As ambitious women, we often strive to do it all. 

Whether that be in our careers, family life, or relationships. We want to be everything to everyone. 

And this leaves little time for us to focus on ourselves and our own well-being.

For most women I coach, this has become a normal way of life. In fact, they actually feel pride that they are “busy” all of the time!

It’s a badge of honor that I know they’ve worked hard for. These women are busy professionals, moms, or corporate women who always strive for excellence.

When these women come to me for help, they’re often confused in terms of what’s going wrong with their eating habits.

They’ll say, “Everything else in my life is so easy, why can’t I just eat healthy?”. 

I know this struggle. I’ve always been a hard-worker and have had no trouble producing the results I want in my fast-paced life.

In the past, I tried hard (really, really, hard) to eat healthier and lose excess weight so I could feel confident in my skin.

I would desperately try and fit healthy eating meal plans into my busy schedule.

This only ended up in me self-sabotaging my eating habits over time.

For years, I thought, “What gives? Why is it so hard for me?”.

Eventually, I found the answer. And it’s not what I would have thought at first.

Turns out, my ambition and fast-paced lifestyle was unknowingly hurting my eating habits in the long-run.

Let me explain why.

When We’re Always “Busy”

The label of being “busy” has been glorified in our culture.

We equate being busy with being hard-working, ambitious, and successful.

Whether that means you’re a great business-owner, mother, or employee. 

It’s a label that many successful women of the world love to put on themselves.

What many women fail to realize, is that this is doing more harm than good.

If you examine the details, busy is often just the way you define your never ending to-do list of tasks you haven’t completed yet.

You’re always in hustle mode and stressing to put the pieces of your life together.

When you define your life on these terms, you’re living in reaction mode.

You’re not proactively in control of your life and results.

Which means your eating habits will be in reactive mode as well.

In order to improve your eating habits and quality of life, you will need to remove the belief system that “busier is better”.

This is a limiting belief that is putting stressors on your eating habits and life.

Here’s what most often happens to your body when you’re “busy”:

 

• You promote stress physiology in your body that results in a slower metabolism and fat retention

• You’re attempting to control your eating habits  through your actions – not through the internal work that is necessary

• You eat quickly, which causes you to weaken the connection with your internal hunger cues and body wisdom

• You lose a sharp connection with your prefrontal cortex, which is the execution higher thinking portion of your brain

• You weaken your ability to confront negative emotion, since your fast-paced lifestyle rarely allows you to confront it (causes overeating patterns)

 

If these symptoms of “busying” aren’t enough, the act of constantly being busy also screws up your perception of how much time you have in your day.

Having a Lack of Time

The act of constantly being busy totally changes the way your brain views the amount of hours in a day.

Due to a stress response, your cortisol levels rapidly increase.

And increased cortisol levels screw up your perception of time drastically.

So, you’ll feel like you never have enough which leaves you constantly in a stress response.

Which creates a vicious cycle of you always feeling “out of control” with your eating habits and life.

The truth is, we live in a world that is constantly telling us “we don’t have enough time”. 

And most of us have the limiting belief that to be successful, we shouldn’t have time to spare.

The result of this, is that we operate in our lives like time is running out.

Whether that be with our parenting, work activities, relationships, or eating habits.

We live in a constant atmosphere of stress, speed, and push.

This causes us to live in a constant state of stress, which becomes our new normal.

It’s survival based living at it’s finest. Which causes our body to react in survival based ways.

When you act this way, you are literally priming your nervous system to believe that time is always running out.

Which locks you down in a stress response indefinitely

The point is, I want you to know that you have enough time.

Seriously, try that thought on for a second.

See what feeling you experience when you decide to think, “I have enough time”.

That feeling there?

This feeling you experience is what will allow you to create healthy eating habits while crushing it at your other goals.. 

You can take a step back and evaluate your life in a way that allows you to kill it in the professional workspace, but also allows you to take care of you. 

You can create time by slowing down.

Slowing Down

Some of you may be thinking, “I’m way too busy to slow down! You don’t know how busy my schedule is!”. 

And, I hear you. I’ve been there.

But this isn’t a reason for you to feel like you have a lack of time.

That stress response you create from being busy is not necessary.

You can have your schedule and find moments to slow down.

To slow down effectively and plan for healthy eating you will need to change your relationship with time.

Which means you need to change your thoughts and feelings about it.

 

• If you choose to think “I never have enough” you will create a feeling of lack or scarcity.

• If you choose to think “I have more than enough” you will create a feeling of abundance.

 

Which means you’ll always have enough time. And you will create more time for yourself to eat healthy, lose weight, and get the results you want with your body.

Doing this literally gives you the ability to create time that you didn’t know you had.

The truth is, the state of being stressed or busy can feel addicting.

You can become addicted to rushing, complaining, or feeling depressed.

Since your body is so used to that state.

And even if you have a jam packed schedule, this isn’t a reason for drama.

You’ll need to train your body to become accustomed to slowing down.

You can find moments to slow down, relax your body, breathe, and find pockets of peace within your chaotic day.

Even if you have to rush through a workday, when it comes time to practice healthy eating habits, you need to slow down.

Since eating healthy does not require you to rush.

Slow down your mind, find inner peace, and eat slower. 

Train your body to get into that relaxation state when it comes to your health.

What to Do Next

To eat healthy, lose the weight, and increase your confidence levels, you need to learn to slow down.

You cannot examine what your body really needs from you during a stress response.

In order to use your prefrontal cortex (decision-making brain) and plan for healthy eating successfully, you’ll need to slow down to lower your cortisol levels.

To many of you reading, this might seem impossible. It might even create stress for you to think about doing this.

If so, this is completely natural. 

As mentioned, we glorify being busy. This limiting belief is widespread in our society.

But you want different results in your life. Which means you’ll need to think differently.

And you can choose to think right now, “I have more than enough time”. 

Stop living in reaction mode.

Schedule time on your calendar to just “be” or think about how you’ll eat healthy this week.

Take time to actually experience what you’re eating.

Stop rushing healthy eating habits. Pay attention to your body and give it the time and care it needs to flourish.

The power of slowing down is so underrated in our society.

I promise this will do so much for you and your eating habits if you let it.