I did not have a great eating day yesterday…
If you work with me, whether directly or through one of my programs, you will know that that I am moderate and mindfully realistic about what outcomes we should be looking to achieve in our long-term bariatric journey.
Abstinence from sugar and processed carbohydrates is a worthy aspiration – and I think it’s a good idea and aspire to it 99% of the time.
But it’s not always that simple. If we suggest/recommend/demand abstinence from ourselves or others, in a militaristic fashion as though it were the easiest thing in the world to do, every emotional, anxious and compulsive eater would fall by the wayside. As do most humans, clothed in their frail humanity. The polarizing “eat sugar” or “don’t eat sugar” effect is that anyone connected to their own fragility will be pushed into the “I eat sugar” camp, and then feel rather shitty and judged about that, and will likely go on to eat more sugar!
Abstinence is a wonderful idea that some people master impeccably. And more power to them. However, even if you theoretically subscribe to that idea, you still need to get there.
You still need to work towards some degree of sobriety from sugar, carbs or whatever food you count as triggering to you. You still need to deal with yourself.
Moreover, if experiencing problems with cocaine, gambling, cigarettes and alcohol, one needs to simply remove oneself from exposure to that substance or an environment that encourages such misuse. Remove the substance from your environment, rid yourself of “dangerous people, places and things” as the rehabs say, and get on with your abstinent life.
But, with food, you need to deal with yourself in the context of a perpetual need to sustain your being with
variations of the very substance you are trying to avoid. (I understand the purist argument that sugar is the problem, and, to some extent I agree. But proteins metabolize into sugar anyway, and our brains are stubborn and can shift a fixation from croissants and chocolate to pistachios and cheese and derive a similar level of satisfaction).
So sober eating is really just not as one dimensional as most other addictions, and, as a psychologist and a ‘sleever’, I am concerned about the hardline narrative that people struggling with obesity should “simply abstain’... “Problem solved”.
Because I know the distance between that decision, and the lived experience of it. That distance is the mental and emotional struggle. And we’ll have better days and worst days with that. Days and weeks and even months when this is easeful and relatively effortless; but also days and weeks where it’s far more taxing and precarious to keep in the flow of on-plan eating.
We have to eat.
On happy days.
On sad days.
On productive, creative, automaton days.
On holidays.
On birthdays.
On sick days.
On Thursdays.
There are 2 sides to the abstinence-and-sobriety coin. There is the medical and scientific side; the medical being our surgeries, and the scientific being the way we choose to eat in the longer term. And then there’s the emotional, psychological and behavioral side. Dealing with only one side will invariably lead to frustration and disappointment.
You can accept that you are a sugar addict. You can gravitate towards a ketogenic diet, which is a great choice for combatting such an ailment. There is no doubt in my mind at all that higher fat, lower carb lifestyles beget fewer physiological cravings than other eating approaches. But there’s that distance, again, between knowing something, and mastering it. And there’s the success in mastering it most of the time, but we have to factor in the days when we just can’t stay the course.
I believe that we can learn and grow on those days, rather than feeling like a complete and utter failure, at bariatrics, at mind mastery and at life!
We are not robots. There’s a lot of head work, heart work, and behavioral modification work that goes into applying any new way of being. And I’d hate any bariatric patient who comes into contact with me to leave my care without knowing this to the core of their being. I see so many ‘cry for help’ threads on various Facebook forums, where some poor soul is desperate for guidance and intervention… Bingeing, regaining, wholly out of control of her eating… Devastated with herself, disgusted with herself, and
HOPELESS.
And, the well-meaning responses from her supporters fall into 2 categories:
- “It’s ok, Hun, you’re only human… We all have days like that, just dust yourself off
and keep going”, or - “Get off sugar. Addiction feeds itself, the more sugar you use, the more sugar you will need. Keto, babe. Get going”.
Do you see the problem here...? How does one go from self-loathing carb-coma to ketosis with the stroke of a wand? The distance is too great, and so it evokes even more hopelessness in the person. And, unfortunately, “chin up, girlfriend, tomorrow is another day” is kind, but not altogether helpful either.
I’ve been criticised for the “Abstinence Week” approach I teach in my BACK ON TRACK Master Plan Mini Course. For those who have not yet purchased this program, I ask my students to design for themselves their PERFECT week, from an eating, training, self-love and self-care perspective. To reflect on what works, to ponder on what the best version of themselves looks like, and then to plan, prepare, and implement that. And then I teach what I call my “You Win, or you Learn” technology, where an imperfect day, even in your Abstinence Week, is not a failure but a lesson. And then I teach how to troubleshoot what went wrong, and why, in order to ‘plug that hole’ for a successful day the next day. And in this way, my students learn true grace for themselves, but then also ‘big girl panties’ to lock in strategies to do better going forward, and to hold themselves to that ‘better’ by constructing their environments to be supportive.
My critics say this is a band aid.
Pardon my Latin, but I say “bullshit!”.
Bullshit, because I am sending life support into the carb coma, and gently, carefully helping that person connect with his/her ideal self… And get a sense of what is possible, if they would just do some work…
Bullshit, because I’m suggesting that we can build on our challenges, our limitations and shortcomings.
Bullshit, because failure is not a final destination, but a bump in the road. And this is not lip-service or a Facebook meme. I make it really practical and useful.
Bullshit, because one of the most empowering, growthful strategies in life is to have a taste of what true success would look like. To become a North Star, and a guiding light on less ideal days.
And so, by working with me and adopting this approach, we build resilience, tenacity and staying power.
“I may not have had a perfect day, but I’m still in the game and I know which way is up!”.
And so, as I said, I had a rather poor eating day yesterday.
I’d had a 15 day stretch without sugar, grains or fruit (not that I prescribe eating plans to anyone, for any reason, ever, and nor am I saying that keto is your panacea or miracle cure. It isn’t).
And then my husband carted bags and bags of his favourite crap into the house, and, for no particular rhyme or reason, I savored one chocolate biscuit, and in the course of the afternoon sampled most of his delicacies. On a different day, I would probably have consciously, mindfully allowed the biscuit, as I teach, loved it, and gotten on with my day. Or forgone the treats completely, as I mostly do.
But yesterday I didn’t. I ate too much and didn’t even particularly enjoy what I ate, which is always the irritation and the tragedy.
And then I awoke to a new day, today. I did have that flinch of “ah crap, I screwed it up yesterday’ remorse. But this dissolved quickly into the wonderfully empowering narrative that I so wholeheartedly subscribe to, best expressed in James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” – “our current trajectory is more important than our current results’”. My current result, today, is that I’m up 2 pounds. But my current trajectory is that I still have the momentum of the last few years behind me… I’m still maintaining at goal. I am still facing in the right direction, headed in the right bearing.
A more ‘addiction’ mindset and modality would brand me as ‘RELAPSED!!!!”, like a recovering alcoholic who’s had a drink, and this would come with its ocean of self-loathing and the enormity of the path back. I choose to take a TRAJECTORY view on this, so I’m actually not off any wagon, but simply had a bump in the road, and continue on my journey towards long-term bariatric success.
I defy all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking, and I embrace all that I’ve built for myself on my obesity expedition to date.
My core message in this article is that, while abstinence from sugar and processed carbs is aspirational, we still need to get there. And the getting there is a journey. An emotional and mental journey, as well as a medical and scientific one. And the terrain of that journey is textured and tough. Abstinence and keto are not the answers. Rather, for some people, they are the result of the answers. The ANSWER to the perpetual problems of compulsive eating, anxious shoving, regain and obesity is self-work, getting help and support, finding management tools, skills and strategies, journaling, and ultimately connecting and reconnecting with the deepest version of yourself within your soul that wants the best for you, and wants you to blossom into rich success and actualization. So that you can live your best life.
Research has shown that good habits, like ‘on plan eating’ (whatever plan you are on), are established by repetition and return, not perfection (James Clear). What this means is that you don’t need to string together 66 perfect days to have solidified your new habit (with the subtext that one shitty day breaks your stride and you’re right back at square 1, as in addiction mentality).
You don’t need to be 100% abstinent from sugar and carbs to have a mostly sugar-reduced and carb-reduced life. To the contrary, if you spring a leak, one day, (deliberately or by ‘snaccident’) you have not ‘fallen off the wagon’. You have just had a minor slip and must immediately repair that lapse by returning to your ideal plan. (If you have a vicious fight with your partner this afternoon, it doesn’t mean you’re filing for divorce. It means you need to do some work to repair the damage, reflect on what the cause was, and then work extra hard in the coming days towards reconciliation).
I hope that this has been a useful, empowering and inspiring read. My intention was to ‘colour in’ the call to complete abstinence that abounds in bariatric circles, and to deconstruct it for those of us for whom it just doesn’t feel that easy or that simple (or even that desirable!!!). I desire to be sugar and processed-carb free. But not all the time, in every instance. I cannot and will not lie.
And my suggestion, as always, is that you take yourself and your bariatric journey very seriously, in the most self-loving way possible, roll up your sleeves, get the help you need and start doing some really robust and sustainable work towards being the best version of yourself. Even if you’re struggling with that today, and even if you won’t be that every day.
You are so very welcome to work with me, in this pursuit. There are many “me’s” around, to be fair. Bariatric shrinks, shrinks with a special interest in obesity and bariatrics, alternative therapies, therapists and modalities. You need to find the people and the approaches that most resonate with you. And then commit to that… But it’s so important to be tending both sides of that obesity coin: the medical/scientific, and the emotional/behavioral.
So much love,
Debbie
