mindful eating Archives - Page 9 of 15 - Diet Free Radiant Me | Intuitive Eating | Emotional Eating

Are Negative Food Messages Causing You to Gain Weight?

It’s no question that obesity is a major concern in the United States. The rise in obese adults in the last few years has given authorities a reason to take action.

Today there are a number of campaigns out there trying to steer the public towards healthier food choices. However, some of these messages are actually backfiring. The reason? Because they’re delivering strong negative messages instead of positive ones.

Researchers are finding that negatives messages such as “sugary snacks are bad for you, don’t eat them” can actually cause you to choose these foods rather than ignore them. Interestingly, positive messages around sugary snacks that don’t illicit negative feelings about eating them have less of an impact in you choosing these foods.

One study from Arizona State University wanted to see if this theory was true. The study included 397 participants who were given a positive or negative message about sugary snacks in the form of an advertisement. Following the ad, the subjects were offered cookies on their way out.

What they found was that people who received the negative message consumed 29% more cookies than those who saw the positive message.

The researchers wanted to further explore the effects of messages on food choices. This included a negative message, a positive message and a balanced message that portrayed even-handed information about the benefits and drawbacks of consuming sugary snacks. In this study, 324 people participated.

The results of the study found that participants who were shown the negative message consumed 30% higher unhealthy snack choices compared to the group who received the positive message. The group that received the balanced message consumed 47% less unhealthy snacks. What this study ultimately shows us is that advertisements in the media have an effect on influencing how you perceive food and even the choices you make.

But let me take this a step further. The diet industry and other health gurus and experts out there who are telling you “don’t eat carbs they are bad for you (or gluten, sugar, etc… you can fill in the blank with all the negative messages you are told), are actually setting you up to crave these foods and eventually break down and overeat them. This in turn perpetuates the restriction/deprivation/dieting/feeling guilt and shame vicious cycle that so many overweight people struggle with every day of their lives.

Is this you?

Do not be fooled; be aware of the information you’re exposed to and stay alert to inaccurate information from biased sources.

For more information on becoming the expert of your own body, download my free e-book here

Your turn to take action: What negative messages have you fallen prey to that led you to overeating those foods?

Is Intuitive Eating a Weight Loss Program or Not?

More often than not, people struggling to lose weight will say yes to a new diet that hits the market. Whether the catch phrase is diet, program, system or technique, if it is something they haven’t tried, you can bet they are going to get suckered into the claims that THIS is the diet, program, system or technique that will finally help you achieve the weight loss you pray for.

So when I was having a conversation the other day with a woman who was asking me about the intuitive eating work I do with my clients, I wasn’t surprised when she asked me about the “weight loss program” that she was interested in learning more about.

I quickly stated, “Intuitive eating is not a weight loss program”.

Whoa! Wait a minute! That stopped her dead in her tracks. Her mouth dropped open. “If it is not a weight loss program, then what is it”, she asked.

I proceeded to explain to her that the intuitive eating work I do with my clients is a step-by-step process to help them transform their relationship with food, where they end the battle with food and their body and achieve great pleasure in eating once again.

You see, all the years of dieting has caused food to be your enemy, and has led you to feel guilty after eating foods that you deemed “bad” by the diet industry. On top of that, each time you eat one of these bad foods, or you overeat and feel shame and guilt, you also feel miserable about yourself and your body.

Intuitive eating puts all things back into perspective. Intuitive eating reminds you that you are in charge of your food choices and your body. You have the inner wisdom to know when you are hungry and when you are full, when you should start eating and when you should stop.

The process of learning to become an intuitive eater puts you back into the driver’s seat of deciding what foods you want to eat, how you want to dress, and helps you to love and respect yourself, and your body again.

In turn, as you learn to live life as an intuitive eater with an inner love that shows kindness to yourself, gentleness with yourself and ultimately acceptance of yourself, something wonderful happens. You start to release weight! You start to feel your pants become loser, your stride become longer, your walking pace become quicker and your breathing become easier.

Yes, you will naturally lose weight, returning to what is a “natural, healthy weight” for your body, not an ideal weight based on a calculation and a chart.

So, is intuitive eating a weight loss program?

No, it is not.

Can you release weight when living life as an intuitive eater making conscious food choices?

Yes you can!

Sounds pretty darn good to me!

Your turn to take action: Contact me if you would like to get started on your intuitive eating journey. Just click here to learn more.

The Most Important Step in Losing Weight

I’m going to keep today’s blog short. It’s a quick message for you, although I realize it might not be so easy or quick for you to internalize.

I was asked a very interesting question yesterday. The question went like this:

“What is the most important thing I can do to lose weight besides changing my eating?”

I imagine what comes to your mind, besides food, would be….exercise. But that’s not what I answered her.

The very first and most important thing you need to do if you want to lose weight and never gain it back is to CHANGE YOUR MINDSET! That’s right. It has nothing to do with food.

You’ve tried changing your food and exercise before. You’ve been on multiple diets, on and off. You’ve gained weight, you’ve lost weight, and you’ve gained the weight back again.

You’ve exercised at the gym, at home, you’ve done boot camps, you hired a trainer, you tried Zumba and even spinning.

And, you are right back where you started from. Trying to lose the weight again.

This is because you have been starting at the end, not at the beginning. You have been so focused on what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat as dictated by the diet plans and what is “healthy”, that you aren’t understanding the big WHY– why you choose what you choose, when you choose it. You are stuck in a diet mentality and are afraid to let it go.

It is most important to start by changing your mindset around food, around dieting, around your body and your life. As a dieter, you must move past your dieting mentality and the idea that you need to deprive yourself and/or restrict yourself of your favorite foods in order to lose weight. You must move past the thought that you must “follow” what someone else tells you to eat because you no longer trust yourself to make those decisions.

The sooner you can do this, the sooner you can develop a healthier relationship with food and allow yourself to be guided by your inner body wisdom to know when to start eating and when to stop. However, if you say in the cycle of food worry, you will continue to think it’s the food that’s at the core of the problem, and that’s just not so.

There’s a lot more I can say on this topic. We are discussing it in our online private Facebook community.

Come and join the discussion.

Taking the Next Step on Your Intuitive Eating Journey

Anyone who works with me knows that self-care is a major part of my work. Between taking an extra few minutes for yourself each day, fueling your body with nourishing foods, and knowing when to ask others for support, there are many ways you can put your self-care in the forefront of your life.

The process of improving your self-care may be slow starting and its okay to take baby steps to help yourself. You may have started by giving yourself a few minutes to de-stress each day and eventually moved to learning how to prioritize your activities so you are doing what you enjoy most.

I have seen a lot of great turnarounds over the last year; people like yourself who have taken their self-care from the back burner to the front and center of their life. Making this shift is a major step on your intuitive eating journey.

Yet, what I am finding is that many of you are stopping there. You are not taking the process to the next level. You are seeking out free resources to help you become an intuitive eater, yet you are still spinning your wheels. You are taking 3 steps forward, 2 steps backward.

Sure, if you continue at this pace, you will eventually get to where you want to be (an intuitive eater) but why wait that long?

You can accelerate the process by partnering with the right person who will guide you using an organized proven system.

I am that person for you. And I have the system for you. It’s the Freedom to Eat Forever™ Program, a 5 step intuitive eating process that will enable you to enjoy guilt-free eating and a life free of dieting.

But you know what? You have to step up to the plate and invest in yourself and your future. It’s when you invest in yourself that you see the results. I did it, and so can you.

Check out this cool video. Then email me or Facebook message me if you want to see if it’s your time for Freedom to Eat Forever™.

Hurry. Class starts February 3, 2016. I don’t want you to be left out. Take your intuitive eating to the next level.

Don’t allow a number (on a scale) to determine your self-worth

For many people, the scale has always been used as a measure of happiness. Whether you realize it or not, the number on the scale often influences your mood and subsequent decisions each day.

The scale is one of the biggest threats to anyone trying to make peace with food and to find comfort with their own body. If you weigh yourself on the scale to see your weight loss progress, you probably connect the number shown to a value of your self-worth. And you likely have expectations of what the number on the scale means.

What am I referring to? Let’s say you really commit to making mindful, healthy choices all week and at the end of the week, you hop on the scale all excited to see a loss but instead you see your weight hasn’t changed much. It will be easy for you to say “I did all the work and for what?”

Or maybe you had a very “lax” week and you had a few late night food binges or ate past the point of comfort and when you weighed yourself that week, you lost weight! Maybe you will think “why try so hard if I can lose weight eating chocolate cake with each meal!”

Weighing yourself on the bathroom scale is a sure way to undermine all your efforts and hard work. The scale is tricky. You may not see your weight dropping as much or as quickly as you hoped for. You may feel discouraged and want to give up on your efforts or you may feel inclined to switch to extreme weight loss measures for fast gratification.

However, if you would like to make meaningful changes to improve yourself and your life, LISTEN UP! It’s time to put the scale to rest.

The scale measures your total body weight and the number can fluctuate based on hormones, when you last ate, and more. If you are relying on the scale to report to you how you are “doing” on your eating plan, you will likely be disappointed if you don’t take these other variables into consideration.

If you want to experience true results, stopping watching the scale and start listening to your BODY. That’s where the true AHA moments happen.

Do you have a “goal weight” hovering in the back of your mind? Forget about it. Shift your focus away from the number to how you FEEL and how well you are LISTENING to your body.

If you need some help with this try to focus on some of the following instead of focusing on the scale:

How do you feel when you engage in exercise each day?
Did you only decide to eat when you were physically hungry? Did you stop when you felt comfortably satisfied?
How is your energy and stamina? Your mood?
Are you comfortable and confident in your own body today?

Your turn to take action: Put away the scale and commit to not weighing yourself for one month. Focus on listening to your body and let me know how you feel.

Protecting Yourself Against New Year’s Diet Talk

You have made the commitment to never diet again. Yay you!! The only problem you are facing now is the constant bombardment of the media with THE way for you to finally lose your excess weight now that the New Year is approaching.

All this diet talk sends chills up my spine. Actually it makes me downright mad. I am really so tired of hearing about the next miracle diet to hit the market.

You know why I am so mad about it?

Because it’s the innocent, decent people like you that get hurt. It is so easy to get sucked into the amazing claims these diets tout, why wouldn’t you say “let me try it, this will be THE one.”

But sadly, it isn’t so. Not too soon after January 1^st you will be throwing in the towel on this diet too.

So the question is, how do you deal with the media and how do you deal with your girlfriends who are getting ready to embark on a new diet come January 1^st?

Here’s how:

Recommit to your diet-free way of life. Remind yourself why you began your intuitive eating journey. Then every time another commercial hits the airwaves, an email pops up in your inbox or your friend chews your ear off with the new diet she is on, quietly repeat this mantra to yourself “I have committed to a diet-free life. I rock!”

Unsubscribe from all diet-related email subscriptions, or magazines that advertise the latest diets and “here’s how to lose the baby weight fast” articles.

Find a buddy to join you on your diet-free journey. Not sure where to find one? Join us in the Diet Free Radiant Me™ online community where there are hundreds of others who are breaking free of diets!

I’m keeping this blog short, sweet and to the point.

1.Commit to your diet-free lifestyle and learning to practice intuitive eating.

2.Close your eyes and ears to others who talk diets.

3.Get the right support for your journey.

Your turn to take action: How does all this end of year/New Year diet talk make YOU feel? What action will you do to stay free and clear of the diet industry vultures?

Keep Your Nose Out of My Plate

Why is it that some people need to know what you are eating, and have opinions on what is best for you?

I was at a wedding the other night. When it came time for the dinner, I asked the waiter for a vegetarian plate. I don’t prefer chicken or meat, and I usually ask for the vegetarian option. Not a problem. Yet, when my dinner plate came to the table, all eyes were on it. “What do you have there?” “Why did you order vegetarian? You don’t eat meat?”

I don’t need to get into conversation with anyone about my food preferences or what I eat, unless of course I want to. But most of the time it is not welcomed.

Do you have people in your life that stick their nose into your plate? Perhaps they are offering you advice on what you should or should not eat to lose weight, lower your cholesterol or to have more energy? Even worse, have you heard the dreaded words “Should you be eating THAT?”

I call these people boundary invaders. They are invading your private personal space. They have NO IDEA what is right for you, what you inner signals are telling you, what your taste preferences are. They need to keep their noses in their own plates.

Here’s how to deal with these people:

Tell them, ever so politely, that you are in charge of your decisions as to what to eat and what is right for you. Respectfully ask them to mind their own business and look in their own plate.

As for me, I politely answered “Vegetarian is my preference this evening. Enjoy your meal.”

End of story.

Your turn to take action: Do you have a story to share of someone who had their nose in your plate? Share below.

Stress Less this Holiday Season

With the upcoming holidays it’s easy to get lost in the chaos. Don’t let yourself feel out of control this year. Start your holiday season off on the right foot! Make this the year that you conquer your dieting habits and turn to intuitive and mindful eating for a body you love.

Here are a few suggestions that work for me during the busy holiday season. I hope you find them helpful too.

Set yourself up for success

As I’ve mentioned many times before and I will probably suggest many times again, set yourself up for success. Do a clean sweep of your kitchen before you begin your cooking. I don’t mean sweep the floor, I mean tuck away all tempting foods – out of sight, out of mind. Take those holiday cookies and sweets and put them in the pantry or kitchen cabinet so they won’t be staring at you while you cook.

Be sure to eat breakfast each day

Skipping breakfast or lunch before your holiday meal will cause you to be exceptionally hungry when it’s time for the main meal. You might think you’re doing yourself a favor but you will likely eat more than your stomach can handle and you won’t feel good afterwards. Or you might fill up on appetizers and feel full before the meal even begins. Understand that maintaining a state of satisfaction is a huge part of eating right.

Pace Yourself

During the meal, pacing yourself is key. Put your fork down and spend time talking to relatives in between bites. As you space out your meal you allow your brain to register the food that is entering your stomach. Your body will be able to signal when you are satisfied and have eaten enough.

Anticipate the stress

The holidays are a balancing act. Prepare yourself for stressful situations and learn how to best manage a stressful event so that you do not turn to food to ease the stress. If you know you are going to see family members or friends who drain you physically and emotionally, take the time to mentally prepare yourself in advance. Think of strategies to handle situations and come up with solutions to destress. This can be finding a comforting place to take a break, whether it be your car or an empty room.

The stress that comes from the cooking, the cleaning, the planning and of course the eating can all be balanced with the right strategies and support.

In honor of the holidays, I have ONE TIME opportunity that I’d like to extend to you.

I will personally coach you through the holidays in my Stress Less EAT LESS™ Program. Learn the 3 key steps to best manage the stress and overwhelm to STOP STRESS EATING once and for all.

Stress Less EAT LESS™ is a 4 week program that includes live group coaching calls, a private Facebook group, My Holiday Menu Planner and Recipe Guide and so much more.

Save $100 by getting all the details and signing up HERE.

We start November 30^th so don’t wait.

Have questions, email me at Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com

3 Tips to Increase Mindfulness in Your Kitchen and Home

Big news! My son and daughter-in-law had a baby boy! That’s my second grandchild (both boys) and I am super excited. He came into this world a bit earlier than expected and took us all by surprise. But he and mom are doing well and we couldn’t be happier!

We celebrated my new grandson’s homecoming from the hospital with a celebration in my home on Friday evening. I had less than 48 hours to plan this big event so I went into overdrive. My husband and I immediately started making lists of what we needed to buy. Cake, fruit, drinks etc…..

The party was terrific. Happy times and cherished memories with family and friends.

After the party, I looked around. Wow, I had SO much food left over. As usual, I overbought, thinking I wouldn’t have enough. This is where the challenge began.

In order to continue my mindful eating practices, it’s important to set up my environment for success. If I was to leave all the cake and pastries on my kitchen counter, then it would be very tempting every time I passed in and out of the kitchen. So, I packed everything up in storage bags, labeled it and carefully put it in the freezer with the intention that I will take it out the next time I have company over. In response to my children’s request, I did leave out some of grandma’s blondies:)

I believe it’s important to be realistic. As an intuitive and mindful eater, you know that you eat when hungry and not because it’s “just there in front of you”. But, there are times when even the most intuitive and mindful of eaters will dip into the cookie jar – well – just because.

In order to minimize this mindless eating, it is important to set your home up for success.

Here are 3 tips that I do in my home that you can start doing right now:

Put all food away in the cabinets. Keep your counters clear. Out of sight, out of mind.
Immediately freeze leftovers and label it for the next meal you plan to eat it.
Keep all food in the kitchen. Avoid having candy dishes filled with nuts and jelly beans on the living room cocktail table for when someone comes to visit. When that time comes, you can always put the candy dish out.

There is no perfection in intuitive eating. But, you can help your journey along by setting up your home for success.

Your turn to take action: What steps will you take to minimize mindless eating in your home environment?

Just One More Diet…Promise!

Have you ever heard yourself say “let me just lose twenty pounds and then I’ll deal with my emotional eating”?

You go through the cycle of dieting and losing the weight and then gradually gain it back again and again. It’s a treacherous cycle that never ends. You get sucked into the latest diet claim and think to yourself “this is what’s finally going to help me lose the weight for good”.

What you don’t realize is it’s a trap.

I’d like you to consider the possibility that it’s not so much the FOOD that you’re eating that’s the problem, it’s the underlying reason WHY you are eating.

Even if you don’t follow a “fad diet”- even if you follow a healthy-well balanced, structured meal plan – there is only so long that this will “work” for you. It’s imperative to face head on the emotional reasons that trigger your eating. These structured rules and standards of even a healthy eating plan will not continue to work for you until you dig deep into your relationship with food.

This means for some of you revisiting issues from your past. What were the food and body image messages that you were “fed” growing up? I know it’s easier to avoid going to these places, but it’s imperative if you are going to finally feel good about yourself and your body.

I ask you to step out of your comfort zone. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap again. Take a risk and trust a professional who is telling you to forget about the diets, and dare I say, your healthy eating plan (for now).

Ask yourself what you really want to accomplish? Is it to lose 20 pounds but deep in your heart know that you will regain them and continue on this dizzying diet cycle?

Or, do you want to finally come to peace with food?

I understand that you feel safe when you’re following a diet. But right now it’s important to be true to yourself.

If you are an emotional eater and you aren’t using your inner body wisdom to make your food decisions each and every day, AND you see food as your enemy instead of the fuel and nourishment it’s meant to be, it’s time to make a change.

Figure out what is standing in the way of you finally losing the weight for good; because that next diet won’t be your last.

Take action in ONE or ALL of several ways:

1) Download your Free e-book: 5 Steps to a Body You Love Without Dieting and get started on your journey.

2) Join other women on the same journey in our Free Online Community.

3) Set up a Break Free of Dieting Strategy Session with me (complementary) and see how I can best support you.

Tag Archive for: mindful eating