Ep 35c- Mindful Meal Guidelines: Day 3

October 05,2024

Listen to the 5 Day Mindful Eating Challenge to Stop Binge Eating!

Today you’ll learn my mindful meal guidelines- the secret blueprint I give my clients.

All right, we are good to go. Welcome to day three of our mindful eating challenge. I am so excited we are on day three because today we are going to be talking about our mindful meal guidelines. Today I'm going to give you the secret blueprint to how to create a mindful meal. that I teach all of my clients.

So this is really going to be the action steps today. The simple how for doing mindful eating. You know, the mindset is really important, but we also need the actions. There's only so much. we can do without the right tools and steps on how to become a natural mindful full eater. Now, I include these guidelines at every meal time as well as every snack time.

So I call them my mindful meal guidelines, but I also apply them to snacks. Most people in my program though, they don't snack as much as they used to. I rarely snack, like I do on occasion, especially if I'm like having a day where I exercise more or my schedule's off, but you'll notice that Most natural eaters, if you look at their eating habits, they are not snacking that much.

They are not having 10 snacks a day and an entire cabinet full of snacks ready to go at work in case they get hungry. Because they trust that if they get hungry, they're going to eat. It's no big deal. They just wait for that signal. So before we start, if you missed it yesterday, I only have three spots left in my Confident Eater program to work with me one on one.

So this is my program if you want to go to the next level with an entire six pillar program that is proven to help you stop binge eating, overeating, and rewire your brain as this natural confident eater. I even have a full money back guarantee that you will stop binge eating. And I also have a special bonus right now where you're going to get a custom journal to keep track of all of your transformations in the program, all of the amazing insights you're having.

We are going to have so much goodness in the program that you're going to want a space to write it all down. And that custom journal is going to be just for you to help you do that. So I know spots are going to start filling up quickly, so there'll be a link below to book a free consultation call with me on my website.

These consultation calls are really just a way for us to get to know each other a bit more, for me to see what's going on with your eating habits, to give you the step by step plan of how you're going to get out of it, and really for you to decide is this the program for you or not. So they're totally no pressure, no sales y.

I just tell you about my program, you get to make a decision on if it's right for you, but this could be the one decision that changes everything for you. All right, so these following guidelines are going to help you stop overeating, tune into your fullness cue a bit more, and help you feel more satisfied.

It's also going to help you take your body out of a stressed state. So something really interesting about stress is stress actually impacts your blood sugar regulation. A lot of the times when we hear about blood sugar regulation, we're just told to eat less sugar, right? So that's what we think. But really, our body is so much more complicated than that.

And when cortisol is released in our body, the stress hormone, hormone, it is released and it increases our blood sugar levels in an attempt to help us prepare for fighting or flight needs. So, remembering that our brain is built for survival. Our brain is not built to help us have an amazing life in the modern day world.

So we have to actively make sure that we are managing our mind each day in order to create our dream life. Now when we have this excess blood sugar running through our veins, this can cause insulin resistance and also be a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. So the implications of this are, if you are watching social media, or TV, or you're at your desk while working, these can all be stressors that are releasing cortisol.

Like think about if you're in the middle of opening emails and people are asking all these things of you and giving you feedback. Your brain has a lot going on in that moment and probably releasing a little bit of stress if you don't have a lot of mindset tools. The way we mitigate the stress is by learning mindset tools, which I am all about.

But when this happens, if you're trying to eat your lunch while you're in the stressed state, it's going to be much harder to slow down, it's much harder to pay attention to it, and your blood sugar is going to increase so much more than it would if you were relaxed. Same thing with social media and TV.

Now, it kind of depends on what you're watching on social media or TV because there's So many different forms of media on there, but think about if you're watching the news or something with politics. That is going to be stressful to your brain, and it's going to be hard to eat that meal mindfully in front of the TV.

Um, but maybe, you know, if you're watching a comedy or kitten videos, might be a little different experience. That might actually bring you joy. But especially in the beginning, I still recommend eating mindfully so we can start to reconnect to your body and increase this mind body connection. Another thing that is also very often overlooked is the stress we have about food.

The anxiety we feel around food, right? If you are here, my guess is you do not feel peaceful around food right now. You're thinking about food all day long. You're wondering, when's my next meal gonna be? Am I eating the right things? Am I eating too much? Am I eating too little? Am I gonna binge later? How am I going to make sure that I'm on track with my goals?

I binged yesterday, so how am I going to make up for that today? All of these thoughts and constant anxiety around food is also a stressor for your body. And this stress has a major impact on your health. So people are always out there telling you, Oh my god, sugar is killing you, which it's not. Guys, sugar is not killing you.

I promise you. Humans have been eating sugar for over 10, 000 years. Now I'm not advocating for you to go and increase your added sugar because yes, there is lots of research that, and a reduction in that would be good for you. But I also want you to think, This additional stress, like this extreme level of fear and panic, and, oh my god, I have cookies in the house, I'm going to binge on them.

That is causing major impacts on your health too, and that is what I want to work on you, so you can have that peacefulness, you can lower your blood sugar. literally just by feeling better around food. So these guidelines I'm about to give you are going to give you this opportunity to stop overeating so you can start feeling in charge again.

Alright, our first guideline is to plate your food. Anything that you eat, put it on a plate. Okay, if your brain is telling you, but I just want like one chip. How often are you eating one chip right now? Probably not too often. So if you truly want one chip, take out a plate and put on one chip. And then at least there's a much bigger chance that you'll be satisfied with it and remember eating it than continuing on with the whole bag.

If you're having anything, whether it's a snack, a meal, making sure it's on a plate will help create this clear beginning and end for your mind of I'm seeing the food and I'm eating it. And because our brains are very visual, we're very visual creatures, that's the sense we rely on the most, we usually need our vision in order to recognize how much food we're eating.

So when you're eating it, you can see, okay, there's the food, it's going into my mouth, and I'm remembering eating it. Your brain now has a memory of the food instead of being like, where did it go? And wanting to eat more. This is also going to help you not necessarily eat less. It can for sure, but at least at the minimum, it will help you think about going back for more.

So I don't want you to use this strategy as like a hard and fast rule of absolutely no going back for more once I put it on my plate, but it is going to give you a minute to say, okay, if I want more, I have to go open up the chip back again, portion it out and sit down with that. Guideline number two is to make sure you're sitting down.

Get your booty in a chair. When we are standing, we are in action mode. It's very rarely that we just like stand in our house, like, Just standing. We're standing, we're about to do something, our brain is preparing for something, we're talking to someone, we're on the go. And so this action mode for our brain, again, it's not really registering the food you're eating.

So when we're sitting down, and it's just us and the food, at the table, in your dedicated eating space, it's going to help you remember what you're eating. but also help put you in the rest and digest mode. Third, turn off your distractions. So I say if it existed a hundred years ago, it doesn't necessarily count as a distraction.

Anything that is a screen, so the TV, the iPad, the computer, the laptop, all of that, I count as a distraction. Because these things are hyper distractions. They have lights and sounds and colors and music and lots of things happening to them, so they really suck our brain in.

Hold on here. Okay, there we are. Something just happened. Alright, so, distractions off. When we sit in front of the TV, research has shown that We will often eat 60 to 150 percent more food. Again, because all of our attention is drawn in. So if you are not used to sitting undistracted at your meals, it's going to feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you've never done it.

This is not something you're used to doing. This is a new skill you're building. And this is a skill that once you build, you will not have to do forever. So you might be thinking, Oh my gosh, I don't really want to do this. I don't want to do what Amber's telling me if I have to never sit in front of a screen again, but This is something that we do in order to help you build the habit of natural eating.

So I now occasionally eat my meals with the TV or a movie on, or I scroll on my phone sometimes in the morning. But it's no big deal because my fullness signal is now so loud that I literally cannot ignore it. And that's what happens when you pay attention to it a whole bunch and we turn that dial up on it, that when I hear that I'm full, like I'm like, I am freaking full, I am done.

So I, I'm okay being a little more distracted. But it wasn't that way always in the beginning, so I had to build that skill up. And now, I honestly, I just crave eating my meals undistracted. It's not something I feel like I have to force myself to do, or a rule I have to follow in order to stick to being good with my food now.

It's just something I think is fine. I like having this break in my day, and I really treat it as this true opportunity to rest my brain, to allow my brain to process, think, and I always get the best ideas for my life. when I am sitting down with my meals mindfully. It's like the same thing in the shower.

You know when you're in the shower and you're like, oh my gosh, I just have like million dollars ideas when I'm in the shower. That is what happens to you when you start mindfully eating because you're giving your brain a chance to think and grow and be creative, which it normally doesn't get a lot of opportunities to do.

So our fourth and final meal guideline is you're going to take a little Three deep breaths before you start eating. This is going to show your brain. Hey, look, we're starting to eat. And also help put your body in this parasympathetic state, which is our rest and digestion state. This is what we've been talking about this week is getting our body to calm the heck down in our stressful modern world.

So these three deep breaths are really simple. I like to do them through my nose in this long, slow exhale through my nose. So what this looks like is a big inhale in. And a long, slow exhale out. I already feel like ten times better after doing just one of those, so try it out too. When we do this long, slow exhale, that's signaling to our brain that we're not running, or fighting, or climbing.

It's signaling to our brain that we're safe, and feeling safe around our eating and food is a really important step to start to feel more in control around it. So like I mentioned, expect when you start to do these things, that it's going to be uncomfortable and boring at first, but I want you to allow that discomfort to be there.

Allow the boredom, whatever is coming up, to happen without making it a problem. It's when you make it a problem that it becomes a problem. So what I mean by that is when you say, I'm bored and I shouldn't be bored. That's when all of a sudden you say, well, I have to go get my food. I have to go get the iPad.

I have to go do something because I can't be bored. But if you could be bored and just say, you know what, I'm bored and that's not a problem, then you stop feeling this need to escape it all the time. This is where I want you to reconnect back to your why. So in day one of the Facebook group, I put a prompt up asking you what your why is.

Um, feel free to post on that or just make your own posts and really consider. Why am I even doing all of this? Why do I want to eat mindfully? Why do I want to stop overeating, binge eating, and become a natural confident eater? If this is so important to me, you will make the time to make it happen. Know that it will be so worth it once you start to try, once you start actually achieving food freedom, right?

So trying out these mindful eating guidelines, not just doing it one time and saying, that was too hard, I give up, but really giving them a full shot. And remembering, too, that this is exactly what I teach people in my Confident Eater program and so much more, so coaching will help you implement this, too, if you're having a hard time with it.

But, of course, put your questions in the Facebook group, too, right now. I'm here to support you. So I'd love to know if there's anywhere you're getting stuck. Now, all of these guidelines are just that. They are guidelines. They are not rules. Do not turn this into the Hunger, Fullness, Mindfulness diet. These are just things that you can implement as tools to help you.

It is not a requirement to eat mindfully. You can still 100 percent eat in line with your hunger and fullness and not binge, even if you never implement a single one of these guidelines. But you may start to realize how helpful and easy it is to eat when you have these guidelines in place. And also how much fun it is to eat mindfully.

It's actually something that can be enjoyable, not something that's hard. Once you get past that initial phase of implementing it. So your action step today is going to be implementing these mindful meal guidelines. Plating your food, sitting down, eating undistracted, and taking those three deep breaths.

Let me know if you have any questions or how it goes and I'll talk to you tomorrow for day four where we're going to be using a very surprising strategy that you probably have never heard before. which is how to binge mindfully. We are going to learn how to implement all you've learned to help you stop a binge in its tracks.

Talk to you then.

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Ep 35d-Using Mindfulness to Stop a Binge: Day 4

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Ep 35b- Interactive Mindful Eating Experiment: Day 2