Are life’s stressors constantly throwing a wrench in your healthy eating and weight loss plans?
In this episode, we’ll explore the power of mental awareness and why it’s crucial to check in with yourself regularly to manage stress. Regulating your stress isn’t just important—it’s the biggest key to achieving and maintaining weight loss.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
→ The transformative question I ask myself every day to keep my mind in check
→ How unchecked mental chatter, rumination, and stress end up controlling what you eat
→ Why getting a handle on your stress response is far more important for losing weight than simply perfecting your diet
→ Actionable steps to proactively increase your mental awareness and support your weight loss journey
This isn’t just about shedding pounds—it’s about learning to manage your mind to transform the way you eat so you can lose weight for that last time.
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Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast this week. I’m so happy you are here. And today I wanted to offer you all a bit of a different episode where I share an example of what it looks like for me to implement this work in my life. So I very much want you all to have a realistic picture of how your life is going to look day to day when You practice the skills of naturally healthy eating and permanent weight loss.
And sometimes I think that me sharing how it looks in my life now that I have mastered the work can be so helpful for all of you starting out. So today I am going to offer something that is highly effective in my life and it has to do with managing my mind and my stress. And we’re going to talk about the one question I ask myself.
Daily, this is something I share with my own your eating habits clients. [00:01:00] And before we get into today’s episode Speaking of that program. Our next cohort begins in July. So make sure you mark your calendars and You put that down so you do not miss enrollment for those of you who are new own Your eating habits is my program for high achieving women who want to learn how to eat healthy naturally you So they can lose weight for the last time.
And let me tell you, there is no program like it. When you join this program, you are going to solve your food struggles for life, and you are making a promise to yourself that this is the last journey for healthy eating and weight loss. The goal of this program is to have you not just eat healthy, but to help you become a naturally healthy eater.
And so. So that is truly what this program offers you. The women inside are creating massive transformational results, and I want to make sure we get you inside if that is something [00:02:00] you want to create. So make sure you join our waitlist at katrentis. com forward slash waitlist. And if you have any questions now, if you’re interested in joining us in July, now is that time to start planning For enrollment.
So if you have any questions, be sure to reach out to me on Instagram at cat rent us, and I’m here to help you make sure you get this problem solved for. All right. So let’s get back to that one question. I ask myself daily. So what we’re going to do is I’m going to share that one question and then I’m going to add some context into why this is so effective. So, the one question I ask myself daily when I’m sitting down with my journal and I’m doing some coaching on my brain is what feels like a problem right now? Okay, so I know this sounds very basic, but I’m going to explain why this is so effective.
I ask myself, what feels like a problem right now? Right now and so let me explain [00:03:00] why this will be helpful to so many of you because if you’re listening to this you likely Want some support with the way you eat or your weight loss, right? And so if that is where you’re at you’re likely eating in a way that feels good reactive.
So you just kind of go on throughout your day, you eat when you can, and maybe when you get home from work, you find that you overeat, but it might feel a little bit outside of you. And really this can be due to stress, some mental chatter going on and rumination in your brain, because when you’re having a lot going on in your thoughts and your stress levels are high, it’s going to feel nearly impossible to be.
in control and present with your eating decisions. And so that’s why the very first step of my process is always to help you regulate stress. So we can bring some of that urgency down and you can have the capacity to make really deliberate eating decisions, no matter how busy your schedule. So the biggest [00:04:00] priority has to be managing your stress. You can try and. Come up with all the meal plans, all the protocols, but if you are still operating with your eating decisions from high stress, that is not going to be sustainable longterm. So what I want to offer you is a way you can start regulating your stress now.
And it’s with this tool that I use every day. And this question I ask myself, what’s important for you to know is that stress is created from not practicing awareness of your brain. Okay, so stress happens when you don’t check in with what’s going on mentally and you don’t let those thoughts out. So a buildup occurs because if you don’t let those thoughts out of your brain and become aware of them, they will build up in your brain, create that emotional buildup and turn into stress on your body. So this is what I very lovingly like. to call emotional constipation, where we have a lot of thoughts that create emotions in our head and in our body.
We’ve got that emotional buildup, and [00:05:00] so how this manifests is actual stress on your body, which is Stress, y’all, is the number one factor in weight gain and weight retention. It’s not you necessarily eating the wrong things. It’s the stress and you can perfect healthy eating as much as possible. But if you do not regulate your stress and learn to master that skill, it’s not going to be permanent weight loss in the sense that you’re always going to have to keep forcing healthy eating into place.
So you can lose weight, And we want weight loss to feel a lot more simple, easy, and sustainable for you. And this is how we help you do that, is to regulate that stress. Now, this means to learn this skill, you need to become someone who actively manages your mind. And I want you to know that none of the humans are doing this, okay?
We’re not at that point yet where we have normalized managing your mind every day. It can sound a little woo woo, a [00:06:00] little Fluffy, pretentious, maybe, and I say this because I really, if you can imagine, used to be a person who scoffed at personal development. This was many years ago, but to say the least, we have swung to the other side of the spectrum where now I am a huge advocate of it, but I want you to know if you find the concept of managing your brain a little tedious, that’s okay.
And what I’m here to sell you on is that it is the most tactically valuable thing you can do. For your weight loss is to manage your mind and managing your mind isn’t all that tedious. All it does again is it means you’re just being aware of the thoughts in your brain. And so what I want to share with you in this episode is how I regulate my stress every morning and how I manage my mind and I keep it pretty simple.
So what I do is every morning I sit down with my journal and I ask myself that question. What feels like a problem right now? And then I find what that [00:07:00] answer in my brain is, because there always is one. Now, here’s what we need to know about our human brains. Our brain is always attempting to solve problems.
problems. That is what it is designed to do. And this never goes away because it’s how your primitive brain is wired. It’s constantly seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and it strives to be efficient. So the best thing we can do is to learn how to parent this brain and work with it. So, What I am doing when I sit down and I say what feels like a problem right now is I’m giving that primitive brain an Opportunity to present me with the concerns It’s having that it’s trying to solve for constantly in the background of my days when we don’t address the problems that your brain is constantly solving for in the background It’s gonna keep creating emotional strain And so what I’m I’m doing here is I’m bringing it to the surface so I can look at it clearly and address it.
Now, for some of you, when you sit down and you ask [00:08:00] what feels like a problem right now, you know, maybe it will feel very obvious and you’ll be able to have that thought from your brain. But for some of you, you might think, well, not much feels like a problem. I think I feel fine. And this is feedback I hear All the time, and I’ve been there, but what I want you to do is to be introspective, curious and patient when you check in and know that the act of just checking in and even asking the question is valuable enough in itself, because what you’re doing is you’re giving your brain an opportunity to present concerns before they build up.
I cannot tell you the amount of. Self sabotage I hear from women when it comes to their eating habits, where they’ve fallen off track, they’ve gained the weight back, or whatever occurs, and it’s because the emotional buildup was so high from a concern that their brain was having maybe months ago or weeks ago, right?
If you have a moment of very [00:09:00] high stress where you’re very reactively, emotionally eating or sabotaging your progress, it’s because the check ins were not happening when the stress first started. The act of checking in and just asking your brain what feels like a problem right now is enough because then when your brain does have something to unpack, You’re going to be able to hold some space for it before it builds up in your mind.
And here’s the really big thing. Most of the time, the concerns your brain will offer you, you’ll be able to solve for and then relieve that stress through your actions, or it’s something that you don’t have control over and you can see that and then process the emotions rather than trying to hustle.
from that thought. So let me give you an example of how this can work because I just offered a lot of perspective, but I want this to feel tactically accessible to you. So let’s say we sit down and we ask ourselves, what feels like [00:10:00] a problem right now? And I’m going to give you all an example I hear often from my women when it comes to work.
So we think, okay, what feels like a problem right now? And then. the problem feels like I have all these deadlines coming up and not enough time. Everyone is depending on me. I’m in a new position and a lot is at stake. So whatever thoughts you have here, and then as you write these thoughts down, what’s going to happen is the emotional experience of these thoughts will start becoming more clear.
So maybe it’s feelings of pressure. overwhelm, sometimes even inadequacy, whatever that is. And so at this point, you now have a collection of thoughts and concerns that you’re aware of from your brain, and you notice the feelings in your body. And so what we’ve done now is we’ve slowed down and separated your thoughts and feelings from the actual circumstances occurring in your life.
[00:11:00] So this means that the survival state that you’re in. That emotional experience that feels like a lot is not happening because of work per se. It’s happening because you’re having thoughts like there’s not enough time and everyone’s depending on me and a lot is at stake. Now if you’re new to thought work, I want you to just consider this concept for today with me here, that your thoughts are what create your emotions.
Not your circumstances. Okay, knowing this will set you free in so many ways. So a work deadline, in other words, doesn’t create the overwhelm. It’s your thought that you’re running out of time to complete it. And then what’s gonna happen is the buildup of that thought in your brain will layer the overwhelm, add stress to your body, and then further inhibit your ability to even follow through on work tasks, which then will make the thoughts more overwhelming.
so mind [00:12:00] management is a skill that we help you master and own your eating habits. So if you want a full process for that, and you want to take this work to the deepest level, please come join us. It will change your life. But for now, I just want you to know that the act of clarifying your thoughts and emotions With work or whatever’s going on in your life will bring you release.
It will allow you to be aware of and expect that experience in your workday. So you’re going to be less compelled to react with food. So try this out. Take whatever piece feels accessible from this process and Make it yours. Journal and ask yourself what feels like a problem today. Start simple, write your thoughts, and notice the emotions associated with them.
And really just practice being aware of that experience, emotionally, being available in your body throughout the day. Do not, my friends, underestimate the power of knowing what’s occurring in your brain. It is everything. All right, my [00:13:00] friends, I hope this was helpful for today. Thank you for joining me here.
Have And I will talk to you in the next one.
Hey there! I'm Kat Rentas. I’m a certified life and health coach for women who believes that eating healthy should feel simple and sustainable. I teach hundreds of high-performing women to change their eating habits without the overwhelm. Want to change your eating habits in a way that is aligned with your needs, preferences, and goals? You’re in the right place. You can read my full story here.