While on our weight management program it is important that you recognize your style of eating and eating personality so that we can help you modify your behavior which is imperative for permanent weight loss and lifestyle change.
Misguided Eater
- Don’t diet often, but when you do it’s usually to quickly drop a few pounds.
- On occasion will eat emotionally and is subject to current diet propaganda.
- Often ignore signals of hunger or satiety. If food is present you will often eat even when not hungry.
- Often overeat.
- he misguided eater is subject to prepackaged, portioned meals and will not cave in to hunger even if the meal did not provide the proper nourishment. With this a sense of wrong doing will overcome you for feeling hungry before the next meal.
Advice
- Practice mindful eating and listen to your body’s signals and level of hunger. You need to slow down and eat when you are hungry and know when to stop eating when you are satisfied (ideally a level 5).
- Gain knowledge on foods that will provide your body with the proper nutrients for overall health and wellness.
Emotional Eater
- Separate food from hunger to satisfy an emotional need.
- React to emotions by overeating or under eating.
- You are not in tune with the feeling of satiety, or being satisfied. You eat without considering the messages that your body is sending you.
- You use food as a coping mechanism to gain emotional sanctuary or relief from feelings that seem uncontrollable, such as anger, sadness or happiness. This pattern may lead to over eating, even to the point of pain.
Advice
- Use a food journal and hunger scale to help you differentiate emotional hunger from physical hunger.
- Document emotions in journal when you eat to help you identify the “triggers” that lead to over eating.
- Learn behavior modification techniques that direct emotions to healthier outlets, such as a walk outside, writing in your journal, drinking adequate water, fresh air, or any positive activity that replaces the need to eat based on emotions.
- Speak with a trained Nutrition Counselor.
Deprivation Driven Eater
- Usually on a restrictive diet. Weight loss before is a result of deprivation. The deprivation eater has feelings of being out of control around food.
- You label foods as good or bad, as a result you often don’t listen to your body’s cues of being hungry or full. You need an external structure to help you know when you should eat or not eat.
- Find it difficult to be relaxed around food or to walk away from food when you are satisfied.
- Fearful that after a meal you will not be satisfied and therefore you find it hard to stop eating.
- Have idealistic thoughts about the “right” way to eat. This often leads to unhealthy food plans because of lack of sufficient food.
Advice
- You can learn to manage weight more effectively if you are not promoting a diet mentality.
- Don’t buy “diet foods”, it encourages obsessive behavior.
- Throw out the scale. Weighing repeatedly does more harm than good. Legalize all food.
- Practice mindful eating practices. Learn to rely on your body’s cues as to how hungry you are and stop when you are satisfied to around a level 5 (satisfied, but not stuffed).
- Carry healthy snacks, such as nutrient dense veggies and fruits with you that you can enjoy so that you do not feel deprived.
Attuned Eater
- Eats when hungry, stops when satisfied
- Seldom eats when not hungry
- Usually maintains a natural weight and does not worry much about weight.
- Will on occasion eat emotionally, but when you do you will not eat again until hungry.
- You don’t neglect yourself, but consider nutrition when making food choices.
- Is a mindful eater and is in tune with body’s cues for feeling hungry and knowing when to stop.
Advice
- Your body benefits from a stable weight without the stress of yo-yo weight gain or dieting.
- Less stress associated with health and self image.
- This is the ultimate goal for your style of eating.
Eating Personalities
Do any of the following describe you?
Volume Eaters: Prefer Quantity over Quality.
- Try filling ½ your plate with veggies.
- Eat high volume, low calorie foods like watermelon.
Special Occasion Victim:
Entertaining provides too much temptation for highly processed foods and alcohol.
- Try packing healthy snacks when traveling.
- Have a plan for timing and amounts of alcohol. Alcohol consumption lowers inhibitions and you will have a tendency to make poor food choices.
Must Have:
See it and Eat it: Everyone is having dessert so I must too.
- Order a healthy fruit option.
- Just have a taste or share.