Eating Is About Relationships – Weight Loss Motivation
Ideas to weigh less – to live life more.
A nice dinner with wine. A movie with a good friend, sharing a tub of popcorn. Eating a hurried lunch across a desk at work with a co-worker. Preparing a nice family meal. Thanksgiving. Tasting someone else’s ice cream cone. Bringing a treat to a small get-together. A dinner-date in a new place.
Eating is about relationships.
Eating alone sucks. Food, when you are alone, can possibly nourish your body, but what you crave is nourishment for your social-soul.
You eat together because it creates its own mood, its own pleasure beyond the food itself. Food is more than just eating.
So, how do you uncouple your need for human interaction with your need for food? You don’t. You shouldn’t.
What you need is to uncouple relationships from the pleasure of eating the wrong food.
Too often you eat too much, and you eat the wrong food, when you are with someone else. The closer the relationship, the more likely you are to not follow the sensible eating rules you have made for yourself to control your weight.
You get into one of those: “I won’t follow my weight loss rules today if you won’t follow yours.” “It’s such a special occasion, I’m going off Weight Watchers for this meal, how about you?”
What we need is permission to say, “How can we both find great pleasure in this meal, and keep on the path of our healthy weight loss?”
Perhaps, at the end of the day, that is an important quest you and your friends can go on together: “Let’s find a dozen GREAT PLEASURE FOODS and WONDERFUL MEALS we can really enjoy together, and continue to lose weight.”
If you don’t, you will always be battling the results of the wrong foods and meals. If you don’t, and you “stay on the weight loss wagon” together, you will each have a sense of being deprived of the joys of great food with enjoyable people. Which leads to wrong food choices later. And will deepen any unhealthy relationship you may already have with food.
Wouldn’t understanding how “social food” can sabotage your weight, make your day lighter?
HEART PLAN — WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS Begins in Your Heart
© 2014 Boyd Jentzsch. All rights reserved.
By special arrangement with the author, CHAPTERS from the book HEART PLAN are published here regularly. HEART PLAN is not about what you eat. It is all about how you FEEL – your sense of SELF – when you are trying to lose weight. Sign up to receive the new Chapters as they are published here.
-by Boyd Jentzsch
Boyd, a recovering Attorney, turned to weight loss research 20 years ago when he lost his mother to the lifelong effects of obesity. He has spent the ensuing years searching the science, and formulating a comprehensive metabolic map of the body — the only complete map of its kind. The map reveals the causes and effects of obesity and related chronic lifestyle diseases. It shows the only proven pathways to preventing and losing excess weight. From that unique foundation, he and his team created a weight loss education program that has helped tens of thousands to lose weight and keep it off. Plus, they created innovative and fun fitness and nutrition education programs for elementary school children, proven to reduce the early bio-markers for childhood obesity. HEART PLAN is a collection of his observations over the years of the emotional impact and motivational challenges nearly everyone faces when trying to keep lost weight off permanently.
All Published Chapters are available here. Plus FREE PDF’s for each to Download.
ASK Your Weight Loss, and Motivation Questions HERE, for a personal response.
Do you have friends who could enjoy and benefit from this article?
Share, Pin, Email, Tweet using the Share Buttons.
I really enjoy having meals with other people and conversing through the meal.
Very good points and while I think it’s perfectly fine to combine social (holidays) with those you love, care and caution should be used if needing a healthier lifestyle.
I eat alone just fine LOL, which is why I need to lose about 10 lbs.
Great points. I tend to eat more alone unless I hold myself accountable. 😉
It’s true that when I’m with someone else I eat more. I guess it’s part of the experience I’m having.
Holidays are the worst as everyone feels the need to make (and share) all the holiday sweets. I can’t just turn them down!
My husband and I just launched a social food policy today! We are eating healthier and getting fit as the cooler temperatures arrive…. a nice change from our usual fall behavior, stuffing our cheeks like the squirrels. I agree, together works better than alone!
I prefer eating with someone vs. alone. I actually probably eat less healthy options by myself.
I tend to eat better when I go out with my girlfriends than when I eat out with my husband. My husband always gets dessert and I always seem to eat half of it.
I totally agree. Look at Europeans and how they have a healthy relationship with food based on sharing meals with loved ones.
Very great points! Thanks for sharing! I need to use some of this info!
Eating is really one way to socialize whether it’s parties, lunch outs or dinner with friends and family. It’s always a good time to bond and build relationships.
So true. I definitely need to “uncouple relationships from the pleasure of eating the wrong food”. It’s so easy to go on a Girls Night Out and overeat or eat the wrong things over fun conversation without even thinking about it.
It’s true that a relationship that is tight can lead to mutual straying from your diet but I think the problem in the first place is having a diet. instead, you need to look at doing to right activities together and make that integral to how you live regardless of what you eat.
Getting away from the wrong foods is a great goal. It takes some major willpower, though. I saw a side by side comparison of an overeater’s brain with a heroin addict’s brain once. They looked almost identical!
Great post. I don’t know what it is about get togethers, but it always seems to make people want to eat the most unhealthy food available.
I started Nutrisystem last week and my husband is totally eating better with me.
Me too Laura! I just stare at the food my family eats while i nibble my Nutrisystem!
I have finally gotten to the point in my life where I do what my Nana always said she did I eat to love-In other words I eat just enough to give my body the nutrients it needs. Also I really do not mind eating alone which is a good thing since I am single and live alone.
I never thought about it that way. I do like eating with my family and it does make me feel fuller and I don’t over eat as much. Thanks for always giving us another way to look at our weight loss journey. I have book mark this to show my mother-in-law.
I heard someone say that people tend to eat more when they are with the company of a larger group because they have more time to converse and therefore more time to eat. They never realize that they’re full until they have to leave the dining area for some work to do.
this is what i was telling to my friends before. i said if we’re gonna eat together everyday we better eat some really nice and healthy food hahah but we can have small servings of desserts afterwards hahaha
A lot of people agree that eating is much nicer when it is done in a group. People who eat alone also tend to eat food that is worse for them
Moving away from bad foods is always a good idea. There’s nothing wrong with a snack, but if it’s always junk food – that’s not good. Sometimes eating with someone encourages you to eat better – while other times it can cause you to pig out. You just have to be mindful and make good choices.
I am on Nutrisystem and I feel a bit left out of the family meals these days!
i prefer eating with someone else but due to my health issues i need to eat a little something every 3 hours or so
Looking for ways to enjoy healthy, rather than looking for ways to sneak or allow foods that aren’t good for you, is such a good thing to point out one can do! It’s not really a great treat for yourself if you’re giving yourself something you really shouldn’t be having.
These are great tips! I definitely find myself over indulging in certain social situations.
I never thought about it this way. Thanks for sharing these tips!
Definitely wonderful tip to follow by! thanks for sharing it.
I do think the occasional meal out with treats is fine, as long as the rest of the time you eat well. We don’t eat out very often, probably only once a month, so that’s not going to ruin a diet.
Usually when I’m with family and friends there is always food around. When I eat by myself I do a much better job as long as I’m not working while I eat. If I sit at the table and concentrate on what I’m doing I usually eat less and nibble less.
interesting post. I think everything is alright with moderation. and when out with friends just keep in mind what you are getting so you dont over do it
If I’m eating by myself I’m more mindful about each bite and probably even chew a little more.
my only say to this is that me and my hubby influences each other. we have eating relationships and trying to make it healthy just like any kind of relationship out there.