3418: [Part 2] Trigger Foods, “Clean” Eating, and Leveling the Moral High Ground by Rachel Trotta on Balanced Eating Mindset

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Health Daily. Trigger foods, clean eating, and leveling the moral high ground. Part 2 by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com. And I'm Dr. Neal Malik. Hey there, and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free. I cover fitness, nutrition, stress management, weight management, and lots more. This is kind of like an audiobook, but from a bunch of different authors, and always with permission from the sites.

[00:01:30] Now, today is Wednesday, and like I do every Wednesday, I like to share a little bit of inspiration with you. So with that, here we go. Quote, You can figure out how to win. You can learn how to work with what you've got, and start where you are, and create anything you want in life. Mel Robbins Alright, really quickly. Remember, today's post is part 2 from yesterday.

[00:01:56] So if you're new here, or skipping around, I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first. But if you're all caught up, let's jump right in and hear part 2, and continue optimizing your life. Trigger foods, clean eating, and leveling the moral high ground. Part 2 by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com. The desire for hyperpalatable foods is something that's wired into us as a survival mechanism.

[00:02:26] This means that it takes concentrated planning to eat sufficient vegetables each day. But we could effortlessly blow through the recommended upper limits of sodium, fat, and sugar without a second look. Our food culture doesn't help this quandary. The foods that are cheap and highly available play into our natural desire for palatability. Moreover, food is an extremely effective self-soothing agent in the moment especially, which is why I always hold up a second reason for overeating.

[00:02:56] Situations and states Your state of mind, the context of your eating scenarios, will drive the majority of your food decisions. When you are chronically stressed, under-rested, or somehow emotionally overdrawn, the great likelihood is that you will be more drawn to these seductive, hyperpalatable foods. When you are maxed out, your internal resources and motivation are simply not sufficient to buoy you. And these are the times when most people act out with food.

[00:03:26] Food is a natural soother. And at those times when you're burned out, like at night or after work for example, food seems like a viable shortcut to serenity. This is why I am so rigorous with my clients when it comes to cultivating better balance and stress management techniques. It's not about having the perfect diet or the right exercise plan. Instead, when my clients can nail the basics of self-care like sleeping sufficiently,

[00:03:55] tending to their relationships, and developing self-management habits, hyperpalatable foods lose some of their power. So, how should we deal with trigger foods? We start with stress management and overall lifestyle. But at some point, we have to be realistic about the fact that foods that are high in calories, fat, starch, and salt should not make up the foundation of our diets.

[00:04:21] To make sure that we don't slip back into overlaying moral qualities onto food and eating behaviors, let's use an analogy, spending. Despite the fact that using a budget is extremely similar to practicing sensible eating strategies, spending habits rarely get caught in the shameful, toxic crossfire of moral values that besets eating. Most people agree that it's not a good recipe for financial health to spend more than you make.

[00:04:49] Moreover, you want your money to go as far as possible, maximizing both your present and future quality of life. If you have a $2,000 a month budget, for example, it's immaterial whether you choose to spend $500 a month or $700 a month on rent, as long as your budget is balanced. Basic budgeting principles would recommend certain percentages, but it's only a guide, as long as the numbers all shake out in the end and all obligations are met.

[00:05:17] Of course, if you choose to spend $1,800 of your budget on entertainment each month, your money will not go very far. So that is obviously not recommended. But we often don't exercise the same neutral logic when it comes to food. Rather than budgeting your food intake to ensure that the majority of your calories meet your health and energy needs, you, often accidentally, blow your daily budget on foods that don't go very far,

[00:05:45] and also prioritize current you while forgetting about future you. The problem is that, because of the cultural and emotional load that we carry around food and weight, we don't pause to think about the problem in a logical, self-caring way. Instead, we often bounce between entitlement, like, I deserve this, to shame, like, why do I mess this up every time? Can you think of trigger foods for yourself?

[00:06:12] The ones that are difficult to stop eating once you've started. Is it possible that, instead of demonizing them, they should simply make up a very small part of your caloric budget? That you should buy, store, and distribute them in ways that are safeguarded against overeating, because you know yourself. Small shifts in thinking like this can make a tremendous difference in our level of ease with both food and with ourselves. Finally, sometimes it's okay to completely cut out a food.

[00:06:42] It's not restrictive or self-punishing. If it's not contributing to your quality of life, you could experiment with eliminating it from your diet. But it's important that you maintain an attitude of, as a friend of mine puts it, humble curiosity. Developing a healthy course of eating for yourself is a journey that has curves along the way, and sometimes you can't see around the corner. You can always say, For now, I'm not eating fried foods. Or,

[00:07:10] I'm experimenting with cutting out sugar. You don't know how you'll feel a year from now, but you know that, right now, this food is not doing you any good, and you feel comfortable living without it. No food is bad. No food is good. To deal with any specific trigger food, boil it back down to the three basic neutral questions. One, How do you feel eating this food? Two, Is this food working with your lifestyle? And three,

[00:07:39] What are the results of eating this food? And then, Make an individual informed decision about your eating, taking a step back and looking at your whole food budget. You just listened to part two of the post titled, Trigger Foods, Clean Eating, and Leveling the Moral High Ground, by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break.

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[00:09:34] Dr. Neal Malik here with my commentary. If you've listened to this podcast for even a little while, you've heard me say this many times before. Pizza, donuts, and french fries are my trigger foods. Once I have a bite of any of these, I have to eat more. This doesn't mean that I avoid these foods though. I would miss them way too much. It just means that I have them in moderation. So, how do I eat them in moderation when I can't stop at just one?

[00:10:03] Well, I portion my food out. For example, I'll put a reasonable amount of one of these foods, pizza, donuts, or french fries on my plate on the occasions when I do have them, and then immediately put the rest of the food away. I'll even store some of the food in the freezer so it's completely out of sight for now. When I have something like pizza or french fries, something else I'll do is add a nutritious side along with it.

[00:10:32] So, even before I have one bite of pizza or a single french fry, I will have at least finished a big salad first. This, I've found, helps prevent me from overindulging. So again, as today's author Rachel Trotta said, Foods are not good or bad. Instead, we can take steps to make it more likely we consume some of these foods in moderation. Alright, that'll do it for today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening every day.

[00:11:00] I hope you're having a great week, and I'll see you back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits. Thank you.