Favourite comfort foods|Flexible restraint

Food choices - The very nature of a model’s work means she must maintain a steady weight for her entire career.

Using ‘flexible restraint’ allows her to follow a healthy-eating routine most of the time, but sometimes include favourite comfort foods or have an exotic meal out, as opposed to ‘rigid restraint’, which involves strict unbending dietary rules.

Most models prefer to use the 80/20 ratio, eating healthy, real food for 80 per cent per cent of the time and using the remaining 20 per cent for treats.

Food choices - Flexible restraint greatly reduces the risk of ‘all or nothing’ thinking. Relapsing and bingeing.

It helps you to be satisfied with small amounts of your favourite foods, knowing you can eat them again sometimes, rather than a particular occasion being your ‘last chance’. It’s a sign that you’re in control of your food choices and your weight, rather than them controlling you.

Research shows us that flexible restraint works brilliantly for long-term weight control, whether you’re maintaining a healthy weight or trying to lose some. Those who slimmed successfully in recent tests developed a personal and flexible approach to eating, while those who failed generally opted for rigid plans.

Food for thought
Why is it that people on diets spend all their time thinking about food = except when they’re actually eating? Then they try not to notice what’s happening.

We all over-indulge sometimes = even supermodels. Which one of us hasn’t scoffed an entire packet of HobNobs when we’ve been really down? Oh, probably a few lifestyle guru- somes, living their perfect, over-disciplined lives = but do we want to know them? Not in this life thanks.

Yet over-indulging with food, and a ‘binge’, can mean different things to different people. A serious binge has both the following characteristics:

1.Eating much more fattening food than you would normally eat within a short period of time.

2.Feeling out of control during the eating period. It’s this feeling of ‘lack of control’ along with guilt and remorse after the binge that really distinguishes a binge from  overeating.

Some of us may have a true binge without it being a real problem, whereas others binge frequently, to the extent that it seriously affects their lives. Many doctors believe that , as with other serious eating disorders, cognitive behavioural therapy is the most helpful way to tackle the problem, as it focuses on the cause rather than the food.