Mindset Shift for Snacking After Work

Hey there, welcome to the Eating Habits for life podcast and the Monday mindset shift mini episode. This one is especially helpful for women in healthcare, but really also very helpful for anyone in a demanding career or even mothers and you’ll see why.

Listen to the episode here (or read it below):

This mindset shift for snacking after work will help you if you find yourself coming home and snacking prior to dinner, or later in the evening. Especially if you feel those snacks are salty or sweet snacks or you feel you eat more than you wanted to.

So have you ever come home and had the thought “I’m so drained from taking care of others all day I need something for myself.” And then found yourself diving into the snacks. Or maybe candy if it’s available.

We’ve all had this thought. I’ve had this thought multiple times when I was a Physician Assistant.

But this thought will absolutely lead you to going and getting the snacks and I’ll show you why and then I’ll give you a mindset shift to help you to avoid diving into those snacks.

So the thought “I’m so drained from taking care of others all day. I need something from myself,” will create an emotion in your body. And it can be this thought or it can be another thought that’s similar.

You might know of a specific thought that you typically have or suspect that you have that then leads to snacking.

But this thought in particular might lead to a feeling or emotion such as exhaustion. It can even create a feeling of entitlement. Kind of like i deserve this or this candy is justified, right?

So if this thought is occurring and it’s creating an emotion such as exhaustion, our brains recognize that a snack is a quick source of energy. Sugar is a quick source of energy, so it’s going to seem like a very good solution for that exhaustion, right?

And then that’s going to drive us into action of going and eating the snacks or eating the candy or other sweet treat.

Totally fine, unless you’re trying to decrease the amount of snacks or sugar that you’re eating. In that case, this thought is not going to be very helpful. So this is where you may want to have a mindset shift.

So what if we shifted this thought of “I’m so drained from taking care of others all day. I need something for myself,”  to “After giving so much to others I’ll give myself something restorative.”

Or even “I’ll give myself something I’ll feel really good about in the long term.” Whatever you want it to be, but as you can see here we’ve now shifted it into something that’s geared more towards true self-care.

So either of these thoughts will create different emotions than the original thought.

Let’s just say you chose the mindset shift of “After giving so much to others I’ll give myself something restorative.” This might create a feeling of self love or even empowerment, because you are choosing to do something that will help build you up and restore you.

And then if you’re feeling this way, you’re much more likely to than think of something that will benefit you in the long run and make you feel healthier and more energized in that moment. Rather than just falling back on automatic snacking or grabbing the candy.

So this could look like going for a short walk. It could look like calling a friend or maybe doing 20 minutes of yoga. It could look like reading a chapter from a murder mystery novel or putting on some music and dancing for 10 minutes.

These things are typically going to then leave you feeling much more restored and energized, and certainly won’t leave you feeling badly afterwards, right?

Alright, so for you, determine what thought you typically have that you believe then drives you to snack after work or in the evening, and see how you can shift that to something that has a more desirable result for you. Or you can just borrow the mindset shift that i gave you in this monday mindset shift mini episode.

And I also have something for you if you’re frustrated with the amount of times you feel that you overeat in general.

One of my most popular podcast episodes was how to stop overeating and I have very recently created an entire workbook to go along with this episode to help you discover the underlying reasons why you are overeating (there are 4 main ones).

The workbook provides solutions to each and helps you formulate a very actionable and simple plan to help stop overeating.

You can get this simply by going down to the episode description and clicking on the link for that Overeating episode and workbook.

Thanks so much for listening, take care and join me this Thursday for the usual episode!