Staying on track. How to not get derailed.

We all have that one thing that will knock us off of track. Its a family get together, someone brings a cake you love or home made chocolate chip cookies, more often than not its a sweet. This will be magnified if you work in an office where they celebrate a co-worker's birthday, or a vendor brings in treats for the office. Some people call these types of foods trigger foods in that they trigger you to want other foods that you don't have the taste for anymore. You go from one brownie or doughnut to a dozen or a pint of ice cream, no regard for moderation. Lets look at this with some common sense, optimally you should be eating 80% within your meal plan and 20% outside of it. The thing about trigger foods is they are outside of the 80/20 rule, as we cannot moderate ourselves with them. We are looking at our reaction to foods that derail us off of our meal plans, looking at mindless eating along with different types of mindless-emotional eating and some studies on emotional eating.

The truth of the matter is that we have one food that will send us on that free fall off of our meal plan, and sometimes reek havoc on our systems. We have all seen it, one buddy has been eating properly for his system he gets a little ballsy and goes off program. Guess what he pays for the next three days, as his body is rejecting what he put into it. I can use myself as an example for this, every year around the holidays I run into a hitch. My trigger foods are homemade cookies and pastries, and my family has a lot of them around during the holidays. I try to avoid them as much as possible. A prime example of avoidance is I was recently at a friend's house for dinner and he sent home a dessert with his guests. He is never off the eating plan, and is always in great shape. Whatever the event is we need to go into it with a plan in place. If the first plan did not work don't fret, we are all works in progress look at what went wrong and fix it. Also practice saying no thank you graciously, it won't hurt I promise, you may secretly begin to like it! When confronted with your kryptonite food see it for what it is and move on. Outside of the kryptonite food adopt the 80/20 rule in case life throws you some curve balls. To thine own self be true, we know ourselves better than anyone else. This holds especially true if you are an all or nothing person, the 80/20 rule may not apply. Make your own food, bring it with you along with a treat or snack so you do not feel left out.  The idea is to go into social situations with a plan in place, and to act responsibility with our goals or meal plans in mind.

What type of mindless eater are you? They have been classified into eight of the most popular categories by Dr. Susan Albers. Dr. Susan Albers is a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic who specializes in eating issues, weight loss, body image concerns and mindfulness. First up is the Mindless Emotional Eater; you eat in reaction to emotions or any kind of feelings . Good and bad feelings lead to munching. A Mindless Social Eater is one who tends to over eat in social situations or match your friend or spouses eating at the table. A Mindless Pleasure Eater is one who is reactive to their own senses. Eating is often triggered by the wonderful aroma of cookies baking. A Routine Mindless Eater likes structure; following meal times and at times eats on autopilot. A Multitasking Mindless Eater tends to eat while working, making dinner, driving or playing. They sometimes can over or under eat because they are distracted and their attention is divided. The Mindless Eating Dieter can struggle with cravings and feelings of hunger. When they follow the meal plan instead of listening mindfully to what the body wants they under eat. Then when they do succumb to the cravings they overeat. Onto the Mindless Special Events Eater who eats well on the daily grind but will over eat on holidays, birthdays, celebratory dinners, and  special occasions. Last but not least, the Mindless Night Eater eats well during the day but has to munch out at night. You can take steps to address these behavior patterns once you recognize what type of eater you are. Dr. Albers notes to write down your mindless eating habits and from there start tweaking one of the habits that have you stuck.

As some of you may know I am a big fan of research and studies, we are going to look at four studies about overeating within the last year.  A study at the University of Minnesota titled Friends Don't Let

Friends Eat Cookies, hypothesized about social norms influence on overeating. In the study they had groups of three friends two of which restricted their restricted foods in the presence of the third person. The study found that third person restricted while eating with these friends and continued to do so alone. The lesson is that who we eat with matters, we need to consider who we eat with on a daily basis.  A Finnish study on occupational burnout, eating behavior, and weight among working women found that those who were experiencing burnout were more likely to over emotionally eat and overeat. The problem with chronic stress is elevated levels of cortisol, which causes people to crave sugary fatty foods. If your job is taking this type of toll, determine if it is worth your health, either find a new job or ways to manage your stress.  A sleep deprivation study by Andrew Calvin found that people who got two thirds of their normal sleep ate more than those who got a full nights rest. They ate approximately  549 more calories, in case you count your calories. A study about reappraising your emotions and the impact of emotions on food intake from Romania found that people who were taught how to reappraise their emotions were less likely to overeat. When you reappraise your emotions you think about them in a more positive way.  These studies raise some good questions and provide us with some answers to work with in the future.

We do not have to look at emotional eating as a failure but as a behavior pattern we need to change to reach our goals. When going into a social situation have a plan in place and be able to graciously say no thank you. When it comes to mindless eating take a look at our behavior with food and take measures to correct it.  The real lessons from the studies was to create a  healthy community around us, take care of our minds and bodies, and to remain positive and be compassionate with ourselves.  As always please read and share this blog.

Sources used
Howland, Hunger, Mann  "Friends don't let friends eat cookies: effects of restrictive eating norms on consumption among friends." published in Appetite October 2012

Nevanpera , Hopsu., Kuosama, Ukkola, Utti, Laitinen "Occupational burnout, eating behavior and weight among working women." April 2012

Calvin, Carter, Levine,Somers "Insufficient Sleep Increases Caloric Intake but not Energy Expenditure."2012

Taut, Renner,Baban,  "Reappraise the Situation but Express Your Emotions: Impact of Emotion Regulation Strategies on Ad libitum Food Intake." 09/12