Would you believe it, I’m sitting in the Lindt chocolate cafe in Sydney eating a chocolate brownie. I’m one very lucky girl. I’m on holidays for a few days in Sydney. Actually it’s my first trip here so it’s been great so far, so much to see.
I made a conscious decision before I arrived in Sydney to allow myself a few more food treats while I was here on holidays than I normally would. It would be silly of me, for example, to not go to the Lindt chocolate cafe just because I’ve already had my sugar quota for the day. There’s no Lindt cafe in Brisbane so it may be a long time before I get this opportunity again!
If you’ve been reading my blog then you know that I like to live by a 90/10 rule, which means 90% of the food I eat is healthy food for my body, and 10% is for the soul. Food for the soul includes junk and comfort foods. My 10% foods are chocolate, cake and greasy takeaway.
The guilt game
The hardest part of eating healthy is to know when to treat yourself. Before I discovered the 90/10 rule I used to feel really guilty whenever I ate sugar or drank too much alcohol or didn’t eat my quota of fruit and veges for the day. For example, it may have started by eating a little bit of chocolate because I hadn’t had any in a few days, then thinking I might as well eat the whole block of chocolate because then it was all gone and it would no longer be around for me to eat it. Then the guilt would start and I would feel terrible for having binged on all that junk food.
This action and thought pattern which I term ‘the guilt game’ can be the beginning of an eating disorder. The guilt game is very unhealthy for both the body and the mind. Please make sure if you do binge on junk food, that you feel okay with it afterwards. Become aware that you’ve just treated yourself and that’s is okay every now and again. I can’t stress enough how important it is to not feel any sense of negative thoughts or feelings about what you put into your body.
Learn that it’s okay
The guilt game is exactly why I love the 90/10 rule so much. It allows me to feel okay about treating myself. It’s really important to occasionally have foods that make you happy. One of my favourite things to do is to share a giant piece of chocolate mud cake in a cafe with a friend. How great is it also to share a jug of beer and chips with your mates after work or a class at Uni. It’s important to ‘eat to live’ not ‘live to eat’, but it’s also important to enjoy and to feel great about one of the greatest gifts we have, yummy food!
Frances Kerr
7 responses ↓
I came across you from youtube, I must say I am so glad I stumbled across this! I think the 90/10 rule is probably the greatest thing I ever come across. I used to be guilty for eating a little bit of junkfood, so in return I would just finish it all and feel like I got it out of my system (which was absolutely horrible ,because then I felt worst) Thank you so much for having this web-site and the helpful videos, I believe because of your help my minor acne did clear up and I feel much better with my skin !
Hey Fran! It’s me again hehe
I have a really extense-response question.. After eating some of the 10% food that is not too healthy.. I think I’d feel less guilty (which is the medium term goal) by doing something about it.. like having done cardio exercise in the morning to acelerate my metabolism. But, what can I eat or drink AFTER eating that?Something like a “blood cleanser”? or what do you do after? Do you get breakouts after the treats? Thank you so much for everything! take care
heyy fran, wat food do u think is really helpful and good for us people with acne. i do eat fruit 5 times a day but it still doesnt feel like my acne are clearing. i’ve got this thing where i always have to eat snacks loads of snack inbetween meals but i dont know what to eat or is better so i end up eating junk and i cant help it. please help me thnx
Fiorella- If I stick to roughly 10% for treats, I don’t get a breakout. If I have a huge binge on sugar or foods high in fats, then often my skin does suffer. This is because I’m putting a lot of stress on my liver.
Shaz- Actually, I wrote a whole book about this topic – http://www.eatawayyouracne.com
Hello Fran,
I’ve joined your web-site recently. First about myself. I am 24 now, and each year adds new problems to my skin. It is really unusual, coz when I was a teenager, I rarely suffered from acne. Well, I had some occasional breakouts at the T-zone, but that was about it, I think. However, since I’ve started working and spending more time indoors, consuming lots of coffee and junk food, a disaster happened.
It firstly affected my T-zone, i started to pick on pimples. Then it shifted to cheeks and neck. I worsened the situation by trying to find a quick solution, switching rapidly from one creme to another, with either no effect or short-term effect only. I think I really tried everything, I’ve got the collection of natural and commercial products. As a result of all of this, I’ve now got a bunch of problems. I guess I’ve got all types of acne you can ever have ( although I am not that good in distinguishing them)-white heads, black heads, some deep ones which never come out however some of them can erupt with the vulcano of the disgusting liquid. I feel like every pore on my face is dirty and clogged, I can even visually confirm that. By that my pores are very large. I am not exxagerating, I’ve got one on my nose, which is so big that some people think that I wear a nose ring.
Therefore you can imagine how desperate I am to do anything about it, coz it’s really getting worse. I’ve decided to start with two simple steps: stop picking on them and review my diet.
Well so good so far…I now got a bouqet of white heads on my face, I can not go to the office like that, I really think it’s disgusting, but to cover them with make up is not a great idea as well. So, are there any exemptions from the rule?or I need to suffer from realising how ugly i am=)
Second, I stopped eating dairy products for 4 days now, don’t see much improvement though. Is this enough or shall I wait longer?
How long will the change in eating habits take to make any effects?
Thanks in advance and sorry for the wordy message.
Maria, Manchester
What is white rice? I’m an Indonesian and I eat rice everyday.
Hi Maria, first of all stop telling yourself you are ugly – that’s a big mistake. I want you to change your mindset and realize how much of a beautiful woman you are.
Secondly, please don’t hesitate to cover your acne with a good quality mineral makeup when you’re at. Some of the better natural brands of mineral makeup also contain zinc which can in fact help heal pimples!
4 days is not enough time to trial giving up a food. You’ll need to give it at least 4 weeks to notice a change in your body, and 3 months to notice significant improvements in your skin.
Boby- White rice is rice with the husk removed. It’s MUCH healthier to eat brown rice which is the whole grain, because the husk contains a lot of the nutrients in the rice.
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