Archives July 2012

Believe it or not, phantom hunger is the no. 1 most cited reason for why people fail to reach – and stay at – their happy weight.

Hang on a sec …what IS this phantom hunger thingy?

Hunger’s hunger, isn’t it?

Uh-uh.

Nope.

Definitely not.

It’s real easy to confuse physical hunger with phantom hunger because they feel the same, but there’s a world of difference.

For starters – one’s biological, the other, psychological.

And, if we only ate when we were physically hungry, we’d all be our happy weight by now!

So, what IS this phantom hunger?

Phantom hunger’s also known as comfort eating or emotional eating. Perhaps you think of it as binge eating. Maybe you have your own name for it.

But even if you don’t have a name for it, you probably recognise it as something you do when you’re stressed, bored or anxious.

“I eat. It’s just what I do when I’m stressed out. That’s how I cope with life.”

You can already see the vicious cycle phantom hunger creates.

Phantom hunger creates three issues out of one.

– You eat because you’re stressed.
– You feel guilty because you overeat.
– You put on weight. Which stresses you out even more. You eat some more.
– And, because you ‘avoided’ dealing with the original issue (by turning to food), you still haven’t dealt with that problem.

Duh!

That vicious cycle, dear reader, is why you need to get a handle on your phantom hunger.

The good news is that you can get to the bottom of your phantom stomach. And, you’re right, it isn’t by counting calories!

The first step in this journey is to recognise the difference between the two hungers.

True physical hunger

Physical hunger is biological. The hunger comes on slowly. It begins with a tummy rumble, which if ignored, develops into hunger pangs.  Any food will satiate you. Even stale bread looks appetising.  Most importantly, there’s no emotion involved. The decision to eat is purely rational – you’re hungry, you eat, job done.

Phantom hunger

Phantom hunger is psychological. It originates in your mind, not your tummy. And because it stems from the mind, no amount of food can fill it up. You can eat, and eat and eat some more, and still feel hungry. The phantom stomach is bottomless.

Yes, the hunger feels real, but it’s not. Nobody – trust me on this – ever starved to death by ignoring their phantom stomach.

Phantom hunger comes on quickly and only a specific food will satisfy. Usually something sweet, fatty or salty – whatever your specific indulgence food is.

(BTW: it’s never cauliflower or stale bread).

And it always has a trigger. Often it’s a specific someone or something. Maybe it’s an upsetting incident with your children or when your partner comes home in a grouch. Perhaps it’s after you get criticised at work or when you’re alone in the house?

But the most telling sign you’re feeding the phantom stomach is the accompanying guilt and remorse. On some level you know it’s not nutritional nourishment you seek.

It’s emotional nourishment you’re after and no amount of chocolate can ever satisfy that need. If it could, it would have by now! But more on that next week.

Homework

Having read this far, you now know enough to be able to recognise which of the stomachs you’re feeding – the real one or the imaginary one.

Your homework is this: continue to eat as you would normally, and observe yourself.

No judgement.

Just observation.

Look out for patterns. Notice how you feel when you overeat. Observe your triggers – is it certain people or specific events?

Don’t do anything.

Just notice is all.

By observing yourself you’ll start to build an awareness around when you’re eating for physical nourishment and when you’re eating for emotional nourishment.

If you do eat for emotional reasons. It’s OK. This week isn’t about gathering ammunition to beat yourself and make yourself wrong. It’s about bringing a mindfulness to how you live.

Watch and learn. Watch and learn.

Next week we’ll explore what to do with your phantom hunger. But for this week it’s about tuning into what’s real and what’s not.

Go observe : )

(Real) Love etc, Avril

Our sedentary lifestyle is causing as many deaths as smoking, a recent study suggests.

The report, published in the Lancet to coincide with the Olympics, estimates that one out of three adults fails to do the recommended dose of 150-minutes physical activity per week.

In the UK, USA, Australia and NZ, we’re especially sedentary with two out of three adults falling short.

The study claims our couch potato lifestyle is now so dire it should be treated as a pandemic.

Trouble is ….We all know we should move more and sit less.

We just don’t do it.

So, how does one incorporate the recommended dose of physical activity?

Here are six strategies for transforming your hit-and-miss exercise regime into a (mostly) daily habit.

i. Find activities you love.

If you think physical activity is limited to sweating-it-out on at the gym or pounding the pavement, you’ll benefit from being more creative.

Aim for discovering a variety of activities you enjoy so there’s always something you can do regardless of weather or time of day.

Look about you – there’s plenty to choose from. Be one with nature: walk your woofer, garden vigorously, mow your lawn.

If you feel unsafe out-and-about in your neighbourhood, stay indoors, turn up your stereo and dance your butt off.

Do whatever (yup, whatever) gets your heart pumping.

ii. Make it a priority.

Your activity time (30 minutes x 5 times per week = 150 minutes) must become non-negotiable.

If you don’t make this your intention, there’ll always be something that’ll rob you of your time.

Another way to look at it is – if you don’t make time for health, you’ll need to take time to be unwell.

Ouch.

You don’t need to be an Olympic athlete. Taking time to exercise your body is basic body care.

Another advantage to making activity time non-negotiable is that friends, family and colleagues see it’s part of your identity, and will support you. When you treat it as non-negotiable, so will they.

iii. Do it even when especially when you’re “too tired.”

We’ve all been there.You’ve had a long day, you’re hungry and tired, and you don’t feel like exercising today.

That’s exactly when you DO need to exercise.

Put your kit on, quit analysing how you feel, and JFDI.

When the exercise-induced euphoria kicks in, you’ll be pleased you did.

As a marathon runner, there are times when I “don’t feel like it” too. Often the hardest kilometre is getting out the front door.

But I’m always pleased I did. ALWAYS.

iv. Get a buddy

If you find getting off the couch difficult, commit to another person.

Adding the social aspect to exercising can really boost your commitment to the exercise habit.

“I’ll let myself off the hook, but if I’ve agreed to walk with a friend after work, I’ll never let them down,” as one former couch potato puts it.

v. Start small

Attempting to walk 20 kilometres on your first outing is a great way to scare yourself back to the couch.

For the first couple of weeks, take tiddler steps by exercising below your capacity. This way it’ll feel easy (we humans love easy!) and the habit will build on it’s own momentum.

If you haven’t exercised for awhile, walking 10 minutes, three times per day will give you your 30 minutes. Do that five times per week, et voila, you have your 150 minutes.

vi. Bribe yourself

Do you tell yourself that once you can zip your jeans without lying on the bed, that’ll be reward enough?

Not very inspiring, is it?!

Nothing makes changing our behaviours easier than bribery. You might buy yourself a specific album after you stick to your fitness plan for a month, or buy new shoes when you achieve 5,000 steps a day.

Do whatever works for you.

So there you go. Six strategies for leveraging yourself off the couch and into the habits of a healthier, energised, inspired new you.

Start today and you’ll be on Day 7 of your programme by the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. Just imagine!

Love etc, Avril

Conventional wisdom holds that less than 10% of people achieve what they set out to do.

Personally, I disagree. I think it’s closer to 5%.

So, why do the vast majority of us fail to see our goals through to the end?

Perhaps it’s a local 5km fun run you’re considering? Maybe you’re building up momentum to ditch those extra pounds, once and for all?

Whatever health goal you’ve been pondering – today, you’re going to discover the no.1 reason why people give up.

They lose their HUNGER.

We all know how jazzed-up you feel when first you set your goal.

Excited.

Energised.

Hungry.

Wonderful, isn’t it?!

Taking action is so eeeasy! But as time passes… your excitement fades, your actions cease. You’re no longer hungry.

I know I’ve been there before.

To achieve any goal, you need a slow-burning fuel. And, that slow-burning fuel contains the following ingredients:

i. Create rituals that re-connect.

To achieve your goal, you must stay connected to it over time. You need regular rituals that remind why you started the journey in the first place.

If you’re running the local 5km, you might create a ritual where every time you have a cuppa, you reflect upon why it’s important for you to cross that finish line.

Are you running to raise money for charity? Or is it so you become healthy enough to be around for your grandchildren? Is it a way of developing more pride in yourself?

There’s no right or wrong here. The key is to find something that ‘speaks’ to you.

Really take the time to feel an emotional connection to your goal. Once you feel excited, energised and re-invigorated, you know that your ritual has been successful and you’re on your way.

ii. Hang with supportive peeps.

If you want to stay hungry enough to achieve your health goals, you need to hang with peeps who have your back.

You’ve probably heard the saying: we become the average of the five people we hang with the most.

The key is to consciously choose the people you let into your world. Choose people who are on the path to a similar goal as yourself, or have already done what you want to accomplish.

They’ll lift you when you’re struggling, call you on your excuses, kick your butt or hold your hand – whatever the situation requires to keep you hungry.

But if you hang out with people who criticise your goal – and any changes they see in you – you’ll descend into a negative whirlpool, even if you are normally a super-positive individual.

iii. Develop an ‘It’s inevitable’ attitude.

In order to stay hungry enough to keep on keeping on, you need to develop an unshakeable belief in yourself. This is non-negotiable.

Health goals, especially if they’re something entirely new, can be daunting. Very daunting.

That’s where the ‘It’s inevitable – it’s just a matter of time’ attitude is very powerful. It’s the secret weapon to ensure the goal you commit to will be reached.

Not might be reached.

Not could be reached.

It will be reached.

Whatever your goal is, decide right now, that it will happen. No. Matter. What.

It’s not a matter of how or if. It’s a matter of when.

It’s just a matter of time. Because with enough energy, enough action, it is inevitable.

Notice how, when you shift from “Meeh… it’s possible” to “Yeah buddy, it’s inevitable”, your hunger increases.

Closing thoughts.

So, dear reader, I encourage you to mix these three key ingredients, in no particular order, and notice how you develop a powerful, steady slow-burning fuel that will keep you energised – and hungry – on the journey to achieving your health goals.

It’s just a matter of time.

Love etc, Avril

Yup… you read that right.

The title does sound slightly bonkers.

But, in my experience, it’s true.

Here’s why.

Most diets and weight loss sites talk about exercise in terms of ‘burning calories’.

As in, if you run for 20 minutes you’ll ‘burn off’ the chocolate chip cookie that accompanied your mid-morning cuppa.

Have a Big Mac for lunch? Well, a three-hour-run will ‘cancel out’ those calories.

But, by thinking of exercise as ‘burning off’ or ‘cancelling out’, you inadvertently reduce exercise to a numbers game.

And, the problem with thinking of exercise with a numbers mindset, is your workouts will be short-lived.

Very short-lived.

You’ll give up.

You’ll quit.

Exercising will become a torture session. You’ll feel like you’re ‘make up’ for the guilty pleasure of having eaten something yum.

And, eating will seem like a naughty pleasure where X no. of cookies = Y no. of hours exercising.

Sound like fun, no? No way! Ick.

It’s very possible you’ve been there already. I know I have.

Clearly, exercise is beneficial for shifting those extra kilos. Hugely beneficial.

Where most people fail is because weight loss is their singular reason for exercising. And soon they run out of puff, metaphorically-speaking.

If you’ve previously run out of puff where exercise is concerned, you need to change your reasons for exercising.

Here’s how.

The real reasons to exercise.

Before I share the real reasons to exercise, here’s a helpful aside that’ll make a world of difference.

Stop calling it exercise.

If you’re like most people, exercise has “Eww… I’m all sweaty and puffed,” negative associations. That’s exactly why the majority of good folk eschew it.

Instead, replace the dreaded E-word with ‘moving your body’. Our bodies are absolutely, brilliantly designed to do just that – move.

See, how suddenly it already feels more do-able just by changing what you call it?

Now, back to the real reasons for exercising Moving Your Body:

MYB lowers cortisol levels.

Cortisol is a stress hormone released by your body whenever you feel stressed. When your cortisol levels are elevated, your body tends to lay down fat, especially around your tummy.

MYB is the antidote for lowering your cortisol levels.

MYB increases your sensitivity to insulin. Increasing your insulin sensitivity sounds like it’d be a bad thing but it’s not. Here’s why.

The more you MYB, the more sensitive your muscles become to insulin, so your pancreas produces less insulin. Since insulin also instructs your body to lay down fat, less of it in your body, the better.

MYB increases feel good hormones.

When you MYB, you release some of the best stress-reducing drugs available – your body’s own natural endorphins. The release of these natural opiates positively affects your mood, enhances concentration and enables you to sleep more soundly.

And, finally…

As if these weren’t reason enough already…. MYB increases your sex drive.

And, certain hormones released during exercise have been shown to slow – and even reverse – the aging process.

Yay! Five tremendous reasons for exercising, none of which include weight loss. Although it WILL BE a happy bi-product.

To conclude.

If you’ve previously exercised to ‘lose weight’, stop it. It’s doomed to fail. Like all those other times.

Instead, Move Your Body. Because it’s terrific for you – and your brilliantly, intricately designed body – on so many other levels.

MYB every day and watch those extra kilos shift.

Love etc, Avril