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Signs You May Have An Unhealthy Relationship With Food

1/20/2024

Blog Post by Coach Julie

NCI Certified Nutrition Coach Level 1 and Certified Mindset Coach
Specializing in Gut Health and Women's Health

Fitness and nutrition are absolute staples to being your happiest, healthiest self. The problem is, some people take it too far. Coach Kayli and I have seen people lose a significant amount of weight and find themselves obsessing over their food, weight, fitness, clothes, etc. This really isn’t that uncommon. We usually see this when a person has struggled with emotional eating or binge eating. They lose body fat, but they never treated the root cause of the emotional eating. As with health, you have to treat the root cause or the issue doesn’t go away. Usually emotional eating is caused by unhealed trauma. When a person loses weight but doesn’t work on healing old trauma, they simply replace the old unhealthy coping mechanism with a new unhealthy coping mechanism. We see them go from binging food to not eating, obsessively weighing themselves, or overexercising. These habits can be just as dangerous for people as overeating. The key to being successful is obtaining and maintaining a healthy relationship with food. Here are some signs that you may have an unhealthy relationship with food:

Obsessively weighing
You’re completely inflexible about food - Choosing to not eat if there isn’t a “healthy” option present
You think about food all the time
You prefer to eat in private
Food guilt distracts you from conversations
You feel the need to work off food you eat
Yesterday’s lunch makes you hate yourself
You feel ashamed when you eat something you’re not supposed to eat
You punish yourself for eating something that deviates from the rules
You deny yourself food you really crave
You worry about having food to eat in social settings
You cut out entire food groups, like carbs or fat
You eat foods even though they make you feel bad
You’re always either on a diet or off a diet, no middle ground
You’re embarrassed about the amount of food you ate
You binge on food unconsciously

If you recognize any of these traits, it may be time for you to reach out to a mental health professional to help you work through any issues you may have with food. Disordered eating is a legitimate issue that you should address. You shouldn’t live your life chained by food or fitness. Food and fitness should be things you enjoy and tools to help you live healthy.

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10 no-nonsense strategies to help you lose fat more easily this year.

1/15/2024

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Welcome to 2024!

As we dive into the new year, let's focus on what really matters for fat-loss. I'm not about quick fixes or fads. It's all about practical steps you can actually stick to. This is my 9th January working in fitness, and I'm often inspired and rejuvenated by the new year too. Many people bash "resolutions," making it feel vulnerable to admit having big health goals for the new year. But you aren't alone. There are plenty of others watching this who want to improve how they look, move, and feel.

The number one thing I hear from people at the beginning of each new year is their desire to lose weight, closely followed by wishes to eat "better" and "exercise more."
Let’s tackle two out of these three: losing weight and eating better. These are the two things (besides maybe better sleep) that will help you feel better.

So here is Tip #1 of the 10 no-nonsense strategies to help you lose fat more easily this year.

Go Slow, Be Patient: Losing 1 pound 50 times is more realistic than dropping 50 pounds at once. Patience is key. Weight loss really does take time, and it's rarely linear. Meaning there will almost always be periods on your weight-loss journey where your weight might not be going down (in fact, it might even be going up, yikes). But, as the saying goes, "knowing is half the battle". If you know that losing weight takes time, if you know that rates of 1-2 pounds/week tend to be more sustainable, and if you trust the process you will get there.

1 pound/week is 52 pounds in a year.
2 pound(s)/week is 104 pounds in a year.

Don't freak out when you see your weight bump up *one* day.

Stay Hydrated: This is one of the ones that will help in the looking and feeling better department. Few things will have your hair, skin, and nails looking better than drinking more water. Additionally, water will no doubt keep you fuller and result in you eating fuller calories (the key to weight loss).

Which is why, in a part of the year that's all about habit formation, I beg that you consider just drinking some more water.

This is without a doubt the easiest of all the things I've put on this list today, and it will help you look, move, and feel better - while making fat-loss easier.

I aim for around 75oz of water/day. You can push that as high as a gallon/day. But a good rule of thumb is around half your bodyweight (in pounds) in oz. of water.

Protein is Your Friend: Build your meals around PROTEIN.

If you follow me on social media, or subscribe to my podcast, then you know how I feel about protein.

Of the three macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats) protein has the greatest impact on:

- body composition
- muscle mass
- fat loss

Protein keeps you full, fuels muscle growth, and promotes changes in body composition. To take advantage of the "power of protein" do this:

- aim for 0.6-1.0 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight in grams of protein/day. If you are heavier, you can use your "goal weight" instead of your bodyweight.

- spread that out across the day. I'm talking 4,5,6 protein "feedings"/day.

- lots of protein rich snacks.

Fiber and Veggies: Every meal should have them. Think fruits, veggies, whole grains. A list of my favorite sources of fiber, fruit, greens, etc.

- apples
- berries
- carrots
- beans
- whole wheat bread
- rice
- oats
- spinach
- green beans
- peas

Don't make this a bigger deal than it needs to be. Your mother was absolutely correct in her assertion that you need your veggies to grow up healthy and strong.

Rethink Snacking and Beware "Caloric Leak": Out with ultra-processed, hyper-palatable options. In with high-protein, high-fiber choices.

Snack on more things like yogurt, cottage cheese, protein shakes, protein bars, carrots, apples, grapes, berries, cheese, etc.

Snack way less on things like chips, cookies, candies, pastries.

And CUT the liquid calories. This is a HUGE HUGE driver of what I call "caloric leak".

Huge sources of caloric leak: condiments, creamers, anything you "graze", bite, lick, taste, or sip, coffees, lattes, alcohol, dips, aioli, etc.

Audit Your Kitchen: What's in your fridge and pantry matters more than you think.

Load those two things up with things you regularly snack on and use for meals.

As for the freezer, I'm a huge fan of keeping frozen proteins, fruits, and vegetables to quickly build meals and prepare ahead.

What's in your fridge, pantry, and freezer, tends to end up in your belly. Well, except the bag salad you buy every week only to throw out after it expires.

So take a few hours and overhaul what you have access to at home (to the best of your current abilities of course).

Move More: Less sitting, more stepping. It's about movement, not just calories burned. Nothing makes fat-loss harder than being categorically sedentary.

Besides being a small, sedentary woman. Then it's really hard.

The smaller your body mass, and the less you move, the harder fat-loss is.

The larger your body mass, and the more you move, the easier fat-loss is.

There's nothing magic about getting 10,000 steps/day. But that's all time not spent eating, spent moving, spent outside (often), and all that matters for fat-loss much more than the calories you actually burn moving.

Aim for 10,000 steps/day.

Don't Underestimate Sleep: It's crucial for mood, willpower, and appetite control. Good sleep aids in fat-loss and muscle retention.

It also helps you feel much better and recover from hard workouts.

This is harder for people and families with kids, shift workers, and other populations, but if you can make the time for a little more sleep, fat-loss and eating better become much easier.

One of the big reasons being that time spent sleeping isn't time spent eating.

Keep It Simple: Avoid crazy diets and extreme rules. If it's not sustainable for a month, it's not sustainable at all.

All your fat-loss and food behavior change efforts need to have staying power to work. Because changing your body is a slow process. So a diet you can only do for 2-3 weeks isn't going to cut it unless you only want to lose 8-10 pounds. And even then... kinda sketchy.

Consider Cutting Alcohol: It's often a primary culprit in weight gain. Plus, it disrupts sleep and recovery. So if you can cut it, and try a "dry January" I would do it.

Nothing is going to change the way you "feel" more quickly than giving up the booze for a bit if you like to indulge.

You might try the same with something else you enjoy that isn't serving your health, maybe it's coffee in the morning, smoking, toxic behavior, who knows. It's the new year, which means it's a great time to take inventory of what isn't serving you, and leave it behind (if you can) in the new year.

That's what I have for you today. But I'll keep dropping by with little blurbs as the year goes on. I want to help make 2024 your fittest year yet.

Stay strong, Coach Kayli!

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Signs You May Have An Unhealthy Relationship With Food

Blog Post by Coach Julie

10 no-nonsense strategies to help you lose fat more easily this year.

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