Moderation Does NOT Work — But THIS Does
Have you ever heard, “You don’t have to give up your favorite foods. You just need to eat in moderation?”
This is popular advice given by nutritionists, the media, health professionals, and even online influencers.
I have absolutely been given this advice by doctors as something to focus on when trying to lose weight and get healthy.
The problem is that for a lot of people, me included, it is useless and physically, mentally, and emotionally damaging as well.
Here are some thoughts that I always had when this advice ultimately failed me:
- What does moderation actually mean?
- Why can’t I moderate what I’m eating?
- Why am I such a failure?
- Why can’t I make this work?
Are any of these thoughts familiar to you? If so, I’d love to hear them in the comments below.
This seemingly innocuous “common sense” advice was doing me in.
There’s a better way to think about food if you want to lose weight, keep it off, and feel better, stronger, healthier, and make this whole dieting thing work.
I choose to look at foods now based on how they make me feel physically and how they help me get better and healthier in every way.
Changing how I “think” about food took some time. After all, the stinking thinking has been ingrained for decades.
I don’t say things like “I can’t have that food” or “These foods are off limits to me.” Instead, I say, “I choose to abstain from certain foods because they are not healthy for me.”
We need to grow up, take control, and own our health (our life).
I choose not to eat sugar or carbs because of the physical and mental impacts that those foods have on me when I consume them.
I choose not to have those foods in my house because I know and understand the impact of those foods on my overall health, and I choose not to put myself in a situation where I am exposed to the temptations of food addiction.
“Eat in Moderation” is a myth. It’s problematic.
What’s interesting about “focusing on moderation” is just how incredibly vague that statement actually is.
What does “eat in moderation” actually mean?
Without a clear definition, people will fill in the gap, and that usually means some excuse to eat more junk food.
That is one of the biggest issues around the advice of moderation, especially for people who are struggling to recapture their health.
People struggling don’t need vague, ambiguous “advice” on what they need to do to improve their health.
They need concrete, attainable direction.
If people who are struggling with health actually knew what to do to move in the right direction, they would have done it already.
That’s the problem with moderation. It’s too unclear to be helpful for the majority of people, and because it’s unclear, it can drive people to think they are just doing things wrong again. It’s thoughts like that that add stress to a person who is already stressed out and anxious about the fact that they can’t seem to get their health journey started.
Telling someone who is addicted to food, especially sugar and carbs, to moderate is counterproductive.
Most people who advise metabolically sick people to moderate food don’t really think through what it is they are saying.
The truth is many people who struggle with their health are addicted to food. I was, and still am, addicted to sugar and carbohydrates. When I taste sweetness, that’s all I crave — It’s all that I want to eat.
I am not alone in that reaction. Sugar has been shown to trigger the same centers of the brain that drugs and other addictive substances trigger. Numerous studies show this.
Telling someone who is addicted to food, and sugar, in my situation, that the key to getting healthy is not to abstain from the object of their addiction but to just moderate its use is counterproductive at best and destructive at worst.
Rather than trying to “eat in moderation,”
CHOOSE to avoid foods that aren’t good for you.
Lots of junk food is addictive.
It sends you into an eating frenzy.
If weight loss has been hard, then avoidance is the key.
Your life, loved ones, and purpose are worth it.
Think about the impact of telling an alcoholic that the key to getting healthy would be for them to moderate their alcohol consumption instead of giving it up. Would that be helpful or even healthy advice?
The problem is that most people don’t believe that food can be addictive.
People use food for so many reasons that are emotional instead of nutritive:
- For comfort
- For celebration
- To express love to others
- To relieve stress
- To escape
- Out of pure boredom
You can’t tell someone who is struggling with food addiction to moderate the food that is slowly killing them through metabolic disease.
Sometimes, abstaining from foods is the only way to break the addiction cycle and get healthier.
For me, because I am so addicted to just the taste of sweetness and carbs, abstaining from those foods is the best way for me to stay on my path to overall wellness, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
For those of us who need to be abstainers, the advice of moderation doesn’t work.
We have to create environments for ourselves that minimize decision fatigue and remove foods that trigger that addictive response to those damaging foods.
Ultra-processed foods are designed to keep you eating.
Food scientists are paid a lot of money from big food companies to make their foods hyper-palatable.
What does this mean?
This means that food companies created products to bypass your body’s normal process of telling you to stop eating when you are no longer hungry.
Pringle’s saying, “Once you pop, you can’t stop,” or Lay’s saying, “You can’t eat just one,” is real.
They invested a ton of money to ensure that very specific physical reaction in people.
According to a 2021 article, “Ultra-processed food consumption grew from 53.5 percent of calories at the beginning of the period studied (2001-2002) to 57 percent at the end (2017-2018).”
This fact was part of an 18-year study that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which was comprised of over 41000 participants that shows a link between the increased consumption of ultra-processed foods and increased risk of obesity.
Food abstinence is difficult but oftentimes necessary.
Choosing to abstain from certain foods that aren’t good for you is going to be tough, and if you suffer from food addiction, it can be even tougher.
The same social support that exists for recovering from other addictions, such as alcohol, drugs, and nicotine, doesn’t necessarily exist for food addictions.
Generally speaking, the reaction from other people is usually the exact opposite of supportive. The questions and comments I usually got were:
- “It’s only a little bit of sugar.”
- “It’s not like this is an everyday thing.”
- “How do you even live without eating carbs? I would hate my life if I did that.”
Remember, let go of the idea of “eating in moderation”
When thoughts about “moderation” come to mind, I want you to replace them with this …
Changing how you think about food will change your habits and the weight will come off.
If you want to eat better, get stronger, and lose weight, then let’s talk. Request a call with me now.
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