What is your Eating Style?

Most people evaluate their eating behaviour throughout the course of a day, but how useful is this to us, could it be causing more harm than good? It is very common that people will consider themselves ‘good’ when they believe they have eaten reasonable proportions of healthy food and ‘bad’ and ‘naughty’ (or worse!) when they believe they have eaten too much unhealthy food. 

Does this sound familiar? Labeling yourself as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in this manner can be unproductive. We are often our own worse critic and most of the time it is only negatively impacting on ‘yours truly’. Why not do yourself a favour and try a different approach and put your powers of self-evaluation to better use, use them more constructively and focus on the positives’ first and then consider how you can plan to eat more appropriately in future.  

So, what is appropriate eating?

Appropriate eating can involve all of the following five elements:

1. PLANNING

Plan, plan and then plan some more! Those people who are successful at improving their weight (and maintaining their weight) all know that planning is one of the major keys to weight control. As long as you plan appropriately (for example, by allowing for a special food….‘treat food, highly desired food, sometimes food’, occasionally in your overall daily food plan) you can still eat a wide variety of foods.

2. SLOW DOWN when you are eating!

Another common trait is that people eat food too fast and do not take the time to maximise the potential enjoyment of food. Food that is eaten rapidly is wasted, not tasted! Try to practise a ‘mindful approach to eating’, chew slowly and really appreciate the food using a mixture of senses….smell, taste and sight. Remember to pause to savour each mouthful.

3. IS IT NUTRITIOUS?

Consume good quality foods that provide vitamins and minerals. Choose foods from the major food groups, namely fruit, vegetables & legumes, lean protein sources (lean meat, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts, legumes), dairy (milk, yoghurt, cheese) and carbohydrates (bread, cereals, rice, pasta). Choosing a variety of foods within and across the food groups is also very important.

4. PORTIONS and FREQUENCY

You can enjoy a wide variety of foods, provided you do so in moderation. When assessing whether your consumption of a food is moderate, you should look at how often you eat that food and how much of it you consume (is your portion size too much?).

5. APPROPRIATE SETTING

Eat at an appropriate time (e.g. between 6.00pm and 8.00pm for dinner) and place (e.g. the dining room or kitchen table). Avoid engaging in other activities such as watching television, talking on the phone or working on the computer so that you are not distracted from enjoying your meal.

So, what is inappropriate eating?

Inappropriate eating is just the opposite of the above!

1. Unplanned, spontaneous or not within your daily calorie limit
2. Eaten too quickly
3. High in calories but low in nutrients
4. Eaten too much or too frequently
5. Eaten in an inappropriate setting.

Making inappropriate eating more appropriate

Over time and with practise, before you eat any food, ask yourself, “Is this an appropriate or inappropriate choice?” If the answer is “appropriate”, that is the green light to eat the food – just make sure you eat slowly so that you enjoy it! However, if the answer is “inappropriate” or if you are not sure, you should pause for a moment and ponder your options:

1. Do not eat the food - a favourable outcome for obvious reasons
2. Eat the food - an unsatisfactory choice which could cause you to feel upset, eat more and gain weight
3. Take a few moments to consider how to include the food in your meal plan making a potentially win-win situation if you can find the calories. You could do this by:

• Try eating a small amount of the desired food – ‘small tastes’!
• Postponing consumption of the food to a meal/day when you can fit it into your calorie limit
• Moderately increasing your physical activity during the day
• Decreasing your food intake slightly over the next few meals (but no skipping please!)

Lets say it again – PLANNING!! You will notice that most of the characteristics of appropriate eating relate to planning. A food can be eaten inappropriately or appropriately – the difference is in the planning. It really is worth just a few minutes out of your day to take the time to plan.

Download a weekly planner to assist your healthy eating.