Tag virtual gastric band

I’ve had a couple of readers ask me this recently.

It’s a logical question.

Confusion among the dietitians

One minute we’re being told – if you want to lose weight, you gotta go keto.

But on the next page of the magazine, a different expert says “being vegan is the only way to go.”

Is it any wonder we’re confused?!!!!!!

I’m going to share my food philosophy – it’s super simple.

I think you’ll love it.

But first, I want to ask a question of you.

Here’s a more relevant question for long term weight loss

It’s a question I believe is even more important than the ‘what should I eat’ question when it comes to weight loss.

And that question is….

…“what’s eating you?”

As in, what’s going on in you

• that’s causing the night-time cravings for sugar?
• that means you regularly demolish a family-sized bag of chips? (without the family!!!)
• that’s making you snack and nibble throughout the day even when you’re not hungry?

Answer THAT question.

That’s where the real gold is.

Not what you’re eating.

But what’s eating you.

Until you get to the bottom of that question, weight loss will always be elusive.

Because I know plenty of vegans who’re carrying extra weight because sure they’re vegan but they’re living on chocolate and chips.

Does that make sense?

My food philosophy

Now I said I’d share my food philosophy.

It’s pretty simple.

1.  Eat small portions of food you enjoy. Enjoyment is key. Enjoy your food. No guilt, no shame, no beating yourself up. Enjoy your food.

And remember the most important question

2.  “What’s eating me?”

The clearer you get on that answer, the more you‘ll feel indifferent to junk food, intuitively select foods that are right for your body — and you’ll shift the excess weight.

I hope you found that helpful!

If you’d like help around exploring what’s eating you, get in touch – I’m here to help.

Have a lovely week x

PS: If you’d like more helpful and encouraging mindset tips that you can apply at home, why not come on over to Peace With Food.

As a child were, you taught to eat everything on your plate?

And now, as an adult, it feels almost sinful to leave any amount of food on the table — no matter how bloated your tummy?

Most of the women I work with grew up with this rule.

And, as you may have found —without hypnosis — it’s one of the hardest habits to break.

BUT IT CAN BE DONE.

Have compassion for yourself

Firstly, if you were raised with the well-intentioned guilt trip of “you have to eat everything on your plate because of all the starving children in the world,”

….I want you to have some compassion for yourself.

No wonder you have a sense of shame around leaving food on your plate or putting it in the bin.

After all, those starving children right.

Take back control with some logic

When we apply logic to the dinnertime rules we grew up with, we can take start to take our power back.

Think about it.

You eating everything you your plate helps those starving children — how exactly?

You knew that logic was flawed even as a child, didn’t you!

The only thing that guilt trip achieves is to teach us to ignore and override our body’s instinctual fullness signals — which sets us up for weight gain.

Please send it to the children

If you really want to help the starving children, what I encourage you to do is purchase, cook and serve smaller meals.

All that money you save on your shopping bill, send it to charity.

And with the smaller portion sizes, you’re no longer using your body as a waste bin either.

How practical and tangible is that?

PS: Your mum was coming from a good place. It’s probably she grew up listening to Aunt Gertrude’s stories of food storages from the Great Depression.

PPS: Remember eating everything on your plate is just a habit, and all habits can be changed. If you’d like help resetting unhelpful eating habits so you can be your happy shape and size, Lighten Up might be for you.

I read something on my Facebook feed this weekend that really made my hackles to go up. Mostly, I let the

COVID information on social media go through to the keeper because #fakenews.

There’s SO MUCH contradictory information which can lead to feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed.

The post that made my hackles go up.

Just to be clear, this post wasn’t from a COVID conspiracy theorist. It was from an official health source. It had all the logos.

What did it say?

“You cannot boost your immune system through diet.”

Wow.

Think about that for a minute.

What kind of disempowering, fear-inducing message is that?

Having helped hundreds of women to lose weight, here’s what I know to be true.

Someone who lives on McDonald’s has a vastly different immune system compared to someone who nourishes their body with nutrient-dense fruit and vegetables.

Here’s what it comes down to.

Our beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you believe,” I can’t boost my immune system with the foods I eat” then that will directly influence what you put in your mouth.

You’re far more likely to make low quality food choices.

I strongly suggest you replace that disempowering belief with something more encouraging, supportive and immune-boosting.

Grandaddy of medicine

Like what Hippocrates, the granddaddy of medicine, encouraged us to believe.

“Food is thy medicine”

Because it is.

When we believe that, we’re far more likely to make nourishing food choices which boost our immune system.

Have a beautiful day, wash your hands and boost your immune system with nourishing foods x

PS: If you’d like more helpful and encouraging mindset tips so you can make peace with food, why not come on over to Peace With Food.

Is this you?

How many mornings do you promise “today I’m going to start eating smaller portions!!!!”

But when you sit down at your computer after lunch, you wonder how the waistband of your trousers got so darn tight!

Here’s something I want you to ponder next time you’re tempted to eat a portion size larger than your body requires.

Ponder this…

There’s PLENTY of food.
There is more than ENOUGH food.
There’s an ABUNDANCE of food.

Obviously, there are food shortages in certain countries around the world, and that’s a tragedy.

But if you’re living NZ, Australia, UK, USA Europe – there’s oodles and oodles of food.

So …. all we have to do is remember that truth when we sit down at the table.

When we remember…

Because when you remember that there’s enough food – you’ll eat the perfect amount for your body.

Scarcity and anxiety…

But when we forget there’s enough food, we feel anxious and our scarcity-mindset kicks in, and we eat far more than we our body needs.

We eat to excess to compensate for the feeling of not-enoughness.

So, remember this ….

There is enough food.

And while we’re at it, let’s go a layer deeper….

There’s enough food, AND you too are enough.

Remind yourself of your enoughness before, during and after every single meal.

OK, lovely?

If you struggle remembering there’s enough food, and the truth that you too are enough, you might like to join the 100s of happy women who’ve made peace with food in Lighten Up. Next round starts in July.

If this is you, I feel your frustration!

I got an email recently from a lady asking what she should do as she had plateaued.

Since we’re all unique human beings, it can be difficult to pinpoint one single cause of weight retention.

And since she’s not a client, I don’t know her specifics.

But generally speaking…. the most common cause for a plateau is that you’re doing too much mindless eating.

Probably more than you realise.

It’s a real trickster.

If you think about it, what makes us overweight in the first place, is that sneaky combination of eating while our attention is taken up with something else.

What is mindless eating?

Mindless eating is scoffing dinner in front of the TV.

It’s snacking on nuts while driving.

It’s chips and dips and wine while watching the game.

Here’s the deeply upsetting fact….

Mindless eaters overeat.

When we eat, while doing something else, we eat more than our body needs, which is why we plateau.

Makes sense, right?

So what can you do?

How to be more mindful.

Here’s what that looks like:

Sit down at the table to eat your dinner.

While you’re driving, drive.

While you’re watching the game, support your team.

Stop multitasking, ladies!!! Just because we can multitask, doesn’t mean we should!

Without mindful eating in your life, moving from that plateau is nearly impossible.

But with a little mindfulness,  that frustrating plateau will soon be in the rear-view mirror.

Yay!!!

If you’d like help moving off that plateau – hypnosis can help – Lighten Up might be for you.