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5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss
This article will be a number of things:
Practical
Easy to implement
Realistic
Balanced
Nutrition is a very complex topic - and within that complexity, someone who is simply searching just to try and make a small change for their health by looking to improve their diet can easily be led off track and left feeling very very confused about all of the conflicting information out there and what it means to “eat healthily” especially when it comes to weight loss.
I will cut through that.
Today, I will tell you easy-to-implement things, to make your diet as simple as possible, and as healthy as possible to help you achieve your goals, leaving you with the knowledge and ability to improve your healthy eating habits.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: 5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss
The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?
Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits?
- Structured Eating
- No Black or White Thinking
- Increase Protein & Vegetables
- Healthy Snacks
- Plenty of Water
The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?
Habits are the building blocks of change and if losing weight is your goal, then change is what is required.
Changing something so integral to your existence like your diet is also a really hard thing to do - and to make sure that change is long-lasting and effective enough to help you reach your goals comes down to your ability to implement habitual change.
The reason “healthy” eating habits are so important isn’t that you should eat “healthy” all the time - in fact, you really shouldn’t do that - its because if you have habitually created the “healthy” eating if it is an automated process in your life, then when you feel like you have “fallen off the wagon” or “skipped on your diet” then getting back on track is the easiest thing possible.
As you know exactly what to do and how to do it.
Another importance of creating and having “healthy” eating habits is that helps you to stop focussing on only the negative aspects of what you are doing. It is so easy to beat yourself up for eating in an “unhealthy” way when you feel like that is all you do.
This creates a negative spin within you that can constantly feel like you will never be able to turn around, and therefore the cycle goes on and on now not only is your physical health decreasing, but so is your mental health.
By having automation in your day, covering your bases if you will, it makes the more enjoyable foods feel less significant, in the bigger picture of your life, and therefore it reduces any guilt you may have from eating the more “unhealthy” foods.
I want to help make sure that you are doing the best you can, with what you have available to you.
I also want to make sure that you have the ability to keep your diet in a place that dones’t swing from one extreme to the other all of the time, because when that happens you actually make no progress at all - my goal is to help you iron out the creases so that progress is achievable for you - and the habits I lay out in this article are important to make sure that is exactly what happens to you.
And then you will make the progress you desire.
Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits
You may have noticed that in this article so far I have put parenthesis around the words healthy and unhealthy.
This is because I never like being dogmatic when it comes to your nutrition - and to simply say that this is healthy and that is unhealthy, with no further context, could be misleading for someone.
I think we can all agree that vegetables are healthy.
Personally, I happen to know that Fruit is also healthy.
But believe me, there are people out there who would happily tell you otherwise.
I would also put forth an argument that a Pizza, a Donut or a Birthday Cake can be healthy when you view it in the correct context.
For example, if you are at a Birthday Party, and they serve your favourite Red Velvet Cake, everyone around you is enjoying it, and you happen to have said “No” because you view cake as unhealthy food, that is going to have an impact on your enjoyment of the occasion.
Food is community.
Food is family.
Food is nourishment.
Food is emotional.
Food is simply not as simple as healthy or unhealthy.
Food is not one thing or the other.
What might be healthy for the soul, might not be healthy for the body and vice versa. I have known many people in my life who have created extremely unhealthy bodies by only eating healthy food.
There will always be debates and arguments around what is healthy to eat and what is unhealthy to eat - and to be quite frank - I just think these waste peoples time.
Arguing over the effect of Gluten, Fructose or how to control your Insulin is actually nutritionists and personal trainers just trying to show off how big their brain is.
Whenever someone I follow or am engaged in conversation with about nutrition starts talking about having an extreme stance on one aspect of their diet, cutting out sugar or carbohydrates, for example, my respect for them dies away immediately.
And yours should too.
Because these people aren’t trying to help you, they are trying to convert you.
They have never walked a day in your shoes, and to simply say that “sugar is killing you” is not going to actually help you resolve what you need to resolve in your diet, as it will just cause more guilt and frustration within you.
I will now share with you 5 things you can do to really improve your eating habits in a healthy way - they may not be what you was expecting to see, but believe me, if your goal is to improve your health and to lose weight, or if your goal is just one of those options…
Continue reading…
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Structured Eating
This is front and centre for a reason.
You probably weren’t expecting the first habit that you need to work on is in fact eating more regularly.
I know I too would be surprised if I Googled “What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits?” then I would not expect to see this as number one. I would expect it to be something simple like “eat less processed foods”.
However, without structure, everything else falls apart. You cannot build a house on sand, and you equally cannot build healthier eating habits on a poor structure.
Not only will a better structure improve your diet overall, but it will also improve your relationship with food as well.
There is a very common denominator with people I work with online and in person, who have a very keen desire to lose weight, and they very often have no structure in place with what and how they are eating.
They are simply winging it.
This has a couple of knock-on effects:
They have absolutely no idea how many calories they are eating - despite saying “I eat really healthy”
They react more emotionally to food.
They aren’t able to see that their overconsumption of food in isolated moments is related to the constant missing of meals.
They end up frustrated and walking down the path of looking for fat burners and other quick fix solutions.
Lets draw a line under it all.
And get you focussed on having a proper structure with your meals.
READ MORE ON IMPROVING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD RIGHT HERE:
The format for structured eating, it could also be described as intuitive eating, is as follows.
Three Meals a day that all fit onto one plate.
Two snacks a day - one of which should be fruit.
If you have an alcoholic beverage the night before - try and take away a snack the next day - but this isn’t essential.
If you can iron out your food intake to more regular moments with food, in a structured manner your body will respond well. It will enjoy the rhythm and pattern of knowing when it is being fed, and your hunger hormones, grehlin and leptin, will respond in a much better way because they will have a structure.
The other thing that is really important in having a better structure with your food, is spending time with it.
Try not to eat on the move, or watch television. Try not to work and eat.
Respect your food, and respect what it is designed to do for your body - without this food so much of your life would be turned upside down - don’t take it for granted.
There are so many people in the world who don’t get the privilege to eat the food that you and I are able to eat - and we should be grateful for that every time we get to sit down to eat.
I’m not saying go all ga-ga, but at least give the moments you have to eat the respect it deserves.
This structure with your diet and respect for your food will improve your relationship with food, and there aren’t many more healthy habits you can deliver to yourself than improving your relationship with food.
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - No Black or White Thinking
Call it what you want.
Diachotamus thinking.
Good food.
Bad food.
Black and white thinking.
Basically stop looking at your food in these terms.
Food doesn’t have a moral value. Calling your apple good, and a banana bad is the same as calling your sofa good, or your bed bad. It makes no logical sense.
When you label foods in this way you punch a hole in your ability to find balance and happiness in your diet, and therefore compromise your own happiness.
It also ceases your ability to actually lose weight.
As a study from the Journal of Health Psychology [1] points out:
“Results showed that eating-specific dichotomous thinking (dichotomous beliefs about food and eating) mediates the association between restraint eating and weight regain. We conclude that holding dichotomous beliefs about food and eating may be linked to a rigid dietary restraint, which in turn impedes people’s ability to maintain a healthy weight.”
When you assign morality to food, you are doing a number of things. Firslty you are putting those who eat in a way you view as “good” onto a Moral High Ground that you know you naturally can’t attian. Then when you eat foods you view as “bad” you are not only beneath others in society, you are also putting yourself down and dmagaing your self esteem.
You are also likely to be viewing foods as good and bad through the framing of “Diet Culture”, as in:
“If I eat good foods, I will lose weight”
But as the study above shows, that is actually counter itnuative, as it leads to an over restriction, then an over indulgence - perpetuating binge eating episodes and disorders.
Making the elusive weight loss even more elusive for you.
To help overcome this, there a few things you can do:
View your diet as a whole, don’t just focus on one or two aspects - keep a wide angle lens on and give equal respect and objectivity to everything you eat.
Listen to your hunger and fullness cues, try to tune into your body more, and question the feelings you have.
Ask yourself where your hunger or lack of satisfaction from eating has come from…are you really wanting more food or are you in need of human connection?
Look at all foods as nourishing. Nourishing your health and your body, nourishing your emotions, nourishing your mind. Every food can nourish you, and ask yourself what needs nourishing right now…and seek foods to that end.
Prioritise non weight loss based goals - like getting stronger and more confident (wink wink nudge nudge: The Strong & Confident Program).
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Increase Protein and Vegetables
This is one of my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life.
Well the actual rule is “Protein and Veggies at every meal”
But increasing them from where they are right now will more than likely do you no harm at all, and it will indeed increase your likelihood to lose weight.
This occurs for a number of reasons, the first being, that the extra fibre in your system from the Vegetables will indeed keep you fuller for longer. Secondly, you can eat a lot of Vegetables in terms of volume, and take on relatively few calories compared to other foods.
For example, 100g of Carrots has 41 calories in it, compared to 100g of Chicken Breast which contains 165kcal.
My point here is that you will feel more full, and take on fewer calories, allowing you to adhere to your calorie deficit in a much more sustainable way.
Protein is one of the most satiating macronutrients there is.
As a study published in the BioMed Central Journal [2] states:
“The hierarchy for macronutrient-induced satiating efficiency is similar to that observed for diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT): protein is the most satiating macronutrient followed by CHOs and fat, which is least satiating”
Again this will lead you to feel fuller for longer, and more satisfied after eating as well as helping you recover from your exercise sessions in a much more efficient way.
For my clients on the Strong & Confident Program, I work on them increasing Protein to 100g a day if they are a meat-eater, and 80g a day if they are vegetarian - like me!
One of the best ways to implement this piece of advice is by having a DAS.
A “Daily Awesome Salad”
Just get your protein source, add it to some salad bag of food - and the job is done!
If you do this every day you will soon start reaping the benefits in terms of losing weight and building a more healthy eating habit.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT STAYING FULLER FOR LONGER BY READING MY BLOG POST THAT HAS
HELPED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WITH THIS EXACT ISSUE
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Healthy Snacks
If I had a pound or dollar for every time I get asked the following question:
“What healthy snacks can I have?”
And I look at the person who has asked me that question and simply say:
“You know the answer”
They look at me bewildered, and confused - because surely it’s not that simple is it?
And sadly, it is. It really is.
What is wrong with fruit being a snack?
In terms of a “snack” fruit literally ticks all of the boxes. It is convenient, it is cost-effective, it is filling and it is relatively low calorie compared to other kinds of snacks.
I also don’t know anyone who has food guilt over eating a banana. But eating a bag of crisps or a doughnut might trigger you. It doesn’t have to…but it might.
You can snack on vegetables too, however, they take more preparation and have a much higher barrier to entry to execute on.
I know it’s not exciting, I know it’s not sexy and I know when someone asks for a healthy snack they are wanting something like a Bounce Protein Ball or some kind of superior Kale Chip.
But again, they are very expensive and they won’t fill you up as much as an apple or banana.
There are plenty of exciting things you can do with fruit as well - if you have the time.
Other healthy snack ideas could be:
Trail Mix: grab a mix of any nuts, seeds, dried fruits savoury mix-ins like chickpeas, and just put it all together. The combinations here are endless.
Nuts: Be careful with nuts, as they are quite high in calories and may hinder your weight loss if over-consumed - and they are very easy to over-consume, but they do have many other benefits as well.
Seaweed Snacks - my fiancee eats seaweed all the time - and some of them are really tasty, but they don’t fill you up much.
The bottom line with “healthy snacks” is that if you want to avoid the obvious in terms of fruit, the preparation of these snacks can be quite a time-consuming exercise, and that negates the efficacy of the “snack”. Also, just because something is healthy doesn’t always make it the best option for weight loss, so always view these snacks in the realm of your calorie allowances.
Here are some of my favourite snacks from recipe books I send out to my clients:
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Plenty of Water
This again features in my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are under-hydrated when they are trying to lose weight.
And it never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t recognise the amazing benefits of water in their ability to eat in a more healthy way for their diet.
I always ask my clients on the Strong & Confident Program to drink around three litres of water a day, which is quite a lot, but there are very few drawbacks to drinking enough water.
And that compared to the drawbacks of being dehydrated makes it well worth focussing on.
Water helps with cognitive function, muscle function, digestive function, complexion, joint function and energy levels throughout the day.
Water also has zero calories in it, therefore in terms of weight loss, it is really useful.
When you are dehydrated you will feel low on energy, might have a headache and generally won’t feel your best, which will lead you to consume more calories.
Don’t go from zero water to three litres immediately, build up slowly, and you may begin to notice the benefits on less water than three litres a day.
5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss
And that’s it…
Remember, to lose weight, you must be in a Calorie Deficit and to improve your eating habits you need to move away from the thoughts of certain foods being good and others being bad.
Having a “healthy” diet is different to everyone, but balance is the key to all things, and that means something different to all people.
One of the best things you can do to make your eating habits more healthy will be to stop trying to live up to the expectation of healthy eating you see on Social Media, and making sure you work hard on allowing your diet to work in the best way for your life.
And as always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.
To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below, and then you can email me your questions.
It would be my pleasure to answer them.
You will also get my book “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss” sent to you for free.
I hope you found this article useful and that my tips help you improve your eating habits.
I cannot wait to see you again soon…
Coach Adam
References:
Palascha A, van Kleef E, van Trijp HC. How does thinking in Black and White terms relate to eating behavior and weight regain? J Health Psychol. 2015 May;20(5):638-48. doi: 10.1177/1359105315573440. PMID: 25903250.
Pesta DH, Samuel VT. A high-protein diet for reducing body fat: mechanisms and possible caveats. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2014 Nov 19;11(1):53. doi: 10.1186/1743-7075-11-53. PMID: 25489333; PMCID: PMC4258944.
Is Emotional Eating Your Biggest Problem For Fat Loss?
I normally start an Article like this with a funny meme.
You know, a picture of Joey from Friends eating Pizza with a humorous caption to the effect of: “It's not my fault I can’t lose weight…it's my emotions”
But actually I was quite surprised by what I saw when I typed into Google:
“Emotional Eating Memes” because what actually showed up was “Stress Eating Memes”
And I think that is really what is going on with a lot of Emotional Eating.
In this article we will discuss the following:
Is emotional eating something that affects only me?
What is emotional eating and why does it occur?
How do you begin to change your behaviour with emotional eating?
Can I lose weight whilst working on my emotional eating?
Conclusion
Before we go any further I need to run a few disclaimers. I’m a very experienced Personal Trainer in the field of Female Fat Loss.
I am not a Psychotherapist, Eating Disorder Clinician or Doctor of any kind. If you are currently suffering from an Eating Disorder or feel like you might have an Eating Disorder akin to anything like Bullemia, Purging, Anorexia Nervosa or any other kind of Disordered Eating then please contact your GP immediately, or contact the fantastic Charity BEAT: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/
Is Emotional Eating something that affects only me?
Many of my clients think that their emotional eating is significant to them, that they are the only person who turns to a Glass of Wine or a Bar of Chocolate to help them feel better about themselves.
And I’m sure you think that about yourself too.
But here's a thought…what if it is more normal than you originally thought? What if more women than you knew were actually emotional eaters…it's comforting right? That you're not alone. That you're not broken. That it's not something that is only wrong with you.
People find a lot more comfort in the knowledge that there is a sense of “normality in numbers”. When a client first comes to my Gym and starts working with me, they are normally nervous as hell…until I tell them that actually everyone is nervous. Everyone in this building is nervous, which is why they are here in the first place. All my clients are scared their first time, but they got through it…and you will too. They then relax, they calm down. It's now not “just them”. They are now not singled out in their minds. Social Psychologist Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion says the following:
“Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important in defining the answer.”
We find great comfort in following the crowd. But we must always know that the crowd exists first. When you type “Emotional Eating” into Google you get About 397,000,000 results (0.44 seconds).
It's a popular topic. You aren’t alone and it's certainly not the case that you are broken.
In short, …it is a normal behaviour pattern [1].
What is emotional eating and why does it occur?
I couldn’t write a whole article without a meme now, could I?
Emotional Eating is closely related to Binge Eating, however, Binge Eating is classed as an Eating Disorder, and Emotional Eating is not classed as an Eating Disorder due to the fact that as discussed above, we all do it.
I’ve eaten chocolate to feel better, I’ve got horribly drunk after I split up with an Ex and I have also eaten Pizza until my heart is content because something wasn’t feeling right inside of me.
You are jumping straight to the “Eating”And not looking at the “Emotional” with enough scrutiny.
The Pizza didn’t help. Nor did the Alcohol. Nor did the Chocolate.
The reason? The eating wasn’t the reason I needed comfort. The emotion was.
You will go through an emotional moment and then move towards an item of highly palatable, calorific food or drink. We all do it.
How Do You Define Binge Eating? <<< Read my article on how to understand if you are Binge Eating…
What we don’t all do however is look at the reason why we went to the food. You jump straight to the food being the problem because it doesn't align with the physical goals you have set for ourself.
You are jumping straight to the “Eating”, and not looking at the “Emotional” with enough scrutiny.
As a Coach I’m guilty of this as well. In the past, I have only focussed on the “Eating”. Clients tell me that they want to lose weight, and I will jump straight to the calories, without thinking about their Emotional state soon enough, or putting in enough measures to help them make sure that they are working on their emotional environment and behaviour as much as their physical one.
According to HelpGuide.org [2], these are the triggers that cause Emotional Eating:
Stress
Stuffing emotions
Boredom or feelings of emptiness
Childhood habits
Social influences
Then these triggers work themselves into the following cycle:
Its a continuum. It's a cycle that you cannot work yourself away from because you keep returning to the places that the triggers exist, and then you reach out for the food that comforts you.
Emotional Eating also presents very differently physiologically. You get hungry far quicker than normal, it is associated with specific cravings, you then eat quite mindlessly (watching television or a film, flicking through Social Media etc), you are never satisfied once the moment is over, and you experience feelings of guilt, shame and powerlessness when you experience it.
These are all very different to the feeling of physical hunger, which you can be satiated from, it is controlled by hormones (Grehlin and Leptin), it can be held off, you will eat a wider variety of food and you don’t experience such intense or any self-loathing after a meal that is regulated and makes sense to you in the traditional sense.
Its not all negative either. We can also eat emotionally to reward ourselves. Ever gone out for a Cocktail because you got a promotion at work? Or landed a bonus and celebrated with a bottle of bubbly?
These are behaviours that also constitute Emotional Eating.
How do you begin to change your behaviour with emotional eating?
With emotional eating, you must start focussing more on the “Emotional”. You need to develop your ability and practice your ability to manage your Emotional Wellbeing and state.
The reason you Emotionally Eat is not because of your genetics, your physiology or the fact there is something wrong or unfixable about you.
Its because you are stressed and fearful of what is happening to you.
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” — Bertrand Russell
Now there are times that Emotional Eating is totally understandable and you should treat yourself with empathy when it happens. Those moments will be subjective to you.
But you must also develop two other things to get a handle on it.
Emotional Resilience and better coping strategies for when you are stressed.
We can do this by [3]:
Selecting self-efficacy: take ownership of the problem that is causing disbalance in your life, don’t run from it, as you are likely to run towards a less favoured behaviour.
2. Emphasise Empathy: allow yourself to understand what is happening to you and treat yourself with compassion
3. Practising Patience: you can teach yourself to be mindful in difficult situations, and chose to move away from the stressful moment. Give yourself time and space to comprehend what you are going through.
4. Create Capacity: we can choose these moments to work upon our discipline and desired behaviours rather than turn to the destructive behaviour you are trying to move away from
5. Perceiving Possibilities: from all moments of stress and emotional upheaval, there is always an outcome that can be positive. It might be hard to find, but if you can visualise it, and think upon the positive then you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.
How Do You Deal with Stress?
There are many positive behaviours you can implement to help you cope with stress in a much more positive way…rather than returning to what you want to conquer.
There are many different types of stress, and each one and each person will need a different response to the stress they are feeling.
But we know the following will help you immensely:
Eat in a more nutritious manner
I’m not saying “eat better” or “eat good foods” or “avoid good foods”. I am saying eat nutritiously. Sometimes that will mean eat a Cookie, a Donut or have an Espresso Martini. But it also means building your plates with protein and vegetables, drinking 3 litres of water a day, make positive choices that align with your goals both physically, emotionally and mentally.
2. Exercise
Exercise is one very important aspect of dealing with stress. Whether that is hit the gym and follow a good Resistance Programme (Grab a Free Month of Workouts right here: Free Month of the Be Confident, Be Strong Programme) or go for a Swim, Jog, Yoga or even just a 10 minute walk. Exercise reduces levels of the body’s stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol. It also stimulates the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain that are the body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators. [4]
Find out why Resistance Training is great for Fat Loss right here: What is the most important thing for Fat Loss…Resistance Training or a Calorie Deficit?
3. Sleep
Sleep is the most powerful tool in your ability to control stress. You need to be getting 7–8 hours a night. When we sleep we allow our brain to process the day you have just experienced and it will give you much better willpower for the day ahead. Think of sleep not just as a restful time to recover from the day, but time to prepare yourself for the day ahead — like warming up before you exercise. Also, make sure you are creating a good sleep environment for yourself. For example, you should limit caffeine at least 8 hours before you sleep, you should reduce screen time as much as possible, and if you have to be on your phone then use your Night Shift Filter to limit your Blue Light exposure (I have mine on all day every day — and its great!)
If you need help sleeping try listening to one of my Sleep Stories:
4. Meditation
Meditation and deep breathing is also an extremely powerful way to manage your stress. A lot of people give up on Meditation as they believe that they should magically be able to quieten their mind naturally. But it takes practice and is something just like fitness that needs to be worked upon. Also by engaging in Deep Breathing you connect with your Parasympathetic Nervous system which produces a relaxing effect [5]. You can also Meditate anywhere in the world, at any time in your life. it doesn’t have to be at Sunrise on a Beach or listening to Birdsong. Although being in Nature is one of the most relaxing things as humans we can do. You can do it on the Tube, or as you are walking. Try some of my 10-minute walking meditations and see how you get on:
5. Connect with others
By connecting with others and talking things through with your friends will help you solve problems and find the answers you need to figure out what is stressing you out. Plus its comforting to talk to those you are close to. Don’t text them. Speak to them or see them in person. Texting is not an appropriate human connection to help with your stress levels.
6. Give to Charity
There are few things higher up that we can do to improve our sense of self-worth than give to charity. When you help someone else, it makes you feel good, really good, and it helps put your problems into perspective a little more.
Can I Lose Weight Whilst Working on my Emotional Eating?
Let me be clear from the off; anyone can lose weight — all you need is Calorie Deficit:
However, if you are aware that you struggle immensely with Emotional Eating, then a calorie deficit will be an extremely hard thing for you to stick to, as you will constantly be stressing yourself out.
Lets run this through an example:
You have started a new diet and exercise programme and are feeling good for the first few days. You have a little bit of a busy day at work, and feel a bit let down by your colleagues. They haven’t done anything wrong per se, but they just didn’t feel supported. Your boss has hit you with a deadline, and although achievable…in truth its the last thing you want to do right now.
You get home and try to talk to your husband or boyfriend about it. He's only half interested, can’t wrap his head around your point of view and just says something like:
“Well just work hard and you will get it all done. Don’t worry about it”
(Men? Am I rite?)
It brings back all the feelings from your day, from your Boss and your colleagues and you then think about dinner. Feeling a bit low, you notice the Pizza in the freezer rather than the Meal Prep you made.
Pizza it is. You indulge in it. You begin to realise what you did and how that behaviour doesn’t match your new “healthy” regime. However, its ok because you know you are allowed flexibility in what you eat — no ones should be that strict on their diet.
However, you still seem hungry after the pizza. It's not quite done its job. You're not satisfied because you need emotional satisfaction, not physical satisfaction.
There’s Ben and Jerry’s in the fridge…
You get to bed. Sleep not as well as you would like, due to the stress from work, and as you wake in the morning you realise the calories you ate last night exceeded your deficit for the whole week. You now start to feel down on yourself again, and despite knowing all you have to do is follow the Four Step F*** It Philosophy as detailed thus:
STEP 1: Acknowledge you went off plan and why.
STEP 2: Say F*** It.
STEP 3: Draw a line under it.
STEP 4: Move on.
You can’t shake the feeling that you have now let yourself down. You feel your stress levels rising again. Work is just as stressful as before and it's now Karens Birthday. There's Krispy Kremes in the office. One or two won’t hurt, and you need it. You’re feeling low again.
And then the stress increases again because you aren’t matching your Diet to your desired behaviours.
And it goes on and on and on. Until you eventually give up on your diet, give up on your exercise and your goals seem further away than ever.
My point here is that you can’t build a house on a foundation of sand and with three walls. A Calorie Deficit is really simple. But it doesn’t mean it is easy, and to attempt to achieve one in order to lose weight and get a bit “healthier” is going to be extremely hard if you aren’t willing to work first on improving your relationship with food.
You can’t build a house on a foundation of sand and with three walls. Your relationship with food must be postivie before attmepting a Calorie Deficit.
You need to first learn to be able to draw a line right under it and truly move on. When you can achieve that as a habit, without guilt attachment and without you feeling like you are a failure, then you will find being in a Calorie Deficit so much easier.
In the midst of all of this to you will have to learn how to balance your hormones to your expectations. I find that my clients eat a little more during certain times of their cycle and that they need more flexibility in those moments. This is another part of your diet you will need to fully comprehend and understand to help you manage your stress a lot better, and therefore your relationship with food.
How Does Your Menstrual Cycle Effect Fitness and Fat Loss? <<< Read my article on this topic right here
Conclusion
Emotional Eating is a normal, human thing to do. We all Eat Emotionally and this can be both in negative moments of our life and positive moments of our life. Understanding this is crucial because it shows that your behaviour of emotional eating is standard practice and that you aren’t “broken” or “need fixing”
A lot of negative Emotional Eating comes from being in as Stressed state. When the hormone Cortisol and Adrenaline are running rampant in your body, you are much more likely to indulge in foods that do not match the behaviours you want to have in order to reach your goals.
If Emotional Eating is a particularly prevalent behaviour in your relationship with food you need to focus your efforts in the Emotional part of the equation. Not the Eating part of the equation.
Look at the things in your life that are causing you high stress and learn better ways to manage that. Through better nutrition, Exercise, Meditation, Connection with others, giving to Charity and getting out into nature.
It is possible to lose weight whilst being an emotional eater. But it is making your journey a hell of a lot harder. Try and work on your relationship with food before you engage with a Calorie Deficit as fixing your relationship with food will make the weight loss journey more successful and more sustainable.
Above all remember the following: You are not alone, and although this all seems quite daunting, you can totally do it. I know you can. And I believe in you more than you probably believe in yourself. If you got this far through the article, this is clearly something you want to understand more and work upon…and you are already ahead of 90% of the people who have read this.
Stop worrying about the food. Start fixing your stress levels and you’ll do just fine.
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Coach Adam
References:
Medainc.org. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.medainc.org/binge-eating-vs-emotional-eating-whats-the-difference/> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
HelpGuide.org. 2020. Emotional Eating And How To Stop It. [online] Available at: <https://www.helpguide.org/articles/diets/emotional-eating.htm> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
Bogdanos, M., 2020. 5 Steps To Help Build Emotional Resilience. [online] World of Psychology. Available at: <https://psychcentral.com/blog/5-steps-to-help-build-emotional-resilience/> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
Publishing, H., 2020. Exercising To Relax — Harvard Health. [online] Harvard Health. Available at: <https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
André, C., 2020. Proper Breathing Brings Better Health. [online] Scientific American. Available at: <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/proper-breathing-brings-better-health/> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
What is Binge Eating Disorder?
What is Binge Eating Disorder?
Last night I had a wonderful chat with a client about Binge Eating.
And it got me thinking about how do we define what a Binge truly is?
Part of me wants to say that “Binge-Eating” is one of those terms we throw around these days as its becoming a little more of the zeitgeist.
And don’t get me wrong awareness of this is very very important and I would never undermine anyone bringing awareness to it, for others and themselves.
But how do we define it?
Standard rules say this: “The consumption of large quantities of food in a short period of time, typically as part of an eating disorder”
Which doesn’t really help us.
“Large Quantities of food”
Is this any food? Can you binge on Broccoli? Is large quantities relating to the calorie content only, or the grams of food you have eaten?
“Short Period of Time”
What is a short period of time? 1 hour? 1 Evening? One journey? One Month?
and then the part of it “typically being part of an eating disorder” doesn’t help either. As it opens up the fact if you don’t have an eating disorder you are too a Binge Eater.
Well, that’s no help…so what do you do now?
I try to avoid my clients from using the term “binge” due to it allowing them to sink into a world of negative self-talk.
Which is to be avoided at all times.
I would always prefer a client to refer to their food more objectively than subjectively. Calories are calories are calories.
Therefore in terms of a binge…maybe we could define it as eating 70% of their daily calories in a short period of time
Therefore if someone is eating 2000 calories a day.
In a matter of hours or an evening they will have needed to consume 70% of that.
1400 calories.
But this comes with problems in that 1400 calories is the same as just:
Two McDonalds Iced Vanilla Frappe
Two McDonalds Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese
A Big Mac Meal with a Hot Apple Pie
Now if you ate any of that at lunch time….I don’t think you would sit there and class what you just had as a Binge.
It seems almost too reasonable.
Which brings me to my next point.
Is it defined by emotion?
Ah-ha.
Does Binge Eating come down to whether or not you feel guilty about what you just ate?
And if it does….then we can’t define it in any way shape or form because we are all so bloody different in the way we feel about these things.
Sure, in the past I have eaten lots of food….probably beyond 70% of my daily calorie intake.
But I personally have never felt guilty about it.
I’ve never felt the need to purge it from my body in the form of exercise or excessive dieting.
Or worse: facing down the toilet.
I have only once ever felt like this, and that was after trying a cigarette for the first time when I was about 17. (sorry mum!)
It was menthol, and it was wonderful
I had two drags.
But the next day I woke up and knew I had to get rid of the craving that was building up inside me. So I went running and got rid of that craving.
Now, this was easy for me to do…because I don’t NEED cigarettes to live. In fact quite the opposite.
But with food, as it is our source of survival, I would not suggest purging the food from your body in any way shape or form because you are feeling guilty about what you did.
I think its best you just step away from what you have experienced.
Draw a line under it.
Get to bed
Say Fuck IT
And reset again tomorrow.
Again….
A lot easier said than done.
Conclusion….?
I have no idea. I’m, really not overly sure what constitutes a binge.
I think it must come down to “a feeling you have about yourself when you consume something to excess that you feel like you probably shouldn’t have in a shorter period of time than you feel is adequate”
But I really don’t know.
Maybe defining it isn’t something we need to worry about…
As a coach, I just need to listen to you when you say you did, respect your opinion of yourself and try to help you move away from those feelings about yourself, and help you reflect on why it occurred, and how we can manage it for next time.
Which is basically my philosophy to life.
Draw A Line Under It
Say Fuck It
Get to Bed
Start again tomorrow.
What are your thoughts? I would love to hear from you.