intuitive eating Archives - Page 29 of 32 - Diet Free Radiant Me | Intuitive Eating | Emotional Eating

Do You Possess The Dieter’s Dilemma?

I know how much you want to lose weight. You have tried for many years. You’ve been successful in that you lost weight on whatever diet you were on at that moment, assuming you were “good”. But then, the inevitable happens. You crave foods that you love that you have restricted for so long. You now enter into the vicious cycle of dieting and the “Dieter’s Dilemma”.

There is a way out. I’ve recorded a video for you this week to further discuss The Dieter’s Dilemma. Just click below and watch.

Learn the 3 steps you need to break free of the vicious cycle of dieting. Click here to register for my Free Webinar on Tuesday September 16 at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. The webinar will be recorded, so register even if you cannot make it live. I will send you the recording.

How to Break Free from the Pain of Dieting and Get the Body You Love Without Deprivation.

Don’t miss out on this informative free training. It’s your path to freedom to eat.

Abolishing the “Eat This, Don’t Eat That” Rule

Portion control is something that is always stressed when discussing weight loss and healthy eating. It is undeniable that the portions of food people eat are much larger than they were years ago, which is a direct contributor to the obesity epidemic this country is facing.

Several experiments have recently been conducted at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. It was discovered that people have a “taste-health balance point” – a proportion of unhealthy and healthy foods in each meal – which they find satisfactory. Thus, eating a smaller portion of a food you love (that might not be deemed the healthiest), rather than eliminating it completely, and pairing it with a healthy food choice allows the person to be satisfied with a smaller amount without feeling deprived.

Yet, in most commercial diet plans, along with portion control, there are “eat this, don’t eat that” rules. Inevitably, the dieter can only stand not eating a favorite food on the “don’t eat” list for so long. Cravings then lead to overeating and the diet is foregone.

Is this sounding familiar to you?

This is one of the reasons that I stress to my clients the importance of really understanding the concept of providing yourself with the unconditional permission to eat when hungry what food you desire. It takes the “taboo” label off foods that you would otherwise deem as “bad”. It eliminates the desire to overeat on these foods and creates room for healthier food options.

So, if you are stuck in the diet mindset, try balancing your next meal with healthy wholesome foods plus those that you might deem “not as healthy” but are your favorite. See if you are satisfied with less and let me know in the comment section below.

To learn more about becoming an intuitive eater and How to Break Free from the Pain of Dieting and Get the Body You Love Without Feeling Deprived, join me for a Free Webinar on Tuesday September 16,2014 at 8 pm EST. Click here to register for FREE.

How Your Eating Environment Can Positively Affect Your Appreciation of Your Food

How often do you actually take the time to appreciate the food that is on the plate in front of you or in your mouth? The food that is giving you fuel to power through your day and energy for your workouts?

For most of my clients, not often at all. Until they start working with me:)

That used to be me too. I would schedule clients throughout my workday, barely leaving time for me to take a lunch and/or dinner break. When I could squeeze the time in, I would hurry and eat something and get right back to work.

For those of you who know me well, I work with clients both in person and online. I have a home office which is separate from my house (we constructed the lower level with a side entrance into an office), so when I go to work in the morning, I am really “going to work”. There are many days when I don’t step foot back into my house until the evening. This means, I would eat lunch at my desk.

Here’s the problem with that scenario. At my designated lunch break, my assistants would give me work to review, phone calls to return and emails to respond to. I would eat my lunch and quickly get to the tasks that needed my attention before I started seeing clients again for the afternoon. Well, I was not appreciating my food at all. There was so much going on around me, that I wasn’t able to take the time to really savor and be mindful.

I quickly realized this has to change! As I started teaching intuitive eating and mindful eating to my clients, I too began practicing these principles. The first change I made…to go upstairs to my kitchen and sit down at the table and eat my lunch. I look out my beautiful bay windows at the trees, focus on each and every bite and achieve great pleasure in my food.

Wow, what a difference this has made in my mind and my body.

Many people tell me “I don’t have time to do that” or “mindful eating takes too much time. I have so many things I need to do”.

Ahem, excuse me. I am just as busy. And, you know what? Eating lunch in this manner doesn’t take me any more time than eating at my desk while multi-tasking. I still start my afternoon client sessions on time. BUT, I appreciate my food much more, and my body is energized and fueled and happy!

Try it. And, let me know how you feel afterwards.

And, for added fun, snap of photo of your eating area and share it with me on Facebook.

Do You Pay Your Dues in the Clean the Plate Club?

When you are eating, do you pay attention to how satisfied you are getting? Or, do you eat until all the food on the plate is gone?

I ask you these questions because as a chronic dieter, you more than likely have become a member (or hopefully an ex-member) of the “clean the plate” club. There are many reasons why you might be in this club. But right now, the reason I will highlight is the entitlement you feel.

What do I mean by entitlement? Well, simply said, when you are on a diet you are entitled to a certain amount of food, right? And, when you portion that food out onto your plate, you are going to eat what you are entitled to no matter what.

As an intuitive eater, there is no more food worry, no more entitlement, and no more restrictions. Let me share another story with you (last week I shared my Godiva chocolate story, I hope you liked it!)

My husband and I recently went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant while we were on vacation. We don’t usually eat out due to our hectic schedules, but this was during our vacation so we had the time. I ordered two appetizers instead of an appetizer and an entrée which I knew would be too much food for me. One of those appetizers was something I typically would not have ordered; it was a crostini with veggies and cheese. Seeing that I am an intuitive eater and I don’t deprive myself of food that I desire when I am biologically hungry, I decided to order the crostini.

As I was eating, I was staying focused and paused a few times to check in with my inner signals. At some point, I recognized that I was just about nearing comfortable satiety and although the crostini was delicious, I knew that if I finished it (there was one left on the plate), I would have become overfull.

What do you think I did? I stopped eating, put my fork and knife down and told my husband I’m done. I asked the waitress to pack up the last crostini so I can take it back to the hotel, where I had a refrigerator in my room. Yes, it was only one small crostini (remember this was an appetizer, so they weren’t big), and I still stopped eating and took it back with me. I certainly could have shoved it in, but I knew I would have been too full and would regret it.

Two days later (still on vacation), when it was time for a snack, I saw the bag in the frig and remembered I brought it back from the restaurant. I decided to have it as my snack and I enjoyed it as much as when I had it the very first time.

I don’t share this story to brag. I want you to know that you can have these experiences too. You don’t have to finish the food on your plate, even if there are just one or two bites left. Learning to become an intuitive eater opens up a whole new way of living.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Are you a member of the “clean the plate” club? Do you have a story to share where you took home or put away that last bite?

How to Manage Your Emotions without Turning to Food

One of the things that come up often in my work with my clients is how they deal with emotional eating. We all experience different emotions throughout a given day. For some, there might be more than others. Such emotions include anxiety, loneliness and sadness. Other more subtle emotions that often might lead you to turn to food include boredom and stress. It is totally normal to experience these emotions from time to time, but how you cope with them is key. (Note: if you are experiencing intense sadness and depression, please see an appropriate mental health professional.)

So the question here is: do you find yourself reaching into the food cabinets when these emotions arise? If you do, how do you feel after you eat the cookies, candy or whatever your “go to” mood fixer food is?

I know that deep down you realize that food is not resolving the issue at hand. Yet, you still find comfort even for the moment in the box of chocolates. But you know what? After you eat them, you now have to deal with the guilt, physical discomfort of overeating and the original emotion you were trying to numb. You are now worse off than when you started.

Does this sound like you? How do you get out of this viscous cycle?

The first thing you need to do is acknowledge that you turn to food to comfort negative feelings, even to numb the emotional pain you might be feeling. Then, you need to commit to learning a new way. Before immediately turning to food, STOP and ask yourself what are you really feeling. If you can honestly say you are hungry, then by all means you should eat….a well-balanced power snack or meal. But if you are being true to yourself and really want to help yourself, you won’t automatically say “I’m hungry”. Instead, you will think about what you are feeling and how you can comfort yourself without turning to food.

If you are unsure what you need, seek out the support from a friend, counselor or therapist. Talking through your emotions instead of eating through them is an amazing feeling. If you are not ready to face your feelings, then engage in an alternate activity.

Write down some things that you enjoy doing that can distract you during these times. Take a walk, do a puzzle, read a book, go for a ride etc. Figure out what works for you.

I’ll tell you what works for me. When I am feeling overwhelmed, stressed or upset about something, I remove myself from the area I am at that is causing me distress. I then take several deep breaths and count down from 10 to 0. It really helps me clear my head, and prevents me from heading to the peanut butter jar:)

What works for you? Please let me know in the comments section below. And if you need help sorting through your emotions, I am here for you. Just click here and request to speak with me so you can get clear on your challenges and have a clear path towards dealing with your emotions without turning to food.

The 3 Pieces of the Chronic Dieting Puzzle, Why it Doesn’t Work and the Puzzle that Does

Obedience, willpower, and failure are three connecting pieces to a chronic dieters puzzle. Once you have one set in stone, the other two follow. I call this a “puzzle” because as a chronic dieter you believe that you need all three pieces to feel good about yourself and to get to a satisfying weight.

What if I told you that this is not the case? What if I told you that these three components are actually lethal to your health, and cause you to get trapped in the dieting cycle over and over again?

Let’s start with “obedience”. Say for example you have a new pet (how about a dog) and you are training your dog. You teach the dog what he can and cannot do (a set of rules if you will) and when the dog is not obedient, you punish the dog for bad behavior. For example, you tell the dog he cannot enter the living room when you are not home. You arrive home and your couch is all chewed up. Now you punish the dog by putting up a gate at the living room entrance because the dog was not obedient, the dog was “a bad dog”.

Now relate this to yourself. You are following a particular diet this month which lists for you foods that you can and cannot eat. You are following a list of rules with do’s and don’ts. Yet, you eat the very food you are told not to eat (let’s say, pizza) and you tell yourself you’ve been “bad”, you weren’t obedient to the rules. You vow never to do this again. Guess what? That’s not going to happen. You will absolutely eat that pizza again at some point in time. No one or thing can tell you how you feel and what you should eat. You are the expert of your body! You should be responsible for when, what, and how much you eat. So, let’s forget about obedience.

The second piece of the chronic dieter’s puzzle is “willpower”. Let’s take the party scene for example. Whenever you go to a party do you find yourself staring at the dessert table, drooling over everything that you love but have vowed to never eat again? You keep telling yourself you don’t need all the calories, just have willpower. You try and walk away but end up overindulging because you have starved your body from those desserts for a few weeks or even longer. Willpower is not a component of intuitive eating. You have natural desires, we all do. And to try and will yourself away from them just ends in disaster. Forget the willpower and listen to your own body’s signals because that will bring you back to your natural instincts, which you have lost through the dieting schemes.

The final piece of the chronic dieter’s puzzle is “failure”. This is what you feel once obedience and willpower have once again failed you through this dieting process. So you in turn overindulge and gain back all the weight that you lost, and sometimes even more. Newsflash: you are not the one that failed; the diets are what have failed.

Should I say that again? You are not a failure, nor will you ever be with intuitive eating.

You need to start working on a NEW PUZZLE.

THE INTUITIVE EATING PUZZLE. There are only three pieces to this puzzle.

Puzzle piece #1: A Healthy Non-Diet Mindset

Puzzle piece #2: Nutrition Education

Puzzle piece #3: Caring Support

Does it sound difficult? Well, nothing in life comes easy. But it is truly your solution if you want to finally break free of the pain of dieting and achieve the body that you love.

Now it’s your turn to take action: Contact me for your FREE Break Free of Dieting Strategy Session so you can put your INTUITIVE EATING Puzzle together effortlessly.

Food Deprivation Leading to Rebound Eating

Overindulging in a food item that you restrict is common if you are a chronic dieter. This is called deprivation backlash-rebound eating.

Here’s a common scenario: you deprive yourself of a certain food, such as your beloved chocolate because you are on a diet and you are not allowed to have chocolate, right? Well an old time friend comes to visit and brings you a box of chocolates. You put it away vowing you will not open it. A family member spots the chocolate, opens the box and now what do you do? Hmmm, I’ll just have one, really only one. But before you turn around, you have more than one, and at this point you might as well finish the box because you promise yourself you won’t have chocolate again. You truly believe that you won’t. Yet, you now feel guilty and as a punishment you skip dinner only to find yourself bingeing into the evening.

The above scenario is one example of the backlash that happens when you deprive yourself of a food you love. You rebound by eating, and overeating.

There are many different forms of rebound eating.

Have you ever engaged in The Last Supper eating? I have had many clients tell me that they knew they were coming to see me on Monday (or whatever day their appointment was on) and so the day before they overindulged on all the foods they thought they would no longer be allowed to eat….the foods that they thought would be off limits.

Listen, eating shouldn’t be this difficult. It’s time for you to make peace with food so you can once and for all stop the dieting cycle.

Need help? Click here to schedule a time to chat.

Your turn to take action: Tell me about a time that you engaged in rebound eating or The Last Supper. Share your stories in the comments section below.

The Guilt of Food Talk

Do you have a set of unreasonable rules that dieting has created? Is your head constantly filled with chanting words that promote or demote you from eating food that you love? This is the food police voice that is constantly telling you what you should and shouldn’t eat. It’s sort of like the angel and the devil sitting on your shoulders, one telling you it’s okay to eat the chocolate cake, but the other yelling “NO” don’t do it.

You decide to have that chocolate cake, while the devil sitting on your shoulder is beaming with pride because you followed his advice. As soon as you eat that cake you feel guilty about the amount of calories and fat that you just consumed. Even though you enjoyed the chocolate cake, you still feel guilty. Most chronic dieters have this sense of guilt each and every time they eat something that the food police is saying they shouldn’t.

The media and various companies place thoughts in your head related to nutrition and ways to “cheat” and make yourself feel guiltless because of the way these food items are advertised. The slogans and jingles are created to convince you that this cookie will prevent you from being “bad” on your diet, and will keep you on track. These are the advertisements that cause you to have negative food thoughts and judgments towards food.

You are not born with these food judgments, you develop them over the years of dieting and being influenced by the media penetrating these images of good versus. bad in your head.

The next time you pick up a food item that you enjoy and you contemplate “should I or shouldn’t I”, take a moment to listen to your body and the food talk going on in your head. Push away the negative thoughts and change the tape that plays in your head. If this is a food that you truly desire, go ahead and enjoy it without guilt in a very mindful way. Realize that this one food eaten in this one moment will not make you gain weight or have a nutritional deficiency. You may actually find that you don’t love the chocolate cake as much as you thought you did.

Your turn to take action: How will you replace the negative self-talk that plays in your head? Post your comments below!

How to Wipe Out the Foods on Your “What-Not” to Eat List

I love lists. I live by lists. Just ask my family members. I have a lot of lists. They help me to prioritize my tasks, stay organized and accomplish what needs to get done.

How often do you make lists throughout your day? To-do lists, shopping lists, what-not to eat lists?

Lists play a prominent role in the life of a chronic dieter. Some of these lists are written out, others are likely engrained in your head. The good versus bad food lists draws a line between the foods you allow yourself to eat and those you don’t, which inevitably establishes a barrier that you “cannot” cross.

Do you overindulge when you allow yourself to eat from the “bad food” list? Most likely you do because you are experiencing deprivation from this particular food item that has become taboo for you. This is exactly why you overindulge; it’s called deprivation backlash.

I say it’s time to thrown away these food lists so you can make peace with food once and for all.

How?

Write down all the foods that you don’t allow yourself to eat. Then plan out one by one when you are going to purchase that food and when and where you are going to eat it. Make sure you plan to do this when you feel calm, not stressed and you are in a calm, relaxing atmosphere.

Explore how you feel when you eat each food on your list. Is it as good as you expected? What surprises did you experience?

This is a process, so be patient with yourself. You might just find that what you thought you once loved you actually do not like at all. And, what you thought you didn’t like has become your new favorite.

Making peace with food takes time, but it is well worth the effort. If I can help you on this journey, feel free to reach out by requesting a strategy session here.

Your turn to take action: Write down all the foods that are on your ‘what-not” to eat food list, and share in the comments below how you are going to start incorporating these items into your menus.

Take A Stand Against the Scale

Do you find yourself hopping on the scale every morning? Do you rejoice on the days you’ve lost a pound, and scold yourself on the days you stayed the same? The scale starts to have the ultimate power of how you feel and treat yourself during the day. This leads to a cycle of under and overeating, weight gain, and body dissatisfaction – four things that lead you down the wrong path when it comes to food.

The number on the scale does not reflect the person you are, or the person you are becoming. No one and no thing can tell you how you feel about yourself. With intuitive eating you cannot fail, it is a lifestyle and learning process every step of the way. The scale is a false idol. There are many factors that influence your weight which do not reflect body fat, such as fluid retention, fluid shifts within your body and water loss from sweating after a workout.

Forget the scale; it does not represent who you are, or who you are becoming. Intuitive eating teaches you to become compassionate toward yourself, and helps you to get past dieting. Listen to your internal cues telling you what you want to eat, and when you want to eat it. The scale does not determine your food or exercise schedule for the rest of the week. Your inner cues won’t lead you astray, have confidence and listen to what your body is telling you.

The next time you go into the bathroom to weigh yourself, STOP! Remember the scale is not your measure of success on this intuitive eating journey. Take that scale and put it away. Just take a look at the image with this blog…a woman standing on the scale yet the scale registers zero pounds.

Now it’s your turn to take action: Put away the scale and make a commitment not to weigh yourself. Please share your success in the comments below.

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