Confident Eaters

Coaches chat: motivation, treats strategy, and weight loss after binge eating
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Christina: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the confident eaters podcast. I'm Christina, one of the coaches here, and I cannot wait for you to hear what we have in store for today's coaches chat. There are just so many good topics that you aren't going to want to miss. Join coaches, Georgie and Shannon, as they discuss real client challenges. First up is the topic of momentum. It seems like such a great thing when it's propelling us in the right direction towards our goals. But what about when we experience negative momentum? What seems like going in the wrong direction? Have you ever felt like you were in a downward spiral? Do we have to start over if we lose our perfect streak? Next, we will discuss how to manage treats. This isn't always straightforward. Many of our clients may want to eat fewer treats, but they are dealing with a stressful day or they have a lot of opportunities for treats and they don't want to miss out on anything good. So it becomes difficult to [00:01:00] say no. And how about navigating treats and social situations? We've got you covered. We are going to show you how have all the joy and still manage your treats intake. Lastly, if you're someone who has worked towards overcoming binge eating and you feel ready to gently transition into the realm of weight loss, then you have to stay tuned until the end of the episode, because Georgie is going to outline some really helpful tips for you. Don't believe me? You'll just have to listen for yourself.

Georgie: Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.

So, I've got... three questions.

Georgie: Okay, cool.

Shannon: So I've had some clients use the term [00:02:00] momentum before in a positive and negative way like, when I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll. I feel like I've got this like good momentum going. I don't want to break it.

I don't want to break the trend. And then also In a negative way like, I've got some negative momentum and I just can't stop the, snowball turning into snowman downhill. So I was curious, when people are coming up with, whether it's good or bad, I've got momentum going, how do we either say, cool, let's keep going, but also if you stumble, it's okay. Or

Georgie: Right.

Shannon: Also like, can we stop that downward spiral of, well, I'm just kind of going.

Georgie: Right. I think when it's going positively, it's like, we want people to feel confident. We want people to obviously succeed. And so if somebody gets the idea, like, I've got this positive momentum, I can keep it going. They might think it helpful.

But you're right that then there's a sense of like, I've lost my momentum.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: So I try and steer people more toward. Look, you're getting lots of practice in. so all that practice, all of those reps are just improving your skills.

Shannon: Mmmm...

Georgie: So if you slip, [00:03:00] you haven't lost any of your skills. You just go back to practicing and trying to get more reps in.

It's the same thing with streaks. Somebody's like, I'm on a three day streak, I haven't binged in 83 days. I'm like, don't count the streak.

Shannon: Okay,

Georgie: try not to to count streaks. Better to look at, like, how many days out of the month or the year did I do X. So when people are saying, like, a negative momentum, I might say it as, like, you know, the meal that you're eating right now is not actually impacted by the decisions you made yesterday.

So just sort of clean slate. Don't think about those, think about how you want to feel after this meal. And so I sort of get people to like, stop thinking about what already happened and think about how do you want to help yourself feel after this meal. And sometimes I'll tell people the Slippery Slope Fallacy is a fallacy.

Shannon: Mmm...mhmm

Georgie: It doesn't exist. It's not true that if you catch one of your employees stealing a dollar that that person is also going to murder you. That's not how it works. the Slippery Slope Fallacy is like, well, I'll start with one M& M and then I'm just going to be mainlining Snickers bars. Like, no.[00:04:00]

That's... That's not how it works. And the reason it doesn't work is because we have fail safes, we have limits, we start to feel more uneasy the more our choices are discordant with our values. So at some point, like, yeah, I'll spit my gum out the window of my car, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start like throwing all of my trash on the sidewalk.

Right? Like, it's not the same. so if somebody like brings up this, the slippery slope thing, I kind of point out like, It's a myth that, you know, one little thing leads to greater and greater indiscretions. You're always in the driver's seat. You know, try and choose some empowering phrases to tell people you can stop. You got breaks.

Shannon: Your next book, Georgie, needs to be just... Nutrition car analogies, like, you've got breaks.

Georgie: I guess I've got a lot of car ones, I think.

Shannon: I love it. My car has brakes. Love it. Should go back through the notes and just like, I'm gonna pull out all the car analogies. They're amazing.

Georgie: Thank you. yeah. You can always [00:05:00] stop. You always have your skills. Even if you haven't practiced them in the last few days, you've still got them. They haven't gone anywhere. I'll say you haven't unlearned anything.

Shannon: Yeah. So, how do we encourage client consistency?

Georgie: So If you have, like, regular, like, good enough data that you can get a percentage, I'd be like, okay, we are 61 percent successful on waiting for hunger before eating. we usually need to get upwards of 80 percent to get results from a behavior.

So let's look at how we can turn some of the days that you weren't successful into days when you are. Can you think about what's gotten in the way on the days when you've not checked this box? So asking about what's in the way. And again, we don't want to spend a lot of time on the barrier. We want to spend a lot of time on the solution. Like, what could we change that would help here? with hunger, it tends to be the same few things that get in the way. Emotion, like, I'm sad, so I want to eat, so I'm not going to wait So,

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: if somebody's like, I'm not sure what's getting [00:06:00] in the way, I might suggest that.

Like, well, the most common thing is emotion. And the emotion, we can sort of break that down a little further, being like, Usually it's either moving away from some sort of feeling, like I feel icky and food seems like it will make me feel better, or we're moving toward an emotion that we want, like I'm bored, that looks fun.

Try and figure out if it's like an away or a toward. And then that enables you to have a little more focused discussion on like, well, maybe we need more real life treats. Maybe we need more ways to unwind in the evening. And then for like the, when people are moving away from their emotional state, we can say like, okay, what else can we do to help you manage that emotion, share it with somebody else, vent it, maybe accept it, maybe prevent it to a degree, like maybe somebody's getting super stressed because they're never saying no to things at work, or they're not leaving themselves realistic amounts of time to commute, and

Shannon: yeah,

Georgie: So see what you can do to help maybe ease the emotional burden and [00:07:00] handle the emotional needs differently for hunger. A lot of times that's the key there. For stopping it satisfied, it tends to come in two forms. One, I didn't realize that I had reached satisfied. And two, I realized and didn't stop.

Shannon: Those do seem to be the options there.

Georgie: Yeah. So it's like, did you not realize? Or did you not

Shannon: listen to your body signals.

Georgie: Yeah. And so if somebody's like, I'm not noticing because when I'm with my friends, I'm distracted and the food is just so good and the conversation like, okay, so we're going to talk about strategies to bring more mindfulness in there. So if somebody's not noticing, we need to figure out how to get them to notice.

If somebody's not obeying, then we can talk about what thoughts are getting in the way. Like, I don't want to pass on this enjoyable opportunity. It's more fun if I eat more. It's just so tasty you know, whatever sort of sabotaging thoughts might be coming up. slowing down is always a classic one [00:08:00] to help people like just chill. Like you can just slow your roll, it makes it easier. And then all of the environmental changes, like serving yourself a little bit less, or asking for a to go box when your food comes and like sticking two of your egg rolls or whatever in there, you know, just getting a little bit of the food off of your plate and then you eat the whole thing and you realize you're satisfied.

So little things like that would probably be a good discussion to have. Like, let's. Let's focus back on the basics and really try and reach like a new level of consistency here. And you could even have her take notes. Like, if there's a day when something gets in the way of this, see if you can identify what got in the way, because then we can put our problem solving hats on and try to figure out what we want to do about it.

Shannon: Yeah, I think she'll really Really groove with that. The idea of okay, we've got some consistency. We've got like numbers to work with here. I think she'll, she'll like that a lot.

Georgie: Let me know how it goes.

Shannon: I definitely will. I definitely will. Georgie, thank you for always being such like a fountain of [00:09:00] ideas. Okay. So other client question, we have been working on treats for a while, and we've been working on the Worth It check, and then we've tried, ranking treats, but for some reason, we're still really struggling with them, and we struggled with Worth It because it's like, all treats are worth it.

So okay, which one is, like, your favorite? Which one's not? Okay, how could we say no to this one? Or we've discovered that her office tends to have a lot of treats. They're trying to bring people back into the office from working from homes. There's like, Hey, there's pizza and doughnuts in the break room.

Or like her coworkers will just come around and be like, do you want to rise crispy treats? We've talked about like, is it worth it? Do you want it? Okay. Put it with your lunchbox or, you know, have it at lunch or take it home. Or if you don't want it, you don't want to hurt their feelings. Just throw it away later. That's okay too. Cause she's like, some of them aren't good. And upwards of eight, probably a day, treats is where we're at, and we're not binge eating [00:10:00] anymore. I say we, because you know, still in that habit. Anyways she's not bingeing anymore and hasn't for months at this point in time, but we've not seen any weight loss progress

Georgie: I mean with eight treats a day, It's like, say no more, right?

Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. And so some of the other stuff that we've been working on is like, we've got regular meals on here. And then in the past, we've worked on like fullness and hunger, and then it was just like, this was a little bit too much to focus on everything. So we've really been focusing in on treats.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: I'm not sure what to do from here.

Georgie: Yeah. I like to talk about the specialness of treats and that when there's a gap between things they feel more special. Like, that's why your birthday feels special.

Shannon: Hmm.

Georgie: So that's a lot of days that aren't your birthday. And that's sort of why. The sunset is super cool because it's only there for like the short snippet of the day is it pretty colors and then it's gone and like, the next day there's another one but so with treats. Sometimes it's nice [00:11:00] to have a little more break between them, so that it feels more special and enjoyable. Okay be helpful to not talk about decreasing the food treats, but talk about increasing the real life treats. Have you done that yet?

Shannon: We haven't in a while.

Georgie: Okay, so that could be a good thing to do is to say like, let's look at all the other treats in your life and like amp them up.

Shannon: Okay, cool.

Georgie: So that you're getting like this really big variety.

Shannon: Okay.

Georgie: What we want to do there and I will say this to people is the goal of this to realize how joy is abundant. It's not like. Oh my God, there's a movie playing this weekend. I have to see it because I'll never get to see a movie again. Like you have good times with your friends, coming for years and years and years down the road.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: And it's not gonna happen if you decide to pass on this one for, you know, Netflix and your cat. So sort of talking about it in that sense, like joy is so abundant. We don't have to grab every opportunity.

And in the food sense, there can be some negative consequences to having too [00:12:00] much, but there's no consequence to having too much joy. So like you can go for broke on some of the other stuff, like enjoying nature, enjoying the sun, enjoying flowers, enjoying music, enjoying aromatherapy and scents and furry pillows and warm socks and like all of these other sensory, pleasant things.

And then like the joy of hanging out with people you care about and good laughs and all those things. so joy is not fattening. We want like all the joy that we can get. But unfortunately, and I wouldn't say food is fattening, but if we exceed our body's need for food, which we tend to do if we're only getting joy from food, we just tend to get so much from there that it has negative impacts on our body and our health.

So, you still want food joy, but we also want like, socializing joy, and artistic joy, and sensory joy, and all of those things too, so.

Shannon: I think that could be a really great place to explore because when we, when you said that it was like, oh my gosh, yeah, she's had crazy amounts of stress right now. I [00:13:00] think that Piece of like real life joy might be something really fabulous.

Georgie: Cool. I sort of went that direction because of what you said with like, well, if I don't take the cinnamon roll, I'm going to miss out. To me, means like good times, like I want all the good times, but there could also be another piece of I'm using this to get through a really difficult workday or really difficult discussion or other stuff too.

Shannon: Yeah, I think missing out might also be, while you're talking I'm just like, oh, things are clicking for her. Something that we've worked on before is that a lot of times after work she'll go out with her co workers and they'll get like appetizers and drinks. And she feels like she can't say no because she doesn't want to miss out on the social engagement or like she has to eat the appetizers they ordered too because everyone's sharing. So that missing out piece I think could be a big piece of this.

Georgie: So, as with other fears, you can actually go into it. Like, what are you afraid of is going to happen? Are you afraid that somebody's going to say, Hey, I don't think you like me because you're not eating jalapeno poppers.[00:14:00]

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: Or, are you worried that they're going to go home and be like, Why didn't she eat? That was weird. like, get specific about it. Because what often happens is we try and get specific and we realize that the odds of that happening are so low.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: It's probably not going to happen. And so I'm acting a certain way to avoid an outcome that is. exceedingly unlikely. So that can be helpful.

The other thing is to realize that not all problems need to be avoided because tiny problems are okay. So if somebody's like, yeah, I felt a little awkward drinking when she wasn't drinking, but you know, I got over it and we had a nice time. Like, It's okay, you don't have to worry about, like, preventing everybody's minor inconveniences from their life, you know?

it's okay if somebody would have preferred you drank with them, but you didn't, like, they'll be alright.

Shannon: Mm

Georgie: Or she might be trying very hard to, like, make other people happy.

Shannon: Mm hmm, yeah.

Georgie: A lot of times people will, make themselves 90 percent unhappy to avoid making somebody else 1 percent unhappy.

Shannon: Hmm. That [00:15:00] is so helpful. Okay. Thank you.

So last thing is that one of my clients, we are working on like switching gears from slowly, binging to weight loss. He is. 100 percent like ready to go. Let's switch to weight loss. And I'm like, dude, we haven't finished in three weeks.

That's awesome. Let's like keep gently bringing this down a little bit. And so it's sort of the natural progression because this is like where I was going to take us. And so I was like, maybe let's talk weight loss more when we're regularly hitting the green zone of fullness. Or like that line between the red and the green, is that sort of where that transition happens, or is it somewhere else?

Georgie: It's hard to predict where somebody will start to lose weight.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: So, just like it's hard to predict how many calories they'll need to eat before they lose weight, but we don't really need to count the calories. We just know we want to keep moving in this direction until the weight loss starts happening.

Shannon: Okay.

Georgie: So, focusing on eating less far into the red zone, 100 percent helpful.

Shannon: Okay. [00:16:00]

Georgie: An experiment with like one meal here or there to see if stopping in the green zone before you feel any of the red zone. What happens? Just try it once. Like let's just do an experiment and see how it goes.

Shannon: that's really helpful. Like keep the trajectory this way and then let's just see like when weight loss happens. We'll be curious.

Georgie: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people are never feeling hunger and we're not really like encouraging them to feel hunger per se when we're like focused on not binging.

But then you start to bring it in really gently. Like in the Breaking Up with Binging program, you'll see how we talk about it. It's like. We just want to invite it over so you're not complete strangers, see if you're okay with meeting hunger once this week for a minute, very soft introduction. Let's just see how this goes.

The idea being not, okay, I'm in weight loss mode now, so I'm going to be really hungry. It's not about weight loss mode. It's more about like. Okay, I haven't practiced this skill yet of relating to hunger, like it's a normal body function and a friend of mine and that would help me [00:17:00] in losing weight, but we're not that close yet, me and hunger, we just have to get acquainted first.

I'm like, let me make sure that we want to work together.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: So yeah, just super, super, super, super gentle.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: A lot of just noticing it, like seeing how it feels, not pushing yourself into it, it's a lot about safety, like what feels safe. How do you feel at the idea of meeting it more than once a week?

Yeah. So moving from binge eating to weight loss is not like a 90 degree turn. It's like a one degree turn and a one degree turn and a one degree turn and a one degree turn and a one degree turn.

Shannon: Okay, I was definitely feeling more like it's a switch we flip. So that's awesome. Yeah, he has done really awesome. I'm just like so excited it's like when clients have wins you're like, this is just so wonderful

Georgie: Isn't it the best?

Shannon: It's so amazing. Yes. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing.

Georgie: Yes. Well, it was good to chat today. Let me know if there's anything else that comes up that I can help with. And let me know if this, like, stuff helps or we'll just take a whole second pass and figure out what's next.

Shannon: Fabulous. Well, enjoy [00:18:00] your time in nature and fabulous sleepy puppy behind you. Thank

you.

Georgie: Talk to you soon

Christina: Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope you found valuable insights into finding success every day. Giving yourself more joy. And taking the next steps towards positive change, no matter where you are on your confident eating journey. Remember the path to a healthier relationship with food is a gradual one. And each step forward is a triumph. If you ever have a

question that you would like us to answer on the podcast, a problem you'd like help solving, or if you think you'd like one-on-one attention and support from a coach, drop us a line at confidenteaters.com. From all of us coaches here at confident eaters, we hope you have a fabulous day and we will see you in the next episode. [00:19:00]