Your Sugar Mindset Makeover

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Related Episodes:

• Breaking Your Sugar Habit
• Sugar Cravings & Your Brain
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Full Episode Transcript:

Your Sugar Mindset Makeover

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. Did you know that how you look at sugar and how you look at yourself around sugar greatly effects the results you have when you are trying to get some control around sugar, decrease your sugar, or if you’re trying to completely or almost completely eliminate sugar.

This is really great news because that just means that you have one more very powerful tool to help you to reach whatever sugar goals you have as far as your eating habits. You have changing your mindset or changing the way you’re looking at things around sugar and yourself to assist you with breaking a sugar habit or decreasing your sugar consumption.

Oftentimes, people think that it’s just the actions that you need to help you break a sugar habit or decrease your sugar or break any other eating habit that you have that you don’t want, and if the actions aren’t working as well as you wanted, then that means that that’s it. There’s no hope for you. But this is not true at all.

If you’re having trouble changing your eating habits and you feel like you’re doing all the actions or at least some of the actions, it might be that yes, you need to change some of the actions or do more of the actions, but also it’s probably because the thoughts you’re having are not helping you. They may even be hurting you and your results.

So that’s why I want to bring this podcast episode to you, your sugar mindset makeover, because this is going to be significantly helpful if you were struggling with sugar. And this is what coaching is about. It’s not just helping you with the actions that you’re taking, but also helping you with how you’re thinking. Because how you’re thinking affects how you feel and how you feel of course is going to affect what you do and don’t do. How you react to things.

And it can be very subtle, and oftentimes it is. And you’re not even aware of thoughts that you’re having that are sabotaging your actions and results. But that’s I help you with. Pulling out those subtle thoughts that you didn’t even realize you’re having and helping you to gain awareness as to why you might be having these thoughts and get you to look at things in a different way, so that you can feel differently.

And when you feel differently, you start doing things differently, or at least have an easier time doing different actions that will help you to get the results that you are looking for. Whether that be decreasing how much sugar you’re eating, adding in more vegetables, protein, whole grains into your diet, or decreasing how much you’re eating overall to lose weight.

Alright, so before I dive into all these gems I have for you in your sugar mindset makeover, I want to talk weight loss habits vs dieting. Because I know it’s likely you’re listening to this podcast because you want to change your eating habits and lose some, or a lot of weight in the process. And once I get on a roll with all these gems I have for you for your sugar mindset makeover, I’ll forget to mention this.

So, diets fail you in keeping the weight off, because mainly they don’t help you change the way you’re thinking and feeling and can even make you think and feel in worse ways about yourself and food. They also fail you because they’re too drastic. The changes aren’t small enough for you to maintain.

Let’s say that you’re learning to play the piano for the first time. After a few lessons, your piano instructor gives you a piece called La Campanella, which is famous for being one of the most difficult pieces written for piano ever. You wouldn’t be expected to be able to play this piece successfully after just a few lessons, right? You wouldn’t even be expected to play this piece successfully after a couple of years of playing regularly even.

But after a few lessons, if your piano instructor gave you Mary had a Little Lamb to play instead, you’d probably be successful. You’d probably feel good about playing it all the way through without messing up or with one little mess up. You’d then want to continue coming for more lessons and improving yourself and playing more and more gradually difficult songs. And you would do well at those because you’d be gradually increasing as you went.

Whereas, if you attempted to play La Campanella, you’d probably get super frustrated and give up pretty easily. And that would be completely normal. No one would fault you for that. Weight loss isn’t any different. You need to start with those small changes and then gradually increase from there. Those changes need to be small and doable, so that it encourages you to keep going and be consistent so that you can change your habits.

Whether that is break former eating habits or form new, healthier eating habits. So, I created a weight loss habits free class that comes with a printable workbook, so that you can make the small, doable changes in lots of different areas that will help you lose weight and keep it off. This is going to be much easier than the drastic changes that you’ve tried to make before with dieting, and relying on willpower, which is exhausting.

So help yourself out and get the free class and workbook. And stop trying to do too much when it comes to losing weight. You can get the free weight loss habits class and workbook with the link on the episode page or in the episode description. Or you can also just visit my website where there are lots of other things for you. Just go to https://kate-johnston-coaching.myflodesk.com/free-course

Okay, so back to your sugar mindset makeover. A couple of these things are more of actions, but I’ll explain why they link up to mindset. But most of these are purely mindset.

So first is to set clear, but doable goals. I’m really a fan of you dreaming big and setting whatever goal you’d like to set, make it more doable, you can break it up into smaller goals. So that the end result or that dream goal or very end goal doesn’t seem so far away. This helps with mindset. In goals help to excite and motivate you, but small goals help to drive you forward. So if you have smaller goals within that big goal, you are setting yourself up for success.

So, with sugar, you could have a big goal of losing weight and still being able to enjoy chocolate every day. But currently, let’s just say that you feel very uncontrolled around sugar, and you feel that you’re eating it constantly throughout the day. So going from where you are to where you want to be can seem like a really big jump and like a dream. And that’s okay. Keep that goal, but then break it down into smaller goals that feel more doable. Clear but doable goals increase the feeling of possibility.

Next up is visualizing your future self. So, imagine yourself having reached this big goal, and even going through some of the challenges along the way, but still succeeding anyway. This also serves as motivation. And when you visualize yourself going through the challenges and still getting to your goal, it feels that much more doable to you. It feels more like it’s something that you can have. Not just something that someone else can have.

That is one of the reasons why people don’t work towards their goals. They feel that other people can have that end result, but not them. So, if this is you, just remember if one person can do it, so can you. That means it’s possible. And guaranteed, as far as losing weight and still being able to enjoy something sweet every night, if that’s your goal, many people are successful at this. And they weren’t just born with this ability, they worked toward it. Which means you can too.

Alright, so to go along with your goals, I recommend that you understand the benefits of decreasing your sugar or at least feeling like you’re in control and deliberate as far as your sugar intake, and not have it be a habit. So, you can just pop on the Internet and Google what are some of the benefits of decreasing your sugar intake?

Then when you visualize your future self, you can visualize this person experiencing those benefits. This really helps again with motivation. Those benefits of decreasing or controlling your sugar intake are the long-term reward, or at least one of them.

The next thing that I want you to think about that is very helpful with your sugar mindset makeover is realization that you have the power over your actions with sugar. Sugar does not have power over you. You always have power over what you’re putting in your mouth, even if it feels completely mindless. Or even if you get intense sugar cravings and react to those cravings by eating the sugar.

And it doesn’t have anything to do with using more willpower. It has all to do with making small changes to your actions, but also to your thoughts. Because as I mentioned earlier, your thoughts affect how you feel and how you feel then determines your actions, inactions, and reactions. And you have full control over your thoughts.

Even if you’re used to thinking something that’s not helpful, we can get you out of that thought pattern or thought habit. And even if you feel like eating sugar is mindless for you or very habitual, there are things that you can do to create a little bit of space between that desire to eat the sugar and the action of eating the sugar itself.

When you create that little bit of space or a little bit of time in between that feeling of desire and then the action, it allows you to think deliberately about your actions and make a different decision. So, you always have the power. A lot of times, we just need to slow it down and create that little bit of space. Create that opportunity for you to think deliberately and make a decision that’s more future focused.

So, part of seeing that you have the power over your actions at all times, is for you to get awareness of any negative thinking. If you’re thinking in a negative way or even a very subtly negative way, that can lead to actions that are not in line with your goals.

So, remember those sugar goals that you set for yourself in the beginning. For example, if you’re thinking “I can’t stop eating sugar”, you likely won’t stop eating sugar. So just having awareness that you’re having a thought like I can’t stop eating sugar, is the first step, because then you can question that thought.

Is it 100% true that you can’t stop eating sugar? Is it possible that you can stop eating sugar? As soon as you see the possibility, you’re shifting to more positive thinking. And then it makes it possible that you can actually stop eating sugar if you want to. This is the power of coaching.

So as a coach, I can help you notice those negative thoughts that are creeping in that are ultimately affecting your current results or have affected past results. And then we can question them, and then even start to change them, so that you can create different results for yourself with your eating habits and also with weight loss of course.

We can talk together via a free 60-minute consult to see where you need help, so you can book that right on my website. If you’re listening to this episode from the episode page on my website, visit here: https://katemjohnston.com/consult. We can meet over Zoom or phone. And if you don’t see a date or time that works for you, just scroll down below the calendar and send me a message with some dates and times that do work well for you. We can figure something out easily.

So, this next one is a little bit more action based or strategic, but helps you with your mindset around sugar, and that is to have awareness of just how much sugar you’re eating throughout the day and why. I just want to say, awareness is always going to be helpful with mindset. Certainly, awareness of your thoughts, but also awareness of your feelings, actions, and your results. ‘

Once you have awareness of any of these, let’s say actions for example or specifically how much sugar you’re eating, only then can you examine why you’re eating that sugar. Why you’re eating sugar may very well be because you are feeling a certain way.

Sometimes it’s due to hunger, but many times it is due to a certain feeling or emotion. And that feeling or emotion, same thing, is always caused by something you are thinking. So it all goes back to your mind. And so, when you look at how much sugar you’re eating, maybe when you’re eating it, and why you’re eating it, you gain so much understanding that helps you move forward.

Okay, so this leads me to the next part of your sugar mindset makeover, where once you have all of this awareness, understanding that it’s normal that you wanted to eat the sugar or that you ate the sugar. Like if you were feeling stressed and there’s chocolate nearby, and that gives you that little bit of short-term pleasure, of course you ate the chocolate. Completely normal to want to eat chocolate to try to decrease a little bit of the stress or add a little bit of pleasure to your day.

When you understand that it’s completely normal and that there’s nothing wrong with you if you eat sugar and then you’re not bad if you eat sugar or eat a lot of sugar, you can have more self-compassion. And having self-compassion will help you to make progress rather than being overly critical and then maybe stopping completely because you’re not perfect.

Knowing that you’re normal and having self-compassion helps you to not feel guilt or shame, which can then lead to more eating of the sugar, as you may have experienced. Knowing that you’re normal and you have self-compassion helps to keep you going when you stumble during the process. Instead of feeling like you need to be perfect, you’re able to continue making progress because of that self-compassion.

And this leads me to the next thing that will help you with your sugar mindset makeover which is looking at your progress as data and then just making changes from there. So not judging, but instead, being like the scientist or the researcher. Just analyzing and seeing what you can maybe do differently next time and make that change.

Because if you judge, that’s when you’re going to feel badly and anytime you feel badly, your actions can be affected negatively. And then of course your results will be effective negatively.

Alright, so for this last part in your sugar mindset makeover, we’re going to talk about celebrating your wins, being your inner coach and looking at where you started and how far you’ve come. Because all of this is very important with keeping you on track. And keeping that positive mindset that will get you the results that you’re looking for.

So, to reinforce any behavior that you want to keep doing, you’re going to need some sort of reward. So internal rewards are great, and that is just like when you feel really good about doing something, such as a feeling of accomplishment. But also, you can help yourself out with some external rewards. Meaning, treating yourself to something, or even just putting a sticker on a calendar on the day that you did something or didn’t do something that you were trying not to do.

Any successes or any wins should be celebrated at least internally, but also if you want to add a little bit of an external reward you can as well. And being that inner coach for yourself helps with that internal celebration and internal reward. When you talk kindly to yourself and have encouraging words for yourself, that feels very rewarding, right?

Instead of being harsh and judgmental and critical of yourself, wouldn’t you rather feel good and be your inner coach, rather than your inner critic? You’ll especially need that inner coach if you feel like you’re not making as much progress as you thought you would at this point, or something doesn’t go as planned. A way to help with this is to look at where you started out and how far you’ve come.

We oftentimes lose sight of that along the way. I caught myself just doing this with running in the past couple of weeks. I was telling myself that I should be running faster. I caught myself, because I realized that this is ridiculous, considering where I was a year ago. But when you get caught up in the journey, sometimes we can lose sight of how far we’ve come.

So, help yourself feel a little bit better and more accomplished, by just taking a moment to see how far you’ve come, and even the benefits that your efforts have already created in your life.

Alright, that was a lot packed in there, I know. There are just so many ways you can use your mindset to your advantage. And some of you can change your mindset fairly easily, but others have a harder time. Or, you might have beliefs that you’ve had for a very long time that are impacting you negatively now. Some of these beliefs come up periodically, and some come up often, and are what I call thought habits.

But just know, as an Eating Habit and Weight Loss Coach, I can help you with this. I help with strategy and with mindset, so you can change your eating habits and create weight loss habits that will serve you for life. So, get that free class plus workbook with the link in the episode description or on the episode page. Thanks for listening and I’ll talk with you soon.