I'm on my own diet. Moving around more, watching my food intake (or my bingeing depending on my mood) etc. So far, I've lost 20 lbs.

I allow a few treats here and there, i.e, for me no restriction too rigid. So once or twice in a week I take in "risque" foods.

My question is...often I find myself reasoning: only this pizza/ burger/ french fries/ grilled pork/ (big) bowl of spicy rice etc...will not make me fat...what's the point in trying to resist it? It will take far more than this food to make me regain, yadda yadda.

I wanted to know if someone experiences the same things and how you deal with that.

Calories matter. To some macros matter quite a bit to others less so.

I just blogged the last few days about the self-talk, the voices in the head about food etc.

It is true, no individual portion or individual food can make you fat, but it might be a "gateway drug" or a trigger for overeating.

For people who have food loves - that could be eating chips... that result to eating bags and bags of chips every day - unable to resist once that first bag is opened up.

Or, it might be that sugary/carb laden food that spikes your insulin and then tells your brain that you need MORE carb laden foods.... and then you find yourself unable to stop eating cake, bread, chocolate bars, etc.

So... no, a food in itself cannot make you fat, but as I said yesterday in my blog, a calorie is not just a calorie for many people.

I hear of very few people who binge on steak and eggs and broccoli and kale. It's usually on carb heavy foods - pizza, chips, sweets, etc.

For me that has meant being EXTREMELY careful with watching carbs. I don't have a "little" problem. I have a HUGE problem. No one gains 60 pounds in less than a year like that unless they have a problem.

Yeah, the problem comes in when you find that you're telling yourself that ("this food won't make me fat) everyday or too often where it starts putting weight on you. That "line" of how often is okay is really individual. Just keep monitoring yourself. If you find the scale is going up and you're having too many of those kinds of days, then you know you may have to cut them back. If you are losing weight fine while still enjoying your higher carb days, then you are experiencing the best of both worlds

Everything in moderation. You will not lose if you don't eat at a caloric deficit regardless of what it is.

My eating plan is quite similar to yours!!! To begin my weight loss I wanted to ease into it and not be too restrictive at first because I know I've strayed from that completely in the past.
For me I was doing that daily...thinking "oh, just this won't make me fat" and no, one "unhealthy" item won't do it but the an excess will and any calories taken in and not burned are going to be bad news.

Now, like you, I allow myself about 2 off plan meals per week. Usually a piece of pizza or buffalo anything. Its about eating mostly on plan and letting yourself go off plan every now and then be the exception to the rule, not the rule.
Yes I absolutely experience the same feeling you do, and once that is in my mind I try to curb my thoughts and think about what else I have eaten that day. Have I had enough veggies/fruits? enough protein? enough water? Sometimes when you really really want something and it is something you love it is best to just indulge! Then other times it could be that you are craving more nutrient dense foods and that will nip the problem.

The Beck Diet Solution chapter on sabotaging thoughts has helped me address those rationalizing thought processes that can eventually derail a weight loss plan. Experience has taught me that soon I will be saying that more and more often, because there just aren't enough of those triggering foods to satisfy me.

The only way I allow triggering foods is at a social occasion with others. So far it's working well. It removes 2 stressors that usually lead me to slip in a big way: takes away forbidden, never quality from those foods & takes away the stress & dread of social events. I feel a lot more relaxed about both the food and socializing. And it satisfies the "treat food" itch. If there is a run of events, I do the best I can and stay focused on my normal WOE the rest of the time maybe do a reboot for a week or two. Before, I would restrict myself at a party and afterwards buy way too many treats to eat at home.

This is the closest I've come to moderating my addictive relationship with triggering foods. Some people actually can have "just one" but I'm not one of them. Best of luck to you as you figure it all out!

I know those thoughts.... one cup cake won't make you fat just like one salad won't make you skinny. The problem with this type of thinking is that it sets you up to restrict. Even if you're not restricting, the thought that you should be restricting can lead you to do what some perceive as bad things. I don't believe in "trigger foods" any more than I believe in voodoo. I used to, and for a long time but that didn't quite work out did it?

I know I know, I'm getting to be known as the IE girl around here but hey, so many people are demonizing food groups that I don't feel bad standing on my experience now. I know this is working for me and it's the first thing that has ever worked, and it's something I am successful doing and that doesn't require me to be disappointed in myself day after day. A particular aspect of IE deals directly with food anxiety - which I have suffered with forever. Food anxiety means staying on a plan, being nervous in food situations like going out with friends or to a party, being afraid to have certain foods around the house, thinking of eating as cheating, feeling guilt over food eaten, constant revision of the foods allowed/not allowed, and the overall mentality of falling on and off wagons. Basically now instead of dealing with what and when I eat I deal with how and why I eat.

OP, if you're thinking to yourself that this one sandwich is not going to make you fat then you're on the right track. Food does not make you fat. Overeating and eating for reasons other than hunger make us fat. If I were to approach your sandwich with my new IE mind it would sound more like this. "Hmmmm, sandwich." I would gauge my hunger and if I would eat it only if I was truly hungry. Whilst eating it I would eat slowly, deliberately, without distraction and stop halfway through for a little break. At the end of the break I'd reassess my hunger and if I was still hungry I'd continue to eat it. I will eat until I'm rather full but not stuffed. Then I would feel nothing after wards, I wouldn't write it down and I would do my best to avoid any feelings of guilt. Guilt is the main emotion that drives me to "heck with it" and makes me keep eating. At first this was all foreign to me, I've been doing it since the beginning of February and I can safely say that there is nothing that "triggers" me anymore. I'm driven by hunger, real hunger only, anxiety plays no role any more.

For me, trigger foods are not "voodoo" or in any way imaginary as the term "voodoo" sort of implies. Or am I misunderstanding your meaning?

I'm certainly happy that you have discovered that you don't really have trigger foods and can actually eat anything you want and have an approach that works for you. I think that's great.

To me the word trigger foods means that these foods have some sort of power beyond nutrition. The idea that a certain food can make me eat more and more and more of it is an idea that I used to believe simply because people told me to believe it. I have come to understand now that it's not true for me. I was giving food way more power than it deserved and that left me weak and disabled and constantly feeling like I was falling off the wagon and cheating.

Basically, you need to realize that yes, just "one" meal does make a difference. If you eat a meal that's 350 calories more than usual, that's either slowing your weight loss by 1/10 of a pound or making you gain 1/10 of a pound.

Even 350 calories! Realize the significance of 1/10 of a pound. If you overeat by 350 calories, that's 350 calories you will have to deprive yourself of later, when you might actually need them. And 350 calories is what many people would consider "nothing."

If you overeat in a day by 1000 calories, well, one week of doing that and you would gain two pounds of fat.

I like to think of my choices this way : If I did this every day, how bad or good would it be? Honestly, every time I overeat, drink a ton of alcohol, or otherwise binge in some way, it hurts me because I know I've lost the benefit of my own self-discipline and changing habits and gave in, and often I don't even feel much enjoyment in the moment, and certainly not the next morning.

Of course, life happens. If you have one cupcake, realize that means skipping a portion of rice, or something like that. Would you rather have a cupcake now, or a normal sized dinner later? Sometimes, the cupcake wins, and that's okay! As long as you account for it later.

Think of each decision you make about food as an opportunity to create a "ripple effect" of good decisions. Once you keep on making good decisions, you will form a habit of making good decisions about food. By practicing moderation always, you will naturally become accustomed to moderation. Isn't it that way with all habits?

You start out doing something very simple--you take the very first steps in forming a new habit. Isn't it true that the beginning is harder? Once you keep taking those steps, each step after it becomes easier. But it works both ways. If you indulge, it becomes easier to indulge again. You become accustomed to indulgence, and so it seems "normal." So even if those 350 calories won't make or break you--forming bad habits will make everything much harder.

It is always good to search for what works for each of us as individuals, and be willing to question our methods and approaches if they are not working.

Trying to jam a square peg in a round hole definitely isn't useful!

The "common wisdom", or "conventional approach", or "latest plan", or "what other people say about this, that, or the other" may not actually work for a particular person. So it is good to read about a wide variety of options.

It sounds like you've found what works for you.

The idea of triggers comes from the world of addiction treatment. Alcoholics and drug addicts talk about triggers as situations that make them want to drink. Driving by the liquor store on your way home from work can be a trigger for an alcoholic, or maybe being at a Christmas party with your family. They are situations where you have to be particularly careful because your brain has linked it with using a substance and you will feel the urge. Newly recovering addicts will typically try to avoid triggers until they build up a stronger foundation for their recovery. It would be quite odd for an alcoholic to never attend a Christmas party again because of the urge to drink. The point of recognizing triggers is to be able anticipate when an urge to abuse a substance will come and then to deal with it. But you can't argue with results; different strokes for different folks.

i think it's just figuring out what kind of person YOU are in terms of watching what you eat.

I for example, do far better having roughly the same (very healthy) foods 6 days a week and the 7th day is a planned splurge on whatever foods i like. i do not do well going into the day without some kind of structure and i don't beat myself up over that, that i'm a carb addict and have problems with food and that's the way i manage it and it's OKAY.

If it works for YOU to have no food be taboo and you are wise enough to know that to keep in weight loss mode or in maintenance that you HAVE TO portion control, then you should consume those foods w/out guilt

To me they're a slippery slope and I don't want to go there.

I count my calories and that keeps my intake in check.