I’ve been trying to shed a few pounds, which requires careful planning. I need to make sure that I have my gym clothes and shoes and water bottle and hair tie and phone (and charger) and headphones and any number of things that I need for the gym. I need to make sure that I have enough food for the day, and that it all fits in my meal plan.
Most importantly, I need to make sure that the food I bring to work is healthy and filling. As much as it sounds counter intuitive, eating is imperative for weight loss.
Food and Dieting
If you’ve ever brought too small of a lunch or couldn’t catch a break in the middle of your day, you’ll know what I mean. You get home and eat virtually everything.in.sight. You eat the chips that your partner was hiding, the cookies for your kid’s bake sale, semi-sweet chocolate chips straight from the bag. You inhale without even tasting the food, you are so hungry.
You end up eating yourself sick because you let yourself become so hungry.
You deprived yourself of something (food) during the day and you end up overcompensating and binging later (excess).
Money and Restriction
So, maybe you are in debt or you are having a hard time making ends meet. While it may seem like the obvious choice to cut out your “fun” spending, don’t move too fast on that.
Cutting discretionary spending out of your budget may help you to pay down your debt or increase your savings in the short term, but it’s not sustainable. You will, inevitably, get fatigued with a life lacking fun; it’s too strict.
Sure, there are plenty of ways you can have fun for free, but it’s just not a balanced budget without some discretionary spending. I’ve seen it time and time again; people cut out that important “life” part of their budgets, and then get burned out from the restriction. You’re depriving yourself of something you used to enjoy – spending on your life. Do this for too long, and you’ll end up cracking and purchasing things in excess.
It’s not just dieting and budgeting that this happens with. Think of that overly sheltered kid that you knew growing up (we all knew one – maybe it was you!). They were restricted from anything indulgent, so much so that they went rouge in their teenage hood and rebelled against their strict parents.
Don’t Cut It All Out!
Reduction is okay. It’s a natural way to cut back, and it can help us meet our goals. Reducing your calorie intake by avoiding sugary snacks and high calorie munchies is one of the best ways to live a healthier lifestyle and lose weight. But it’s just not sustainable if you were a choco-holic before, and you’re expecting yourself to go strictly without.
Cut yourself some slack and work out a plan to satisfy your sweet tooth (if that’s your weakness). Maybe instead of having chocolate every single day, you only have it twice a week. Or maybe you switch from Coke to Diet Coke. Maybe you half your consumption. Do something that works for you that isn’t too strict.
Same goes with that cash you are trying to save. Maybe cut your fun budget in half; just don’t cut it out completely.
Extreme measures can lead to extreme failure. That’s why they say “slow and steady wins the race”.
Do you think deprivation leads to excess?
My way of balancing out my diet is try to eat healthy on weekdays taking in around 1200 calories per day, small meals, no food after 6pm, etc. But let loose a little on the weekends. Sometimes I eat more than I should and don’t exercise enough but a healthy lifestyle is a marathon, not a sprint, so I have to remember to keep at it despite minor setbacks 😀 My goal this year is to get my body fat percentage below 20% which is still average for guys. I think average for women should be higher, but depends on someone’s age too.
This is my problem all the time! I can go about three months with careful spending, but then in the pattern, the fourth month I completely fall apart. I’m trying to find the balance of it all.
Right on. Except the coke/diet coke thing. Dont’ go from coke to diet. Go from a can of coke a day to half a can and then quarter can. It’s all bad for you and I know from my wife that diet coke is apparently just as bad but in other ways!
Haha! Hey, I didn’t say Diet Coke was healthier! I just have some colleagues who can’t (or won’t) cut out Coke, but it’s standing in the way of their weight loss. I’m not a soda/pop drinker at all.
I couldn’t agree with you more. My wife and I set aside an allowance each month. Individual allowances so we can use it however we want. She does horseback riding with some of hers. Since I am in a masters program, I do not have much of a life so I use mine sparingly. But there are times when I do have time and we decide to try and do something with friends which may take some spare cash out of our pockets but, we need it.
I’m TERRIBLE with balancing. I go from one extreme to another with both food and spending and it’s a constant struggle trying to find a middle ground. I’m working on it though!
P.S. I want that pizza. ALL OF IT. Obviously, I’m not in deprivation mode today.
Absolutely true! What you resist persists. And you run the risk of becoming a total drag and ending up feeling crabby. 🙂
lol, can totally relate. Tried dieting once, starved myself for one meal. Craving came back with a vengeance. Never again. I feel guilty afterwards.
My bf just played devil’s advocate the other day with this type of situation – I’m on a “spending abstinence” for the whole year, and he asked what’s to stop me from going crazy in 2014 and spending excessively again. He’s well meaning, but it’s valid and resonates with what you say. For now, I’m still sticking with no shopping since I still have stuff in my closet with tags on them (head down embarrassed), but I’ll need to figure out a way to introduce it back slowly so I don’t go overboard right off the bat. Compared to weight loss, it’s like the “maintenance” part of spending, which is just as challenging. Great post!
OOhhh I have had moments like this! Especially after an intense workout when I’m so hungry I could eat anything. And I do, and I never get full.
I did really well for the first three months of the year. Worked out 5 times a week, ate super healthy. I lost 3 pounds, and really trimmed down fat.
Now, I’m struggling to stay motivated. Working out has become a habit, but I want more yummy food. I’m getting tired of chicken and veggies. LOL
I’m a big fan of budgeting but NOT of micro-budgeting. I have a weekly pot for “everything that’s not a basic necessity.” That’s clothes, eating out, home decorating, minor home improvement, gardening, entertainment, etc., etc. As long as I stay under my weekly threshold, I’m good. 🙂 And it carries over week-to-week if I don’t have time/energy to do some needed shopping one week.
That pizza looks good! When I lost a lot of weight years ago, I substituted good choices for some of my bad ones. I used to eat candy bars or cookies from a vending machine at work mid afternoon. I brought a healthy snack to replace that craving. It worked very well. I lost 35-40 lbs. in 10-12 weeks and kept it off for all (35 years) these years!
I disagree on both examples. I think the easiest way to break an addiction is to go cold turkey, not play around with moderation. I realize this is a personality thing, though – gradual change works best for some people, abrupt change works best for other people (like me). Although I wouldn’t recommend calorie restriction for weight loss, gradual OR abrupt.
I think balance is important as well even when you have some debt to pay. The problem I see is that the fun is taking priority over debt repayment or more fun is being had then debt repayment. Even though we don’t want to deprive sometimes we have to take a step back and figure out what we really want. Like you said to plan and cut back slowly but if one is drowning in debt maybe it’s the smart thing to do and not go on that vacation if you risk losing your home. There are lots of free things to do in life. I quit smoking last year cold turkey, and it was hard but I did it because I didn’t give up. I knew that if I kept smoking I might die. Looking at the potential consequences sometimes is a motivator in itself. I’d do the same with food but that’s just me.My wife has to do that now with her diet and restrictions so she has no other choice but to give up food she enjoys. Planning is important, balance is important but being realistic is just as equally important. Cheers… P.S nice pizza 😉
Yep, this is totally me. I will forget to eat, then be starving, and then I eat everything (that pizza looks delicious by the way). My husband has a similar problem with fun money – doesn’t spend hardly anything for 3-4 months and then gets frustrated and buys everything he was putting off at once.
First off, seeing a picture of that pizza while I’m hungry now is getting me to think about getting one. This is where willpower comes in 🙂
I think that how we approach things can differ based on the situation. Some things, we can quit cold turkey. Others, not so much. Just depends. For me, it was possible for me to stop drinking all soda and do it cold turkey, despite being in the habit of having a couple per day for a while. In terms of certain foods though, there is no way that cold turkey is the best approach. In those cases, slow and steady change wins out!
This totally happens to me when I don’t eat regularly or I’m working too much. I get soooooo freaking hungry that when I’m finally able to eat, I stuff myself. 🙁
Great post! Me and hubby are trying to eat better and I’m currently on a shopping ban. We have been experiencing exactly what you describe! When you deprive yourself too much you just end up binging. We’re working on developing a good balance on both fronts. Haven’t quite gotten there yet, but its a work in progress 🙂
I resonate with this a lot. Sometimes I am so focused on trying to pay off debt, and not going out or spending money at all, that I will cave and go crazy on a nice meal with drinks. I realize if I can just have small luxuries and not deprive myself all the time, I might be better.
Agreed! I think if we deprive ourselves, we end up thinking of what we “can’t” have, and it makes us want to rebel that much more. That was like me with chocolate. Now I take a more balance approach with it.
Ha I have done that food binging thing before. Not good! I totally agree with this. I’ve been going through a little bit of frugal fatigue lately and I think it’s because my discretionary spending has been too restrictive. To combat that I’ve allowed myself to purchase a few things guilt free, and now I feel like I’m back on track.
I totally agree with your point. It is like the more you are holding a sand so tight, the more it slips out. Depriving yourself totally with what you want makes you crave for more and this isn’t good at all.