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Overhunger and the Hunger Scale
What would happen if you ate only when you were hungry and stopped when you were full? In this day and age, we have forgotten how to eat. Seriously! We have lost touch with our body. We don’t know when we’re hungry and when we’re full. We just eat all the time. We have become users of food. Food is our drug of choice. We eat for entertainment. We eat because we’re bored. We eat because our kids (or our husband) are stressing us out. We eat to escape. We eat because we’re at a family get- together, or a church activity, or a neighborhood block party, etc. We…
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Being Enough
23 Most women think that somehow their life will magically be better once they lose the weight. That somehow being thin, will make them more confident, beautiful, talented, kind, etc. I used to believe this. Then I lost the weight and guess what? I was still the same old me with the same old insecurities and problems. I thought I’d feel happy once I lost all the weight and got down to a certain skinny jean size. I thought my life would be nothing but rainbows and butterflies. Boy was I wrong! The truth is your weight does NOT determine how worthy or adequate you are. Self-confidence and BEING ENOUGH…
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Sabotaging Thoughts
Your thoughts are the most important weight loss tool. Your brain is also going to try really hard to get you to quit. It does not like change. It prefers to do what it has always done. It will try to offer you thoughts such as: “This is too hard.” “Mmm, I want that!” “I don’t want to miss out!” “But it tastes so good.” “I deserve it.” “I can’t eat that.” “I don’t care anymore.” “Just one bite won’t hurt.” “This isn’t working.” “I can’t do this.” Your thoughts will be your worst enemy if you don’t watch and pay attention to them. Your thoughts are powerful and they can…
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Sabotaging Friends
Are your Friends and Family sabotaging your weight loss efforts? You might have family, friends, and other people who will try hard to sabotage your diet. They will tell you that what you’re doing is crazy or too hard or stupid. They will tell you that you’re missing out on all the fun. They might try to convince you to eat something in order to prove to them that you love them, and they might get pouty and upset because you won’t. They might say snarky comments to you like, “You’re looking amazing, but you know most people who lose weight always end up gaining it back.” Or “I’d hate…
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Cravings
Let’s talk cravings! While you’re trying to change what and how you eat, you are more than likely going to have cravings. When you feel a craving coming on, don’t push it away. Lean into it and embrace it. When you lean into and embrace an urge instead of resisting it and trying to push it away with willpower, it will slow down a little bit in your body, and you won’t feel it as strongly as you first did. Allowing the urge will still feel uncomfortable, but it won’t keep building and getting stronger like a craving you’re trying to resist does. It will most likely just feel irksome.…
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Exercise
This was me, 4 years ago. I had spent all Spring and Summer running 5 miles a day. I was attempting to follow the standard prescription for weight loss “Eat Less, Move More”. I had not yet learned that carrying extra weight is a hormonal not caloric disorder. I was trying to outrun a bad (or should I say S.A.D. (Standard American Diet diet), and this just doesn’t work. By the way, I did lose a whopping 2 pounds by running 5 miles/6 days a week during those 6 months. Exercise is amazing. It is great for mental…
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Goals
Now that you know the why, it’s time to get into the what and the how. However, there’s one more thing you need to do before. You need to set some very specific goals and figure out why you want to achieve them. For instance: What are you hoping to achieve by participating in this Joyfully Lean program? What is the reason you signed up? Was it to lose weight? Was it to balance your hormones? Was it because you want to feel better, or to have more energy? If you’re hoping to lose some weight, how many pounds are you hoping…
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Food Journaling
Yesterday’s topic was on staying conscious and allowing your higher brain to dictate by planning in advance what you’re going to eat, instead of just eating what sounds good in the moment. Another way to stay conscious is to keep a food journal. I want you to pay attention to, and write down, every little thing that goes into your mouth. This includes anything you eat and anything you drink, and any bites, licks, and/or tastes you may have. This journal doesn’t need to be anything fancy. I keep mine in a cheap Steno pad. As you move forward on this program, having a record of everything you’re eating and…
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Consciousness
In order to lose weight, you will need to stay conscious. What I mean by that it that you will need to use the conscious higher brain as you unlearn the desire for overeating. Beware, your lower unconscious brain is going to want to be in charge. Lower Brain vs Higher Brain The lower brain uses less energy. We operate with this part of our brain 80% of the time. The lower brain contains everything that we have learned and repeated so many times that they’ve become a habit. We don’t even have to think about doing them, we just do them. For example, when you drive to the grocery…
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Buffering
To buffer means to lessen or moderate the impact of something. Examples of buffering include food, shopping and spending money, drinking and drugs, social media, and Netflix binging. All of these things have a negative side effect, some greater than others. When we talk about buffering from a weight loss standpoint, buffering would be defined as using food to lessen the impact of your emotions or feelings. It’s using food for anything other than to fuel your body. You could also call buffering stress eating or emotional eating. Reasons you might buffer would be to entertain yourself when you’re bored, to keep you company when you’re lonely, to keep you…
