Fuel, Joy, Storm + Fog - Types of Eating
Why would you want to categorize your eating?
Answer: By naming the type of eating you are doing you can evaluate and understand when you are not eating according to your bodyâs requirements for nourishment, and why that might be.
Categorizing food also gives you a nice guideline of what to eat. Most times, you will want to eat fuel to energize your body, but sometimes you will want to eat for the strict purpose of enjoyment. By separating these types of eating into categories, you can manage them and choose how much of each you want to do for your maximum emotional and physical health.
So the first thing we need to do is categorize food into four different types. Each time you eat, you are in one of these four categories.
Eat fuel foods 90% of the time to keep you energized and functioning
The reason we have to eat is to fuel our bodies. Fuel eating is eating with awareness of nutrition and what makes your body energetic and function well. Fuel foods are nutrient dense. Fuel foods include fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. A basic knowledge of nutrition is imperative for you to know what types of foods fuel your body and what ones do not.  It is beyond the scope of my expertise to teach nutrition, but the truth is that most of us know which foods fuel us by how they feel in our body. You can design what your healthy fuel menu looks like. (For more on what to eat to lose weight click here)
Itâs not a strict set of guidelines. Itâs eating in a healthy way that feels good to you.
There are many good eating plans you can use to help with their fuel eating. They may like South Beach, Weight Watchers, Body for Life, or e-diet as some examples. Dieting should not be the entire weight loss plan but a tool for fuel eating. Donât use any diet that severely restricts calories or disconnects you from your bodyâs signals. Diet books and plans can be helpful in food choices, but your body will always tell you how much to eat.
Ultimately, you need to decide what fuel works best for your bodyânot the external plan.
Fuel foods are like employees that have a job to do in your body. When you eat them, with the awareness of what they will do when they get into your body, you will see how they help you to function. For example, a healthy protein will provide the building blocks for cells; a complex carbohydrate will give you steady energy; a piece of fruit will give you essential nutrients and water, and vegetables are loaded with vitamins and minerals. High-grade foods, like high-quality employees, work hard for you. They go in and work to provide your body with the essentials it needs to function. Low-Â quality food that is over processed with low-nutrient value is like hiring a lazy employee. Diet food or low-in-fat food is designed to convince you that what you are eating has nutritional value; but like hiring filler employees, it is going to slow you down and cause you problems. Do a mini-interview with any food you put into your body. Hire and eat wisely!
Fuel eating should be done 90 percent of the time for maximum health. If you are filling your body on hunger cues with high-grade fuel, you will feel energized, healthy, and light most of the time. You will feel your metabolism kicking in from eating so often and feel each cell celebrating among vitamins and minerals. You really canât go wrong with your health if you are feeding yourself what your body needs to function optimally.
By the way, fuel food can taste amazing. Fuel food does not mean diet food in a freeze-dried container but quite the opposite. A good fuel meal is fresh, simple, lean, and tastes great. I believe life is too short to eat anything that doesnât taste good. So, eat fuel foods you and your body both like.
The rules for fuel eating are:
It must be something your body wants and needs.
You must start at -2 and stop at +2 on the hunger scale.
Fuel eat 90 percent of the time.
Finally, as you begin to increase your exercise regime, you might think you need more fuel food to compensate. Do not make this mistake. Your body is always the one to indicate if you need extra fuel. Follow its cues and trust it. Also, eating too much processed food and simple carbohydrates can alter the natural communication of the hunger scale. Any high-sugar foods that cause a spike followed by a dip in your blood sugar will send a false hunger signal and lead you to believe you are requiring more fuel when you arenât. Eating simple carbohydrates rarely and with a serving of protein will alleviate this issue.
Just because it tastes goodâJoy eating!
Joy eating is just thatâpure and simple joy. This is food you eat because it tastes so good. It doesnât have to do anything helpful in your body and usually, it wonât, but it tastes good in your mouth. Joy eating includes cake, candy, Doritos, clam dip, popcorn, fettuccini Alfredo, chocolate-chip cookies, and anything else that just tastes wonderful but doesnât do anything for your body.
These are foods designed for pleasure, not for nourishment. They are one of the joys of life, and your body can handle them in small doses just fine.
We need to be able to joy eat. Many diets fail because they donât allow us to live in the real world and enjoy some junk food once in a while. Forget that. You can go to a birthday party and eat cake: eat candy at Halloween and mashed potatoes with butter on Thanksgiving. There is no way you will completely give these up just to be thin.
Naturally thin people do eat for joy some of the time, and there is no reason we canât do so as well.
The interesting thing about joy eating is how much joy it can bring us. Many clients spend a lot of their time joy eating. They eat because it makes them happy, not because it provides their body with fuel. They go to big, fancy dinners, eat expensive meals, and drink expensive wines. This is fine if itâs done 10 percent of the time.
Whenever you are eating joy foods more than 10% of the time, youâll know you are getting too much of your joy in life from food.
Really think about how much of your joy comes from food. (This includes eating at parties, dining out, eating with family, ice cream trips, and munching on popcorn at the movies.) Is it more than 50 percent.
If you find that your answer is over 50 percent, you have the answer as to why you eat more than your body requires for fuel.
It is no wonder you donât want to cut back on eating. It would mean reducing more than half of your total joy from life!
Ouch! I encourage my clients to add more joy to their lives in other ways to cut back on joy eating.
To summarize this point, of all the food you eat, 10 percent of it should be joy eating. Of all the joy in your life, less than 20 percent should come from food. If you are able to maintain this balance and add a lot more joy to your life and a lot more fuel to your body, overeating can be a distant memory.
The secret to joy eating is you must enjoy it. Donât just eat your 10 percent without guilt because now you can. Sit down and savor it! The only reason you are eating this food is to enjoy it, so pick your 10 percent wisely and make sure it is the best thing you can imagine eating. Then eat every single bite with awareness and enjoyment. The minute you stop enjoying it, STOP EATING! If you arenât enjoying it, there is no reason it should be in your mouth.
Many clients find that this is an âahaâ moment for them. They find they can get a full sense of joy from a food in just a few bites when they really pay attention. They also sometimes find that they donât enjoy it as much as they thought they would. As soon as you give yourself permission to eat something and the only requirement is that you enjoy it, you lose all the emotional charge of eating a bad food, and sometimes that was the whole reason for eating it.
Here are the rules for joy eating:
Eat for joy 10 percent of the time. This works out to be about one serving a day.
When possible, try to plan your joy-eating time on something you really want to eat.
You must enjoy each and every bite and you must stop the minute you stop enjoying it or your 10 percent is upâwhichever comes first.
After a joy-eat, eat again the very next time you get hungry.
By the way, you do not have to be hungry when you âjoy-eat,â but I promise you, joy food tastes even better when you are.
Are you eating unconsciously, in a fog?
Fog eating is unconscious eating. Itâs popcorn at the movies, chips in front of the TV, and food out of the pot while cooking. Fog eating is not enjoyable because you hardly realize you are doing it. Itâs eating when you arenât hungry or eating at a restaurant beyond fullness because you are distracted. Fog eating is a big bummer because you donât need it for fuel and you arenât really enjoying it. Itâs best to NEVER fog eat if you can help it. When you eatâŚeat.
Unfortunately, many of us spend a lot of time here; we are busy eating on the run frenziedly without ever tasting the food we are eating. Sometimes we have no idea that we are even doing it. When you eat an entire jar of peanuts and donât remember eating even one until your hand hits the bottom of the jar and your TV show ends, itâs the ultimate insult to yourself. It is like eating behind your own back while you are asleep. It isnât any fun, and itâs not helping your body. Fog eating is like pouring juice out of a glass. You arenât paying attention so it just flows out of the glass onto the table, onto the floor, and you just keep pouring. You might stop to take the kids to school, and then you come back and start pouring again. It is a complete waste.
Pull yourself out of the fog as soon as you catch yourself doing it. Reconnect with yourself and pay attention. This is your life; you donât want to miss it.
Riding the storm: Iâm not hungry, but I want it and Iâm going to eat it
Storm eating is eating when you arenât hungry, knowing that you are doing it, and feeling unable to stop even though you want to stop.
Storm eating is like binge eating. We call it storm eating so you can know that all storms do end. They feel out of control, but they do end. Storm eating is usually caused by depriving yourself and passing up too many forbidden foods. When you start fueling your body regularly and allowing some joy eating, usually the storm eating disappears. When you are in a storm eat and feel as if you canât stop eating, stop and see what happens.
Storm eating may also be brought on by intense emotions that feel out of control. The important thing to remember in a storm is not to judge yourself. Every storm eat is caused by a very good reason. You need to be kind to yourself to find out what is going on. Try to observe yourself curiously and understand why you are doing what youâre doing. The damage that occurs from a storm eat is not the number of calories you eat. The damage is due to disconnecting from your body, filling it up past what it is requesting, and then beating yourself up for doing it. If nothing else, you must be kind and gentle to yourself. Again, this is a learning opportunity, not an opportunity to make a scary situation worse.
After a storm eat, wait until youâre hungry, and then eat your fuel food again. It may take you a while to get hungry again after a storm eat. Be patient and trust that your body will let you know when itâs time to eat again.
Remember: âIf you can name it, you can tame it.â
Just to sum it all up â
Eat fuel foods 90% of the time
Joy foods comprise 10% of your food intake and are not a substitute for joy in life!
Fog eating is a call to become more conscious and aware around food
Storm eating is using food to solve a problem that has nothing to do with food
Get in touch with me â coach [at] gerigibbons.com if you want to take more about these concepts or weight loss.
More on eating to lose weight without gimmicks or fads:
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Four tips to avoid Holiday weight gain
Four steps to stop crisis overeating
