5 Daily Habits That Help Eating Habits

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Full Episode Transcript:

5 Daily Habits that Help Eating Habits

Hi, welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you’ve joined me today.  If you haven’t checked out the new website look, please do. I’m loving it and hope you do as well. I like to freshen it up every once in a while, and with my new membership program, Food Freedom, launching in later September, it was just the perfect time to do it.

Speaking of that, if you don’t know already, Food Freedom is my brand-new membership, that enables you to break your “bad” eating habits by addressing the underlying issues causing the eating behaviors. It also enables you to form any new eating habits. It has many different features in it to help, kind of like a gym. The features are there, but you get to decide which ones work best for you and your schedule, even if you’re a busy career woman.

If you’d like, you can check it out at katemjohnston.com/coaching or you can get to it via the episode page, under the “For You” section, or just by visiting katemjohnston.com. While you’re there, take a look around at freshened-up website look. Hope you like it.

Alright, so onto today’s podcast episode. Today I’m going to help you out with some daily habits that will help you on your eating habit journey. Some of them make it easier for you to consciously make better choices with food, and some assist more with the internal processes when it comes to hunger and even the emotions driving the eating behaviors.

There are 5 that I’m going to cover, but the last two are in my opinion, perhaps the most valuable because you typically won’t find them if you just “Googled” it, and they’re definitely going to help your eating habits. I’m covering them last because the first three help to sort of “prime” you for the last two. Meaning, they help your overall health enough that you are better able to do the last two. So let’s dive in.

The first is to make sure you’re feeling well-rested. I’m putting it this way, because if I say to make sure you’re getting enough sleep, well, what is enough sleep? For some, it’s 6 or 7 hours, for others its 9-10 hours. The research that’s out there strongly suggests that the average amount of sleep required by most humans is 7-9 hours per 24-hour period.

So what’s enough sleep for you? Maybe you feel great with just 6, or maybe you don’t feel well unless you’ve had at least 9. The objective is to make sure you feel well-rested and that you can concentrate and focus. Particularly when it comes to eating habits.

Why is adequate rest so important for eating habits? Partly for your brain and its ability to make thoughtful and deliberate decisions and partly due to the hormones ghrelin and leptin. Several studies show that your brain is actually impaired somewhat when it comes to decision-making, when there is a lack of sleep. There was at least one study that found sleep deprivation can make you more impulsive, even if you were someone who isn’t normally impulsive.

This means, you’re more likely to perform an action of eating certain foods or amounts for instant gratification, rather than making more deliberate, health-inspired choices. In short, you’re more likely to choose cookies for lunch over the turkey, swiss, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

Now, the other reason why adequate rest is important for eating habits is the hormones, ghrelin and leptin. The release of ghrelin causes the hunger signal to occur more, so you’re going to be more likely to eat. Whereas, the release of leptin causes a feeling of fullness, so you’ll be more likely to stop eating. Sleep impacts ghrelin by increasing the release of it, even just with one night of inadequate sleep. So, you may have noticed you’ve felt extra hungry on days you don’t get much sleep. Such as those 3-4 hour nights where you’re awake, because you feel like your brain just won’t turn off. That happens to me sometimes. So, lack of sleep means increased ghrelin, which means increased hunger.

Contrast this with leptin. The studies I came across weren’t consistent for a lack of sleep for just one night, but a chronic lack of sleep was shown to decrease the release of leptin, meaning, less feeling of fullness, which can lead to overeating. So, if you’re not sleeping well for weeks at a time (or more), you may not be getting those feelings of fullness as much as if you were getting about 7-9 hours of sleep a night almost every night.

So of course, aim for 7-9 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, as scientists suggest is a healthy amount for most, but of course, you know your body best and how well your brain functions on a certain amount of sleep, so shoot for the amount that you feel well-rested with and able to not make as impulsive decisions.

Alright, so the next one is exercise. This was a good one to follow the sleep one with, because the other negative effect of not feeling well-rested, is that many people will then be less inclined to exercise that day. Now of course, exercise burns calories, but not that’s how it affects eating habits in a positive way. Burning calories will actually tend to make you want to get those calories back and eat more.

So how does exercise help with your eating habits then?  A few different ways. One way is called the ‘transfer effect’.  This is essentially where an individual will use the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors involved in one activity or goal for another activity or goal. So, let me give you an example as it pertains to exercise and eating habits, that was actually found by researchers in 2015.

Developing a daily or almost daily exercise habit led to the desire (and action) of eating more fruits and vegetables. This is thought to be due to the idea that improving one area of your life, leads to the improvement of other areas. This is partly due to desire, but also skills developed in one area, leading to improved ability to improve another area.

So, skills learned when start exercising daily or almost daily transfers over to eating habits. Also, desire to develop an exercise habit leads to desire to develop better eating habits.

Another way exercise helps with eating habits is just simply with mood elevation. Exercise has been shown over the decades to help elevate your mood. This can be helpful for anyone who is an emotional eater or uses food to help provide pleasure. Adding in a little exercise to your day can also take the place of other more sedentary activities where you might be more likely to grab a snack, right?

For me, if I didn’t exercise daily, I would probably be using that time to draw, paint, or read more. Since these involve sitting, I’m probably going to be more likely to help myself to a glass of wine and snack while I’m doing them. Not that that’s “wrong,” however I likely wouldn’t be reaching for the celery sticks.

So, my suggestion is to make sure you’re getting a baseline amount of movement or exercise in that you feel you can do any day, no matter how busy. Even if it’s just 20 minutes. Then, choose a few days a week that you can commit to increasing that amount of exercise.  

Alright, onto the third, hydration. I know you’ve heard that you should be getting around 8-9 cups of water a day, and more like 10 cups on days you might be sweating more, but how exactly can this help with eating habits?

Did you know that it’s quite common for us to confuse thirst signals with hunger signals? The part of the brain that interprets thirst and hunger signals is the hypothalamus. The signals of both can be somewhat similar, so sometimes interpretation of each can be inaccurate.

If this happens often, it just makes it even more confusing. As a result, you may be interpreting thirst for hunger, and eating when your body isn’t really in need of calories. This can of course, lead to overconsumption, which over time can lead to weight gain.

Also, the stronger the thirst signal is, the stronger you may think the hunger signal is. Stronger hunger signals increase the likelihood of eating for instant gratification, so the discomfort of feeling hungry goes away. Of course it won’t if it was a thirst signal, potentially leading to significant overeating.

What you can do to help avoid eating when you’re really just thirsty, is either being proactive and be very intentional with how much you’re drinking, making sure you’re getting 8-10 cups a day. The other thing you can do is, each time you feel hungry, drink some fluids first, wait about 15-20 minutes, and if those hunger signals haven’t dissipated, you’re probably actually hungry and not just thirsty.

The upside to that is, even if you were truly hungry and not thirsty, you’ve just gotten a little more water in you, so that later on in the day, you’ll be less likely to get those thirst signals that could of course, potentially be misinterpreted for hunger signals. It’s a win-win.

Okay, so we are down to the last two that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast are not talked about as much, and are less likely to be found if you simple “Googled” “what daily habits help your eating habits?”

So the first is, getting in the habit of planning ahead. I’ll explain. When you plan ahead, whether it be the food you’re going to eat or not eat, the amount, or even just planning small goals that will lead to larger goals, you’re being more future-focused, rather than focusing on “in-the-moment.”

When you’re more in-the-moment, your brain is going to be looking more for instant gratification. This means, doing what will provide the most (and quickest) pleasure, avoid the most discomfort, or save the most energy. These three things are really what motivate humans. They make up the motivational triad.

So, what kind of foods do you think provide the most short-term, immediate pleasure? Basically, foods that are ultra-tasty. Desserts, potato chips, French fries, candy, lobster mac n’ cheese, all the delicious foods right? Probably not so much the steamed broccoli and rice or the chicken breast. I know for me, if I’m specifically looking for a treat, it’s not going to be chicken breast.

What kind of foods do you think help to avoid discomfort? Whether that’s the discomfort of a negative emotion, the discomfort of intense hunger signals, or the discomfort of having to physically prepare something to eat that’s healthier? Probably the delicious foods that raise dopamine more to try to counteract the negative emotion, or the quick, convenient, packaged food that has less healthy ingredients, but saves time and provides instant gratification.

Finally, what kind of foods do you think will help save energy? Definitely the convenient, packaged foods that are easy and take minimal to no energy to prepare. So, the frozen dinner rather than the homemade black bean tacos.

When you develop a daily habit of planning ahead, you’re using your pre-frontal cortex, rather than the more primitive part of the brain that really just wants to have instant pleasure, avoid discomfort and save energy. Your pre-frontal cortex is thinking about your future, your health, and your goals.

When you plan ahead for the next meal, tomorrow, or even next week, you’re making more deliberate decisions, rather than the in-the-moment decisions. Deliberate decisions are always going to be better when it comes to eating habits. That’s because you’re more likely to choose something to eat that is in line with promoting good health and in line with your goals.

You can plan ahead simply by deciding you’ll pack lunch for work that day, rather than get takeout. You can plan ahead by simply getting out a bowl and oatmeal the night before, so that you’re more likely to eat a healthy breakfast at home instead of stopping for a pastry on the way to work.

You can even plan ahead by deciding how much dessert you’ll have the next night, instead of deciding when you’re already eating the dessert, which of course isn’t likely to end well for you, unless you have excellent self-control. You can also plan ahead by deciding that you’ll eat 2 more servings of vegetables next week than you did this week.

Developing a daily habit of planning ahead, gets you to think about your future, even if it’s just the near future. Practicing this daily helps you to make eating habit decisions more deliberately, and in a more controlled manner, which is what it’s all about. That’s how you really start breaking “bad” eating habits. By getting control, rather than acting impulsively or automatically.

Habits are behaviors that have been done on repeat, that you don’t even need to consciously think about to do. To break habits, you need to stop the cycle of the unconscious, by using that pre-frontal cortex to become more deliberate, so you’re able to then more consciously control your eating behaviors.

Alright, so the last of the daily habits that help eating habits that I’m going to cover in this episode is, to take care of your emotional health and well-being.

Why is that? Well, your feelings and emotions are a common driver of your actions or behaviors that can lead to a particular eating habit. If you identify as an emotional eater, you probably already understand that.

So, not all actions and behaviors are habitual, or are habits, but all actions and behaviors are affected by your feelings or emotions. Therefore, taking care of your emotional health can absolutely have a positive impact on eating habits.

Conversely, not taking care of your emotional health, can have a negative impact on eating habits. Also, I just want to note here that some people do take care of their emotional health as far as what they can do on their own, but need some extra help from a professional or even medication.

Regardless of the circumstance though, doing what you can to take care of your emotional health and well-being can be very beneficial to your eating behaviors and of course your eating habits.

When you’re feeling any sort of negative emotion either at certain times of the day, or even all day, food can be seen as something that provides some pleasure and of course some relief from the negative emotion. When you eat something tasty while feeling a negative emotion such as embarrassment, or guilt, or anxiety, you get a short hit of pleasure, from a rise in dopamine. That goes away quickly unfortunately, so then your brain wants more of that tasty food to get that pleasure back. You can see how this can result in a cycle, ultimately at risk for becoming a habit, right?

When you take care of your emotional health, you’re not necessarily making yourself “happier,” (maybe you are, but not necessarily). What you’re helping to do though is better be able to process or manage your emotions and not letting them affect your eating behaviors. You’re not as likely to act on those emotions by eating something just to get that little dopamine hit that doesn’t last.

So, what can you do to help with your emotional health and well-being on a daily basis? Well, some people like to journal, some like to do a little bit of meditation, some like to chat with someone they love. Some people get benefit from listing 3 things they’re grateful for. Some like to spend at least 30 minutes doing a hobby. For me, going for a run by myself, with my dog, or with a friend helps my emotional well-being. Also, meaningful conversation with my husband, Paul, I’ve also found to be really therapeutic.

We can oftentimes really focus on the physical things we can do, but what about the emotional or mental things we can do for our health? Especially since the emotional things can greatly affect our physical health. That’s why a large part of Food Freedom focuses on the more mental/emotional side of it, because without addressing that, eating habits are a lot more difficult to change.

So, I hope this episode was really helpful, maybe even somewhat enlightening. So just as sleep, exercise, and hydration are really important for your health and more specifically, your eating habit health, planning ahead and emotional well-being are greatly important as well.

Take care and I’ll talk with you soon.