Joy Eating vs Cheat Eating
What is a Joy eat you ask? JOY EATING is when we eat anything you love to eat and actually taste it. When you are eating, you are paying careful attention to chewing it, the flavors and textures and truly getting full enjoyment from your food. You want to Joy Eat 10% of the time, which is usually one small treat a day or a joy meal per week. The rule with Joy Eating is that you must enjoy each bite.
A Joy eat always is planned vs a cheat eat is reactionary/emotional eating. When you eat something that is not planned you end up saying to yourself “I should not be eating this and then you continue to take yet another bite, with you, in the end, saying who cares and you eat more than you needed or wanted to. Or you end up regretting how much or what you did eat and get into shaming yourself which never helps to lose weight.
If you feel restricted with your food, then that is you not allowing yourself to eat a specific food you would enjoy. You think you have no choice but not to have it, that it is wrong or bad for you. Guess what you can have whatever you want to eat; it is your choice; you are never restricted.
Do you think you can go through the rest of your life never having a piece of cake, a cookie, ice cream or even pizza?
Are you not having those foods out of fear of when you finally have it you will lose control or that it will stop you from losing weight? If so, when you attach being terrified and fearful of eating those foods that will only sabotage you into wanting it more and when you do you will overeat.
I teach my clients you need to have one Joy eat in your week that is planned 24 hours in advance. When you plan it and then have it this then gives you proof you can eat it without losing control. It will show you that it is not wrong to have it and that each time you do have it you teach yourself, you don’t need to overeat on it because you can have it again if you want. It is when we don’t think we can have it that we get into the mindset that I better eat it all and more because I don’t know if or when I can have it again.
If you put it in your plan, it is not cheating. That is freedom not restriction.
A Joy eat is not about what you actually eat, it is about you developing the skill of having the things you probably overate on in the past, but now you have them in a way that works with you losing weight, living your life and getting the results you want.
Do you think it is realistic in eating only salads, chicken and whatever else you look at as healthy and not having that special food on a holiday? I don’t think so because this is what has most people quitting their ‘diet’.
So if you do want to have that Joy eat then you have to get to a place of planning it, allowing yourself to eat it by really experiencing it then in the next breathe you go back to eating what works for weight loss.
When you have your planned Joy eat you start to identify which foods you truly do love and which foods you ate because you thought you could never have them again or that they were ‘bad’.
I remember in my dieting days believing ice cream was bad to have so when I did eat it I ate the cheapest kind and as much as I could eat. Now my Joy eat of ice cream is a brand that is high quality and I have no problem stopping after eating one small bowl and being satisfied with that.
You get to the place of enjoying it vs eating from reaction to that food being there.
So remember that if you plan your Joy eat 24 hours in advance that is not you breaking your diet or you cheating by doing something wrong.
