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Control is limiting, responsibility is listening.

Control is about ratcheting down behavior, responsibility is about responding to situations in an appropriate way.

Say you have a puppy that is whining and barking. To control it, you could just put it in a crate and ignore it. To be responsible for it would be to go interact with it and see what it needed (to go outside to pee? Some play or training? A nap?), and then respond appropriately.

When it comes to our own lives and selves, the ideal situation to be responsible to our own needs isn't always available. Sometimes it does feel like it would be better/easier to put our needs aside and just get on with whatever it is we feel that we have to get done that day.

Here's the thing: this doesn't have to be black and white, one choice or the other.

Yes, it would be ideal if we could all have the time, space, and resources to meet all of our authentic needs in a timely and healthy way. However, sometimes we are hungry at work and it's not time for lunch yet, or we are lonely for someone that lives far away. Does that mean that you have to deny that need, put your puppy-self in a crate and ignore it?

Nope. Just as we would a puppy or young child, we can speak to ourselves with practicality and kindness. In the example of being hungry when it’s not feasible to eat yet, you could speak to yourself kindly: “Oh, I do wish I could help you right away, but I can’t quite yet. If you wait a little while, I will make sure you get taken care of, okay?”

While that doesn’t help the primary problem (hunger), it addresses the possible negative fallout from that hunger- anxiety, feeling uptight (is that just me?), and impatience, because we are acknowledging our needs, which is responding to them, being responsible, instead of trying to control them, which might look more like, “You can’t eat yet. Just wait and be quiet!” which is much less reassuring.

The bottom line: The sweeter you are to yourself, the more comfortable you will be in everyday life.

Please notice that I did not say, “let go of all your practical guidelines and do whatever you want to do in each approaching hedonistic moment.” That approach, in the long run, is not practical or kind.

What do you think? Next time you find yourself arguing with reality, would you be willing to approach yourself with kind understanding?

Love your inner puppy.

How many of you have foods that you try to steer clear from because you know - you just know! - that once you start, you can’t stop? Or perhaps you find yourself intentionally seeking that specific food out after a particularly trying day.

A trigger food is a food that you have a difficult time eating a reasonable portion of. Eating a little bit, in other words, usually leads to cleaning off the rest of the plate. These are oftentimes highly palatable foods including chips, cookies, or chocolate. Usually, individuals have an ongoing, tumultuous relationship with said trigger food, and while they may love the taste of it in the moment, it usually doesn’t end well.

Fortunately, it’s entirely possible to conquer trigger foods. Follow this 4-step process below to break free.

1. Accept that you are in control

Forgive the bluntness of this next statement, but it’s crucial to establish as a fact. Your brain controls the movement of your voluntary muscles, so moving your limbs, reaching out to put the food into your mouth, and swallowing it, is your choice. No person or potato chip or slick marketing can take over your limbs and jaws, even if you feel powerless or aren’t aware of your thoughts.

The reason that our sole locus of control is so important to hash out is that the facts can be very different from the way things feel to experience. We can find a lot of evidence (if we look for it) to build a case that we weren’t in control because it felt really compelling to do something. If we regret something after eating it, our natural cognitive protection mechanisms look for a way to not feel as bad, and that can lead to justifications to decrease the amount of responsibility we feel. “But I didn’t want to eat the chips, I just couldn’t help it,” “My brain shuts off when there is chocolate around”, and the like.

These insinuations that we weren’t in control in the moment do not help you change your behavior. You can’t effectively work on changing something you’re still partially in denial of. And if you’re reading this article, we can conclude you want to know how to change the phenomenon of trigger foods leading to overeating for yourself or someone else. So, commit with us right here that eating is a choice, and it’s a choice we can control.

That’s doesn’t mean it’s easy! That doesn’t mean we always choose in line with our values and goals -- far from it. It just means we accept our place as Head Honcho of Things Consumed, the most empowered stance to take. In fact, better to chuck the term “trigger food” altogether. It’s a food you have overeaten in the past. It’s a food you have struggled with moderating, perhaps. But no special status. It’s one of thousands of foods, made of carbon and oxygen and some nitrogen and other chemicals. There’s no wizardry; it’s just ordinary edible stuff, even if you have a bit of checkered history in how you chose to consume it.

2. Break the Cycle

Okay, Head Honcho, time to use those executive powers for good. Sounds like there’s a pattern that you’ve picked up on, and that is that your hands + a certain food = a situation that hasn’t ended well. And that’s okay, there’s exactly zero helpfulness in blaming yourself or looking at why, let’s focus on breaking that pattern. You and your so called trigger food can always reunite down the road, but a little separation for now will stop the recurring negative experience.

Do you need to get the food out of your kitchen or house? Do you need to chuck it, donate it, or just commit to a week of not seeing each other? Take charge and do it. Break the cycle of hurt and abuse, then you can re-form a healthy relationship.

3. Create Safe, Supported Scenarios for Reintroduction

Think about the negative experiences you had with that specific food in the past. What was going on? Where were you? What were you feeling? What time of day was it? Were you at home, in your car, at the office or your parents’ house? These factors all contribute to the ease or difficulty of eating in line with our values. This means you can engineer an easier scenario by thinking about when and where and with whom you are least likely to overeat a particular food. You don’t want to just rendezvous any old time and place, you want things to be different this time. Let’s use some examples:

Easier not to overeat ice cream:

I’ve bought a portion from the ice cream shop with my friends, mid-afternoon on Saturday, and I’m walk around the park eating it. What are the odds of going back for seconds? Pretty low. I’d have to go back, wait on line again, make another purchase… and it would be odd to do with the other people around who are doing the usual buy-and-eat-one pattern. If I were trying to establish a healthy moderate relationship with ice cream, this would be a good situation to put together. Invite a couple friends and you could make this happen. In the end, you’re likely to have scored one experience of your eating ice cream in the way you want to. High five.

Now, a situation in which it’s much much harder:

I get pulled over after a stressful day at work, and a rude cop gives me a hefty fine. I get home to see fraudulent charges on my credit card which now I have to deal with also. It’s cold and raining and my husband is away -- I feel alone and sad. I have no decent food in the fridge, and there’s a large container of Oreo ice cream in the freezer.

This is not a helpful scenario in which to decide it’s a good time to try eating ice cream again. If you have had difficulty moderating consumption of a particular food, it’s generally not favorable to try and change that when you’re emotional, stressed, not well slept, in the later hours of the day, alone, and have multiple servings in easy reach.

You can control when you choose to have the food again after your break from it. Do it when and where you are feeling assured of your success. Rig the game so you win.

4. Gradually Ease Up On Parameters As You Gain Confidence

Once you’ve had a chance to eat the food and stop at a place you feel good about, it’s not over. It will probably take many repetitions to bolster your confidence that this food is not, in fact, a volition-sapping delicacy.

Keep going. Get those positive experiences in when you are confident it will go your way. And over time, you’ll notice that confidence growing. Maybe after 6 or 7 times having ice cream from the shop with your friends, you feel okay to go on your own and buy a single serving and walk around the park enjoying it. You might not want to jump right away to having 16 flavors at home in bulk supply, so take small steps. You don’t HAVE to keep anything at home, and many people find their peace with sweets and alcohol when they choose to leave them at the store, not bring into their homes. Consider progressions like this (again, no need to go all the way to the last one if your life is easier without it):

1. Having the food with company, out of the house

2. Having the food on your own, out of the house

3. Having the food with company at home (buying just enough for no leftovers)

4. Having the food on your own at home (buying just enough for no leftovers)

5. Having the food on your own at home, even if there’s leftovers

The Bottom Line:

You are in control of what and how much you eat. If you have particular difficulty with a certain food, that’s normal and not permanent. You can change that.

Start with a commitment to stop repeating what isn’t working so you don’t keep rehearsing the overeating experience with that food. Take a break from the food long enough to think of a specific situation in which you are darned sure you will not (even cannot) overeat it. When you’d like to have the food again, have it under your terms. Keep the supports in place to rack up many experiences where you eat that food in a way you are happy with. Ease off the supports if you feel you don’t need them any longer, but keep the ones which make your life easiest. Here’s a summary graphic to help keep it all fresh in your mind:

There are no medals for withstanding temptation, so consider it your lifetime right to choose where, when and how you meet particularly tempting foods.

This article was co-authored with Sohee Lee​, and if you haven't read her stuff and followed her yet, get on it, because you've been missing out!  Visit her site and follow her on Facebook!

1. Generally, they don’t work.

The claims made by dietary supplement manufacturers are some of the biggest lies you can find in any industry’s advertising. Tricky wording is part of the deception: The bottle won’t say that it lowers blood pressure, it will say that it supports healthy blood pressure. Likewise, you can find pills to support everything from heart health, mood, energy, focus, bone health and of course, your sex life.

So why does this "support" word pop up everywhere? Because the flimsy laws regarding labels only specifically bar dietary supplements from a few words: diagnose, treat, cure and prevent are all verboten. So instead of saying that a supplement treats high blood sugar or prevents diabetes, they’ll say it helps to “maintain healthy blood sugar levels already within a normal range.” (source) That sounds reassuring, but when you read it carefully, it doesn’t actually mean anything. So if you have healthy blood sugar, this pill claims to help you stay the same.

It’s important to mention that some supplements are effective in specific uses, such as taking a specific nutrient for which someone has a diagnosed deficiency. Yet, sadly, these are the minority of cases in which people actually buy and use supplements. Most people aren’t treating a diagnosed deficiency, they are looking for a health boost or noticeable result which never happens.

2. Even if they do work, which is a very very small percentage of all sold, the effect is often miniscule, yet blown out of proportion in the media and in advertising.

A meta-analysis that reports that a particular probiotic “had a positive effect in weight loss in humans” (like this one, in which that quote appears http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444866416000064) will generate headlines and spikes sales of that supplement like wildfire. And you bet the supplement companies will plaster it all over their bottles and posters, positioning their probiotic next to bikini clad fitness models. But if you actually read the paper and look at the data you see that the effect amounted to just fractions of a pound over 6 months. You’d find the same thing in these two reports, when researchers have found a statistically significant effect of probiotics on weight loss, it is a pound at most http://www.fasebj.org/content/31/1_Supplement/965.38.short and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0882401015302060) over several months.

And what they won’t show you are all of the studies or meta analyses that showed no significant effect like these:

ttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271531715001037,

http://www.nmcd-journal.com/article/S0939-4753(05)00194-8/abstract,

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939475315001192

Or studies that concluded that probiotics can cause weight and fat GAIN, like these:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0882401012001106

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0882401015301522

For Americans, the National Institutes of Health sums it up beautifully: “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not determine whether dietary supplements are effective before they are marketed.” https://ods.od.nih.gov/HealthInformation/DS_WhatYouNeedToKnow.aspx

3. They have risks

Side effects are common from taking dietary supplements, even when taken as directed by the label. Most frequently, they aren’t dangerous and are merely uncomfortable, things like stomachaches or cramps, dizziness, constipation, headaches, unpleasant breath (like fish burps), tingling, flushing or lightheadedness. If you take more than is recommended, the risk of these discomforts increases. It’s also worth remembering that the food you eat may also provide some of the same compounds in the supplement, and total may be higher than the safe limit even if the supplement wasn’t. For example, your diet plus your supplement can lead to an excess of Vitamin A, giving you chronic headaches and weakening your bones. Eating iron rich food plus taking a multivitamin with iron could overload you on this mineral, causing nausea and vomiting, plus harm to your liver. https://ods.od.nih.gov/HealthInformation/DS_WhatYouNeedToKnow.aspx

The risks of dietary supplements also include that they can deactivate or interact with a medication you’re taking in numerous ways. Birth control pills, cancer chemotherapy, blood thinners, blood pressure medications, and antidepressants can all be rendered less effective by pairing with the wrong supplements.

As scary as it sounds, there’s also a fair chance that your dietary supplement doesn’t contain what it says it does, or that it contains substances that aren’t declared on the label. I’ve read many reports of supplements which were labeled as containing only all-natural herbs actually being found to contain prescription medicines such as statins or Viagra. Muscle building supplements, sexual performance enhancers and so-called testosterone boosters are notorious for having undeclared steroids in them.

4. When it’s weight loss or fat loss, FOOD is what stands between you and your goal.

Any measure of energy that goes into purchasing or forming the habit of taking a supplement is energy that would be better spent on your eating behaviors. One of our roles as professional nutrition coaches is to focus every client’s mental and physical effort into avenues which will give them the biggest payoff. When a trainer, nutritionist or other coach tells you to put your effort and dollars into supplementation before they have examined and optimized your eating patterns - take it as a signal that they do not mind frittering away your money and time or that they don’t have enough expertise to know what gives the best results over the long run.

If it’s lasting changes to your body that you are after, your behaviors are the currency necessary to get them. What and how much you eat are the things that determine your body weight, and workouts are what make you stronger, faster and more muscular. You can take all the supplements in the world, but without proper nutrition and exercise, it won’t make a difference.

Think about what you do here, not at the supplement counter.

If you’ve tried traditional diet and exercise programs only to have them fail, it makes to want to do something different, but don’t let that steer you down the row of pills in the drugstore. You can do better. We’re dedicated to empowering people with what actually works in the real world, forever. It’s not following a limited diet or taking supplements, it’s new skills. So think about the skills you’d like to pick up, rather than a bottle of empty promises.

​Fat Loss Comes From Skills Not Pills. (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

Want to know what skills WILL make a difference in your body, permanently? Here they are. Most people are already good at some of them, but have plenty which they KNOW they need some improvement on to see results. And getting better at those skills is like anything else you want to get better at, you break it down to a level that fits where you are at NOW, and practice. If you need a hand, coaching offers the added direction and accountability to get you maximum results for your effort.

Dear Georgie,
My husband is starting the Atkins diet! On the bright side, I think this will make some things easier for me because he will be watching what he is eating and having less temptations around. But I'd love some reading on this, either for my knowledge or anything I should have him read. I'm concerned about his health. - Joan

The elements which can (but don't have to) make a low carb diet detrimental to health include:

• ​High fat intake. Diets which are higher than about 40% calories from fat are causally linked to the development of insulin resistance, leptin resistance, obesity, increased appetite and decreased satiety, increased inflammation, and unhealthy changes in gut flora which increase risk for further weight gain and abdominal pains/digestive pain when fibers or carbohydrates are reintroduced. (a-j).
  
• Decreases in mental well-being (some but not all studies have found that low carbohydrate intake is related to worse moods). (k, l)
  

• Impaired athletic ability (particularly speed/power) (m, n)

The first 3 you can do something about by making specific choices within the Atkins Diet parameters, but the last 2 are directly due to low carbohydrate intake, and you can't raise carbohydrate intake and be on the Atkins diet.

To maximize fiber: get as many vegetables as the phase will allow. Use avocado for some of your fats, since it also provides a good amount of fiber. Chia and flax seeds can also help provide fiber without many digestible carbohydrates. Don't use carbohydrate allowances for sugars or white bread. Use them for plants!

To minimize the health risks of a high fat diet, don't go sky high in fat (you don't have to put butter in your coffee), include seafood twice a week, choose more olive oil, nuts and avocado and less fatty red meat (bacon, hamburger, steak), and use cheese and butter less often. A Mediterranean diet pattern including 1-3 tablespoons (15-45 mL) of olive oil every day has been shown to improve triglycerides and markers of inflammation, so think in spoonfuls, not glugs straight from the bottle (o).

Also, if the individual is in a calorie deficit (calorie deficit = weight decreasing) then the risks to cholesterol levels and blood lipids are reduced. Even an "artery-clogging diet" doesn't have so many damaging effects to a person if they are losing weight, the weight loss benefits to blood lipids are very significant.

Lastly, while it's not a physical health issue, dietary monotony and restriction can be unfavorable for mental health and a person's relationship with food. Being unable to eat bread, beans, rice, desserts, etc isn't something most people are willing to do forever, so they do the low carb thing for a while and within 6 to 12 months, most people are back to eating carbs. So to "bring out the best" of this phase, I'd try to emphasize some helpful diet skills that your husband can practice and maintain, even after the diet is over. Even if he doesn't stay on a low carb diet forever (most people don't) he can practice cooking and enjoying vegetables in place of starches with dinner, looking for high fiber foods, reading food labels, appreciating whole foods, and get in a habit of choosing olive oil, avocado and seafood frequently.

Best of luck to you both! Feel free to pass on the links below or send a link to this article.

References ​