The Eight Thin Commandment
Stop Feeling Deprived

Commandment Essentials

- Change your mindset - not just your eating habits.
- Learn to Thinspeak (Supporting yourself with motivational, not de-moralizing, words.
- Reward yourself with a new outfit or piece of jewelry instead of food.
- Let your old trigger foods go, and embrace the delicious foods that won't put you at war with yourself
- Remember, thin tastes better.
- Record and then regularly listen to an empowerment tape to help you think and feel like a weight-control winner.

We might all rally a little more motivation and commitment, and we might stick with our diets till the end of only - if only we didn't feel we were missing something. This sense of deprivation is the mindset behind the behaviors - it's the self-talk that generates the actions. It often flied under the radar, eluding our awareness completely, but it's the greater problem.

Overcoming the deprivation mindset is a key and critical dynamic for success at weight control.

Before we began our journey's and started learning about the correct way to eat, we had all the foods we wanted, whenever we wanted them, but that freedom didn't make us happy - it only made us heavy!

It is almost impossible for most middle-class people to truly be DEPRIVED of food. We are drowning in an overabundance of food.

We have power over the feeling of deprivation. You have the ability to control it, decrease it, even extinguish it, because the source of it begins and ends with you. By becoming aware and zeroing in on your own thinking and behavior, you can eliminate the causes and proceses that ignite deprivation.

It's not enough to just change your habits, your mindset has to change too.

9 Behaviors that Increase a Feeling of Deprivation

1) Allowing too much proximity - Keeping all the foods that tempt you around and on display at home. Availability stimulates craving.

2) Telling yourself that if you can't have it, you'll be deprived - Behind this statement is the assumption that it's not normal; and everyone else is having it.

3) Going too long without eating - If you're starving, just seeing and smelling food will have a powerful impact.

4) Going into food situations unprepared - have a strategy set for occasions when the food choices may be limited. If you don't have the right foods around you, eventually you'll eat the wrong ones.

5) Forgetting that you konw what it tastes like - You've already tasted it all; there are no more surprises.

6) Tasting trigger foods that you've decided to Box Out - Don't forget that you can't have "just a little" of the foods that have ben a problem for you historically. It's not about the calories ina taste but about the cravings and food interest that taste reactivates.

7) Not giving yourself alternative rewards - You can minimize your deprivation response before entering a risky food situation by doing a mental rehearsal and reminding yourself of your new reward system.

8) Failing to embrace the substitutes - Studies show that if you don't have your favorite food, but you have your second favorite, your better able to control it.

9) Forgetting that eating a food is not free - Once you realize the high cost of a behavior, it reduces the attractiveness of that behavior.

Learn to Thin Speak

"I'm missing out on the fun." - What fun? You've had it for years and it didn't make you hapy; it only made you fat.

"Everybody's eating it." True or not, you've had enough for three lifetimes.

"What's wrong with a taste?" Taking a taste makes it harder. It's like an ex-smoker taking "just one" cigarette. It's restarting the pattern.

"I just want it." I want to be thin even more. I don't want it enough to wear it.

"It's so hard." Being fat is harder.


If you think that you have to give up the pleasure of fine food for a lifetime, it will seem impossibly hard. Being thin isn't about giving up the fun in your life or the pleasure of reat dining - It's about giving up sloppy compulsive eating behaviors and habits that keep your from succeeding.



Christin's Comments -

This chapter for me is kind of the "tough love" chapter. Kind of a slap in the face regarding my own selfish and childish behaviors and viewpoints on food.

I have learned though the key about "it just doesn't work for me," and that one key helped me overcome the deprivation hurdle. I actually feel more impowered and definitely healthier by making the decision to abstain from certain foods.

I love the last line here in this summary about giving up sloppy and compulsive eating behaviors. There is so much more control in a planned menu and having healthy good for you snacks on hand for those occasional munchies. Otherwise, I'd be sitting here munching on an entire bag of potato chips. Those just simply do not appeal to me any longer because I've been able to substitute for them.

"Thin-Speaking" really helps as well when you're working on talking yourself through difficult situations. I am one that it is hard for me to have "just one taste" of a tempting food. So therefore I have to box out and keep out of my house most things that are difficult for me to be around.

Christin,

Great job on what just may be my favorite chapter of the book! This chapter really turned a light on for me about the 'deprivation' mindset. I never really realized just how strongly I felt deprived and how that motivated me to 'treat' myself with food.

I now realize that 'treats' are for dogs...not people! Dr. Gullo really brings out the fact that thinking in the terms of 'food treats or rewards' is such a childish behavior! And I've been guilty for years...but NO more. I am so done with deprivation!!!

I realize now that what I've really been deprived of was my health and well being along with the enjoyment of life's real pleasures. I was deprived of not fitting into a restaurant booth, not being able to run with my grandkids, not being able to fasten my seatbelt without a struggle, not being able to fit into even my 'big' clothes, not being able to walk without hurting, and the list goes on and on.

I am not a child and I will not longer think like a child when it comes to food and good health. My mom bribed me with 'treats', but that was in my past and I refuse to live with such childish thinking now that I am a mature adult. I'm tired of the 'I deserve it' attitude concerning food and I'm tired of the detrimental results it leads to!

Deprivation...I am so done with you!

Childish thinking...I am so done with you!

I met someone at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee last week and I didn't even feel deprived because I didn't get a donut. Woo-hoo!

There are SO many revelations in this book...it has definitely propelled me farther down the weight control stream than anything else I've read in a long time.

Thanks Christin and Sandi for your hard work and encouragement with this forum and all the posts you have made. You both are an inspiration...keep up the good work!

Your Friend,

Ron

Well, I'm just a bit surprised that this thread on 'The Eighth Thin Commandment' hasn't generated more interest and response than it has. In that case I guess I'll just continue to ramble and rant about it myself. I really do believe it is one of my favorites!

This 'Deprivation' thing has really got me to thinking and soul searching since I've read it in the last couple of weeks. I really think that the 'deprivation mindset' is one the 'hidden' catalysts in my out of control eating behavior. Eating because we 'feel' deprived is the epitome of 'emotional eating', in my opinion. The fact is, we are not really deprived at all, we just 'feel' like we are, or convince ourself in our mind that we are deprived because we didn't get to eat certain foods. And those foods were ALWAYS sugar and refined-carb laden foods...if you really want to call them foods!

Think about it a minute. Donuts are not really a 'food' in the strictest sense of the word. They are a 'food like substance'...a non-nutrient...a man-made 'junk food'. Donuts, and a hundred other carb-laden junk foods were always the ones that we used to 'treat' or 'reward' ourself with because we felt deprived if we didn't get them. Deprived of what? Deprived of a few seconds, at best, of tasting 'junk foods' that were pleasurable to our taste buds. Deprived of the feel of that wonderful texture we loved. Deprived of that ever elusive and short lived aroma. Everything we felt so deprived of lasted only a few seconds.

I never really thought beyond those few seconds of pleasure [not that I'm proud of that fact]. I never, never, never considered the 'results' or 'consequences' of that 2 to 5 minutes of 'pleasure eating'. I couldn't see the forest for the trees, so to speak. It still amazes me how we can become so deceived about such matters.

Feeding, or in my case overfeeding, my 'deprivation mindset' made me feel better for a few minutes, but little did I realize that my behavior was actually 'depriving' me of life itself! Stuffing my face with donuts only caused additional stored fat, raised my BP and cholesterol, made my clothes uncomfortable, made my body parts hurt, gave me brain fog, exacerbated my tremor, caused fatigue and sleep problems...and that's the short list! See what I'm saying...I was kidding myself all the time...for years!

Well, I'm wise to it now, thanks to Dr. Gullo. I've tasted it all...I've tried it all...I know what it tastes and smells like...so one more taste is going to do absolutely NOTHING for me! No, I don't need a treat...I'm not a child or a dog! I'm an adult who is so done with the 'deprivation mindset'. It shall no longer rule over me!

I also realize I was really deprived of ribeye steaks, prime rib, grilled salmon, grilled chicken breasts, sausage, bacon, pork chops, good cheeses, full-fat yogurt, eggs, broccoli, spinach, asparagus and list goes on and on of delicious low-carb foods...real foods with real names that you can actually pronounce. Foods that fill you up and keep you full...all the while causing you to drop the pounds!

No, don't try to convince me that I am deprived by eating low-carb...you got here just a little bit too late for that! My joints don't hurt, my brain fog is gone, I can fit into a restaurant booth, I can bend over and tie my shoes without my face turning red, I can take a hike with my grandkids, my blood pressure is the best it's been in years. Now tell me I'm deprived...NOT!!!

This is just too good. I just had to sound off [ramble on and rant] about this neat little discovery that will help me for years to come.

Folks, 'The Thin Commandments' is one book that is a MUST for your low-carb library! If you've had problems with emotional eating, mindless eating, compulsive eating, overeating, bingeing, feeling deprived, loving yourself with food, etc....then GET THIS BOOK...READ IT...AND REREAD IT! And most of all...DO IT!!! It will change your life. This book has the stuff none of the 'Low-Carb Plan' books even come close to touching.

End of rant!

Ron, aka The Former Donut Junkie

Well folks, I hope you don't get tired of hearing me 'go on' about this Eighth Commandment. It has definitely changed my life already.

I just wrote a new post on my blog, Life Without Donuts, entitled I'm Sooo Done with the Deprivation Mindset.

Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks,

Ron, aka The Former Donut Junkie