I have no magazines or research to site here, but just a thought or two.
Along with mindless eating comes pressure eating, not being under pressure or stress and so you eat. But the family dinners, the times with friends who might pressure us into eating something we know we shouldn't.

I had a wonderful awakening last night. I belong to a card making group, we meet at our restaurant, so I pretty much know what the "right" things on the menu are, and what isn't for me. Mud Pie is a big NOT! But everyone ordered pie, ice cream pie. For whatever the reason, even my 5.5 lb loss this week, I couldn't say no. I know I should have, but because it was this group, I didn't say no, I felt pressured to order and I did.

How do you handle pressure eating, at Thanksgiving, family dinners, Christmas, office parties, etc. When it comes out of the blue, and you know you shouldn't but you do anyway!

Today is a two swim session day because of it, and a time of reevaluating my priorities. I am NOT kicking myself, but being very aware of what I did and why. How about you?

UGH! I totally fell into this trap last night. When thinking about the post originally, I was thinking about my family and regular group of friends, thinking I don't usually have this problem.

Well, last night I subbed in the neighborhood Bunko group, and they serve dinner. The hostess served everyone's chili (one more ladle than I would have taken had I scooped my own.) Then, they served dessert and she served the desserts too. (Again, more than I would have taken).

I didn't eat all of what I was served on either thing, but I still ate way too much!

I did overhear this...The hostess was serving up the desserts and said "Someone didn't take a dessert, who didn't get dessert?" Everyone who had wanted dessert (or felt obligated, echem.) had gotten hers, finally she said to one woman "You didn't take dessert!" and the woman responded "I don't eat sweets, you know that. I am taking some fruit though." (This group has been together for 12 years.)

I guess she stood her ground.

Dawn

quote:

Originally posted by cobismom:
I don't usually order sweets out, I am diabetic and shouldn't eat them anyway, let along for weight reasons, but this one sideswiped me and I wasn't thinking. I learned my lesson and will pass from now on. I am not really a sweets eater anymore anyway....but boy I didn't see this one coming.

It's hard not to go along with the crowd. I am still working on this one too.

quote:

could you get hubby to offer a dessert special that night that would still allow you to indulge on something sweet but would give you a lower-calorie option? It might be popular enough to offer on regular nights. I wish more restaurants offered "middle-of-the-road" dessert options, somewhere between Death by Chocolate cake and the Fruit Cup. I'm thinking like a lowfat pumpkin cheesecake or a lighter kind of ice cream pie made with your favorite flavor of frozen yogurt.

We are working on bringing in desserts that are flavorful and not calorie or fat laden. Sara Lee is developing such a line. But as yet isn't feasible for the average diner, price wise. For banquets etc we offer just about anything you want, he has done lf/sf cheesecakes etc with fruit rather than caramel and chocolate for weddings etc. So slowly it is coming. Our most important project was developing a menu that was healthy, not fried, and now for dessert.

I don't usually order sweets out, I am diabetic and shouldn't eat them anyway, let along for weight reasons, but this one sideswiped me and I wasn't thinking. I learned my lesson and will pass from now on. I am not really a sweets eater anymore anyway....but boy I didn't see this one coming.

I think that this is the biggest obstacle for me in my weight loss efforts, to be honest. Because there is always some special circumstance or occasion where I feel pressure to eat more than I should. I am going to have to really work this holiday season because there will be temptations everywhere.

Since we live 600 miles away from family, we really on have family dinners on the holidays. I WANT to eat dessert on the holiday. So, I plan for it. I may eat lighter before and after. I also don't gorge myself on the holiday meal.

I like turkey and ham ok, and most of the sides are nice, but not something I only eat on that holiday, so I can get by on portion control.

I think I'm in the same boat as Denise, I realize that it isn't the occasional choices I make it is the day in and day out choices I make. The other thing is when I say it is occasional and it becomes day in and day out.

I would also say as far as influencing my choices, DH makes a bigger impact than any friends. While I know he wants to help me lose weight, he doesn't always make it easy for me. He doesn't sabotage me per se, but he likes junk food. The other day we were talking about our diet and I said something about eating healthy most of the time and he said "We don't really eat that healthy, we eat way too much fast food." I looked at him and said "I really don't eat very much fast food." and he said "you don't?" ...He must eat it a lot at lunch. While I eat out for lunch too much, I don't generally eat fast food for lunch.

Dawn

For me, it really depends who I'm with. My "girls night out" group are all health conscious and work out regularly and would certainly not pressure anyone else into eating something unhealthy that they didn't want. They are really safe for me ; )

My parents are a different story. I have a hard time eating with them. Part of it is the stress of being with them together as they fight a lot and I usually end up stress eating.

What usually works for me is to get up and start helping with clean up when I'm done eating. Getting away from the table and the food really seems to help.

In general, I tend to do better at restaurants than in other people's homes. I can always find something healthy on a menu and can always get away with saying that the portions were just too big to finish. Somehow it just doesn't work as easily at a dinner party in someone's home.

P.S. Just an idea -- since it's your restauarant, could you get hubby to offer a dessert special that night that would still allow you to indulge on something sweet but would give you a lower-calorie option? It might be popular enough to offer on regular nights. I wish more restaurants offered "middle-of-the-road" dessert options, somewhere between Death by Chocolate cake and the Fruit Cup. I'm thinking like a lowfat pumpkin cheesecake or a lighter kind of ice cream pie made with your favorite flavor of frozen yogurt.

quote:

Originally posted by TriGirl:
This is a situation where I always do badly.

Me too. And this sort of explains why I didn't consistantly lose EVERY single week. When I was in losing mode, I averaged 1 lb a week, but like you, I might lose 4 lbs in two weeks and gain a lb the next week... which would average out to 3 lbs in 3 weeks.

In a restaurant with a group, I can almost ALWAYS find 2 people to split a dessert.

Counting each bite as one point helps. I have some... but maybe 5-6 bites. It is pretty easy to find 5-6 points to make up for it.

And I try and remember, that for me, most of my weight gain/stalls were not the occasional "mom's night out" or party or family dinner... it was my eating week in and week out. Hang in there!!!

I'm better about allowing the people I'm eating with to pressure me than I was in the beginning of my journey 3+ years ago. Now, it really depends on WHO I'm eating with and what my mood is. If it is someone I feel comfortable speaking my mind to and I really WANT to eat healthy, then I will eat healthy (as long as that is physically possible wherever we are eating). However, if I am with someone I don't really feel comfortable speaking my mind to and/or I am in a mood to eat something full fat, then I will just order what I want to order and not worry about staying on plan.

Granted, I am a spoiled brat to begin with so I don't do as well when eating out to begin with (even when alone) as most of you probably do. That's why I restrict my eating out to once a week--because I have a hard time trusting myself to do the right thing. So when eating out in a restaurant, it is scarily easy for me to be influenced...but that usually isn't because I feel browbeaten but because I'm easily influenced by smells and sights of full fat food to begin with.

This is a situation where I always do badly. I always want to go along with everyone else and not make a big deal about trying to lose. My best (and not all that best) solution is usually to order dessert but say that I'm too full to eat it all or try to get someone to split a piece. Still, with it in front of me, I usually eat more than I should.

At family gatherings, at least there's an option to get a smaller piece of pie (usually). And there's also the option of filling up a lot of plate space with veggies so no one notices you're eating less.