Q&A Why You’re Mindlessly Eating Through Zoom Calls (and What to Do Instead) | TMOHP Episode 182

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Too Much On Her Plate podcast. I am really enjoying these Q&A episodes where I am taking questions from listeners and using an episode to answer them. If you have a question that you would like me to address in one of the podcast episodes, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out via the website, which is TooMuchOnHerPlate.com, or you can reach out on Instagram at Too Much On Her Plate.

Let me know what your question is. Paint me a picture of what's going on for you and I'll do my best to include as many of these as I can in upcoming podcast episodes.

Today I am talking about a topic that frustrates a lot of women that I know. A lot of women that I work with, and it has to do with mindless eating at work.

 The question that I'm going to take on today is from somebody who's specifically struggling with mindless eating during endless Zoom calls. Maybe you can relate. So let me read the question to you and then I'll tackle it.

Okay, here's today's question. I'll be in a Zoom meeting that is dragging on forever. And without even thinking, I find that I have snacked through the entire thing. Sometimes I don't even remember what I ate. I don't remember that I was eating it. I just looked down and realized the food is gone. It's not like I'm even tasting it. I hate that out of body autopilot feeling, why is this happening and what can I do?

This is something that so many women experience and then, like I said, blame themselves for and beat themselves up for not being able to break the habit. You're in a long meeting. Maybe you are in a long chain of meetings. Maybe they're boring. Probably they're boring. Maybe they're tense. Maybe you have a lot of pressure on you, all eyes are on you.

Or maybe you're multitasking or trying to look like you're listening, but your brain is drifting elsewhere. And somewhere in the background of all of that, you reach for the snacks. And you keep reaching for the snacks. Until the bag is empty or the M&M's are gone and you didn't even taste them.

And the pattern that you probably fall into is trying to address the problem by increasing your self-control. The thing is, this is another example of a place where this is not a lack of discipline problem. It's probably a disconnection problem. When we are overstimulated or understimulated or disconnected or trying to override uncomfortable feelings, it is easy to slide into autopilot.

 And one of the easiest, most accessible ways to numb that stuff away or push it down at least temporarily, is food. Zoom meetings, and I'm talking about work Zoom meetings. They are especially a perfect storm.

You are stuck in one place, you're sedentary. Often, they are incredibly passive. They go on way too long, and your brain is probably under engaged or overstressed. One of the two. So what does it do? It looks for something to do. I'm talking about your brain. Your brain looks for something to do. Something that feels good. Something that's familiar. A little bit of joy. That's what my one client says. I just want a little bit of joy.

And if food is something that has been that before, or if food has helped you cope with these particular feelings before it becomes the obvious choice. And you know what, it's already the obvious choice because it's there. Because it's there, because it's easy. Because you can keep on keeping on with the meeting and you can eat the food.

And here's the thing, as frustrated as you might be with this mindless snacking and how hard it is to interrupt. The mindless snacking isn't about the snacks. It's about what you're not getting in the moment. On that zoom call, which could be a lot of things, but it's probably that you're not getting connection or you're not getting stimulation, or you're not getting movement. Or you're not even present.

You don't feel alive.

Let me get even more specific so you can run this through your brain and see if there's a part of this that relates to your experience. Maybe you are autopilot eating in meetings because your nervous system is under stimulated and you're just looking for relief or focus.

That's kind of fancy talk for saying maybe you're bored. Maybe you're emotionally checked out. Or you're uncomfortable, and food is this thing that helps in the moment.

Maybe you're trying to perk yourself up. Maybe you're trying to feel something, even if it's just taste or texture. Or maybe this is stressful or you're just feeling off and you're using food to ground yourself or to anchor you.

Your thoughts come into play here too, because you're on this long boring zoom meeting or this long challenging zoom meeting, and you probably have a story in your head about how much you, or at least a part of you wants to be doing the snacking right now. I really just want to eat the chocolate. I want to eat the cookie. I really want to eat the chips. What that means is it sets you up for a battle because it means not doing it is one more hard or uncomfortable thing.

You're fighting yourself. You want to eat and you don't want to eat. You want to eat. You don't want to eat. You know what the brain solution is to that. sometimes? You just go numb and you do it on autopilot. So what are some ways to work with this without guilting yourself? Without adding more rigid rules? Without depriving yourself? Without making it hard?

The first thing, and it's almost always the first thing, is you get curious. You get curious. What's going on here? You create tiny pauses. Little breaks.

And I want to throw in a third thing that can be helpful in a situation like this. And that's adding a little bit of friction. Not as a secret diet like way of depriving yourself. But as a way of waking yourself up when you're on autopilot. So that you can get present enough to decide what you want to do instead of taking mindless action. That was a lot of words. I'm going to say more about what I mean here. Okay?

What do I mean by adding a little bit of friction? Well, it might look like putting the snacks out of reach so that you need to stand up or you need to move to get them. Or not keeping them in your office. It might look like giving your hands something that you can do while you're in the meeting. Having a little fidget toy or playing with your pen or doodling.

I would recommend if you haven't already, you start getting curious about what you're feeling before the meeting starts. Start practicing checking in with yourself before you hit start meeting. What are you feeling? Are you bored? Are you dreading the meeting? Are you tired? What's going on inside of you?

If you're going to eat while you're on Zoom or whatever your particular problematic situation is, make an agreement with yourself to practice tasting one bite completely before reaching for the next. Make an agreement with yourself to experiment with eating mindfully, one bite at a time.

We tend to give ourselves these blanket statements like, I'm going to eat mindfully today. Or I'm going to eat this whole meal mindfully. And it doesn't work because it's so easy to lose focus. But what if you practice one mindful bite at a time?

Here's the thing that I have seen help so many women in this situation. And it'll sound like a little thing, but it really isn't because one of the reasons this autopilot eating happens in situations like these endless zoom meetings is there's so much going on. Or there's so much calling for your time or your attention, even if it's boring, that you want to do something to escape it or to numb yourself out. Oftentimes there's so much overlap, right? You're clicking end meeting and you're already late to the next meeting. Or you didn't have time for lunch, so you go to grab it from the refrigerator so that you can eat it maybe mindlessly during the meeting that has already started.

Here's my tip for you, and again, I have seen this be helpful for so many people. Try giving yourself even the tiniest bit of extra time in between your meetings. Give yourself five minutes or 10 minutes in between the meetings instead of booking yourself into the new thing on the hour. Even if this means that sometimes you show up three to five minutes late, or you leave a meeting three to five minutes early.

Having the time to settle yourself from the thing that just ended and prepare yourself for the thing that is beginning. And maybe even take a breath and check in with yourself and notice what you're feeling and what you need and what is going on inside of you.

Having two minutes to stretch your muscles or get up or move around the room. This sounds like the most insignificant thing. And it is sad that we have to talk about giving yourself two or three minutes in between things. But I'm here to tell you it will make a difference. It will have an impact.

 Taking a little bit of time after the meeting is over is huge. One of the most important things that you can start to do or maybe get better at is to practice checking in with yourself.

And yes, you can check in with yourself before. But it is incredibly powerful to check in with yourself after. After. After the meeting, even if you mindlessly ate through the whole thing. Especially if you mindlessly ate through the whole meeting.

Instead of being yourself up, this is the place to ask yourself curious questions like, what was going on? What was I needing in that moment? What was the food helpful with? Or what was I hoping the food would fix?

Unless you've been so busy that you have not been taking care of yourself and not feeding yourself, which is always a possibility, you won't be surprised how often the answers to the questions that you get curious about have nothing to do with physical hunger.

Change begins not with depriving yourself, not with being mad at yourself, not with guilting yourself, but with this kind of curiosity. What went wrong here? What would've helped me? What do I need?

There's a reason you're doing what you're doing. There's always a reason that you eat. Even if what you're doing seems like a mindless, unconscious habit. There's a reason. The food that you are reaching for and finishing without even tasting is doing something for you.

 You have thoughts and feelings and beliefs and needs that are powering the eating that you're doing.

Changing mindless eating habits is not something you do in one shot. And the good news is it's not something that you have to do perfectly in order to make a big impact. You just have to start doing it. Start paying a little bit more attention. Start being a little more curious.

Next time you catch yourself halfway through a sleeve of crackers while you're staring at your phone or your computer screen, take that as a cue. Not to be mad at yourself, but to ask, okay, what am I needing right now? What am I feeling inside my body?

Just start asking the question. Just start being curious. Ask the question and then give yourself the chance to answer. And just to be clear, because I know how smart, high achieving brains work, I am not saying that you need to quit your job. Or you need to skip the meeting. Or you need to stay at work so many hours longer so that you can have all this time in between the meetings. You probably have to go to the meetings.

What I'm saying is that even inside these things that you cannot control the routines and the rituals and the meetings that you really don't like. You can start noticing a little bit more of what's happening inside of you. You can create a teeny tiny shift. And that teeny tiny shift is going to reverberate more than you think.

I know there's probably a lot you can't control during your workday or maybe during any other times of day. But when you start noticing what's happening inside of you, when you start asking curious questions, not only can you start to respond to those things, but you start to change that feeling of being out of control or being forced to do things.

And you start to create more places where there is an opportunity to make decisions, to act intentionally and to make choices. And this is a piece of how you begin to take the power away from food and to take it back for yourself.

I hope this helps, and I'll talk to you soon.