Hello my friends. Welcome back to the podcast this week. I’m so happy you’re here. And today I want to talk about […0.6s] a different take on something we reference all the time on this podcast, which is control with food. So of course we wanna have ultimate control with food where we know what we want to eat, we know how we want to be eating to get the results we want, and then we want to be able to follow through with it without emotionally eating or overeating. But today I want to touch on when we can have […0.5s] too much control with food. And what I’m referring to here is when you’ll feel really good, you’ll feel like you’re following through with healthy eating in a very organized way. And then you hit a point where you start to feel a little bit […0.5s] pressured or confined or restricted in those boundaries.So you start to feel like initially the motivation you had to be that deliberate with healthy eating has worn off. And now you’re starting to feel pressured and just […0.8s] trapped with a specific manner of healthy eating that you see as being necessary.And so […0.5s] if this resonates, I wanna talk about what too much control can look like.Because if you are here, chances are you want to become a naturally healthy eater where you can have the results with your body that you want, but you don’t have to constantly work for it. When it comes to healthy eating, you want it all to feel useful. And this podcast and myself are here to help you strike that balance. So that’s what we’re gonna get into today. […16.0s]So something that I coach on a lot is the concept of control. Because if you identify as a busy woman or a type a woman or a high […0.7s] achieving woman, then chances are you love being in control.And I am the same way. I feel like I really know how to be in control of the things that matter to me. I know how to organize. I know how to prioritize, schedule, plan and chances are you’re similar to me and those are strengths that you already have.These strengths probably benefit you in many areas of life, including your career, your families, your social life, whatever it is. You find that maintaining control with things like organization and planning really, really serves you.And sometimes this can actually become a barrier when it comes to healthy eating because that’s how we’ll approach our eating habits as well.So the scenario I normally see and I’ve been through this too, is […0.5s] we will start off a week or a month or a year […0.5s] really organized. So we will have the plans, the protocols will be ready to track everything or maybe not even track everything. Maybe you’re more into the intuitive eating route. Whatever it is, you feel certain that you know what you’re gonna do to succeed with healthy eating and weight loss and you feel […0.6s] very, very in control.But then what happens is life starts to come in, right? Things start to feel a little unorganized, uncertain, messy. And then that’s when that modality of control we thought we had with healthy eating goes out the window. And maybe this happens slowly over time where you slowly start to stop following through, where you slowly stop following through with healthy eating, or maybe you just completely fall off track where what was once easy to follow through with now just feels totally inaccessible. […8.9s]And here’s why this happens. Healthy eating is not a checklist, so we cannot project manage our eating habits long term.Yes, there are things that can benefit our eating habits when you are […0.9s] skilled at planning, organizing, tracking, but at its core, your eating habits are emotional. They are tied to your nervous system. It, […1.4s] It has to do with a lot of aspects of caregiving that you’re likely not prioritizing when you are planning meals. […6.0s] So then what happens because you’re used to relying on your Type a strength is you try and force those things to make healthy eating work.So when you fall off track, you yet again find yourself reaching for another plan or protocol or a set of right actions that you need to follow through with to get the results you want.And one of the biggest thought gaps I see Type a women have, including myself in the past, is that we can just simply logic […0.6s] our way to the results we want with food and weight. And that just isn’t true.There is a whole another area of caregiving and a health that you need to begin paying attention to. And here’s how this will most often come up, right? You will be set up for success. Your meals will be planned, prepped.You will have all the knowledge you’ll ever need nutritionally to make the eating decisions you need to get the results you want. And then life starts to happen and things start to not only look unpredictable on the outside, but they’re gonna feel messy emotionally. So maybe you’ll start to feel overwhelmed or uncertain, or you start to experience doubt or inadequacy and […0.7s] all the tender human emotions. And now we’re left with healthy eating and following through in this type a manner not being accessible and not being a priority in our lives. The kids will be going through something and that’s gonna be more important or you have a busy time at work and that becomes top of mind. And here’s the thing when we rely on micromanaging our eating habits externally to have control, […0.5s] it’s never going to last because that manner of healthy eating requires […0.5s] your attention.It requires time. It requires […1.4s] you to be in an ideal time in your life to see it through. And what I wanna offer you is there’s nothing wrong with planning, tracking, and all those things that add structure.But we need to have you […0.6s] able to eat healthy in a controlled way without depending on those things because here’s what we will all know. Life is inherently unpredictable and we’re gonna plan for success and plan for structure with healthy eating, only to have all of it go out the window. […2.2s] So that is a big thing I want my type a women to know it’s not that having structure, tangibly with healthy eating is bad. I have many clients who continue to love using a plan or tracking their macros, whatever it is that works for them. But what clients come to me for is to learn how to become a naturally healthy eater.So the moment that life things interrupt a planner, a protocol, we don’t lose our progress and we can continue making progress in a more natural way. […4.5s] What I’m referring to when I say having too much control with food is when we use the plans, tracking and external things to our detriment. So what it will look like is us […0.5s] creating a food plan or following a protocol, but then when we don’t have those things, we feel like we don’t have control at all. So we will micromanage our external environment further with healthy, healthy eating, hoping that gets us to follow through. So for me, it would be constant.I would always be problem solving for healthy eating. And it would add all of this pressure to healthy eating, which would then cause me to burn out and fall off track. I would genuinely have this calculator that I would plan my calories that I would eat in, and then it would tell me the exact date I would lose the weight by. We’ve all done it. We’ve all been there. And I do not create this podcast to, […0.5s] um you know, be an anti diet podcast.I just don’t think that’s useful. I think all of these tools are neutral. There’s nothing morally wrong with them.I just want you to understand what these tools do in terms of your energy and how you’re taking action in this area of your life. Because what I can tell you […0.5s] is when I’m constantly trying to micromanage and be certain about my eating habits, that’s an energetic leak that’s gonna burn me out over time and it’s likely burning you out over time.There is such a thing as seeking too much control with your eating habits. And so many of the women I coach is because they have focused on trying to strong arm their eating habits for too long and now they’re just burnt out. Which means the work for you […0.5s] might be trusting that control doesn’t come from leaning forward and adding more to your external environment. It’s gonna come from you leaning back and learning how to exhale into natural healthy control with your eating habits. […8.4s]So much of the time I will have women come into my coaching program and […0.5s] they will believe, understandably, that the issue is getting more control with food.So in other words, they might think that they need to learn how to lean forward and hold on more tightly to how they’re eating. But nine times out of 10 what is actually happening is that pressure to perform and do more is what’s keeping them stuck and burnt out. Because then every time they try to eat healthy and lose weight, they feel like they need to push and exhaust themselves to get there. When really what’s likely happening is you just need to realize that control with food is inherent. […9.6s] And if you don’t have the eating habits you want, you are just solving for the wrong problem.All of you who relate to being a Type a ambitious women do not need to get any better at organizing your food choices, tracking or planning. You need to learn the skill of emotional regulation and relief, which is basically just learning how to lower stress separately from food.There are different skills associated with this, but what’s happening is we’re feeling compelled to snack and eat all of the time because of our high stress. And then to compensate for that, we’re like, well, I know how to plan and track and structure my eating habit, so I’m gonna force that into place to get me to follow through and not overeat. But then eventually that just goes out the window once our stress becomes too high. […3.4s]So to put this simply, we are solving for the wrong problem, which is trying to organize our eating habits into place versus actually just bringing down our stress, which is causing the overeating in the first place.So I hope that makes sense. It puts us in this really discouraging cycle […1.7s] and then trying to force control more puts us in a position to feel even more burnt out, thereby […5.1s] making the problem even worse. […8.1s]I think the thing that’s so hard, um, […0.8s] I think the thing that’s so hard is when we don’t have the eating habits we want and we’re not performing like we want to, we have a tendency to crack the whip with ourselves in our minds.So we’ll think, oh, I just need more discipline, I need more willpower, I need to do more.And this likely comes naturally to you if you identify as being that ambitious person. But what I want you to know is this is adding more pressure and eventually more burnout into you solving this problem and that’s further gonna set you back.We need to come at this with a more neutral, lower stakes approach in order for this to actually be sustainable. […4.6s]As cheesy as it sounds, your eating habits aren’t something that can be fixed. The stakes are not even that high. All you need to be willing to do is understand why you eat the way you eat now because there are valid reasons for them. And rather than ignoring what’s leading you to eat the way you eat and try and force healthy eating, we need you to lean back and actually look at your patterns and think, okay, […0.5s] why is my body reacting this way through high cravings, high stress and emotional eating? What is actually the gap that emotional eating is filling for me? That I am not feeling for myself.Now, […12.1s] a concept I talk about with my type a women is to mourn the loss that your eating habits and weight loss can’t just be organized into place.And that doesn’t mean that the deeper work isn’t […3.1s] simple and that it’s not solvable and that there’s not a process for that. I give all my clients a process to solve that area, but I think that […0.5s] when it comes to what we’re best at and what comes naturally to us, it is the planning, it is the tracking, it is us wanting to feel certain about how we’re gonna lose weight or how we’re gonna eat healthy. And really that’s not realistic because what if you are never going to be certain about the way you eat indefinitely in your life?And that’s what you need to mourn the loss of, because yes, it would be amazing if we were robots and we could say, okay, for the next six months, I’m going to eat this way and reach my goal weight. But I promise you that is not how life’s going to happen.If this, If you find that you’re having all or nothing patterns, what’s gonna happen is you’re going to […0.9s] really believe in the beginning that you can just follow through with a specific plan, and then eventually life’s gonna come in throw you off track.And now we don’t know what to be certain about, cause we don’t have a plan anymore. […13.9s]Some thing that often is a coping mechanism for very type a women, including myself, is micro managing, so problem solving, looking for certainty figuring things out. It will feel like we’re getting closer to a result when we show up that way.But really it’s just putting in this perpetual stress state where we’re not getting closer to taking action and solving the problem long term. […4.1s]What if instead of pursuing control with food where you feel certain about everything you’re going to eat, instead you focused on daily […7.7s] resourcefulness with your eating habits.So much of the time, we think that what’s gonna create healthy eating actions and weight loss is to […0.5s] know exactly what we’re gonna eat every day, or it’s to control a calorie amount or any other metric.And while that can be true, what if there is another way? What if all you need in order to have […0.6s] enough control with food that allows you the results with your body that you want is to just be resourceful every day at any moment where you don’t need to know what foods gonna be available. You don’t need to know how, […1.4s] you don’t need to know how your body is gonna feel that day, or what your hunger or fullness cues are going to tell you. You can just resourcefully check in any day at any moment, and make it work.This scale of resourcefulness and adaptability is the skill so many Taipei women are missing with healthy eating. And I wanna offer that it is the opposite of micromanaging. Because when you’re willing to be resourceful and not be certain about how healthy eating is gonna look everyday, you allow this lifestyle to be sustainable for you. Cause you’ve lowered the stakes massively.So […0.9s] what I wanna get at here is all this time you’re waiting to be certain and you’re spending energy micromanaging healthy eating into place for years and years and years could be spent just resourcefully taking action on this area and creating results now. […9.7s]And here’s the thing. There’s nothing morally better about what I’m referring to here, right? There is nothing morally better about […1.1s] going the route of more naturally healthy eating and becoming more resourceful and adaptable versus being more rigid with things like a plan or tracking or that type a piece. You definitely can do that if that feels accessible to you, right? I know many a woman and a person who that feels really easy to them. But if that’s not feeling sustainable for you, even if you identify as Type a, we’ve gotta try another way.We have to get you into building really adaptable skills with healthy eating. And that just means the focus looks different. […3.7s]So here’s how it tends to look for my clients because my clients, where they normally start is their fairy type, a ambitious women who have a lot of skills with planning and tracking and things like that, but it’s not working.So they need to learn how to be resourceful and adaptable with healthy eating in a way that feels natural. So what changes is rather than focusing on planning, tracking, knowing everything they’re gonna eat to reach their goal, they focus instead on other skills. […1.7s]So they start to focus on how well they’re managing their mind and their emotions throughout the week, separate from food. They start to notice what their bodies telling them when they feel hungry, full, whether they actually even feel satisfied from foods.They start to get to know themselves really well as an eater. So they start to determine what foods are healthy but they have no interest in. They start to determine what foods are really pleasurable that realistically they’re never gonna want to cut out. And these are things that may feel obvious, but if you’re struggling with this, these are things that are not happening right now. […6.0s] And I think if I had to put this on a broader scale, it really is these women learning how to […0.5s] get back inside their own decision making, embody one day at a time with food rather than disembodying and always looking forward and always problem solving where they’re constantly spending effort to solve this problem.Even if you’re, […3.2s] if this relates to you, I even want you to think about physically what would change if instead of leaning forward in your chair when you think about solving this, you leaned back […0.6s] and […0.9s] approached solving for healthy eating weight loss in this way.What if you have everything you need now to solve this problem? It’s just you haven’t Learned the manual for it yet. You don’t need to force or push or find […0.7s] all these answers for things that you don’t already have.It’s just using what you already have available to you and […1.3s] working with the human body that’s […0.6s] there. And this is the essence of naturally healthy eating, is learning how to eat healthy the way nature intended.I know it sounds quite silly, but I spend a lot of time thinking about, like […1.0s] previous, […0.9s] I spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, us during caveman times or way back in time when we would never even have the tools to micromanage food in the way we do now with plans, tracking all those things.And our human body is designed to tell us all those things. Sure, we can use things like planning and […0.8s] tracking macros, trying different diets to benefit us. Those things can be great. But when it comes to looking for control with food, those things do not create control. They are a band aid on the actual problem that is occurring, which is your body not being in a state to naturally eat healthy with ease.Once you have set that foundation where all of its feeling accessible and useful, then that’s the time to maybe look at more fun things like how you wanna organize your meals or tracking or trying different diets. But my friend, you can make your life so much easier by working on those more foundational skills. So I hope this episode gave you a new perspective.If it relates to you, and if it does, […0.5s] I highly recommend you check out my free course called Solve Your Food Struggles in 5 Days.So this is my course where I will take you through some coaching and lessons in order for you to figure out where your blind spots are now in this area of your life. So you can go to cat run test com forward slash free dash course in order to learn more now. […12.7s] So you can go to catrentice.Com forward slash. […7.7s] So you can go to cat run test com forward slash course to sign up for that today and to get started. But thank you for being here with me today. I love you so much and I’ll talk to you soon. […1.9s]