How to avoid eating your way through stress, anger, boredom...or any other emotion

Easter weekend has come and gone and I'm happy to say that I had absolutely NO Easter candy...not that there's anything wrong with candy, but I know that a lot of people have an intense battle with sugar on Easter.  Even though I didn't find myself in a tug-of-war with a Reese's Peanut Butter egg on Sunday, I ALMOST had a major run-in with some good old fashioned emotional eating. You know those days when nothing seems to go as planned and every little nuisance feels like a crisis? Well, that's the day I had on Sunday. It was sunny and warm and I was inspired to do some work before Easter dinner with the family, so I drove to a coffee shop and work on my website. What I had HOPED would be a leisurely, productive day turned out to be a pain in the ass:

First, I put $5 in the meter, THEN realized that parking is FREE on Easter Sunday. The coffee shop I went to did NOT have wifi...they only offer "coffee and conversation". Who doesn't have wifi in 2014??? Once I settled into a place with a signal, I wasted 2 hours playing around with different fonts colors & sizes on my website and NOT achieving my goal. Annoyed, I walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch and ordered a "grilled shrimp salad", which turned out to be 4 tiny shrimp and a big pile of arugula...NOT what I imagined.

 Now, I know none of these are Earth-shattering things, but I was still pissed off because nothing seemed to go as planned.

 In the past, the feeling of "everyone/everything is against me today" would've caused me to take my anger out on a big cheeseburger and fries. But, over time I've realized that feeding my feelings instead of just being with them only makes me feel WORSE.

 It has taken me a few years to get to the point where I actually listen to my body instead of my mind when it comes to food. Last week, I promised to share with you some of the steps that have helped me get to this point. I need to warn you: this will take time and practice. Also, it's NOT going to be easy at first because it requires you to think differently. The good news is that the mindset shift is what I cover in my upcoming Mindset Makeover online class. If you want to join the class on April 30th, just complete the online application here.

However, if you're looking for a quick fix to a lifelong problem, you can stop reading right now.

1. Understand that there is no one-size-fits-all way of eating. Explore and learn what makes YOU feel good and keeps you healthy and satisfied...not what the latest diet guru says. Your food should make you happy...before, during and after you eat it.
2. Know what you're really hungry for. Check in with yourself and ask "what do I want right now?". In the moment, food may seem like the solution for every problem, but sugar won't truly satisfy you if you're lonely and what you really want is human connection. It's not possible to have stimulating conversation with cupcakes...they never have anything interesting to say.
3. Practice patience, love, and forgiveness. These are 3 key ingredients for this process. You can't reverse decades of eating your way through stress, sadness, anxiety, boredom overnight or by saying negative things about yourself. It just doesn't work. When you feel good about yourself, you make good decisions.

I've learned that life is much sweeter when you listen to your body (am I hungry? am I full?) AND your feelings (am I mad? am I anxious?). If food has become your coping mechanism, explore other ways to deal like meditation, deep breathing, exercise,  writing, or whatever works for you.

If you're ready to get the mindset shift you need to finally free yourself from drama with food, apply for your spot in the Mindset Makeover class on April 30th.

Using food to stuff down your feelings just leaves you feeling stuffed.

    

Why I Can NEVER Eat at IHOP Again

I haven't been inside an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) restaurant in over 10 years. Just the thought of going inside makes my stomach turn because it was my favorite place to go when I want to eat my feelings or suppress my stress back in pharmacy school. During each visit, day or night, here's what I had: 4 pigs in blankets, a side of 4 sausage links (if you're counting, yes, that's 8 pieces of sausage), a side of hash browns, and I washed it all down with a big ol' glass of chocolate milk.  My weekly trips to IHOP marked the birth of what I like to call "my second stomach", an imaginary organ that allowed me to justify continued eating long after my real stomach was overflowing.

The memories of gorging on a day's worth of calories in one sitting is why I can't even walk inside of an IHOP restaurant.

Like most Americans, hunger wasn't the only reason I chose to shove food (and lots of it) down my throat back in the day. Boredom, stress, anxiety, sadness, happiness, loneliness were all reasons for me to chow down even if my body was telling me it didn't need any food. Actual hunger was rarely a reason for me to eat. Crazy, right?

One of the reasons I ate when I wasn't hungry was because food is so damn convenient…it is EVERYWHERE. You have to work really hard to avoid food in America. Combine that with the fact that many people (especially women) eat their feelings instead of dealing with them directly. 

The result: we override our natural, human instincts around hunger and fullness.

Years of unsuccessful weight loss attempts made me feel like my body had betrayed me over and over again, so of course I didn't trust it to tell me when I was hungry or full.

You know what? When you don't trust your God-given, built-in portion control system, you find yourself handcuffed to the dieting struggle...and you can't find the key. How did I ignore what my body was telling me? Keep reading:

1. Oral distractions: Thankfully, I NEVER bought any of those over-the-counter drugs  or "supplements" to control my appetite, but I did brush my teeth, chew gum, or drinks lots of water when any little sign of hunger showed up in hopes that my appetite for food would just go away so I could be SKINNY! So silly. Here's a question for you: Would you do anything to suppress your libido? If your answer is no, then you shouldn't suppress your appetite either.

2. Eating inside your head:  I was so fixated with rigidly obeying a list of "can and can't have" foods that I couldn't hear what my body really wanted. Closely regulating and monitoring my food sent me into obsessive behavior...I felt like I was imprisoned by something that should have been pleasurable. Misery. 

3. Food for feelings: Sadness, anxiety, and boredom was always code for "I need to eat something"...at least that's what I thought. My unwillingness or inability to deal with emotions in a productive way led me to the cookie jar on several hundred occasions. It turns out that I WAS hungry for something...it just wasn't food. 

Stay tuned next week for the steps I took to start listening to my body and finally ending the weight loss/weight gain drama that followed me for decades.  

I told my story, now it's your turn. How have YOU ignored your hunger and fullness? Let's hear it in the comments section below. 

The TRUTH About Transformation

It's time to get REAL about what it takes to transform your body AND your mind. I would be doing you a disservice if I told you that it's all about what you eat and how much you exercise. You know that's NOT the answer to true transformation.

In fact, the answer is not in any diet book, on a fitness website, or in the latest workout DVD. The answer to true transformation lies within YOU.

In this new video, I'm sharing how I found the answer within ME and made a complete transformation of my body and my mind. 

Check it out and contact me to start your own transformation today!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/0nJNBirJsbc[/youtube]

Wishing you wellness,

What you fight, fights back.

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT. That's what you do. You struggle and battle to lose weight, get "toned," or be healthy. Just think about the words you use:

"I've STRUGGLED with my weight FOREVER!"

"I'm not winning this BATTLE of the bulge at all."

"I really need to ATTACK my problem areas."

Do you ever wonder why it seems so damn hard to lose weight, be healthy AND happy during the process (not just when you've reached your goal)?? It's hard because you might be looking at  your body as something separate…this "thing" over there that is outside yourself. This thing that needs to be controlled, managed, punished, and beaten into submission. You think that stress eating or emotional eating is a part of you that needs to be destroyed…as quickly and as brutally as possible.

Think about this: whenever someone has tried to attack or control you, what did you do? You didn't just lay down and take it…you probably tried to fight back, right? Well, that is what happens when you attack your own body.

What you fight, fights back. 

Here are some of the weapons that you may be using in this attack on yourself:

• Hours of cardio
• Diets/deprivation
• Fat burners
• Body wraps
• Spanx
• Negative self-talk

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. Your health and overall wellness are a BIG part of the relationship you have with your body…it's NOT something separate. It's a relationship that needs to be nurtured, loved, and accepted. Think of it like any other relationship you care about. You wouldn't try to fight or control someone you love, would you?  Then don't do it to yourself.

Treating your body as something separate hasn't worked so far, and it will continue to not work.  

Your body, mind, and spirit are a package deal.

Ok, so you've been fighting the good fight, now it's time to put your weapons down and start a big ol' LOVE FEST. The next time you want to suffocate your tummy in a pair of Spanx, look it right in the eye (aka your bellybutton) and say "You're cute just the way you are!"  No, I'm not joking…try it.

If you've been at war with yourself for years, it's going to take some practice to get to a peace agreement. You can practice by wearing clothes that fit (not too big, not too small), doing things that FEEL good (massages, exercise), and saying positive things about the part(s) of your body you dislike the most. 

Today, I challenge you to end your war and start living in peace. 

Wishing you wellness,