“Victim Of Circumstance” Eating
When you diet, you are easily “victimized” by circumstance.
For instance,
- You forget your protein shake, so you give up and just eat the leftover cake from the office party.
- A last minute dinner invitation makes you sad because you already had all the calories you were going to eat that day.
- You walk by your favorite ice cream store and they have that unusual flavor you love and you feel like you should get even though you aren’t hungry because you don’t know when they will have it again.
It is like going down a river in a canoe and being bumped and re-directed with no paddle of your own. Whatever way the current goes, you go. You aren’t in charge. You are a victim.
Does that sound like how you want to live your life?
When you eat with a thin mentality, you are ALWAYS in charge. You are not a victim of anything, or anyone, or any circumstance.
Let me illustrate what Healthy Thin Mentality people do in the situations mentioned above:
1. If healthy thin mentality people forget their lunch, and it wouldn’t be a protein shake, he or she would still take care of their hunger in a nice way. They don’t just shove down random leftovers. They don’t say “Well, now I can’t do my diet plan today so I might as well just eat badly today and then start tomorrow.” (Does that kind of thinking sound familiar?)
2. If healthy thin mentality people get a last minute invite to dinner, and they want to go, they go, hungry or not! They aren’t afraid of sitting at a table with food because if they become hungry, they eat something, and if they aren’t hungry, it is be no problem because they know THERE IS NO PLEASURE IN EATING WHEN NOT HUNGRY.
When you can eat whatever you want, when you are hungry, you happily dismiss food when you are not. (Twelve years ago I would not have believed this either, but I promise it is true. You have been trained by the diet industry to believe that you would be a “non-stop eating machine” without food rules. YOU WOULD NOT.)
3. Many people with healthy thin mentalities love ice cream. And when they are hungry for ice cream, they eat it. So, if they are walking by their favorite ice cream store, and their favorite unusual flavor is available, and they are hungry for that, they go in and get it. If, however, they are “not in the mood” for ice cream and they want a sandwich, it would not occur to them to have that ice cream instead. It would be like scratching your arm when your foot was itchy.
Can you imagine anything more normal than navigating through your “food” day with no worries, angst, or self incrimination?
Another example of the dieter:
“Oh I ordered a small order of pasta and they brought me the large and I ate it all. I am so mad at myself and feel like I will never be thin.
This is a thin mentality person:
“I ordered a small order of pasta but the server brought me the large one instead. I ate as much as I wanted, and then brought the rest home. I gave it to my roommate and she loved it!”
The person who has rejected dieting isn’t vulnerable to eating the whole serving because she or he is used to making their own choices all day, everyday. The dieter is used to being told what to do, so when a plate of food is served to them, they are very vulnerable to eating it all. Does that make sense?
When all your food choices are made for you, you lose your own ability to navigate food choices yourself.
Reject food rules. Eat what you want, when you are hungry, stop when you aren’t hungry anymore. Period.