strong and dedicated you are sets you up for feeling like a major fraud when you lose your tree on a box of cereal when you get home.  Because you are going to lose your tree on a box of cereal eventually…

• DO NOT worry about what others think of you.  Honestly, most folks are so wrapped up in their own stuff that you could pass out at the dessert table and they still wouldn’t notice never mind you not having a treat.  Honestly, I am a pretty attentive person and have a tremendously giving heart and even I would be challenged to notice you if you went down in front of real butter sugar cookies.  I’m just sayin’.  And I love you.  Imagine a room full of folks who couldn’t care less about you.  It’s tough out there.

• STOP thinking that you are the only one of your friends/family/colleagues that is healthy and no one has your dedication and so on.  That may be true but when you have a rough spot—and you will—you will be too embarrassed to own it with anyone to deal with it.  Do not forget that denial is not TRUE “will power”.  It is a false mentality set up by a really strong goal.  Once that goal is gone, ‘you is in trouble, girl’.

Rigidity

If you’re wondering if you are rigid or not, ask yourself if you got annoyed or even mad when you read my definition of rigidity.  If you thought at any point that that’s just what dedication looks like or that’s not me and I’m not changing my routine or shut up, you’d be rigid.  I also expect you to realize you are rigid one of two ways:  you read the definition and break down crying or you one day realize no one wants to hang out with you anymore.   Either one is a good indicator.  Here’s something for you to think about:

INNER DIALOGUE is your friend and you need to create an effective one for many scenarios that you find yourself in.

I can’t miss a workout this week or eat off plan.

Why?

Because I can’t.  I’ll be off my plan.

So?  What’s going to happen?

I won’t make my goal.

Really?  And if so, ok…then what?

Well, I have to make my goal.

Have to?  Why?  You gonna self destruct if not?

No.  Don’t be stupid.  But I want to make my goal.

Well that’s good but ‘wanting to’ and ‘having to’ are not the same thing.

You see where I am going and why this is important.  Put this in perspective for yourself when that inner voice rises up and tells you that you are useless unless you are in shape or that you are lazy because you took a day off from working out when you had bronchitis.  And follow the rabbit trail all the way to the end so you can snuff out this argument the next time it comes up.

Eat Cheat Cycle

Unfortunately, this is the hardest of all three cycles to break from because it’s not so extreme and noticeable.  You can go a really long time before owning the fact that you are doing this and then when you figure out you are doing it, you can go even longer before changing it.  This requires:

• HONESTY.  First admit that you can’t get it done.  Seriously.  Cry Uncle and stop the madness.

• INTROSPECTION.  Why are you fighting for this goal in the first place when it’s obvious you don’t want it.

• OWNERSHIP.  Once you know what it is, take responsibility for it.  Don’t try to put another goal on it to silence it.

• ACTION.  Whatever it is you are avoiding, you need to face it, deal with it and then move on from it.

If you are in this cycle you may have said any of the following:

The reason I can’t stay on plan is because it’s too strict.

Actually, the reason is because it’s not strict enough.

Or it’s too complex, I need something simple.

Or it’s too much to put together.  Can’t you just give me a menu.  I don’t want to think.

I can’t make it after work.   I need to go to the morning.

I can’t go in the morning, can you make it Fri thru Sun?

Anybody?  Sound familiar?  You are in the Cycle then…

I hope this helps you somewhat.  I have had to go through some serious inner dialoguing, getting over myself and ownership to get to a point where the only thing that can really take me down now is the food itself.  That’s a better place to be than to be fighting yourself AND the food.  There are many other things to consider—it’s not just one—so look at this as one aspect of your journey to maintain this lifestyle beyond the first 12 weeks…

I tend to write in series because it makes it more interesting and I get the chance to develop it more.  If you have a weighty topic you are looking for some answers for, hit me up below or shoot me an email.  Either way, if I can delve into it, I will.  We have to keep our heads on tight if we want to make our bodies right.  Cool?  Woop woop!:o)

I don’t know about you (Actually that’s a lie, I do know about you but I’m going to act like I don’t know about you so you can stop feeling like I’m staring at you—and just you.:) but I notice that for most of us struggles with cheats, treats and chocolate (yes, it gets its own category) come in cycles.  We’re not always struggling and we’re not always winning.  We have moments or seasons, if you will, of chaos and mayhem that take us down more than normal and begin to chip away at our dieting confidence until we feel like we “suck”, “we’ll never get it done”, “why bother” and so on.  The best thing we could ever do at this time is go to maintenance eating but that’s actually the last thing we do and so begins the battle.

Heather the slave driver putting them through and endless up/down cycle of cardio.

How Does This Happen In The First Place?

Sadist Masochism.  No really, we love to torture ourselves.  I think some of us are so good at this that we have it down to such a degree that we can determine the level of torture we want to inflict on ourselves based on whatever drama is going on in our lives at the time.  Lots of drama means we drag out big whips and chains and cat-o-nine tails in the form of huge weight loss and per4mance goals and not so much drama means we want to just take off a few pounds here and there.  Ever done this?…

Aunt Betty Ann* has a big work project coming to completion at her workplace.  She’s been on the project for a while and it is finally coming to a close within the next 6 weeks or so. It’s a huge project and the tension at the job is thick. Three months from now is a big race that ABA wants to run in and she’s been waiting all year for it to come around.  Four months from now ABA’s sister is getting married and she’s going to be in the wedding.  Suddenly ABA feels like she needs to lose at least 10 pounds for the wedding.  She knows the race will help with a few extra pounds—she hopes—but the stress of all that’s going on begins to weigh on her.  So what does ABA do?  She starts a 16 week diet to get ready for her sister’s wedding (because that’s exactly what we would all do) but she can’t stick to it for the life of her.  She’s nibbling, dabbling and wavering more than she’s dieting and working out.  Of course she thinks it’s because the plan’s not strict enough and she has too much choice so she changes what she’s eating from chicken, broccoli and an occasional sweet potato to wallpaper paste, shoe leather and dust (you know those earlier choices were taking her down).  Now that her diet is more realistic, she should stick to it, right?  NOPE.  Now she thinks it’s her workout schedule and she’s not working hard enough to stay focused because she keeps finding herself eating a lit bit of this and a little bit of that.  Finally, ABA realizes that she’s not going to make goal so she scraps the diet and throws caution to the wind.  Does this sound familiar?

When I first started to come across this scenario years ago, I used to believe that it was the busy schedule that made ABA unsuccessful at staying on track.  I would tell her she was nuts for trying to diet during all of that commotion and to either wait until everything calmed down or zip some things out now.  But then I began to realize that she wasn’t interested in dieting when it all calmed down.  At that point, she was happy with herself (kind of) and was really in a maintenance way of thinking and what was really going on was her trying to manage her chaos through the scale.  This is really destructive in nature but is such a pattern with type A women that it needs a name.  I’m working on it.

What we do is find something we can mother all over while everything else in our lives is “going to he** in a hand basket” because as far as we’re concerned, our weight is controllable.  Now is it really?  NO.  But we think it is at the time and we’re going to whip it around like an amusement ride at the Brockton Fair.  I’m not going to build this now although I have a lot to say about this topic because it is SUPER relevant to us but it’s too big to tackle in this post.  But I am going to say that this is a function of emotion more than it is a physical issue that you can just control.  “Not eating the treat” is not going to work so knock it off and trying to tighten up the diet to make you stop is even more pointless.   Stop beating yourself up because you can’t stop eating the cookies on the counter and start inner dialoguing with yourself about how you can focus your attention elsewhere while you are dieting.

This is THE most common of the three scenarios presented and unlike the other two, there’s very little resistance here.  This is the one that can make you gain weight because you are not denying anything.  You are not focused–you are just wrecking shop.  Every day you “try” to get it done and every day you say you’ll do better tomorrow.  Twenty pounds later, you realize you’ve gone through 45 “tomorrows”.  There are other reasons for this, too, besides the one above:

• You denied yourself for so long (scenario #2) that you have begun to unravel and can no longer justify locking it down anymore.

• Your head has not caught up with your heart.  This happens when you keep shooting for a goal that you really do not want anymore but have not taken the time, yet, to reconcile that with your head so you keep gunning for it.

• You want something for all the wrong reasons and your heart is smarter than your brain.

• You’ve lost passion for the goal.  You want what you originally fell in love with but somehow that has been stained by reality in some way and you can’t admit that.

These are permutations of the same thing, pick which one is yours.  I suffered from 3 of the 5 and it took me a long time to get my head back in the game.  Some of you have sent me some of the best emails with battle scars as to what this looked like for you and how you came out on top afterward.  I want you to know that I have heard all that you have said and am using some of it tomorrow as I talk about how to move beyond all 3 eat-cheat cycles.

Email me or leave a comment below if you have a story you want to share or have any questions on what I’ve talked about so far.  I would love to hear from you: Jodi@trans4mationstation.com or add it below.

Suggestions come tomorrow! Woop woop!!:o)

*Depending on how long you’ve known me and I’ve been telling you stories, Aunt Betty Ann is a regular on the scene.  She’s completely fictional alongside her husband Uncle Peanut, cousin TayTay and Frank.  Try and keep up with them.

I must say I know a thing or two about being Type A.  Journal with matching pen set anyone?

I am a stickler about certain things in life and one of biggest things that I am adamant about is being flexible in how we live.  Take that in for a minute…read it slow…ponder that statement. Ha!  Trying to live by hard and fast rules when the world is changing by the hour is difficult and exhausting.  It’s also abnormal and a bit obtrusive to others but who’s noticing?  But the real concern that I have with it is rigidity which is this hardness that comes over someone who has pretty much frozen out the world and lives in this igloo otherwise known as their body.   I am sure you think you are “getting it done” but in real life you look like a stepford wife going through the motions.  This is some scary stuff when it happens and I pray if this is you, go stand by the fire known as relational love and thaw out. (said with tremendous sincerity)

Just like denial, on the outside you look normal and right now you may be thinking that this is not bad—‘what do you know, Jodi?’ It’s only when you let people talk to you for a while, spend quality time with you or eat with you that they realize something is not right.   You might count your blueberries in the morning and if you should have 20 but accidentally had 21, you melt down.  You might eat the same thing every day and if you have turkey instead of chicken, must go back and recalculate all that you ate for the day “just in case”.  Or to make sure that you are “still on track”.  Or whatever reason you may give as THE reason for such extreme behavior.  At surface level you can justify your behavior as being disciplined, driven, goal oriented…but underneath there lies a beautiful woman who is afraid that if any move right or left is made outside of her plan then her wonderful house of cards is going to come tumbling down.

To the untrained eye you do come off as disciplined because who wouldn’t want to be that focused?  You would have never struggled with the dessert table yesterday.  Not only could you stand by it, you could have assembled it, got some on your fingers while serving it to someone and washed it off like nothing touched you.  I, personally, would have licked myself clean like a cat in public with no shame but we have already discussed my weak behind.  Moving on…  Honestly, you would have been admired by many at the function but not by everyone because some of us would have seen the trouble brewing.

I want to make sure I clarify all that I am about to say because this can be hard to accept when you first read it.  It’s not the discipline that is the problem.  It’s not the fact that you wouldn’t lick yourself down like a postage stamp if you had the chance.  What it is, is subtle and hard to put your finger on at first glance but essentially you are rigid.  There is no deviation.  None.  There is no plan B.  It’s not in the works.  It can’t happen.  It won’t happen.  Your family is on hold.  Your work is on hold.  Your day is on hold until you can fulfill whatever needs to happen to make plan A continue on without a hitch.  Because if it doesn’t…WHOA.  You cannot put humpty dumpty back together again.  And the main reason why rigidity needs to be nipped in the bud is if this is how you are managing cheats then let’s face it, it does not stop at food.  You are rigid with life.  You are the woman who I talk to that I can see fear in the back of your eyes while you tell me everything is great.  You ask me questions with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable.  Almost as if I don’t answer this right, you could possibly do something.  You don’t really smile.  You do not let loose.  There are no nibbles—that’s not in the plan.  There are no unplanned, unstructured meals.  It’s unacceptable.  But with that there are no days that you run in the rain, spontaneously hug your children, call in “well” to work and do spa day, there is no living in any way, shape or form.  You have locked down all possibilities in life other than the one that you planned on that morning.  This is no way to manage cheats and this is no way to manage life.  When this ball of yarn unravels it’s not pretty and it can take longer to put it back together than it did to create it in the first place.  If you think this is you, open up about to someone you trust and begin to live.

I have been blessed in my career to have some of the best conversations ever that usually start with, “Jodi, you’ll be really proud of me.  X, Y, Z happened today and I didn’t flip out.  Instead I, …” Can I be so honest with you and tell you that I have hung up the phone and cried—depending on who it was maybe even sobbed–over some of those conversations because they have meant so much to me and truly made everything I have ever done in my life worth it.  LIVING LIFE IS EVERYTHING.  Not managing it. LIVING IT.

We have one more woman to talk about tomorrow.  I hope you meet me here.  I’ll be looking for you. Woop woop!!:o)

Do you mind if I ask you a question?  Why do we as women think we are so tough?  Where did this come from?  I mean really…when did this happen?  I have been having some of the most interesting conversations in the last month or so that always leave me wondering, ‘who is she fooling?’  I am not even referring to clients, although I have had a few of those too.  But normally, if I am bringing it to the blog, it’s not a client situation that I am referring to.  So back to my question:  who are we fooling?  And why are we pretending so hard?

I’m sure you know me enough by now to know that I’m getting to something so why don’t I just get to it already, eh?

I get tons and tons of questions in my line of work.  Tons.  But some of them show up more often than not.  I told you about the tight bum one and the stretch marks on the tummy/thighs but another one that is rearing its ugly head again that we need to put on the table is:

Why can’t I stop cheating on my diet?  How do I have a cheat meal and not continue to eat like that for 3 days?

I have hit this topic from a physical standpoint by telling you foods that are completely off limits if you are dieting for a specific reason but if you are not and you just want to live this life, you really do need to learn how to navigate the world of forbidden foods with greater finesse than just straight denial.  Trying to abstain forever will never work and basically you are setting yourself up for failure.  Let’s look at some of the ways we try to do this and see where we go wrong in them.

I Don’t See That Chocolate, Do You?

Ok, this has to be the WORST way to manage your life and I hope that if you are doing this now that you will work hard to find other more effective ways to keep from eating treats.  This is the official “tough girl” approach that lasts as long as the passion for the initial goal does.  Once that goal is gone, you have a better chance locking yourself out of a car you are sitting in than you do locking down your desire for a treat.  If you think that the steel resolve you have now will last forever, I have a jar of peanut butter on my desk right now that says it won’t.  I’m just sayin’.  So let’s all be honest and get out of denial cuz we’re getting wet here.

And please do not let me make you feel like you are the abnormal one here.  I am as human as you all are and I will be the first one to admit that to you.  So, why am I talking about this?  Because I was once a “tough girl”, myself, and a very good one at that, and then one day…

Honestly, mom.  I tried to lock it down.  But then that frosting just called my name.  Shame.

I have learned first hand that denial is not only ineffective, it’s torment.  For instance, back in the day when I had zero sense in my head and dieted for events, I would be somewhere like a bbq or what-have-you and they would have a full dessert table set out with all kinds of yummy stuff.  I wouldn’t get 10 feet near that table and would stick to whatever I brought or allowed on my diet at the time.  Now there’s nothing wrong with that if I had a normal reaction to the table which would be more the way it is now.  If I walked by the table today, I may survey a bunch of stuff on there, choose a small piece of something or nothing at all but I could walk by the table completely unaffected. Not back in the day, though, I avoided the table because if you stood me in front of it, tough girl would show up and say, “No, really.  I’m good.”  But the real girl on the inside of me would be screaming in my head, “DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE WITH THIS SPREAD.  PLEASE.  IS THAT REAL BUTTER OVER THERE?  HOLY COW!!  ARE YOU KIDDING?  AND THE CHOCOLATE!  I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW YOU COULD COVER THAT IN CHOCOLATE!  IT’S EVERYWHERE!  STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!!!!”  My face, however, wouldn’t give away anything.  Aside from the odd sweat bead that would form on my forehead, I’d be cool as a cucumber.

Now, seriously, is that anyway to live?  For the rest of the night you are AWARE that there is a table with treats on it.  And you’re going to leave there proud of yourself that you held out only to get home and eat 1.5 cups of oatmeal w/ chocolate protein powder and raspberry preserves talkin’ ‘bout, “Mmmm, that was good.”  Riiiigggghhht.  That’s why you just ate 3 servings worth and emptied the jar of preserves in the oatmeal…because it didn’t do “the trick”.

What ensues after an encounter like this is pure chaos and mayhem inside of you for at least 3 days, but possibly more.

There’s resentment: Why can’t I have a treat.  What the heck?  It’s not going to hurt me.  Everyone else can have a treat.

There’s bitterness: I bet someone got sick off of that stuff.  And if they did, they deserved it.  They shouldn’t be eating that stuff anyway.  That’s why they’re all (fill in whatever blank you want here).

There’s paranoia: I should have just had a piece.  No, I would never be able to stop and then I’d gain a bunch of weight and then I’d never be able to work out again and then I…

Finally, there’s platitudes: If I want to look like everybody else, then I’ll eat like everybody else.  I need to Just Do It.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  And so on…

And when all this finally calms down in our heads and we are done torturing ourselves 2-3 days later, I go back to my original question and ask you, “Who are you fooling?”  the same way I finally asked myself, “Who am I fooling?”  None of what just went down was “tough” unless you are referring to the torment itself.  I didn’t accomplish anything because although I didn’t take my angst out on the dessert table, I took my angst out on myself which is 20 times worse.

Denial is number one, The Plank is number two.  We talk about that tomorrow.  Yes, we’ll get on the better side of this when I am done laying it out because there is one.   Woop woop!!:o)

the boogeyman?  Well, not since the 70’s…but that’s not what I’m referring to.

No I mean there is no such thing as “control”. 

If you haven’t figured it out already, I am a talker.  I am incredibly social, very open with folks and I tend to be everywhere all the time so I run into a ton of women who seem to have no problem telling me everything about themselves.  I have no idea why this is but you would understand if you hung out with me for a week or so and just see what I am talking about.  I do not mind it at all because I need to know what you ladies think when you are unguarded (most people I chat with have no idea what I do for a living so they just share-away) and not trying to give the “perfect answer” to the person who is holding you accountable to your daily dirt.  Well this week was no different than any other week and I had a gem of a conversation with someone (who is not a client of ours I have to add!) that begged the question, “Are you really in control or are you pleasantly managing chaos and mayhem?”

All of us have little quirky things that we do that we think “fix” a certain issue.  The most common one that I think all of us have done or are currently doing now is the cheat meal manipulation.  In fact, Kas (Tues blogger) and I just had a great conversation about this recently and she had to put her own smackdown on the habit herself.  But the cheat meal manipulation conversation (say that 3 times fast) that I had with someone this week went something like this:  It starts out with us having a cheat meal/week.  Say we have it on Saturday.  All is good in the land of dieting.  Then either the week gets away from you and have another cheat meal (man broke up with you, tough day at work, office party–who knows why) or the cheat meal itself set you up for disaster (see my post about cheat meals in here somewhere) and you go bezerk on your pantry one evening–whichever scenario applies here because it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that all is no longer good in the land of dieting and the first thing we think is, “We have to erase that.”  We need to ‘make that go away’.  Immediately we begin to change our diet around to reflect our folly:

• If we are doing a low, med, high rotation of some sort, we will stay all low for the week.
• If you are scheduled to do 4 cardio sessions in a week, you’ll add one on for every indiscretion.
• If you eat starch (you have to ask now) then you will drop all starch for the week.
• You may try to torture yourself with a mini diet for 4 to 5 days of something very restrictive like white fish and a green veggie.
• If you were doing a “diet” of some kind, you’ll start from the beginnig again so that it continues to “work” or you get “the maximum benefit”.

Regardless of your weapon of choice, all of these things are done as *damage control*.  They are meant to minimize or fully negate the act of violence we just perpetrated on our bodies by having extra of whatever food it was that tickled our fancy at that moment.  But there is no such thing as “control” when it is done after the fact.  You are not controlling anything.  In fact, at that point, it’s controlling you!  But some of you have this so ingrained in your brain that it would be easier wrestling a bone out of a rabid raccoon’s mouth on your back deck than breaking you of this dangerous pattern of thinking.  If you find yourself doing this, STOP!  NOW.  SERIOUSLY.

YOU CANNOT MAKE UP FOR ANY FOOD FOLLY THROUGH FOOD MANIPULATION OR EXERCISE!  KNOCK IT OFF!

If you want to see the mama bear in me come out, tell me you are doing this and you will see a big, frantic afro coming at you that is attached to a loud, but sweet woman who may be slightly scary at this point with you.  This, my dear, is the beginning of disordered eating.  Not necessarily a full blown eating disorder, but disordered eating for sure.  Next week I will tell you why your efforts are futile, at best, but this week is more about showing you that your behavior is on a fast track to nowhere.

If you are in the early stages of this craziness, you may think that you’ve ‘got this’.  You’re good.  “No really, Jodi, I know what I’m doing.  I make sure that…blah, blah, blah.”  Ahhh…the bliss of arrogance.  See, you are thinking about what you are doing right now.  You are not thinking of what this becomes.  The mind is a terrible thing and left to its own devices will drive you into the ground like a sledge hammer to a stake.  Sugar begets sugar.  Junk begets junk.  Soon you are making excuses for everything and you can no longer keep track of what’s making up for what. 

• You become paranoid.  I am not exaggerating here. 
• You become irrational.
• You become a master deceiver.  Of even yourself.
• People close to you notice you doing weird stuff like eating just a piece of chicken for lunch and dinner because you are busy “making up for” the cheesecake you had the night before.
• You scale watch because you just *know* that what you had is going to show up the next day. 

STOP!

Have I adequately scared you?  I pray that I have.  Marinate on this this week.  Next week we will talk about how your efforts are a waste of time. 

In the mean time, Nicole, our Friday blogger is stepping off the blogging team for a while.  The girl is a hot commodity and has taken on a new challenge in her career that demands a tremendous amount of her time.  She is still part of our consulting team so if you need her, let me know.  I have not decided fully what I am going to put in there but if you have a suggestion, hit me at jodi@trans4mationstation.com. 

Heather has some exciting new stuff coming your way and we may put that stuff in the Friday spot.  She is another hot commodity who is blowing up as we speak!  Woop woop!  Keep your eyes peeled for that if you are interested in a hot AND healthy body.  They are not one in the same!

Ladies…we love you.  We cannot say this enough.  It’s one thing to want a great body.  Every body talks about that on their sites.  It’s another thing to actually walk it out.  The fear, the control, the cravings.  WE HAVE ALL BEEN HERE AT LEAST ONCE IN OUR JOURNEY.  Let us keep you from destroying yourself in the quest for a hot body.  Stay safe.  Stay sane.  Keep reading.  LOVE YOU!

I have a young friend that recently graduated college and is working with Jodi towards a cool goal. Since she’s new to “dieting” like we do around here, it’s the eating that’s become challenging. She called me the other night and needed to kind of confess and cry for a little bit. Basically it’s the old I’m obsessed with food and all I want is crap that I know doesn’t even taste good. I cannot wait for my cheat meal. Every where I turn in this office there’s a candy dish or it’s food day or there are leftover pastries in the break room. Recently someone was even eating McDonalds in the same train car (the nerve!)

We laughed as she described what she was feeling. Basically she’s not satisfied after she eats. She’s not starving, that’s not the problem. It’s that she’s not full, ever. Like leave food on the plate full. Yeah, we don’t get you full, sorry. But that’s the point. How are you going to eat three-four hours later if you’re stuffed now?

It’s also the texture/mouth feel issue that Jodi mentioned a week or so ago that’s she’s missing that add to the feeling of being unsatisfied. It was no surprise to learn that her cheat meals are pizza, fried foods, beer.

I don’t do the diets but I’ve been through this so I had a few suggestions:

* Quit eating the same thing meal after meal, day after day. A high variety will keep your mouth surprised and your brain engaged as you eat. Change up every component, the protein, the starch, the veg, fruit and the fat.

* Change up the preparations. Cooking Light is a terrific source for yummy recipes. If you can’t have the food exactly as is then take inspiration from the recipe and modify it to fit your plan. For example: a baked rosemary chicken cutlet recipe that calls for a panko breading is just as amazing with Ezekiel bread crumbs or omit the crumbs all together.

* Try something new. Nicole has been treating us with really yummy recipes lately and Amy and Heather too. Give them a go; these gals have been in the dieting game for a long time and know what they’re talking about.

* For these suggestions to work, you have to cook. You have to plan. You have to put in the effort to make your food be more satisfying.

* Avoid fake food crutches. For example, using Crystal Light in every glass of water you drink or bathing all your foods in butter spray. In time, artificial anything will dull your ability to taste the food, which is never satisfying.

* Get smarter about cheat meals. I have to think it’s time for her to move away from pizza and on to maybe something like a gourmet burger and a few sweet potato chips or mom’s clam chowder with a hunk of sour dough bread slathered with perfect English butter as her cheats.

As far the traps at the office:

* Don’t start with the candy. A small handful of skittles or m&m’s may in time be ok, but it’s deadly to newbies because once it begins, it’s very difficult to stop. What’s stupid is that with candy, after a while you can’t even taste it anymore and you’re mouth hurts. Each day, make it a goal to not do the candy. Don’t even start with just one or two tiny pieces. Walk away.

* Food days are a ridiculous office phenomenon. I mean, really, every birthday, every holiday, every other Friday? Like the dreaded candy dish, you have to decide ahead of time to not partake. And see about making your meals that day be especially yummy and inspiring. If you have to, join in the birthday song and immediately go back to your desk.

* When thoughts of food begin to take over, get up from your desk and go do something, put on your headphones, or whatever you can to distract yourself. Get your mind onto something interesting to minimize the space you have to think about food. Like on weekends, when it’s 4pm and you realize you’ve only eaten twice, it’s because you’re busy!

I don’t know if I helped her besides listening and sharing some of my own crazy thoughts and behaviors. Just getting it off her chest and hearing from a veteran that she’s not alone was enough to put it all back into perspective and have a few belly laughs too. She’s going to be fine.

So, what else works to keep your meals inspiring and your mind in the eating game? How do you deal with a toxic food environment at the office? Let’s chat it out in the comments.

I always say this and I truly mean this: I love what I do. I have been doing this for a very long time and as I grow older and wiser to the ways of you crazy ladies, I have learned a thing or two about food choices. One of the most asked questions of me besides ‘how can I tighten my bum?’ is “What can I have as a cheat meal?” Depending on where you are in your dieting, my answer typically is, “Anything you want. But if I was you, I wouldn’t have…”

CHEESE
I would avoid cheese like a strange substance on a park bench—and I mean that literally! Cheese begets cheese. Are you following me? But more importantly, cheese is an experience. Mostly a texture and salt experience, cheese feels good on the palette. It validates whatever meal you are eating. Not a fan of veggies? Put cheese on them and suddenly you can eat your veggies, your friend’s veggies, veggie platters, okra—who cares!

Of course whenever I tell someone to avoid cheese they ask about cottage cheese, which by the way does not count. I am only referring to hard cheeses so cottage, ricotta and feta do not count as cheeses to avoid. Everything else, though, will send you down the river without paddles, fast!

You cannot recover from a meal with cheese. Pizza for instance will set you back at least 2 days, possibly 3. If you think you are going to have pizza Saturday night and steel cut oats on Sunday morning and not notice the difference, you are fooling yourself. When I say ‘set you back’, I do not mean by weight gain. I mean by focus. Suddenly, everything needs cheese. Your eggs, your tuna, yourself at 4 in the afternoon when you are suddenly alone with a stick of Crackerbarrel cheddar cheese and are unsure how half of it is missing even though it was new when you took it out of the fridge. You know, everything. Honestly, spare yourself the pain of overshooting your cheat/treat meal (call it what you like, it is what it is)and avoid cheese.

ICE CREAM
WOW! Now here’s the beginning of Armageddon. Forget what people say about 2012 coming, your downfall is contained in a pint-sized package managed by 2 guys and a cow—Ben and Jerry. I have 3 words for you: DON’T DO IT. I would rather sharpen my pinky in an electric pencil sharpener before I would ever have ice cream as a cheat meal. Now first of all I have to be honest…I do not like ice cream. It doesn’t do it for me and I could truly take or leave it. But the rest of you would sell your first born to the Kathy Gifford College of Sweater Making located in luxurious downtown New Delhi just to get a ½ cup of the sinful treat in a flavor you may not even like. You want some fun? People watch at a restaurant and look for a woman who has ordered ice cream for dessert. The only thing more scandalous is the awkward scene from When Harry Met Sally—and if you haven’t seen it, do so to know what I am talking about.

Ice cream is a total assault of the palette. It’s a beat down that you are not equipped to handle half way through your dietary regimen that you so proudly have been enduring. Texture: heavenly. Not only is it smooth and creamy, it’s ice cold. Taste: outrageous. Stuffed with just about anything you can think of, ice cream is an aggregation of flavors. Experience: unlike any other. If you go for a sundae, you have hot, cold and sweet at the same time and that is just hard to resist. Here…take these nails…you’ll need them for your coffin.

What ice cream does is make everything in your life pale in comparison. Suddenly your husband isn’t attractive anymore. Calling him Chunky Monkey doesn’t make him any more appealing than he was before you dropped your face in the container. Good try, though. You almost wished that uncomfortable and unpleasant things came with ice cream: “Hi Ms. Jones, good to see you here for your annual exam. Here is a robe to change into and you will find a dish of buttercrunch ice cream with sprinkles in the examination room to help you through the appointment. Enjoy.” Women would be lined up with all kinds of fake ailments if this ever happened. The medical insurance system would be thrown for a loop with false claims left and right.

My point: it is so hard to return to a focused diet the day after ice cream that it is not funny. Nothing tastes good. Nothing shuts down the craving. Nothing compares to peanut butter mocha fudge almond praline with sprinkles and whip cream on top except mmm…yum… baked chicken with broccoli. Why didn’t I think of that? (total sarcasm there)
When you hit maintenance, have some ice cream. Til then, avoid it like the rails on the staircases of the subway station. Ewww.

ALCOHOL
I am going to make this one brief because it’s simple. One drink makes every seem ok. From eating your whole fridge to going on a second date with someone you would never go on a second date with, alcohol makes you lose your senses. And then on top of that, it makes you feel like crap the next day so that you indulge even more. We have all learned this lesson the hard way, but let’s try to help those out who may not know: avoid this!

I have a post on here about this and you should read it when you have time.

In the mean time, choose your cheat meals wisely. They really do make a difference in your diet experience.

…if so, you could be in trouble…

I am a true offensive driver (read that as off-fensive, not oh-fensive,lol). I know where I want to go, I take the shortest route to get there, I drive over anybody in my way I do not lally gag while driving, I know the rules of the road and I exercise common sense. Now it bears mentioning that this has been since I am older because when I was younger, the world was my NASCAR testing ground and it wasn’t pretty. But I can say that my dieting reflects my driving experience: I was a jackass dieter when I first started out and wisdom and total failure common sense have tempered my spirit. My question to you is, how closely does your driving reflect your dieting?

Turning left to go right. What is this? Unless you are driving a Duck Tour bus you need to get over yourself and stop thinking you have a 36” diameter steering wheel with passengers in the back. Take the turn for Heaven’s sake!

Dieting: Starting on Monday, Tuesday, next day…whatever. We have all done this one at least once in our lives. Some of us just did it this past weekend. “I’ll start again on Monday. In the mean time, I’ll behave like a Survivor at a buffet from Thursday to Sunday and hope no one notices the 5 pound gain.” Going up 5 to lose 7 is exhausting. Reign this one in.

Not knowing how to properly yield. I don’t understand this one. It’s a yield sign, not a stop sign. If there is no one there, you slow down and keep going–you do not stop. If there is someone there, you do not bomb through and drive over them and act like they were in the wrong by slamming on your brakes after you cut them off or tailing them for a half mile with your high beams on. It’s called YIELD.

Dieting: It’s a cheat meal not a cheat day, cheat week, birthday week, splurge, endless vacation or what have you. It should be a meal. Eating a full meal *while* making your plate is a sure fire sign that things are going downhill fast. With that being said, are you too conservative? Are your cheats things like smelling the food at the bakery across the street or licking the spoon after someone has ice cream in the house? Come on now, you have to have something that makes you feel good and you may have it more than once a week. Call it whatever you want, just use some common sense and YIELD to the desire but not overindulge or undercut your meal.

“Deer caught in a headlight” with cones/cops/cars on side of road: You get the point here. You’re driving down the highway at a good clip and the car in front of you slams on his brakes and drops 20 mph in less than 2 seconds. You’re thinking there must be a corpse in the road b/c why else would someone defy the laws of inertia in such a careless manner. Nope. Cop on the side of the road, has someone pulled over. Umm…ok. He’s busy. What do you think you’re a better ticket so he’s going to drop what he’s doing, hop in the car and go flying after you? Use some common sense folks. That’s actually a great time to practice slalom training or test out the acceleration in your 300 hp vehicle—not anger the 8 cars behind you that are now fishing their hearts out of their throats because they just saw their lives flash in front of them. If you see lights on the side of the road, exercise caution but no knee jerk reactions lest you kill someone behind you.

Dieting: You’re on fire and making progress. Your clothes fit better, people are complimenting you left and right, Maybelline just asked you to be their spokes person for their mascara, it’s on right now. Then you step on the scale and you have only lost 2 pounds in 4 weeks. Suddenly, everything stops. All your progress seems for naught. Now you feel fat, you remember you have been bloated, you may be in a plateau, oh the drama. No, you are letting a box dictate your life/results. There is more to dieting than the scale and you most likely lost bodyfat during that time and it does not show up on the scale the way you would like it to. Stop stressing everyone out, you are progressing, keep your eyes on the prize, get off the brakes.

Mismanaging four way stops and rotaries: Oh boy. This is a tough one and can be incredibly painful to watch. If you do not understand the basics of a four way stop (one direction goes, then the other) or the complexities of a rotary (the people inside have the right of way), stay home because there is always somebody out there like me who is ready to pounce on you. It’s an ugly scene all around and when you have folks coming at you from every direction, it’s really easy to become a piece of blubbering jello in the middle of the intersection.

Dieting: Leaving the house unprepared with food thinking that you can make it up as you go along. Oh boy. At the first sign of trouble you are going down fast. If you think you can survive a drive through making healthy choices or hold out until you find something healthy, think again. Once you’re in the middle of it, you are going to panic and make a wrong choice. Know where you are going and what you’ll need before you go and you will have a much better experience while dieting.

So here’s your homework. Do you do any of these things? Either dieting or driving for that matter, fix it now. These are setbacks on the road to your goals. And at the very least, they add at least 10 min. on average to your commute each day. Regardless, get it together and get more on the ball, will ya? We have some goals to meet this year.

I love alcohol.  Seriously. 

Nothing beats a great glass of wine with an even better steak dinner.  It can be relaxing, yummy and almost daring depending on how often you indulge.

But consuming it on a regular basis is not going to get you the body that you want.  It may get you some extra pounds—not because it makes you gain weight, but because it drops your guard and you make bad choices—or possibly some temporary relaxation, but drinking in and of itself makes for a crappy cheat meal.

Occasionally I will read of a trainer saying it is ok to have a drink with their meal as a treat and to count it as a cheat meal.  I hear you trying to keep the client focused and not putting them in a “box of denial” and normally I am the most easy going of folks when it comes to rules.  But alcohol is one that I have a no tolerance policy for when you have a goal that you are trying to reach. 

I get it, too, that it is easy for me to say that because I am no longer shooting for that “look” anymore.  But when I was going for it, I did not drink.  Ever.  Not at Christmas parties, birthday parties, never.  Just was off limits. 

Why?

Because it wastes so much precious time. 

It’s as simple as that. 

Alcohol does not cause you to gain weight.  It just keeps you from losing.  After you get over the dehydration caused by your drink or two, you then have to go about shuttling all the toxins through your liver.  That takes precious time away from your liver to do the thing it likes to do: breakdown fat.  So how do we make this work as a “cheat meal”? 

Once a month if you want to keep progressing—and it would be the only cheat that I would have that meal, that day, that week.

I am typically asked if it matters if it is “lite beer” or “gin vs. vodka” because of the calories.  This has nothing to do with calories.  This has everything to do with the fact that your body does not recognize alcohol as anything but a toxin.  It is not a carbohydrate.  It carries 7 cals per gram when carbs carry 4.  It takes about 24 hours to make it through your system and it is a stimulant typically causing you to have an increased appetite—i.e. munchies. 

Some of the biggest arguments I have had as a nutritionist have been about alcohol.  I get it, it helps you relax.  I know you want to have a glass every night but I am telling you, it will catch up to you more than anything else in your diet.  I can tell when I drink.  I don’t like it so I have since stopped (although I turn 40 this year and I can tell you it is going down!  Sorry…time to focus.)  being as casual about it as I have been the last year and a half so I am back to my original policy of general avoidance.  But for the brief time in my life that I let it back in to my food choices, I could tell the difference and it was not worth it.

Cheats are personal.  Some people can do the nibble thing.  Others need a meal and that’s it.  Some need to know that have the freedom to have something whenever.  Regardless, choose your weapon of choice sans alcohol when you are trying to lose weight or affect a change in your body.  Nothing is worse than wasting time and that’s exactly what alcohol does for you.  Wastes time.

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I know you have heard the saying:  80% of your results come from 20% of what you do.  Well I am going to redefine this for you today in terms of dieting so that you may look at a different way of enjoying the cheat meal. 

Last post I defined a cheat meal for 2 scenarios:  a brand new person to the world of clean eating and a not so new person to the world of clean eating.  Both situations involved “being good” all week long so that you may enjoy a meal or dessert once a week that is completely off plan.  I want to make sure that I point out that in all forms of dieting I always assume that your week is full of variety so that you never feel deprived and you are not limiting your nutrients.  It is imperative that I emphasize that because that can get lost in translation as I go through this series.  You will not survive the diet game if you deprive yourself endlessly with no variety in site.

As you mature in the way you view your food, yourself, your relationship with food, you will begin to loosen up on your “rules” you had set out for yourself in the beginning.  Almost all of us have gone through the same cycle some time in our lives:  deprivation àunhealthy relationship with food àgive up dieting à start again à ease up on self negative talk à learn how to be one with food àsuccess.  You may be in the beginning of this cycle, you could be at the end or you may have repeated this cycle more than one time.  No matter where you are, you are trying to achieve what is referred to as balance or moderation.  These are elusive terms that conjure up pictures of blissful days just co-existing with a chocolate cake on the kitchen table that we only had a small slice of…one time…and didn’t pick at it…at all…not even once–kinda.

Balance can truly be achieved.  It is not fake.  It does exist.  You achieve it through the 80/20 rule: the diet pros way of incorporating a cheat meal into their diet.

Let’s say for ease of understanding and math that you eat 5 meals per day, evenly divided, with 3 components in each meal.  The components could be protein, starch, fruit or veggie or protein, fat, fruit or veggie or you fill in the combination that suits you.  Using this meal set up, four meals per day would equal 80% of what you eat for the day.  If I apply the 80/20 rule to this picture, this would mean you fulfilled your good eating for the day by meal 4 and can technically eat something not-so-on-plan for the fifth meal.  This would also mean that you could do this every day and still reach your goal depending on what your goal is and how long you have been dieting. 

As you continue and feel comfortable with what you are doing, you can do one of two things: either tighten the rule to 85/15 or 90/10 or you can keep it 80/20 but tighten the food choices that you deem as cheats.  Either one will move you through any plateaus that you may encounter and still keep you feeling in control of your diet and your progress.  The idea here is that you have something when you want it and you avoid the never ending up down up down of dieting via deprivation.  The more you feel at peace with this idea, the easier it becomes for you to follow it and then to begin to change your overall choices so that there is very little difference between your not-so-on-plan meals and your on-plan meals.  This is balance.

In my years of dieting folks I have realized that, we as fitness professionals, can only sit back and watch this cycle play itself out.  It’s like watching your teenage daughter go through all the dating trials you did and there is not much you can do to stop it.  In fact, you don’t really want to stop it because the learning she will do because of it is precious you just want to minimize the damage.  This is the same here.  You must find your way through what works for you diet-wise, but in an effort to help you through the cycle as unscathed as possible, us fitness professionals pen these articles for you.  The learning is essential but the suffering is optional.  Glean as much as you can from those that have dieted before you—it really helps.

What does a day like this look like you say?  As always, it depends.  But how about a person who is pretty comfortable with where they are in their physique goals and their eating patterns and may travel for work?  Meal 1 eggwhites, oatmeal, fruit  Meal 2 cottage cheese, ¼ sc pp, 1T Pb  Meal 3 ground turkey, big salad w/ fixings, dressing  Meal 4  protein shake, veggies w/ hummus Meal 5 Has dinner out.  Does not attack waitress on how to make food, has a starch maybe but is not worried about it so much and just enjoys the meal.  No processed food but might have a light sauce on it or maybe it is not just grilled—the point is, there is enjoyment here.  Next day, no guilt or worries—starts all over again.  That is one way to do it.  There are so many more but you need to experiment to find what’s right for you.  The take home message here is that you need to begin to trust your instinct, allow yourself some slack and begin to look at this as a life long journey instead of a season of dieting.

Trust me, I know it is hard. 

But when you finally give yourself a break and try this, you will be so happy that you did. 

Next, alcohol.  We will wrap it up after that with how this all really looks when we put food to it.  Woop woop!:o)

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