Confident Eaters

What Weight Loss Approach Is Best for You in 2024?
===

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.

Christina: Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of confident eaters. I'm here with Georgie. This is Christina, and we are going to talk a little bit about some Things that you might be wondering about getting started in the new year. It's a lot of common questions that we hear from our clients about, weight loss, New Year's resolutions, and things of that nature.

So we've got some really good questions lined up for you, and we're going to treat this sort of like an Ask Georgie format, and we're going to ask these questions, and Georgie's going to share her wealth of knowledge with [00:01:00] us. So without further ado. Welcome, Georgie.

Georgie: Thank you. Thank you. First episode of 2024. Always nice to have that fresh start, isn't it?

Christina: Definitely. Happy New Year.

Georgie: Thanks. You too. You too. So what shall we start with topic wise? We've got a great list.

Christina: Yes, for sure. the first one with New Year's and everything that comes up a lot is, what kind of program should I join or what sort of thing is going to help me? There's so much information out here. Where do I begin? And a popular one that comes up is intermittent fasting. And is intermittent fasting considered to be a healthy way of daily routine of Our eating and would love to hear what you think about that, Georgie. I know we have a full episode about it, but let's hear your thoughts.

Georgie: So, yes, I'm glad you mentioned that. We do have a full episode on intermittent fasting. Like most things, it has some upsides, some downsides, and it's not for everybody, but it would be an oversimplification to be [00:02:00] like, it's the best thing in the world, or it's horrible and no one should do it. Answer lies somewhere in the middle.

There's more detail in that episode, but for this question, The person was asking, like, is it a healthy way of eating? And so when I started to prep my answer for this, I was like, well, healthy can mean so many different things. Like when one person is asking, like, is this healthy?

They might be wondering, is this a way that I can still get all of my nutrient needs met? Or they might be asking like, is this a healthy way to role model for my kids? I'm not sure if I want me staring at the kitchen clock waiting for the time to strike so mommy can eat. So to other people, healthy is going to be concerning will it decrease my odds of cardiovascular disease? Will it improve my diabetes? Those sort of things. So most people who are interested in trying intermittent fasting, who are writing to us with questions, want to try it with the goal of losing weight. So I think that's the most common context.

There are Some benefits to intermittent fasting that have come out in research with regard [00:03:00] to brain health, I don't usually cover those in detail because they involve extended fasting and by extended, I mean, like 2 to 5 days at a minimum and that sort of extreme fasting I like to leave to the practitioners that do that with people. I don't recommend going days without eating.

Christina: Sure.

Georgie: I'm more in the business of feeding people. So for anybody that's not familiar with intermittent fasting, it basically means you eat for a period of time and then you have a designated period of time when you don't eat. And so one of the most frequent ways that this is practiced is people eat very little or nothing on two days out of the week.

And then the other five days of the week, they eat relatively normally. So that's called 5 2 intermittent fasting. The other way that's quite common that people will practice it is actually time restricted feeding, not intermittent fasting technically. Time restricted feeding is where you designate certain hours of the day and it's the same every day. where you have a window of eating and the rest of the time you [00:04:00] don't eat or drink anything with calories. So, some people will use an 8 hour window, a 6 hour window, a 12 hour window. There's a lot of different ways that people can conceive of it. So, to answer the question of, is it healthy in terms of nutrient standpoint, It really depends.

If someone eats a diet that's based on processed foods, sugars, fast food drive through, eating in a different time window is not going to make that a healthy diet. Even if it reduces your calorie intake and you lose weight, it's still not a healthy diet. It's not going to lead to the improvements in health that we would see if somebody switches to a more whole foods, less processed diet.

So in terms of the things that we need to get from our diet, there's actually quite a bit that we need other than energy. It's not just about calories. Health is impacted by our intake of vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, and lots of other compounds. So in terms of diet adequacy, it can really go either way.

You can absolutely build [00:05:00] a healthy diet, eating only during certain hours of the day. There's nothing that blocks you from eating a healthy diet. I will say, if the feeding window is too short, it tends to become difficult to get the volume of fruits and vegetables that's recommended for ideal health within that window, just because of a volumetric standpoint. Now, if you take, nine or 10 servings of fruit and vegetables and try and eat them all over 12 hours, it's reasonable. If you try and eat them all in six hours, it's harder. Get down to four hours and you really got to put your mind to being able to get all of that food in. So Again, regardless of the time organization of your meals, you want to make sure you're getting in all those nutrient dense variety of foods.

When it comes to efficacy, and we're talking weight loss efficacy, like, will this move the needle lower on the scale? It also really depends on the person. To put it bluntly, if you don't mind not eating, you'll be fine. You'll lose weight on intermittent fasting and it usually won't be too stressful. [00:06:00] Some people who lose weight easily with intermittent fasting, they say things like, Oh, well now I only have to cook once or twice a day, so I've got more hours.

I can study more, I can work more, I can game, I can do stuff with my kids, and I'm just not stressed thinking about food for a greater chunk of the day. In my experience, people who feel like cooking and eating is a chore don't make up the majority of people who have a significant amount of weight to lose.

Christina: Mhmm .

Georgie: Right. Most of the people that work with us are like, I really like eating, not eating for a sizable chunk of my waking hours feels more like a punishment than a hack that makes life simpler.

So the calorie intake that a person consumes is going to make the difference. in whether intermittent fasting moves their weight lower or doesn't. So if intermittent fasting reduces the amount that somebody eats overall, then it can be helpful in weight loss. I usually recommend that if people are interested in trying this, that they give themselves at least two weeks to see how [00:07:00] their behaviors on their body respond to the new constraint of time. And what I mean by that is I've had a lot of clients in my experience who will say, I'm simply going to drop one meal. I don't really love breakfast anyway. I'm not that hungry, so I'm just going to skip breakfast and I'll eat lunch and dinner.

And if I don't eat after dinner, Bob's your uncle, there's your eating window. And it seems to work relatively well initially, but by around the two week mark, they find that they're creeping up in terms of both calorie density and portion size. So instead of eating three, you know, usual for them sized meals, they're now eating two larger than before meals.

And so if they've been losing weight the first couple of weeks, it tends to stall or stop. And so now you're only eating in a shorter window of the day. And now you're weight steady again. So what do you do next? So it tends to have a pretty short lived honeymoon period. What about you, Christina? Have you had clients that have tried this on their own?

Christina: [00:08:00] I have, and I think the main difficulty or challenge I hear people say is their social life because of the time restriction. It can prevent them from living the social life that they want or feeling like they have to say no to social obligations and I see that the simplifying it to fewer cooking instances, I've seen that as well, but yeah, I think it's one of those things that seems really great, but it's a little bit harder to do in the long term.

I've tried it, and it was great for a while, and then I was like, no, I, I'm kind of done with this. Just not, I don't like being restrained in that way and having more flexibility and, and like you said, fitting all that food in, in a shorter window, it was difficult for me. I like the two week mark though.

a lot of things we do with clients is like give them the opportunity to experiment with things. It's not a no, it's just see how it affects your body and what you notice about yourself. And it's marketed as like some [00:09:00] magical thing, but there are so many factors that make it successful or not.

And it's very personal. So I loved all that you shared there. Thank you so much for your wisdom I know a lot of people wonder. So now we have two episodes talking about whether or not intermittent fasting could be something that you want to try or if you want to try something else.

Georgie: It's hard to cover my personal bias on this one, because I just, I see so many people like crash and burn in like a really not funny amount of suffering because of it.

So if somebody's on the fence, I usually will try and keep them away from it.

Christina: Yeah

Georgie: I mean, I'd never want to limit anybody's autonomy and choice and if somebody's really strongly like, I want to do this, like Georgie's not going to get in the way, I'm not going to tell anybody what to do with their body. Like you want to get a tattoo on your face, like go for it. I'm also not going to get in your way, but at least the intermittent fasting is not permanent, right?

Christina: Yeah. And I think it [00:10:00] does affect your ability to really listen to your hunger because you're trying to squeeze so much food in that shorter amount of time.

And it is a little bit against my typical, like. Recommendation, which is yeah, let's learn how to listen to when you feel hungry and eat when that is and sure you get hungry for that first meal, but then you got to eat again before the end of the window. So I think that can hinder our ability there too.

Georgie: Yeah, it doesn't jive at all with natural human evolved eating patterns, you know, we basically evolved to eat until we're, satisfied. And then not eat again for a period of hours and then get hungry and eat again to satisfied and intermittent fasting sort of imposes this extra long gap, and it really starts to mimic binge and restrict behaviors and so,

Christina: right,

Georgie: anything that mimics a diagnosable eating disorder just doesn't strike me as the sort of thing I want to recommend or advocate for.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: I also think it's important for people as individuals to consider your mental health is one of the most crucial [00:11:00] aspects of your well being and your life quality, so not everyone's going to respond the same way to perceiving that they can't or won't or don't want to eat for certain hours of the day.

I know a lot of people that are particularly reactive to food restrictions, the mere idea that they would Voluntarily sign up for a program or rule that says you may not eat for 16 hours would just distress them right into overeating in the first hour. So

Christina: not worth it.

Georgie: Yeah. We want to honor people's sensitivity and work with where you are at in terms of your mental state and your thoughts about food and your comfort level with change.

So, yeah,

Christina: such a good point. speaking of our next question, another popular thing that we hear a lot about is intuitive eating, and this question comes from a client asking, I've seen a lot more about intuitive eating versus diet culture or trying to purposely lose [00:12:00] weight, but is intuitive eating Really appropriate for everybody or for someone like this person asking the question who does need to lose weight for her health?

Georgie: Intuitive eating is I'm glad that this phrase is getting more and more attention. Over the recent years, it's a nice counterpoint to less, less, less, less, less, you know, more restraint, more restriction, shorter eating window, lower calories, you know, that has been sort of the basis of weight management for the better part of my lifetime.

So for people who are not quite sure what intuitive eating means. Some of the basic premises of that are that you have unconditional permission to eat. And so no foods are seen as good or bad, and you essentially don't restrict yourself in any way if you're practicing intuitive eating. You literally eat what your intuition guides you to without trying to restrain or control yourself. So in some ways you can tell it's opposite of dieting, where you're [00:13:00] constantly trying to restrain yourself, eat less, and stick to a externally imposed food plan. The benefits of intuitive eating capitally come from the relief that people get from allowing themselves to stop dieting, and That is massive.

You know, as you know, I'm a huge proponent of mental health and for many women, especially who have been dieting since they were girls, they haven't really gotten to enjoy their life without this monkey on their back of trying to lose weight, trying to change their body so that their body and they as people feel more acceptable.

So I do think there's a really nice freedom. And if somebody's never had that freedom, I think it can be wonderful to take a break from trying to lose weight. Intuitive eating is also shown to be very effective in reducing binge eating. One of the things that you may know from the work that Christina and I do, is that binge eating is often perpetuated and strengthened by efforts to restrict one's eating.

It's sort of like, the [00:14:00] harder you diet, the harder the binge tends to fight you. So if we take away that pulling back of the pendulum with trying to diet and we say, you know, just eat freely. Don't worry about trying to hold back or control yourself. Often people will find that their urge to binge reduces considerably, they feel more at peace, and a lot less compulsive.

So those are definitely good things that I encourage anybody who thinks this sounds like what they want to know more about. Look up intuitive eating, there's books, there's websites, there's lots of great material out there. Now when it comes to the topic of weight loss, intuitive eating isn't the most effective way to lose weight and it is generally not effective.

Proponents of intuitive eating, there are professionals and coaches who use intuitive eating as their signature method. They often don't encourage people to pursue weight loss as a goal. Part of intuitive eating seems to be just accepting yourself at the size you are without trying to change that.[00:15:00] So for someone whose doctor has said to her, you're going to live longer if you lose weight and get your blood sugar under control.

That's a really hard thing to hear. If one professional is telling you losing weight is going to extend your life. And then another professional is like, Nobody's healthier because they lose weight. You know, understandably, this confuses people. So my personal scientific training has taught me that weight loss improves many disease states. And while it's an exaggeration that every person who's overweight is going to develop these, you know, that's simply not the case, it does increase your risk. And we also have really solid voluminous evidence that weight loss improves a lot of chronic disease markers.

So for example, it's very effective in lowering blood sugar. It's very effective in lowering blood pressure, and these in turn decrease the damage to your body caused by high blood pressure and high blood sugar. So there are health benefits to losing weight. Unfortunately, the professionals out there that say weight loss Does not [00:16:00] improve people's health, tend to be ill informed to be blunt.

So if someone wants to lose weight and they like the idea of intuitive eating, I think intuitive eating can serve as the basis for a lot of positive changes that someone can adopt. I think it just needs a couple of additions.

Christina: Mhmm

Georgie: So the things that I would add to intuitive eating would be. Deliberately trying to learn to eat in accordance with one's body cues.

So, I might not be hungry in this moment, but my intuition is like, chocolate cake would be awesome right now. So, if I think, eh, intuitive eating, I'm going to follow my intuition, and we just eat what we want when we want, it's generally not going to produce weight loss. However, if we use hunger led eating, which is another research based strategy, there is evidence that that produces improvements, not only in lowering body weight, but also lowering blood sugar for people who are diabetic.

So thinking like, okay, I like this idea of no foods being good or bad. [00:17:00] Not restricting myself, however, I am going to try and follow my appetite cues. I think that's a really good addition that can, easily be brought in with an intuitive eating approach. The second thing is, I feel that the essential core of intuitive eating doesn't help people stop emotional eating or eating to cope with other stressors in their lives.

Because if I have a lifetime habit of getting a bag of chips every time I'm stressed out, my intuition is going to keep saying, get the chips when you're stressed out, get the chips when you're stressed out. So now it may be helpful to give myself permission to do that and alleviate the guilt I feel with eating chips when I'm stressed out and just say, this is okay, I'm allowing it, but it's not going to help me stop eating chips when I'm stressed out.

I'm still going to continue doing that. So. I think some of the emotion regulation skills that people can learn from us or from other people that work with emotional eating can be a really strong addition to intuitive eating. I've been talking a whole lot. Christina, what are you [00:18:00] thinking as I'm saying all of this?

Christina: Yeah, I think it's great because it is something people are curious about. And you mentioned if someone is struggling with binge eating, it could be a great way for them to eat according to their intuition rather than this cycle of dieting, restriction, and binging. So, for those people, it sounds like it could be a good first step, but then if weight loss is also a goal, it's maybe not the most effective thing. And I definitely have seen that with my clients and I love your additions that you said, like, let's learn our hunger. Let's learn emotional regulation and the reasons for our overeating in the first place. And it can be a good base skill.

Georgie: It also, as you're saying that, it strikes me that you know, what you do at one phase of your life, or like what you decide that you're going to work on in 2024 could be completely different or adjusted for 2025 and 2026.

So for somebody whose main need right now is to stop binge eating and just [00:19:00] drop the massive amount of stress in their life from trying to diet, it could be a really good fit. And then once They feel like those things are improved, they could add in, additional strategies and skills to help with moving the needle on the scale.

Christina: Yeah, and I think that actually is really helpful because a lot of the people that we work with have a struggle with binge eating, but they also want to lose weight and that can seem like a really long process if they're like, okay, I have to deal with the binge eating first.

So maybe that involves a little bit of intuitive eating and letting go of the food rules and letting go of the dieting. And then after we feel like That's taken care of then losing weight. And another question that comes up, not just for us coaches, but our clients is that this process can feel a little slow and like they want to know, like, okay, if I'm doing it this way, because it feels healthier for me, like you mentioned, mental health being such an important thing and the dietary restraint being very difficult on our mental health a [00:20:00] lot of the time.

How can our clients cope with the process of losing weight? And getting healthy, feeling so slow when you have this long road ahead of you and you're not seeing the scale move. Maybe you're seeing improvements with binge eating or emotional eating if that's a struggle for you.

But this hunger led eating approach can sometimes still feel really slow. What would you say to those people?

Georgie: First, I want to say that I think every coach feels this as well. Like when the client is like, Oh, this is so slow. The coach is. Feeling like, yes, I really wish I could make this faster for you. I know it takes time and then I don't know about you, but I have definitely personalized it to be like, I want to apologize to the client for how long this takes, even though I'm not the reason that it's slow, yeah it's an inherently slow process.

So many times when people are saying, you know, this process is so slow, they're chiefly focusing on. The pounds lost or the [00:21:00] kilos lost, like getting on the scale and seeing that it hasn't moved yet, even though you've improved your behaviors for six or eight weeks already is a really difficult thing.

And then also a lot of people feel like once they've made significant changes, that it should be immediately apparent on the scale. And unfortunately, neither of those is true. The way that I help people cope with this process is I validate that it feels slow. Like there's nothing impatient or wrong with somebody being like, oh my God, this is maddeningly slow.

Like it's okay to validate that and say, yeah, it's really, really hard to be patient enough to get through this process. Like, I understand that. I wish I could make this instant. I wish I could make it effortless, but we can't do that. What we can do is I can make it as efficient as possible in terms of helping a client make sure that their actions are moving in the right direction.

I can stop a client from wasting effort on side missions that are not moving them [00:22:00] closer to their actual goal. And we can make the process safe, supported, and guided. So if it has to be a journey that's Take some time, at least you're not going it alone and you're doing it with some good company and some support.

So I was talking about this with Shannon, one of our other coaches, a couple of days ago, and I said, every flight I've ever taken has felt like it was just unbearably slow, but it always ended. Like I've gotten off every plane eventually. So it's sometimes a beneficial mindset to say like, this is going to be uncomfortable.

It's going to take a while, but that doesn't mean we're not getting anywhere. And it doesn't mean we don't do it. We just accept that like, no, not quick and painless. A lot of times people can recognize that their feelings and their thoughts change before their behaviors change.

So, you know, if I'm thinking and feeling differently about, the way that I cook dinner and how I eat dinner, those cognitive changes and emotional changes are going to precede changes to me eating dinner. [00:23:00] Slowing down or putting a smaller portion on my plate or putting away leftovers. And once the behaviors change, there's still another step, which is the accrual of time before the behaviors translate into weight loss.

So if you wanted to lay this out in order, you could say that like phase one would be thought and feeling change. Phase two would be behavior change. And then there would be like a plus sign time. And the third phase would be seeing actual physical change or weight loss. Anything to add to that, Christina?

Christina: I like how you put that and lay that out. That's really helpful. And I know that as a coach, sometimes I feel responsible for our client's results. And that's something that I've had to unlearn because we can, like you said, create that environment for them to feel safe and teach them some skills and help foster that, but ultimately Like, they also have that responsibility [00:24:00] and validating that it does feel slow and wanting to fix that for them also doesn't help but yeah.

Georgie: We're not in control. Like we're not in control of how fast it goes.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. And I think encouraging people, I can think of one client in particular who. Yeah. is a very busy person and has children and works outside the home and her children get sick often. So sometimes it can feel frustratingly slow because there's not as much capacity to put towards the skills.

Because kids are getting sick, and then I'm getting sick, and then it's this whole cycle. And when that keeps happening, it can feel very defeating. So validating that experience as well, and, and, and trying to zoom out and understand, like, is, is it, everything's going perfectly, and it's still slow? Or are there some obstacles that are, even though you're doing the best you can, making it slower than it has to be?

Georgie: Yeah, I mean, like,

Christina: Still frustrating, but, a good explanation for why it could be slow as well.

Georgie: Yeah, most people they're not able to put like [00:25:00] everything else in their life on hold to lose 10 pounds in a month or more, you know, like really fast weight loss tends to be very all encompassing.

So like, if you think about drastic things, like we know rapid weight loss results from very low calorie diets, like let's say a liquid diet, a meta fast, one of those sort of things that takes up a lot of your time and energy and willpower and restraint to stick to. Other fast weight loss methods what comes to mind like gastric surgery. We are not talking a small investment here. Like that is huge. Like you're actually going to let somebody cut open your body, make some stitches and rearrange some organs. Like this is, this is not something that you just like come to on a whim. Like it's a very serious life decision and it completely changes someone's life.

There's a lot of emotional support needed, medical support needed, you know, to do that sort of thing. Most people that we work with are not interested in devoting their entire life to making a change to their body weight. They want to [00:26:00] still do things like be present for their kids, be active in their community, keep pursuing their career.

And so to make things work, we want to use nutrition practices and weight loss methods that feel more moderate, that feel like they don't take a huge chunk of time and energy and effort. And so that tends to be, you know, more gradual weight loss methods. A lot of times I'll pose the question to my client.

Like, you know, I hear you, I can validate that this can be a very slow process. And I am in the boat with you that I want to get you to the finish line as fast as we can. If you feel like you have more bandwidth and you want to take on more challenge, we can definitely do that. Like we can push the accelerator harder for weight loss, but it also will come with increased challenge and potentially discomfort.

Virtually every client is like, I'm good with gradual Georgie, thanks. Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. This is uncomfortable enough. No.

Georgie: Yeah. Usually it's like most of my clients after we've worked for a couple of months, they're working some sort of [00:27:00] treats budget. Like I know I can have this many treats a week.

And it's working to have this gradual weight loss. And I'm like, we can not eat treats if you really want to move towards weight loss as fast as possible and they're like, I'm kind of enjoying being able to eat some dessert over now and then gradually isn't bad..

Christina: Yeah, exactly another thing that comes to mind too with this topic is many of the people like we said earlier have been dieting for a really long time and Dieting including, losing weight, gaining it back, gaining more back, losing more weight, gaining more back. And if that's been your situation, it's taken some years to get to where you are.

So, taking some time, even though it's slow, It's taken you some time to get to where you are, so it'll take some time to get that gradual, sustainable weight loss. Which I think is, most people we work with's goal is like, it's not just about getting it off as fast as possible. For some people it might be, but it's really like, how can I keep it off? How can I [00:28:00] maintain this and live my life and not have to keep doing this over and over again? So.

Georgie: Yeah. I usually refer out people that say they're desperate to lose weight as rapidly as possible.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: I'm sorry. We just aren't a good match. Like when I see the majority of people, you know, when I'm exchanging emails with them and they're trying to decide if working with us is right for them, or if they're filling in the new client questionnaire and they say, you know, I just want to learn how to eat normally, or I want to learn how to eat sustainably and comfortably.

I'm like, that's my kind of language.

Christina: Yeah, and it's hard to turn away people because we want to help as many people as possible, but yeah You kind of do have to be done with That approach if you're coming this direction, so yeah, so awesome great discussion there and switching gears a little bit. You know, if someone is wanting to switch to gaining muscle instead of losing weight, what changes would you recommend? They make?

Georgie: I love walking people through the transition of, [00:29:00] you know, either they've lost the way that they want to lose another one to maintain, or they've realized that the goal that they want for their body isn't to be lighter, but actually to be stronger and maybe to be more athletic. So sometimes it's because they've reached a goal or sometimes they just realize that their, their goal isn't in fact, weight loss. And often the client will assume that this is going to mean really big reversals in the way that they're eating, because it seems like, well, wouldn't it be an opposite?

going down on the scale versus going up on the scale. But we actually don't want to just make a 180 on most of the things that we have begun with. So for example, let's say somebody has been focusing on weight loss for a considerable amount of time, let's say a year. And they're like, you know, I actually feel like adding muscle to my frame might improve my appearance more than continuing to try and get smaller.

And it could be fun. I wholeheartedly support that. I think it's a lot of fun to see if [00:30:00] we can lift more weights and put higher numbers on different exercises and become more capable. We don't just throw out the things that we have already practiced. We just make some shifts. So one of the key shifts that we make is adjusting the way that we use hunger to guide our eating. So for weight loss, what we want to do is ensure that we have a small calorie deficit on a very consistent basis. So day in, day out, we just want to have a small deficit. If we're trying to add muscle, we actually don't want to create a sizable calorie deficit. But we also don't want to create a really big calorie excess because that results in rapid weight gain and potentially gaining more fat than muscle because you can't gain muscle very rapidly.

It's a slow building process. So the adjustments that I make Typically, when somebody is losing weight, we're going to be aiming for 30 to 60 minutes of feeling hunger before each time that they eat. If that person then wants to say, move into more of a [00:31:00] muscle building or a performance phase, then we can shorten that time length.

I still want people to ensure that they are hungry most of the time before they eat so that we don't just go back to emotional eating or eating for coping or fun even though eating is fun. We'll usually shorten that so that it might be 15 to 30 minutes or maybe they just check the box and make sure they are genuinely hungry and then they eat with no real waiting period.

That small change there can mean the difference between a consistent calorie deficit and More being an energy balance, which is what we're going for. Also the number of meals is a lot more flexible if you're not trying to create a deficit. So a lot of people have read my book, Lean Habits, and they know that the first chapter is if you're trying to lose weight, Try and get all of your calories into three or four episodes a day.

You can call it three meals, four meals, three meals and a snack, four feedings. It doesn't matter what you call it. Try and get all of your calories into three or four episodes. [00:32:00] And that means not eating five, six, seven times a day. That is really very specific to creating a calorie deficit, and it turns out that it's not that important if somebody is comfortable with being in a weight maintenance or a muscle gain zone.

So, I will tell people, if you're hungry, five times a day, eat five times a day. If you're hungry six times a day, eat six times a day. I don't want people to be forcing in food or eating when they're not hungry whatsoever. Because again, that can put us into too much of a calorie surplus, but we don't really worry if somebody wants to eat more than four times a day.

The third major change there is while people can lose weight, With varying amounts of exercise. Some people don't exercise at all. Some people do lots of cardio. Some people do a little cardio. Some people do strength and cardio. Some people only do strength. Some people only play a sport like tennis or soccer.

All of those can work for weight loss. But if you want to gain muscle, you really have to lift. You're not gonna run or [00:33:00] elliptical yourself to more muscle. You have to push some really heavy weights. So I think the physical exercise component is the greater change when somebody moves from a weight loss sort of oriented lifestyle to a muscle gain, you have to be very serious about your lifting.

There's going to be days when you're tired, there's going to be days when maybe you're a little achy or that you don't feel like going to the gym or heading into your garage to lift weights. And it's really important that we use our mental fortitude and reframing and All of our organizational skills and time management to find ways to get enough strength training in,

Lastly, I will say, some people are harder gainers than others. So if somebody has been in a weight loss mode, they're usually not a hard gainer. They're usually somebody that needed some help and to have a professional coach to get them into weight loss. So usually just the small changes to eliminate the calorie deficit in their life will get them close to balance or in like a slow gain.

Every now and then though, [00:34:00] we'll have somebody who isn't maybe coming from fat loss, but is like, I just want to gain muscle and I can't, I'm like a really skinny guy, want to be a little more beefcake, want to try and pack on some muscle. How can I do that? In addition to the lifting that is 100 percent essential.

If we need to increase calories a little more deliberately, some of the things we can do are reduce the amount of vegetables and fruit. So instead of maybe being half the plate, we might say a third of your plate of vegetables and fruit. We don't want to get too full on broccoli because then you can't get enough calories in.

We can also increase the number of times they eat. Sometimes people end up having three meals and three snacks or just frequent caloric drinks to try and get more calories in. And lastly, we can go more towards liquids because they empty from the stomach a little sooner. So somebody who says, what if I eat the bagel and cream cheese for breakfast?

I can't eat my snack in three hours. I'm just too full. Well, why don't we try a smoothie for breakfast and then see if you can eat three hours later and often that can do the trick that can do the trick.

Christina: Nice. It's really [00:35:00] interesting. I actually haven't worked with many people, or I can't think of any people that I've worked with who were, who had this goal.

So this is cool for me to hear you speak on if it ever comes up.

Georgie: Unfortunately, I think there are a legitimate amount of people there that have muscle gain goals. And I feel like the advice that sort of circulates around gyms can be really awful.

Many times people are like, well, just pack in the calories, like dirty bulk, ice cream and pop tarts, just eat as many calories as you can, don't worry about the fat gain because you'll just take it off later. But I have seen a lot of people go through this period of time where they do that sort of bulking and then they try and cut and they end up exactly where they were a year ago.

And now it's like, my weight has gone up and it's gone down and I've gone through all of these different grocery patterns. My girlfriend never knows what to make me for dinner and like, I gained 10 pounds. I lost 10 pounds. I look exactly like I did before that whole thing happened. So

Christina: yeah,

Georgie: I don't think it works for everybody. [00:36:00] I'm a bigger fan of just increasing the strength training and the volume of strength training and trying to keep somebody close to calorie maintenance. And let your body take care of making you a little extra hungry and that will, you know, favor the building up of the lean muscle that you need to do the job you're asking your body to do.

Christina: Yeah

Georgie: so, nature's pretty cool that way.

Christina: Cool. It is. It really is. Okay. Our final question of the day. is, what do you recommend for someone who is new to working from home and is used to being a creature of habit? Someone who was packing their lunch, but now finds themselves surrounded by food at their house, not preparing meals, and just general eating all the time.

So this person says when they were going into work, They would pack their lunch and didn't really snack and have the opportunity, but now just a lot more grazing happening. What would you say to this person, Georgie?

Georgie: I think, man, when we went through COVID and so many of us [00:37:00] transitioned to working at home, we could have had like support groups for the

Christina: easily.

Georgie: Challenges.

Christina: Yes.

Georgie: Of working from home. I've been doing it for eons and eons, but I definitely went through a lot of this myself too. When you're at home, it's just so different from being in an office. Not only do you have the kitchen there accessible all the time, but you have the snack foods on hand that are exactly the ones that you like and purchased.

Christina: Right.

Georgie: And then it's also really tempting because you don't necessarily have the eyeballs of accountability on you to be like, Oh, is she at her desk or where is she? You can always sort of walk away from your computer and go do something. And so taking infinite breaks to get snacks can be a way of procrastinating or, you know, just getting that stimulus that we need because now we're in the same environment all the time, seeing the same four walls, you know, not even taking like the drive into work, you know, reduces some of the stimulation.

So it's great that this person recognizes. that working from home came with [00:38:00] some habit changes because of the environment. So overriding the habit that she's formed of starting to just graze all day long is going to take some effort. But the nice thing is that habits by definition are fairly low effort once they're established.

So if you're going to be working at home for a long time or the foreseeable future, changing this habit is really worth it because it's going to make the rest of your time working at home a lot, lot more easy for you. So many people have found a schedule is more important when they're at home. And when I say a schedule, I mean, not only the time that you wake up and go to bed and the hours that you work, but also the times that you take breaks during your workday.

Whereas maybe you didn't need to have that schedule yourself when you're going to an office, you just sort of did some work took a break when you needed to did some work break when you needed to. If you're at home, I highly recommend scheduling those breaks in because otherwise it's really easy to let the breaks just sort of run away from you and either not get much work done or work [00:39:00] until you're 10 out of 10 distressed.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: And like the, the break is exceptionally long because you don't feel like you can get back to work once you stop. So I think it's nice just to have those scheduled things. Also scheduling what you do during your break. There's a lot more possibilities when you're at home compared to the office.

Break time at the office is generally like coffee, step outside, eat or drink, not too much else. There's not too much else you can do on a break. But at home, you can like go find your dog, give your dog a few pets or maybe a quick trip around the block. You can get yourself a glass of water, coffee and tea.

are always there. You can put on your headphones and listen to a guided meditation. You could text a friend. I mean, you could take a quick shower. You could wash your face. You could throw in a load of laundry. You can do all sorts of other stuff when you're at home. So I encourage people to sort of be a little more deliberate with what breaks you want to take what you want to do during those break times and try and break the default that you go to the kitchen and [00:40:00] grab something to eat.

So, notice how many times you do that, try and ask yourself if you're doing this just because you need to take a break, and if you need to take a break, practice plugging in some of the, the other activities so that it doesn't become the default. The last thing that I think is helpful in this situation is to recognize that if you're trying to break a habit of grazing all day long, You're not going to break it in one day, even if you are able the first day to resist it.

Like you're going to make errors. You're going to catch yourself mid snack. And what you do in those moments can really influence whether you continue to struggle with forming the new behavior, whether you quit or whether you succeed. So the keys here and all the coaches who work for me know the two words that I'm going to say here.

I'm going to quiz Christina. So what are the two words when it comes to correcting yourself?

Christina: Kind and immediate.

Georgie: Yes! Someone has trained yout well.

Christina: Gold star.

Georgie: Yeah, kind and immediate. So let's say I'm trying to break my grazing habit, and all of a sudden I come to realize there's an Oreo in my mouth, and [00:41:00] an Oreo in my hand, and here I am in the kitchen again.

If I'm correcting myself kindly and immediately, I say, whoops! I'm going to put the other Oreo back. This is the kind of habit I'm trying to break. Let's go do something else. That's kind. I'm not berating myself. And the immediate aspect is, Oh, I'm already stopping with the one that's in my mouth. I'm not going to continue eating this other one just because I touched it already.

I'm stopping myself right here and now, as soon as I'm aware. So The ways that people do this that are less effective would be the nasty delayed correction.

Christina: Mm-Hmm.

Georgie: So that sounds like, what the hell are you doing? Why are you eating Oreos again? You're never gonna be a productive or healthy member of society.

Okay. Little extreme, but

Christina: ouch.

Georgie: things people say to themselves, like, what?

Christina: I know

Georgie: Like, oh, what's wrong with you? Like nothing. Oreos are tasty, they're tempting, like nothing's wrong with you, just slipped. So the delayed part that people sometimes make as an error is like, Oh, I got to stop that. And they continue to eat whatever they've gotten. Then they're like, tomorrow, I'll be better Monday. I'll [00:42:00] be better next Tuesday. I'll be better New Year's. I'll be better. And that essentially is giving yourself permission to do it this time, which sort of implies that you're not really serious about disapproving of the behavior. So just like if your dog jumped on the couch, you wanted to train your dog, not do that. You have to say no right away. You can't wait three hours and then be like, okay, I can now get off the couch.

Christina: Yeah, exactly. As cute as they are,

Georgie: cute as they are, cute as they are. So so yeah, if somebody is trying to break the grazing habit, I encourage you to do it. It can be really, really helpful.

Eating a variety of breaks can be more fulfilling too. in addition to having some weight loss benefits. And remember that you will make mistakes here, you're going to need some corrections. So just be kind with yourself and just correct yourself as soon as you notice you're off track.

Christina: Yeah, that's great.

I have a client who definitely currently deals with this. And I think one of the struggle she has is because of the grazing she's never really eating a critical mass of food and [00:43:00] she's never really getting fully satisfied which I think is common with any grazing scenario and so what she works on is not eating at her desk, because that's another thing.

It's like, I'm eating at my desk, I'm distracted, I'm eating some random snack, it's not a full meal, I'm not feeling satisfied, so in an hour, I'm going to want to do it again. So in addition to planning those breaks, eating an actual full meal, even if it's a combination of Random things that rather than like a cooked prepared thing she finds that helpful because otherwise she just gets hungry again.

Georgie: It's such a good point. Yeah. it can almost reinforce itself because if I am working from home and let's say I wake up and I'm like, Oh, my breakfast is a Nutri Grain bar. An hour late, I'm hungry. Oh, I guess take a break and make myself a packet of oatmeal. And then another hour and a half later, I'm like, Oh, I'm hungry again.

Now I get to eat a yogurt. It's sort of positively reinforced because we're getting all of these breaks.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: Being rewarded by food. But if you can decide that you want to change that and you say, you know, [00:44:00] I am just going to eat a full plate of breakfast, maybe like eggs and a couple pieces of toast, a more substantial full plate breakfast, then you actually just get several hours of productive work done. And by the time your appetite comes around, you're ready for a substantial lunch. So it can be a really satisfying pattern. But yeah, it's, it's amazing how easily we can slip into the graze because it's entertaining and it can break up the workday in a way that makes it feel easier to get through.

Christina: Exactly. yeah, great discussion here. And especially as people are going back to work in the new year, hope that those questions are helpful for a lot of people and I think they will be.

Georgie: Thanks so much. These are some great questions, Christina. Thanks for collecting them. Anybody that has more questions or a follow up that they want to ask us, we'd love to hear from you.

So you can always fire us a line. You can use the chat box at confidenteaters. com and we'd love to hear from you. See you in the next episode. [00:45:00]