Something I couldn’t admit to myself for the longest time was my binge eating issue. I still sometimes get into a stressful situation and my instinct is to still over indulge. Delayed gratification helped me with keeping balance with problematic food.
I have been part of the Half Size Me community for a long time and one of the monthly challenges was to practice delayed gratification. My cycle was to ether restrict food or over indulge and this challenge forced me to first realize that restricting doesn’t really work because of the binging problem I was having. Second thing I learned in this practice is portion control. When I let myself have a ‘treat’ everyday the stigma around that food no longer became problematic. At first we just pushed back the time, after a while I didn’t feel like I needed a ‘treat’ at all.
At some point I stopped calling those foods ‘treats’ because something about it being a treat felt off for me. I do still have some foods that are problematic but I don’t call it a treat or a snack, it’s a food I choose to limit.
In all honesty I do have foods I just don’t keep in the apartment and it will remain that way. I have several things I choose not to consume at all and it’s for my benefit. To be specific it’s Oreos and any McDonalds food. I still practice delayed gratification daily. It’s something that I plan the day before and varies from pumpkin protein custard to hot cheetos (its rare but a favorite). There are some foods like potato chips I eat outside of my home. I create parameters of what and how I consume higher palatable foods that have caused me issues in the past but as you can see I have very few ‘no go’ foods and I’m happy delayed gratification taught me a more balanced way of eating.
Not everyday is perfect and I do still sometimes want to eat because I’m emotional. It’s amazing how much food freedom I gained by planning and scheduling my meals. It was tough to build that self trust and I owe a lot of that to delayed gratification and the Half Size Me community.