Do You Deny Food at Social Events?

I know we’ve all been there. I remember a time in my life where I was overeating and binge eating at home yet when I ate food in public I was somehow “watching my weight”. Have you done this too?

Picture this right…. you are at a social event perhaps a restaurant with your friends for a birthday and everyone orders, one orders a risotto, the other some fries and a steak and  you figure, oh crap I better be good today I’ll order a salad.

Plus there will be cake so I better not order anything too fatty.

So out comes everyone’s food and you have massive food envy. That steak looks so juicy and your friend offers you some chips so you pinch a few. The risotto looks so creamy and nice, darn why did I order a salad!

 

So here you are with your huge salad just trying to be “good”. So you eat this massive salad while your friends are striking up conversations and all you can think about is trying to stop yourself from pinching another chip from your friend!!

 

Your friends start exclaiming how “full” they are and you’re thinking well my tummy feels full but I don’t feel satisfied!!

 

Now comes the cake! You think to yourself well, I had all those chips so I better not and you deny yourself the cake. OMG yes I’m being so good, you even semi want to make your friends feel bad for eating something so atrociously fattening for you!

 

So far you have denied, denied, denied.

 

You feel strong, good, you go girl you got this you are well on your way to a slim body today woo hoo!

 

So then you get home and start to wind down.

Oooh Yeah…You remember there’s some chocolate in the cupboard, you figure oh well I’ve been so good today I’ll just have a little..

 

Next minute.. chocolate….all…gone….ooops!

 

Why was I able to be on my best behavior when I was out but now all that goes to shit when I’m at home???

This is called deny exhaustion….nah actually I just made that up, but seriously it gets exhausting to deny yourself every. single. day. You actually only have a certain amount of willpower everyday and by the end of the day, it’s usually depleted.

 

So lets actually get a birds eye view of this situation. You eat a salad with some chicken for dinner that was say 200-300 calories, It doesn’t fill you up because well….let’s be honest a salad alone won’t always leave you satisfied, it’s more like a side.

 

You get home and then eat a block of chocolate which equals approx. 1000 calories. (Just a guesstimate obviously!)

Ok so let’s rewind and look at if you ordered the risotto, for the sake of simplicity lets say this particular risotto was 600 calories, but it really filled you up, like I mean there was vegetables in there, there was chicken in there, it tasted great, you just felt REALLY satisfied.

It came time for cake and honestly you didn’t feel like sweets much because you were already quite satisfied, but you had a slither of a slice just to taste it and appreciate the richness of it. So say it was like 200-300 cals worth of cake.

Would you look at that. In the one scenario you feel satisfied and eaten around 800 – 900 calories, yet the other version denied denied denied and then ended up sabotaging and eating 1300 calories.

Sometimes we have the best intentions but we end up sabotaging ourselves!

The lesson to learn here is, allow yourself the food you actually feel like. Practice portion control and balance. Learn more about your body and what makes you feel satisfied, whilst still reaching your weight loss goals.

Stay Positive Babes!

Love Barbara xoxo