August 14, 2021 • 22 mins
Lisa answers an email from a listener who asks:
- What to do when you slip into an unhealthy indset?
- How to deal with stressful eating?
- How to respond to self when a negative thought pops in?
- And how to know when you should be proud of yourself for not eating something based on listening to your body vs. restraint?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't lend my body out be outweigh everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always out way. If you
(00:24):
feel it with your eys in the air, She'll love
to the moo. I get there. Let's say good day
and time did you and die out? Hello, Outweigh fam
Lisa here, and today's a special episode because I received
an email from well Amy and I received an email
from a listener. Her name is Teresa, so this one
(00:45):
goes out to Teresa. Teresa says, good evening. I'm an
avid listener to Outweigh, and I've learned so much from
each episode. I've been on my own journey of recovery
from disordered eating, and I'm proud of myself for the
steps I've taken. It's very hard and constant work. I'm
reaching out because I noticed a red flag in myself
lately and I realized I need to put the extra
energy back into my recovery to get back on track.
(01:08):
I'm someone who developed and needing disorder later in life.
So I think my story is unique in a few ways.
So I'm shooting my shot to see if you have
any time for a quick combo so I could ask
some questions. Part of getting back on track is diving
into recovery, exploration and learning more. I have a few
questions that haven't necessarily been touched on any episode, and
I'd love to hear your input. I've really looked up
(01:30):
to you and your openness regarding disordered eating, and it's
been helpful along my journey. I know you're busy and
totally understand if you don't have time, but I wanted
to take a shot. So again, thanks for a great
podcast and for being such an encouraging voice. So Teresa
submitted four questions. I'm going to go through each of them,
starting with what to do when you slip into an
(01:51):
unhealthy mindset. Will get into suggestions for what to do
when you're going through a stressful event and you turn
to food, how to respond to those negative thoughts that
pop in, and how to tell the difference between listening
to your body and being proud of yourself or being
proud because of old habits. So I'll get into detail
about each of those. I want to thank Teresa and
(02:14):
all of you for seeing Amy and I as people
that you can trust as your friends and coming to
us for really advice, I know for me, you know,
coming to me from my registered dietitian point of view
or professional point of view, and maybe just coming to
Amy to kind of just look up to her journey
and watching it as it beautifully unfolds. So let's start
(02:34):
with question number one. Teresa wrote, what should you do
when you start to slip into unhealthy mindsets? And what
are some of your techniques for resetting your mindset? Great question,
and I think we're going to break this down into
a few different things. So the first thing I always say,
fork the noise is because you need to first be
able to notice when you're not being your best self.
(02:58):
And the best way to do that is to first
recognize that your brain has been infiltrated, that it's in
some sort of a fear mindset, that it is no
longer you taking the best care of yourself, but rather
you coming from this false sense of protection. Point. So
the first thing you really need to start to do
(03:19):
is to understand your body when your mindset is being unhealthy,
and that might sound really weird, but your body is
constantly sending you signals of when it's in fear. You
might get a little bit of a hot flash or
a jolt, or your stomach might tense up, or something
else might tense up in your body. But I want
you to start to get to know your body's reaction
(03:39):
to fear because that sometimes precipitates what's happening in our mind,
and it's really tangible when we can feel those changes
in our body. Once we feel those changes in our body,
we can recognize that we're no longer at baseline. So
step one is to really get to know when you're
being triggered. Then, and I want you to challenge yourself.
(04:02):
So whatever that unhealthy mindset is telling you to do,
I want you to do the opposite. Challenge yourself. If
it's saying don't eat this food, eat that food, because
you want to continue to neutralize that food, not allow
it to build up on itself. The second thing I
want to suggest is getting an accountability friend. So I
actually had somebody say something triggering to me last night.
(04:25):
I went to dinner with a friend and a mail
came over to the table and he said something to
me that he thought was being nice, but I found
myself triggered. Now, for me, a triggering situation does not
lead to action, so I did not think about, you know,
monitoring my food intake or changing it in any way.
But I did notice that I was affected by the
comment that was said to me, and I felt kind
(04:47):
of like out of my body for a moment. And
as soon as I left the dinner, I texted one
of my girlfriends and I was like, this just happened.
And she then told me she's getting married soon, and
she told me about all these comments she's been getting
from people about you know, losing weight for the wedding
and blah blah blah. And I step back from that conversation,
and then I returned to it, and I said, Oh,
(05:08):
I just want to let you know if any of
that stuff is ever coming up for you, you can
always text me and we could, you know, talk it out.
And I just know for me, having that safe place
to text a friend and be like, can you believe
this person said that to me really allowed me to
get it out of my head and into the hands
of somebody else who could hold space for me. And
I was no longer negatively affected by it, if that
(05:31):
makes sense. So have an accountability friend, have a safe
person that you can say, oh, this just happened and
I'm feeling really triggered. Maybe it's somebody that can give
advice and talk you off the cliff, or maybe it's
just somebody that you just said, Hey, when I'm going
through it, can I just text you this and you
don't need to actually respond, because sometimes we just need
to get it out there. The third thing I want
(05:52):
you to do is journal. So if you notice that
you're slipping into an unhealthy mindset, I want you to
grab a pen and a paper, and I want you
to just let the ledgates open and just right because
oftentimes when we are retracting to unhealthy mindset, older ways
of being, or habits, it's because something else is going on,
so it triggers are not necessarily obvious. So for me,
(06:16):
the comment that was said to me was very surface
and easy to understand why it took me there. But
in other situations, you might find yourself going back to
unhealthy ways because of less obvious things that are happening
in your life. Maybe it's a loss of control in
some other situations at work in your personal life and
your romantic life. Maybe there's just some sort of disalignment
(06:38):
or lack of alignment happening in your life that is
kind of like an undercurrent, not obvious to you or
the outside world. But if you start journaling, if you
start letting it all out, going to be able to
get to the bottom of it a lot more easily,
and therefore the mindset is going to change as a result.
The last piece of advice I want to give for
this question is to do what I call emotional sifting.
(07:02):
So I try to do this every morning, if not
every few days, if not once a week. But emotional
sifting is getting to the bottom of what's really going on,
and most of us don't take time to kind of
clear that clutter. We go through our days, we go
to sleep, we wake up, we do it again. When
you take time, whether it's meditation or just quiet time
throughout the day, all that stuff that's kind of bubbling
(07:24):
inside of you has a chance to come up and
get air, and by getting to the bottom of it,
you can really reset the foundation of your being. A
lot of times when things are wrong, we grab a solution,
but we don't make our way to what's causing the problem. Right,
(07:44):
we don't get to the root. If your stomach hurts,
you're likely to grab pepto bismol that will make the
problem go away. But did you really get to the
bottom of what was causing that stomach ache? Right? Instead,
I want you to pull the roots out of what
is going on in your life. So emotional sifting is
(08:07):
taking time to sift through the emotions that we are
pushing down one at a time, and I have found
that it is an incredibly healthy way to keep your
mindset healthy and really understand where things are coming from
as they come up for you. So those are some
(08:27):
things you can do when you start to slip into
those unhealthy mindset. Challenge yourself eat that food, or do
the opposite of the behavior that your mind is telling
you not to do or to do. Get an accountability
friend journal, and start your emotional sifting journey. But are
some of your suggestions After going through a stressful event.
During emotional and stressful times, I turned to food. I
(08:50):
know that isn't necessarily unhealthy, but it often leads to
binges for me. I'm trying to have better tools in
my toolkit for being compassionate for myself during these times.
Love at This person is on their journey of bringing
compassion and recognizing that eating during stressful times isn't bad. However,
she still does believe that eating food when stressful is
(09:13):
bad right, doesn't want to believe that it sounds like
but that is where she's at. And I did a
whole webinar for free earlier this year on emotional eating,
and the main theme is that in order to elevate
our consciousness and know what to do, how to best
take care of ourselves in that stressful state is to
give ourselves permission to eat when we're emotional and stressed,
(09:35):
and pair that with the idea that eating during these
times is perfectly okay. When we are stressed. When we
are emotional, we are activating a different part of our
brain which is not as logical as being at baseline
and being in our front seat, and our minds are
very quickly hijacked to kind of move over to this
(09:56):
other dimension. And once we're in that other dimension, and
it's very hard to take care of ourselves in any
way other than what is habit or what simply feels good,
and food as we know feels good. Oftentimes the foods
that we gravitate towards help us produce serotonin that feel
good hormone. So you're not broken for gravitating towards food
(10:20):
when it feels icky in your body. In fact, you're
being your own best caretaker. Given that you were in
the secondary dimension, you're in a really uncomfortable place, and
you're just doing what you have to to swim out
of the mud that you're stuck in. However, if we
can bring ourselves back to the frontal cortex, the part
of our brain that is logical, that you know makes sense,
(10:44):
we can really say, Okay, what do I need right
now to take the best care of myself? And sometimes
the answer really is food, even in the absence of
physical hunger. So food can be the best way to
take care of ourselves. Eating, eating a lot, even a
binge can be the healthy this thing that we do.
So I want to repeat that again, a binge can
be the healthiest thing that we do. And compared to
(11:05):
a lot of other coping mechanisms, I really argue that
it's a far more healthy coping mechanism than you know,
things like drugs or alcohol or other self sabotaging things
that could really put us in a dangerous situation. So
I want to introduce you to what I call emotional
eating and the five P action plan. This is where
we really start to tackle emotional hunger as I call it,
(11:29):
or emotional eating in a new way. So the five
piece stand for pause, pry, pick, persevere, and process. So
the first P is for pause. So when you start
to feel stressed and you're turning towards food, can you pause?
Oh it's so hard to do, trust me, I know,
(11:49):
especially because we so badly want that pain away. But
if you can step dead in your tracks, if you
can breathe, take one inhale, one exhale, then you can
recognize that there is an emotional and a chemical shift
happening in your body. From that state, you can pry.
You can look inward. You can ask yourself what's going on.
(12:09):
Maybe you can label the emotion. I feel anxious, I
feel stressed, I feel tired, I feel unhurt, I feel unappreciative.
With that clarity, you can pick. You can pick your action.
What do you need right now? Is it food or
is it another resource? Resourcing means using your self care toolbox,
looking within and looking at the coping strategies that you
(12:33):
have to calm down. Is it going for a walk,
breathing essential oils, giving yourself a hug, or is it
eating and either of them. If we did that first step,
which is really neutralizing the idea that eating food is bad,
or eating food at a certain time or amount or
a binge is bad, only then can we really know
what we needed in that moment and give it to
(12:54):
ourselves radically. So if you ate, we're going to move
into that next p which is person fear, move on.
There's no guilt because we made an active choice to eat.
When we picked our action, we said, I feel stressed
and food is going to help me right now. Yes,
it won't solve my problems, but I am too activated
(13:16):
right now to really use my other resources. I am
too upset, and I need to feel a little bit
of good before I can kind of get through what's
really going on. So when we really pick, we're elevating
consciousness and that is really the main difference between that
and emotional eating as we know it, feeling stressed, finding ourselves,
(13:38):
you know, knee deep in a bag of chips or
chips and then granola, and then ice cream and then
blah blah blah, where we're like, whoa, what just happened?
Right when we pause, pry and pick, it says this
is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna eat. There's no guilt,
there's no feeling bad because we were doing it with
the consciousness of this is what I'm going to do,
which is completely completely different. So if you ate, you persevere,
(14:02):
you move on, no guilt, you did it with awareness.
And lastly, you're going to process. Once you're in that
commerce state, can you take time to sit with the emotion,
to sit with the stress and allow it to fully
come up to the surface. Just because emotions feel badly
doesn't mean that we need to get rid of them all.
In fact, I truly believe that as humans we need
(14:23):
to understand that difficult emotions and pain is part of
our process. Sometimes even in the same cup, if you will,
as the good feel so many things are bitter sweet,
and allowing for pain I think is really critical to
decreasing our suffering, if that makes any sense. Again, if
(14:45):
we choose to eat, we've owned it, We've picked that
I feel upset, I'm turning to food and that's a
new shift. It's bringing cognition and awareness to the situation
and we're not going to do so with guilt and
shame and we're simply going to move on. And I
also want to mention here that a lot of people
talk about forgiveness after eating. I think that's something that
we really need to move away from. And I want
(15:06):
you to flag if you feel like I need to
forgive myself for eating, because that's continuing to further the
idea that what you did was bad and you should
forgive yourself. Right, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't offer
yourself forgiveness for other things. But I think around food
and eating, it's a little bit too serious of a
tone and it's making it into a much bigger deal
(15:27):
and atonement process then it should be, which only further
is the idea that what you did was good or bad. Again,
with that raised awareness, following the five P action plan,
I think you'll see that you have a really different experience.
And by the way, anyone feel free to rewind take
notes after everything that um I'm saying here If this
resonates with you or you feel it could be helpful,
(15:50):
but could be helpful, maybe not in this moment, but
in a moment when you do need it. Next question
is how do you respond to yourself when a negative
thought pops in I'm doing much bad are at identifying
those negative thoughts and not repeating them, But I still
find myself looking in the mirror sometimes and thinking gross.
What ideas do you have to responding to those negative thoughts?
(16:10):
So I know for a lot of people, positive affirmations
can be really grounding. Even starting your day looking in
the mirror saying some positive things can be really helpful.
I think for me, I like to say those things
out loud. So if I'm if that thought pops into
my head that says you look gross, you look blah
blah blah blah blah blah, I'll say it out loud,
you look this. And it almost becomes comical to say
(16:31):
it out loud, because would you say that to a friend?
Saying it out loud, getting it outside of your head,
even just within your you know, just you and the
mirror talking to yourself really changes that. It really kind of,
in my opinion, kind of lightens the mood. It's like,
why would you say that to yourself? That's a ridiculous
thing to say, and I might even turn it into
(16:53):
a hug or a moment to soften into myself. I
might even ask myself, would you speak that way to
a friend? I might ask myself, what's really going on?
Because a lot of the times when we look in
the mirror and we see something back, we're having a
bad body image day, it doesn't actually come from our body.
It actually might come from a different feeling of unworthiness
(17:17):
or a different feeling of insecurity. And I would find
perspective with breath. I would take a breath in, I
would zoom out for a second and say, okay, well,
what about this is making me feel so fearful? What
types of pressure am I putting on my body to
look a certain way? What else do I offer to
the world. Why am I falling prey to the idea
(17:39):
that I need to have a six pack, or why
do I believe that my body shouldn't have roles or
whatever it is that's coming up for me that day,
And start to kind of unpack and untangle that and
and really questioned societal's expectations, societal's viewpoint of how we
should be and recognized, Okay, you know what, I'm going
(18:01):
to wear clothes that fit me today. I'm going to
move my body in a way that feels good and
really take your power back. So how do you respond
to yourself when a negative thought pops in? Positive affirmations
can be grounding. Say that thought out loud, turn it
into a moment to hug yourself. Ask yourself, would you
speak to a friend that way? Ask yourself what's really
(18:22):
going on that day and find a little perspective does
this really matter? Next question is how can I tell
the difference between listening to my body and being proud
of myself? Or am I proud of myself because of
old habits. Sometimes at the end of the day, when
I didn't have anything on my previous naughty list, I
feel proud of myself, but I can't necessarily discern if
(18:42):
that's because I listened to my body and I'm proud
of that, or because I'm subconsciously still celebrating not eating
bad foods. What Teresa is asking is if I don't
have let's say her naughty food is chocolate. Right, If
I don't have chocolate, I feel really proud of myself.
But do I feel proud of myself because I honored
that need. Or do I feel proud of myself because
(19:02):
I went a day without having chocolate. So these are
some of the mind games that come up frequently for people,
especially as they're learning to listen to their body. And
I think that pride and self righteousness really emit a
different frequency in our body. So if you're feeling self
righteous about it, like oh, I didn't have that food,
and then the next day comes on and you're like, oh,
(19:24):
I didn't have that food again, and then the next
day and you're like, three days I haven't had it,
I should go five days. That sounds like it's self
righteousness happening, and it's likely going to turn into a
problem shortly thereafter. So what I want you to do,
Teresa and our listeners is to come up with what
that naughty list is right now, right what's on your
(19:44):
bad food list? The foods you shouldn't have and today today,
I want you to start neutralizing those foods, bringing them
into your life even if you don't necessarily want them
or crave them. So what do I mean by this?
For me? French fries was this food that every time
I ate them, I went bananas so I would either
have all the French fries or none of the French fries.
(20:05):
And that was just kind of how it went back
and forth for me. And I started to neutralize French
fries by ordering them even if I didn't really want them,
and eating them even if I didn't really want them.
And you might say, why would you do that, you know,
if you don't really want them, why would you have them?
But by allowing myself to eat my salad or my
sandwich and have a fry or two with it, even
(20:26):
if I wasn't craving it, or it wasn't the weekend
or even the evening, allowed me to just have a
normal relationship to French fries. Take a look at your
good and bad food list and start to break down
and neutralize and challenge yourself with those foods that are
on that list. So at the end of the day,
you can be proud that you ate the cake or
(20:46):
that you didn't eat the cake, but that pride right.
How to distinguish is it pride or am I am I?
Restricting is to really ask yourself, what was the intent?
Why did you not have it right? And really ask
yourself to come from the place of I just didn't
want it, or did it come from this place of
I didn't want it and I really knew I shouldn't
(21:06):
have it, So I didn't have it right because there's
a restraint versus I just wasn't in the mood, or
I wanted something else that was sweet, or I wanted salty,
or I didn't even think about that food. So I think,
ask yourself, why did you not eat it? Can be
a helpful way to kind of uproot that and get
to know what's really going on. And I think the
(21:26):
whole point of this is to really recognize that if
we're not constantly tackling these thoughts, if we allow ourselves
to kind of subconsciously have these foods that we believe
are naughty, they build up as restrictions, and even if
you go a day or two where you don't eat them,
eventually it piles over. You do eat them at some
point and you go back to feeling badly about them.
(21:47):
So I think this is really about neutralizing the food
and getting to know your intent. So those were Teresa's
questions that we answered on this episode. I hope it
was helpful to hear from me. If you've got any
other questions you could send in to Hello at outweigh
podcast dot com and like I said, Amy and I
do our best to read and respond to listener emails.
(22:10):
Thanks so much for being here. If you haven't rated
and reviewed our podcast, please give us some stars and
leave us a review would be so grateful. We'll see
you next week. On that way,
I won't lend my body out be outweigh everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always out way. If you
(00:24):
feel it with your eys in the air, She'll love
to the moo. I get there. Let's say good day
and time did you and die out? Hello, Outweigh fam
Lisa here, and today's a special episode because I received
an email from well Amy and I received an email
from a listener. Her name is Teresa, so this one
(00:45):
goes out to Teresa. Teresa says, good evening. I'm an
avid listener to Outweigh, and I've learned so much from
each episode. I've been on my own journey of recovery
from disordered eating, and I'm proud of myself for the
steps I've taken. It's very hard and constant work. I'm
reaching out because I noticed a red flag in myself
lately and I realized I need to put the extra
energy back into my recovery to get back on track.
(01:08):
I'm someone who developed and needing disorder later in life.
So I think my story is unique in a few ways.
So I'm shooting my shot to see if you have
any time for a quick combo so I could ask
some questions. Part of getting back on track is diving
into recovery, exploration and learning more. I have a few
questions that haven't necessarily been touched on any episode, and
I'd love to hear your input. I've really looked up
(01:30):
to you and your openness regarding disordered eating, and it's
been helpful along my journey. I know you're busy and
totally understand if you don't have time, but I wanted
to take a shot. So again, thanks for a great
podcast and for being such an encouraging voice. So Teresa
submitted four questions. I'm going to go through each of them,
starting with what to do when you slip into an
(01:51):
unhealthy mindset. Will get into suggestions for what to do
when you're going through a stressful event and you turn
to food, how to respond to those negative thoughts that
pop in, and how to tell the difference between listening
to your body and being proud of yourself or being
proud because of old habits. So I'll get into detail
about each of those. I want to thank Teresa and
(02:14):
all of you for seeing Amy and I as people
that you can trust as your friends and coming to
us for really advice, I know for me, you know,
coming to me from my registered dietitian point of view
or professional point of view, and maybe just coming to
Amy to kind of just look up to her journey
and watching it as it beautifully unfolds. So let's start
(02:34):
with question number one. Teresa wrote, what should you do
when you start to slip into unhealthy mindsets? And what
are some of your techniques for resetting your mindset? Great question,
and I think we're going to break this down into
a few different things. So the first thing I always say,
fork the noise is because you need to first be
able to notice when you're not being your best self.
(02:58):
And the best way to do that is to first
recognize that your brain has been infiltrated, that it's in
some sort of a fear mindset, that it is no
longer you taking the best care of yourself, but rather
you coming from this false sense of protection. Point. So
the first thing you really need to start to do
(03:19):
is to understand your body when your mindset is being unhealthy,
and that might sound really weird, but your body is
constantly sending you signals of when it's in fear. You
might get a little bit of a hot flash or
a jolt, or your stomach might tense up, or something
else might tense up in your body. But I want
you to start to get to know your body's reaction
(03:39):
to fear because that sometimes precipitates what's happening in our mind,
and it's really tangible when we can feel those changes
in our body. Once we feel those changes in our body,
we can recognize that we're no longer at baseline. So
step one is to really get to know when you're
being triggered. Then, and I want you to challenge yourself.
(04:02):
So whatever that unhealthy mindset is telling you to do,
I want you to do the opposite. Challenge yourself. If
it's saying don't eat this food, eat that food, because
you want to continue to neutralize that food, not allow
it to build up on itself. The second thing I
want to suggest is getting an accountability friend. So I
actually had somebody say something triggering to me last night.
(04:25):
I went to dinner with a friend and a mail
came over to the table and he said something to
me that he thought was being nice, but I found
myself triggered. Now, for me, a triggering situation does not
lead to action, so I did not think about, you know,
monitoring my food intake or changing it in any way.
But I did notice that I was affected by the
comment that was said to me, and I felt kind
(04:47):
of like out of my body for a moment. And
as soon as I left the dinner, I texted one
of my girlfriends and I was like, this just happened.
And she then told me she's getting married soon, and
she told me about all these comments she's been getting
from people about you know, losing weight for the wedding
and blah blah blah. And I step back from that conversation,
and then I returned to it, and I said, Oh,
(05:08):
I just want to let you know if any of
that stuff is ever coming up for you, you can
always text me and we could, you know, talk it out.
And I just know for me, having that safe place
to text a friend and be like, can you believe
this person said that to me really allowed me to
get it out of my head and into the hands
of somebody else who could hold space for me. And
I was no longer negatively affected by it, if that
(05:31):
makes sense. So have an accountability friend, have a safe
person that you can say, oh, this just happened and
I'm feeling really triggered. Maybe it's somebody that can give
advice and talk you off the cliff, or maybe it's
just somebody that you just said, Hey, when I'm going
through it, can I just text you this and you
don't need to actually respond, because sometimes we just need
to get it out there. The third thing I want
(05:52):
you to do is journal. So if you notice that
you're slipping into an unhealthy mindset, I want you to
grab a pen and a paper, and I want you
to just let the ledgates open and just right because
oftentimes when we are retracting to unhealthy mindset, older ways
of being, or habits, it's because something else is going on,
so it triggers are not necessarily obvious. So for me,
(06:16):
the comment that was said to me was very surface
and easy to understand why it took me there. But
in other situations, you might find yourself going back to
unhealthy ways because of less obvious things that are happening
in your life. Maybe it's a loss of control in
some other situations at work in your personal life and
your romantic life. Maybe there's just some sort of disalignment
(06:38):
or lack of alignment happening in your life that is
kind of like an undercurrent, not obvious to you or
the outside world. But if you start journaling, if you
start letting it all out, going to be able to
get to the bottom of it a lot more easily,
and therefore the mindset is going to change as a result.
The last piece of advice I want to give for
this question is to do what I call emotional sifting.
(07:02):
So I try to do this every morning, if not
every few days, if not once a week. But emotional
sifting is getting to the bottom of what's really going on,
and most of us don't take time to kind of
clear that clutter. We go through our days, we go
to sleep, we wake up, we do it again. When
you take time, whether it's meditation or just quiet time
throughout the day, all that stuff that's kind of bubbling
(07:24):
inside of you has a chance to come up and
get air, and by getting to the bottom of it,
you can really reset the foundation of your being. A
lot of times when things are wrong, we grab a solution,
but we don't make our way to what's causing the problem. Right,
(07:44):
we don't get to the root. If your stomach hurts,
you're likely to grab pepto bismol that will make the
problem go away. But did you really get to the
bottom of what was causing that stomach ache? Right? Instead,
I want you to pull the roots out of what
is going on in your life. So emotional sifting is
(08:07):
taking time to sift through the emotions that we are
pushing down one at a time, and I have found
that it is an incredibly healthy way to keep your
mindset healthy and really understand where things are coming from
as they come up for you. So those are some
(08:27):
things you can do when you start to slip into
those unhealthy mindset. Challenge yourself eat that food, or do
the opposite of the behavior that your mind is telling
you not to do or to do. Get an accountability
friend journal, and start your emotional sifting journey. But are
some of your suggestions After going through a stressful event.
During emotional and stressful times, I turned to food. I
(08:50):
know that isn't necessarily unhealthy, but it often leads to
binges for me. I'm trying to have better tools in
my toolkit for being compassionate for myself during these times.
Love at This person is on their journey of bringing
compassion and recognizing that eating during stressful times isn't bad. However,
she still does believe that eating food when stressful is
(09:13):
bad right, doesn't want to believe that it sounds like
but that is where she's at. And I did a
whole webinar for free earlier this year on emotional eating,
and the main theme is that in order to elevate
our consciousness and know what to do, how to best
take care of ourselves in that stressful state is to
give ourselves permission to eat when we're emotional and stressed,
(09:35):
and pair that with the idea that eating during these
times is perfectly okay. When we are stressed. When we
are emotional, we are activating a different part of our
brain which is not as logical as being at baseline
and being in our front seat, and our minds are
very quickly hijacked to kind of move over to this
(09:56):
other dimension. And once we're in that other dimension, and
it's very hard to take care of ourselves in any
way other than what is habit or what simply feels good,
and food as we know feels good. Oftentimes the foods
that we gravitate towards help us produce serotonin that feel
good hormone. So you're not broken for gravitating towards food
(10:20):
when it feels icky in your body. In fact, you're
being your own best caretaker. Given that you were in
the secondary dimension, you're in a really uncomfortable place, and
you're just doing what you have to to swim out
of the mud that you're stuck in. However, if we
can bring ourselves back to the frontal cortex, the part
of our brain that is logical, that you know makes sense,
(10:44):
we can really say, Okay, what do I need right
now to take the best care of myself? And sometimes
the answer really is food, even in the absence of
physical hunger. So food can be the best way to
take care of ourselves. Eating, eating a lot, even a
binge can be the healthy this thing that we do.
So I want to repeat that again, a binge can
be the healthiest thing that we do. And compared to
(11:05):
a lot of other coping mechanisms, I really argue that
it's a far more healthy coping mechanism than you know,
things like drugs or alcohol or other self sabotaging things
that could really put us in a dangerous situation. So
I want to introduce you to what I call emotional
eating and the five P action plan. This is where
we really start to tackle emotional hunger as I call it,
(11:29):
or emotional eating in a new way. So the five
piece stand for pause, pry, pick, persevere, and process. So
the first P is for pause. So when you start
to feel stressed and you're turning towards food, can you pause?
Oh it's so hard to do, trust me, I know,
(11:49):
especially because we so badly want that pain away. But
if you can step dead in your tracks, if you
can breathe, take one inhale, one exhale, then you can
recognize that there is an emotional and a chemical shift
happening in your body. From that state, you can pry.
You can look inward. You can ask yourself what's going on.
(12:09):
Maybe you can label the emotion. I feel anxious, I
feel stressed, I feel tired, I feel unhurt, I feel unappreciative.
With that clarity, you can pick. You can pick your action.
What do you need right now? Is it food or
is it another resource? Resourcing means using your self care toolbox,
looking within and looking at the coping strategies that you
(12:33):
have to calm down. Is it going for a walk,
breathing essential oils, giving yourself a hug, or is it
eating and either of them. If we did that first step,
which is really neutralizing the idea that eating food is bad,
or eating food at a certain time or amount or
a binge is bad, only then can we really know
what we needed in that moment and give it to
(12:54):
ourselves radically. So if you ate, we're going to move
into that next p which is person fear, move on.
There's no guilt because we made an active choice to eat.
When we picked our action, we said, I feel stressed
and food is going to help me right now. Yes,
it won't solve my problems, but I am too activated
(13:16):
right now to really use my other resources. I am
too upset, and I need to feel a little bit
of good before I can kind of get through what's
really going on. So when we really pick, we're elevating
consciousness and that is really the main difference between that
and emotional eating as we know it, feeling stressed, finding ourselves,
(13:38):
you know, knee deep in a bag of chips or
chips and then granola, and then ice cream and then
blah blah blah, where we're like, whoa, what just happened?
Right when we pause, pry and pick, it says this
is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna eat. There's no guilt,
there's no feeling bad because we were doing it with
the consciousness of this is what I'm going to do,
which is completely completely different. So if you ate, you persevere,
(14:02):
you move on, no guilt, you did it with awareness.
And lastly, you're going to process. Once you're in that
commerce state, can you take time to sit with the emotion,
to sit with the stress and allow it to fully
come up to the surface. Just because emotions feel badly
doesn't mean that we need to get rid of them all.
In fact, I truly believe that as humans we need
(14:23):
to understand that difficult emotions and pain is part of
our process. Sometimes even in the same cup, if you will,
as the good feel so many things are bitter sweet,
and allowing for pain I think is really critical to
decreasing our suffering, if that makes any sense. Again, if
(14:45):
we choose to eat, we've owned it, We've picked that
I feel upset, I'm turning to food and that's a
new shift. It's bringing cognition and awareness to the situation
and we're not going to do so with guilt and
shame and we're simply going to move on. And I
also want to mention here that a lot of people
talk about forgiveness after eating. I think that's something that
we really need to move away from. And I want
(15:06):
you to flag if you feel like I need to
forgive myself for eating, because that's continuing to further the
idea that what you did was bad and you should
forgive yourself. Right, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't offer
yourself forgiveness for other things. But I think around food
and eating, it's a little bit too serious of a
tone and it's making it into a much bigger deal
(15:27):
and atonement process then it should be, which only further
is the idea that what you did was good or bad. Again,
with that raised awareness, following the five P action plan,
I think you'll see that you have a really different experience.
And by the way, anyone feel free to rewind take
notes after everything that um I'm saying here If this
resonates with you or you feel it could be helpful,
(15:50):
but could be helpful, maybe not in this moment, but
in a moment when you do need it. Next question
is how do you respond to yourself when a negative
thought pops in I'm doing much bad are at identifying
those negative thoughts and not repeating them, But I still
find myself looking in the mirror sometimes and thinking gross.
What ideas do you have to responding to those negative thoughts?
(16:10):
So I know for a lot of people, positive affirmations
can be really grounding. Even starting your day looking in
the mirror saying some positive things can be really helpful.
I think for me, I like to say those things
out loud. So if I'm if that thought pops into
my head that says you look gross, you look blah
blah blah blah blah blah, I'll say it out loud,
you look this. And it almost becomes comical to say
(16:31):
it out loud, because would you say that to a friend?
Saying it out loud, getting it outside of your head,
even just within your you know, just you and the
mirror talking to yourself really changes that. It really kind of,
in my opinion, kind of lightens the mood. It's like,
why would you say that to yourself? That's a ridiculous
thing to say, and I might even turn it into
(16:53):
a hug or a moment to soften into myself. I
might even ask myself, would you speak that way to
a friend? I might ask myself, what's really going on?
Because a lot of the times when we look in
the mirror and we see something back, we're having a
bad body image day, it doesn't actually come from our body.
It actually might come from a different feeling of unworthiness
(17:17):
or a different feeling of insecurity. And I would find
perspective with breath. I would take a breath in, I
would zoom out for a second and say, okay, well,
what about this is making me feel so fearful? What
types of pressure am I putting on my body to
look a certain way? What else do I offer to
the world. Why am I falling prey to the idea
(17:39):
that I need to have a six pack, or why
do I believe that my body shouldn't have roles or
whatever it is that's coming up for me that day,
And start to kind of unpack and untangle that and
and really questioned societal's expectations, societal's viewpoint of how we
should be and recognized, Okay, you know what, I'm going
(18:01):
to wear clothes that fit me today. I'm going to
move my body in a way that feels good and
really take your power back. So how do you respond
to yourself when a negative thought pops in? Positive affirmations
can be grounding. Say that thought out loud, turn it
into a moment to hug yourself. Ask yourself, would you
speak to a friend that way? Ask yourself what's really
(18:22):
going on that day and find a little perspective does
this really matter? Next question is how can I tell
the difference between listening to my body and being proud
of myself? Or am I proud of myself because of
old habits. Sometimes at the end of the day, when
I didn't have anything on my previous naughty list, I
feel proud of myself, but I can't necessarily discern if
(18:42):
that's because I listened to my body and I'm proud
of that, or because I'm subconsciously still celebrating not eating
bad foods. What Teresa is asking is if I don't
have let's say her naughty food is chocolate. Right, If
I don't have chocolate, I feel really proud of myself.
But do I feel proud of myself because I honored
that need. Or do I feel proud of myself because
(19:02):
I went a day without having chocolate. So these are
some of the mind games that come up frequently for people,
especially as they're learning to listen to their body. And
I think that pride and self righteousness really emit a
different frequency in our body. So if you're feeling self
righteous about it, like oh, I didn't have that food,
and then the next day comes on and you're like, oh,
(19:24):
I didn't have that food again, and then the next
day and you're like, three days I haven't had it,
I should go five days. That sounds like it's self
righteousness happening, and it's likely going to turn into a
problem shortly thereafter. So what I want you to do,
Teresa and our listeners is to come up with what
that naughty list is right now, right what's on your
(19:44):
bad food list? The foods you shouldn't have and today today,
I want you to start neutralizing those foods, bringing them
into your life even if you don't necessarily want them
or crave them. So what do I mean by this?
For me? French fries was this food that every time
I ate them, I went bananas so I would either
have all the French fries or none of the French fries.
(20:05):
And that was just kind of how it went back
and forth for me. And I started to neutralize French
fries by ordering them even if I didn't really want them,
and eating them even if I didn't really want them.
And you might say, why would you do that, you know,
if you don't really want them, why would you have them?
But by allowing myself to eat my salad or my
sandwich and have a fry or two with it, even
(20:26):
if I wasn't craving it, or it wasn't the weekend
or even the evening, allowed me to just have a
normal relationship to French fries. Take a look at your
good and bad food list and start to break down
and neutralize and challenge yourself with those foods that are
on that list. So at the end of the day,
you can be proud that you ate the cake or
(20:46):
that you didn't eat the cake, but that pride right.
How to distinguish is it pride or am I am I?
Restricting is to really ask yourself, what was the intent?
Why did you not have it right? And really ask
yourself to come from the place of I just didn't
want it, or did it come from this place of
I didn't want it and I really knew I shouldn't
(21:06):
have it, So I didn't have it right because there's
a restraint versus I just wasn't in the mood, or
I wanted something else that was sweet, or I wanted salty,
or I didn't even think about that food. So I think,
ask yourself, why did you not eat it? Can be
a helpful way to kind of uproot that and get
to know what's really going on. And I think the
(21:26):
whole point of this is to really recognize that if
we're not constantly tackling these thoughts, if we allow ourselves
to kind of subconsciously have these foods that we believe
are naughty, they build up as restrictions, and even if
you go a day or two where you don't eat them,
eventually it piles over. You do eat them at some
point and you go back to feeling badly about them.
(21:47):
So I think this is really about neutralizing the food
and getting to know your intent. So those were Teresa's
questions that we answered on this episode. I hope it
was helpful to hear from me. If you've got any
other questions you could send in to Hello at outweigh
podcast dot com and like I said, Amy and I
do our best to read and respond to listener emails.
(22:10):
Thanks so much for being here. If you haven't rated
and reviewed our podcast, please give us some stars and
leave us a review would be so grateful. We'll see
you next week. On that way,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
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Amy Brown
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