Is anger a feeling you are comfortable with or is it an emotion you go to great lengths to avoid? For many women, angry feelings are some of the toughest to acknowledge and cope with effectively. Before you tell me that it's not a part of your world, here's the truth: everyone gets angry. And contrary to what some women may have learned growing up, it isn’t pointless or unkind or impolite.

• How we handle the feeling
• How we choose to behave

What do you DO when you are angry?

Few things can be as frustrating as trying to change overeating habits and a busy lifestyle, multitasking, and being distracted can really get in the way. Food is always available and it’s so easy to reach for food or to overeat without even really knowing why. Every dieter knows how easy it is to start the day with good intentions about portion sizes and food choices only to find yourself having eaten more than you wanted, binged on junk food, or picked away at a plate of cookies that someone brought into the office.

Emotional eating–eating when you are stressed or overtired or even bored can be an automatic response that happens before you are even fully aware that you are doing it. Before you add unhelpful guilt to your list of triggers for overeating or ditching your weight loss plan, know that there is a much more enjoyable alternative. This is part 2 in this series about ways to stop stressing, stop doing too much, and create some inner peace.

Today’s tip for creating less stress and breaking old patterns with food and overeating: eat a mindful meal. It amazes me how many people multitask when they eat. When is the last time that you were fully present with the meal that you were eating? Fully present means that the TV wasn’t on and you didn’t have a book or a computer in front of you. You weren’t working or making lists of things to do. You weren’t driving somewhere or talking on your cell phone. When is the last time that you were fully aware—with all your senses—of each bite that you put into your mouth? When you truly savored every last morsel? When you were one hundred percent aware of what you were feeling and what you were experiencing while you ate?

For many reading this, I know it’s been a long time. Guess what? Mindful eating can be the key to breaking old habits with food and creating new ones. And you can get started almost instantly—as soon as you sit down to your next meal.

How to eat a mindful meal

Take a deep breath or two and allow yourself to really be in your body. Notice how your mind and your body are feeling. Really notice. You may have gone hours without paying attention. What’s on your mind? What emotions are you experiencing? How does your body feel? Are you tense or relaxed? How hungry are you? Where do you feel it in your body?

Put your food on a plate and sit down somewhere where you can enjoy your food without being distracted. Take a few more deep breaths before you do anything.

The goal of mindful eating is to fully experience every molecule of this meal. Savor it. Use all your senses. Slow down. Notice your food before you put it into your mouth. Smell it. Think about the experience you anticipate before your taste buds encounter what you are eating. Take a small bite. Feel it in your mouth. Really taste it. Stop and consider what you taste. Move the food around in your mouth.

How does it feel? Appreciate the flavor, the texture, the smell. Chew it well or let it melt in your mouth. Take your time.

Another goal of mindful eating is to fully experience yourself eating this meal. This might be a very new experience.

Be aware of how it feels to slow down and savor. You might be surprised at emotions that come up. Some women learn that they’ve developed a pattern of eating mindlessly so they won’t be aware of their thoughts and feelings or so they can overeat without really thinking about it. Obviously, that’s not helpful. As you eat, after each bite, ask yourself if you’d like another. Notice how your hunger changes. Notice when you stop savoring. Notice if you start to feel impatient with mindful eating.

As you practice mindful eating, you are likely to notice things about your eating and your relationship with food that aren’t really about the food at all. You may also find that you need some new tools or strategies to replace overeating so that you can be successful in the long term. It’s not necessary to practice mindful eating every single time you eat (although it can be helpful), but it can be very worthwhile to practice eating mindfully at least once a day. Some clients find it very helpful to identify the periods of eating that are the least mindful for them and use mindful eating techniques specifically during those times.

If you would like more help taking control of emotional eating or overeating or focusing on mindful eating tools and strategies, the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ 28 Day Program can be a very helpful resource.

Take good care,

Photo credited to Flikr.com/SimonGötz

Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight, get fit, journal regularly, meditate, be more patient, or get organized knows that it’s one thing to set the goal or even sign up for a program or buy a book. Creating deep, lasting changes that feel authentic and compatible with who you are? That’s a whole different ball game.

Change is definitely NOT a one shot deal. It’s a process—one with multiple stages. Lifestyle change—changing habits and behaviors and reactions that we may have had for a very long time—can be even more complicated.

What’s the difference between a “serial goal setter” (or yo-yo dieter, chronic gym joiner, etc.) and someone who succeeds? Not a whole lot. In fact, sometimes “being successful” is something we totally overthink and work so hard at that it actually gets in our way. Sometimes, the key difference can be as subtle as a mindset shift or focusing your attention in a different way.

Are you ready to stop struggling and start thriving? Here are four areas that you might want to focus on:

Be willing to change it up

If you want to change something, then the same-old-same-old obviously isn’t working. If past attempts at change have failed, then the way you’ve been trying to make this change hasn’t worked well either. This sounds obvious, but it’s an important point. Far too many people (usually high-achievers) sink themselves before they even start because they tell themselves that they haven’t succeeded yet because they haven’t worked hard enough. And so they start off with the same old plan once again—and push themselves harder.

All “hard work” is not created equal. While big changes sometimes take considerable effort, “hard work,” done with the correct tools and in a way that “fits” you is usually not half as much struggle as trying to do something difficult in a way that doesn’t really work for you, without the tools and “equipment” that you need.

Think about all the difficult things you’ve accomplished in your life. The ones that worked (and where YOU were willing to work), because you were passionate about the project or the goal truly fit you, or the reason you were working was so darn compelling that you wanted to keep going.

If you want to make lifestyle changes that last, you must be open to changing it up and not necessarily reusing the same tired plan of attack. Be open to new approaches and to the idea that you might not get to the finish line in the exact way you are currently imagining. In fact, it might even be easier and more fun than you are planning on.

In my next post I’ll be sharing with you a few more tips to help you be more successful at achieving your goals AND have a more enjoyable time doing it.

Take good care,

In my previous post, I shared how emotional eating can be a seductive trap for busy, high achievers. I also promised to share three strategies to help you take control of overeating and begin creating new, more effective habits. Click here to read about the first strategy. Here are a few more tips that can help you to overcome emotional eating.

2. Anticipate

You know yourself and your life better than anyone. Once a week or so, take a look at your upcoming schedule and leverage this wisdom. Identify any upcoming challenges or situations that might trigger overeating. Examples might be a busy week, time spent with certain people, holidays or special occasions, or something you are worried or unsure about.

Try this: Ask yourself now how you want to face these situations and allow yourself to consider what will help you achieve that goal. Be sure to ask yourself what you might need so that you function at your best and are less tempted to turn to M&Ms.

3. Make lists

Emotional eating and overeating generally happen when you are not at your best. You may be stressed or preoccupied or wanting to avoid something. When you are in the midst of a “trigger situation” is not the easiest time to create a winning success strategy.

Try this: Make some lists—today. Identify three situations or feelings that can trigger overeating for you. For each trigger, aim to list ten things you can try in those moments instead of reaching for food. For instance, if you are a boredom eater, your list might include things like going for a walk, putting on music, or calling a friend—but only if these are ideas that you think might address your boredom. Don’t panic if you can’t come up with ten ideas. Asking the question is a powerful first step. Let the question percolate in your head and then add to your list as ideas emerge.

Effectively ending overeating and emotional eating is about much more than focusing on food. Applying the strategies I’ve shared will help you tap into the root causes of your overeating. By addressing these causes directly, you can start to take more control of not only your eating, but your life.

Take good care,

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog series so far and have taken the opportunity to try out some of the ideas I’ve offered so far.  Here are my final two suggestions to round out the top 5 ways to get ready for fall.

4.     Face food facts. How does your relationship with food change with the seasons? If you are comfortable with your eating, than I challenge you to simply consider whether there is any place you could reduce some food prep stress. Think about creating systems, simplifying, or delegating. If food is an issue for you—if you tend to eat more during the colder seasons or move less or feel overloaded by holiday treats from October to January, then now is the time to be proactive.

Ask yourself how you want things to be different this year. Make sure that you don’t create a list of “don’ts” (as in “I won’t eat sugar and I won’t eat in the evening and I won’t…”). What you are looking for is a list of insteads or substitutions—as in “instead of____ I will ____.” Instead of snacking in the evening, I will work on a crossword puzzle, instead of snacking in the break room I will go outside, instead of…You get the idea. The point is that now is the time to identify any instead strategies that you need. If you come up with more problem areas than you have solutions for, now is also the time to enlist some help.

5.     Avoid the holidaze. The holiday season seems to be extended every year. Your challenge is to enjoy the occasions and the traditions without feeling overloaded and dazed by holiday stress or expectations.  One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself now is to be proactive. What DO you want to experience during your personal holiday season? What do you want to avoid? What stressful situations should you plan for or develop a strategy to cope with? Where could you use some extra support?

Perhaps the most important question of all in a season that can be jam-packed—what do you want to say no to or let go of?  If it’s a group event that stresses you out, chances are you aren’t alone. Do you want to let it go (skip it) or create a more enjoyable alternative? Now might be the time when these conversations are the easiest. Don’t forget to identify your “must-do” items—the things you really care about—and make sure they go into your schedule before everything else.

One of the most powerful ingredients for success (and for thriving) is having a foundation in place that supports you in what you are trying to do. The five tips above are all ways to do just that over the next few months. I challenge you to try them out and see how they work for you.

Interested in how you can have more direction, support, accountability and success throughout the holidays? I’ll be sharing information about my Thriving the Holidays program in the weeks ahead.

Take good care,

Last post, I introduced the concept of making peace with food and discussed how this happens when you can move past the food struggles and toward more satisfying solutions.

2.     Peace With Food Takes Courage (and it takes you new places)

A client told me recently that she’d never have predicted where she’d be now, seven months after she began coaching with me to transform her relationship with food. She’s thrilled with where she is. She’s made changes in her life that feel really good. She’s created more time for herself and she is addressing some needs she’d been trying to ignore for a very long time. She also shared that she’s not nearly as hungry for food as she once thought. She’s feeding herself in other ways. She feels in control of her weight. But she has also learned that in some ways, using food as the answer was easier than addressing the real problem was (at least in the beginning). It has taken courage to ask herself what she really needs.  However, by taking that courageous step, she’s feeling more grounded, more balanced, and more satisfied than she has in a very long time.

3.     Peace With Food Takes Time

The thing about food is that it’s easy and it doesn’t require a lot of dedicated time to eat it. If food is the answer, you can comfort yourself, respond to your stress, chomp out your frustration, or soothe your hunger while still driving the carpool, working late, or doing that volunteer project you committed to finish. Food is a seductive answer because you can squeeze it in to a very full life.

In all honesty, those other solutions—the enduring, satisfying ones that really address your needs—tend to require more time, thought, and commitment. Before you shake your head in despair, know that I’m sharing some critical information here.  If you are tired of failing with diets and food plans, it’s time to ask yourself whether what you really need are the tools and support necessary to create the mindset, skills, and strategies that will allow you to live a life that feeds you. You know, a life that works for you and allows you to thrive—one where your needs count and you feel comfortable saying no and asking for help (among other things). Yes, this often requires a redistribution of time and energy, and some new learning, but getting there is usually not nearly as drastic and difficult as you might think.

By the way, creating peace with food is a process that occurs over time. It doesn’t usually happen overnight. And yet, it can be amazing how seemingly small shifts can lead to big changes.

The final post in our series will unveil some key ideas to consider as you begin your path to peace with food.

Take good care,

To summarize my last post:  If you are eating for the wrong reasons, the only way to make a change that is satisfying and lasting is to find other answers, solutions or strategies that address those reasons.

Real Change Means Making Peace With Food

In the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ program, I teach a process for making peace with food. Peace with food is different from losing weight (although people who make peace with food often lose weight), enduring a diet or food plan (peace with food is not about doing something with food you don’t want to do), depriving yourself and going “without,” or feeling out of control and resigned to a life where food is “the answer to everything” (except that it really isn’t). Peace with food happens when you can move past the food struggles and toward more satisfying solutions.

The Path to Peace With Food

It’s important to know that peace with food is available to anyone. Really. No matter how long you’ve fought with food or your weight, no matter how much you struggle with emotional eating, it’s possible to create a new and improved relationship with food. Just like any change, it’s a process of taking the correct steps and making adjustments and changes—in a way that works for you.

1.     Peace With Food Requires New Answers

Peace with food only happens when you move beyond the food and start creating better, more effective, more satisfying answers. When you have a range of strategies to comfort yourself, to celebrate, to cope with anxiety or stress or boredom or loneliness, and when you know how to really zero in on what it is your spirit is needing or craving (the things that are not food)—guess what happens? Food loses some of its charisma and its importance. Oh sure, it still tastes good, and sometimes you’ll want to eat more than is really good for you, but the struggle to NOT eat and the drive to overeat or keep eating, is transformed. Because food doesn’t have the power that it once had—and—because you now have some higher quality solutions.

In the next post, I’ll go into more depth on how to successfully make peace with food and will show you how it really can make a difference.

Take good care,

Does it sometimes seem like food can be an answer to everything?  Had a hard day at work? Why not relax with some creamy pasta? Have something to celebrate? A dinner out is always nice. A heartbreak or disappointment isn’t fixed, but might be comforted with a bowl of ice cream in front of the TV. If you’re tired, sugar is easy to reach for, and munching on candy is a great way to distract yourself or just get through the work you don’t want to be doing.  Got stress? You might not even realize that you reached for the snacks until the bowl or the bag is almost empty.

Yep, for many women with a lot going on, food becomes a convenient, easy, low-maintenance band aid for whatever needs attending to.

So what happens when you want to change that?

Here’s the interesting thing. The biggest mistake that most people make when they want to stop overeating is that they focus their efforts on . . . the food. They develop a plan of what and when and how much they will eat. That’s how diets work (or actually—don’t work—but that’s another story).

You see the problem don’t you? If food is the answer to everything and you take food out of the equation, than you are still left without an answer.

If you are eating for the wrong reasons, the only way to make a change that is satisfying and lasting is to find other answers, solutions or strategies that address those reasons. Preferably ones that work better, address the real problem, and aren’t only a band aid.

This blog series will address the concept of making peace with food and the impact that it has on many aspects of life.

Take good care,

Are you carrying around weight that you can put down? This is a question that’s crucial to your long-term success.

I don’t need to tell you that losing weight is hard work—really hard work. What I can share is that many people get stuck in attitudes and ways of thinking that make losing weight even harder. Some attitudes that people often think of as motivating, actually tend to de-motivate us. Trying to lose weight with these mindsets is like trying to climb a mountain carrying a fifty pound boulder. The journey is much easier if we put the boulder down.

JUDGMENT & SELF-CRITICISM

When a new client begins to talk to me about her weight struggles, I can often feel the heaviness that enters the conversation. Her voice may change, her posture slumps, she may adopt an expression of embarrassment or shame or guilt. Her energy dips. Clients talking about attempts to lose weight often stop making eye contact and sound very tired, and frustrated, even angry with themselves. Repeated attempts at weight loss (and repeated weight regain) leave people frustrated and cynical about their ability to succeed. Clients often tell me how “they have failed at weight loss.” They feel defeated and angry with themselves before they even start their next attempt.

Here’s the thing: when we don’t succeed at an undertaking, we are not failures. It is our plan or our approach that has not worked. Beating ourselves up gets us nowhere, and it diverts us from the powerful and important task of reevaluating, taking inventory and making corrections to our approach so that we can get back on target. In addition, the negativity and self blame weigh down our future attempts at success by causing us to feel less capable and less hopeful.

When we’re the most disappointed, the most frustrated and the most vulnerable, many of us have this thoroughly unreasonable idea that an emotional version of the slap-upside-the-head is what’s needed. If we allow it, the critical voices in our head that tell us we’re “not good enough” or lazy or incapable can really take control. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard tell me the harsh, awful, demeaning things their judgmental inner critic tells them about themselves and then, in the same breath, tell me how carefully they listen to it! This is not helpful!

The first step in creating a successful plan for weight loss is to attack that judgmental attitude head-on. If you’ve been frustrated in your efforts to lose weight in the past, it wasn’t you that failed—it was your plan that didn’t work. Anger and self-critical judgment don’t effectively motivate anyone for more than very short periods of time, and long-term, these attitudes will get you seriously off track.

Keep an eye out for my next post where I’ll lay out some simple and practical ways to overcome those inner voices that keep you from your goals.

Take good care,

Last week I blogged about plate sizes and research that shows that the size of your plate affects the size of the portions you serve yourself and ultimately, your weight.    Around the same time, my husband pointed out that our own plates and dishes (wedding gifts from the 1980s), were dwindling in number and not looking nearly as spiffy as they had when we watched the Huxtables eating from a similar set 20 years ago.

Browsing online, I decided to look for a ten-inch plate like I blogged about last week, and for the first time ever, paid attention to the actual size of dinnerware.  Wow.  Oversized is in, with advertisements literally bragging about how much their big dishes will hold.

And apparently, size is important to Americans. I ended up ordering a basic white set of restaurant dinnerware from Williams Sonoma.  It met my requirements—neutral, tough, and it has a 9 ¾ inch dinner plate.  Before I ordered, I skimmed the 91 reviews that customers have submitted.  Size matters, and was frequently mentioned among reviewers who couldn’t agree whether the plates were too small or just right. A few like me had actually been drawn to the dishes because of the smaller plate size.

I’m a little nervous.  I’m the only female in a house with three males who love to eat.  Our current plates are not only bigger, they have a lip around the edge that allows for “extra.”  Will I face a mutiny?  Brian Wansink’s team claimed the downsizing was painless.  I’ll report back.

Take good care,

Melissa