E201 - Autopilot Off: Making Intentional Decisions

Hey, and welcome to the Mindful Balance Podcast, your guide to stop emotional eating and overeating

and transform your relationship with food.

I am Rachel, a nutrition and emotional eating coach, and I'm here to help women like you

navigate through the complex world of eating habits, health, mindset, and emotional well-being.

I hope that each episode here will be a step on your journey towards a healthier you by

shedding light on different aspects of nutrition and emotional eating.

I am here to take out the overwhelm or the need for quick fixes by showing you how it

can be done differently.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to deepen your understanding, you're in the

right place.

And if you're ready, let's dive in.

Hey, and welcome back to the Mindful Balance Podcast.

I am Rachel, and I am so happy to be back here to this space after a short break.

It was during the holidays in December that I decided to take one week break from podcasting

just until the new year.

Now what podcasting looks like behind the scene for me is doing some research, coming

up with ideas for an episode, writing it down, recording it, and then eventually editing

it.

This is a process that usually takes a few days.

So when I took the week off, it was not surprisingly very hard to get back into the groove.

I kept telling myself that I should be doing it and that I wanted to do it, but I was in

the habit of pushing it off and procrastinating, just not doing the thing.

I am sharing this with you just because I really want to be transparent and because

it also deeply connects to today's topic, which is habits and how our habits are creating

our results.

With emotional eating and overeating, those are usually connected to the idea of doing

things out of a habit.

And that can be either good for us in some cases, or it can also be working against us.

So let's break this big topic down.

What are habits?

It's a word that is being thrown around very often, and it's important that we really start

by understanding what it means.

So habits are shortcuts that help us navigate life without having to spend a lot of mental

energy with every step that we take during our day.

However, habits like eating as a way to cope with emotions, for example, can also make

it super hard to stop.

So for example, if you are someone who goes, let's say, reaches for snacks as soon as you're

done with work, or you have certain thoughts about food, or you are criticizing your body

when you stand in front of the mirror, or someone who is in the habit of just eating

under stress, these are all super common habits.

Doing things out of a habit means that these actions can feel so automatic, and you might

not even realize that they're happening, right?

There is some kind of trigger or some kind of thought, and your response feels so automatic.

It can take literally seconds.

But let's say that you do realize, you realize that you are operating in a habitual way.

You know that you are operating on autopilot.

If you are someone that has this awareness, it can sometimes make you feel stuck and feeling

or thinking that change is either impossible or incredibly hard.

Like, okay, I know that this is a habit.

How do I stop doing it?

So here's the thing, and I want you to pay close attention here.

Habits can be changed, and it's not even as hard as it can sometimes feel.

You weren't born with the habits that you currently have, which means that they're not

part of you, and you can change your habits.

Okay, so how do we do that?

How do you break a habit that isn't helping you?

Habits that can really turn your life into this mega negative experience.

Step one is you need to work on stopping feeling defeated by your habits.

I'm going to say it again.

You need to stop feeling defeated by your habits.

Just like you weren't born with these habits, again, as I said, you can let go of them.

So identifying your habits and understanding why they exist is super crucial here.

I often ask my clients the question of why.

As someone who is also being coached, I really hate that question, but I still do it.

I still ask my clients that question, the question of why, and I also answer it when

I'm being asked because understanding the why behind your actions or your thoughts can

be very insightful, and it can tell us so much.

Why do you eat as soon as you walk into the house after work?

Why do you prefer to stay up late and eat at night instead of going to bed?

If you find yourself eating at a specific time because, let's say, you're bored or stressed

or overwhelmed, recognizing and identifying the why behind your habit can make all the

difference in finding the real issue.

In the same way, if negative thoughts about yourself or your body are a habit that you

currently have, I want you to ask yourself why.

Is it external influence that created that way of thinking about yourself?

Is it your way of getting motivated?

Is it that you just don't know a different way to think about your body and about yourself?

Most of us, instead of going deeper, we say, "Well, it's just a habit.

This is just the way I do things," as if the habit is a wall that cannot be moved.

And I say, "No, don't run away from it.

Find the trigger, understand the purpose of that habit, and then actively work on altering

your response."

Changing a habit involves two steps.

So we just talked about awareness.

Let's talk about step two, which is planning.

In this step, you need to find your triggers and come up with a plan to replace the habit

that you don't like with a new, healthier one.

So you're not going to stop at, "It's just a habit."

You are going to dig into your why, why you are holding this habit right now, how is it

serving you, and then you're going to figure out how you're going to start changing that

habit.

Let's take another example.

Let's say that you are someone who tends to get a snack between meetings.

You finish one meeting and you only have, let's say, a 10-minute break, or maybe you

are running between patients or classes, whatever your schedule looks like.

What do you do in those 10 minutes?

What do you do in that really, really short window of break?

A lot of us, we reach for candy or chips or whatever it is available.

If this is your pattern, then your goal is to identify why.

It could be, for example, your way to relieve stress between meetings, or maybe it is just

a quick way to comfort yourself, or even a way to check out just for a few minutes.

It is super easy to just use food as a way to just give ourselves that moment of quiet

in our head.

We really all do that, right?

So knowing that this is what's happening is going to help you make a plan to do it differently.

Now, making a plan means that you're going to decide ahead of time what you're going

to do or what you're going to think instead of the habit that you currently have.

And you're going to use that reason, the reason why, why it's a habit, to come up with what

you will do instead.

Because the habit is so quick and it can be so subtle, you have to do two things in order

to change it and replace it.

It will happen fast.

I'm telling you this from experience.

And it may feel challenging at first to even stop in the moment because the habit will

try to beat you to it, right?

That's okay.

We are practicing.

We're not putting a check mark next to it.

We're not trying to just do it.

We are going to practice it.

And to change the habit, you need two things.

You need to be aware of it and you need to pay close attention to what you do.

And number two is you need to be ready when that trigger happens, when the thing that

put the old habit in motion is taking place.

And please, please don't let your brain tell you that it is too hard.

Hard is, for example, living with habits that you don't want.

Hard is talking badly about yourself.

That's hard.

Being shameful of your body or the way you're eating.

That is hard.

Don't tell yourself a story about how you can't do this.

And I need to warn you here that there is the falling back into old habit phase and

it will happen.

So again, be prepared.

I want you to consider this.

When we just switched to 2024, how many times have you written 2023?

I know that I have written 2023 on checks a number of times and your brain is on autopilot.

The autopilot looks like you writing 2023, right?

And you have to be super intentional and not write 2023.

But let's say that you did.

Okay, that happens.

The most that would happen is you saying probably something like, "Ugh, I can't believe I did

it again."

And then moving on and writing a new check or writing the 2024 instead of the 2023.

So let's apply that to your work.

If you slip up, let's say that you wanted to change a habit and you still operated on

the autopilot.

If you slip up, please don't beat yourself up.

Instead, as soon as you catch yourself, I want you to just redirect your actions or

your thoughts about it.

This is part of the process and to be expected.

Before we go away, I want you to remember that habits don't define you.

With awareness and a bit of strategy, you can redirect your habits towards a better

life experience for you.

Explore what your habits are and where they take you and get to work on changing them.

All right, I will talk to you again soon.

Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to the Mindful Balance podcast today.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found inspiration to find your unique balance and

growth.

If you found value in this episode and feel inspired to make a change, I would love for

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ease.

Until next time, take care.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to the Mindful Balance.

The Mindful Balance is brought to you by Rachel Emma Nutrition.

Our editing and mixing engineer is Michael Plawner.

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