Hello my friend, welcome back to the Healthy Eating for Busy Women podcast. I’m glad you’re here and I am happy to offer today’s episode to you. I think […0.5s] it’s going to be a bit of a deep dive episode.We’re going to peel back the layers on something that needs to be talked about. We’re going to talk about why healthy eating isn’t working. And so much of the time we will be putting a lot of effort towards this area without the results to show for it.And this is a common struggle women come to me with that they wanna solve. They’ll say, cat, I’m doing everything, I’ve tried everything, […0.6s] and nothing is working. This is when you really will start to feel like the whole world kind of against you when it comes to your health goals.And I have been there and I really want to use today’s episode as an opportunity like I always do, to just be very transparent and upfront with you as to what is actually occurring here.And I always wanna preface that I have been in all of these places too. I have had […0.6s] every mindset and excuse in the book, so always know this is a safe space. Everything I will be talking about today, I am offering to you, and then you can use your discernment […0.4s] to try it on, and see if it fits where you’re at now.I want you to keep a very open mind and be willing to lovingly address something that may realistically be holding you back, cause this is when we will be doing everything seemingly right.So we will be eating clean, tracking our meals, skipping desserts, whatever we think is necessary to eat healthy and lose weight.But then the scales not moving, or […0.5s] we don’t feel any better, and then we start to have frustration and resentment for the actions were taking. And I want you to know that if you’re in this place, we’ve got us all for a lot of inner struggles first before you can consider the tactic. So we’re gonna address all of that today.I’ll say to, this is probably the most common thing I coach on in my owner eating habits membership. If you’re new here, that is my membership where I teach high achieving women to eat healthy naturally. So if you wanna check that out, go to catrentice com forward slash membership.But oftentimes I coach a lot of Type a women on doing a lot of things, putting in a lot of effort, and they feel like they’re not seeing change. And we will often uncover the mental block they’re having that they aren’t even aware of. They can’t even see that is actually stalling their progress.And you’re gonna feel that emotional, you’re gonna feel stuck, you’re gonna feel stagnant, there’s gonna be this block that you’re experiencing.And I want today’s episode to be a big exhale where you can release some of that and have mental clarity with what’s actually going wrong. Because today what we’re going to uncover is that doing everything mindset is actually what’s gonna keep you stagnant.And often times, what’s happening is there’s low grade pressure or perfectionism that you may not be aware of that is holding you back. Because here’s how this actually is showing up right now. It’s in the form of all or nothing behaviors, and I want you to find where this might apply to you.So this may look like that you’re paying attention to what you eat for a few weeks, and then the scale isn’t where you want it to be. So you stop putting an intention at all, or maybe you set a priority to honor your fullness at meals, but then you notice you don’t do it a couple of times.You get discouraged, and you stop prioritizing that skill, or maybe you have stopped emotionally eating, and you are doing the deeper work, but then you find you’re not where you think you should be in the skill, so then you stop practicing the skill building.What I want you guys to really see first and really consider where this is happening today is where do you stop following through on scale building in this area? At what point does […0.6s] improving this area stop being a priority?Because so much of the time we will blame the external result on not being where it should be.This is what I like to call lovingly my vending machine mindset. I have it to you guys, and it’s kind of like when I see my result like a vending machine, like okay, I put in this amount of money, I did these things. Where the heck is my soda? Where the heck is my Snickers?Whatever it is, I want you guys to notice when you’re doing this with your results, with your body, […0.4s] with food, right? You’re like, I’m doing all the things now, where the heck is my weight loss versus, are you actually having an eye on the actions that you are taking? Are your actions consistent enough for your body to respond to them? Are you actually evaluating whether the actions you are taking are useful?Are you in an objective place to make small tweaks with your approach without sabotaging […0.4s] so much of the time, this is the stuff we won’t even see because as a coach who’s been doing this many years, of course, I can always see very clearly when the actions that someone is taking is the exact reason why they don’t have the results with their body that they want. And this is true.Your actions are what create […0.4s] the results with your body that you want, but the actions have to be consistent.They have to be long term enough for your body to start responding to them. And this doesn’t mean perfection, but it means you can’t stop showing up when you notice your body didn’t meet the expectations you were having as if it were a vending machine.So going with this analogy, something that can happen to is, let’s say the vending machine is in producing the result that you think it should because you put the money in and you’re like, where the heck is my weight loss?Now what will happen is you think there’s something wrong with, maybe the vending machine, so you start problem solving, you start ruminating, maybe you’re kicking the vending machine a little bit.But normally how this shows up right is you think you’re doing all the quote unquote right things you put the money in […0.5s] now.Where the heck’s the weight loss? So now you’re solving for things that aren’t even necessary, like, maybe you’re looking up crazy health symptoms, or you’re solving intricately for the nutrition aspect, or you’re tracking and planning.Now all of a sudden, we’re solving for the vending machine, which is kind of related to you thinking there’s something wrong with your body, you or your eating habits maybe.And really all that’s happening is you stopped focusing on what actually works, because you got discouraged, because you got frustrated.And why this happens is because you likely have a lot of pressure that’s telling you you gotta hurry up and get this result out of the vending machine as quickly as possible.I want you to notice if you have an urgent relationship to getting the weight loss, to getting the return from the quote unquote, money you put in the spending machine.Because so much of the time I could have related as well. We do not have the capacity to have a slow deliberate objective relationship to our weight loss journey.We are focused on […0.4s] fixing as if something has gone wrong. And we won’t even notice that we’re having that energy with it until […0.5s] it’s no longer tolerable. And we’re not even intentionally solving the problem at all.This is what most, quote unquote, self sabotage looks like in this work. Is not you not wanting the result or not being committed enough. It actually means nothing about you personally. It’s the fact that you have an urgent relationship to weight loss, and that’s not a tolerable emotional experience for you to sit with for long periods of time.So you’re just sitting outside the weight loss vending machine impatiently not sitting still, and you’re waiting for that result to be produced when actually you need to step away from the vending machine and understand a vending machine isn’t gonna produce your weight loss.You are going to be the one to create the weight loss through your actions. And this requires experimentation. This requires you to take responsibility for the actions you’re taking and what’s working and what’s not working for you.So we need to talk about healthy eating pressure because […0.4s] pressure as an emotion, it’s individual to all of us, but mostly it’s a reactive emotion, right? It’s gonna exist in your throat and coming out of your mouth a little bit, which I know sounds strange.But all emotions live in different places in the body, which is really lovely and amazing when you start diving into emotional work because it’s going to tell you a lot about their functionality.I think with pressure, how many of us experience it is it compels us to react, it compels us urgently to do something to fix a problem, because that sensation is so, so uncomfortable. And so where pressure comes from is thoughts we have about something.So with all of you here, it will be the thoughts you have about eating healthy or […0.4s] weight loss.The most common one I see is I have to do this, right, I need to figure this out, there’s something that’s not working. Whatever it is, I want you to notice when you feel pressure or urgency to do this right or to solve this problem, what are your thoughts doing in that moment? What’s coming up for you?Because that’s going to be what is fueling your vending machine mindset and relationship to this area of your life.And that is going to lead you into these all or nothing patterns where you think you’re putting your money into this vending machine, and then waiting for the result, wondering what the heck is going wrong.I wanna give you guys real quick a practical example of this, cause I know […0.6s] can be tough to spot. So sometimes where the vending machine mindset can come up with my clients, cause it’s supposed to, it’s the work we solve for, and maybe this will be a client working on the skill of honoring fullness.Let’s say, and what’s really interesting is we can have a vending machine mindset with any skill. It doesn’t matter what it is, even if it’s the foundational skills with your body.So let’s say a client is still having that vending machine mindset. How this will work is she will work on the skill of fullness for, let’s say, a week or a couple of weeks. Right. When you have a vending machine mindset, you take the actions with expectations on the result they should provide you.So what will happen is we will attempt to honor fullness in one specific way, and then when it doesn’t produce, let’s say, weight loss, we think something’s going wrong. And then maybe we’ll even have the crazy thought, well, honoring fullness isn’t gonna be enough, this doesn’t work.Which most of you here logically with me, will be 100% on board the fact that honoring your fullness produces results. What is so easy to miss here is what went wrong in the scenario, really. Think about that. Why isn’t this client seeing results? And it’s sneaky.It’s not because honoring fullness doesn’t work. It’s because what this client did is she attempted to honor her fullness in one way and then she went to the vending machine and she said, where’s my candy? Where’s my weight loss? There was no experimentation here.There was no trial and error with honoring her fullness. There was no skill building, there was no objective observing of how her honoring her fullness affected her body. She was taking no responsibility for the condition.She was placing her body in with the fullness, right? And this is never to shame us at all.We’re all gonna be here in this podcast. We are all taking a slice of humble pie, and there’s no shaming or judgment. But I want you guys to notice who you’re being when you show up to skills, healthy eating and weight loss results, are you having expectations for what your body should provide you? Or are you really taking responsibility for the conditions you’re placing your body in?As a scientist, as someone who’s experimenting, as someone who is objectively witnessing how your body reacts?Because the thing is how I like to offer it is, of course, you are in a partnership with your body when you are eating healthy and losing weight. But your body’s main job is weight loss, and the weight at which your body sees it as useful to come off.Does that make sense? So your body is in control of your weight loss long term and how it releases it. Now what we are in control of is how we eat and the conditions we put our body in to release that weight.What we’re doing essentially is we’re going up to our body and saying, hey, body. If I decide to pay attention to fullness a little bit here, you better lose some weight. You better give me some results. And there’s a lot of ego, I think, associated with this.I talk a lot about entitlement without shame and without judgment because my brain will have entitlement too.It’s perfectly natural. But notice when we feel entitled […0.4s] to a weight loss result from our body because maybe we have some resentment or frustration with everything we’ve tried in the past, but your body does not owe you weight loss, right? It does not owe me results. That’s not how it works.It is begging for you to objectively partner with it and to stop treating it like a vending machine. So I hope this makes sense.Why certain clients or you are not seeing results is because you are having expectations as to what results should be created when you take a bit of action. When actually […0.4s] the work is to stay in your lane. Focus on the actions you are doing and the conditions you’re placing your body in.Hope that makes sense. Now I wanna talk for a second about the pressure and frustration and resentment you may understandably have in solving this problem. Because this is a lot of the times where the language, nothing is working is coming up, […0.5s] and that will keep you stuck.I just wanna say, if you really let yourself swim in that mindset and indulge in it, it’s gonna keep you stuck. And I say this with so much love having been there.If you notice that you’re swimming in the pool of the nothing is working for me thoughts, let yourself be there for a little bit from understanding if you need to, but then […0.5s] objectively climb yourself out of that pool, right?Know that that can never actually be the case. This is just your brain having an understandably frustrating experience, but do not equate that with lack of your body working for you or you not knowing what to do, because now that becomes unsolvable.Your body is always ready to work with you, and you can know what to do if you’re willing to be curious and objective with it.I really want you to understand where the frustration and discouragement can come from, because […0.4s] it comes from the, I’ve tried everything, right? And what do we mean by I’ve tried everything?What we’re saying is I’ve put in a lot of effort to solve this problem without the return. I’ve put in a lot of money into that vending machine, right? But I want you guys to understand what the money in the vending machine actually has been […0.6s] in the past.What we’ve actually put into the result in the past is it’s not even the actions that burned you out. It’s not even everything that you did. And I want you to hear me. It’s the emotional effort […0.4s] you put into solving this problem.And that actually is what we need to work on now because for so much of you, the fuel you’re using to fuel this work is that pressure. It’s that urgency. It’s that well, I’ve got to do it, right? I’ve got to step it up. And it’s believing that you’re gonna have to push yourself to make this work.That is the thought error that we need to address right off the bat because that means you think you’re gonna have to have an ideal time to solve this problem, that you’re gonna have to have energy, that you’re gonna have to have certain conditions, which is not true. You can master this work anytime with bare minimum effort. That’s actually what needs to happen.But why you feel so burnt out in this area is because the money you’ve been putting in that vending machine is the pressure. It’s that relationship you have to taking these actions.So this can be really helpful when you’re noticing that I’ve done everything thoughts that aren’t so useful. What we’re really saying is I’ve put a lot of effort […0.4s] into this area for too long and I’m burnt the heck out.Which my friend, it’s gonna be true. That is valid if you are tired and you are burnt out. I want you to understand why you are tired, why you are tired is not because of everything you’ve tried. It’s because of the emotional relationship to this area that you’re fueling your actions with.When you’re trying to take steps with healthy eating from the thought, I need to get this right, for example, you are going to burn yourself out and you’re gonna have the thought, but there’s a difference between noticing the thought and taking action from it. Does that make sense?And in on your eating habits? If you want to join that membership, it’s fantastic, you will learn that difference.So you stop burning yourself out immediately. This is gonna be really necessary to address because if you don’t understand how you’re pressuring yourself with healthy eating, you’re gonna keep burning yourself out and then thinking something’s not working and you’re gonna stay in the stagnant place. This is that vending machine mindset.And like I said before, right, what’s really interesting about this is you can do this with any skill.So for those of you who are new, I teach the skills of naturally healthy eating, nothing fancier, complicated. I just help you remove all the noise and we get back to the foundational skills with eating naturally healthy, like regulating your stress, honoring fullness, eating healthy the way nature originally intended without all the complicated stuff. And in order to do this, where the real work happens is you need to lower this pressure. Because I want you to know if you have a pressuring relationship to weight loss, your brain will turn any skill […0.4s] into pressure performance and will power, and you’re gonna burn out no matter what approach you take.So this is a big surprise when clients enter my program and they know […0.5s] often times the work we’re gonna do, but then they come in and they’ll watch their brain try and hustle the most basic simple of processes.And for those of you who don’t know this too, that is why if you join on your eating habits, the skills you learn are really simple.These aren’t anything I made up. It’s very basic skills, but where the actual magic of this membership comes in with the coaching is we train your brain to regulate this pressure so you can let it be that simple. So you don’t stop taking action.You’re able to be consistent and you’re actually able long term to put your body in the conditions to release weight.So you no longer […0.4s] overcomplicate the process and immediately when weight loss doesn’t occur, you start researching trying a different method or spending a lot of extra energy that you don’t need to be spending.For so many of us, when we’re in that vending machine mindset and the weight loss isn’t coming out of the vending machine, we will turn to complicating things as a coping mechanism.So I actually had another client do this recently. She and you guys, this is so fascinating, right? And she would say the same thing, she lost 7 pounds last month in our membership, and she does beautiful work. She shows up in a non hustly way […0.4s] and she just works on the skills and then she lost 7 pounds one month. And then it was so interesting.She brought this to coaching and her brain started over complicating what was gonna be necessary to keep losing weight. And she already knows how her body wants to lose weight. She already put herself in those conditions.Her body’s telling her, hey, it’s working. And then it was so interesting to watch your brain say, oh, but I must not be doing enough, something must be going wrong.What I want you guys to know about this client example is your brain will have a lot of thoughts when the vending machine, quote unquote, isn’t giving you the result you want. But here’s the thing, it was never about what the vending machine produced.It was your relationship to everything. Because with all of my clients, even when they lose weight, this complicating and pressuring thoughts will come up that they have to step up and do it. Right?So those are actually two separate things. They’re solving for the inner work and the pressure and regulating your nervous system to these results. And then there’s the tactical things that create the results.And I want you guys to understand this so you can see the work that has to happen for you to have this result. It’s not complicated. There are just separate problems to solve. There’s the emotional work that so many of you have not started yet, which is why you do not have the result long term.And then there’s the tactical work, which is painfully simple. That’s not where most of y’all need work necessarily. You just need to create emotional conditions where you don’t opt out or quit when things stop working or when things aren’t working. That’s all that needs to happen here, and that is a gap that so many of us weren’t taught to fill.This leads us into why so many of us will resist what is actually working. So of course, we’re gonna have moments where we’re not seeing the result, and we’re gonna think, oh, nothing is working. But I also want you guys to know that the same part of your brain that thinks nothing is working will also doubt […0.6s] when things are working. And it won’t let it be that simple.This directly relates to the client example I just shared, where she lost 7 pounds last month without dieting, without restricting amazing. And her brain then had an objection as to why that couldn’t be stable, and there was no way. She just created it that easily.So the simple things that do work are lowering cravings, emotionally honoring your fullness, enjoying food without overindulging.These are simple skills you can learn, but sometimes you will watch your brain wanna dismiss how simple it is. Because it’s not gonna feel energizing or pressuring enough. I want you guys to notice in your body, not your brain.How uncomfy it might feel to watch results happen easily with your body without feeling like you put effort into it.I want you to really consider […0.5s] how that would feel unstable at first. It would feel unfamiliar, maybe you would equate that ease if not being long term, and that those results are gonna go away.This is a real thing because sometimes there can be a disconnect with knowing we want ease with weight loss results and healthy eating, but then not understanding that that’s something you’re gonna have to acclimate yourself to once it starts happening as much as we don’t want to pressure ourselves in this area and burn out, that is a state your body has become very used to.And it now has the belief that pressure is necessary for stability and results in your life. So when we remove the pressure, then watch your brain start to dismiss what will simply solve this problem.A lot of you may do this when you hear my podcast, right? I certainly would have done this in the past. I actually have dear clients who are honest with me and they say when they first hear this podcast, they’re like, who the heck does cat think? She is telling me these simple things as if I don’t know them. It’s great fun.Haha. Look at our thoughts, but I want you guys to notice how your brain might dismiss what could simply work for you. That’s emotional work I talk about, right?So maybe you hear everything, this episode makes total sense, but then your brain is like, well, it can’t be that simple. There must be something else I need to figure out. What if that’s not true?And this is actually the problem. It’s that you have this part of your brain that you’re not aware enough yet, that is trying to overcomplicate it, that is assuming that solving this problem for the last time is in another podcast or another program or another solution that you just haven’t figured out yet.It’s the missing puzzle piece mindset that keeps you in the comfy familiar pressure of solving this problem, when actually one of the most courageous, vulnerable things you will have to do is to let this be simple and solvable.Now to decide, I am ready to not react from pressure brain. And I’m gonna work on acclimating to this being simple right now and solving this problem.And again, I want you guys to know because sometimes this can be misunderstood. We’re not saying that you don’t want it to be useful. Now, of course you do. That’s why you’re here. But there’s a difference between what you want and what your nervous system is acclimated to. And what your nervous system is acclimated to is gonna override what you want. If we’re not aware of it, and no, you’re not, not doing the simple things on purpose because […0.6s] of anything about you.It’s not personal. It’s because your brain doesn’t yet feel safe with results unless it’s in effort mode. That is its coping mechanism. You haven’t Learned how to lower that emotional pressure with healthy eating and weight loss. So you have a capacity to let it be simple. This is a skill you have to establish. It’s not a decision you just make.I always say one of the most painful things is a highly successful ambitious capable woman who knows how capable she is watching herself do things that don’t lead to the result.Something really humbling with a lot of women I coach, cause I am also this way is we will have this faulty belief that if we know how to do something, we should just be able to do it.It’s that vending machine mindset, but really […0.5s] a lot of us actually have a low understanding of what it means to work with ourselves as a human being.We are imperfect humans that is true no matter what. That is the hand we are dealt. So it is not enough for us to just know logically what to do and then just do it. We’ve got to learn how to regulate our nervous system. We’ve got to learn how to question the thoughts that we’re having. We must be willing to coach ourselves or be coach.There are deeper human themes here that will allow you to stop acting as if this area of your life is a vending machine and actually solve for your health.There is also a very real thing where a lot of type a women will think that the simple work is kind of beneath them and you guys, this is not something we do on purpose. I have been there. Like they’ll hear the simple things like honor your fullness, for example.That’s such a common one. And it’s like, well, that’s too simple for me. I can do hard things. I can do complicated things. Give me the nutritious principles and the more complicated work. I can track everything and count my macros.I’m just giving you some examples here. And there’s nothing wrong with doing those things. Those things can be fantastic, but I want you to notice how you may see the simple stuff as beneath you in a way. Cause, you know, you’re capable of more. And you guys, I know you’re capable of more. This is why I have chosen to coach women like you.Perhaps who are a lot like me, is because where we get ourselves stuck is because we know we’re capable of so much. And it really lowers our capacity to let this be simple.Because we’re constantly feeling like we’ve got to prove something to ourselves about ourselves in every area. And in order to solve this problem in the way you want with healthy eating and weight loss, you’re gonna have to give that up.You’re gonna have to give up feeling successful, accomplished, like you made the grade in this area. And that means you’re gonna have to let this be simpler. And I wanna offer that it’s not gonna feel amazing at first.It’s not gonna feel natural, and it’s not gonna feel good. You’re gonna feel like you’re throwing in the towel. You’re gonna feel like you’re phoning in success. Maybe because there are people who do have to step up and put in more energy into solving this problem.For most of you, I coach, that’s not the case. It’s actually leaning back and letting this be done and simple. Now we’re done with exerting more energy in this space.So to wrap everything together here, I just want you to know if healthy eating isn’t working right now, where are you with love, having that vending machine mindset where you’re having expectations from urgency, from pressure.Where is this pressure coming from? What thoughts are you having? How does it make sense that there’s this all or nothing pattern with solving this problem, and what will allow you to step outside of the spending machine mindset and actually focus on the actions you’re taking? Are they consistent?Are you actually building skills and taking responsibility for that? Or are you trying the same things over and over, expecting the vending machine to work, and then you stop showing up at all.We’ve all been there, never judgment on my part. And if you want that really non judgmental community, that’s highly valuable and so, so helpful, make sure you get inside the on your eating habits membership community. It will help you solve this problem so beautifully and clearly. So you can go to katrentas.com/membership, and you will be coached by me, and we’re gonna have such a fantastic time. Alright, my friends, I hope you have a great rest of your week, and I’ll talk to you soon.