Hey food groupies today, I'm really excited to be talking to you about the chocolate rules. Apologies in advance for my crackly voice. It's kind of early in the morning. It's sort of, what is it? Four something, 4.30 something. Just trying to get it done before the kids get up. But the chocolate rules are really, really helpful to improve the way that you relate to chocolate and the way that you include chocolate. And they allow you to eat this food in a way that makes you feel good rather than maybe having a bit of a yo-yoing up and down.

our relationship with it. Now, I know the word rules can be a little bit triggering, but in the words of the great Captain Barbosa from Pirates of the Caribbean, they're more guidelines, right? So I don't want you to follow these very, very strictly, but I have found, I've used this with hundreds and hundreds of clients at this point. And it has done a really great job of shifting the way that chocolate fits into people's lives. Now, obviously it's called the chocolate rules. So,

we're going to largely be talking about chocolate, but you can absolutely and should absolutely apply this strategy and these ideas to any other food that you struggle to moderate, I guess, right? Now, hopefully, if you followed me for a little while, you know that I'm not about removing any foods ever. But sometimes we do need to adjust the amounts of foods that we're having, occasionally the frequency, often the portion, depending on our goal. And also sometimes if it's foods that

you let's go back to the chocolate example, you find that when you open it, if you have a row, you'll eat the block or you'll eat half the block, right. And I don't know too many people who feel good after eating a block of chocolate, right. So this is also largely about improving our relationship with that food. So we feel like we can be in charge of how much we have, and we can eat an amount that makes us feel good, both physically and mentally. And then, yeah, absolutely, this can impact kind of our mental health in that

Again, if you've just eaten a block of chocolate, you're probably not feeling fantastic physically, but also fantastic about yourself, your goals, your ability to achieve what you're trying to achieve, all of those sorts of things. by following these rules slash having these guidelines on hand, we can help shift the way that chocolate fits in with your day. So the first rule, very important rule is to not eat this food when you're hungry.

Jono (02:29.58)

Trying to have a reasonable portion of many foods, particularly chocolate when you're hungry, it's just, it's not fair to ask yourself to do that. Evolutionarily, we know that foods high in sugar, fat and salt, that flavor on our tongue, it signals to our body, hey, this food is high in energy, it's high in calories. And if we're hungry, that's exactly what our body is searching for, right?

we've evolved to if, if we are feeling hungry, that must mean that we're close to starving. And so we must seek out food and energy as quickly and as easily as possible. And I don't want to seek out energy that's hard to chew and hard to digest. That's fruits, that's vegetables and things. That's probably why you've noticed if you're really, really hungry, an apple is not that appealing, right? And it's because we innately sort of know, actually, if I go for chocolate or chips or some of these other more

energy dense, easy to chew, easy to metabolize, easy to digest and absorb, then I'm going to get more bang for my buck. So that's why the easiest thing to do is to just make sure that you're not eating chocolate when you're hungry. Trying to moderate your portion of chocolate when you're hungry is just you're asking way too much of yourself. I think that's why I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't recommend it to my clients either in terms of discipline and willpower. So if you are hungry,

and you are starting to reach for chocolate instead pause, go and eat a meal. If it's lunchtime or like if it's main meal time, go and have your meal. If it's snack time or even if it's not snack time but you're really, really hungry and you feel like you're gonna grab some chocolate, have a snack. Now have a balanced snack. I've got plenty of examples on my Instagram. Hopefully you've seen that. I've also got a snack guide that you can download. Shoot me a message and I'll send it through to you with over 20.

snacks that are balanced, because that's really important as well. Making sure you're having a balanced snack with protein and or fiber or fat. Those combination of those two things is really, really filling and is going to help knock that hunger on the head or at least take the edge off. Right. And what that means is we can start to think, do I actually really feel like chocolate or was I just hungry? Right. And so if you've had that snack or that meal, give yourself sort of 15 to 20 minutes to allow it to get to your

Jono (04:50.666)

You get to your gut, stretch your stomach, your stomach sends signals to your brain to say that it's full. So you want that whole process to have taken place. If you've done that and you still feel like some chocolate, have some chocolate. Remember the goal of the chocolate rules is not to talk yourself out of having chocolate at all. It's just about changing the way that we include it in our day. so step one, do not eat it when you're hungry. Awesome. Step two, do not eat it from the packet. Again, asking yourself to...

moderate portions when you have a whole block of chocolate sitting in front of you. Sure, you can do it. I know plenty of people that can do it. And with extra willpower and discipline, you can use it. You can do it. But wouldn't it just be easier if the block wasn't even there? Right? So I would strongly recommend portioning out a row, two squares, not two squares of Cadbury. mean, like two squares of Lindt. Don't have two squares of Cadbury. That's sad. But you know, at least a decent portion and put it in a bowl.

put the packet away and go and sit somewhere where ideally you're not doing anything else, right? You're not sitting in front of the TV or mindlessly scrolling on your phone because it is a good idea to try and quote unquote, mindfully eat this chocolate. I know the word mindful eating has been, it's been thrown around quite a lot. I feel like it's lost a little bit of meaning, unfortunately, because it is really valuable. And so all we really wanna be doing in this situation is making sure that

The only thing I'm doing when I'm eating chocolate is eating chocolate. That way I can be really focused on how it tastes. I can focus on the mouth feel. can be thinking about how it's melting in my mouth. I can be really engaged with that experience. And what you're going to find is a smaller amount of chocolate will be just as satisfying as a much larger amount of chocolate that you've kind of eaten on autopilot without even noticing, right? So, portion it out in a bowl.

put it away, try and only eat that food. So again, if it's a packet of chips, grab a handful of chips, put them in a bowl, eat them one at a time, think about the crunch, think about the salt and the flavor and how delicious it is. And another little thing I like to get people to do is while you're eating that, think to yourself, this is delicious, I can't wait to have more later. Right? So again, we're reinforcing this idea of, this isn't a one-off thing, brain, don't stress, we don't want to trigger something called the last supper effect, which is where we say something silly like,

Jono (07:15.892)

no chocolate for the next six weeks. And of course our brain goes and panics and goes, well, then we better have three blocks of chocolate tonight. So that phrase, wow, this is delicious. Can't wait to have more later can help kind of reduce the likelihood of that happening. And then you finish that row. Now I'm not saying you're not allowed to go back for another row, but what we have done is by having kind of one portion at a time and making ourselves have to get back up.

go to the fridge, go to the pantry to get more and come back down is we've just added opportunities for you to reflect on how full and how satisfied you are with this food. And I actually can't remember how many rows of, I think it's 10, 10 rows of chocolate in a Cadbury block. So if you have a block sitting in front of you, you have zero opportunities to pause, reflect on how you're feeling. Do I really need another row or am I feeling pretty satisfied and I'm happy to have more later versus if you go one row at a time, you have like,

10 opportunities. And so the likelihood of one of those opportunities being a time where you go, you know what, I'm actually feeling good. That was enough chocolate. Sure. I'd like, you know, there's always going to be a part of our brain that's like, the whole thing. But if you can look and go, that was delicious. That was satisfying. I know I can have more later. So I don't feel this restriction. I'm going to go move on with my day. That is 100 % how we can shift how chocolate fits in. Right.

So remembering the first really, really important thing is don't be hungry. So if you are hungry, do something about that, get a snack, get a meal, have a glass of water and wait that 15 to 20 minutes to make sure that's taken effect. If you still feel like chocolate after that, heck yeah, go for it. But don't eat it from the packet, portion it out, put it in a bowl, give it time. One thing you can do with chocolate in particular, I've had clients,

I'll throw her under the bus of my wife, where we have bought individual bars of chocolate rather than blocks of chocolate. Cause it's just, again, it provides that no, no thinking portion control. you can take that a step further. And I've had people, keep those, blocks, bars of chocolate in the freezer because that just provides an extra little buffer. can't just immediately grab it and eat it most of the time without breaking your teeth. So, you have to, know, you have to wait 10 to 15 minutes to let the chocolate kind of defrost. And again, that can be enough time for you to.

Jono (09:40.152)

closely examine, do I really feel like chocolate right now? Again, if the answer is yes, go for it. The end goal here is not to talk ourselves out of chocolate. It's to just make sure that we really do feel like chocolate and that we're not using chocolate as a band-aid for something else. Oftentimes it's hunger. And so that little gap of that 15 minutes can really help with that. But those are the chocolate rules. I hope they've been very helpful. If they are helpful, please let me know. I'd love to hear your experience with implementing them.

Again, like I said, if you want some snacks, shoot me a message and I'll send you that snack guide. And if you did find this helpful, please either share it with a friend who you think would also find it helpful or throw it up in your stories and tag me so I can feel the warmth and fuzzies. right, chat to you next time.