Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome. You're listening to a recording from inside the members hub of the Whole Health Revolution.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: These episodes are taken from my live weekly coaching course where members can join me in real time for honest conversations around health, nutrition, weight loss and sustainable lifestyle change.
So inside the program members get access to life coaching, a growing library of whole food recipes, workouts for every level, a supportive community, meal plans and personalized coaching. From me.
The whole Health Revolution is not about restriction, extremes or quick fixes. There's no fad diets here. It's about building long lasting healthy habits that support your body. Whether your goal is weight loss, managing chronic health condition, improving your nutrition, maybe you want to balance your hormones or simply start feeling better in yourself.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: So if you love this episode and
[00:00:55] Speaker B: would like to join this course live, have your questions answered and be supported along the way, you can find out more at www.netnaturalhealthproject conz forward/weight loss program and program is about PR O G R a M. Basically you can also use the code Free week to try the program for one week and that is F R E E W E E K Weight loss is a goal. You'll also find these details in the show note. Now let's get stuck into today's episode,
[00:01:26] Speaker A: which then feeds straight back into that emotional eating pattern again. And that's how this cycle just keeps going. And it's not because you lack willpower to stick to a health healthy diet, although strict dieting can play a part. And I'll talk more about that in a minute. So today's episode is really for you. If you turn to food when you're stressed, if you eat when you're not hungry, or even when you're full, maybe you eat to feel better or to reward yourself. Do you eat because food makes you feel safe, or you feel food is your friend? Or do you feel powerless or out of control around food? If any of those resonate with you and you're thinking, yeah, that's me, you are not alone. But the good news is you can change these habits. So keep listening because I'm going to share how to combat it, how to identify why you do it, and by putting a few simple strategies in place, how you can overcome it. So let's dig in and think about why you do it. If we go right back to our baby years, our very first days of life, food means safety and warmth and survival. We need it to survive. So when we're stressed, tired, lonely, overwhelmed or emotionally stretched, the body and the brain naturally look for Something familiar that brings that quick relief. And food does that very effectively.
Food calms the nervous system. It gives a brief sense of pleasure. It helps you feel grounded in that moment. And over time, especially if food has helped you cope during those hard times in life, the brain then learns this pattern and then you start turning to it automatically. It's not even in your conscious mind, it's your body trying to take care of you the best way it knows how.
And from a biological perspective, part of our brain gets a huge hit of dopamine and serotonin when we eat high fat, high sugary foods, AKA ultra processed foods. And these neurotransmitters, they're associated with the reward patterns in our brain. They give us pleasure, comfort, and that temporary relief. So it works very, very well. So it makes sense then that for many people, food becomes a coping tool in times of stress, maybe in fatigue, loneliness, boredom, overwhelm, and even happiness. It doesn't have to be a need, negative emotion that's attached to that eating.
And more importantly, emotional eating is often a sign of unmet needs. It's not a lack of discipline. So when you understand your why, this is when change happens, this new perspective brings on a new relationship with food. So we really need to find out, why do I do it in the first place? That's the main first step. So as I said before, dieting, it's not a diet, but there is a link. I want to point out that dieting often makes emotional eating worse, and it certainly did for me. And this is why the whole health revolution is not a diet. It's not about restriction, it's about optimizing what you eat, including an abundance of whole foods that benefit and nurture your body rather than punish it. It's not about what we're taking out, it's about what we can put in to your day, to your food, to your life. That makes it better.
Restrictions, rigid food rules, that good versus bad thinking. When it comes to food, this all increases emotional eating and it doesn't stop it. And this is because suddenly now, with that strict dieting pattern, when you're thinking, oh, that food's bad, I can't have that. Now you're feeling deprived. And what do we do when we feel deprived? We want that food even more. Because that forbidden food then becomes more emotionally charged. And then what happens? Our stress hormones rise. And then if you overeat, you've then got that guilt and that shame and that reinforces the cycle. And this is why so many people feel out of control around food after a long stressful day. It's not the food itself, it's the build that leads to that behaviour. So what's happened in the last day or even the last few days leading up to that eating behavior, leading up to that emotional eating? And sometimes we need to do that, look back a few days and see, okay, what's gone on for me. So healing emotional eating is less about control and it's more really about safety and nourishment and that consistency. Now, before we talk about strategies, we need to talk about laying some foundations. And if you include some or even all of these, if you're keen, you'll be less likely to eat out of emotion.
You cannot out mindset. A dysregulated body just doesn't happen.
So here are some key support tools that you can put into practice.
One is to eat enough during the day. Skipping meals or undereating sets you up for emotional eating later. And I've seen that so many times in my years of coaching and in clinic that skipping meals, unless you're doing a particular fast and you plan, you're planning that fast. If you're just skipping meals because you think you're cheating the system by under eating calories, quite often it's going to catch up. You add emotion to that, it's going to definitely lead to emotional eating later on in the day.
Number two is to prioritize protein and fibre. Add these into every meal, they help to stabilize your blood sugar and they're going to reduce that physiological craving and that need to overeat.
Number three, sleep matters. Poor sleep increases hunger hormones and it also reduces our impulse control. So you're more likely to make poor decisions when you're not slept.
Sleep has a great deal to do with weight gain, our blood sugar regulation. So sleeping, you know, getting to that root cause can work wonders. If so sleep is an issue for you, we definitely need to look at that. If you also tend to eat out of emotions and also reducing stress where possible. Yeah. While we can't take stress away, things happen. Life can be blooming stressful on times. But if we've got those coping strategies in place, stress management tools, then that's going to help a lot when it comes to emotional eating.
And as I said before, remove that moral judgment around food. Food is neither good nor bad.
Shame fuels that emotional eating. A donut is not a bad food. It's the patterns around why you're eating that donut. If you're eating that donut to try and quash an emotion or just fill a void, then it's not such a good idea. But if you're eating a donut because you absolutely love a donut, then have one. You can have a treat, enjoy it and move on. It's got nothing to do with being good or bad. It's not linked to your emotions.
So how do we break this cycle now? For me, it was going on for years, but that's because I wasn't really addressing it. I wasn't trying to find out why. You've really got to put a little bit of work in to find out what is your. What is. What is driving you to these foods. So to eating out of emotions. And it's going to be different for everybody. So first of all, number one is to know what your comfort foods are. Now, for me, it would definitely be sweets, you know, cakes and biscuits. That was my thing. I wasn't a salty kind of person. I didn't want to eat salty chips or whatever, what have you. I wouldn't eat a whole pizza, but for me, sweets were my thing. So do you turn to baked goods? Sweets, pizza? Finding your food is really key. By identifying the foods that you commonly turn to, it's going to give you that early sign that you're about to start stress eating. If it happens when you're thinking in your head, okay, I need that donut, whatever it is, then that's a sign. It's like, okay, something's gone. Something's happened earlier in the day. Something's driving this. It's not that donut that I really want. It's an emotion. So if you find that I that overwhelming urge to eat that food, remember that is your sure signs. And knowing your food, your trigger is key.
Number two is to notice the emotion that's leading you to eat. So now you know what foods that you're commonly going to turn to. Try and find the emotion in that moment. What's happened? Ask yourself, what am I actually feeling right now? Am I bored? Am I tired? Am I overstimulated? Overwhelmed? Am I lonely? Am I really happy?
So naming that feeling or emotion is really empowering in that moment and an important first step to breaking that habit. And number three is to find out what's caused this emotion.
Have you had an argument with your partner? Was your bus late? And then the whole day at work was just upset? Did someone bother you at work? It could be anything. It could be big or small. But something has started to cause that emotion. If you can try and pinpoint what that Is it's going to really help. Because if that happens again in the future, maybe you can have some strategies in place that can mitigate that when it happens. Number four is to stop, simply stop and take a mindful pause. Even a 60 second pause helps that nervous system to reset. So taking yourself away or outside or whatever, away from that situation can be really, really good. And it might be all that's needed to stop you heading for what, whatever food it is you're gonna dig into.
And number five is to find a non food alternative that makes you happy when an emotional urge.
Try one non food action first. And I say to my clients, have this list ready. So write this list when you're in a good frame of mind, when you're happy, when you're calm. Write a list of things that you love to do, something that's easy, non food related, that you could do in the moment, anywhere that you are, you can pick one of these things. So have it ready so that you're already prepared. You've got a plan in place for when this strikes. So here are a few options. Maybe you might want to go for a 5 or 10 minute walk in your lunch break or your morning tea break if you're at work or you just get out of the house, walk around the block, make a cup of herbal tea. It's such a lovely, nurturing thing to do. Even better if you can find a lovely herbal tea blend that has the calming herbs in it, such as passion flower, lemon balm, chamomile, those lovely lavender.
Find a lovely tea that you really enjoy and have that. The whole art of making it, sitting down and drinking it is just gonna help you come back to that calm. Number three is to take 10 slow breaths. No one has to know you're doing this. You can do it anywhere. Just stop and breathe big belly breath slow. There's no rules around it. Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth if you want to really get into it. And even a longer outbreath can really slow things down. And it's going to take you into that parasympathetic mode, which is your rest and digest mode. That can be so powerful and it can be really effective when things are starting to boil up. Another one is to step outside, get some fresh air. That's going to happen if you go for your walk. If you can't get out for a walk, just open the door and breathe in the fresh air and look at the trees and be mindful in that moment. You might want to stretch your body or lie on the floor. It just brings you back to that grounding.
If you've started journaling, fantastic. Have your journal with you. So you can just write a couple of. Write on a page, a few bullet points. Or maybe you want to do a brain dump and get all that, that stuff that's in your head out onto the page.
Another option is to call a friend. Call or message, text message, even just messaging takes that out of your head and just clears it. And hopefully that friend's going to get back to you and help you as well.
You could also put on some music, put on favorite music that brings you joy. Go into a different room if you have to. Give yourself some time out. You could take a shower. How lovely is a nice shower? Have some nice lavender body wash or something.
And doing something with your hands can also be helpful because instead of eating, you're now doing something else. Could be anything. Doing a puzzle, gardening, laundry, even go and fold the laundry.
It can be quite good. So at least you're doing something else other than turning to that food. And if after all of this, you've tried some or some of these and you still want food, then eat it. But eat it mindfully, eat it without guilt, and enjoy it.
And number six is now you decide. So you've tried all these things. You stopped, you've paused, you've named what's going on for you. What is my emotion? The last thing is for you now to decide. Hopefully this has been a nice pattern interrupt, and it's made you stop.
Instead of unconsciously, subconsciously going for that food, now you can still eat, but it's your choice. It's not a reflex. If you still want that donut, then go for it. Ask yourself, will eating this make me feel better? Or will I feel guilt or shame? Am I eating this donut because I am stressed or am I eating it because I want it? Sometimes food is still the right choice, and that's okay, but it's really about deciding what's the best option for you.
So here's a focus for you for this week. If you find yourself, you know, your emotions are building up whatever emotion that is, and you automatically want to head to the food, I want you to choose one of those times and respond differently. Try one of those tools. Stop, pause, breathe, name your feelings, what's going on for you in that moment, and you might just surprise yourself. You might just change that direction, and you might avoid that emotional eating altogether. You might not. You might not be successful the first time you try it. But that's okay because what we've done here is we've started an awareness and it's all gonna build from that. So even if you can just redirect one of those occasions, then that's a real win. So the aim is to create that pause, try one non food tool and notice what happens. And that's it. So in closing, if emotional eating is something you struggle with, please know that you are not alone. It's so common and you are not broken. Remember, it's in our physiology, it's in our very DNA to head towards food. It's one of our very first comforts in life. But please reach out if this is something that's been affecting you and is hindering your weight loss goals or even your wellness goals. I've lived with it, I have overcome it and I am here for you. You're listening to a recording from inside
[00:15:17] Speaker B: the members hub of the Whole Health Revolution. These episodes are taken from my live weekly coaching calls where members can join me in real time for honest conversations around health, nutrition, weight loss and sustainable lifestyle change. So inside the program, members get access to live coaching calls, a growing library of whole food recipes, workouts for every level, a supportive community, meal plans and personalised coaching from me. The Whole Health Revolution is not about restriction, extremes or quick fixes. There's no fad diets here. It's about building long lasting healthy habits that support your body. Whether your goal is weight loss, managing chronic health condition, improving your nutrition, maybe you want to balance your hormones or simply start feeling better in yourself.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: So if you love this episode and
[00:16:07] Speaker B: would like to join these calls live, have your questions answered and be supported along the way, you can find out more at www.naturalhealthproject.co.nz.
weight loss program and program is spelled P R O G R A M. You can also use the code Free week to try the program for one week free and that is F R E E W E E K.
You'll also find these details in the show notes.
