If You Know You're An Abstainer or You Think You Might Be...

I love the Whole30. I love Melissa Hartwig. But man, that one-bite article gives me anxiety. The first time I read it, we had completed our Whole100, and I felt ready to face the world. I felt successful and confident and ready to finally master the moderation philosophy that I've aspired to my entire life (or at least the last 20 years that I've cared about such things).

And I failed. I had an Instagram account dedicated to my Whole30 journey; I followed the advice and I failed. Now, I love me some tough love, and often I've found myself wincing and chuckling when I get called out (the "At least it's better than..." rant Melissa posted was one current example). But in this case I read the tough love portion that implied that I wasn't taking responsibility for my thought processes, that if I just paid a little more attention to my food and didn't let myself off the hook I'd be golden--and it pretty much led to despair because how could I do all this work and have all of this accountability and still not be able to do this?

I told myself "this is just the way I eat now" and "I'm learning to ride my own bike," but each week I was gradually allowing myself more treats. I'd say no to a donut. Later I restricted myself to one piece of pizza. By the time the dessert train rolled around, I was tired of making decisions and tasting yummy things but cutting myself off. I felt like I was constantly questioning myself and having to make numerous decisions about food at each meal, and it was exhausting. Major decision fatigue each and every day.

There's a follow-up post that addresses this a little. But I was still left hanging. I decided to do another Whole30.

This is what it looks like when an Abstainer tries to Moderate. Wrong direction, belly! Mind you, the 80/20 picture was taken AFTER my June Whole30 when I tried to reign things back in. I couldn't face taking a picture before I started, so I was probably even poochier. Also, I did not work out consistently at all during our Whole100. In the 80/20 pic, I'd been working out consistently for 7 weeks...

When I compared the picture I took at the end of June with the one after our Whole100 in April, I had a breakdown. The prospect of thinking about my food so much again only to find myself back sliding made me slightly crazy and I took a couple weeks off of Instagram and off of healthy eating at all.

Now, I should mention that I've never struggled with over restricting myself. This article on the Whole30 site is a good one to read to make sure that you're not calling yourself an abstainer as a way to justify disordered eating.  There's a list of questions in that post to help you determine if you're mis-using the Whole30. I answered an emphatic "NOPE. LOL" to each question.

After a couple weeks, I was more scared about re-gaining all the weight I'd lost than I was about facing Instagram again, but I still wasn't sure what to do. I admired all of these accounts that declared "I'm not on Whole30, that's just how I eat now." How to do that? How, how, how, how... And that's when I decided I'd post about my "Ticket Theory" and see what kind of feedback I got. Then someone mentioned Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before and I read it and BOOM. It was like daylight flooded in.

I'd written about my understanding of her Abstainer vs. Moderator personalities before, but reading stuff like the One-Bite Rule made me doubt myself. Maybe I was just not fully enlightened yet? After numerous Whole30s and a Whole100??  But at one point in the book Rubin mentions that pretty much every nutritionist she's ever known is a moderator and that moderators and abstainers can be very judgmental about each other; I was like THANK YOU. FINALLY.

Interestingly, Rubin also mentions Gary Taubes' book Why We Get Fat, which I've also read. I wasn't completely sold on all of his science, but it did get me wondering if maybe, just maybe, some of us experience food differently than others? What if it's not just that I'm more stupid or lazy or have less self control than my ideal-weight friends, but that I'm actually struggling with different kinds of reactions when I take in certain foods?

Anyway, the weekend I finished the book, I decided to embrace myself and wave my abstainer freak flag high. I cannot tell you how free I feel now. It's only been two weeks, true, but I'm just...happier. I know what to do now.

Here's how this works, and you moderators prob won't understand, but if you're abstainer, I'm sure that you will identify:

Last night my husband sat next to me eating a bowl of ice cream after the kids had gone down. This has always been the time of day that I struggle with cravings. I could smell the ice cream, and the thought of having some popped into my head. And then I thought, "Nope, if I have a bite I'll want more. I'm an abstainer." Case closed. I had no ice cream, and I didn't think about it any further.

Had I asked him for a bite, I would have spent the rest of the evening thinking about having more. At some point I would have gotten myself a bowl. And possibly a second one. And then today while he's at work, I would have an ice cream spoon on the counter and I would have been sneaking bites here and there whenever I felt like I needed a reward... What I think moderators don't understand is that I don't feel deprived when I'm abstaining; when I have one bite, I feel deprived in a way similar to what they describe when they're trying to abstain.

This post is getting lengthy, so I'm gonna wrap up, but I have more to say about accepting myself and the positives about being an Abstainer, so I'll have to do a part two on this.

In conclusion: