Titrating healthy lifestyle: Eating yourself well
“Eating yourself well doesn’t have to be an all or nothing prospect. It doesn’t have to be an exercise in deprivation. Sometimes all it takes is a small shift in understanding and the willingness to be consistent in the face of imperfection.”
-Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Ep 218
Eating yourself well
Low hanging fruit for quickstart results
I, like many of you, have tried a lot of diets over the years and been increasingly frustrated by the shifting rules of healthy eating coming from so-called experts with questionable conflicts of interest. Today on The Work IN I am highlighting the low hanging fruit when it comes to eating yourself well. If you’re looking for a practical place to start that will give you massive results this is the episode for you.
So often when we want to change our health we can get overwhelmed when it comes to the diet piece. There seems to be so much conflicting information out there. But we don't have to get stuck in the weeds. There’s 3 starting places that are easily within our reach.
Start with self examination.
Skip the traditional goal setting. I know that’s crazy and they might revoke my health coach card for saying this but traditional smart goal setting doesn’t work for everyone. Yes, what your goals are will determine the steps you might want to take but when it comes to diet and eating patterns the traditional approach can feel aggressive and almost violent.
How we eat and how we were raised to eat can be a deeply ingrained part of our identity, as personal as our religion. When it’s accompanied by cravings and health beliefs about who we are as a person and what’s possible, it can feel completely out of our control.
Instead of starting with the strict, cut and dried goal setting based on numbers. I like to find a deeper understanding of what people want to feel in their body and what that looks like for their life.
So many of our health recommendations ignore the human factor. So it’s trite to say just give up alcohol without looking at the habits and life patterns that surround that behavior. If you come home every day and have a beer or glass of wine with your significant other while you unwind and then giving up the alcohol is going to be tough. Not because you’re some kind of alcoholic but because there is a ritual to this behavior.
SO before we choose what we want to change we need to look at why we do the things we do. Why do we eat or drink these things, in this way? What do we like about it? Then maybe we can start to look at how we can make health upgrades. Replacing and adding missing nutrients first rather than depriving ourselves.
Part of this self examination is educating yourself on the food that you are consuming. That doesn’t require changing anything. Just pause at the grocery store and read the label. Notice what’s in what you eat. And then maybe notice how it makes you feel when you eat it.
I’ll give you an example from my personal life. I love chocolate. It’s my go to when I feel like I deserve a reward. But sometimes the craving is overwhelming. So I will raid the pantry for chocolate chips. I started buying the dairy free sugar free organic kind trying to be healthier. But what I realized was that the fake sugar or stevia or the sugar alcohols actually make me feel yukky. And regular dark chocolate with real sugar tastes better, feels better and I eat less of it because I savor it. Which is better? To me the real thing is so worth it. It makes me feel loved which helps me stop eating the chocolate too.
And speaking of self love.
Treat your Self like a lover.
Diet is a 4 letter word that is based on deprivation. It turns us into a restrictive self bully and dooms us to failure in the traditional sense. But what if we approached our body as we would a lover? What if we treated our body as a place that we loved to be in and tried to find ways to show it how much we loved it and cared for it?
I truly believe that what we put on our plate can be an act of self love and whether or not you believe that or not how we eat communicates something to our body and nervous system. Under-eating, over-eating and undernourishing ourselves can be equally detrimental.
I’m not saying that there aren’t eating changes that are going to feel challenging. Because there are circumstances where we might need to cut back to get the kind of results we want. What I’m saying is if we aren’t making those changes from a place of love of self any results we achieve won’t last. Anyone can bully themselves into a calorie restriction for a month or 2. But for lasting sustainable healthy eating over a lifetime, we need to learn how to live with ourselves in the real world.
Moving away from the punishment and reward mindset around food and towards self compassion and grace when it comes to motivating ourselves to change our eating habits is key. THis applies to all aspects of health but is rarely at the forefront of our goal setting. But what if it was?
What if we changed not only the reasons behind our goals but our expectations for the results. Acknowledging that any behavior change is gonna be hard and we can cut ourselves some slack. Self compassion around health choices has been shown to be a stronger motivator for changes than the hard core self bullying that we typically adopt. (Donut Study)
Feed your gut
There are hundreds of diet plans out there. They all work. They all fail too because they end. Unless you’re willing to eat that way for the rest of your life. For every diet plan that I have tried there’s usually one or 2 things that I learn and end up keeping at the end. Rarely have I come across any kind of diet plan that was easy to integrate. For me the paleo diet lasted the longest once I loosened some restrictions on it. It lasted the longest because it felt the best. I felt better, stronger, no cravings, less inflation and pain, and it healed my gut.
And now I mostly try to eat to feed my gut first. Because what I’ve learned is that really that’s all we’re doing when we eat anyway. And when the gut isn’t happy neither am I.
Turns out when you improve your gut health you improve every other facet of your health. It has a cascading effect and the great news is there’s no wrong place to start.
Here are some ideas:
Adding fiber.
This is a good one because most of us don’t get enough of the 25-30 grams a day that adults are supposed to get. Fiber helps control blood sugar, supports the gut microbiome, overall metabolism and immune system, helps with sugar cravings and appetite control, it’s protective against colon cancers, lowers inflammation. You can get lots of fiber by adding fruits and veg to your diet or supplementation is an easy boost as well. The gut is how we absorb nutrients, if it isn’t working optimally then even when we’re eating healthy we might not get what we need.
Drinking clean water.
The gut needs water to break down and absorb all those nutrients. Hydration is important for every system and cell throughout the body. One of the main reasons is because it supports our natural detoxification pathways through the gut, kidneys and liver.
Sometimes when we are craving something the actual motivator is thirst. We forget that we get a lot of our fluid from food and sometimes when we’re standing in front of the fridge looking for a snack the body is actually looking for water. Something to think about.
Fasting.
I’m not talking about starving yourself. Taking a look at when you eat and how long you give your gut to rest can be a game changer. Human beings evolved to be able to survive feast and famine however our modern food culture of abundance doesn’t allow time for digestion and the highly processed sugar laden foods we eat as a part of our normal diet disrupt the natural hunger and satiety signals that let us know when we’re done. Giving your gut time to digest before going to sleep is really important. Every system in the body has circadian rhythm and requires downtime. The gut is no different. Eating too close to bedtime or all night disrupts that process as well as interfering with fat metabolism and brain metabolism. I hate to say this but Oprah was right when she told us all to stop eating after 6 pm. It still holds true. Because of this tie to circadian rhythm, one way to make this change is to eat when the sun is up, dawn to dusk.
I’ve experimented with a lot of different fasting patterns and for me I find eating immediately on waking and early, after dinner works best most of the time and it fits my lifestyle most consistently. It's important to look at your lifestyle and see what works for you.
Fasting has been shown to improve the gut microbiome, insulin resistance as well as sleep and cognitive/brain health along with memory. But just like everything else it needs to fit into your life and be maintainable.
Eating yourself well doesn’t have to be an all or nothing prospect. It doesn’t have to be an exercise in deprivation. Sometimes all it takes is a small shift in understanding and the willingness to be consistent in the face of imperfection. Starting with the low hanging fruit, self examination, self love and compassion and nourishing the gut can give you quick start results and a platform to long lasting behavior change. Not because you should or because you have to but because it makes you feel better. It’s always easier to do things that make us feel good.
That’s why we Work IN first.
Thanks for listening.
Connecting the dots for your personal health and professional wellness can be daunting. You don’t have to go it alone. Head over to savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin you’ll find all the show notes for this and other episodes plus lots of free resources including a link to book a 30 min fitness strategy call with me. And of course I’d be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re listening.
And remember stop working out and start working IN.
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a health coach and trauma informed yoga professional bringing real world resilience and healing to main street USA.
I offer trauma release + yoga + wellness education for groups and individuals…regular people like you.
Book a call to learn how I can help.