Resriction Vs Restraint, Blog 2

Last time we explored the concepts of restricting and restraining. Today, let's take a look at an example of restraint.

Precursors to practicing restraint:

1. Eating within an hour of waking
2. Eating meals and snacks every 3-4 hours until bed
3. Practicing balance at the plate using our CPF Plate Model
4. Practicing mindfulness at the plate

These practices will set us up for success when trying restraint. Without them, we are likely to be over hungry and craving which makes practicing restraint more challenging than it needs to be.

Step 1: Observation (each to take place over  a series of meals during the week, I would recommend 1-5 meals for each):

• Observe the point at which you sense you are full, do you stop eating or do you keep eating?
• Observe when you sense you are no longer hungry and then observe when you are satisfied or full. What do each of these stages feel like? 
• How do you respond to the above stages? Do you stop eating? Do you feel good, bad, happy, satisfied, angry, depressed? Try to point out why you feel the way you do (you may not know, but continue to ask yourself this question).

Step 2: Dialogue If you realize further from your observations that you have a hard time stopping after meals, write out the dialogue present. Usually it sounds something similar to the following:

Notice the spiral on the left side and no comment from the right side. We may be left feeling discouraged and disappointed.  Contrary to leaving these situations "happy", we are working towards leaving these situations with acceptance, forgiveness, and with nurturing help for the future. The above dialogue does not provide this.

Step 3 Act and Observe More:

• For a few meals:
• Eat to the point of feeling satisfied or full
• Observe your thoughts, actions, feelings
• For a few meals:
• Eat to the point of feeling satisfied or full
• Set your food and utensils down
• Your action is to do nothing but to continue observing your thoughts and feelings
• The tendency here will be to want to pick up the food item or food utensil again to silence all the thoughts
• Your challenge- restrain yourself so that you can experience sitting with these feelings
• Allow your thoughts and feelings to just be
• Once you are able to accept how you feel and think, begin to explore other dialogue that may be helpful for you. Here is an example (this is very informal because I am trying to mimic actual thoughts rather than providing a formal conversation that you may not identify with):

continued (I could not get the picture to format the same)....

Notice the difference in this set of thoughts versus the pattern of thoughts in the grid in step two. With this grid, we leave with constructive points. With the first grid we leave with destructive points.

Encouraging note: this is HARD work. Yes, it takes work. My claim is that it is worth the work and I think you will find this too. 

My challenge to you: be very aware of thoughts that say, "look how hard this is for you, you are bad at this, this is why you are never going to be able to do this, it is too hard." Try answering and standing up to these thoughts: "Yes! You are right! This is really hard. And that is okay. It is okay for this to be hard. It is not fun but it is realistic to expect that it is going to be hard; I have never learned how to do this before. I have never learned how to withstand, persevere through, or thrive through these types of situations. I have a lot of learning to do. And yes, it is going to be hard. That doesn't mean there is something wrong with me. It means I am human and I am right on track."