Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. It's Dr. Stephanie Fein here with weight loss for fertility. When was the last time you were at an all you can eat buffet? Vegas comes to mind when I think of all you can eat buffets, but also they're at, like, hotels or country clubs. It could have been a type of food. Sometimes sushi places or Korean barbecue places or like, Brazilian meat places are all you can eat. There's lots of varieties on this idea. There's, like, places that have endless soups and breads and that sort of thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:31]:
Buffets have come up with my clients recently, and I had a reminder experience of my own. So that means we're talking about all you can eat buffets today, which I'm amazed that I haven't spoken about before. So I think this is great. The main way buffets attract customers is with the idea that you pay one price and you can eat as much as you want, not as much as you need or until you're at a plus two, but all the food you want. So, of course, as humans, we want to game that system and we want to eat more than we pay. And that's the setup. It's designed psychologically to have us overeating. And overeating is absolute main issue when we're talking about gaining weight or not losing weight, because overeating has us storing fat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:30]:
And also, this is a really important point. It has us physically uncomfortable after we eat because we're eating more than our body needs. The thinking goes in terms of buffets. If we only eat one serving, one plate full, then we lose and they win. Right? So if we only eat a small amount of food when we're allowed to eat as much as we want, then we're losers. They are winners. And so it makes it harder psychologically to stop a positive, too. They got more money out of the situation than I got value out of the food if I just eat one plate of food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:20]:
So does that put a damper on the experience? If we eat to positive two and we stop, I hope it does not put a damper. And that's part of what we're going to talk about today, how to think about buffets, especially when we're using the hunger scale. So in general, when we use the hunger scale, which hopefully you all know, and if not, we have some excellent episodes on describing what the hunger scale is. But I will certainly tell you right now, it's a scale from negative 5, which is completely empty, to positive 5, which is extraordinarily full, where you're so uncomfortable you have to undo your pants and lie down. We want to be eating at just hungry, which is minus two. And that's not the first whiff of hunger, which would be minus one. But it's I'm hungry, but I'm not waiting to be more hungry. So minus two is just hungry.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:25]:
And we stop then at positive two, which is satisfied, not full. So if we're using the hunger scale from minus 2 to positive 2, we won't be piling our plates high. We won't be having multiple, multiple, multiple plates. Because depending on where you are on the path at the beginning or in the middle, or if you're already sustaining your weight loss, you know how much food it takes to get you to a positive 2. And it's usually not piles and piles of food. So the math of buffets doesn't make as much sense if we only focus on the money for food aspect of it. Like, if I'm deciding that the money that I'm paying is only for the amount of food I'm going to get, then maybe that doesn't line up for me because I'm eating until a positive 2. But I'm going to give you a couple ways to think about the buffets so you feel good about your choice and your experience.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:28]:
And the first one you may remember. This may jog your memory. I'll remind you of the way I like to think about restaurant meals in general. So I don't like to think about the money that I pay for my meal out as only about the, like, steak on the plate. In fact, there is so much that goes into the evening out. I'm paying for the ambiance, the company coming together to be in that particular place, saving my work, you know, that I didn't have to prep and shop and chop and do all the rest of the stuff. I also didn't have to clean up. There's maybe different foods that I don't know how to cook.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:14]:
There's so many aspects of eating out. And actually, one of my clients even reminded me, and she was saying she was a server, so she really knows everything that goes into the restaurant meal. There's a lot. The servers, the care. There is so much. We're not just paying for the piece of steak. And that way, you know, you can end up saying, well, I can get this piece of steak, you know, at the market for a quarter of the price. But that is a completely different experience than the one you're having in a restaurant.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:46]:
And I really think that matters. It matters just in terms of making it a nice fun experience for yourself, but also when it comes to the hunger scale. Because if we're just thinking that we're paying for a full steak and we're already at a positive 2 with half a steak, then we have a sense of loss instead of an appreciation of the entire experience that went into it. And we just happen to be eating food while we're having the wonderful experience. And we follow the hunger scale. So when we're at a plus two, we're done. So when we think about out meals, we don't need to get our money's worth of the food. There's no extra points for finishing the plate.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:38]:
If we're already satisfied at half, we can take some home, we can split. There are so many strategies for going out so we can just enjoy the whole experience. And that is something we can do with the buffet too. It's on a higher octane level, is that there's lots we can think of it as, there's lots of food we're not eating, as opposed to just half the. In this case, steak, because that's what I chose as the example. It's all the shrimp and all the lobster and all that. But if we think about it in the whole experience way, it really can make the outing enjoyable more than just getting as much food as we possibly can into our mouths and into our stomach. So the next way of thinking about buffets too is that it can be a challenge not to overeat at a buffet.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:37]:
And I want you to take that into account when you plan to go to one. So it really is different psychologically to go to an all you can eat buffet than to just go to a restaurant and order something. And there could be lots of reasons. We could certainly do urge work. There's a lot of stuff we could do around this. But also it really is a different scenario. And so when you are planning to go to a restaurant and you pick this, just have that in mind that this might be a little more difficult scenario. The psychological pull to eat more than our body needs is really strong.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:18]:
And this makes me think that some to talk about. Sometimes people will skip meals to save room. I'm putting air quotes and saving room for the buffet meal, like, oh, we're gonna get all our food in one go, hoping we can fit more in there, but it just does not work that way. I know psychologically we feel like it does, but it doesn't. Our stomach is the size of our closed fist and it always will be. So that Is how much food it can handle before it starts stretching and feeling uncomfortable. And that is the stretching amount is more food than our body needs in one sitting. So it will get stored as fat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:05]:
It's overeating. That's overeating. And it will get stored as fat, and we can't save room. Skipping meals just means getting over hungry. And remember, when we get over hungry, we will overeat in response. So we're setting ourselves up for overeating if we skip meals and get over hungry. But remember, when we overeat, especially like this way, we're thinking about in a buffet, how much can you get in? It's very uncomfortable physically in the end. Now it's not only uncomfortable physically in the end, but then some of us will start to beat ourselves up over that, which of course is so unfair if we know we're going to a buffet and we decide to do that and then we beat ourselves up for it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:57]:
Not fair. So the best bet, given that it might be more of a challenge than usual eating out, is to eat when hungry and stop when satisfied. Not full. That's the hunger scale is always going to be your very best friend in any eating situation. And that includes a buffet. And so with that in mind, there are two ways to think about going out to an all you can eat buffet with the hunger scale. One, plan that you'll overeat, and two, plan that you won't. I know that seems really simplistic, but it's really important because making conscious decisions about our food is the cornerstone of having a positive relationship with food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:54]:
Being conscious of what we're deciding to do, what is okay with us to do and what isn't in a realistic way is a key part of this new respectful relationship we're going to have with food. And that's what we have here in weight loss for fertility, A respectful kind conscious relationship with eating. And with food, we want to be able to make decisions about our eating, not be swept away or end up saying, eff it. Remember, we don't want all or nothing thinking, which is exactly what happens when we turn off and we're like, eff it, and we just eat everything. We want to make conscious decisions. Now when we say that, remember, we want to be realistic with our decisions, our plans. So when I say make conscious decisions, I really am not saying, you know, sit there and have a leaf of lettuce. We have to be realistic because that helps build a trusting relationship with ourselves.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:08]:
When we're realistic, then we can follow through on A realistic plan. If we're not realistic, we 100% will not follow through on it. And then we've blown any trust we're going to develop with ourselves. We want to be realistic in our plans for ourselves. And what we want to ask is, will this be a situation where I'm okay with overeating a bit or not? And that will depend on my goals for the week. What happened last week, what's going on next week, the place we're going, for what reason? There's a million things that can go into the decision, and only you can make the decision for yourself, the realistic decision. Now, when I say plan to overeat, I'm not talking about all or nothing thinking here with like plates and plates and plates. Food, I don't think that's ever comfortable for our bodies.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:57]:
And I wouldn't recommend planning to eat so much that you have to lie down. You know, like, I would never plan for a plus five. Sometimes it happens that we overeat. And if you know that it's more likely to happen at an all you can eat buffet, then avoiding them in the beginning as you're practicing with hunger scale might be a good plan. If you know it's almost impossible for you not to overeat at a buffet, not going to one and choosing a different place to go might be your best bet. But you can also decide, just like any restaurant, if it's a birthday and you're like, oh, you know what? I love my this particular piece of cake that I have all the time and I'm going to use the hunger scale. But if I go over a little bit, I love my reasons. You can do that with a buffet, too.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:52]:
What we don't want is any beating yourself up. If you went with the best intentions and the displays of food and the influence of the people you were with swept you up and you ended up eating more than your body needed, that is not a problem. It's a learning experience. And we can get more for our money's worth out of the buffet if we're willing to evaluate the experience afterwards and remember how we evaluate what worked, what didn't, and what will I do differently next time? If we can answer those questions, there is so much value there that if we're concerned about getting our money's worth, that is how you get your money's worth. Answering these questions will give you so much insight, not just for buffets, but for any food situation that has similarities. Like, was it this particular couple that you go out with and it's hard to not overeat with them, and that doesn't mean you don't go out with them. But maybe you go to lunch or, you know, there's things that you can decide to do once you've identified what made it more difficult for you. Are certain food displays hard to resist certain foods? Does sitting for long periods of time resist, hurt or help? Are there certain people that are more challenging to be around than others? How hungry were you when you went? Was the food quality what you wanted? Was the wait time to get in longer than you anticipated? The answer to all these will get you so much good information that you can use next time you decide to go to a buffet.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:31]:
So that was. If you're thinking that there may be some overeating, remember not to positive five, but if you decide to go to maybe positive three, a conscious decision. But the other way to think about going to an all you can eat buffet is to plan not to overeat. This might be easier if you've already gone to one and you did an evaluation. So if you just did what we just went over, if you've done it, you're like, okay, I got it for next time. This is what I'm gonna do. And you have that plan. Amazing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:06]:
You may be very clear on what you're going to get at the place. That would be another way of planning to not overeat at a buffet is that you're like, okay, I've been there. I know my favorite thing is this, this and this. And that's what you go for. Certain foods you can also do like a one plate option. I talk about this at Thanksgiving. You just take your favorites and you eat to positive two. It's much easier to eat to positive two if you know you're having one plate.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:35]:
Not that you pile a ton on there, but that you know you're not going back. Now, if for some reason you put so little on your plate, of course you can get another plate. But I'm just talking about the amount of food it will be to +2 if you've decided on the option that you're not going to overeat and being clear on your hunger scale. And it might be easier for you depending on how much practice you've had. But you can work with the timing of when you're going, which place, all that sort of stuff, so that following the hunger scale feels easy there. You also may decide to order off the menu instead of the all you can eat aspect of it. A lot of places will still have menu items available. I found this out at a breakfast buffet.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:21]:
It turns out it's so much better for me to order off the menu. And I do that and it feels totally fine. I will say the first time I did it, it felt a little strange, but quickly it did not because it was so much easier. It worked out so much better. You get to decide what experience you're going for, make a decision and see how it goes. You evaluate and see how the next time goes. That's how we do it. We try.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:54]:
We evaluate. We make decisions about what we're doing next time, and we go from there. This is how you end up knowing exactly what you need. If you're going to go to a buffet and not overeat. It is possible. Now, I was thinking about buffets and I. There's, you know, there's all you can eat. And I think there's.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:14]:
They still call some buffets all you can eat. But I've also. When I went on a school tour with my kid in the, you know, dining halls, they were careful not to say all you can eat. And what they said instead was all you care to eat. And I thought that was very clever and poignant. All you care to eat. And I think it makes a big difference. All you can eat feels like the mandate is shovel as much as you possibly can into your mouth.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:44]:
All you care to eat means you take what you want and you leave the rest. And that's what we will be doing with the hunger scale. We'll take what we want. We leave the rest. For me, I do still find it a bit of a challenge to not overeat at certain buffets. Certain ones I have down. And I talked to you already about my. About the breakfast buffet in Vegas.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:10]:
I'll order off the menu, but at a Brazilian restaurant with an all you can eat bent. I've tweaked my ordering so that it's just the salad bar, which I love. I mean, the salad. It's saying salad bar is kind of funny because, I mean, it just has so many things, but I don't also get the all you can eat meat with it. And that helped. But this last time we were there, we hadn't been in a while. I could do better with my mindset going in. And that's just what happened after this last time.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:41]:
So these bring everything endless. And I struggled with that a little more than I would like. So even. But even this last time, my husband commented that he'd be ordering off the menu instead of the endless options next time. Also, when you're using the hunger scale, it starts to be really clear, like in different ways. As we're tweaking, you're like, oh, I see how that can go better. Oh, I see how that can go better. Losing weight doesn't have to mean never going to an all you can eat buffet again, but it does does mean making the experience more conscious.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:20]:
Always. The way we think about all you can eat buffets changes when we use the hunger scale. When we learn to honor our body and its signals and limitations, the buffets don't have as much allure. We decide about going based on our goals for the week, the type of food we're wanting, and the people we're spending time with, not on the volume of food we get for the money. That alone will make a big shift. And lastly, making kind conscious decisions about our food, whether that's at home for breakfast or at a Vegas buffet, means we enjoy our food experience and so does our body. Weight loss is inevitable this way, and it stays off for life since we've changed our relationship with food. Lose weight with me.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:21:19]:
Go to weightlossforfertility.com Click the lose weight with me button and we can get started. Until next time. I'm sending you so much love.
