4 Steps to Stop Mindless Eating

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Full Episode Transcript:

4 Steps to Stop Mindless Eating

Hey there career women. I want to talk to you today about mindless eating, because it’s an eating habit that feels so uncontrolled for some, which leads to a feeling of helplessness and disbelief that you can break this habit.

And for others, mindless eating may seem harmless enough, but there are definite downsides to consider. And for some of you, you may suspect you’re mindlessly eating, but aren’t entirely sure. This episode will address all of this.

I’m going to give you 4 steps to stop mindless eating, but first will define it, and go over the downsides of it. When you know the downsides and how it can hurt your eating habits and weight loss goals, it motivates your brain to stop the mindless eating.

Also, I’ll cover how career women are especially prone to mindless eating. Then, I’ll go over some specific situations that you may find yourself in.

For that, I want you to listen to see if any of these are situations you find yourself in. That will be key in the final part of this which is the four steps to stop mindless eating. And then as a bonus, I’ll share a mindset shift to help you stop mindless eating.

Before I dive in, if you haven’t received the free course on crushing bad eating habits, simple solutions for career women, get it using the link in the episode description.

It comes with a workbook that you can print out to help you put in place a simple plan to break those bad eating habits that I cover in the course.

I cover three different very common eating habits that career women have. These include emotional eating, using food as reward, and also quick and convenient eating secondary to your busy schedule. So grab that with the link in the episode description.

Alright, so mindless eating is when you’re eating and you’re not fully aware of it. It’s almost like an unconsciousness. I know that’s a very broad definition, but I will give you some specific examples of common mindless eating situations.

Some of you may think that you’re able to concentrate on eating and doing something else – multitasking. But only a teeny tiny part of the population can actually multi-task where they’re giving each thing almost full attention.

Mindless eating is very automatic, because you are making the motions of grabbing the food, putting it in your mouth, chewing and swallowing. Whether that’s with your hands, a fork, a spoon.

The downsides are that it sets you up for overeating. Meaning, eating more than what your body actually needed. Because if you’re not fully aware, then how do you know when you’ve had enough to eat?

And when you eat more than what your body actually needed on a frequent or daily basis, that is when you will gain weight. Or you may have other uncomfortable sensations from overeating, such as stomach discomfort, bloating, feeling of drowsiness.

Another downside is that it quickly becomes a habit, because every time you eat while you’re doing is specific activity, it forms a link.

For example, working or watching a Netflix series at 8:00 PM. Your brain forms the link between that specific activity and the behavior of eating. This means that because there’s that link, you can easily end up eating when you’re not actually hungry.

Your brain just alerts you that you should be eating, because of the link it has formed between that specific activity and the behavior of eating. Not necessarily true hunger.

And once that link has been created, it turns into a habit.. The more you feed into this habit the stronger it becomes. And then you feel like you need to have a snack or need to have something to eat every time you watch Netflix.

My client this morning told me that she used to eat a snack at night while she watched a particular TV show. She felt she had to have the snack while she watched the show. Like there is no other option. Like it didn’t make sense to watch the show without the snack.

Now, she realizes that that made no sense and simply wasn’t true. She realizes that there’s no reason she needs to have a snack. And the best part, is that now she can just watch the show without a snack and feels that she enjoys the show just as much as she did with the snack.

Another downside is you don’t get to enjoy the food as much. Now, we don’t need our food to provide pleasure, but the truth of the matter is you’re going to tend to eat things you like, right? And if you’re eating food you like, you’re going to want to actually be able to appreciate and enjoy the flavors of it more fully.

Not as big of a downside as overeating, but still a downside.

Career women tend to be prone to mindless eating, because of a busy schedule, the desire for productivity, and also the emotional component of it. I’ll explain each.

So see if you can identify with any of these. Because of a busy schedule, career women can feel like they need to eat and work at the same time. Or eat and check e-mail at the same time or maybe even eat and drive at the same time.

This goes hand in hand with that desire for productivity or being productive. We as career women, feel that we need to multitask as much as we can and eating is an easy thing to do while being productive.

For example, working at your desk and eating your lunch there. Or eating your breakfast while working. Eating your breakfast while checking e-mail and responding to emails.

The third is the emotional component of it. When we as humans experience a negative emotion, our first instinct is to avoid that negative emotion or get rid of it as quickly as possible. Food is an easy way to do so. There are tons of downsides to this, which I won’t go over in this episode. I’ve covered some in previous episodes on emotional eating though.

So we will instinctually grab food to avoid feeling that negative emotion. But when this has become a habit, which it very quickly does, there’s a certain level of unawareness or unconsciousness while we’re doing this.

Since the focus is to get that uncomfortable feeling or emotion to go away, the focus is not on the food, our bodies, if we were actually hungry or not. We just have this knee jerk reaction to eat food to avoid the emotion.

OK, so here are some specific situations that you may find yourself in that you are mindlessly eating. Here’s where you’ll really want to listen in to see where you’ve caught yourself mindlessly eating. Because that will help you with the next piece of it which are the four steps to stop mindless eating.

Being distracted while doing work and eating at the same time, like being on your computer. Also, being distracted while on your phone, either surfing the Internet, checking emails, texting, and eating at the same time.

Watching TV and eating. I know a lot of you watch TV and eat your dinner and this is just a thing that you do out of habit or your family does out of habit. But this is mindless eating. Because you’re not concentrating on the food, you’re concentrating on the TV, and that hand to mouth action is just happening.

Also being distracted when you’re in conversation. This can be either with family members at the dinner table, when you’re out to eat with people, or when you are eating with colleagues.

Now granted, you may feel like these are times where you have to eat and converse. Two things on this.

First, you don’t have to eat and socialize at the same time. You might choose to eat and socialize at the same time and that’s totally fine.

Second, there are ways you can increase your awareness while eating and socializing to avoid the downsides of mindless eating.

And that’s just an example of one of the things that I cover in my coaching when I’m working with clients one-on-one. Any situation that comes up, there is a solution for.

Another specific situation is in the movie theater and eating popcorn. This is another example of something that you may feel like is a difficult situation not to go to the movies and eat popcorn.

I even have solutions that enable you to still enjoy the popcorn or the candy with the movie if you want to. And solutions that don’t involve any food. They involve enjoying the experience of watching the movie without the food.

And then there are those emotions that lead to mindless eating. Some specific and common ones include feeling bored at night, stress or frustration after a work meeting. Also, worrying about a family member, sadness, loneliness.

Boredom is a common one amongst career women, especially at night. Here’s why. When you’re so busy during the day and then you sit down at night with nothing else you have to do, it can feel boring.

That’s because it’s so different than how you felt all day. Since it feels so different, it feels uncomfortable, and that’s why boredom is a common cause of emotional eating. We eat to escape that uncomfortable feeling of boredom.

OK make a mental note of any of those ones that you’ve caught yourself in the past mindlessly eating.

And now I’m going to get into the four steps to stop mindless eating. These are four simple basic steps that you can start doing right away to stop mindlessly eating.

Step number one is to write down when you tend to mindlessly eat. Even if you’re not quite sure if its mindless eating that you’re doing, write it down. Now, the circumstances that I mentioned earlier are just some very common ones. You may find that you have some more circumstances where you’re mindlessly eating. Write them down.

Step #2 is to come up with a very simple one-line plan for each of these situations. And make sure the plan is very doable. We want to make it easy to follow through on. You can always build upon it later on.

I am all about making things very doable and very easy. That’s what I do with my clients to ensure success. To ensure that the brain is not going to want to resist too much so that it’s easier to follow through.

When it comes to breaking habits and creating new habits, repetition is key. For repetition to occur, it needs to be as easy as possible to do.

So let me give you an example of what I mean by making a simple one-line plan.

Let’s say that you often find yourself mindlessly eating lunch while you’re working.

Now I want to make a note, your brain may go to, well I have so much to do and not enough time. In reality, you can still get all of your work done and take 15 minutes to only eat your lunch. I promise you. You’ll likely be more efficient in your work if you’ve actually taken that 15 minute break.

Alright, that one-line plan may be, “I will stop working for 15 minutes and eat my lunch away from my desk and phone no matter how much work I have to do.”

And if that doesn’t feel super doable to you to start out with, then add in that you’ll do it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s just an example. The point is to make it something that you feel like you can easily succeed with.

What I like about this one line plan is the part where I added in no matter how much work I have to do. That indicates that you’re committed to doing what you say you’ll do. This is hugely important with follow through.

Right now, your brain might not have a lot of evidence that you follow through on your intentions with food. So the more evidence that we give your brain, the more likely you will actually follow through more and more.

Step #3 is slow it down. For every time you eat, not just the times that you think you’re mindlessly eating, but every time get in the practice of just slowing it down a little bit.

Take that bit of a pause in between forkfuls and either appreciate the flavors or appreciate what the food is doing for your body.

Whether that’s fuel from the calories or nutrients that your body needs to function well. These are just the bare essentials of mindful eating. It can be as simple as that.

Step #4 is to celebrate. That celebration can just be thinking to yourself that you did really well as far as making a step in the right direction.

That will then make you feel good, and feeling good is a nice immediate reward to encourage that new behavior. Our human brains need reward as motivation.

And now for the bonus. Here’s a mindset shift to help you stop mindless eating. You may have an underlying thought of “I don’t have time,” which is making you eat while doing another task.

So instead, you can think a new, deliberate thought of “I can make time for my health and take 20 minutes to focus on eating.”

Alright my friend, that’s what I have for you on four steps to stop mindless eating.

If this has been a real struggle for you, I can help with one-on-one coaching. You’re welcome to book a free 60-minute consultation with me. I’ll find out more about your specific eating habits challenges and goals. If you’re undecided on all your goals right now, that’s perfectly okay.

Then I’ll give you the solutions with the very doable process that will ensure that you break those eating habits you’d rather not have and create new ones that you would love to have instead. Plus, share what results you can expect in your life.

You can book a consultation with the link in the episode description.

Thanks for listening, take care, and I’ll talk with you next week.