Ep. 74 Mindless Eating

Hi and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I am Paula Parker and I'm a life and weight loss coach. I thought we'd talk about mindless eating today because it really gets in the way when you are trying to release excess weight. It leads to overeating. So you might be overeating without even realizing it.

So you might be thinking, you know, I eat so healthy. I don't really understand what's going on. And we know that if we're overeating, especially on a regular basis, then your body is just going to be in what I call fat storing mode, not in fat burning mode, making it impossible to release the weight. And I bring this up because it's just easily overlooked.

And when you're trying to determine where your overeating is happening, you really want to be specific so that you know where to put your efforts, right? So you don't want to like waste time. You want to be efficient. And we often underestimate how much we're eating. when we mindlessly eat and we also underestimate its effect on our weight.

So to break this down for you, let's talk about how mindless eating might be showing up for you. It might be showing up in ways that you are already aware of. And so I'm going to help you figure out what to do about that. And then. Talk about some areas where it typically shows up and you might not be as aware of it.

Okay. So my definition for mindless eating is going to be anytime you are eating without paying attention to how hungry you are before you're eating. And how satisfied or satiated you're feeling your body, how your body is feeling as you are eating. So if you're unaware of either of those, your hunger or your satiation, for our purposes, let's just consider that mindless eating.

So I'll give you some examples. This can happen more often when you are not on your regular schedule. So I was just in Vancouver this week for, we had a couple of appointments for the kids and it was just when you're traveling, right? You don't have. complete control over your schedule. Like we had ferries to catch.

Well, one ferry, but we didn't know exactly when our set mealtimes were going to be. So it's like, how hungry am I? Should I eat now? Or should I wait to be on the ferry? The food on the ferry is actually pretty good, by the way. Okay. So, but let's just say for you, maybe it's the weekend and you don't have your usual routine and you haven't planned out a protocol for yourself that day.

You might find yourself grazing. You might be taking, you know, bites of this or that throughout the day, a handful of almonds here, an apple there. You might even hear yourself say, I'm in a snacky mood today. Okay. I think I've said that before. I'm, I just feel snacky. Like that's a feeling like we know what that feels like, right?

I'm just kind of feeling snacky. Let's just decide that that's an actual emotion. Okay. That's a concept that we can all agree on. So you're feeling snacky. Or you're simply grazing without any defined meals. Or maybe you notice you eat whenever someone else is eating or when someone simply puts food in front of you.

So you go to someone's house and they just have food out. Sometimes people will say, I don't know why I ate it. It was just there. It was just in front of me, right? You're not really thinking about it. You're not paying attention. So you just pop those chips or carrot sticks in your mouth. One example that you might not categorize as mindless eating, but I'd like to include it here.

is eating when you're making your kids lunches or when you're cooking. This is really common. Many of my clients bring this up as a challenge and I've dealt with this too, especially when you're making dinner and you're feeling very hungry already. So the reason I think this falls into mindless eating is because it's not a normal part of a meal and if you're like me, you're kind of not paying that much attention.

You're kind of just like wolfing it down while you're cooking. You're not noticing What's happening in your body and how satiated you're becoming. Then, before you know it, dinner is ready and you're not even hungry anymore. But you still oftentimes eat because, well, you've cooked this great meal and you don't want to sit at the table and watch everyone else enjoy it, right?

So, in this specific scenario, and I'll spend a little time here because I think this happens a lot, is that you can decide to manage that pre dinner snacking, which I'll talk about. Or there's also another option, which you can decide that it's truly not that big of a deal to not eat. When other people are eating, even when it's at your dinner table and that might feel uncomfortable.

But if you're really checking in with your body and say you had a really big lunch and it was a late lunch, you might not be hungry at dinner. And so what comes up for you when you imagine being with your family and not eating at the same time? So just know that that's an option and it's just something that you want to take a look at to say, well, what are my reasons for eating when I'm not really hungry?

And I'm not to say, to tell you to eat or not eat, but you might want to just take a look at that instead of taking it for granted, going on default mode, that when it's, when it's dinner time and your family's eating, you're going to eat too. Sometimes it will feel really easy, sometimes, depending on your mind drama, it might feel really difficult.

You can still sit down and enjoy yourself, right? That's an option. But I suspect that like many of you, you don't really want that. You'd rather be really hungry and enjoy your meal rather than fill up on, you know, tasting your dinner as you're making it or any kind of pre dinner snacks. So here's what I recommend.

Just have a plan for when you feel ravenous when you are making dinner. So that's going to be just some guidelines around what you allow and when to stop. So for me, sometimes it just looks like a handful of nuts, something like that to tie you over. We're not talking about leaving the container open and taking handfuls as you're cooking.

So just have a go to for yourself that you know that's the food you're going to have in what quantity. And you know that you're still going to be hungry even after just say one handful of nuts or something. That's to be expected. And in fact, that's what you want. That's what you're going for, right? You want to be maybe from a 10 on the hunger scale, like really ravenous to maybe more of like an eight or nine for your dinner.

Okay. Lastly, and this is what people think of when they think of mindless eating is that eating with distraction, like eating in front of a TV or while driving. So this can be mindless eating because When we're focused on what we're watching or we're doing, of course, we're less focused on those cues that tell us we're reaching our satiation point.

So I'm actually not opposed to this as a rule, like I'm not saying, Oh, definitely don't eat in front of the TV. But I will say that, especially when you are still figuring out How much your body actually needs to feel nourished and feel energized without tipping over to full, right, tipping over to like really high on the satiation scale, I go zero to 100 percent in terms of 100 percent is super, super full, right?

If you're trying to get If you're not familiar with using a tool to kind of check in with your body, then you might want to practice eating without any distractions for a few days, at least in the beginning, until you kind of get the hang of it. Then you'll be able to tune in with your body. You'll see what a portion is for you and you'll know for next time.

Another little tip that I'll mention here to know when you're eating mindlessly is when you're already thinking about what you're going to eat next while you're currently eating. Okay. So that's usually a signal that you are more in your head and you are not in your body. So you're paying attention to your thoughts about food.

Rather than what's going on in your body. Those are some examples of mindful eating or sorry, mindless eating, simply not paying attention to your hunger or satiation, grazing all day, eating just because there's food there or eating while cooking and eating while distracted. Let's talk about the solution because telling yourself, okay, now I know I'm just going to stop doing that.

That isn't really helpful. Okay. So I like to think of weight loss as a set of skills and one of those skills is building awareness. So I recently heard well actually it was a little while ago now, Tom Bilyeu from impact theory. And he says, the only belief that matters is this. If I put time and energy in toward this skill, I'll get better at it.

I want to strengthen your belief that when you put time and energy toward weight loss learning them and practicing them. You will for sure get better, right? You'll see, you'll get better and better and you will start to see the weight coming off. What do I mean specifically when it comes to building awareness?

You're going to oscillate between three stages when it comes to mindless eating. First, you'll notice yourself in stage one. For the most part, stage one is when you notice yourself what you've done. Like you've noticed that you've overeaten after the fact. So your awareness is after, so you look at the empty bag and think, well, how did that happen?

I can't believe I ate that whole bowl. Or it's time to eat dinner and you're not hungry because you've been snacking the whole time without even really being that aware of it. A second stage is that you notice during. So you notice while you're eating, you see yourself going for handfuls of nuts or continuing to snack.

And you are also aware that either You're not really that hungry. You're just kind of eating because, or you're starting to feel satiated, but you notice that you're continuing to eat anyways, usually because the food tastes delicious, right? So you're ignoring your body cues for satiety. I think this is the toughest phase because ignorance is bliss in the first stage, right?

So you're really enjoying the food without really thinking about it. Now you're fully present to exactly how you're getting in your own way. So there's a tension there, right? Because there's resistance to change. Although resistance to change is totally normal and going to be part of your transformation process, it doesn't feel good.

It's hard. It can feel really uncomfortable when you, and it can also, by the way, decrease your satisfaction from the food. Because if you're eating something, even if it's really delicious and you're thinking, you know what, I'm not really that hungry. And I think I'm tending towards overeating right now.

Then that thought process will diminish the pleasure that you get from food. But that's also helpful, right? Because we don't want an over desire for food. We do want to be thinking in a way that reduces our desire for food to a natural desire where we don't overeat, where we don't eat past satiation and what feels good in our body.

Okay. So what's the third stage? The third stage is awareness before the mindless eating even begins. So this is gold. This is a sweet spot because when this becomes your habit, you are just much less likely to mindlessly eat ever. So with practice, you'll learn to catch yourself earlier and earlier. So let's talk about how to build awareness in all three stages, because you'll notice that you will kind of go in and out of each stage, but you will have a trend to go from one to three, but you kind of go back and forth a little bit.

So again, once we're aware of what's happening, then we can change it if we want to. So no matter when you catch yourself, it's a win. Awareness is the key to changing eating patterns that are not serving your weight loss goals. It's an important skill to build. Stage one is after the fact. So, if you want to build awareness, I suggest that you start with this.

So just in this moment, just pause and think about the last time that you overate. Doesn't matter if that was earlier today, last week, whenever it was. Recall that memory and just think about what was happening at the time. So what was the situation and I'll give you a common example. So let's just pretend that you've just finished cleaning the kitchen after dinner.

If you have kids, maybe put the kids to bed and then you sit back on the couch with your partner to watch your show and your partner is having snacks. Okay. So maybe they're having cereal, maybe popcorn, maybe chips, maybe even chocolate. Okay. So what did you do? Did you check in with your hunger? Did you notice that maybe you weren't even that hungry at all?

Or maybe you didn't even check in, right? You just want to take a look at that. Because you just finished dinner, so it's unlikely that you were extremely hungry. And what were you thinking? Were you thinking, hmm, what's that over there? Maybe I'll have something to eat too. The next question is really like, what were you feeling and thinking?

So in this scenario, we're feeling desire. Of course, that's kind of like the main ones. Like, of course, we're feeling desire, but I want you just to zoom out a little more and see what else you were feeling. What were you feeling before the desire in general? What led to The desire. In this case, it could be maybe FOMO.

Like, I don't want to miss out on that. Oftentimes it's entitlement. Well, if he's having it, I want it too. Or she, right? She's having it. Exhaustion. So I'm beat from today. That's maybe more of a physical state, but it can be emotional too, where you're like kind of drained. Right? Emotionally, mentally. So you can be thinking I'm beat.

It was a tough day and I just want to escape. I just want to have some pleasure or maybe it's like dread, right? So if you're feeling kind of dread about the upcoming day, you're thinking, I don't want to think about getting up early tomorrow. I don't want to think about my big day tomorrow. I just want to enjoy the show.

I just want to enjoy right now and distract myself from the stress that tomorrow will bring. You want to take a look at what else you might be thinking and be really honest here because there's a whole host of thoughts that happen before you go down that path of overeating. Okay. So oftentimes what I hear is Thoughts like, I don't really care.

I don't really care about my goal in this moment, which is true, right? I would say that's probably true in that moment. Your goal doesn't matter that much to you because your brain, just to normalize this for you, your brain really just wants pleasure. And if you have a habit of saying yes every time your brain has that sentence of food is a good idea, then of course it's gonna feel very true for you in that moment.

Okay, so oftentimes we will have the thought like, I'll restrict tomorrow, or I'll make up for this, right? I'll eat healthier tomorrow, or I'll get up early and do an extra workout or sometimes we rationalize like, I've been doing really well, this won't hurt, or it's not that big of a deal, this much won't, you know, make that much of a difference.

Or, right now, you know, it's January, there's still lots of time before summer comes, right? I can I can put this on pause for a little bit, I'll still reach my goal by summer, okay? And if you want a whole list of these kinds of justifications so that you can take a look at, yeah, what is my brain offering me, then I have a justifications worksheet in the free resources on my website, you can check that out.

Okay, so the next question is, what would you change about how you handled the situation? So, it might be, you know what, you just, Own it. It was like, you know what? That was worth it. I would do it again. And that's fair. And sometimes that is your truth, right? So have your own back. Stand by yourself if that's the case.

No problem here whatsoever. But you might say also, I wouldn't have eaten that. If I could do it over again, I wouldn't eat of all that food. After exploring this, how does it make perfect sense? Given the environment, given your thoughts and feelings that you ate, that you overate, right? It makes perfect sense if you were to bring some awareness to it and you take a look at it.

But awareness, of course, is not enough. So what can you learn from this scenario? So what can you take away that will help you the next time you are, say, on the couch about to watch a show and the person next to you is snacking? I'll tell you that my husband always has a smaller meal after dinner. And it used to be that my brain saw that and thought, you know, I think I could go for something, too.

But, you know, for sure something healthy, like an apple, some nuts, something like that. The only problem is that I wasn't truly hungry. I just wanted that pleasure and then it turned into a habit. And then, because it was a habit, then my body started to produce ghrelin and I actually was a little bit more physically hungry, right?

So then I'm up against the emotional attachment and the physical attachment. So, you have to decide ahead of time, now that you're aware of any mindless eating that's happening for you, you want to identify it, so you can come up with a plan, right? Because then you can decide what you will do when your brain suggests food, or you're just likely to reach for it without even thinking.

This still may happen sometimes, but that's fine. You are building the awareness. Then when you have a plan, you can follow through on that plan by simply allowing some short term discomfort, knowing that once your brain gets used to it, it won't even feel like a challenge because your brain won't offer it up as a suggestion anymore.

It won't be a habit, won't be part of who you are, your lifestyle. So my case at first, when I decided I wasn't going to do that anymore, it was challenging. My brain still had those same suggestions. And sometimes I even felt a tiny bit hungry as I was saying, but it didn't take that long actually to get out of that habit when I simply didn't respond to that suggestion by eating.

Now, did I use some other things like tea, cocoa? Absolutely. So I would drink some water or that kind of thing. So, I mean, use things that are going to help you, right? Change your habits. What's kind of interesting is what I didn't expect was that my interest in what we were watching, so the types of movies or shows that we were watching, didn't really interest me.

So you might be surprised how your tastes change when you remove food from your watching experience. So my husband still has yogurt or cereal or even some fruit every night, but it doesn't even occur to me now to eat something after dinner. So this requires no willpower, no self discipline whatsoever.

Why? Because I've reduced my over desire for food in this situation. I've reduced that over desire to a natural desire for food based on what my body actually needs. So what is this all about? It's just really about having that awareness and noticing when your brain is suggesting food and checking in with yourself.

being responsive versus reactive, right? So checking in with your hunger level, deciding what's an appropriate response here. Sometimes that will be having a little food if you're ravenous. That might be deciding to put a portion of popcorn, chips, whatever the food is that you would I have a tendency to mindlessly eat crackers is another one, put a little bit of serving in a bowl instead of eating right out of the package.

So little guidelines like that can really be supportive in terms of changing those habits. And yeah, is there going to be some mind drama there might be, but just know that that is temporary. And if you are willing, if you can cultivate that willingness to feel some emotional discomfort in the short term, it will become.

second nature to you, and it won't, you won't have any mind drama about it. So the payoff is totally worth it. So I encourage you to build the skills of awareness, notice where you might often fall in terms of stage one, stage two, or stage three. Are you kind of noticing after the fact more often that you've overeaten?

Are you noticing while you're eating? Are you noticing beforehand? And then you can deal with your brain. Be proactive and be responsive. That is your goal is to get there. I hope that was helpful. If you have ever got something from this podcast, if you have ever implemented anything that helped you in any way, either release weight or reduce your mind drama around food would you please.

Leave me a review. I think I'm at number 74, and I have never actually asked for that, but I would love I think I have like five reviews or something, and I know there's a lot more of you who listen I know it can be kind of a pain in the butt to leave reviews but I just would really appreciate it because it will really help me reach more people.

If you are not inclined to do that I know that some of you share this podcast with other people and that is just as meaningful to me. So thank you so much for those of you who have already done that. And if you think of somebody in your mind and you're like, you know what, they might benefit from this as well.

Please do tell them. It just really means a lot to me. Okay. Thank you so much. Bye.