What if you could eat dark chocolate every day? A little. What if you could have a glass of wine each day? A small one. What if you ate one slice of pizza instead of a whole pizza? What if you ate a small salad with every main meal? What if the muffin you ate was half the size of the now supersized muffin? What if your dinner plate was the same size as your grandparents used? What if a daily “Constitutional” was a 30 minute walk or 10,000 steps a day? Today in our living well, reflection/ coaching series we look at the principle of “all things in moderation.”

We are bombarded with what we should eat, demon foods that should be avoided, training and exercise fads, industries built on making people fat and others helping them get thinner. I’m not untouched by this craziness. I have dieted on and off all my life and had a love /hate relationship with exercise, food and alcohol all my life. We now talk about emotional eating and a genetic disposition for obesity. There are people who have medical conditions or have side effects from medication which cause extremes in eating and other behaviours. Being moderate will not help in these cases and medical support is needed. Here I’m talking about average 50-85+ year old…let’s try these questions

Questions

• Think back- were your parents/ grandparents overweight, excessive drinkers/ smokers? What did they do for exercise? Did they BINGE anything- TV, cake, whatever?
• Can you find an old dinner service or tea set? Measure the dinner plate size of a modern plate and an old dinner plate? Find a wine glass from year’s past- how much does it hold compared to the fishbowl glasses we now use?
• In what behaviours are you moderate? What behaviours/ tastes/ likes are you excessive?
• Do you want to change any of these patterns of behaviour? Make a list of any behaviours you’d like to change. Do you know why you haven’t changed these habits/ behaviours until now? How will you make changes? Who can help you? What other resources do you need to support this behaviour change?

Examples

• Use the old dinner set!
• Eat only when you are hungry
• Move every 30 minutes if you are sitting on the sofa or at a computer
• Walk with a friend every day
• Cut all sweet stuff in half and eat only half

Here’s Dr Oz to tell us more. We’d love to hear your ideas for living well too. Please leave your comments below