When I first started working with my client Jeff, he was feeling somewhat out of control of his eating. He was eating candy throughout the day, often relying on fast food for meals, and wasn’t eating many fruits or vegetables. We started working on the CBT skills he needed to slowly change his thinking and start consistently making choices he felt better about. Over time, he was able to change his eating. He was eating lots of fruits and vegetables, healthy proteins, and was limiting carbs. He was only having dessert once a week. Jeff felt great, and he described to me that eating this way didn’t feel that hard to him.
Then, Jeff went through a busy period at work, in conjunction with some family members’ health stressors, and Jeff’s eating got off track. He fell back into some old habits like not packing a healthy lunch and instead getting fast food, and he started eating sweets/desserts again every day. This resulted in Jeff gaining some weight back. In session, Jeff told me he was ready to get back on track (and back to feeling good). We came up with a plan, which included going back to having dessert just once a week and strictly limiting carbs.
When I met with Jeff this week, he told me that he wasn’t able to follow through with the plan. It felt too hard to have dessert just once a week, and he wanted more carbs than his original plan allowed. It was then clear to me: the eating plan Jeff had been following when he initially lost weight was what we call “Honeymoon Phase eating.” Many of my clients experience this same phenomenon: they learn these critical CBT skills for the first time, understand how to change their thinking, and are able to start following a healthier eating plan as a result. None of it feels that hard initially because they’re in the honeymoon phase. But, like all honeymoon phases, it never lasts forever.
Sometimes, we know why the honeymoon phase ends (in Jeff’s case, he got busy at work and had stressors in his personal life), and sometimes we don’t. Regardless, the honeymoon ends at some point, and following a healthy eating plan feels harder.
I explained to Jeff that he wasn’t able to stick to his plan the previous week because it was honeymoon phase eating, which often isn’t reasonable once the honeymoon ends. Even though eating in such a healthy way didn’t feel hard for him at the time, getting back to it was ultimately too restrictive for the long term. Jeff and I discussed that we needed to figure out “rest of his life” eating – which had many of the same elements as honeymoon phase eating, but also would include more carbs and more dessert (in reasonable amounts).
Jeff told me he felt much better now that he understood why he wasn’t able to get back to his previous way of eating. We crafted a plan together that seemed reasonable given where he was at now.