Family, Gratitude, and Mindful Eating

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Related Episodes:

• Mindful Eating for Weight Loss
• Social Eating Habits
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Full Episode Transcript:

Family, Gratitude, and Mindful Eating

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. So this is a Thanksgiving episode, however what I’m teaching in this episode you can apply to any holiday, event, festivity, or even just your everyday sit down meals with your family.

What this episode today will help you with is finding even more joy in holiday feasts and even everyday meals, and because of that, food won’t have to play as big of a role for you.

That way, you’re less likely to overeat and then feel terrible afterwards either physically, emotionally or mentally.

Meaning, you’ll be less likely to have that stomach discomfort, the bloating, the not so nice mental talk or inner dialogue, and then of course the negative emotions like disappointment, shame, or worse, disgust.

Because who wants to feel like those negative things are connected with a holiday that’s supposed to be joyful, or even just a normal everyday meal with your family that’s supposed to be enjoyable?

This episode today will also help you to enjoy the food in front of you even more, so that you feel satisfied with a smaller amount of food, and aren’t seeking out larger volumes of food for more enjoyment.

So, you’ll get a higher concentration of enjoyment from a smaller portion of food. So much better, right?

And just a little bit of housekeeping, the holiday season is here and we are nearing the cold winter season, so now is the best time to talk to me about what you’ve been struggling with with your eating habits, and also what your goals are.

That way, you can find out how exactly I can help you personally. If my solutions sound good to you (which I’m confident they will), you can also find out how exactly we could work together through coaching to help you reach your eating habit goals, and of course weight loss goals or even weight maintenance goals, if you have those as well.

Really getting a handle on your eating habits during the toughest season, will help you to then coast through the easier seasons and then be easily able to maintain the wonderful changes that you’ve made.

So, give yourself the best gift of better physical and emotional health. Give yourself the opportunity to find out more about how I can help you to change your eating habits, and in the process, improving your mental and emotional health as well.

Because we do that too to help you to change your eating habits and also lose weight if that’s a goal.

It’s not just about the actions, but also about how you’re thinking, how you’re feeling, and how you’re able to process emotions so that you’re not reacting to them by eating.

We can talk more in depth together if you book a free consultation. I set aside an hour for you, and you can book that right on my website at katemjohnston.com/consult.

There’s also a link in the episode description if you’re listening to this episode from a podcast listening app. I also have a link on the episode page, if you’re listening right from website. And there’s a link in YouTube if you are watching this on YouTube right now.

OK, so let’s talk about family first. Or, if you spend Thanksgiving with friends, AKA “friendsgiving” you can pretend I’m saying friends instead of family. Because oftentimes, our friends do feel like family. That’s the best, right?

So, whoever you’re spending Thanksgiving with, you really want to focus on conversation with them. Focus on just being around them. Maybe you don’t get to see your family too often.

Maybe you’re just having Thanksgiving with your significant other, or your significant other and your children. And maybe this is a time where you don’t feel like you’re in a rush and sitting down just for a quick dinner.

So really take the time to appreciate that your family or your friends are with you, and it’s your opportunity to enjoy just having their presence, or enjoy having a good laugh with them or a wonderful conversation.

When you focus on the people and connecting with people and enjoying people over the food, you get so much pleasure from this.

Several hormones are released which all make you feel good. Some that you may have heard of include oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. These three hormones make you feel positive feelings.

If you’re feeling really good from things that are not food, your brain isn’t seeking out food to make you feel good. You already feel good.

When you’re focusing on your family or friends and conversation with them, your attention is on them more so than the food.

So, you’re not being constantly triggered in your mind by the food, to then eat the food. How behaviors work is that there has to be some sort of trigger prior to the behavior.

So, if your focus is more on the people, it’s going to be less on looking at and then wanting to eat all of the food.

Certainly, there may be food around you that you’re still seeing, but less of your attention is on the food because more of your attention is on family, on friends.

Also, prior to Thanksgiving, when normally we are all anticipating delicious Thanksgiving foods, we can also anticipate the time being spent with family. We can think about how enjoyable it’s going to be.

For me, my husband Paul and I are going to my mom, Cheryl, and her husband Jim’s house in New York. We are really looking forward to spending time with the two of them. Especially since they live a few hours away and I don’t get to see them very often.

So, because I’m thinking about how enjoyable it’s going to be to be with them in person, get lots of laughter in, probably play a game and take a walk with the dogs with them, I don’t even care that much about the food.

I mean, of course the food is going to be fantastic, and I know I will enjoy it, my focus right now prior to Thanksgiving is more on the connection.

Alright, now I want to talk about gratitude and how that can help you avoid overeating on Thanksgiving, and getting even more enjoyment out of the holiday.

Now of course we associate Thanksgiving with, well, Thanksgiving and gratitude. We can sort of skim over it a little bit.

Certainly, if you’re giving thanks before dinner, you’re actively saying the words, but are you taking a moment during the day, to really have some gratitude.

Starting your day off with acknowledging some things that you were grateful for, can actually elevate your mood. Research shows this.

And Thanksgiving Day is the perfect day to do this, especially if practicing gratitude isn’t in your daily routine yet.

So, boost your mood for Thanksgiving to help make the day even more enjoyable, by showing some gratitude either for the people that you’re with, the food you’ll be eating later, or anything else in your life that you want to have gratitude for.

This helps to bring the meaning back into Thanksgiving. It’s very easy to just get hyper-focused on food and football, bc of the commercials on TV, social media, all the things that really just focus on food and the football.

Also, like I mentioned earlier, it helps to boost your mood for the day. That way, you’re a little bit less likely to seek out eating more food to feel good.

Think of having gratitude as something that helps you to sort of slow down in the midst of all the busyness of Thanksgiving, all the cooking, all the cleaning.

You’ll feel really good after and if you then just remind yourself throughout the day what you’re grateful for, that can be a continuous mood booster throughout the day.

It can ground you a little bit so when things start feeling a little bit hectic, you dial it back, and have awareness of the importance of everything you love in your life over the food and over the football game.

In addition, when you practice gratitude, it puts it into perspective just how much abundance you have in your life, especially when it comes to food.

Many of us have very easy access to food, particularly delicious food. Food that we can order through our phones, any time we want. Food that many of us are willing to pay a lot of money for at a restaurant.

So being grateful for this abundance of food and convenience of food, is certainly not a bad thing.

In fact, getting into this gratitude and mindset of just how much food we have access to, can help you to be very giving to others who don’t have as much food.

It can also help you to realize that you don’t need as much food as maybe you’ve been eating, if you’re someone who overeats.

Not that the few bites that you might leave on your plate are going to the person who is in need of food, but it just helps you to realize that we don’t need all of that food to survive, and we certainly don’t need that food to make us happy.

OK, so let’s talk about mindful eating now. As you can probably tell, all three of these things, family, gratitude, and mindful eating are all connected.

So mindful eating is mainly really paying attention to your food and focusing on your food, the enjoyment of it, and also paying close attention to your body as you’re eating the food.

This is huge when it comes to eating habits. Mindful eating helps you to enjoy your food more, helps you to appreciate and have gratitude for the food you’re eating, and also helps you to avoid overeating, by paying attention to your hunger and fullness levels.

So not exactly the same as, but very close to intuitive eating.

I know it’s a little bit more tricky to really focus on the food, at the Thanksgiving table, however you still can. Remember, we don’t need to be perfect with everything.

You can still practice mindful eating without being completely perfect at it. Even if you can just be a little bit more mindful because you’ve listened to this podcast episode today, this will help you.

So maybe chew the food for a little bit longer than you would. Put your fork down in between bites to help you with this. Pause to take some sips of water. Before you eat, really inhale all the delicious smells. Take in the beautiful sight of the food.

I mean really take a moment to do these things. Don’t just glance over it, or take a quick inhale. Slow it down, savor the smell, sight, and taste.

You can all pay attention to the conversation around you, and converse yourself, while paying more attention to the smell, taste, texture, and sight of the food.

Think about it like this, so much time and energy was put into preparing the food, you don’t want it to only last for 10 minutes. You want to savor every bite and really take your time.

This allows your body to adjust to the food and for those hunger signals to go away, so that you’re less likely to overeat.

You’ll thank me later. Those pants will feel a little bit less tight, your stomach will feel a little bit less distended, and you’ll actually feel like you might have a little bit of room for dessert.

Speaking of dessert, I know everyone tends to rush from dinner to dessert, but if you’re not hungry for dessert, why eat it now? No one else really cares if you eat a full dessert or not.

If you’re not feeling well, if your stomach ‘s feeling really bloated, then just sit with everyone and enjoy the smells of the desserts, and the sights of the desserts, and take your dessert to go.

You’re still going to enjoy it, but wouldn’t you rather enjoy it when you’re not feeling terrible? Wouldn’t you rather enjoy it when you’re actually hungry for dessert?

 Chances are, no one’s going to be offended, and if they are, oh well. Wouldn’t you rather not offend your stomach?

Or if you want to partake more in dessert, then just have a bite of someone’s dessert and then take yours to go.

But trust me, if you’re sitting and enjoying the conversation with everyone, enjoying the sights of the desserts and the smells, you’re still able to get just as much out of the experience of dessert with everyone.

Probably even more so, because you’ll be utilizing my tips of paying attention to the people around you, and having gratitude.

Alright, so that’s what I have for you on family, gratitude, and mindful eating.

Be sure to give yourself the best gift of finally freeing yourself from bad eating habits, and reaching your health or weight loss goals, by doing the first step and just booking a free consultation with me so that you can find out more information and how I can help you specifically.

Enjoy your holiday, take care and I’ll talk with you next week.