Had my brain just screamed chocolate today, it would have been a good day! But today my brain screamed chocolate, cake, ice-cream, wine, cashews, more wine, cheese and large helpings of everything!

” You need a treat. You’ve been eating so well, limiting alcohol and you’ve lost 4 kg. Great work! Let’s have a coffee and a cake at the French Patisserie you love, just to celebrate.”

That was 10.30am. Delicious!

I was meeting a friend for lunch. Grilled fish, salad and a glass of Rose. But then the table near ours ordered dessert. The most amazing layers of berries, chocolate spongey stuff and those whorls of curled chocolate. Well perhaps we can share…..? No? Ok well I’ve been eating such healthy food lately…

I came home to write and at 5pm it was time to walk to the beach via Acland Street, St Kilda. I passed all the cake shops, saw people devouring ice-creams but my food calm still holding, until at 7 Apples I saw they had my favourite sour cherry with dark chocolate ice-cream in store. They haven’t made it for months and here it was. I had to have some. The rational brain kicked in. I would walk further. The salesperson must have misheard me. I thought I said a small scoop in a cup, but this one was massive and delicious. My walk was shorter than usual. My brain deduced it was still very hot weather, and I didn’t want to be heat stressed.

At home I had a chat with a friend leaving for Italy this week. She was so excited and I remembered the wonderful times I had spent in Rome, Perugia and Portofino. Never mind I’ll head back to Cape Schanck tomorrow. That miserable monkey brain said,” Yes Cape Schanck is lovely but it’s not Portofino is it?”

Since I’d had enough food for the day, I thought just some lovely fresh salad for dinner. But there was just a glass of wine left and some cheeses I had bought from the market… short story- I drank the wine and devoured most of the cheeses with biscuits, nuts, apple and some dips. Was I hungry? No. I was bored and since I’d blown the healthy eating plan at 10.30am, why stop! My brain rationalised that tomorrow was another day and I’d be “good.”

 

Does any of this sound familiar?

Let’s take a look at what happens when for over a month I completely reworked my eating habits. This was done based on all I know about behaviour modification as a psychologist and in tandem with a nutritionist and my doctor. The results were proving that the eating plan was working with the goal being slow, steady, sustainable weight loss over a long term.

But then there is a complete slip back into old habits and continual brain noise and rationalisation of old behaviours. This is not about lack of will power, a bad character or weak commitment to the goal of weight loss. What’s fascinating is the power of the brain to reset intention and habits in a nanosecond.

If you tease apart my day of eating, we see

• Sugary Food thought of as a reward for losing weight and a month of healthy eating
• Once reset, the brain sources more sugar because by lunch time the “hit” is wearing off- enter lunch dessert
• Special occasion glass of wine- lunch with a friend
• Emotional triggers of feeling disappointed that unlike my friend, I would ONLY be travelling to the Mornington Peninsula!
• Rationalised walking as exercise with another sugary ice-cream hit a few hours later
• The all-in cheese platter, wine. Boredom eating. Hunger is not even a consideration. What the hell! the Judgement / Shame Script- I’ve ruined today. Tomorrow I’ll be GOOD!

It’s easy to dismiss a day of poor food choices as ” What’s all the fuss about? You didn’t binge pizza for breakfast followed by a fried Mars Bar!” ” Stop being so hard on yourself- it’s only one day. Just eat salad tomorrow.”  All of this is absolutely true.

What my story is demonstrating is the symbiotic relationship between what the brain is thinking, our emotional state and our food habits.

• Eating habits are hardwired into the brain. These habits can change but it’s the brain that needs to think differently about food. This takes time and thinking needs to be reset, unplugged, rebooted many times before behaviour shift is possible. That’s the attraction of weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and other semi glutides. They stop the brain noise about food. (See my previous article You’re 76! Why would you take weight-loss drugs?)
• Replacing one operating principle or key thought with another healthier option is key. Working on brain associations with food. So instead of ” Food (cake usually) is a reward” this thought is replaced with eating healthily is an expression of self-care and self-love. Eating all the leftovers because you are going away for the weekend, drinking the glass and a bit of wine that’s left in the bottle are acts of house cleaning not acts of self-love!  This shift in thinking underpins all the food habits we want to change.
• Accept that some food habits are harder for some people to change. Sugar is generally a beast! Its impact on blood sugar and cravings is well documented. A friend says she thinks of sugar like heroin! Highly addictive and really hard to give up. Ditto. Salt and Coffee can also be difficult to rewire as a habit. Alcohol can be highly addictive for some people and given its extensive use as a social lubricant, it’s another habit that can be difficult to shift. In my month of healthy eating alcohol and coffee consumption were reduced by half. Sugar was eradicated but this was the most difficult to change. Salt elimination was relatively easy because I can substitute herbs for a salt flavour.
• The biggest Brain rewire is to stop the Judgement Noise. You are not BAD if you eat something not on your plan. You are not weak in character.  Stop using words like good food, bad food, will power, bingeing and all the other judgement loaded words that condemn us to self- hate and defeatism. Rewiring habits takes time. You’ve built habits around food all your life. You want to change them in the shortest possible time. Unless you walk the Wegovy meds. path, weight loss will take time.

So apart from my Day of Wild Eating, where am I at with my weight-loss journey? I need to lose weight to manage my extreme surges of blood pressure as an addition to using blood pressure medication. I have read widely about semaglutides and I have 2 concerns. One is the fact that once you stop taking weight loss meds. the weight returns, not to the same level as before but it does creep back. So permanent weight loss using meds is for some people a lifelong thing. Just as I take blood pressure meds for 15 years now.

The 2nd concern that I have about weight loss meds is the cost. In Australia Wegovy costs around $345- $600 a month. Until its available on PBS that is not a life – long financial commitment I would consider.

And finally, I read the book by Johann Hari called The Magic Pill. It had a profound effect on my thinking around food and the need to return to eating small amounts of good quality food. I’ll be writing an article for this Viva70 website, specifically about his book.

Briefly, Hari points out the fundamental problem is not weight gain, it’s that we are starved of nutrients because of all the poor quality, processed food we eat. Obesity was not an epidemic in the 1970’s. Think back to how we ate even in the 1960’s..yes meat and 3 probably overcooked veg.  Many of the vegetables were home grown, seasonal and fresh. Food was served on small plates. We walked to school. Cake was a treat.

My plan for the past month was to eat only fresh veg, small amounts of protein served on a small side plate. My dietician suggested 3 high protein/ low carb meals a day and 2 protein-based snacks a day. That’s actually a lot of food. Despite the Day of Wild Eating my relationship to food is changing and weight is starting to reduce at about a kilo a week. I’m in for the long game. Not a diet. A Healthy Living Plan.

We’d love to hear about your healthy living plans and any comments you have about the ideas raised in these articles.