Trying to Regain Control of my Eating

One of the techniques I’ve been using on-and-off since January is planning my food. Not just tracking after the fact, but writing down in the morning what I plan to eat that day. Right down to how many cookies or squares of chocolate I’m going to have. The next morning, I review how closely I followed the plan before making the next plan. This has been a real eye-opener for me. I'm finding making the plan - and being accountable to myself on how it went - to be a really powerful tool. It requires more conscious decisions than simply tracking after the fact.

Since I only have myself to please in the kitchen, and my schedule is even more my own now than when I first retired, it seemed there was no need to plan any of my food. I’d just follow my body’s wisdom, eating what I felt like when I felt like it. (Before Covid times, that included running to the store or for takeout several times a week.) That unplanned and unscheduled way of eating has not worked out very well for me. I often didn’t stop what I was doing until I was really hungry and then it would take too long to cook from scratch, so instead I grabbed something easy rather than healthy. This also led to letting fresh vegetables go bad too often, as vegetables often take more thought and time and are generally what go left out when I was in a hurry. Now, with planning, I’m more likely to think through what else I have planned for the day, and set a time to stop and cook. Doing the morning plan also helps me stay on top of the perishable inventory and waste less food. And, without a good reason, I try hard to stick to the plan and not just make a substitution on a whim. After all, there isn’t any food in the house that I didn’t buy, so I should like it all, yes?

I’ve gotten much better at feeling in my body when I’m hungry and when I’m not. I am working hard on feeling in my body when I’m just full enough, and then try to stop eating even if there is food still on my plate. I like to have my stomach full, and I was raised to clean my plate, so I’m using portion control as I make up my plate, easier than leaving food on the plate. I try to pause and think before going for seconds. But my biggest struggle is with the role of taste and pleasure, especially in the evenings. I know I’m not hungry. But I’m not uncomfortably full, either. I want some ice cream in my mouth, for feel and for taste. I want to let a square of chocolate melt in my mouth.

This wouldn’t be a problem if just a bit was what I consumed. But I like what I taste and feel, and I want more. I’m writing down in my plan ahead of time how much of what treat I’ll have. I don’t write down “none” almost ever - because I believe the key to the planning process helping control my eating is to make the plan realistic, not aspirational. The theory is, the more I follow the plan, the more I will follow the plan in the future. This is apparently based on psychological studies, and it makes sense to me. So to start with, just own everything I'm going to eat, even if it's an embarrassing amount. If I am grabbing chocolate at 4 pm every day, put it on the plan. Acknowledge that's what I'm doing. Get everything I'm eating into my conscious mind. Only after wrapping my mind around everything I am actually really eating will I start trying harder to change what I eat. Of course, the mere fact of writing down what I eat - before or after - does change what I eat.

And sometimes it turns into a real binge. I end up uncomfortably full. I try to own that as well, really feeling it through my whole body. But that "what the hell" attitude is really hard to defeat.


I'm not doing this completely on my own. I paid to join an internet video, podcast, and Facebook private member-based weight loss group. ("Phit N Phat", or "PNP Tribe"). There are worksheets, many worksheets, monthly, weekly, and daily planning worksheets. There are goal worksheets, discovery worksheets, analysis worksheets, worksheets about your thoughts and feelings, and one worksheet labeled "Extremely tedious worksheet for overeating" where every bite of a binge is felt, analyzed, and described. There are hours of video courses, 5-20 minutes at a stretch, talking about how to take ownership of your eating. There are several weekly podcasts and Facebook lives and zoom coaching calls. I did a sequence of the videos in January, and now I mostly rely on a few of the worksheets - especially the daily planning one. Some times I listen to the podcasts.


The overall course combines a bunch of different approaches I've learned about during my life as a dieter. The basics seem to be there is no good or bad food. All food should be a conscious choice. If you want to eat ice cream, go ahead. But own it. And feel it, be mindful. If you really want to lose weight, you will eat less ice cream. There is a fair amount of conscious work tying goals to actions but no guilt or shame - only learning. Food doesn't jump into your mouth, you put it there. So what were you thinking? What were you feeling? What could you do differently?


The founder and queen of PnP is a life coach, and she is the third life coach podcaster I've run across who is using something called "the thought model". It's a process to separate circumstances (ie objective facts) from thoughts from feelings, and then consciously change your thoughts to change your feelings and actions. Example: I ate a pint of ice cream (this is a fact). I am a horrible weak-willed fat person (this is a thought, NOT A FACT). The thought drives feelings (guilt, shame) and then actions and results (in this case, more of the same). Starting with the same fact (that pint of ice cream) there could be the thought: "Next time I really really want ice cream, I could eat a few spoonfuls of ice cream and then put the top back on and put it back in the freezer. I should pause and visualize that before grabbing the pint next time." That in turn could drive feelings of confidence, and different actions and results could flow.


It's a simple model, but I find it especially useful to take a moment to separate a fact from a thought about that fact. Of course, our thoughts and feelings are complex, and simply choosing to think something different doesn't always work to change my feelings. The thought has to be fairly authentic, not just pollyanna. It can't be a matter of just thinking, "never mind, I'll do better next time" without making a plan of how to get there. But trying the technique pulls the processing out of my non-verbal subconscious and into the conscious, where I have a chance to affect it.

Days I feel like shit I don't do any of this, but I could. Usually, it's "I feel like shit, just let me get some pleasure somewhere in my body". Somedays, that might be ok. But it shouldn't be my default. And genuine stomach upset needs to be handled, but I shouldn't act as if the laws of physics and nutrition have been suspended. I should own what I'm doing on the conscious level. And not along the lines of "fuck it, I'm doing this" but more soberly, "I am going to eat this. I am willing to take the consequences, because weight loss is not what matters right now."

I can coach myself pretty well, especially when writing it down, but consistent action over a period of time will be what can make a difference.