Break the script!

These are the script breaking exercises from this week. They're designed to break me out of ingrained habits and step things up a bit.

1. Cup of Rooibos Tea after dinner ✅ build this in to my routine! Instead of seconds or finishing leftovers.

2. Order first - order what I want not what others order next time I'm out for dinner.

There's a whole lesson on this one!

• Choose in advance - check the menu ahead of time
• Don't ask about what everyone else is ordering - don't mention what you're ordering. To avoid peer pressure about it!
• Make conversation and eye contact - to avoid subconsiously copying what others are doing with the shared food
•  Take smaller bites - 

If you you eat with someone else, you'll eat 44% more calories than dining alone. Even more so if the 'someone else' is friend or family. Even more so, the bigger the group - 96% more with a group of 7!

• Choose low calorie density foods - there's always something on the menu
• Figure out what you will eat (within budget) and what you could eat (to take you up to and a little over). Divide food on your plate. (Less of an issue outside the US!)
• Consider something else than dinner out! A walk, a show, anything else.

3. No electronics ✅  20 Aug with Toby, Tessa and Angela. In the now with my food. It's meant I'm behind in my Noom work though because I do it over lunch! That's quite ironic. It took me five days to catch up after that. I think Noom will be the exception to this experiment.

4. An unstructured day of eating. Eat when I'm hungry, til I'm satiated. This one's a little complicated:

• Eating because it's mealtime is one of the most common eating scripts!
• Pitfalls of preventing me recognising and listening to my true hunger and fulness cues.
• Decide WHAT I'll be eating throughout the day - prep food in advance and have it ready to go
• Leave the WHEN up to my stomach

I dunno about this one. It doesn't feel right for me to be honest.

5. Be the first to finish. Finish eating (not my plate!) before anyone else. If someone else finishes - stop too!

6. Expose yourself. ✅ Expose yourself to the biggest, baddest food trigger you can, and overcome it. Right, Indian takeaways tonight. I'll order the bryani and I won't finish it.

Really proud of myself with this one. I've NEVER done Indian without grossly overeating. But I ordered the biryani, I had measured portions of onion bhaji and chicken biryani, I kept away from the rich gooey butter chicken and I had leftovers aplenty for lunch the next day. Nailed it.

7. Don't finish your plate. Leave five, count them, five bites of dinner on your plate this week.