E23 - Breaking the Cycle of Overeating

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- Welcome to the Mindful Balance Mini Podcast.

If you are a woman over 40,

ready to break free from fad diets

and discover the power of balance and confidence

in your life, then this podcast is for you

and I am so happy that you are here.

I'm your host, I'm Rachel, a nutrition and mindset coach

and I'm going to break down everything you need to know

into bite-sized pieces of sustainable and realistic tips.

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I wanna invite you to join me

as we explore practical strategies to stop overeating,

nourish your body and use the potential

of your amazing brain to achieve your goals.

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make sure to hit that subscribe button

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on nutrition, mindset and building healthy habits.

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Hi and welcome back to the podcast.

It is you and me time again

and I hope that you are as excited as I am

to spend the next few minutes together working on you.

One of my cats, Pi, is actually not feeling great

so I really hope that I'll be able to get through

the next couple of minutes recording without him

being really sad and needing lots of love.

Today though, I want to teach you about breaking the cycle.

Whatever unhealthy, unhelpful cycle

you feel like you are currently in,

for some of you this may be the cycle of overeating

and for others it may look completely opposite

and be a cycle of dieting and restriction.

There are two sides to this cycle.

Either way, I will explain how these are actually

both part of the same exact cycle.

Whatever cycle you are experiencing right now,

I know that it can feel like it's part of life.

This is just how it is and that it is never going to end.

It just goes round and around with one thing leading

to the next exactly the same way every single time.

When I was doing some of the research prior

to recording this episode, I realized that the range

of emotions that women feel around overeating

can be very wide, which means that it might look

very different for you compared to someone else.

But all of these feelings have something in common

and that is one, that it doesn't feel good to overeat,

it doesn't feel good to eat more than your body needs

or feels comfortable consuming in a certain period of time.

And number two, it does feel good and that is

because in the short term there's definitely

a temporary relief that happens when you let yourself go

and just eat as much as you want and as much as you think

that it is enjoyable.

This is how I see it go for most of you.

You feel some kind of discomfort or negative feeling,

whether it be an urge to eat or other negative feeling

like overwhelm, stress, frustration, boredom, sadness,

et cetera, whatever the negative emotion of your choice.

You eat and by that I mean completely checking out,

letting the food comfort you and then you feel better

for a few minutes.

There is that kind of pleasure that comes with eating

but then immediately after that you feel worse.

So what do you do?

You restrict your eating, let's say the next morning

to make up for what you ate the night before.

You get overly hungry because when you restrict

how much you eat then you get overly hungry

and that's normal when we are withholding food.

It is our body natural response to up the hunger cues.

So you feel lots of urges again.

You eat to feel better then you feel bad,

then you eat to feel better, you feel bad, restrict

and so on, repeating forever.

This is why I mentioned earlier that the overeating

and restrictions are the two sides of the same cycle.

One is literally and figuratively fed by the other.

So does that sound familiar?

I'm going to guess that it does because this was my story

and something that I have heard over the years more times

than I can count.

One thing leads to another and everything in this cycle

is a problem.

So if you are in that loop it can be very confusing

to figure out where to break the cycle or how to break it.

Which problems do you solve first?

There has to be a starting point that can halt

this entire habit.

Well, kind of.

There definitely is a better starting point.

And that's not to say that you can't start anywhere

because really fixing any of the problems will be helpful

but in my experience there is one spot

that is a better place to break it.

But before I break it down for you,

I'm going to go through the other places that are helpful

and talk about why they work and why it's also not

the most effective way to break this behavior pattern.

First, what most of us do when we try to break

the overeating restriction cycle is we try to reverse

engineer it.

We know where we are right now and we try to go backwards

from that moment.

When we do that, what usually happens is we get confused

about how to do each step.

So let's go through that path together for a minute.

Let's just go through this mental exercise right now.

Okay?

So step one, you don't want to be consistently hungry.

We know nothing good comes out of that.

So you go into step two.

To do that, you need to stop trying to restrict

to compensate.

Step three, in order to not restrict,

you have to stop feeling badly or guilty for eating.

Then you go to step four.

To be able to do that, not feel badly about eating,

you would have to not overeat.

Step five, to not overeat, you'd have to either not feel

any negative emotion or not have any urges to eat.

And then step six, to not feel bad or not feel an urge,

you'd have to not do whatever triggered that.

Let's say restricting or whatever else that happens

in your life.

You can't let your boss upset you.

You can't let a family member make you frustrated.

Basically, you have to live in an ideal world.

If you went through all these six steps,

then congratulations.

But we're actually back in square one

because we're trying to figure out

how not to do all those things.

And that is exactly what we're trying to avoid.

That is the reason it is called a cycle.

Once you take the first step, it leads you

in the same motion over and over again,

possibly forever.

So just think for a second about one woman in your life

who is still for years constantly dieting.

And here you have your proof that if you don't take

an intentional action, it is so easy to live like this

your entire life.

And that is where I wanna offer you an alternative.

If you don't want to continuously be stuck in the cycle,

then stop worrying about what the next thing is

or what the previous thing is.

Just focus on one action that you can take right now.

So let's take another example.

Say you choose to focus on not restricting

because we know that in the cycle,

the restricting and the overeating

are actually both part of the cycle.

But you choose to focus just on one thing

and that is not restricting.

And to clarify, when I say restricting,

I'm not talking about setting self boundaries

because that is actually very, very different.

Self boundaries are coming from self care

and restriction is more about punishment.

And I may have to do an entire episode about that

and how these two things, restriction and boundaries,

are so very different.

But let's get back to trying to stop restriction.

This is something that is extremely, extremely scary.

I know that.

Especially if this is the only way you know to take control.

You are afraid that if you continue to overeat

but don't immediately after that restrict yourself,

then you are going to just gain more and more weight.

But pay attention because this is the key.

If you don't restrict,

then you're not going to cause the over hunger

that likely will lead to overeating.

Ding, ding, this is what we want.

We want to stop the over hunger.

So this is something that you need to ask

and be super, super honest about.

Are you willing to take the chance

and possibly maybe gain weight

if it means breaking the cycle

of constant urges, craving, restriction?

What it will look like is you making an intentional choice

to move on after, let's say, a weekend

or just eating too much for dinner.

That's an alternative to the Monday morning diet decision.

To be able to do that, you'll have to not feel so much shame

and guilt and anger about what and how much

you've eaten yesterday or the night before

or on the vacation that you just got back from.

That guilt and anger and other really not great things

or great and fun feelings are the things that drive you

to cut back on what you're eating to make up for it.

We all know people who eat, let's say, during a holiday

and it seems like it doesn't bother them.

They have zero need to overcompensate

because they just accept what happened and they move on.

And when we look at these people,

it almost feels like, how can they just do that?

I used to look at people like these and not understand

how is it possible that they have no drama about eating

or drinking too much sometimes,

which is a totally normal behavior.

Okay, now let's say that you have done that.

You stop restriction and you give yourself permission

to move on after overeating.

That is a good place to break that cycle.

I have to now be completely transparent with you

that doing this will be helpful,

but some of you will need more than that.

This will only be part of the solution, but not all of it.

And here's why.

If you stop restricting and dieting,

some of you can still be in this feel bad,

eat, feel bad, eat cycle.

Some people advocate for a solution

that addresses the feeling bad piece of it,

which honestly seems like a reasonable solution.

This one makes sense because if bad feelings

come before you eating your entire pantry,

then if we can just avoid the negative feelings,

what is called emotional eating,

then overeating won't happen.

Most of us are aware of the fact that overeating

often happens when we are, let's say, bored or lonely

or nervous or any other sticky feeling.

We all have our list of our most common

pre-overeating emotions.

So what do we do to solve that?

We know that certain emotion cause us to overeat.

We try not to feel the negative emotion

or we try not to get to the point

that we have those feelings.

If you have tried that,

then you know that that also doesn't work.

You can feel completely fine.

You can address feeling lonely.

You can not be sad or stressed

and yeah, still have cravings all day long.

You can't, as a strategy, try to avoid feeling anxious

or frustrated or overwhelmed.

Not feeling bad ever is unrealistic.

We're not going to feel good all the time

and that, without even mentioning

how sometimes feeling happy is what triggers us.

Birthdays, holiday parties, going out with friends,

celebrations of achievements or a milestone.

And we try to avoid all the feelings,

but do we also try to avoid all the feelings

of feeling happy?

No, no thank you.

But no matter how hard you try,

you are not going to be able to eradicate

all the feelings that trigger eating.

Trying to not feel feelings just isn't the solution.

Since your thoughts are the cause of your feelings,

it does help to work on feeling less of the negative stuff.

By, let's say, thinking more positive

or more neutral thoughts, as long as you recognize

that having no negative feelings at all

is just not possible.

And that is how we get to the last option.

And I want you to pay attention

because to stop overeating, you need to stop overeating.

Wait, wait, I'm not wrong, I didn't make a mistake here.

You break the cycle of overeating by stopping to overeat.

This is the piece of the puzzle that you work on.

Think this through with me just for a second.

If you don't overeat, you don't feel bad about it,

which will help the cycle from going into restricting

or more eating in response to those bad feelings.

I know, I know, I know, it sounds almost too simple,

but how the heck do we do that?

You stop overeating by feeling the bad feelings.

You feel the cravings.

You feel all the negative feelings and the happy feelings,

but without turning to food.

You feel that is the only action that you take.

That's how you get off this roller coaster.

You let negative feelings and cravings happen.

You feel them, you process them.

You don't avoid them and you let them exist.

And while all this is happening,

you don't take actions from these feelings.

The only thing you have to do is not act on them.

I know, I know that it sounds too simple

because it is simple even if you have all the doubts

and the reasons why this won't work.

You start by feeling and not eating.

You give space and room to all the human emotions

without eating and you know that is possible

because there are many, many people out there

going through stuff every day without making food

the solution to all their discomforts

and circumstances in life.

Going back to the other solutions for a second,

yes, you can absolutely start breaking the overeating,

restricting, overeating, restricting cycle

with trying not to feel so bad or not restricting

in a non-beneficial way if you'd like,

but what it comes down to is how not to make food

your only go-to solution,

which is what triggers the rest of this cycle.

I want you to hear this, that not reacting

and not taking action on your cravings

is something that is always available to you

and you have to make the decision to feel whatever it is

that you're feeling and at the same time not eat

in order to numb it, avoid it or make it go away.

That never-ending cycle is not actually

a never-ending cycle, it's not.

It has a very clear end that you can opt for

every single time you feel an urge or craving to eat

when you're not truly hungry or it is past fullness.

Make the choice once and then make that choice

over and over and over until your brain adjusts

and doesn't operate on autopilot around food.

By no means do I suggest that it is one action and done.

You will for the rest of your life probably have cravings

and want to eat more than your body needs sometimes.

But with practice, it can get much, much easier.

You won't turn off the noise, there's a lot of noise

when we feel those urges and cravings.

You won't turn off the noise but you can 100% dial down

the volume so that it doesn't hijack your brain

all day, every day or every time you see a donut.

Your feelings are not the enemy and the only reason

that you have been turning to food to solve those feelings

and make them go away is a habit.

Breaking a habit starts, ready for it, with breaking the habit

replace complying with the cravings,

with feeling the feelings.

When you do that, it's like taking an elephant off your back.

Such a huge relief.

All right, I hope you found this helpful.

I will talk to you next time.

Take care, bye.

Thank you for tuning in

to the Mindful Balance podcast today.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation and find inspiration

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Remember that the journey continues on Instagram.

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