Hello my friends. Welcome back to the Healthy Eating for Busy Women podcast. I’m happy you’re here with me today. And if you’re new here, my name is Kat. I’m here to help you […0.5s] make healthy eating a bit easier so you can actually fit it into your life without hustle and without […0.6s] being in this all or nothing pattern with it. I really want you to form healthy eating habits that feel sustainable. And if you have been here for some time, welcome back.Today we’re going to get into how to stop eating healthy in a way where you’re obsessing and it’s constantly taking up your time and energy.This is something I have seen all too much of in the past […0.5s] 10 years of me coaching women on naturally healthy eating. I think it’s really easy for us as Type a ambitious women to get in a very laser focused, performative mindset with anything. And it’s no different with healthy eating. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.But before we get into that, I want to ask you for a favor. So if you’ve been listening to this podcast for some time and you find it’s been helping you, it would mean so much to me if you could leave a nice shiny 5 star review […0.5s] on the podcast app wherever you’re listening from. This helps the podcast get in front of more women who it would help. So I would very much appreciate it. […11.4s]So, okay, I really want to clarify what I mean by […0.6s] obsessing over healthy eating or having obsession with food.I think it’s a very strong word and it will resonate with people differently depending on your background. But here is what I most see. I find that when us as women are obsessing over healthy eating, there’s two beliefs that are often happening. […1.9s]So the first is that we believe that healthy eating requires us to do more. So more planning, more tracking, more prep, […0.5s] micromanagement, more restriction, whatever it is, we think we need to do more actions. […3.9s]The second belief is that whatever we do to eat healthy, we have to do it perfectly. So it’s this very binary mindset where we think we either do it right, we do it wrong, we fail or succeed. It’s very much that all or nothing thinking that can feel quite logical, but is actually really sneaky. And it will keep us in this high stakes version of healthy eating. […5.0s]And when you think about changing your eating habits, you might feel this energy right away. So maybe you notice hypervigilance coming up, you notice pressure, maybe for you, it shows up as excitement. But regardless of what comes up for you, when you consider focusing on this area of your life, notice if the energy feels like leaning forward, it makes you want to urgently take action and fix […0.6s] this problem.That is an indicator that we’re going to start getting into some obsessive patterns with healthy eating. […6.6s] This is an indicator that your brain is preparing to do more or perform more in order for you to eat the way you wanna eat.And I wanna offer in today’s episode that this is not the way that you need to be eating healthy and actually is what’s gonna make healthy eating not sustainable.So regardless if the word obsession aligns with you or not, this is what I’m going to be referring to in our conversation today. […11.6s] And again, I know obsessing is a strong word, but for some of us it isn’t.I remember there was a time in my past when for sure, I would have called it an obsession with healthy eating where I was constantly tracking everything I ate. I had to have the perfect macros, perfect clean nutrition, everything. So for some of you that will relate, and that’s okay. This episode will help you, but I also want you guys […0.5s] who don’t align with this wording to stick with me here because maybe it doesn’t feel so obvious, maybe food is not something you’re thinking about all the time, maybe you don’t feel like you’re obsessing in quite that same way. But I want you to pay attention if the relationship you’re having to eating healthy and changing the way you eat […1.4s] is coming from a place where you think you need to do more or perfect […0.5s] more. And the biggest help for us is if the way you’ve been trying to eat healthy is not sustainable, it really feels like that all or nothing where it’s either perfectly following through and it’s pristine and organized or you’re not following through at all and it feels very reactive. That is an indicator that some of these patterns are happening. And in order for you to have the results with food and your body you want, we have to change that. […10.1s]And the thing about leaning forward with healthy eating this way is it creates a false sense of control.And the reason why it’s a false sense of control is in the moment, you’re gonna feel like you have it all together. You’re gonna feel like you’re doing it right, you’re performing well, […0.6s] following through, your dopamine is gonna be activated.And I think if you associate as being kind of a type a woman or an ambitious woman, you’ll know what I mean. It’s when you feel like you’re in flow, you […0.5s] see the way forward, like, this is how the rest of your life is gonna be.But then life happens, and you find that, that perfect follow through that you became really attached to no longer occurs.And then we have this like post follow through hangover where we’re really, really disappointed. Maybe we have shame and adequacy, cause we’re like, why can’t I just keep it together?And I really want you to understand the concept of […4.9s] this false sense of control, because even though in the moment you feel like you’re doing everything right and everything’s perfect, it’s the fact that you think you need to do it right all the time and that you need to be perfect.That’s the problem and […0.7s] what can feel exciting and motivating and together in the beginning of a healthy eating journey can that same mindset can lead us to it not being sustainable and feeling disappointed, shameful and inadequate. […2.4s]The reason why I created this podcast and I’ve been coaching on this for so many years is because I want us as women to have a realistic expectation of what it’s gonna look like to eat naturally healthy.And I think that what we want it to look like is to feel more neutral. We want it to feel more just like something we do, not something we have to perform for or get right all the time. I think where we can get stuck is as high achievers, we love the feeling of doing things correctly and following through and proving something to ourselves about ourselves.But at the end of the day, for you to have the experience of healthy eating, weight loss, health in general that you want, we’ve gotta stop treating it like a performance and like we’re climbing a mountain achieving climbing a mountain feels great when you do it, but it’s not sustainable for day to day eating decisions. […4.4s]And as ambitious women, we can find ourselves getting driven and a little obsessive over things we want to achieve, which can be actually really useful, I think.I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that ambition and drive, but when it comes to decisions you have to make throughout your day for the rest of your life, like being an eater that relationship to that is not going to be […0.6s] sustainable. It’s not going to be accessible on your worst day.And so we kind of have to be willing almost to give up the performatism with healthy eating, which very well could be the key for you to give up obsession with it. […4.0s]And I wanna clarify something super, super important because it’s really easy to misunderstand this. I think we’re not saying here that planning, tracking or any of those tools is wrong. I have coached many a woman who loves to do these things and continues to do them.I’ve coached everyone from teachers, […1.1s] business owners, working professionals, lawyers, […0.8s] ex athletes, and all types of women have different preferences for how they want to structure healthy eating. But what I want you to know is, while it’s not planning, tracking or any of these tools that are bad, our relationship to them is what gets us stuck. And often times with these tools, the relationship we have is what I mentioned in the beginning, it’s 1, believing that we’ve got to do more to eat healthy, so that’s why we do them. And then 2, we think we need to do the things, right? So it’s not just about planning and tracking and having certain foods that we limit. It’s our relationship to doing those things which makes the stakes with those actions so high. […6.4s]So it’s that belief system that we mentioned, […8.5s] if you think you have to do more to eat healthy successfully, here’s also what you’re likely believing. […4.3s] You think you have to plan, or you won’t make good decisions, […3.4s] you think you have to prep or you’ll be left with no options for healthy eating, […3.3s] you think you have to track or you won’t know how much to eat. […5.7s]And then also if you believe you have to do those things perfectly, you’ll also believe […2.5s] if I don’t follow my plan exactly, I failed. […2.4s] If I don’t prep my food and order Doordash instead, I’m not a healthy eater. […2.3s] If I eat more calories than my tracker said, I’m not going to lose weight.Okay, So I want you to really consider these thoughts […0.7s] and this relationship to the tools you’re trying to put in place. […2.1s] These things might, […0.6s] These things might feel true now. And the purpose of this episode or this podcast is never to convince you otherwise.I just want to offer you a perspective today as to what’s possible when you think like a naturally healthy eater. […2.4s] Cause I want you to consider this alternative mindset, so you can see the difference here, […4.9s] rather than I have to plan, so I make good decisions.What if you believed I have everything I need to make the right decision for me in the moment? […3.9s] I’m gonna change that. […3.1s]What if you think I trust myself to make good food decisions in the moment […4.6s] rather than I have to prep or be left without options? […2.9s] You think prepping helps, but I know how to make it work with whatever food is available. […2.8s] Rather than I have to track or I won’t know how much to eat. […3.3s]You think I listen to my body and stop eating when I feel satisfied […2.9s] rather than if I don’t follow my plan exactly, I failed. […3.7s]You think my plan is a tool, but I make the best decisions I can with what I’ve got […5.5s] rather than if I don’t prep food and I order Doordash or take out instead, I’m not a healthy eater. […2.6s]You think Doordash is fine for tonight. I’ll just eat mindfully and honor what my body needs […3.1s] rather than if I eat more than what my calorie tracker says, […0.8s] change that. […2.1s] Rather than if I eat more than my calorie tracker says, I’m not going to lose weight. […1.9s]You think human error is a part of it? I’ll just try again tomorrow. […2.8s] Do you see? […1.3s]I want you to notice this difference in thinking with tools we have as healthy eaters? Because the thing is I do teach women how to eat healthy and lose weight without needing any of these tools. But tools are perfectly fine. There is nothing malicious about a calorie counter, a scale […0.5s] tracking your macros.These things can be great and really valuable tools for people to use. But notice the difference in thinking. When you’re relying on these tools to feel like you have it together and to be perfect versus seeing these tools for what they are, which is just tools.I want you to imagine as a naturally healthy eater, feeling like you don’t need to do more or be perfect to have the results you want. But if you wanna use those tools, they’re available to you, but you don’t have to engage with them. […3.5s] This is what is possible for you. And I think this is the difference I wanna offer between healthy eating obsession and naturally healthy eating.Now here’s the thing I wanna honor. If this mindset feels a bit out of reach, and it’s like, how do I get there? I highly recommend, […6.8s] that’s okay, and that’s normal. I’m just offering you this alternative so you can see what’s possible. But if you want it, […2.1s] But if you want a process and support to get from a to Z, the Owner Eating Habits membership will help you do that. So I highly recommend checking it out. You can go to catrentus com forward slash membership. And in there we are talking about exactly how to make this shift, […12.1s] we are talking about exactly how to make the shift. […5.7s] So really the goal that I have for you is to make healthy eating feel like second nature, not a second job. So I really don’t want you to feel like you’re adding more to your plate. Um, Pun very much intended. I feel like if that […0.8s] pun is there, I just have to go for it.But truly I think that we are already so busy in our day with tasks things we wanna accomplish, jobs, families, careers.This was not meant to be another job. And I want you to really hear me when I say that as human beings through years of evolution, healthy eating and meeting our bodies needs was not something that we were meant to have to micromanage. Our bodies have everything we need to tell us when to start eating, when to stop eating, what types of foods it needs, how satisfied we get, how to have pleasure without over consuming food. It’s all there, but we were never taught to hone those skills. We were instead sold external solutions so we could keep having this problem indefinitely and keep investing in those solutions, right?I want you to solve this problem for the last time so you can be that caregiver to yourself.And that means bringing it back to the basics of what healthy eating was meant to feel like, which is neutral, not obsession, not motivating, not ambitious, not like something you need to achieve, but just a neutral part of your day. […7.8s]I think where obsession with food comes from is the belief that if you lighten the load or you don’t constantly have eyes on everything, it’s all gonna fall apart. It’s not a problem with food. It’s a lack of trust in yourself. You think you’re someone who has to be micromanaged.You think your behavior with food is something that has to constantly be strong, armed and controlled. And y’all, this is not […1.0s] having anything to do with food at all. It has to do with you and your relationship to yourself. […2.9s] Eating decisions are painfully simple.Your lack of trust in yourself to follow through with those decisions is deeper. And this doesn’t mean the work needs to be complicated. You just need to address the right problem.And I promise y’all 80 to 90% of this work in solving this problem for the last time is awareness of your thoughts, your relationship to yourself and the energy you’re putting behind eating decisions. Really, I think the woman I most help is a woman who was a lot like I was.You probably have a, not a lot of knowledge already in this area, whether it comes to health, weight loss, nutrition.You know A lot of stuff. And I knew a lot of stuff. I was actually certified and qualified in many things before I solved this problem permanently. And it’s because I hadn’t yet Learned how to energetically become someone who treats food like a naturally healthy eater. I never Learned how to stop obsessing until way later when I realized everything I know only scratch the surface. I needed to learn how to become someone different with food. […4.7s] And so really, when it comes to food obsession and healthy eating obsession, here’s how we solve this. It’s three things. […1.9s]No 1. You have to create trust in your own body that it knows when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat. You need to take it back to the basics and know that you can become a naturally healthy eater who doesn’t need all of these external things to have control. […5.7s]No 2. Learning that you don’t need to do more to eat healthy. You don’t need to micromanage your external environment because you’re not someone who’s out of control. You don’t need to compensate for that belief system. […3.9s]And most importantly No. 3, you need to learn that you don’t need to eat perfectly healthy to have the results you want with your body. Human error is a natural and necessary part of eating healthy and just being healthy in general. It was never meant to be perfect, and this is just something that you’re gonna have to teach, not just yourself logically, but your nervous system. You’re gonna have to acclimate to that being true.One of the biggest areas of growth we go through in on your eating habits is once a month, we host a monthly review call.And in that call, we show up without judgment, and we evaluate our progress. And we do something called the progress equation where it’s the one time we are allowed to give 1% estimate of how much we’re following through with the owner eating habits skills. So it’s things like not emotionally eating, honoring fullness things that you learn how to do in that program.And here’s the thing, you guys, I want all of you to know this. Not one client, all of the clients who have reached their goal in my past years of coaching in on your eating habits has created that weight loss goal with 100% grade in these skills. Not one, because it’s not the way it was meant to be as humans, we are not solving for perfection. We’re solving for a health goal, and that is a completely different focus. Okay, You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to do more, and you need to learn that you can trust yourself to follow through with healthy eating when the stakes are lower. Because it’s the high stakes that left you with a lack of trust in yourself, because you’re setting unrealistic expectations of healthy eating. […3.4s] The more trust and relief you build with the concept of healthy eating, the less obsession you’re gonna have, you’re gonna feel less urgent, less stress, less pressure, […0.5s] and it’s going to feel easier. […2.5s] Control will start to become more internal and innate. It will stop […0.5s] feeling helpless, reactive and external. […2.5s]I think one of the most satisfying results women create in our community […0.6s] is when they’ll say, oh yeah, I am having this change and I didn’t really realize it at first.I didn’t really think about it. So for example, a woman will say, oh, you know, I just didn’t have cravings to eat when I got home from work and I just realized it and it’s been a few days. Or I actually just stopped eating at this point in the meal and I didn’t feel compelled to eat more.This neutrality of the results is how it was always meant to be and why the results present this way where women in the community will say, yeah, things are just different now and it’s not the sparkler sensation is because they didn’t have to work hard for it, do a whole lot more things, or be perfect.So they didn’t feel like climbing a mountain to create the result. And sometimes there’s some coaching there too, on like, did I deserve it? Is this stable?Whatever it is, […0.6s] but this is how it’s gonna work, you guys. The results you want that are sustainable with healthy eating and weight loss are not on the other side of obsession and perfection. It’s on the other side of letting it be easier. And that in itself is a vulnerable thing to do. […10.8s]So I think what I want for you today is to just think about where healthy eating obsession might be coming up for you. Whether it’s really obvious and you’re micromanaging all the things, or whether this is just coming up in your belief system.Do you think that doing more and leaning forward externally is necessary? And do you subtly believe that perfection is what’s required for you to succeed? […2.5s]Awareness of this pattern is everything. It’s 90% of the results you want. […2.9s] So take time and really sit with this. And I really hope that this episode today sparked some aha moment or piece of awareness that you didn’t have before. […1.6s]And if you wanna take the very next step to becoming a naturally healthy eater, you can sign up for my free course, solve your Food Struggles in 5 Days. So you can go to cat runtas. Com forward slash court. You can go to cat rentals.Com forward slash course. And it is a great way to get started with my work and to start becoming a naturally healthy eater and losing weight for the last time. Alright, my friends, I’m so thankful for you. Thanks for being here as always. And I will talk to you next week. […2.8s][…2.6s]