Okay, so here’s the followup inertia post I promised the other day.

I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, and have been meaning to post something about it for a month now, ever since coming across this post from Rantings of a struggling fat chick:

HOW do I change my mindset so that I don’t feel like I’m “missing out” when I don’t get to eat all the tasty greasy and otherwise delicious foods? How do I make myself fall out of love with food?

This is exactly what I was asking myself a little over a year ago.

Last January, a typical Saturday for me would have involved sleeping in until 9 or 10, heading over to McDonalds at 11 for a Big Mac meal (large), with fries and a Diet Coke. Some brunch! Around 6, I’d have my cocktail hour, and I’d polish off several glasses of wine along with some munchies (my faves were either cheese crackers or salt and vinegar potato chips). By 7, it’d be time to place the order for take-out Chinese, and I’d generally eat two egg rolls followed by some General Tso’s chicken and some veggie moo shu. I’d then have dessert, which could be ice cream, a candy bar, or cookies.

Contrast that with a typical Saturday now. I’m up earlier, and usually have breakfast by 9, which is generally oatmeal, fresh fruit, and yogurt. Lunch is one of my go-to faves, which is doctored soup. For example, I start with a can of Progresso minestrone, and add frozen spinach, frozen peas, fresh garlic, some grilled salmon, and a couple dashes of hot sauce. Dinner is often some grilled chicken, brown rice, and assorted veggies. I really like adding pesto (either basil or sun-dried tomato) to the veggies. If I have an evening snack, it will probably be an apple cut into wedges dusted with cinnamon and a small amount of dark chocolate.

How the heck did I do this?

Well, I wish I knew for sure. I’m really sorry I didn’t start blogging before I got started on my eating healthy kick, because it would have been a lot fresher in my mind.

But here’s what seems true now. First of all, I did approach this differently than I had the gazillions of other things I’d tried in the past. What I theorized was that it was possible to actually want to eat healthier. And I was curious to see where I’d be if I stopped my compulsive overeating. I also figured that if I could want to eat healthier, it would be so much less stress: so much less banging my head against the wall as I beat myself up for eating the way I used to.

Because I really was beating myself up for that. And now when I look back, I have to ask: why in the world didn’t I want to eat healthy?

I mean, like most heavy overeaters, it’s not like I didn’t know what was nutritious and what wasn’t. Like many, I was a walking food guide. Yet I had the same kind of mindset as I kicked off my eating healthy plan: how can I stand missing out on all my old favorite foods?

Now when I look back, I think of this as a kind of psychological inertia. When you couple that with the physiological cravings that I believe that eating junk food can cause in some folks, it’s no wonder why it’s so hard.

I talked about inertia shortly after I started Act Boldly. Okay, I’m a geek (I have a physics minor), but I still think that there’s something worthwhile in considering how inertia applies.

Basically, what inertia says is that it is really hard to make a change, as you have to apply some extra effort to stop doing what you’ve been doing. In physics, this means that if you’re at a stop, you have to apply some force in order to begin moving. In eating, I think it means that if you’ve been eating junk food for years, you’ll need to make an effort to change the way you eat.

But what physics also tells us that once you’re moving, you don’t need to do as much work to keep going. What I’ve found is that the kind of head banging I was doing (What? No more french fries?!) has really, really lessened as I’ve experienced feeling so good with healthy eating.

I didn’t know that this was going to happen when I got started, but the longer I’ve gone on, the easier it has become. So I guess this is a little bit of science meets religion: physics can explain it, but you do need to take an initial leap of faith.

Ultimately, I have come to realize that all the time I was enjoying those Big Macs and egg rolls, I was essentially starving myself. No wonder I had cravings!

The value of increasing nutrients in the diet (which requires reducing non-nutritive foods) is gaining a lot of traction these days. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have to go back to work next week, as I’ll probably miss interesting nuggets like these on the talk shows, but here’s something that Ashley Judd had to say on Martha Stewart yesterday regarding NutritionAID, (a program to help teens learn healthy eating and increase physical activity):

I got into working with American kids regarding nutrition. What I see abroad is that there’s so much poverty and malnourishment through lack, but what I see in America is that we’re overfed but undernourished. So wev’e got the same problem but with reverse proportions.

Hmmm…overfed but undernourished. Boy, does that sound like it describes my old way of eating!

Courtesy of a pointer from CalorieLab, I did a little Google surfing and came across a recommendation for communicating nutrient density as a tool to help people make better choices:

Why choose an apple over a bag of pretzels if they have roughly the same number of calories? It would be a simple matter of taste if calories were the only thing that counted. But nutrients count, too. For an equal number of calories, a person could also get fiber, vitamin C, and potassium by going with the apple. This example illustrates the concept of “nutrient density,” which may be new to many people, although it’s highlighted in the USDA 2005 Dietary Guidelines. Eileen Kennedy, DSc, RD, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, thinks it’s important to help consumers understand the concept of nutrient density and how to categorize and choose foods based on nutrient density. …

Energy-dense foods provide more calories per unit of volume than less energy-dense foods. These calories, which come largely from refined sugars and fat, are sometimes called “empty calories.” “In other words,” says Kennedy, “energy-dense might sound healthy but it usually isn’t.”

Nutrient-dense foods, on the other hand, provide more nutrients and generally fewer calories per unit volume. “They’re the foods that are loaded with the nutrients we need to thrive,” says Kennedy. … “If Americans choose foods based on nutrient density,” Kennedy says, “they will, essentially, be choosing foods based on quality.”

As Gerald Pugliese suggests over on Joel Fuhrman’s (of Eat to Live fame) blog (emphasis mine):

To me, the thing that’s missing from most discussions of weight loss, including this one, is the idea of excellent nutrition, that actually improves your overall health as you lose weight. (It’s not just about avoiding certain foods–but is rather about gravitating to others.)

So, of course, we’re all different, and no one plan works for everyone.

But if you’re like me, you may want to try and summon up the energy to give healthy eating a try. When I started, I had very, very little energy, and had been using the “one more day” excuse for way too long.

So I borrowed a trick I’d heard from Tony Robbins (the self-help guru) who said something years ago about needing to break patterns. So what I did when I first got started was to not come home for dinner the first week!

As you can tell from my old way of eating, dinner was my problem, so what I did was break my old pattern, and I ate dinner at work for several days. I also made it easy, so dinner was generally my doctored soup.

After a few days, the cravings were much, much less, and I was able to come home at a normal time. As I mentioned before, I also choose easy first. I did a lot of takeout initially, with favorites being a Chipoltle burrito in a bowl and a Subway turkey sub. I’d supplement with veggies, generally frozen spinach, broccoli, or peppers.

The longer I did this, the more energy I had. I wasn’t hungry, because I was really filling up on veggies (gotta love that fiber) and I allowed myself good fats, which helped me stay full longer. And as time went by, I started cooking more. But even then, I tended to make that easy (e.g., this pumpkin soup recipe).

These days, I still make use of canned soup and frozen veggies. But I’m also branching out and trying new techniques to maximize the nutrients (in fact, I just bought a casserole with lid to try Alton Brown’s baked brown rice).

And while the old me couldn’t imagine giving up my Big Mac and fries, the new me now can’t imagine not wanting to give myself the advantage of eating healthy stuff. I didn’t know this would happen when I started, but I thought it was possible.

That doesn’t mean I won’t ever eat my old faves. In fact, I’m having Easter dinner at my sister’s in-laws tomorrow, and I fully expect to enjoy whatever is served, dessert and all. But on Monday, I’ll be back to going for the nutrients.

Like I said in the original inertia post, I think this is a lot like learning to ride a bicycle. If you’re like me, it’s not like you won’t have a few spills along the way (I certainly did after every vacation :). But IMO, it’s really worth perservering. With practice, it may well be that you can make healthy eating something you once thought you’d never get, but soon find second nature.

Update, 4/17: More serendipity…over on Elsewhere, Amanda makes a similar connection between nutrition and weight.

Update, 4/18: There must be something in the water :). Wendy (of Why the Weight?) is also on a serious nutrition kick. Sweet!