A Thanksgiving Recipe for Less Stress and More Happiness

November 27th, 2013, Comments

Believe it or not, there are actually easy simple ways to tackle stress eating, overwhelm, and getting healthier and happier. Healthy thinking and mindset are critical pieces to making effective changes that last—without willpower and feeling deprived.  Even better, easy simple changes are the ones that are most likely to stick around and become habits that you do without even giving them much thought. Sound appealing? Here’s a quick recipe for lowering stress, boosting happiness, and creating more effectiveness in your life.

less stress eating with healthy thinking 250x246 A Thanksgiving Recipe for Less Stress and More Happiness

An Easy Recipe for Less Stress and More Happiness

  1. Before you leap out of bed and start your day, stop. Lie still and take one deep breath.
  2. After your big breath, make a decision. How do you intend to approach your day? Pick a word that fits—confident, happy, exasperated, stressed, sluggish, uncertain, passive, energized, cautious—you choose. Truth be told, we make the choice every day, so today, do it deliberately.
  3. While you brush your teeth, mentally list five things you are grateful for. Begin your day by setting your sites on things that go right.
  4. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish or feel by the end of the day. Say it to yourself in a sentence. “By the end of the day I will _______________.” Hint: focus helps. You should be able to speak your sentence in one breath.
  5. Before you eat, take another deep breath and pause.
  6.  Ask yourself how you’d like the food you are about to eat to be of service to you. Will it nourish, comfort, provide pleasure or happiness, give you a break, fill you up, or something else? Before you eat, stop and give thanks that you have this food and the opportunity to choose this experience—whatever it is.
  7. End your day with a ritual. Before you close your eyes for the night, tell yourself one thing you feel good or proud about that happened this day.

Have you created easy rituals that became daily habits? What has worked for you? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Melissa1 A Thanksgiving Recipe for Less Stress and More Happiness

 

 

The Number One Mistake Emotional Eaters Make

November 20th, 2013, Comments

emotional eating mistakes 250x250 The Number One Mistake Emotional Eaters MakeBelieve it or not, the number one mistake emotional eaters make has nothing to do with food–but it flavors everything.

The number one mistake people make when they are trying to gain control of emotional overeating is that they get mad at themselves and beat themselves up emotionally when things don’t go as planned, when they have a slip,or when they overeat. Self-critical judgment is a dead-end place.

You tell yourself you’re “wrong” or “bad” or “hopeless.” You “screwed up” and you’ll have to do better tomorrow.

Like children, adults don’t thrive with punishment and negative words. Think about it. How often is the moment that you decide you’ve “blown it again” the very same moment you decide to go ahead and finish the bag of chips or the cookie dough or whatever it was you just got mad at yourself for eating?

Judgment and self blame are negative, closed, restrictive places.They do nothing to encourage creative problem solving, optimism, resourcefulness–the very things needed to move forward in your emotional eating journey. In fact, when we pile on the self-blame and the guilt, we’re more likely to want to go to bed and pull the covers up over our head than we are to want to keep moving forward.

Curiosity is the opposite of judgment. Curiosity is the tool of problem solvers. Curiosity is one of the most powerful tools you can learn to use in making peace with food. Curiosity provides the power to ask questions that will open doors and propel you forward in a journey to take the power back from food and diet. Curiosity allows you to see options and opportunity and new solutions. It’s the avenue for learning how to “do it differently.”

It’s impossible to be absolutely curious and full of self-judgment at the same time. (Click to Tweet)

It might be hard to imagine changing old habits of self blame and that feeling that you “deserve” to be hard on yourself, but my clients are amazed at how powerful that shift feels when they learn how to make it–and how much momentum it provides.

Three ways to engage your curiosity to take control of emotional eating:

Next time you are struggling with your eating or your weight, try on the following questions. Work to suspend judgment and approach the questions and your answers with curiosity:

  1. What do I know about what made today (this afternoon, this week) so difficult for me? What contributed to my struggles?
  2. How was today (a difficult day) different from yesterday which was a little bit better? Is there anything I could learn from the difference that I might incorporate into my life or routine?
  3. What was going on for me before I overate? What could I have done instead of eating?

Learning to let go of the self-blame and embrace a curious mindset is something I walk you through in The Emotional Eating Rescue Plan for Smart, Busy Women. You can also check out this free emotional eating video training series where I share common weight loss mistakes and four ingredients that are critical to taking control of overeating and emotional eating.

Take good care,

Melissa1 The Number One Mistake Emotional Eaters Make

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