Hello my friends, welcome back to the Healthy Eating for Busy Women podcast. If you’re new here, my name is Kat and I am here to help you make your eating habits feel easier to develop naturally healthy eating habits that don’t take away time, effort or energy. And if you’re new, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.This podcast has been around for a while. There’s a library of over […0.6s] 200 episodes if you can believe it.So make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode, and enjoy going through past iterations of my concepts and teachings so you can get the most from them. And also, if you have listened to an episode that has helped you or you’re a fan of the podcast, it would mean so much to me.If you went down to the review section and left a nice shiny 5 star review with what you loved about the podcast. This is just always so appreciated and it helps this podcast be found by other women who could benefit from it. So thank you for being here today we’re going to talk all about why you’re not losing weight even though you eat […0.6s] healthy. And if you can’t see me right now, um, I’m doing, […0.8s] and you can’t see me right now, but I’m doing air quotes because […0.5s] eating healthy can be a bit subjective, right?I think that […0.5s] here I talk about healthy eating in a way that is a bit different and also will help you understand some blind spots that you may be missing. And I think this is one of the most frustrating positions to be and you really feel like you know what to eat to eat healthy, you’re prioritizing those foods, but your body just isn’t responding the way you want it to. And so that is what we’re going to solve in today’s episode. […6.4s]So here’s the main problem that we face when we’re in this dilemma, we are placing too much focus on what we eat and we’re not placing enough focus on how we eat.Okay, So I’m gonna say that one more time. We’re placing too much focus on the foods we’re eating, what we eat, […0.5s] and not enough focus on how we’re eating those foods.That is going to be the theme today. And I want everything I’m gonna talk to you about today to really sink in for you. Because for the majority of women I’ve coached to the result they want. This is the thing that was stopping them for years. And I want to relieve you of that. […6.0s] It’s okay.If right now you’re feeling frustrated and even resentful of […0.5s] work healthy eating, cause you feel like you’re paying your dues, and you’re not getting the results you want. Those feelings are incredibly valid, but this is solvable. Now you have just been focusing on the wrong things. […2.4s]So I think the best way to understand this is a concept I talk about in my owner eating habits membership.So at the beginning of our course, I talk about a concept called pyramid of priority. So I want you to imagine a pyramid, which ironically is kind of like the food pyramid. Um. It wasn’t meant to be a direct comparison, but you can have that visual, right?And what happens is we want to prioritize healthy eating a certain way in three categories. […2.0s] So ideally to eat healthy naturally. Here’s what we want to do and why […6.2s] so.The first foundation of the pyramid is to focus on stress first. And this is something none of us were taught in school. We’re certainly not learning it from […0.6s] diet culture and even wellness culture is to focus on stress regulation with your body.And here’s why stress regulation means that you learn how to manage your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, and your nervous system. This doesn’t mean it’s fluffy work. It’s very […0.6s] specific, simple work.But you are taking the focus more inward with your nervous system versus outward with your eating behaviors because here’s why we have to focus on this first. When you have unregulated stress and your body is experiencing stress, it is primed to retain weight and gain weight.Because functionally, how a primitive survival system works is when you have stress emotionally on the body, your primitive brains gonna assume that something terrible is happening, you’re in danger, and it needs to bar down the hatches and conserve energy. What is weight? It is conserved energy. What do high cravings compel you to do to eat more to conserve energy.So if you are finding that you’re emotionally eating a lot or things just feel too much in life a lot of the time, which join the club. We’ve all been here.This means you have an unregulated nervous system, which I think is a default state for so many of us in modern day culture. And what we need to do is prioritize stress regulation, which is getting your body back to a place where it agrees to release weight in a consensual manner. […1.7s]Now that is for sure the biggest focus, but I want you to imagine you focus on stress regulation first. Your body stops resisting, your cravings come down.Now we move to the second stage of the pyramid above stress, which is your body cue. So these are really simple things like hunger, fullness, your body tapping you on the shoulder, telling you when it’s time to eat or stop eating.Really simple, right? But here’s the thing, a lot of you have attempted doing this. I certainly did too, and it’s not sustainable because […0.5s] either you find you notice you’re hungry or full way too late […0.5s] after you’ve over eaten, or you don’t notice them coming up at all, maybe.Right? And this is because when you have […0.5s] stress regulation and your nervous system out of whack, those body cues are going to be incredibly skewed, right? Because when we’re unregulated with stress, we’re reacting to our emotions.We’re not eating based on our body cues. So they’re gonna become suppressed over time. So this is why very tactically we’ve gotta prioritize stress as the foundation and then more intuitive eating principles. Honoring your body cues can only rest sustainably on top of that work on the pyramid.Okay. So then from there, we have that right shiny tip of the pyramid that a lot of us are attached to, which is the foods you’re eating. Right?So like I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, the problem is that you’re placing too much focus on what you’re eating and not enough focus on how you’re eating.And this tip of the pyramid is the last priority, which is the foods. Okay? […12.9s] All that this last stage comprises is you getting to know yourself as an eater. This is what my clients learn to do as well. They just get to know what their tastes are, what their preferences with food are, their nutritional needs, […0.5s] how satisfied they are from foods, all of those preferences. But really this is just to make their manner of healthy eat, their manner of healthy eating more accessible. You can create the results you want with your body from just the first two foundations. It’s just knowing the foods and having that experience is going to fine tune it. […3.0s]But here’s the really big problem if you haven’t cut on already, what diet culture and even wellness culture teaches us to do is to flip this pyramid upside down to focus on the wrong order of priorities.I certainly did this for many, many years. I would focus on the foods first. So I developed a certification with all of these different nutritional. […5.2s] So I develop certifications focused on nutrition. I had a ton of knowledge over the years, but I wasn’t able to apply it sustainably because my behaviors with eating felt so out of whack. I wasn’t realizing I was full until I was stuffed. I really felt so hungry or not hungry at all. Everything with my body was out of whack really. And I felt like I had no control over my stress levels. So then what happens is we’ll focus on the foods for a time, we’ll get a nutrition recommendation or we’ll try something new on an Instagram page that we saw only to stay in this all or nothing pattern where we’re eating perfectly healthy foods, are not eating healthy at all.So I wanna offer, where have you been flipping this pyramid of priorities and does this make sense?Does this align with you where it’s like, oh my goodness, of course, I haven’t been eating healthy sustainably and I’ve attempted intuitive eating for it only to feel impossible because I’m feeling stressed all the time. And if this relates to you, even just a bit, I want this to bring you clarity.Let it be the answer because I promise you, this is the order of priorities we need to focus on to solve this problem. […5.9s]I want you to know that you almost certainly have all of the nutritional knowledge you will ever need to make the changes you want, or at the very least make a significant amount of progress towards the changes you want.What’s missing is the behavioral work and the quicker you can assert that fact with yourself, the sooner you will get to the result sustainably. […6.5s]And why you feel exhausted and, like, you put in so much work is you’ve tried to force the tip of the pyramid into place for so long. And maybe you’ve even tried to force the second stage of the pyramid into place for so long without that foundation of stress regulation.So then it all comes crumbling down the minute that you feel like you lose control. […1.5s]This is why so many of us will react to healthy eating and think, oh, you know, it must be just because I’m busy right now, or stress, or the kids just came home from school or whatever it is. And you guys, when you regulate stress properly, there is nothing that can go on in the circumstances of your life that can shake healthy eating habits and the results with your body. That’s why it doesn’t require perfection, because you’re able to be […0.5s] consistent with healthy eating when you have a version of it that’s regulated, um, where your stress is regulated right […10.8s] now.Before we continue, I want to take a breather together and talk about a new product I’ve been loving called Almond Cow.As if the name is not cute enough, the product is also so incredible. So Almond Cow created a milk maker machine that allows you to make homemade plant based milk in minutes, you guys, so they reached out to me, and I loved the mission of the company, and they sent over a machine to test out. And I’m genuinely so excited because almond milk is my favorite. While I love whole milk from time to time, plant based milk just helps me feel lighter and healthier day to day.So you set up the almond cow machine super easily and in 2 minutes after throwing the pre packaged almond and date mix in, I wanted to try. I had a full weeks amount of almond milk ready to go. It tasted so yummy and so natural, and it’s also a win, win knowing that you made it on your, […0.7s] you made it in your own kitchen, but not wasting plastic to buy new milk at the store.So […1.6s] to buy new milk at the store. So if you’re a plant based milk lover like me, I encourage you to get almond milk in your kitchen, […0.5s] is such a sustainable, yummy option in the long run. So you can use our special code busy women to get$25 off your almond cow purchase.And thank you so very kindly to Almond Milk for creating a super amazing product and for sponsoring this episode. […16.3s] Alright. So without further ado, let’s, […0.7s] can you not? […12.5s]Alright, so without further ado, let’s talk about what you can do now when you know you’re eating, quote unquote, healthy, but you’re not losing weight. […4.1s] The next time you fall off track over e or self sabotage, I want you to honestly answer this question. […7.1s] Did this happen because I don’t know what foods are nutritionally valuable? […3.0s]Do I really think this occurred because there’s something unknown about the foods themselves, […1.3s] or could this be something deeper that I’m not yet aware of? […1.6s] So here’s an action item for you this week.I want you to do this. […3.9s] Take inventory of the moments you emotionally eat over eat or don’t logically eat the way you want to […5.8s] note. Is the problem that you don’t know what foods you would eat to eat healthy, […0.5s] or is it something else?I want you to really do this and make a mental note each time you notice overeating occurring. […5.0s] So here are some things that you might notice that imply the foundation of the stress pyramid just hasn’t been solved for yet. […3.1s]You know what to eat, but you lose motivation to follow through. […3.3s] You feel like you lose control with foods that you love. […2.5s] You want to eat healthy and lose weight, but then everything goes out the window after a long day. […14.3s]You feel like you just can’t stop eating once you start. […5.3s] And I want you to hear me, my love. […1.7s] These problems are not solved by focusing on the foods. And they are definitely not solved by micromanaging the food choices, tracking planning or anything external. How this is solved sustainably is by focusing very deliberately inward on the stress management. […3.3s] It’s solved for by building control and ease with food in your body. […4.7s] So let me give you a common example that may relate to you, so you can see how to put this into practice. […4.8s]So you overeat, fall off track or eat in a way that doesn’t contribute towards your goals, […3.9s] and you answer this question, […1.1s] what are you making this moment mean about you right now?Okay, And then you’re gonna answer a second question, […1.1s] how is that thought about me compelling me to react right now? […9.6s] So let’s implement this in the moment that this would occur. So you overeat, you fall off track, you make an eating decision that you’re like, ah, you know what? I did it again, […0.5s] this doesn’t contribute towards my goals. […2.7s]Answer this question, […5.7s] I’m gonna start that over. […3.0s] So let’s implement that in a moment.Let’s say you overeat, and maybe you’re out at a dinner and you end up eating more than you originally intended. […4.1s] You plan to get the healthier option, maybe you decided not to, and then you finish the dinner and you reflect on your choices. […3.5s]What are you making that moment mean? So let’s say you’re having the thought, I can never get this together. This is […1.2s] always how it looks every time, […1.3s] which makes you feel shame emotionally in your body. […6.1s] So now we know what you’re making this neutral moment of overeating mean about you, right? […1.5s]So second, how is this thought and emotion compelling you to react with your eating habits now? […2.7s] So in that moment, you feel crappy emotionally, you feel, […0.7s] you feel shame for overeating. […2.4s]So let’s say in that moment, you feel compelled to skip the rest of the weekend of healthy eating plans because it doesn’t matter anyway, and no matter what, you’re always gonna fail, quote unquote, right from that shame. […3.9s]So see how this works. This is what I want you to start getting data for. I want you to begin seeing how your perception of moments that you overeat or fall off track are actually what is leading you to further behaviors of not reaching your goals. […1.9s]So the next time you over eat or fall off track, two questions 1, what am I making this moment mean about me?And 2, what actions or reactions occur when I’m in this belief? […3.2s] So this is the root problem to solve. I want you to see this. It’s not what you’re eating yet. It’s not whether or not you’re honoring body cues or not. […3.1s] It’s how you respond two moments of human error with food emotionally. Because what ends up being what originally started as one moment of overeating turns into a whole lot more. And that’s actually the problem we wanna solve for first.So many of you think you have a problem with healthy eating or honoring body cues or anything like that.And while that can be true and those skills can be honed, really what most of us are having a problem with is our relationship too, having moments of error or failure and throwing all of our good intentions away the moment that occurs, because we haven’t Learned how to regulate the shame in that moment. […4.5s] This is solving for self sabotage before you solve for the math of body cues or the actual foods you’re eating. And this is gonna save you so much energy, so much time in the long run, and it’s gonna help you stop feeling as resentful and exhausted as you are now. […1.9s]So please try this out and let me know how it goes. You can find me on Instagram at cat rent us. And if you wanna take this work one step further, you can sign up for my free course at cat rent us com forward slash course.Okay, So that’s cat runtas com forward slash course. And in that course, I’m gonna teach you how to begin solving your food struggles in five days. It’s so fun and I can’t wait to see you there again.Thank you to Almond Cow for sponsoring today’s episode. If you want to take advantage of their deal that they’re offering us, you can get$25 off any purchase with code busy women. All right, my friends, I appreciate you. Thank you for being here, and I will talk to you next week. […11.9s]