Three steps to stop eating when not hungry
Eating when you are not hungry equals weight gain. And if you are on a weight loss journey that is a recipe for disaster! But how do you stop eating when you aren’t hungry? Follow these three steps to get back in tune with your body and stop eating when you aren’t hungry: Step One: Identify your hunger signs The first step to stop eating when you are not hungry is to figure out if you really are hungry. For many women this can actually be quite difficult. You’ve spent years eating by the clock, eating to relieve stress or eating because it simply feels good. To determine if you are physically hungry, drop into your body. What does that look like? Close your eyes. Ask yourself where do I feel hungry? For me, I know I am truly hungry when the middle of my abdomen feels a little tight. I also get slight growls in my stomach. If I have been truly hungry for a bit then the hunger starts appearing in the front of my head as a slight headache and I will feel my energy levels begin to dip. On the other hand, these physical sensations are not present when I am not hungry. Instead I will find myself “tasting” food in my mouth, like daydreaming about how good a Reese’s peanut butter cup would be right now. Sometimes when I am not hungry but WANT to eat, I will ask myself “Am I hungry?” and then soon enough I will feel a little tingle in my stomach. This is phantom hunger. It’s like a little ghost of hunger that comes pretty quickly after I get a craving for something. This isn’t true hunger. How do I know? Go to step two. Step Two: Take an inventory of your circumstance When I find myself wanting to eat when I’m not physically hungry, I take a moment to figure out what is going on in my life. One great way to do this is ask yourself “If I wasn’t going to eat right now, what would I be doing?” So often that 3pm hunger is actually being tired of work and not wanting to start another work task. In the evenings, I would be left alone with my thoughts about what I screwed up during the day, what’s left to be done tomorrow or thoughts of how I’m so exhausted and nothing really feels good in my life. Other times, I am just plain bored and want to be entertained! Once you figure out if you want to eat to avoid something in your life, then solve for that. If I am tired of work and don’t want to start another work task, then I take a 15-minute break and go for a walk, meditate or watch a couple silly tiktok videos (be sure to set a timer and don’t go beyond the 15 minutes!). If I’ve put the kids to bed and I don’t want to be left alone with my troubling thoughts, I break out my journal, jot down a quick to-do list for the next day, tell myself I’m a good wife and mother, then give myself permission to rest and relax. If I want to be entertained, then I snuggle in a blanket and watch my favorite show. Understanding what you truly need in that moment will help you understand and care for yourself better. When you start solving for what is actually bothering you, the less you will feel driven to eat at times when you are not hungry. If you’ve identified the non-food reason you want to eat when you aren’t hungry but still feel compelled to eat, continue to step three. Step Three: Do a hard reset Our brains present persistent thoughts of wanting to eat when we are not hungry simply because it is trying to avoid something in our life (see step two) AND there is not much else for it to do. On my weight loss journey, I found that continuing to push through and simply NOT eat was difficult. This was especially the case when I started working from home during COVID. I worked in the living room and thoughts about what was in the fridge started popping into my head. I’d ask myself “What would I be doing if I wasn’t eating” and the answer would generally be doing a work task. So I would acknowledge I didn’t want to do the work task, take a little break and then start the task anyway. But the thoughts kept coming. In those instances, I gave myself a protocol to help me reset. I would chug a giant glass of water, get outdoors for a five-minute walk and talk to myself. The magic in the reset is creating different sensations for yourself. The glass of water will help your body feel different on the inside (fuller and maybe colder). Getting outdoors will help you feel different on the outside (sun on your skin, wind on your face, maybe it’s warmer or cooler than your home). Finally talking to yourself. Be very specific in the things you say. This is a time to speak to yourself kindly and cheer yourself on. I often say “I’m so proud that I took this time to reset. I’m so glad that I am choosing my bigger goal over something I want in this moment. This is what self care looks like and I’m so happy I made this choice.” Final reminder: Even if you eat when you are not hungry, remember that it will never help to be unkind or berate yourself. Your weight loss journey will never be a straight line to your goal weight. Be open to learning when things don’t go as expected. If you are learning then you are always moving forward with better knowledge for the future. If you struggle with eating when you are not hungry, I can help. Schedule
Five steps to overcoming guilt over food choices
Feeling guilt over your food choices? Living in a world where the diet industry makes billions of dollars and offers contradictory information at best, it is no wonder that many of us feel that there are “good” or “bad” foods and feel immense guilt over our food choices. So how can you live a normal life eating the foods you enjoy without feeling guilty afterwards? These five steps will help you overcome guilt over your food choices: Step One: Awareness First, take an inventory of the times you feel guilty after eating certain foods. Make a list of all of those foods. If you are not quite sure, carry a piece of paper with you to make notes throughout the day of the foods you ate and how you felt afterwards. This is an important part because you need to know what the problem is to figure out the solution. Another way to get this information is through visualization. Maybe there are foods that you don’t keep in the house? Think about what it would be like to eat them. You can also visualize yourself eating things that the diet industry often calls “bad,” like sweets, candies, carbs or fast foods. If you feel guilty, put it on your list. Step Two: Normalize You are not broken if you feel guilty after eating some sweets or potato chips. It is very normal in the American culture to think of foods as “good” or “bad.” The diet industry popularized this idea to keep people following the prescribed diet they are selling. We have been taught that we are weak, uncommitted or undisciplined when we eat these “bad” foods. Even desserts are described as sinful. But this is nothing but a story that the diet industry has told us to convince us that we need their help to be successful in our weight loss journey. So be kind to yourself. Remind yourself that many people struggle with the idea of “good” and “bad” foods. And just as many feel guilty after eating certain foods too. Step Three: Be compassionate Guilt is often brought on by the way we talk to ourselves after we eat certain foods. Watch for that inner voice that uses should or shouldn’t and condemns you as a flawed person for making that choice. What would you say to a young child who ate a few too many cookies and had a tummy ache? Would you condemn them as having no self-control? Would you tell them this single act is the reason they will always be fat and ugly? I hope not. And you don’t deserve that either. That young child needs some comfort and to learn how to listen to their body the next time they eat cookies. The cookies aren’t bad but eating past the point of enough results in feeling sick. They need words of comfort and hope that the future will feel better than it does now. And so do you. Yes, maybe you over-did it on the cookies too. That doesn’t make you a terrible person. It means you also need words of comfort and hope that the future will feel better. Step Four: Retrain your brain How do you make the future feel better? Retrain your brain. Guilt is a feeling that is created when you think you have done something “bad.” Thoughts like “I’m so weak and will never be able to lose my weight” or “I knew I couldn’t control myself around those potato chips” or “I always stuff my face like a pig when we have pizza” all create feelings of guilt. The key to feeling better is to replace those guilt producing thoughts with thoughts that create hope for you. Here are some that my clients find very helpful: I’m learning to be at peace with my food choices. Today’s actions do not determine the entire course of my life. Even when I feel guilt, I can go on to make a good decision. Food is food and I’m a good person no matter what I choose to eat. Step Five: Get help Many of us have spent decades repeating the “good” food, “bad” food narrative in our heads. It takes time to unwind those thoughts and practice new ones. If you are willing to put in the daily practice you can absolutely change those narratives, heal your relationship with food and stop feeling guilty for your food choices. But sometimes the work to undo those narratives seems too difficult or you may want those results faster and that’s where I come in. As a weight loss and life coach, I can help identify those thoughts quickly and help you replace them. As a person who has lost over 93 pounds, I know what you are going through and can help you on your journey. If you want help identifying where the guilt over food is coming from, I can help you. Sign up for a 30-minute call with me today. Your coach, Andrea
Four steps to help with trigger foods
Trigger foods. Foods you can’t resist. They call out to you and beg you to eat them. Generally, these foods are not carrots, broccoli or apples. They are decadent foods. Often foods that you are forbidden because they are “bad foods” or unhealthy. You probably feel out of control around these foods and blame them for any weight gain. Never fear! If you need help with trigger foods, this post is for you. Here are four step for handling trigger foods like a boss: 1. Quit calling it a trigger food Seems simple right? But every time you call ice cream or chips your trigger food, you give all of your power away to it. It becomes a dramatic story of how this food is the downfall of your weight loss. You are powerless around it and must indulge. Calling it a trigger food puts you and your weight loss at an extreme disadvantage. Many people will tell you that they can’t keep certain foods in the house. And while this is good intentioned that doesn’t mean you will never come face to face with that food. Continuing to have this story in your mind guarantees anxiety, worry, and fearfulness about when you might come face to face with that food. It can also lead to binging on these foods when you finally get the chance because they have become forbidden even though your desire for them is high. Instead of calling them your trigger food, change the story to something more boring, like “It’s just a food you like to eat.” 2. Calm your brain down Our brains have been designed to keep us safe. Back in the times of cavewomen, this meant being able to identify ALL the problems around us that could cause us harm. Life today does not require our brains to find the mountain lion or the poisonous berries. But our brain still wants to do what it was designed to do: FIND ALL THE PROBLEMS. And guess what, your trigger food has been identified as a problem. And that’s OK. Not every problem our brain identifies is a true problem. Nor is every problem our brain identifies a reason to take action. Your brain might tell you things like: “Oh my god, there goes my diet!” “I can never lose weight and have a social life too!” “I will never be able to resist those!” “I can never stop eating….” All of those are just thoughts. Thoughts that are completely optional. Currently those thoughts are full of drama and doom. Calm your brain down by making the story boring. Remember, this isn’t a trigger food. This is just a food I enjoy eating. It can also be helpful to recognize other things you enjoy doing but are able to practice restraint around. I love going for walks on beautiful days but somehow I still manage to go to work and earn a living on beautiful days. I love spending money on cute clothes and yet each month I make sure enough remains in my account to pay the mortgage and utilities. I’m sure you have similar examples in your life. Don’t take what your brain presents you as the truth. Ask yourself if your brain is being dramatic and if you have evidence that the opposite is true as well. 3. Visualize how you want to eat them Now this isn’t a lusty visualization practice. The purpose isn’t to create more desire for the food by imagining how amazing it tastes. This visualization is to practice being around these trigger foods and imagining yourself being in control and intentional about how you eat them. My clients often feel burdened and powerless around these trigger foods. So I ask them to imagine what it would look like to be in control around them. Imagine yourself having your trigger food in your pantry. Visualize yourself going into the pantry for other things and never reaching for that food. Imagine yourself being unaffected that it is sitting there. Another visualization you can do is enjoying the trigger food. Watch yourself plate it, eat half of it and then throwing the rest out. If that causes you some anxiety, remind yourself that you are able to buy more at any time. This food is always available to you. Reminding yourself this can provide comfort that no matter what you are in charge and able to obtain that food whenever you want. It helps take away the scarcity and urgency away from that food. 4. Practice being around them Once you spend time visualizing yourself around these trigger foods, you can practice being around them in real life. Before you do, use that brain for what it was designed for! Ask it what problems might come up that could derail you from showing up as you visualized. Maybe you won’t want to stop eating it. Perhaps you eat the entire box of them. After identifying the potential problems, come up with a game plan. Maybe you start with two cookies on a plate and put the package away. Or you serve some chips and dip and then relocate to another room to enjoy them. Whatever you think might help you stick with your plan that you visualized. Then go for it! Remember, perfection is not a requirement and it is likely that you might have some overeats or completely ignore the plan all together. That’s OK. Progress has already been made by thinking it through beforehand and you’ll get more and more skilled at being around your trigger foods the more you practice. What trigger food will you practice with? Your Coach, Andrea
How to stop boredom eating
Boredom eating is a struggle for many of us. If you’re a human, chances are you think eating is a lot of fun. Especially in America, eating food is one of the most common activities we engage in while having fun. Think about it. Birthdays equal cake and ice cream. Date nights are dinner and a movie (with popcorn and candy!). Even television shows are dedicated to watching people prepare and eat food. Hello, Food Network! But boredom eating can result in unwanted weight gain because our brains get bored way more frequently than our bodies need food. Here is how to stop boredom eating: Check in with your body If you are bored and want to eat, the first thing you should do is take a few minutes to check in with your body. Then ask yourself “Am I really hungry?” If your answer is yes, then ask yourself “How do I know for sure?” Many of us have spent years ignoring our body’s cues for hunger and fullness so that second question is really important. Asking yourself how you know prompts your brain go deeper and look for your body’s signals. For those of you who can’t tell if you are hungry or not, check out this blog post on How to get back in tune with your hunger. If you can’t find evidence that you are truly hungry, then find something else to do. There is nothing wrong with eating for entertainment as long as you are hungry. Food is a solution for hunger. Food can also be entertaining. As long as both problems need to be solved there is no issue with eating for food for entertainment. Track your day and your eating habits Taking the time to jot down when you are eating each day will reveal your eating habits. Maybe every day at 3pm you find yourself snacking because the workday is almost done, energy and motivation are lacking so you eat for a distraction and a little pick me up. Perhaps after another long day of taking care of the kids, you finally get them to bed and need something to do so you head to the pantry. Whatever it is, track it. So often we go through our days on autopilot that we miss the little bites and snacks we have throughout the day. Committing to tracking each thing you eat and when, will allow you to gain insight into these habits and plan for something different. As the old saying goes “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Without knowing what you normally do and making a plan for something different, you’ll continue to do the same thing you’ve always done. Learn something new If you’re bored, you probably need a hobby. Seriously! If the most entertaining thing you can think of is eating a snack, then it’s probably time to try something new. The world is full of amazing things. The next time you are bored, write a list of 20 things you would like to learn about or try. Then the next 20 times you get bored, you have a list of 20 solutions for your boredom. Don’t worry, these don’t have to be long and involved things. They could be as simple as googling your favorite singer and seeing how their career started. You could fill in a few lines of a crossword or sudoku puzzle. Try a new makeup technique. Find a drawing tutorial on YouTube. Organize a drawer in your home. Write a letter to someone you love (maybe yourself!). The possibilities are endless. Remember to keep the list handy. May I suggest putting on the fridge or the pantry? Get a change of scenery One of my favorite ways to bust through boredom without eating is going outdoors. During the COVID pandemic, I noticed that I was eating quite often simply because I was bored of looking at the same people and the four walls of my house all. the. time. I think we can ALL relate to that. Going outside allowed me to give my brain new things to process through all of my senses. The sun on my skin, the chirping of birds, new smells of grass and dirt, and the sight of beautiful blue skies. Just walking around my neighborhood was enough to distract me from my desire to eat. It wasn’t about going for a long walk. It was simply about changing the scenery and giving myself something else to think about and experience for a moment. Which of these techniques will you try? Comment down below. Your Coach, Andrea
Nine lessons learned from losing 90 pounds
When you lose over 90 pounds, the process will change you. You learn things about yourself, see yourself in a new light and even evolve into a better version of yourself (and not just because you lost a ton of weight). I’m going to share with you nine lessons I have learned on my journey to losing over 90 pounds in hopes that they can help you on your journey. I enjoy sweets and treats more the less I eat them On my journey, I didn’t restrict any types of foods, including sweets. In fact, at the beginning I was eating sweets multiple times a day. Eventually I began to focus on foods that really gave me sustained energy and the sweets became less of my daily routine. And you know what? Creating more space and time between the sweets really allowed me to create desire and anticipation for the treat. I savored them more and they were much more enjoyable when they were just a standard part of my day. Emotional eating comes in many forms I was aware that I was an emotional eater but as I began to check in with myself more regularly before eating, I realized I was emotionally eating ALL. THE. TIME. If I was stressed about the kids being crazy kids, let’s look for some relief in the pantry. Work task that I didn’t want to start? Hmm…. maybe I should grab a snack before I get started. Bored? Let’s eat. Tired? A quick bite might energize me. If I was having a disagreement with my husband, I’ll show him by eating the last of the cookies! Feeling proud of my kids school performance? Let’s get ice cream! Becoming aware of all the times I was eating when I wasn’t truly hungry helped me figure out the real solutions for those problems. Now I take a power nap if I’m tired or go to my room for a quick breather when they kids are being crazy. Solving for the true problem allows me to feel better while also losing weight in an enjoyable way. It was time to parent myself My high weight of 250 pounds came from a lot of emotional eating and a side of “I don’t wanna.” I didn’t want to deal with my emotions. Eating fresh fruits and veggies didn’t sound fun. 11,000 steps each day sounded hard. I didn’t want to stick to a food plan. I basically conditioned myself to be a big baby whose brain would throw a fit at the thought of what it would take to get healthier and lose weight. I wanted pleasure and I wanted it NOW. I realized that many of the things I was allowing myself to do (like eat entire boxes of cookies or sit on the couch all day) were things I would never let my kids do. I know that moving your body, getting sunshine and eating a well balanced diet is key to good mental and physical health. Somehow I had convinced myself that because I already KNOW these things that meant I could be exempt from actually doing them. Not only was living my life that way taking a toll on my body but I was increasing mom guilt as I knew I wasn’t practicing what I was preaching to my kiddos. So I started to parent myself. I would acknowledge that I was making changes and that changes are often uncomfortable. That’s OK. It wasn’t going to kill me. In fact the more I practiced this new way of living, the more I would become comfortable with it and even appreciate it. I also made an agreement with myself that just because “I didn’t wanna” didn’t make that a valid excuse for not doing something. Logically I knew these actions were all what was best for me and I could do them even if “I didn’t wanna.” The scale is just one piece of data Yep, it’s been said before and I’m saying it again. The scale is just a number. And it is only one number to consider on your weight loss journey. From the beginning of my weight loss journey, I made sure to track other measurements too. I took body weight measurements, used habit trackers and took progress pictures. These were invaluable as I had weeks were the scale didn’t move (or gasp, went up!). These other measurements helped me stay grounded as I could reflect on the efforts I was putting forth and other changes that my body was making. Other ideas for non-scale measurement are body fat measurements, changes in how much you can lift and cardio endurance. Not sure how to measure cardio endurance? Climb a flight of stairs each month and record how long it takes, how long it takes you to catch your breath and how you feel afterwards. You can also track your mood throughout the process. Every morning record your mood in a journal. Exercise has been proven to elevate your mood so when you start noticing more happy and content days, that’s progress! The only diet drama comes from my own head This lesson took me a little longer to learn. When you are 100 pounds overweight, the beginning of your weight loss journey can be very thrilling. I made very little changes to my diet (I only stopped eating when I had enough, instead of being full) and the weight seemed to fall off. Eventually more changes had to be made to keep losing weight and certainly it was falling off me anymore. Cue the drama! I realized that the weeks where the scale didn’t drop “enough,” stayed the same or went up a bit were really difficult for me. All the sudden my motivation would disappear and I would start questioning if I would ever be able to reach my goal. I knew this was a normal part of the weight loss journey but it felt terrible. So I
How To Stop Night Time Snacking
How do you stop late night snacking?! It’s a problem that many of my clients have. You finish up the nightly chores, put the kids to bed and grab a seat on the couch to relax for a bit. Then it hits you, “I think we still have some of those chips in the pantry” or “I could really use some chocolate right now.” Whatever the craving, it comes down to eating when you hadn’t intended and with a side effect of weight gain that you truly didn’t want. Here are five tips to STOP night time snacking: Make a commitment Sounds simple enough but this is different than simply saying that you want to stop night time snacking. This is an actual commitment that you follow through on. Something I do with myself and coach my clients on is the concept “Decide and done.” Once you make the decision that you are not going to snack at night anymore, that’s it. No more discussion. No more back and forth with excuses and justifications. No more second guessing the decision. Going back and forth with yourself about whether or not to have that snack only serves to make you miserable now and potentially make a decision that takes you further away from the person you are trying to become. “To-try list” The thoughts we think are instructions for our brain. When we tell our brain NOT to do something, the instructions aren’t very clear. While the instruction to not do something is generally singular, the options for what to do can be endless. With lack of clarity on what to do in that moment, your brain will want to default back to what it knows and what it has always done: reach for the night time snacks. To make the instructions for your brain more clear, make a list of 20 things to try when you are having a craving to snack at night. Every person is different so I can’t tell you that knitting will certainly work any more than I could tell you the reading a book would. These are things to try and then evaluate how well they worked. Change your routine Humans are creatures of habit. We love routines and predictability. If night time snacking is a part of your routine, then consider creating a new night time routine. You don’t have to turn the whole routine upside down. It could be something as simple as not sitting in your usual spot on the couch. Also, be aware that if your body is used to being fed again at 9pm you are likely going to experience hunger cues at that time for a few weeks before your body gets used to the new routine. This is OK. Expect it and remind yourself that you are getting closer to being the future version of you that doesn’t snack at night. It’s something to be celebrated! Close down your mouth After dinner, clean your mouth and shut it down for the night. Take the time to brush and floss your teeth, rinse with some mouthwash as well as put some Chapstick on. I don’t know about you but I LOVE a fresh and clean mouth. When I have that clean minty feeling, I have no desire to eat plus the taste from the toothpaste also alters the way food tastes (hello orange juice!). Not only can this deter you from wanting to eat but it also a great self care. Self Care A lot of my night time snacking had nothing to do with being hungry. Many nights I would plop down on the couch after a long, stressful day and want to eat something just to feel good. Especially during the pandemic, many of us are just wanting to feel good instead of the stress we feel daily trying to juggle working from home with homeschooling and keeping every one healthy and safe! The simplest version of self care is to check in with yourself before you make the decision to eat. Ask yourself “What am I really hungry for?” or “If I wasn’t hungry, I would be feeling…” Allow yourself to get curious with what else might be going on. Are you lonely or bored? Did today feel pretty crappy and you just want to feel good? Are you tired and just need to go to bed? The best form of self care is to give yourself the support you truly need. So those are my five tips to stop night time snacking but I will give you a bonus tip as well. Maybe you feel like this is all too overwhelming and beyond what you can handle right now. That’s OK. We all have different abilities at different times in our lives. Maybe for you the best thing is to just not buy the types of foods you snack on late at night and replace them with more nutrient dense, prepackage snacks. It is best to have them prepackaged and commit to only having one a night. As you master that level up in your nighttime snacking game, you will feel more confident in eventually cutting it out entirely.