Done with Dieting Episode #102: Two Cornerstone Habits for Weight Loss

Is weight loss one of your goals for the new year? I have two cornerstone habits that I teach my clients. That if you do these two things, and don’t worry, it doesn’t include a bunch of hard exercises or depriving yourself of the foods that you love.

Tune into today’s podcast because I am going to reveal the two habits that if you do these, you will have tremendous success in your goals for 2023 and never have to go on another diet ever again. Let’s get started.

You are listening to the done with dieting podcast. The podcast for women in midlife, who are done with dieting, but still want to lose weight and feel good in your clothes.

You know that diets don’t work long term. But you feel like there’s this secret that everyone else knows that you just haven’t figured it out yet.

I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman. And I’ve helped hundreds of women get off the diet roller coaster, change their relationship with food, exercise, and their bodies.

Through this podcast, my goal is to help you too.

Welcome. Let’s get started.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Done with Dieting Podcast. This is episode number 1 0 2. And if you are listening to this in real time, this is the last podcast of 2022. Where did this year go? I have absolutely no idea.

So, since this is the last podcast episode of 2022, right now it is that week in between Christmas and New Year’s where lots of people take the week off and you’re reveling in your gifts that you got and there’s lots of food around the house and everyone’s relaxed and you’re not working very much or if you are working, it’s usually pretty low key.

And this week is just so interesting, right? Because no one really knows what day it is. Is it Tuesday? Is it Friday? When do I have to go back to work? I don’t know. And so, that is just so fun because it really allows us to have that downtime that we really seek.

For some of you, you may be thinking about New Year’s. And you may be thinking about what is it that I want to accomplish in the new year? And I’ve done podcasts on goals and things like that. And whenever we want to look at the future, one of the things that we always want to do is we also want to look at the past. And we only want to look at the past though from the point of view of learning. Like what did I accomplish this year? Having a review process is always really helpful.

But today, what I want to talk about is weight loss. But I want to talk about weight loss from the standpoint of the two cornerstone habits that when implemented will make the biggest impact on your weight loss if weight loss is a goal for you.

The first habit that I want to talk about is how to eat just enough. And if you have received my eight basic habits that healthy people do, you will know that this habit, ‘eat just enough’ not too much is one of the eight basic habits. And it’s one of the basic habits because it really works.

Now, oftentimes the reason that not always but sometimes the reason that we gain weight is because of overeating. And so, for many of us, myself included, I grew up with the very familiar feeling of feeling over full. But when I learned about how to eat just enough, it really changed my life.

Now, why you might want to eat just enough and not eat too full because they’re different and I’m going to talk about how to distinguish between the two in just a little bit. But the reason that you might want to start adopting this habit is that it actually really helps when you want to lose weight.

Think about that. I know that when I have paid attention to eating to satisfaction and then eating to fullness, I can pack away a lot of calories, like thousands of calories. And so, if you’re cutting down on that, that alone is going to reduce your calorie intake. And we know that calories in versus calories out is for sure the basis of weight loss and weight maintenance.

So, the first benefit is that it’s going to lead to sustainable weight loss. But it will also help you to improve your appetite regulation due to just being slower and being aware of your eating. And so, by tuning into your hunger signals, what will happen is you’ll start to notice how you feel throughout the dinner, throughout the meal.

If you’re listening to done with dieting, you know that I am all about not following diets. And so, when you follow this guideline of being able to eat what you want, but eating just enough, I 100% believe that your food will tell you how much is enough. So, what it does is it cuts down on the amount of external rules that we have to pay attention to.

Eat this, don’t eat that. Right? Can I have bread today? Can I have sugar? When you start paying attention to eating when you are hungry and eating enough so that you’re satisfied. You no longer have to pay attention to all of those external rules.

One of the things that it naturally does is it helps you to increase awareness of what’s happening in your body. It will helps you to become aware of am I really hungry or is what I’m doing, is it a craving, or am I having an emotion associated with this? Like, why do I want to eat when I’m not hungry? What it does is it allows us to really dig into what are my beliefs and what are my habits. Why am I wanting to eat when I’m actually not hungry?

And so, it connects you with your true nutrition needs which no one externally can tell you what your nutrition needs are. When you start to observe how food makes you feel and you eat according to how food makes you feel, you naturally will start to eat things that are better for you and better for your body.

When you start to really pay attention to what foods make me feel full. What foods help satisfy my hunger? What foods make me still feel hungry? Or after I’ve eaten it, in two hours, I want to eat again, even though I know that I ate enough calories. So, those are some of the questions that some of the benefits that actually come along with why we want to eat to satisfaction.

Some other benefits that we have are of course, it encourages digestion because you’re not overloading your body and it can actually help you to appreciate food more. You’ve heard me talk about this if you’re a longtime listener that for the longest time I thought that I loved food, but really what I loved was eating a lot of food.

And so, what I’ve learned since then is to really appreciate the food that I have. And then finally, it helps you to build tolerance for uncomfortable things. And I love this one because so often, we’re seeking comfort all of the time. We want to be comfortable. Well, all of us want to be comfortable, right? We don’t want to feel negative emotions. Our brain hates hearing, no. And so, when I see a plate of cookies or amazing creme brulee, like that’s one of my favorite or tiramisu, love that.

If it’s there in front of me, and I tell my brain, no. That’s painful! That’s uncomfortable. Our brain hates hearing the word, ‘no’ when it comes to things that are pleasurable. But through having some slight discomfort, what it does is it allows us to be able to tolerate more and more discomfort. You’ve heard that meme that says, “growth occurs outside the comfort zone.”

Through not feeding ourselves every single time we have an urge. What that does is it creates discipline, it creates consistency, and so it’s just leaning into that habit of being able to tell yourself, no, we’re not going to have that right now. Not such a terrible thing.

So, I have a couple steps for you to eat to satisfaction. The first thing that I did was cut down my portions by 20%. The eye can’t really see a reduction on your plate of 20%. Some people will suggest that you use different bowls, or plates, or whatever. And that’s fine, you can do that as well. However, if you use the same plate, you can portion down just about 20%.

Now, here’s the thing. As you’re eating, what you want to do is you want to tune in with how it is that you’re feeling as you’re eating. Now, this is actually really difficult. Especially, with the second cornerstone habit. The second cornerstone habit that I’m introducing in the middle of this is to eat slowly. I know that I am a fast eater. And if you are a fast eater along with me or even if you’re not, what tends to happen is we tend to match the eating pace of the people that we are eating a meal with.

And so, the more we can slow down, the more we can really tune into how our body feels as we’re eating, that will eventually help us to feel fuller at the end of our meal. So, what that means is as you’re eating, you put the fork down and you take a sip of water maybe or you just observe what’s happening around me. You take a breath. You look at your plate, you really taste the food and chew it. There are lots of different ways that you can slow down, but ultimately what we want to do is to increase the amount of time that we’re eating from 5 minutes or 10 minutes to 20 minutes or longer.

Now, of course, it depends on what you’re eating as to the length of time that that’s gonna take to eat. So things like tacos, for example, or hot dogs. Those are pretty easy to wolf down, right? They go down very quickly. However, things like a large salad can take a really long time to eat. I know this because I have one every single day, and so eating a salad can really take a long time.

The more you can stretch that meal time out, what happens is there are hormones that are secreted from your stomach that make their way up to the brain that tell you that you’ve had enough to eat. And so, the longer you can spread out that meal time, the faster, not really. But the more time you give your body to be able to register, oh, I’ve eaten enough.

So, the two habits, the two cornerstone habits that are really going to help you are eating just enough, not too much, and eating slowly. Now, you’ve already portioned out less food onto your plate, and now the next step is again to check in with yourself. So many of us grew up with the Clean Plate Club. We want to finish everything on our plate.

If this is you, what I’m going to invite you to do is I’m going to invite you to really do that first step. Because it’s going to be more difficult for you to stop eating in the middle of your meal when there’s food on your plate, because you have been conditioned to eat everything on your plate, regardless of whether you are full or not. Whether you are satisfied, especially if there’s like two or three bites left, right?

Like we don’t want to just throw that away. We’re like, Oh, it’s not that much, I’ll just eat it, right? But those three bites can really make a difference over time. So again, if this is you, if you are part of the Clean Plate Club, I’m going to invite you to actually once in a while, just try to leave one or two bites on your plate. It’s going to be uncomfortable. Especially, getting into why is that difficult.

For some of us, we look at the food that’s on our plate or leftovers as money. And so, really being able to tease apart, well, why am I unable to leave food on my plate? What does that represent to me? And we can get into that with coaching if that’s something that is really difficult for you. And it’s something that I do talk with my clients a lot about both in the Feel Good Sisterhood as well as in my one-on-one private coaching practice.

So, if this is something that you really struggle with, I’m going to invite you to schedule a consultation with me where we can figure out which program is best for you. Group coaching or one-on-one. But when you feel that you’ve eaten just enough and it’s not too much, then what you want to do is you want to stop eating.

Now, one thing that I’ve noticed with many of my clients and myself is that our body gives us a tell. For some, not everybody, but for some what happens is you might sit back in your chair, or you might take a big breath, or you might put your fork down. Notice what happens when you do that. And if you continue to eat, then you’ll notice that you probably have overeaten at the end of the meal.

Now, why we want to eat just enough and not too much is that again, going back to that idea that it takes about 20 minutes for the signals to go from your stomach to your brain to tell you that you’ve had enough food. What happens is we want to draw that out, but then if we’ve had just enough so we’re not full, but we’ve had just enough. What will happen then is in 20 minutes, we will feel full.

So, what we’re trying to do here is if we eat to fullness, then what happens is in 20 minutes we feel over full. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to preempt feeling over full by eating just a little bit less than we think we want to.

Now, here’s the thing. When you start to do this habit, You’re not going to be really good at it because it’s going to be something that is new for you. And what you might not know is how much is just enough. And unfortunately, I can’t tell you how much is just enough. Again, going back to our bodies is completely unique, and so therefore, your body might need more carbohydrate.

Your body might need more protein. Your body might need more fat to comprise the perfect meal for you. And so, what you get to do is when you’ve eaten just enough, what that looks like is you’re like, well, If I finish now, I might be okay. But I really could eat some more. When we get to that point, that’s when you want to stop.

Now, here’s what I tell my clients and what I’m going to tell you is that when you get to that point of satisfaction, not over fullness. And you’re like, Oh, but I’m really used to eating seconds or I really could eat a little bit more. What we want to do is we want to wait. We want to wait 20 minutes. And if you’re still hungry after 20 minutes, then of course, go eat. I never want my clients to be hungry. We’re not on a diet here. We’re just trying to have better eating habits, and this is one of the ways that we do that. We eat just enough and then we observe, am I still hungry? If I’m still hungry, then yes, let’s eat some more. But if I’m not hungry, then I just move on with my day.

Now, what will sometimes happen is that we’ll get cravings. I know I get cravings because I love having something sweet after my evening meal. But being able to tell the difference and notice, how does my stomach feel. Does my stomach feel full? Does my stomach feel satisfied? And what I’m really looking for is something to taste. Or am I really still hungry? So again, making that determination.

When you start this practice, as I said before, you’re going to be bad at it. I know, and that doesn’t make you want to try it. But when I started this process, it probably took me a good 18 months before I was able to do it on a consistent basis. Now, you may say 18 months, I can’t do that. I’ll throw up my hands. But if you keep doing it, what will happen is you’ll eventually get there.

As I’ve mentioned before, I still sometimes overeat. However, what will happen in this process is that because you’re eating smaller amounts, overeating at this point is going to be far less impactful, as it would be at the beginning of you starting this process.

So, what to do if you do find yourself overeating or if you have overeaten? One thing is do something physical. Get out and move. What that’ll do is it will help you to feel better because there’s nothing that feels worse than having that belly and just feeling like you’ve overdone it and then sitting down and just feeling awful. Right? The more you can move, and it’s not about working off the calories, but getting your body moving so that it can spur on digestion, it can use up some of that energy that you’ve taken in.

The other thing that I’m going to recommend that you do is really become reflectful and notice how it feels when you’ve overeaten. It doesn’t feel good. We think it feels good. We think it feels familiar. And it might feel familiar, but it really doesn’t feel good. And the more you get out of the habit of overeating and getting to eating just enough, the more overeating will be a negative reinforcement for you.

Now, the very last piece that I want to suggest, as I said before, it took me about 18 months to get to a point where I was regularly eating just enough and not too much. And what I don’t want to happen is I don’t want you to beat yourself up. I don’t want you to use this as evidence of why you can’t be successful.

What we want to do is at the very beginning right now if you’ve never done this before. What I want you to do is I want you to observe how often you are currently overeating. And over time, every single time you overeat, mark it down on your calendar. And what I want you to observe is that over time as long as your overeating becomes less, then you are winning.

And so, that last piece is actually really important because I think that what tends to happen with us as humans is that we think that well, now that I’ve done it once, I’m naturally going to be successful forever. Okay? I’ve turned this corner and I’m automatically, I’m no longer an overeater anymore.

What can happen is we can believe that we aren’t making any progress just because we’ve had one day of overeating. But when you look at it over the period of time, maybe at the beginning you’re overeating 90% of the time.

But then in a month or two, you’re only overeating 50%. And so, what our brain will look at is yeah, but I’m overeating 50% of the time. Well, okay, maybe, but you’re overeating a lot less than you were before. And that’s what we want to focus on. We want to focus on where we started and where we are right now versus where we are overeating 50% of the time to never. So that’s my very last tip for you.

Now again, in summary, what I want to say is that the two cornerstone habits, that if you are someone who wants to lose weight in 2023, what I’m going to suggest is that you adopt these very simple but not easy to do habits. One is eating just enough, not too much. And the second one is slowing down your eating so that it takes longer for you to eat your meals.

These two habits are really going to make a world of difference for you. And if you try them and you find that you’re really struggling with them for whatever reason. Again, I am going to recommend that you reach out to me and schedule a consultation call so that we can make sure that you are successful in 2023. And that 2023 is the very last year that you have weight loss on your goal sheets.

So, let’s get that off of there so that you never have to diet again. That’s what I have for you today. Have an amazing week, everyone. And I will talk to you next time. Bye-bye.

Hey, Thanks for listening. If you’re done with dieting and would like to work with me as your coach, I’d like to invite you to reach out to myself and my team to ask about programs and pricing. Go to elizabethsherman.com/contact to get started today. I can’t wait to hear from you. See you next week.