Hey and welcome to the Mindful Balance Podcast, your guide to stop emotional eating and overeating and transform your relationship with food. I am Rachel, a nutrition and emotional eating coach, and I'm here to help women like you navigate through the complex world of eating habits, health, mindset, and emotional well-being. I hope that each episode here will be a step on your journey towards a healthier you by shedding light on different aspects of nutrition and emotional eating.
I am here to take out the need for quick fixes by showing you how it can be done differently. Whether you're just starting out or looking to deepen your understanding, you're in the right place. And if you're ready, let's dive in. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I took an unplanned break from the podcast. I will get into it in just a second, but I'm so happy to be here.
If you are following me on social media, I love being there too, but recording an episode is such a different experience. I feel like we can really go into so many deeper levels, and this is really a very special connection that I feel so grateful for having with you. It is officially summer, and it started off with a serious heat wave here in the Northeast.
So if you are home or in the car listening right now, maybe get something cold to drink because this is going to be an exceptionally vulnerable and important episode with lots of learning that I am going to share with you. I don't know if it's just me, but when I listen to podcasts, I am always curious about where the person is recording the episode. Maybe it's strange, and I don't know.
This is just some thoughts that I am having right now, but I love knowing, for example, if someone is sitting on the carpet in their walk-in closet, for example. For me, my pretend recording studio is in the basement of my house, and I never say that, but it is so nice and cold down here right now because, again, it is so hot outside and the AC is working overtime. And the basement, naturally, is where it becomes super cold in the summer.
And again, right now, I am not complaining about it at all. Okay, back to our episode. Let's talk about summer a little bit more because with all the fun that the season can bring, it also can be a very triggering time of year. If you are someone who is already not feeling the most comfortable in your skin, now seeing people with even less clothes on can be hard. Time for all the insecurities to surface. The comparison game can come on strong.
And just in general, this whole beach body concept is still, even years later, give me some serious chills and not in a good way. This is the time of the year when working on feeling good in your body is even more important. There are vacations, beach days, pool parties, summer dresses, right? The whole thing. So, I want to tackle this head on. If you're feeling this way, I am going to help you exactly with that.
And I'm going to show you how to apply the exact things that I am doing myself because life will happen. And sometimes you will experience a setback, maybe gain a few pounds or experience lots of overeating. And I know that it can happen at any season. But I also know that right now it can feel even more urgent to know what to do when that happens. So, a little bit of backstory. May and June are always insane months around here. Not just this year, but this year even more so.
And this is why my parents came to visit us. And let me tell you, it was like a storm of celebrations, right? All good. And I am really so grateful for having the opportunities to have them here. But we're also in the business of being honest here.
And we had birthdays, graduations, parties, and it really felt a lot like every other day was a new reason to go out or celebrate something or have a special meal, buy treats for the house, or just have my mom's special treats that we don't often get to have. So picture my house. Normally, it's a pretty calm and quiet place. And suddenly, it turned into this buzzing hive of activity. And the kitchen, in particular, became this... The best way to describe it is the epicenter of cooking chaos.
My mom, really bless her heart, was on a mission to spoil us with all her special dishes. We're talking homemade cookies and special stews, pastries, really enough baked goods to open a bakery. I am not kidding. And this is with the constant chatter that made it feel like a non-stop party. Now, I really pride myself on being mindful about what I eat. But with all the commotion and the endless stream of food, mindfulness kind of flew out the window.
It's hard to stay focused when your mom is urging you to try just one more of whatever that was that she was making that day. And if I dared to say, "No, thank you. I really had enough," she would automatically say, "But why?" So there I was eating more than usual. And honestly, I loved almost every chaotic moment that I had with them. But also, by the end of the four weeks of their visit, I started to feel it.
I don't really weigh myself, but I also didn't need the scale to tell me something was up. My clothes were a bit snugger, and I start feeling a lot more bloated, even compared to, let's say, Thanksgiving dinner. Okay, now, thankfully, I am not there anymore with the habit of going on the scale. I had years of that, including going on the scale before and after using the bathroom.
You may be someone who feels like they need to go on the scale every day or even multiple times a day, just as a way to keep yourself in check. And that's probably a topic that we can talk about a whole other episode. But for me, I realized at this point that, number one, I don't need the scale to know what's happening in my body. And number two, the scale is not the most reliable tool to measure progress, because of all the things that can influence the number that you see.
And the last thing is that it really ultimately messed up with my brain, like a lot, to the point that it was very toxic. And more often than not, it was just not helpful and not healthy for me, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. And this is just a side note about the scale.
But back to our story, as I was trying to wear my favorite jeans, I really had to laugh because it was like the universe was giving me this gentle nudge and reminding me that, yes, even me, someone who is the business of teaching others about balance, can sometimes find myself off kilter. And that's okay. The real kicker is that I wasn't just dealing with physical bloating.
It came with this emotional bloating, I would say, like I was carrying around a mix of joy and nostalgia, and to be honest, a little bit of guilt for not sticking to my usual routine. So, even though this month was really beautiful and wonderful in so many ways, it was also a reminder that, you know what, life happens. It's messy, it's unpredictable, and sometimes it includes a little bit more food than normal. And this is what I want you to hear and pay attention to.
You need to know that life will happen. If you are expecting to always be moving forward or always feel completely in control, you are ultimately setting yourself up for a disappointment. It's just not something that will happen. There will be times when you will overeat. There will be meals that won't be balanced. They're not going to be ideal or even remotely close to what you had planned.
Let's say you bring your nice, balanced salad to work and someone suddenly orders chipotle for everyone, and you decide that it is worth it for you, and you go ahead and eat something different, right? Than your original idea about your own salad. It will happen. So often, people think that everyone else has their life all kind of perfectly set up and that other people always do it right or never fail or never eat emotionally, let's say. And that is a thought bias.
People around you, people on the internet, everyone, we all have setbacks and thinking that it shouldn't happen is not looking at reality in the eyes. And I want to again to emphasize this, being able to acknowledge what is happening, what is happening in your body, what is happening in your life is one of the most overlooked skills. Just think about how often you think about something or even someone and you tell yourself that it should be different or that it shouldn't be a certain way.
When we cling to this unrealistic expectation or standard, it really stops us from being able to get to work. When you think I shouldn't have eaten so much, you keep yourself ultimately stuck in this judgment. And it's the closest thing I can think to an adult tantrum in a way. You close your eyes, you move your head from side to side and you say, "No, I shouldn't have done this." Right? I don't like it.
And that very tantrum takes away your energy and probably the likelihood of doing it differently. Getting at your point A is the only way to start moving towards your point B. How silly, just think about it for a second, how silly it would be if just to make it even clearer with this example, you had to go somewhere that's a few hours drive away.
And instead of planning your trip and checking out the best times to leave or even finding some cute places to stop along the way, what if instead you would spend your time being frustrated and annoyed that you don't live closer to your point B? The same goes to having a setback. It is not a question of whether or not it will happen to you. It is a matter of what you do next. And next always, always starts with owning where you are right now.
The big difference between where I am today, living a life of food freedom and really almost having zero food drama and guilt and someone, let's say, who is in the habit of binge eating, overeating, and really inside this diet cycle is that I know what not to do and what will really help me to quickly get back to the habits that I have been practicing for the last 10 years. Here are some things I will not be doing. I don't lose my mind over how I feel.
I don't fall into the trap of starting a detox or a new diet, right? Those I have been there, done that, it never works. I'm not going to beat myself up for eating more than I should or more than I needed in the last couple of weeks. And I'm also not going to start exercising, let's say, seven days a week, or doing all the things as a punishment for my overeating, quote unquote, "crime." I am just going to get back to the foundations.
And that is the core of my approach of living normal, healthy, balanced life, right? Nothing has gone wrong. We're just getting back to the foundations. Your body is changing all the time. We change. We change. Everyone changes, right? One thing that I have learned from many years of going on the scale multiple times a day is that we change. Our weight changes, and it's not a big deal. And it also doesn't say anything about us. It doesn't say anything about your worthiness or your progress.
No matter what happened over the last couple of weeks, I know that I didn't unlearn everything that I know, which is why I always tell my clients, really, it doesn't matter what happens. You are never back to square one. You can't. It is not possible to unlearn or unknow what you have learned and what you have gained the knowledge and the habits that you have right now. A setback did not make all this disappear. And I promise that I will give you all the details.
So for me, getting back to the foundations means this. And I'm going to, again, give it to you exactly what it looks like, what I am going to do. The first thing I do is I make a list of three doable, realistic, and impactful actions. There are many things that you can do, but these are the ones that I am choosing to focus on right now. And if you are in the same situation, yours may be completely different things, right? And that's okay.
So number one, I'm going to get back to eating consistent and balanced meals on most days. Eating consistently means that I'm not skipping meals. And I'm going to make sure that all my meals, including protein, fat, fiber. The next thing is I'm going to prioritize movement again, consistently. And for me, that's taking yoga class and Pilates classes four times a week, which I love. And it is in no way something that I have to do, but something that I get and I choose to do.
And again, for me, doing it four times a week is something that I feel like is realistic. You may be in a position where you feel like for you right now in the life that you have, in your circumstances, that twice a week is realistic. So choose that. Next, I'm also going to get back to my sleep schedule that also took a hit recently and making sure that I get solid seven hours of quality sleep. I am that weird person that really loves to wake up at 5 a.m. I am honest about it.
I really enjoy it because I find that for me, this is the best time to be my most productive self. And I take this time to kind of run my behind the scene work of my business. But to do that, I really have to get to bed early because sleep is one of the, again, one of the most underrated factors that impacts how we make food choices throughout the day. And that's it. Those are the three things that I'm doing. That's all I'm doing right now.
And I don't let my brain go in the direction of thinking, "Oh, it's too little or it won't work." This stuff works. I have myself and hundreds of women that I've worked with as a proof if I needed one. So here I am. I'm ready to turn the tide and kind of like bounce back, not with a diet or anything like an intense workout plan, but really mostly with kindness and mindfulness and lots of self-love and compassion.
And I want you to know that if you have had a week or a month or even more like mine, know that you're not alone. I want you to put yourself back in the priority tower, get back to the basic, whatever that looks for you. We all know ourselves enough to know what areas we can start working on right away to start feeling better and take care of ourselves. And if you need to hear this, then I am telling you that you have not committed a crime against anyone.
So also really, again, give yourself some grace and compassion. We all are doing our best, even if it doesn't always feel this way. You have got this. So time to get up, shake off all the drama and let's go. We have summer to enjoy. We have places to be, people to meet and goals to hit. I'm sending you from my basement, lots of love and courage. I'm right here with you. Take care. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Mindful Balance podcast today.
I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found inspiration to find your unique balance and growth. If you found value in this episode and feel inspired to make a change, I would love for you to subscribe to my show. Subscribing means that you won't miss out on any future episodes designed to help you create a positive relationship with your body and with food. If you are feeling generous, please take a moment to leave us a five-star review.
Your feedback not only helps us grow and improve, but it also helps other women like you find us and start their own journey to healing. And if you know someone who could benefit from our message, I would be honored if you share this podcast with them because we all deserve to live a life outside the emotional eating prison. Lastly, if you haven't yet, please come meet me on Instagram. You can find me @rachelemmanutrition. I'm your host, Rachel Emma, and I'll see you next time. Bye!
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