Too Much on Her Plate

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Are you overeating to calm yourself? Three easy ways to start fixing the problem

March 31st, 2010, 2 Comments »

Many busy women overeat when they are stressed, too busy, or overwhelmed. Eating as a way to calm down is a common form of emotional eating. In my my last post, I gave you a list of three things to stop doing so that you could start taking to begin taking control of this type of overeating. Now it’s time to fill in the gaps. Here are three things to start doing instead.

1. Do get into the habit of asking yourself how you are feeling before you eat. Create a ritual of checking in with yourself before you reach for a snack, stop by the vending machine, or serve up your plate. Ask yourself both whether you are physically hungry, and what you are feeling emotionally. Don’t worry if you don’t always know the answers. Creating the habit of checking in with yourself and paying attention to your emotions is an important first step.
2. 2. Do create a list of other calming strategies you can start to experiment with. When you aren’t in the midst of a stressful situation, brainstorm some quick, easy ways you might try calming or soothing yourself. Write them down and keep your list somewhere where it is easy to access. Not all your solutions will work in every situation, but that’s okay. You are creating a list of ideas to try. Some solutions others have tried: a few minutes of deep breathing, a walk around the block or even the office, changing tasks, a bath or shower, calling a friend, putting on some music, yoga or stretching, or making a cup of tea.
3. 3. Do give yourself permission for this not to go perfectly and tweak and adjust as you go. The goal is to increase your control and you will do that as you become more aware of the reasons and times that you overeat and other strategies that help you make different choices. Don’t focus on making “perfect” changes, focus on learning about yourself and identifying changes that work for you, your preferences and your life.

Take good care,

Stress Eating? Is Food Your Sedative?

March 29th, 2010, 1 Comment »

Do you turn to overeating, binge eating, or constant nibbling as a way to calm yourself or cope with stress? This is one of the most common forms of emotional eating, and it’s a situation where many busy women living high-stress lives feel at a loss. I often hear from women who know that eating to calm themselves is contributing to struggles with weight, but they aren’t sure what else to do in situations where they feel anxious, overwhelmed, and usually time crunched. Sound familiar? If so, here are three changes you can start making today to start taking control of your eating—and to actually start creating more of a sense of peace and calm in your life.

1. Don’t use food as a stress reliever. It doesn’t work—at least in the big picture. Many women may feel calmer and more relaxed immediately after indulging. Food may also temporarily distract you from the situation at hand. Unfortunately, the satisfaction is usually short lived. Guilt and self-blame for overeating, or for food choices made in stressed out moments, can result in a vicious cycle of more emotional eating and stress. However, the deeper issue is that using food to cope with emotions of any kind is only a temporary fix. It’s a band aid that doesn’t address or resolve the real issue. Without better strategies, life stays the way it is, and you keep needing band aids—usually on a more and more frequent basis.
2. Don’t multitask while eating. This is so tempting to do—especially when you are busy—but multitasking while we eat prevents us from being fully aware. This means that it’s easy to eat for reasons that aren’t really physical hunger—without even fully registering that this is the choice you are making.  People who eat mindfully (meaning they are fully present and not distracted by other tasks) eat less. They taste their food and are more likely to be aware of how much they are eating. If you give your meals and snacks your full attention, you are also more likely to catch those instances when you are eating to try to calm yourself rather than eating for fuel.
3. Don’t eat on the run. Practice slowing down. If you can’t make the time to feed yourself, something is seriously out of balance. Sure, from time to time, life happens, but if you are feeling that it’s too hard to stop and eat on a regular basis, than this problem is one that needs to be addressed. The act of stopping, focusing, and putting your food on a plate, may actually be the first step you need to take in reversing the cycle of stress and overwhelm.

In my next post, I’ll focus on the next three steps you can try. Let me know what you think.

Take good care,

Are You Feeding Yourself a Well Balanced Life? Hungers that Lead to Overeating

March 16th, 2010, 4 Comments »

When we want to lose weight, our focus is usually on what foods to eat and ways to eat less.  After all, that’s where the calories come from and that’s what the diet industry tells us is important.  The problem is, our eating plan is only one part of the equation.

Diets and food plans don’t take into consideration the many factors that motivate us to eat.  They don’t address our complex appetites and hungers.  Sometimes it’s actually physical hunger—a need for fuel—that triggers our desire to eat, but many of us also reach for food for other reasons–when life gets demanding or we get tired or we just don’t feel quite “right.”

Overeating and weight gain occur when we use food to try to fill or make up for unaddressed gaps or needs in the rest of our lives.  Sometimes we know we are eating in response to a need that isn’t really hunger, and sometimes, our tendency to feed our feelings and other needs with food is so ingrained, that we don’t even think about it.  If we’ve spent a long time learning to address needs and feelings with food, over time we may actually experience a “physical” sensation of hunger instead of feeling nervous, lonely, bored or needy.

Taking control of overeating requires taking a close look at the rest of your life and making sure that you are getting what you need.  Ignored or unfed needs and feelings increase the chances that you will find yourself standing at the refrigerator with a craving that just won’t go away.  The craving won’t go away because using food to feed it doesn’t really address the real need or the problem.  It might push it away for awhile, but I guarantee you, the issue, and the “hunger,” will come back.

So–are you living a well-balanced life? Are you feeding your mind, your body, and your spirit? It is much easier to avoid the munchies if you are feeding yourself in these  high quality ways:

Hungers that lead to emotional eating and overeating:

Hunger for rest

Many Americans, especially women, don’t get enough sleep.  Research shows that insufficient sleep contributes to weight gain—and get this—at least some of the weight gain is not related to how many  calories are eaten!  Lack of sleep also triggers physiological mechanisms that lead to increased appetite and cravings for high-carbohydrate and high-calorie foods.  Sleep deprivation affects brain chemistry which impacts how hungry we are and the kind of foods we crave.  This one is a no-brainer. If you aren’t feeding your hunger for rest, you are behind before you start.

Hunger for connection

Remember social studies class?  Humans are social beings.  We need other people.  Connection comes in the form of close relationships, support, feeling understood and listened to, companionship, physical touch and connection, and shared experiences (tears, laughter, even being bored together).

If we don’t have enough connection, we may attempt to cope by telling ourselves we don’t really need it.  Low self esteem, weight struggles, and self-blame can all lead to isolation.  If we’re busy or tired or stressed, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we just don’t have the energy to connect with others (and we might not—one unfed life area tends to snowball into others pretty quickly).

Eating out of loneliness is a major trigger for over eating, and, as lonely people often realize, loneliness is not always a feeling that has a “quick fix.”  Our social connections take time to develop and they require nurturing, so take an inventory of how well you are consistently feeding and caring for the growth of connections in your life.  Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t where you want to be.  Think about what small seed you could plant today to start to increase your connectedness with others.

Sensory hunger

Taste is just one of the senses we need to feed. We vary in our specific hungers for sights, smells, sound, and touch.  Whatever your appetites, you’ll do yourself a favor if you learn how to feed all your senses.

It’s no accident that beauty is sometimes referred to as a “visual feast.”  Our need for beauty might involve exposure to art or nature, attention to color in our homes, our clothes, or a new lipstick color.  How much physical sensation do you have in your life?  Think about physical touch and intimacy, but also think about whether you have experiences of day-to-day pleasure in your body.  Do you dance or feel the sun on your face or get a massage or enjoy a great shoulder stretch after a day at the computer?  These are all ways of feeding your sense of touch.  What about sound?  Music is a great mood regulator.  Others need a break from sound—quality quiet time.  And don’t forget about smell.  Our sense of smell is closely tied to taste and it’s important not to neglect it.  Savor the aroma of the food you do eat.  Breath deep when you go outdoors, explore great smelling herbal teas that envelope you with their heat and their aroma.  Invest in lotion that smells fantastic.

Hunger for growth

A fundamental part of being alive is continuing to evolve and transform. We have a real need to keep improving, growing or working towards becoming the people we are meant to be.  The opposite of growth is stagnation, which the dictionary defines as “becoming sluggish and dull; ceasing to flow; or becoming stale or foul.”  Not an appealing picture is it?

Is personal growth on your priority list? Do you try new things and stretch outside of your comfort zone a bit? Do you come in contact with new people, new thoughts, new activities or ideas? Do you have goals and plans for the future—that have nothing to do with your eating your your weight? Feeding a hunger for growth means allowing yourself time, opportunity and resources to nurture your goals and dreams.  It means, at times, thinking outside of the boundaries of your day-to-day life.  How are you doing in this area? Can you enhance your growth in one small way?

Hunger for play and fun

It sounds so easy, but for many, making sure they have enough play and fun in their life can be difficult. When we have a lot of important responsibilities it can be tempting to let play and fun fall off the priority list.  We can also get so focused on making sure everyone else gets their plan and fun in (we almost always get the kids to soccer practice don’t we?) that we convince ourselves there just isn’t time for our needs.  People who don’t get enough play and fun usually fall into one of two categories.  Either they don’t think about play and fun very often and their “fun muscles” are rusty—they can’t list 5-10 activities they really love without REALLY thinking about it, OR they have a long list of things they love but aren’t being successful at carving out the time for themselves.

Both are a problem. The hunger is real, and it doesn’t go away.  In the short run, it might feel like “treating yourself” with a snack is easier then figuring out how to fit more fun in, but in the end, it won’t eliminate the craving—at least not for long.

The good news is that weight loss success is not necessarily about deprivation.  A powerful tool in the battle to curb overeating involves learning to give ourselves more of what we truly need. Creating a well-fed, well-balanced life is not always easy and we can’t always do it perfectly—but most of us can do a better job than we are doing now.  Even if we don’t know where to start, being able to clearly define the unfed needs, the REAL hungers that we could take better care of, is a huge step.   Once we start to learn what we are really hungry for, we can start to tackle the problem head on. That’s the kind of process that leads to enduring change and lasting weight loss.

Take good care,

Free Smart Woman’s Teleseminar: Resolving Email Overload

March 14th, 2010, No Comments »

Are you up to your eyeballs in emails?

Is your inbox elevating your stress level and sucking your time and energy?

What exactly IS the answer when you have 3,000 emails waiting for you to deal with them?

Certified Professional Organizer® Lorie Marrero is the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. She is also the creator of ClutterDiet.com . Her organizing books and products are sold online and in stores nationwide, and she is a sought-after expert for national media such as CNBC, Good Housekeeping, WGN News and Woman’s Day.

Lorie has agreed to let me interview her about what she calls “Inbox Obesity” and how to take control when you have “Too Much In Your Inbox.”

I’m inviting YOU to listen in–at no cost. The call will take place Thursday, March 25 at 11am Pacific, noon Mountain, 1pm Central and 2pm Eastern. Register even if you can’t make the call–I’ll be giving everyone who registers access to the recording.

I am really looking forward to hearing Lorie’s wisdom. Let’s get out of email overwhelm together–just go here to register.

Take good care,

Success Traps that Sabotage: Gold Medal Excuse Number Three – “But They NEED Me!”

March 8th, 2010, No Comments »

This week I’m continuing to share “gold medal” excuses—excuses that stop us in our tracks and can get us VERY stuck in the pursuit out of overwhelm, away from overeating, and toward our best lives.

Many women get to be so busy and successful (in part) because they are so darn good at taking care of other people. A talent for nurturing is a great skill, and many of us have lots of practice at being kind, responsible, caring and aware of the needs of others.

The problem:  some women are so busy nurturing others that they’ve forgotten how (or don’t feel entitled) to nurture themselves. All that great caring, compassion and attention gets focused outward and very little energy is left over for replenishing. Giving away all our best stuff to others—because they need us–is a path that leads to depletion. All the energy gets paid out and not enough fuel comes in to allow us to really be at our best. The irony—when WE aren’t at our best, we don’t have our best to give. In the long run, everyone—including those whose care we prioritize—has to settle for second best.

The truth?

You may have people in your life who DO need you. A lot. I’m not disputing that, but having others need us doesn’t cancel out our own needs. Acknowledging this reality creates some dilemmas, uncomfortable situations, and conflict. That’s the reality, and denying our own needs is not a viable answer. Women can get very stuck when they try to avoid interpersonal discomfort, and respond to these dilemmas by consistently letting their own wishes and needs drop to the bottom of their priority list. The hard truth that some resist mightily, is that sometimes we have to say very difficult nos to others because we also need some yesses for ourselves.

You do have people who need you, and you’re one of them. You are one of those people who needs you.  Self care is not an either-or proposition even though your inner critic might tell you otherwise. Yes, you might have a little voice that tells you it’s “selfish” to focus on yourself or to take time for that yoga class or to ask the family to change their eating habits to accommodate your needs. But it isn’t. It’s important (more about that later).  This isn’t about not doing for others so that you can do for you, it’s about redividing the pie chart of your time and energy so that you get a piece too.  It’s about including yourself and your needs and wants on the to-do list. In the end, everyone’s piece on the pie chart may be a bit smaller, but the quality of the time and energy you have to distribute is likely to be far better.

They DO need you to be there for them—especially during difficult times. And they appreciate you being in top form—ready and able to respond. Managing your own health and stress are essential so that you can be present when you most need and want to be. No one is very helpful when they are exhausted, burnt out and irritable. When we get what we need and when our spirit is well fed, we have more energy, are more focused, more creative, more confident, and more effective. We’re also more vibrant and we bring more of who we really are and our unique gifts to the table.

We lead by example. Here’s one that nurturers often forget. When we live a pattern of neglecting our own needs so that we can respond to others, we are modeling this to those who are watching. We learn some of our most powerful lessons by example and we teach them as well. Most women I speak with want their children and others that they care about to eventually be able to stand up for themselves, to draw a clear boundary when necessary and to feel able to say no to certain requests. They want others to feel their best, to be healthy, to get regular exercise. eat well, and get the rest and care they need. If you are raising children, than you are the one showing them how to do these things. You are modeling whether  it is or isn’t acceptable to prioritize your own well being and happiness. We have a choice. We can model martyrdom or we can model a way of caring and compassion that also reflects the value that we give to our selves.

It isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes, claiming the time and energy we need to be our best is a daunting challenge.  It’s not something we need to perfect, but it is something that we need to aim for–consistently. Having the goal in our sites, and feeling entitled to pursue it, makes all the difference.

Take good care,

Gold Medal Excuse Number Two: Exhaustion

March 4th, 2010, No Comments »

Gold Medal Excuses: Emotional Eating and Success Traps

This is the second in a series of Gold Medal Excuses. These are the excuses that win the gold. They are so compelling that they stop the game and leave women stuck and not getting where they want to go. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. These are the excuses that leave women working really hard but not moving in the direction that they want to go. You will find the first Gold Medal Excuse here.

Success Traps that Sabotage: Exhaustion

Many of you ARE exhausted and you are paying a huge price. Sleep deprivation is a big problem for busy women and it absolutely will contribute to you feeling:

• Less effective
• Less focused
• Hungry
• Stressed and overwhelmed
• Tense, irritable, and not at your best

Exhaustion is not only the product of sleep deprivation. Exhaustion happens when we run out of fuel. So if you are busy and you aren’t taking the time to eat and to energize with regular activity and with the kinds of things and people that feed your spirit, you are likely to feel run down and exhausted no matter how much sleep you get.  The issues of exhaustion and “no time” are very interrelated and it’s essential that you solve them, because if you don’t you won’t just stay stuck. You’ll burn out.

Guard your sleep fiercely. It’s essential fuel and 99 percent of us need at least 7-8 hours a night. It doesn’t work to cut back during the week and try to catch up on weekends. Sleep is an investment in yourself. If you aren’t getting enough than moving in that direction is the first step you need to take. If you’ve been walking around sleep-deprived for awhile, you’ll be amazed at the difference in how you feel.

Take an inventory of the activities in your life that exhaust you. Are you saying no regularly? Are you doing things that you resent or that waste your time? Could you set better boundaries? Are you open to delegating?

Make a list of the things and people that fuel you. How often are you replenishing your reserves in these areas? If your automatic response has to do with not having enough time, check out the tips here.

Repeat after me: Staying up late doesn’t help. The number one trap I see for women with too much on their plates? Women tend to get into a pattern of staying up late at night in an attempt to catch up, “rest up,” or capture some time alone. Trying to pay yourself at the end of the day almost always backfires. You are likely to overeat (emotional eating and exhaustion eating in the evening are problems for many women), exhaust yourself further, and fritter away the time you do stay awake because you are too tired to do anything else.

Stay tuned for the next Gold Medal Excuse–and feel free to share your favorites by adding a comment.

Take good care,

Gold Medal Excuse Number One: “I don’t have time!”

March 2nd, 2010, 1 Comment »

Gold Medal Excuses: Emotional Eating and Success Traps

“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.” ~ The March Hare

Here’s a question I am commonly asked: How do I prioritize when I truly have too much to do? When you run a company called Too Much On Her Plate, women email you their to-do lists. Really. And you women are BUSY.

I hear about the businesses you are running and the demanding careers that you have, the aging parents and growing children you are caring for, the relationships and household demands, the health concerns, and the late nights. Many of you see the link clearly between the overwhelming demands of your life and the stress and comfort eating, the weight gain, the lack of energy to exercise, and the difficulty getting where you want to go with your personal goals. And you are feeling frustrated because you don’t know what to do and don’t have the time to think about it or start doing anything differently.

I have news. This problem almost never solves itself. Time will never just show up—and honestly, if it does, you’ll probably find yourself so glad to have it that you just collapse into it and don’t really use it in a way that will benefit you. If you want to get off the hamster wheel, you are going to have to CLAIM some time.

Claiming time means that for now (not forever), you say no to something else in order to claim some time for you. It doesn’t have to be a week. It might be ten minutes. If it is, that’s a great start. Ten minutes devoted just to you and your goal may be more than you gave yourself yesterday. So claim it. Write it in your schedule. Decide in advance what you will do with it. Somebody just emailed me that she purchased my Emotional Eating Toolbox™ 28 Day Program but hasn’t had enough time to do it. Ten minutes a day won’t get it done in 28 days, but it WILL move her forward.

Write this down: Taking ten minutes counts.

Here’s the thing:

Action (even ten minutes) perpetuates action. Getting started—whatever your goal—is a momentous step and just that one act will get you over a hurdle.

Once you learn to carve out ten minutes and really leverage that time you are likely to see what ten minutes can accomplish. Many of us dismiss small actions as “not enough.” When we do that, we stay stuck. I bet you will find ten minute pockets in other places you haven’t been looking—on your commute, before the kids get up, while you are waiting for your computer to start up or your tea to brew. You may also start to see ways you can claim bigger chunks of time (wait until you see what you can do in 20 minutes).

Claiming the time you need for yourself and spending it on activity that is meaningful to you is rejuvenating. People who take regular breaks and who get the self care that they need have more energy.  They are more focused and accomplish more in less time. Claiming time will pay you back in ways that may surprise you.

Looking for time to claim will lead you to be more aware of how you spend your time—maybe not the big chunks of activity, but all the small pieces. It’s amazing the amount of time we give away to things that aren’t important, that we don’t really want to do, or to boredom, procrastination, or even difficulty getting started.

Don’t let not having time be an excuse. Set the timer and claim ten minutes. Today.

Take good care,

What Are Your Gold Medal Excuses? Emotional Eating and Success Traps

March 2nd, 2010, No Comments »

Did you watch the Olympics? I did, and, as usual, I was amazed. I am heading into March feeling inspired and energized by the examples of people stretching and achieving in the face of incredible challenges and odds. The key piece—most, if not all, of those athletes are pursuing their passions and taking them beyond the level most people even dream of.

When I coach my clients, I see one of my roles as that of helping them stretch the boundaries of their comfort zones and create a bigger picture of possibilities for themselves. The interesting thing is, when we stretch and expand—the right way—it doesn’t create a feeling of overwhelm or overload, it actually makes things feel more expansive and creates a sense of ease and freedom.

Sometimes we play too small (or we don’t play at all) because we feel stuck in scarcity—we don’t know how to get beyond that feeling of not having enough time or energy or resources. It’s a big mistake, and one that just keeps us working too hard on a hamster wheel where we never exactly get where we want to go.

This week I’m going to be blogging about places that busy women get stuck and my tips for stepping off the hamster wheel and moving toward those things you want to achieve.

Stay tuned—and let me know what you think. Leave a comment if you have a Gold Medal Excuse you’d like me to address.

Take good care,