Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the podcast this week. I hope your week has been going smoothly. Mine, on the other hand, has been a little bit of a mess. A fun, exciting mess. But a mess nonetheless, at least in my mind. I’ve been, what my brain considers, very busy. So, we’ve been taking trips and visiting family. Taylor’s work hours have been a bit crazy as well for him so we’re not seeing quite as much of each other lately. There were a few minor tech issues going on in the business. Just what has felt like a lot of things going on this past week. And, I want to keep it real with you, having my shit together with food just wasn’t a priority this week. It just wasn’t. But, and this is a huge but, this doesn’t mean every food decision I made wasn’t on purpose. It doesn’t mean my food decisions were not intentional. Because making intentional food decisions doesn’t take more time. It doesn’t take more energy. I still honored my hunger and fullness levels. I was still fueling my body with the foods it needed to be satisfied. so I could actually get through the week in one piece. And I bring this up, because it’s always interesting to me how my definitions for “being a mess” with food have changed drastically. It used to mean that I completely lost control. When things were a quote unquote “mess” I would overeat, emotionally eat, binge eat – just totally give up all control. And then, I would believe this really sad story about how I was a victim of my eating habits and things were a total, total mess. Now, when I sit here and tell you guys “Yeah. My week’s been a little bit of a mess” it’s from totally different energy. Rather than being a victim of the circumstances in my life, it’s more just acceptance that sometimes the human experience isn’t the most ideal, and that’s okay. From this energy, I’m not giving up control with food completely. I’m still making conscious decisions with food. The only thing that really changes, and this makes me laugh, is that my meals just aren’t as pretty. My food decisions are not as Instagram worthy. So, for instance, I like to make avocado toast for breakfast. Which can look really aesthetically pleasing with the avo toast and berries on the plate. Now, to clarify, I actually love this breakfast so I don’t eat this just to be trendy. But, this week, my breakfast looked like a handful of granola here, a few spoonfuls of yogurt there, a slice of sourdough bread with a piece of fruit on my way out the door – yeah, not super sexy. But, it was okay. It worked. And now, I’m out of the messy part of the week, hopefully, and I’m getting back to my routine with food without having lost control of my progress with it. You can be a mess sometimes and still eat healthy. It’s totally possible. Perfection isn’t required and you can be an imperfect human. But, that’s not even what I want to talk with you about today. This episode will be a dose of tough love. Sometimes these episodes feel like warm hug and sometimes they feel like a little punch to the gut. But I only tell you in this podcast what’s really going to serve you. So, if this episode stings a little, I still want you to stay with me because what I’m going to teach you here is something I wish I was taught back in the day when I was really struggling with food. I want to talk about healthy eating entitlement. Because it’s something that will keep you stuck. We really want to unpack today what this healthy eating entitlement looks like so you can observe whether it’s something you’re experiencing with your eating habits now. So, the definition of entitlement is stated as “having a right to something”. So, in this case, it’s “having a right to healthy eating habits”. And I want you to consider what you’re thinking about food, about your body, about changing your eating habits when you believe “you have a right to the eating habits you want”. Chances are you’ll have thoughts similar to, “This should be easy for me”, “I don’t know why this isn’t working”, “I don’t deserve this to happen to me” maybe when it feels hard and you’re struggling. It’s almost like this defiance and resentment that comes up when you struggle with food. When we’re believing “I have a right to healthy eating habits” it makes sense that when we don’t have the eating habits we want that we strongly resist it. Like, something has gone wrong. Or, really, like we’ve been wronged in the process. When we’re believing that we have a “right” to something, we’re really believing that it’s not something to be worked for or earned. We’re believing it’s something that should be inherently given without effort. And, these are all examples of ways to look at entitlement with healthy eating, but your experience with this entitlement will be individual to you. So, consider, when you believe you have a “right” to healthy eating, what other thoughts come up? What else do you believe as a result – especially when you’re struggling to eat healthy? And I really want you to know that if this entitlement that we’re describing here is something that’s coming up, you always have good reasons for it. That’s not to say that this method of thinking is useful, but if you’re having any method of thinking you have legitimate reasons for it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be coming up for you. I had loads of healthy eating entitlement where I was believing “I have a right for healthy eating to feel easy” or “It should be easy for me” or “It shouldn’t be this hard”. Really, it’s because I would see women who ate healthy effortlessly. I would see their perfect looking meals on Instagram and social media and would feel this defensiveness and resentment. Because after years of failing with food over and over again, I believed I was such a victim of my eating habits. That I tried everything and nothing was ever going to work. When you consider where I came from, and where you likely came from, this energy of healthy eating entitlement kind of makes sense. But, it will not serve you. Which I’m going to explain exactly why. But, first, I want to point out that entitlement is not the same thing as worthiness. This is very, very important. I don’t want you to mix these two things up here. Entitlement, as mentioned, is believing you “have a right to something”. Worthiness is believing “you are enough” or of course, that “you are worthy” or something. This is not up for debate. Every single human on this earth is 100% worthy by default. And you are 100% worthy of the eating habits you want. You are enough. This will never, ever be up for debate. Even if your thoughts try to argue with you on this one. Doesn’t matter. Your worthiness is always inherent. So, this is just to acknowledge that the concepts of entitlement and worthiness are entirely different, but they do get mixed up often. Because here’s the really big difference between the two. I want you to really consider how entitlement feels. Really consider this. It does not feel safe or good in your body. It feels heightened and urgent. It feels very survival-based and like something you want to get out of. Almost like resentment. And when we create energy like this, that we don’t want to be experiencing, nothing about that energy will serve you with your eating habits. And, most importantly, nothing about this energy of entitlement will fuel you to take ownership of your eating habits and solve for them. When you have thoughts of entitlement and you’re relieving “I have a right to healthy eating habits” from this defiant energy, you’re going to experience a ton of inaction. Where you’re not taking any steps forward. You’ll probably try to eat perfectly healthy which is followed by a ton of self-sabotage and inaction with your eating habits. Because with this entitlement, you will not take responsibility and figure it out. You won’t practice being the expert of your own eating habits. You won’t observe your setbacks, evaluate them, and then move forward. You can’t when you’re believing “I have a right to healthy eating habits” because you’ll also believe “Nothing is working”, “I don’t know what’s wrong” etc. Because when you have an inherent “right” to something, when you have setbacks, you’re going to assume something has gone wrong and your eating habits are against you. At least in most experiences I see with this. Now, in contrast, I want you to consider how worthiness feels. When you’re believing “I’m 100% worthy of the eating habits I want”. This feels very safe and whole in your body. It feels slower and more grounded. I compare the feeling of worthiness to gratitude almost. At least for me. It’s just very filling and calm in my body. From this feeling, you will better be able to take responsibility for your eating habits, evaluate progress, and move forward. It’s really interesting, there are quite a few people who misunderstand my process when they’re feeling entitled. So, I’ll pretty regularly say that naturally healthy eating habits are possible for you, right? That it’s possible for healthy eating to feel simple, easy, and effortless long-term. That you can learn to eat healthy without restriction of resistance. Because it is 100% possible. But, when you’re feeling entitled, you’re going to hear me say this and then shoot yourself in the foot with it. You’re going to hear this and then manipulate it a bit to fit into the entitled narrative. And this is your brain that does this, it’s not you. When you’re feeling entitled you’ll hear me say “Healthy eating can be easy for you” and then you’ll think “This should be easy for me”, “This should be effortless for me right now” or “This shouldn’t be this hard”. Now, consider this energy. This is entitlement. With this energy you’re not going to take the steps necessary to change your eating habits. When you believe you “have a right to healthier eating habits” and you’re entitled to them, you’re not going to take responsibility for your progress. You’re going to wait until someone does it for you, really because you kind of feel like a victim, right? With this thinking. Every now and again I do have a client enter my program and this energy of entitlement comes up. And, I want to clarify that there’s nothing wrong with these clients. You’re allowed to be an imperfect human with a human brain when you join muy program. That’s exactly what coaching is for. It’s to take your imperfect human brain and coach through whatever is coming up. Also, I was these clients. I understand the mindset of entitlement completely. But, here’s what’s interesting about this. When a client comes in with this entitled energy. The tools I provide in my program are all very, very simple and effective. But they’re not complicated by any means. It’s very intentionally designed this way. Now, what’s interesting is when a client is believing “This shouldn’t be hard” from the energy of entitlement, they’re not going to feel compelled in any way to do the most simple of processes. To take action on the most simple tools you can imagine. They’re not going to feel compelled to take any responsibility and move forward. No matter how simple the process is. This energy of entitlement will keep you totally stuck because you’re believing you “have a right” to the eating habits you want. And I know for me, if I believe I have a right to something I’m also believing I shouldn’t have to work for it, right? Your specific thoughts of entitlement may look a bit different, but really consider what method of thinking causes you to believe that you shouldn’t have to work for healthier eating habits. Just something to consider. Now, luckily in my coaching program we’re able to coach you on your mind. And as the client your only job is to be ready and willing to coach on whatever is coming up for you. Including entitlement. So if you’re coming to coaching with this energy of entitlement, as the client you just need to be willing to be coached on it. Nothing has gone wrong if entitlement comes up for you. You just have a perfectly functioning human brain. But what I want you all to take from this is how this energy of entitlement will prevent you from following through on the most simple of actions that move you forward. That’s what this energy is designed to do. Your survival brain always wants to keep you stuck. It seeks pleasure and avoids pain. The energy of entitlement is very much designed to do that. It’s ideal for your survival brain. Similar to apathy, which is what we talked about in last week’s episode. So, with all of that being said, here’s my hot take. Are you ready? You are always inherently worthy of the eating habits you want. There’s nothing you can do to change this. It doesn’t matter who you are, your worthiness for healthy eating or for anything isn’t up for debate. As humans, we are all 100% worthy by default. You are NOT ever entitled to the eating habits you want. Because you do not have an inherent right to the eating habits you want. Your eating habits are your responsibility. Entitlement also implies that you’re having the belief that you’re deserving of privileges or special treatment. Now, this part may sting a little. Because it does for me. I really, really believed this, you guys. Let’s feel the sting of this together, shall we? You are not more deserving of healthy eating habits than anyone else in this world. That woman who you perceive as having healthy eating feel naturally easy for her? You’re not more deserving than her of healthier eating habits. You are both worthy. But no one is more entitled. I would totally do this. I would perceive certain women as having it easy, that they didn’t have to work for the eating habits they had or the body they had, so it should feel easier for me because I suffered more than she did. You guys. First of all, this was BS. None of this was true. But more importantly, this energy kept me so stuck in inaction with my eating habits. In no way was I going to take responsibility and solve for my eating habits. I was so caught up in resentment for other women and the eating habits I had. So caught up in it. And I was just mistaken. I was wrong. I was caught in my victim story. And you may be too. We’re not here to delegitimize these feelings you may be having. They’re all valid. You have good reasons for your thinking because you have a human brain that creates some belief systems that don’t serve us and keeps us stuck. But, we don’t want you to indulge in this entitlement and create more of this entitlement because it’s not useful. I want you to know that if having this entitlement with healthy eating served you, I wouldn’t fight you guys on it. I’d say, “Yeah for sure. You totally deserve for this to feel easy. You totally deserve privileges with your eating habits because of everything you’ve been through.”. I’d totally feed that narrative for you. But, it’s not useful to you. It never will be. What’s useful is knowing that you’re worthy of the eating habits you want and you do have what it takes to take the steps necessary to get there. You can trust yourself to take action, evaluate progress with food, and move forward. You are capable of taking responsibility for your eating habits. It’s totally safe for you to feel resentment and frustration because of the struggles you’ve been through with food. But don’t use your human experiences against yourself. Don’t take this resentment and frustration and fuel yourself with it. Because it will keep you stuck if you carry this entitlement with you. Once again, you are worthy of the eating habits you want. This is never, ever, ever up for debate. I know this is the case for every single one of you. But, believing you’re entitled to those changes with food will never work in your favor. Observe where entitlement may be coming up for you and keeping you stuck. This is a small, but life-changing shift that will completely change the course of your healthy eating journey. Alright, I’ll talk to you next week.