Coming this Saturday: “How do we create boundaries with ourselves and others?” February 11th Shift Saturday Support group 10-11:30 at the 5455 Wilshire Office—Floor 21 Cost $25 Please contact Rita if you plan to come.
Dear Shifters,
I am going to start this week by repeating myself. Yes that’s right –here goes—“weight management success is two thirds stimulus control”. For those of you that have been reading my weekly emails for awhile, forgive me, but I honestly feel I could say it every day for the rest of my life and I would not be saying it enough. I may even have to have it as my epitaph when they finally lay me to rest in my final Shift place. “Here lays Rita Black and she would just like you to know that the path to weight loss and weight management is two thirds stimulus control!”
When we Shift and begin to practice the winning skills of long term weight management this skill –keeping tempting and trigger foods out of your daily environments—stands out as one of the most effective and yet challenging of the 9 Skills. Why? Because, when it comes to keeping our world “stimulus-free”, we are not always in total control of our environments.
For example, as a mother of two children and someone who has been maintaining a weight loss for 18 years I keep my home relatively free of gak (the Shift word for junk food, fast food and food devoid of any nutritional value). No that doesn’t mean you will only find tofu and kale in my refrigerator and jars of sprouted grains in my cupboard, but I mean if the foods that I bring into my home, for the most part support me in reaching for the foods that nourish me and my family, but also allow me to feel like a I am living a full and tasty life of my dreams.
However, every once in a while I open a cupboard in my house and I find some “thing” there that my husband has bought on a whim and I have to “deal” with it. You see, my husband gets carried away by free samples. Every week he takes our kids to piano lessons on Saturday and next to the music center is a small gourmet shop with samples. He eats the sample, his eyes roll back in his head in a gourmet food induced trance, and he buys the thing that is on sale. He may not even really like it, but he buys it because that is what his brain is programmed to do (I think he is not alone). He then comes home and puts the free sample thing in this cupboard in our kitchen. Like clockwork I find the purchase and say “why did you buy this gak?” and he will say “it was on sale and I thought it could be a treat for the kids”. I sigh because I know 90% of what he buys the kids won’t touch and neither will my husband once he has bought it—he has moved on to more free samples out there in the world and I am stuck at the cupboard with the thing he has bought. Generally the “thing” stays unopened and will eventually get thrown away by me. Stimulus control rule #1—an unopened container is a lot less tempting than an opened one. Rule #2 get it out of sight.
Occasionally the “thing” gets opened and if it turns out to be a trigger food for me I have to deal with it. Like the other week he bought these chocolate covered dried fruits. At first I saw them I said, “honey you know these are a trigger food for me”. He replied, “Oh, I forgot—sorry. I thought, chocolate is good for you and so is dried fruit so how could you wrong?” I popped a few in my mouth as a sort of victim of my husband’s gesture—“see what you made me do—shame on you for tempting me” and walked away and got on with my day. But later that night—the ‘things” in the cupboard began to call to me from across my home and I found myself back at the cupboard having a “relationship” with the chocolate covered fruit. I popped a few more in my mouth, walked away and then went back. The third time back at the cupboard I thought to myself “you no longer have power over them—they have power over you—get rid of them. ” So I did, I took the chocolate covered fruit and threw them in the trash and then walked away, having taken my power back by practicing the amazing skill of stimulus control.
Nine times out of ten when a client has lost focus and gained some weight it is due to a stimulus control issue. So how do we practice stimulus control? How do we know a food is a trigger food? Trigger foods are those foods that call our name. We know a food has an addictive hold on us if we eat one and won’t stop until the bag, the box, the whole thing is gone. Like I knew the chocolate covered fruits were a trigger food for me—despite my husband’s claims that they were “healthy”. Sometimes our attachment is emotional, sometimes addictive—mostly both. What matters the most is not the why but the how. How do I create a new shifted relationship with this food?
Stimulus Control Rule 1: Keep your trigger foods (or drink) out of house.
Stimulus Control Rule 2: Define times and places that consuming your trigger foods is safe I call this creating a loving boundary.
Loving Boundary
Example: If your trigger food is ice cream—you can't stop eating the ice cream till the carton is done—well this habit probably isn’t going to serve your long term permanent weight release so maybe you can create a new habit with ice cream with a loving boundary:—Loving boundary: "Once a week I can have a scoop of my favorite at the ice cream parlor" maybe you go as far to look up the ice cream calories on line and see that one scoop of rocky road is 250 calories and you make it work calorically for you on that day—so that you can have ice cream but still remain within your calorie budget for weight release.
With Valentine’s Day and the week of waxy cheap chocolate around the corner, (as well as really amazing chocolate) I coach you to deal with the outer sweets with some inner sweetness first—meaning connecting with your Inner Coach and asking yourself—how am I going to manage the stimulus control of the Valentine’s sugar fest and make a plan for success? Ask your friends, family, students, children, co-workers, or clients not to buy you sweets (or keep them wrapped and donate them to a charity of your choice—probably not the American Diabetes Association thoughJ). Make a plan for keep the sweets, sugar and chocolate out of your house. If you do want some chocolate for VD day—great, plan for it and eat it in a “safe zone” out of any environment that triggers you to eat.
What trigger foods are in your environment today?? How can you practice stimulus control with them? Should you get rid of them or can you create a loving boundary with them?? When you start taking back you power from your environments instead of falling victim to it day in and day out—that’s when you will begin to feel more masterful and confident that you can take the weight off and keep it off for good.
Have a great week!! Please come Saturday to the support group--we will be discussing how do we say "no" to ourselves and others in powerful and effective ways.
Ox Rita
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