Overeat No More!
I've been back at Ragdale Hall for the weekend and very restorative it's been...more posts might follow in retrospect, if that makes sense!
A substantial dinner tonight. I had my very occasional space-poet’s pick of well done steak and a large glass of Cotes du Rhone. As it happened there was chocolate ice cream as a desert option so I opted for that too – well, it was dairy-free. I didn’t feel sooo guilty because of a hard afternoon in the gym, where I put the running machine through its paces. Even though I was walking rather than running, I kept the pace up and went well over my usual hour of CV activity, so I was quite knocked out subsequently. I sat on the bed here and did a bit more ‘knitting’ (for that’s what it feels like) of the short story I’m tentatively working out. Then I fell asleep. Then, miraculously and most pleasantly, it was dinner time.
Even more incentive not to worry about the caloric intake of tonight’s dinner – I noticed there was a talk on tonight on ‘Overcoming Overeating’. Ragdale often do have evening talks but usually they don’t sound very interesting, to me at any rate. There’s only so much I want to know on cuticle care, for example, despite the power and resonance to be found in nail art in works such as Julia Bell’s young adult novel Massive, which I blogged about earlier. But tips on preventing oneself becoming massive in fact are always welcome, so down I went, armed with a pen and my Leonardo da Vinci notebook, stopping for my post-dinner complimentary hot chocolate on the way. Alas – but the Garden Bar looked most alluring, with candlelit tables and the usual spacious swishing sounds all around.
Gillian Riley comes over as a very nice woman, and she claims to have overcome both smoking and overeating problems herself earlier in her life. She now runs seminars and writes books on these subjects, claiming the same core ideas can help long term perception shifts in both areas. These are, to summarise: firstly, an acknowledgement of the overemphasis on our desire to lose weight (or stop the fags) over the health benefits that also accrue from adopting a cleaner, healthier lifestyle. When one achieves the goal of weight loss or whatever, one loses the motivation to continue, if this motivation has been over fixated on weight rather than concomitant health benefits such as stronger immune system, better sleep, higher energy levels, and so on. This is certainly true I think. In fact one book I dipped into the other year ( I think by Marisa Piper, a TV diet guru who used to be on Celebrity Fit Club among other things) had as its suggested affirmation: I always make healthy food choices; I always make healthy food choices… good stuff of course, although I did think that exclusive and mandatory ‘always’ is setting oneself up for failure, in a way.
However. To continue: the next problem is one of compliance and rebellion (isn’t it always, my dear) – the dieting mentality is one of rules and regs, which are safely strict for a while, and then become a ghastly prison cell. At this point Riley drew a fat-balloon-person in a box to signify one’s mental diet prison. This primitive cartoon-picture inevitably reminded me of Fred the Mathematical Fly, a two dimensional character I remember from school maths days of yore. Poor Fred never realised there was a third dimension by which he could have escaped his crudely delineated box-jail. And in a way this random association was apt, for Riley was adamant that the introduction of choice into one’s mental landscape – and thoughtful choice, not just impulsive ice-cream eating, she was careful to emphasise that – is the third dimension through which one is relieved of the nasty cycle of deprivation and rebellion.
And the third point? Well it’s an insight into what food psychologists tend to describe as an addictive desire to overeat: either too much food that is basically healthy, or any quantity of processed rubbish such as nutrionally empty but commercially promoted snacks. You know the ones, I’m sure. What Riley said was that the two generally offered explanations for this desire to overeat were firstly blood sugar fluctuations, with refined carbs and high sugar foods causing highs and lows that triggered the need for more of the same; and secondly emotional ‘issues’ that, instead of being confronted, are blocked out through bingeing, basically. But, she also said, we should consider in addition to these reasons, our tendency to be subject to conditioned response regarding the triggers to eat; just like Pavlov’s dogs, the body can generate physiological as well as emotional expectations of food as the result of a trigger event, such as watching TV, answering the phone, just getting home from work…
The good news is that such responses can be challenged, worked through and dismantled. There is not necessarily a need to dig around looking for a founding emotional trauma. After all, Riley said, Pavlov also managed to de-condition his dogs; eventually, they no longer salivated at the ringing of the bell: the association was broken. Thus there is hope for the conditioned overeating response, and initial effort will bring increased ease in response to all those previously compelling food prompts.
So there you have it. It makes a lot of sense, as a lot of these cognitive or psychotherapeutic texts do. Whether it will be practically useful I don’t know; but I’ll certainly bear it in mind the next time I encounter a steak/Cotes du Rhone/chocolate ice-cream scenario. My only caveat in fact is that when I’m on a serious health kick I can become seriously smug, and possibly not all that easy to be around. A bit like some new non-smokers or non-drinkers: rather obnoxiously evangelical. In fact I did offer this thought early on in the talk when Riley was asking people what they considered to be the effects of adopting a healty, fruit and veg filled, no processed or ready-meals routine. ‘Well, let’s not say smug, shall we? “Confident” is a so much more positive word!’ And indeed it is. And I have ordered my detox breakfast for tomorrow, and am already looking forward to it.
A substantial dinner tonight. I had my very occasional space-poet’s pick of well done steak and a large glass of Cotes du Rhone. As it happened there was chocolate ice cream as a desert option so I opted for that too – well, it was dairy-free. I didn’t feel sooo guilty because of a hard afternoon in the gym, where I put the running machine through its paces. Even though I was walking rather than running, I kept the pace up and went well over my usual hour of CV activity, so I was quite knocked out subsequently. I sat on the bed here and did a bit more ‘knitting’ (for that’s what it feels like) of the short story I’m tentatively working out. Then I fell asleep. Then, miraculously and most pleasantly, it was dinner time.
Even more incentive not to worry about the caloric intake of tonight’s dinner – I noticed there was a talk on tonight on ‘Overcoming Overeating’. Ragdale often do have evening talks but usually they don’t sound very interesting, to me at any rate. There’s only so much I want to know on cuticle care, for example, despite the power and resonance to be found in nail art in works such as Julia Bell’s young adult novel Massive, which I blogged about earlier. But tips on preventing oneself becoming massive in fact are always welcome, so down I went, armed with a pen and my Leonardo da Vinci notebook, stopping for my post-dinner complimentary hot chocolate on the way. Alas – but the Garden Bar looked most alluring, with candlelit tables and the usual spacious swishing sounds all around.
Gillian Riley comes over as a very nice woman, and she claims to have overcome both smoking and overeating problems herself earlier in her life. She now runs seminars and writes books on these subjects, claiming the same core ideas can help long term perception shifts in both areas. These are, to summarise: firstly, an acknowledgement of the overemphasis on our desire to lose weight (or stop the fags) over the health benefits that also accrue from adopting a cleaner, healthier lifestyle. When one achieves the goal of weight loss or whatever, one loses the motivation to continue, if this motivation has been over fixated on weight rather than concomitant health benefits such as stronger immune system, better sleep, higher energy levels, and so on. This is certainly true I think. In fact one book I dipped into the other year ( I think by Marisa Piper, a TV diet guru who used to be on Celebrity Fit Club among other things) had as its suggested affirmation: I always make healthy food choices; I always make healthy food choices… good stuff of course, although I did think that exclusive and mandatory ‘always’ is setting oneself up for failure, in a way.
However. To continue: the next problem is one of compliance and rebellion (isn’t it always, my dear) – the dieting mentality is one of rules and regs, which are safely strict for a while, and then become a ghastly prison cell. At this point Riley drew a fat-balloon-person in a box to signify one’s mental diet prison. This primitive cartoon-picture inevitably reminded me of Fred the Mathematical Fly, a two dimensional character I remember from school maths days of yore. Poor Fred never realised there was a third dimension by which he could have escaped his crudely delineated box-jail. And in a way this random association was apt, for Riley was adamant that the introduction of choice into one’s mental landscape – and thoughtful choice, not just impulsive ice-cream eating, she was careful to emphasise that – is the third dimension through which one is relieved of the nasty cycle of deprivation and rebellion.
And the third point? Well it’s an insight into what food psychologists tend to describe as an addictive desire to overeat: either too much food that is basically healthy, or any quantity of processed rubbish such as nutrionally empty but commercially promoted snacks. You know the ones, I’m sure. What Riley said was that the two generally offered explanations for this desire to overeat were firstly blood sugar fluctuations, with refined carbs and high sugar foods causing highs and lows that triggered the need for more of the same; and secondly emotional ‘issues’ that, instead of being confronted, are blocked out through bingeing, basically. But, she also said, we should consider in addition to these reasons, our tendency to be subject to conditioned response regarding the triggers to eat; just like Pavlov’s dogs, the body can generate physiological as well as emotional expectations of food as the result of a trigger event, such as watching TV, answering the phone, just getting home from work…
The good news is that such responses can be challenged, worked through and dismantled. There is not necessarily a need to dig around looking for a founding emotional trauma. After all, Riley said, Pavlov also managed to de-condition his dogs; eventually, they no longer salivated at the ringing of the bell: the association was broken. Thus there is hope for the conditioned overeating response, and initial effort will bring increased ease in response to all those previously compelling food prompts.
So there you have it. It makes a lot of sense, as a lot of these cognitive or psychotherapeutic texts do. Whether it will be practically useful I don’t know; but I’ll certainly bear it in mind the next time I encounter a steak/Cotes du Rhone/chocolate ice-cream scenario. My only caveat in fact is that when I’m on a serious health kick I can become seriously smug, and possibly not all that easy to be around. A bit like some new non-smokers or non-drinkers: rather obnoxiously evangelical. In fact I did offer this thought early on in the talk when Riley was asking people what they considered to be the effects of adopting a healty, fruit and veg filled, no processed or ready-meals routine. ‘Well, let’s not say smug, shall we? “Confident” is a so much more positive word!’ And indeed it is. And I have ordered my detox breakfast for tomorrow, and am already looking forward to it.
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