Confident Eaters

Georgie: [00:00:00] 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.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Confident Eaters podcast. I am Georgie Fear as always, and this is with me, Christina Jodoin. Say hi, Christina.

Christina: Hi, everyone.

Georgie: We are going to talk today about the secrets to eating consistently throughout the week. And the weekend, because for many people, the week goes relatively smoothly and the weekend presents a whole nother level of challenge.

So first I'm thinking, we coaches, see this play out in real life all the time with our clients. And so we can tell you some of the things that we get to see, given that we have front row seats and to a lot of people's actual eating lives. [00:01:00] So some of the weekend struggles that I see in my clients revolve around date nights and eating out, especially if somebody has a routine, like I always go to the movies with my girlfriend on Friday or my husband and I always go out to eat on Saturday night.

I think a lot of times those routines, of course, we get excited about them because they're fun, but they can lead to temptations like popcorn at the movies or indulgent entrees at the restaurant. So what do you see, Christina? Do you find that those are the common ones or are there some other ones that trip up your clients?

Christina: Yeah, I definitely hear the date night one a lot, especially if it's eating a little bit later, had to get a babysitter, things like that, but also, oh, we're going out to eat. Let's get the appetizer, entree, dessert, alcohol, everything. It's like a free for all, but. Also, I think a scenario that comes up a lot is just parties, social gatherings, and get togethers that are more common on the weekends.

Specifically, it's the fall [00:02:00] here, American football is big, and people are tailgating, and it sometimes becomes this big graze fest, and lots of spreads of food, and not real full meals, so I think that can lead to not really feeling satisfied, and ignoring hunger cues. Also, alcohol being involved can lead to less inhibition.

Georgie: Yeah. Less goal oriented decision making.

Christina: Yes, exactly.

Georgie: Yeah, more temptations. The addition of more company or seeing your friends or spending more time with even your kids, all of these things can change the dynamic. Sometimes it sounds like we all do okay when it's just ourselves. We eat like adults, but then we get together in groups and we don't act so responsibly.

Christina: Definitely.

Georgie: We do help people through this all the time. So we have gotten to see a lot of people who originally struggled with this, make some changes and realize that, working with Georgie and Christina has [00:03:00] not completely slaughtered my weekends.

They're still quite fun, but they don't necessarily have to be a stumbling block if somebody wants to lose weight. So Christina and I came up with some topics to go through in order. And we're going to talk about some of the specific issues that can create weekend troubles. So as you listen to these, try and consider, does this affect me?

Does it affect me some weekends? Cause even if it's a couple of weekends out of the year, that still can add up over time. And then we'll go through some of the solutions and like most of the advice that we give. We don't want you to try and make huge changes right out of the gate. We want you to try and adopt a small piece, a small change; a small different behavior or way of thinking because you have a lot of weekends to practice this. So don't feel like you have to correct everything right out of the gate. So one of the first things that I think can be a factor in overeating on the weekend is the expectations that we have about the weekend.

I know my clients who have a date night or have a wedding to go to [00:04:00] often build it up in their minds. Like, well, this is going to be fun. This is going to be relaxing. I'm going to have a great time. And that seems to be really intricately interwoven with the idea that we're going to have lots of drinks and lots of fried food.

There's going to be nachos and jalapeno poppers and buffalo wings. And the fun of friends and the fun of the event and the fun of togetherness can all be mixed in with that fun of food. And when it comes to adjusting those expectations, I don't think that the solution is to not expect yourself to have a lot of fun.

I think it's to separate some of the different things that you're enjoying. So for example, you can still enjoy your fun with your friends and you can still enjoy the romantic optimism in the air at a wedding and you can still enjoy really fun different foods like nacho night or wing night, but it doesn't mean that you have to overeat.

Something I often say is like more food does not equal more fun. So even if it's like a really fun food and granted, I [00:05:00] love me some fun foods, but I've also recognized that overdoing it only diminishes how much enjoyment comes with that day. What do you think of that? Christina adjusting expectations? Is that something you've talked with your clients about?

Christina: Definitely. I think looking forward to the weekend, especially if you have a stressful job or something like that, it's like we put so much pressure on the weekend to be a thing and the food and drinks surrounding that. And we can include that to an extent during the week so that it's not like it all has to be squeezed in on the weekend and just having different expectations because you're totally right, having all of this. extra food, and then feeling bloated, and then feeling uncomfortable, and then... like having to unbutton my pants or whatever. It's like, this is not more fun, actually, in the end.

Georgie: Anything but fun and relaxing.

Christina: another one I think that comes up a lot with clients is being so restrained during the week that by the time you get to that weekend, It leads to a rebound. [00:06:00] I hear this a lot with clients because they work really hard to eat whole foods and eat nourishing meals and not mindlessly snack and their schedules are set up just so in order to set them up for success.

And then on the weekend, it's like they've used all of their. Strength and it's like, that's it. I'm going for it.

Georgie: And now I'm angry to boot, right?

Christina: Exactly. It's just like white knuckling all week long, rather than just allowing yourself to have some of these fun foods during the week or Just being less strict during the week and a little bit more liberal.

It's funny because clients, when they hear this, a lot of times they're like, that won't work. Like, I can't be less strict because then I'll just blow it. But what we find is the opposite is true. It's, if we are a little less liberal, then there's not so much effort being put into being so restrained that by the weekend, it just feels like another day.

Georgie: Yeah. I've definitely had clients look at me [00:07:00] like. You know, I want to lose weight, right?

Christina: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Georgie: But even though it sounds counterintuitive to be a little less restrained so that you don't overeat on the weekends, many people have first hand experience of well, what has happened when you have dieted super hard? What happened that weekend? Wah! Party! You know, overeating, overdrinking. And so most people, as long as they haven't forgotten the rebound, they're like, oh yeah, you're right. If dieting harder makes me binge harder, it stands to reason that being a little less cracking the whip on myself during the week It might help me maintain a little more control over the weekend.

Christina: Yeah, and if you're wondering if this might be you, a phrase that I often hear is, " I don't know what happened. I was perfect all week, and then I got to Friday night and everything blew up in my face." I think that's a good sign that maybe there's a little bit too much restraint happening. And one way [00:08:00] that we can mitigate this is by planning for, how many treat foods do I want to have on the weekend and still maintain this goal that I'm having.

So including plenty of fun on the weekend, but it doesn't have to turn into a free for all.

Georgie: Like, people who have a cheat meal. Typically, like, they go big.

Christina: Right. I have many conversations about that too. It's that all or nothing when we can plan for it. So if you're going to go out and you want to have a drink or if you want to have dessert, just planning for that in the course of the week and on the weekend, having that plan ahead of time can really help prevent having 45 of them,

Georgie: right?

Yeah. It's interesting. Sometimes if we look at air quotes, bad weekend from somebody and we total up. Okay. Like how many servings of low nutrition foods did we have here or treats? Then we would count the desserts and we count the alcoholic drinks and we count the fried food and we total it up. And then if we took a hypothetical week and spread those out over an entire week, we could even use a [00:09:00] slightly smaller number, but you spread it out and you say like, okay, so what do you think about having, these eight or nine treats spread over the course of seven days? And they're like, that's too much. That's too liberal.

Christina: Mmm.

Georgie: But, yet, here you are doing it in a two day period, but when it's punctuated by five day periods of trying to be an angel, it feels like you're doing something right, virtuous even.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

Georgie: So some of the ways that I see the restraint play in where like, so what does it look like to be less restrained if I'm not going to be like, that's it, hot dogs and drive through every day. Some small ways where you might ease up on the restraint without going totally all or nothing might be if you are weighing out foods just let yourself scoop it out of the jar, or if you're limiting yourself, especially on nutritious foods like fruit and vegetables and lean proteins, if you're weighing out your chicken and you're like, Oh, that's four and a half ounces, I got to shave off a few slices and get it down to four ounces.

If you're making moves like that during the week, those add up and they weigh on you. So I would say, try to tune in and if you're a little [00:10:00] more hungry one day, give yourself the extra bit of chicken or don't measure the chicken and just trust that you're going to be okay. I also used to be a fatphobe.

So, you know, child of the 80s, ate a lot of sandwiches with no cheese on them. And then I discovered at some point that I actually liked a slice of cheese on a sandwich. And so little things like putting the cheese on your sandwich, or if you've been eating salad dressing free salads. And you really would like some dressing on there, or some avocado on something.

Like, just giving yourself a little bit more food during the week can go a long way.

Christina: Definitely.

Georgie: Next we can talk about when you have a really good time and you end up overeating. A lot of times people think, well, emotional eating is when negative emotions drive me to overconsume.

And you'd be right that that is the most common presentation, but we do also see it when people are celebrating a birthday or graduation. They're having so much fun laughing with their friends; they feel connected and bonded and it's all their favorite [00:11:00] people around, we can get disinhibited by positive emotion almost the same way that we can have disinhibition occur with alcohol.

And the reason that happens with alcohol is because it has chemical impact on our brain. Now having fun doesn't lead to disinhibition the same way, but what it does is when we're in a very positive optimistic, connected space, we tend to not identify as well with the consequences of our actions that might be unpleasant.

So your problems feel like they're a million miles away. I can't possibly feel regretful. I'm feeling so loved and life loving right now. I don't need to worry about drinking too much. I don't need to worry about eating too much.

Everything's good in my life. Life is so good. Give me some more popcorn. When somebody's having really good times, and that's leading to overeating or over drinking. Definitely, again, here my suggestion is not, okay, have less fun, obviously too much fun is fattening. Like, nope, nope, nope, that's not where we're going.[00:12:00]

I want people to have all the fun, but we want to stay connected. to the goals that we set for ourselves. And so what that means is you can still have an equally fun time while maintaining that connection to what you want to do for very real reasons. So This is another reason why when we're talking motivation and the reasons why we want to improve our health or lose weight or eat better, it's best if we use positive motivations or things that are drawing us forward, things that are approach goals that we want to move toward, get closer to, or attain.

And using those is beneficial because approach goals stay relevant when we're in an incredibly good mood. However, if you're using avoid goals, the sort of things that you want to move away from, like heart disease, Shame, cancer, feeling my pants be too tight and how that's distracting all day at work. When we're trying to leave behind these negative things, when we're in a [00:13:00] ridiculously good mood, those feel so not real that our motivation can falter.

So try and think about the things that you want to use as approach goals. And then even when you're having a good time, they're still going to be motivating and drawing you forward.

Christina: I love that. Yeah, I think another idea is maybe on the more nitty gritty side of this is the example we gave earlier with being at a party.

Something very practical is putting all of the food you want to eat on one plate and having a single eating occasion rather than grazing all night long because it's much harder to pay attention to how much you've had and how full you feel. And that way you can include lots of the things that you like and things you feel good about.

And also asking yourself before going to an event or something like, how do I want to feel at the end of the night when I get into bed? And if it's I want to feel proud of myself, that approach goal like you were talking about just a moment ago. I think that's one way we can set an intention for ourselves even before going.

Georgie: [00:14:00] Mm, that's a really good way to put it. Yeah, the just simply staying aware of how much we've had can be really tricky in certain situations like the super bowl party where everybody's just sort of grazing or like heaven forbid a charcuterie platter enters the room like it's designed to be eaten like with your fingers and little tiny bits and nobody Could tell you how many ounces of, cheese they ate or how many slices of salami they had.

Everybody just sort of like grazes on it and you lose track and that's how it goes. So yeah, assembling a little napkin or plate for yourself. I love that technique.

Christina: another issue that I think comes up for people on weekends is just being home more. There's more free time, maybe a little bit of boredom eating or eater-tainment.

And a few things that could help with that is just planning out your meals, having some sort of schedule in mind where Even if you wake up a little bit later, maybe you're still eating breakfast shortly after you wake up, but then you're still spacing out your meals and having actual meals so that it's not again, this [00:15:00] grazing snacking throughout the day.

Georgie: Lucy goosey eating, you know, chaotic free form eating that can just take up an entire day.

Christina: Exactly. We could make a whole day of that for sure. And I think just checking in with your feelings if you're having urges to eat outside of those mealtimes, like, is this boredom? Is this something else? Is it, I'm just trying to procrastinate cleaning the house or whatever it might be.

And giving yourself special reminders on the weekend because your schedule might be very different than it is during the week. And if you're not really feeling that hunger, just checking in and seeing, like, what else could be going on could be also an opportunity to tap into other ways to have fun being at home besides just, I'm bored, so I'll eat or this is turning into my weekend activity, which is just to eat more because I'm home.

Georgie: Yeah, Like TV and food are like the default two things people do when they're have free time at home, but like we can only do so much [00:16:00] of those things.

Christina: Right. Exactly. I actually have a client who, when she would watch TV in order to keep herself busy and separate that habit of eating while she was watching TV, every time a scene with her favorite character would come on, she would do like 10 air squats or like gamify it, like turn it into a thing where she's getting some more movement and especially as it gets colder and she's like, I don't want to be outside. What else can I do? I can watch TV and then she would turn it into a little bit of a game.

Georgie: I'm so old that TV used to always come with commercial breaks. And it was very common and like pretty good technique to be like, I'm going to do sit ups during commercial breaks. I'm going to do pushups during commercial breaks, but now there's no commercial breaks. Everybody streams everything.

Christina: I know. I, when I have Hulu or something where they still run ads, I'm like, wait, what, what is this as a commercial? I have to watch this 90 seconds. I don't want to watch this.

Georgie: Infuriating. This is behind [00:17:00] the obesity epidemic. Yes, exactly. Disappearance of commercials from TV.

Christina: My fiance recently bought a house and we've been spending a bunch of time outside in the yard or in the garden. And that can take up quite a bit of time in your day if you want it to.

And it's just fun to work with your hands and Even making a garden, trying to grow food has been a fun experiment, but there's lots of other fun things you could try to do like reading or crafts.

Georgie: Yeah, you mentioned. A moment ago, procrastinating about like, say, cleaning the house.

Now, I am not someone who enjoys cleaning. I do it because I don't want to live in a mess, but I have definitely had clients who ambitious loves that they are pack their weekend plans full of chores and tasks and to do's and there's really not a whole lot in there. That's just about relaxing or having a good time

Christina: Yeah,

Georgie: or having fun and I think that can be one of the things that leads to procrastin-eating [00:18:00] Procrastination eating is yeah If I looked at a schedule and it had like thing after thing after thing that I was not stoked about doing I would definitely feel the urge to insert some enjoyment in the easiest, most convenient place is often to like just grab snacks.

So, kind of lighten up when designing your schedule, expect yourself to do a fun activity for every responsible adult thing.

Christina: Yeah, that's a fair trade. And a lot of people I talk to are like, what is fun? I don't have hobbies. And if that's you listener, then maybe this is an opportunity for you to try some new things.

What ideas sound fun to you and getting some inspiration and tapping into some hobbies, your creative side, so that we can quell that boredom or different schedule on the weekends. And it's not all responsibility and cleaning, like Georgie said.

Georgie: I've done a lot of crafty kits. Like, as soon as you put the word kit on something, I'm like, oh, what's that?

It's a kit? It's got everything I need? So, I've done [00:19:00] embroidery kits, and they give you the hoop and the fabric, and the design is already printed on there, and directions, and all the pretty floss, you know, the colorful strings. And I've done paint by numbers where it's all together for you.

You have to print the canvas and they give you the brush and all the little pots of paint and you can just rock and roll. And I think those are less intimidating to me and a lot of other people because you don't have to generate any creativity. We literally follow the directions in the kit and you have a pretty thing at the end of it.

So yeah, love those things.

Christina: Yeah, those are super fun.

Georgie: Okay, so let's talk about wanting to fit in socially. And it's a human desire. It's fundamental to want to belong. And so when we notice other people are doing a particular behavior, whether it's a style of clothing or a way of eating, there's part of us that's like, hey, let's do that too.

So we wouldn't want to squash that. We wouldn't want to be like, no, I'm going to do everything different than other people. But at the same time, sometimes your friend circle is doing some behaviors that you don't want to do, like tequila [00:20:00] shooters or ordering fried food at two in the morning. And you're thinking like, ah, I love these people.

But I don't think I want to go quite 100 percent along with what they're doing. So noticing if this is you is usually pretty easy because you recognize that you're doing things and eating things with friends that you probably wouldn't choose to do on your own. And yet you find that it's hard to say no.

A lot of times my clients will also say, " but I don't want to be a party pooper. I don't want to be a stick in the mud. I don't want to be that person." And I'll usually ask them a pointed question, like, okay, you don't want to be what person? Oh, I don't want to be the, diet ninny at the restaurant.

Who's like, I want this on the side and I want this grilled. And can you make this special for me? And they're no fun and they're a pain in the butt. And I'm like, okay, granted, I don't want to be no fun and a pain in the butt either. But certainly we can still have some healthy behaviors without being completely socially abhorrent.

So, for example, when I'm ordering something at a restaurant, if I want to ask for dressing on the side, that is no harm for you to ask for. It's [00:21:00] not an inconvenience to the staff. If your friends are put off by you ordering dressing on the side, they will get over it, I promise. It's also very normal. A lot of people will ask for things like, no cheese on my sandwich.

Like, like, see me in the, you know, fat phobic era. Or they'll ask for something to be made slightly differently. Like, can you do this without the Cajun seasoning? Because I don't like spicy food. And if you just ask nicely, you don't need to worry about being an unreasonable person. This is a very reasonable thing to do.

And if the staff says, no, we can't do that, you know, responding to that with composure, again, going to prevent you from feeling like a total social outcast. I've never heard of any of my clients having a terrible experience asking for a modification at a restaurant, nor have I heard of any of my clients being socially ousted for not drinking alcohol.

Like maybe some of your friends are like, really? And then they get over it. So it's not like grade school. Somebody's going to take you into the bathroom and like lock you in a bathroom stall or stuff you into a locker. I mean, [00:22:00] we're adults and a lot of adults don't drink alcohol at all. So I think the difficulty here is mostly on our side, the eater or drinker side.

And we just have to push through the idea that we. can't eat or drink differently than our friends, or that we can't eat or drink differently than we are used to doing, because people will notice the change and somehow think something bad about us because we have changed. So questioning your thoughts there, can be super helpful. I usually will ask people, are your friends that mean? Are your friends that judgmental that they would seriously, like, not hang out with you because you had a club soda? And universally, thankfully, my clients are not hanging out with jerks. They're hanging out with people that actually like them, who really don't get their feathers ruffled.

If somebody orders something a little healthier or drinks less over the course of the night than they do.

Christina: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I have a lot of clients who are experimenting with. Drinking less alcohol, even just because they feel better.

Georgie: I know.

Christina: And that's a good enough reason. And [00:23:00] most of the time we think people are paying more attention to us than they actually are.

Georgie: Right.

Christina: They might not even notice that you're making that change.

Georgie: What's funny about this topic is I'm a lifelong non drinker. So it honestly has never really even occurred to me to be bothered by it.

I just knew that alcohol made me feel sick even when I like took sips of it as a kid. So I was like, "Bleh! I don't like that." So whenever I'm talking about it in a professional context, like a podcast or talking to a client about it, there's this little gremlin in the back of my mind that is like, Everyone really does think you're a loser, Georgie.

You just haven't figured it out. And here you are reassuring everybody that it's totally fine, and everyone's like, boy, she doesn't realize she's a total laughingstock.

Christina: Yeah. I mean it's a completely personal choice. So I don't know.

Georgie: Ignorance is bliss. I mean, nobody has ever given me a hard time about it. So if somebody really has taken issue with my lack of alcohol consumption, it's only bothered them. [00:24:00]

Christina: Yeah.

one final issue that comes up a lot with clients is just general scheduling issues. We kind of touched on it before with being home more and more free time. But what about if you're someone who has a lot of errands to run during the weekend? Maybe it's during your normal meal times or you're eating a later breakfast and then you just skip lunch because you're like, eh it's pretty much noon. I'll just wait. And then you end up snacking a bunch in the afternoon or in the evening, you feel extra hungry because you just haven't eaten a lot during the day. similarly to that boredom issue is just creating some kind of schedule around your eating. It doesn't have to be exact, but some idea with when am I going to eat these meals so that I feel satisfied.

I'm supporting myself. I'm fueled for the day. And if you know, when you have specific appointments planning around those, so you're not going a really long time without eating and getting to meals, totally ravenous and overeating as a result. And just look [00:25:00] at your weekend commitments, like, what's a rough schedule when you're going to eat?

If you have plans to go out a bit later, how are you going to eat earlier in the day?

Georgie: I'm sure you hear this from clients as well, that when they overeat on the weekend and we ask them to tell us a bit more about the day and what was going on, it's because they were running around doing a hundred different things and they have choreographed getting two different kids to two different sports practices on opposite sides of town while picking up the dog while doing this mailing the package they need to do. And they have given no thought to when they would feed themselves.

Christina: Yeah. All the time.

Georgie: So

Christina: they come last.

Georgie: Yeah. so I would put that on the list of things that you want to take care of when you're planning the day is like, how am I going to get the kids where they need to go? How am I going to get food into my body before it's unreasonably hungry? And sometimes that may mean bringing something with you to eat while you're out doing things, or it may mean budgeting in time.

Like, Oh, I can swing by Panera and grab something to eat between this and [00:26:00] that, you know, just simply accounting for yourself in your plans can go a long way. I also sometimes will tell people like if you're leaving the house, estimate how long you're going to be out and think that you've got about like a four or six hour time hop between eating occasions, if you eat until satisfied.

Most people can make it four to six hours before they're going to need a meal again. So if I'm eating breakfast at nine, I'm going to start thinking, if I'm still out of the house at one o'clock, I'm going to either want to bring something with me or have an idea of where I'm going to go.

Or if I'm going to be back to the house in less than four hours, okay, I'll be back here for lunch. So four to six hours is a fair amount of estimate if you're having to wing it. I try and encourage people to stick to as similar of a schedule weekend to weekday as they can. But I also understand that that's just not feasible.

Some of my clients get up at 5 a. m. or other silly hours during the week and I'm the last person who's going to be like, so how about you get up at five on Saturday and Sunday as well. But

Christina: if you're like me though, your body will just make you wake up even if you try to sleep.

Georgie: Oh, cruel

Christina: that's the worst. I [00:27:00] know.

Georgie: But yeah, with people who do sleep in, then we'll usually say, try and at least be consistent about eating breakfast relatively soon to waking up, which I think you mentioned earlier, and then you are still sort of on a consistent pattern of like, when I wake up, I eat relatively soon.

And then many people, if their breakfast is later, they are still going to want lunch. And so I can get people into trouble if they think it's getting close to dinner. Like if I eat lunch at two or three, I won't have an appetite for dinner. But that's typically not true because if you eat your regular breakfast a few hours late by three or four in the afternoon, your body's like, dude, I usually have two meals by now.

What's going on? And so your body's not just going to accept dropping one of your three meals from the day. So I usually tell people, if you shift your breakfast later, just shift your lunch a little bit later, but expect to have it. Even if that means a bit of a shorter interval between dinner, because usually if three meals a day is enough to keep you satisfied, then you're going to need those same three meals a day, regardless of the day on the calendar.

Christina: Mm hmm. Yeah,

Georgie: so I think we [00:28:00] covered a lot of different stuff here. Everybody's lifestyle is different. You may be one of the early risers. You may be one of the I'm going to sleep in. You may be very social, hanging out with other people. Alcohol may or may not factor into your weekends. Rest assured, whatever troubles or challenges that your life presents you, there's a way to navigate it. There's a way to move closer to your goals. It doesn't mean giving up all the fun, or ostracizing your friends, or organizing your whole life around pre packing Tupperware. There is a realistic, reasonable way to do this for everyone. If you need a hand with problem solving, reach out. Drop us a line through the chat box at confidenteaters.com or fire me an email georgiefear@gmail.com. See you next week.