Wellness Archives - CarpenterOne80

How Not To Do It All

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 16 hours ago in Family

The question I get asked a lot is “How do you do it all?” I quickly try to regain my composure, because inside I am laughing and outside I am shaking my head. I then begin the story of how I absolutely do not.

I think of myself like a duck, Quack Quack. I am calm on the surface and paddling like mad under the water.

I think there is a belief from looking in the window of someone else’s life that the life/balance juggle is easier for some. I don’t think any of it is easy.

The short answer for me is that I don’t. I can’t do it all. I am just finally in a place where I am ok with tearing apart this illusion to show you behind the curtain.

I want to mentor and guide other women to create a life they love without compromising their lifestyle. Most of the time, I am able to make an impact by clearing up food confusion so people, like you, feel educated about the foods to eat to get the weight off and keep it off.

The truth is, most of the weight loss has to do with emotional and psychological weight loss. It is mental, so this piece of TRYING TO DO IT ALL is important to me to consider.

One of the biggest ways I can illustrate this is to discuss my big and little rocks. The rocks are my priorities and the order of my values.

The big rocks:

Physical

One of the reasons I am most passionate about sharing CarpenterOne80 with the world is the freedom I found when I understood how exercise fits into the weight-loss equation.

I formerly believed that exercise was the way to control my weight. I would sacrifice more than I care to admit to get the time in with cardio. I would punish myself, exercise hours a day, I felt exhausted, hungry, and miserable.

Now, I exercise because I like the particular exercise. I might work out 4 times a week, for 30 minutes a day. It is about feeling strong, flexible, healthy, and maintaining lean muscle.

I work out to clear my head and benefit from the endorphins. The time freedom from not spending so much time exercising has made this an important part of my weekly schedule but allows me to have more time with the people I love most.

Intellectual

This is first because this changed my daily everything. When I learned to slow down and rank order my priorities, I found exceptional clarity.

DKC and I decided as a couple, our mission was to raise great adults, and we were 2 of those adults. That has given us a TRUE NORTH our entire marriage. Since we knew #raisinggreatadults was what we were about, having a spiritual life first, exceptional marriage second, then kids, then work, we have been able to keep the main thing the main thing. We know what comes first.

This sounds easy. Rest assured, it was not. It took time to decide on and commit to. It takes incredible effort and discipline to stay on track with. Part of not doing it all, is realizing with the right priorities for our family, we simply cannot do it all.

Spiritual

I was raised in the church, I couldn’t hear anything. I showed up, I kept going, I was doing what I knew was right, but I was empty while I was there. I still went, I took my family, we positioned ourselves to receive.

It was that for years. The kids crawling in pews, passing out snacks, hoping to make it through service.

Eventually, it shifted. I’ll skip all the middle part from nothing to everything. The point is, the shift happened and God became #1 for DKC and for me,

Emotional

I have to think about what I think about, above all things. Learning to control my thoughts & everyday work strengthen my mental game is a big rock. It is a discipline, however, when I show up to this each day, I handle the little things that come my way so much better.

One of my adjustments:

There is so much comparison in the world and years ago I fell victim to the early days of @PotteryBarn Halloween costumes, @Pinterest first birthday parties, etc. Eventually, I realized that the pictures I was seeing were not my reality. I had to be very practical and take this out of my screen time. When I took the pressure off my shoulders of trying to keep up with this, I returned to a sense of peace and knowing that I was doing right for my family. I needed to keep my eye on my own life (like we have to keep our eyes on our own paper at school).

As we enter the holiday season, I hope you find comfort and joy because you are also able to focus on the important things in your life.

If it is time for you to make yourself one of the priorities, if you think about losing weight all the time but haven’t been able to, if you’ve tried a variety of programs only to gain the weight back, if you feel sad or discouraged because this extra weight is holding you back, if you feel like losing weight will help you love yourself & your body… then consider joining my next small group.

I hope you create a lifestyle you love when you look and feel your very best and have weight loss without hunger. You’ll feel educated and understand how to balance your plate and how true weight loss and weight maintenance happens. I so badly want to help you have food peace so that it permeates in all areas of your life!

Here’s to a Healthy Happy Holiday Season!

The Slice of White Bread Rule

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 1 month ago in Tips

I see food broken down into slices of bread. It’s my point of reference to gauge the carbohydrate density of the food. 1 slice of bread is my carbohydrate equivalency of food. Here is what I mean and some examples.

BEFORE WE START:

It isn’t so much about counting calories. The focus should be on net carbs. By keeping net carbs low you have the carbs you need for energy, without gaining weight. If you keep your net carbs low enough, your body will be in a position to burn fat for fuel. It is important to track your net carbs, and it helps to have a visual of what a typical serving of carbohydrates looks like. This is why I talk about the slice of white bread.

THE SLICE OF WHITE BREAD

The trend is for people to understand calories and tracking them. Carbohydrates seem to be more elusive and having a visual like a piece of bread helps people a better grasp. A serving of carbohydrates is 15 grams. We can picture 1 slice of white bread looks like, well it is 15 grams of carb, which is 1 serving.

Picture 2 slices of white bread. It is 2 servings of carbohydrate. 2 slices of white bread is 15g X 2= 30 grams carbohydrate. Picture 3 slices of white bread. That’s 45 grams of carbohydrate (3 servings).

I bet you can’t remember the last time you ate 3 slices of white bread in one sitting. That’s the point. 3 servings of white bread as an afternoon snack is an odd choice. Imagine this, a grande soy latte is a typical afternoon pick-me-up. It is socially normal, accepted, and seems reasonable to order one up. There are many people who enjoy this 5 days a week, Monday through Friday. Here is the tricky part. A grande soy latte is 41 grams of carbs. Picture that stack of 3 slices of bread, for an afternoon snack, it makes you think twice.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND?

The slices of bread is a visual way to conceptualize whether a food has a lot of carbs (thus taking up a lot of room in your glycogen stores) or only a little. The fewer carbs that you ingest, the lower your net carbs, giving your body a chance to burn fat for fuel. In the absence of net carbs, your body begins to burn fat for fuel.

Understanding this is, well….It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

HOW TO PUT THIS IN YOUR LIFE
Remember a lot of foods contain carbs, and just because a food has carbs does not mean that it is bad for you and that you shouldn’t eat it. It isn’t off-limits. You just need to compute how many slices of bread the food equates to and determine if it fits into your “Carb budget”. Just because it has a high number of carbs doesn’t mean it’s bad or off-limits.

1 slice of white bread (15g carbs)

2 slices of white bread (30g carbs)

3 slices of white bread (45g carbs)

THE GOOD NEWS

The carb content of food can be offset by fiber (total carb-fiber=net carb). So, if a food has the carb equivalent to 3-4 slices of white bread, you can still have it with CarpenterOne80 so long as you have enough net carbs left not to exceed your daily carb allotment. I typically stay below 35g net carbs for weight loss. I stay below 75g for maintenance. To really stretch the number of carbs you can eat, aim for foods with the most fiber. The greater the portion of carbohydrates in a food that are actually fiber, the lower the net carb. The lower the net carb, the greater your chances of burning fat for fuel.

Is this you? Inflammation: I don’t know what it is, I just know I have it.

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 1 month ago in Wellness

Listen, I am anti-diet culture but I am not anti-sustainable weight loss.

It really isn’t so much about the constant overeating that is the cause of weight gain. Most people don’t do that. The cause is the sneaky inflammation that causes carb and sugar craving and really is a drain on your metabolism. The sugar from those carbs causes the slow down or inability to lose weight and belly fat. Plus, that leads to poor energy and you just feel, well…bad.

You can do what others do which is exercise really hard and spend a lot of time not seeing results while jumping from hungry fad diet to hungry fad diet. However, if you don’t address the root problem, you will keep wasting your time.

So, what is inflammation and how do you decrease it?

This is the stuff I cover in my SOS (Suz on your Shoulder) Program (fyi, you can sign up for free for 7 days!), but let’s first discuss…

PFF: Protein, Fat, and Fiber at every meal make maintaining or losing weight no big deal. This is where you start to rev your metabolism AND prevent inflammation. It keeps your blood sugar nice and even and allows your body to exist in a fat-burning mode. Truthfully, this ensures you are supporting your body.

Protein – this protects your lean muscle. You want to keep all the muscle you can because that is your storage tank for carbs.
Fat – this will help you feel fuller longer and slows those blood sugar spikes (which is KEY when it comes to keeping your body in fat-burning mode!) It’s so good for your brain, satiety, and hormones!
Fiber – This is the indigestible part of a carb. High fiber carbohydrate foods help your body stay in fat burning mode. You will find fiber in whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. This is your #1 inflammation fighter, plus it will cause your stomach to stretch, keep you full for hours, and help balance your blood sugar.

Remove Inflammatory Foods: Packaged and processed foods, even the ones that say “Healthy” or “Natural”, are often filled with ingredients, such as vegetable oil, that help cause inflammation.

Look at your packages in your pantry. Look for words like vegetable oils, safflower, sunflower, canola, corn, soybean. You will be shocked at how many of these products you probably have.

Oh, if you are intolerant to a food, your body will respond with inflammation as well. If you know a food bothers you (common is dairy and gluten) it’s time to skip these foods.

Exercise: Exercise is part of the healthy living equation. The best form of exercise for you to do is the one you will do. After that, weight-bearing exercises. This can be yoga, Pilates, HIIT, Barre, swimming, running, walking, hiking, rowing, biking, to name a few… Weight lifting is a low impact but high metabolic impact workout. It will increase your metabolism without causing inflammation.

Take care of your Gut: If anything can leak out of your gut, it causes inflammation. That means you need to feed those gut “bugs” food they LOVE (Fiber) so that the lining is nice and thick. This gut lining is your defense against the toxins getting into your bloodstream and causing havoc. If you have years of eating inflammatory foods/meds/ chronic stress, your gut lining will actually wear thin.

So, when toxins hit your blood, your body protects you with an inflammatory response. You can go down the supplement route like probiotics, omega-3, digestive enzymes, glutamine, & collagen to help, however, the best place to begin to heal that gut is with PFF (Protein, Fat, & Fiber), plenty of sleep, & lowering stress.

Sleep: When you get enough sleep, your body heals. Want inflammation to go down (start with the food) but give your body time to heal from the day. We heal with adequate sleep. If you are getting up early for bootcamp and skipping sleep, you are in for an inflammation spike. Try it, sleep in – skip the class and watch your weight drop.

If you read through this and anything jumped out at you and you thought…..THIS is what is holding me back from results…

Then you need to start with my SOS (Suz on your Shoulder) Program.

It’s a bite size nutrition education course broken down into 3-4 minute audio texts that deliver right to your text messages each day. It will teach you what you need to be eating! It’s a $49 month value but you get to start for FREE for 7 days. After that, it’s only $15 a month.

$15 a month can change your life. SOS (Suz on your Shoulder) exists to clear up food confusion so that you can win at losing weight, stop suffering, and love your life.

I’ll talk to you soon!

PS – Grab my list of Favorite Fiber Finds, Here

Originally posted 2020-05-30 07:39:15.

4 Ways to stay Motivated after January

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 2 months ago in Fitness

It’s all fun and games making New Year’s Resolutions. It is another thing altogether when you are put to the test to see them through.

If you are like the rest of us, February 1 is when the excuses roll in. ‘I’ll go to the gym tomorrow night.” or “The Bachelor is on, I’ll just have this Monday night glass of wine, tonight.”

That is my experience.

I had to take Resolutions into a different category if I was to see them through. I changed them to intentions and had to do a little extra work to see them through.

Here is my 5 ways to keep motivated ALL YEAR LONG:

Write them down

I mean this. Every day, EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING. I roll out of bed, when I said I would the night before and stumble to my journal. Even if I only have 5 minutes. I scribble out what I am grateful for, my 10 goals (Resolutions/Intentions), and mantras (like…”What kind of person do I want to be 10 years from now? Show up today as her…” that kind of thing).

Do a Cleanse

Not a diet cleanse, but a comparison cleanse. If you keep your eyes on your own paper (I am talking to myself here) you will be far happier if you stay in competition with yourself. Go back to #1, keep your personal intentions fresh at all times, then go easy on the social media game. You will also find that 30 minutes added back into your day gives you more time to reach your Resolutions. Did you know that 30 minutes a day of mindless scrolling adds up to 22 missed workdays over the course of a year?

Get a New Toy

If your budget can afford it, choose something that is worth fighting for and practice delayed gratification. It could be, “Go to the gym 4 days this week, on the 5th day get the Starbucks” Work for something. Your confidence will SKYROCKET.

Post It

I am a believer that you can achieve what the mind conceives. I write my goals down and post them above my faucet on my bathroom mirror. I write mantras that I want to remind myself of. I write goals. I do this because I never remember them first thing each morning. Life is busy, crazy, and hard. I need these posted as reminders. All this work on the easier days makes determines what type of person will show up when life gets rocky and resolutions are likely to be forgotten.

What do you do to stay motivated?

Originally posted 2020-01-26 02:38:45.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Will I be on a diet until the day I die”?

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 2 months ago in Wellness

Is this you? I asked that question of myself for years.

I know you. You have layers on your body that you desperately want to shed. You are successful in so many places in your life. You have won awards, raised great humans, face the day head-on, meet deadlines, smile through hard things, and juggle the needs of others.

You think that you have to prove your worth to everyone that you meet. You feel as though you have to explain why you haven’t lost the weight and then prove that you are still strong and competent and worthy of listening to.

Your self-confidence shrinks every morning because of this routine: (I know this is what it sounds like and feels like- because I have lived it too!

You look in the mirror, you are wrapped in a towel, your hair is wet, I hear what you are saying to yourself. It’s mean. You see the folds, the thick arms, the dimples on the back of your thighs. Your hair is cold on your neck, and you tilt your head to the side trying to find the beauty in the mirror. YOU can’t see it; your loved ones do, but you don’t. “You are ugly, you are not good enough, others are better at everything,” you tell yourself.

You pledge each morning that today is the day that you are finally going to be successful at losing weight. You are not really sure how you will do this, but today is the day. You will start with the plan of not eating. That will work. With fewer calories in, you will beat the scale, you tell yourself.

You step into the cold closet. Your clothes already feel tight and you haven’t even started to get dressed. You just know they will be. You can already feel it. Your closet is a place you don’t want to be in. You already feel defeated, grey, bland, why try. You are going to really avoid all the foods you enjoy because that is what got you here, you tell yourself.

You are dressed. The waist is tight, the pants pull across your zipper, your skirt is already bunching up. You really want to hide, maybe just go back to bed. This has been a hard way to start another day. Now you have to go and be something that you do not feel. You have to go give joy, love, show confidence, peace, strength, and poise to the world. The world demands that you do it, but it is painful because you feel none of those things. Not after what just happened in your head while you were getting dressed.

I am talking to people who are worried that this will not get to the end.

I have a heart for you. I weighed 226 pounds before I was pregnant. In that season of disordered eating, I was using food as a companion and for comfort. The uncomfortable aspects of my life were covered up by Ben & Jerry and Pillsbury cookie dough. The ice cream brothers and the Pillsbury Doughboy helped me to numb the parts of life that were hard to face. I didn’t know that by covering the pain I was also covering feeling too good. I was in a sugar numb (or food coma) Did you ever pause long enough to give contemplation to the meaning of being in a coma? Think about what it truly means to be in a state of coma, now realize that with food. If you use food to numb, you would numb the good feelings.

Each morning, like you, I pledged willpower of starvation and being good. I would fight hunger the first half of the day, eating just the apple (because it was healthy and kept people from asking), sometimes I was able to keep it up for 2-3 days, but I always lost steam and willpower. The saving phrase came next, I’ll start tomorrow (and the pledge to be perfect starting tomorrow, so I may as well eat everything I have missed these past days). This cycle was exhausting. I eventually quit trying.

I quit trying until someone asked me THE QUESTION: “You say you would die for your kids, but would you change for them?”

That question made me willing to admit that my way wasn’t working. I needed to learn what to do to find food peace and get help to quiet to voice that was causing the anxiety, shame, and food drama in my head. I knew that if I didn’t do this, and soon, my daughters were designed to grow up and have the same voices speaking death to them each morning.

Back to your voice: would you allow someone to talk (out loud) to you that way in front of your kids or loved ones? NO! For the same reason, you should not be listening to those words, even if they are in your head and only you hear them. That is not how you are supposed to live. You are meant to be happy.

CarpenterOne80 was born out of this. It exists to clear up food confusion so that you can win at losing weight, feel confident, and live life without regrets.

They are simple (perhaps not obvious…YET) principals that will end food drama, balance blood sugar, allow weight loss without hunger, denial, and deprivation. You will lose weight, feel good, not be a slave to the gym, be able to dine out, and enjoy cocktails while looking and feeling our very best.

What else can you do? Be your own expert and educate yourself. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If you want to save time, follow a program based in science, lose more weight and see real, permanent results, don’t do it alone. Look into SOS or one of the digital courses we offer.

There is a better way. This is a simple system that came from following this golden rule:
“Decide what you need most in this world, then go out and do that.”

This is your time to answer the question, “Will I be on a diet on the day I die?” With CarpenterOne80, your answer can be ‘NO’.

Originally posted 2020-01-19 02:30:28.

What is Fiber and How Does it Affect your Body Weight?

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 2 months ago in Fiber

Erin recently asked me, “Where exactly does fiber come from?” She didn’t mean what sources of food have fiber, she wanted to know WHERE the fiber in the food came from. If you have ever wondered…it is found in the tough cell walls of plants.

Fiber is found in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Fiber is not found in animal products.

What are the 2 types of Fiber and Why Do you want Both

Soluble Fiber

Soluble fiber swells like a sponge in the stomach giving a food a jellylike bulk that makes you feel full. Soluble fiber also binds with calories and fat in the stomach and intestines and pulls them out of the body before they can enter the bloodstream. Good sources of soluble fiber are oatmeal, oat cereal, celery, carrots, cucumbers, blueberries, dried pears, apples, oranges, pears, lentils, strawberries, raspberries, nuts, and beans.

Most whole plant foods contain both types of fiber. Eating a variety of fiber-rich foods will provide you with beneficial amounts of both.

Insoluble Fiber

Insoluble fiber, also known as roughage, includes the woody or structural parts of plants. Insoluble fiber works like nature’s broom. It helps to speed material through the digestive tract. These burn calories in the process. Good sources of insoluble fiber are root vegetables with skin, broccoli, apples, grapes, raisins, whole grains, wheat bran, corn, bran, couscous, brown rice, nuts, seeds, whole wheat, carrots, green beans, dark leafy vegetables, and cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower.

P.S. If you are looking for an excellent fiber powder source that includes both soluble and insoluble fiber, this one is my favorite for smoothies and baking!

Follow me on Instagram and see how I incorporate this into my families lifestyle

Originally posted 2020-05-02 16:26:13.

Our Childhood

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 2 months ago in Junk Drawer

I bet it would be fair to assume that as a child you ate nearly the same breakfast and the same lunch every single day. You would start the day with a predictable bowl of cereal with milk and a banana. Lunch was a peanut butter sandwich cut in ½ or a ham and cheese (American cheese) sandwich. There might have been school milk purchased, and an apple, or perhaps a small baggie of chips if you were lucky. It was a special time the weeks following Halloween because mom would allow ONE small candy bar per day.

Am I right? As for dinner, who knows. You really wanted dessert and to be excused and I bet you could list a few familiar dishes.

Somewhere that got lost. I want to point out that many of the people I talk to who have a healthy relationship with food (meaning they would probably not be interested in this blog post of food) seem to eat similar foods each day, for each meal. They know the groceries to buy, they know the combinations of foods that make them feel good, and most days they simply show up to simplicity.

I want to remind those of you who are looking to create a lifestyle without food guilt, shame, anxiety, and drama, that it is ok to figure out what 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 bridge snacks, and 2 dinners make you feel the best. Decide ahead of time what they are and be sure that each has a protein, fat, and fiber to balance your blood sugar and turn off hunger hormones.

It shouldn’t feel punitive. Rather, I hope this lands on you as an ah-ha that it is ok to simplify. As you get to know me better and follow my lifestyle, you will see the pattern in what I eat, how I order, and what groceries I buy.

I made a deal with myself and did the work to choose the 2 meals for each eating time of the day. It cost me a few minutes that one day but has saved me THOUSANDS of hours thinking about what to eat, what groceries to buy, and if what I am eating will support my health and weight goals.

Now, when I get really hungry (or when one of my students gets over hungry) this is what we do: eat the already planned meal, and THEN have the insanity food that sounds delicious.

This is how it sounds in my head: “I want pretzels and chocolate chips because I am going to eat my arm off. Ok, eat the smoothie first then you can have it.” As I am making my smoothie, I am telling myself I can have the insanity snack in just a few more minutes. However, I eat the smoothie and the craving for the pretzels and chocolate chips subsides. I am back in control.

This does get easy, and it does make your life more simple. It will cost you the homework on the front end but will save you so many calories on the back end.

Go back to the days of childhood. Eating the same thing meal after meal can be a really, really good thing!

Originally posted 2020-01-05 17:36:18.

December Pace – Why it’s a blessing

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 3 months ago in Junk Drawer

Let’s face it: December requires us, girls, to show up with even more awesome than other months of the year. I would argue that the only month to rival December would be May, but that is for another conversation.

Here is how I look at the month of December: I deal with real-life then, with a big GULP, admit that my to-do list just doubled or tripled in size. I have to do all my normal things then add in add being cheery, decorating, baking, extra hosting, cards, shopping, ribbon, and wrapping on top (to name only a few).

We are aware that New Year’s Eve is looming and that January 1 and Resolutions is right around the corner. I want to propose a new way of looking at December in preparation for the coming year.

Choose to see all the December distractions, additions, I see the activities as a blessing because you are so busy. This is the one month every year that I set my intentions to follow #one80eating day in and day out, I absolutely enjoy the day of Christmas (or Christmas Eve) and New Year’s. Other than that, we are too busy to mindlessly eat, nosh, splurge. There is too much to be done.

Here is what it requires of you: groceries and being boring. Grab your protein powder, basil seeds, and cashew milk and have your smoothie each breakfast. Lunch, have the salad! Have the big salad (a side of GG’s to help fill you up), make your bridge snack simple with 4 GG Crackers and a pouch of nut butter (keep this in the car) or another ½ smoothie, and dinner can be a salad with some protein with grilled veggies.

Done. You choose the flair, you input the ingredients, but that is my December boring basic food list that keeps me fueled through the month.

Since there is so much to do, and little time to eat because you are bored or looking for something to do, this could be one of the easier times to stay on track.

Want some party tricks?

Water-wine-water (repeat)
Hold the glass in your non-dominant hand
Drink a ½ smoothie before you go in to offset your hunger
Choose 3 bites of anything that looks to die for, find fiber for the rest.

You have got this. You can do December different. You can make this the first New Years where you are well on your way to reaching your goals, not just starting out!

Originally posted 2019-12-22 17:29:35.

Have you ever thought about using your phone alarm for more than a wake-up call?

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 3 months ago in Tips

New Decade vision

For me, #one80eating is not just about losing weight, lowering cholesterol, and managing blood pressure. It is understanding that I don’t have to settle in and unhealthy lifestyle, bodyweight… It applies to NOT having to settle in life, friendships, career.

Don’t have to settle for mediocrity when greatness exists. If I see something that needs to be changed, change it. Don’t have to be stuck. The change will come with sacrifice. We all have the ability to change. Don’t have to be stuck. The change will be uncomfortable, it will require being mindful, and take time and resources…but positive change is possible.

If your perception of what you get is worth what it is that you are giving up you will find it worth it. When you look back on your life, you want no regrets. Do you like your life, career, friendships work, are you kind and philanthropic as you can be? Are you at your personal best at work? Do you feel your personal best? If the answer is no, think about why that is and think about the steps to take.

Think about your best self. What does that person look like, sound like. Envision the relationships you will have, career, the family you will have.. Picture the life you want for your self. Every day you have the opportunity to live up to that and take a step closer. Some days you may be undermining that.

Becoming the better version takes habits and reminders. I have my phone set with alarm reminders to be “PRESENT, CALM & at PEACE”. I have another reminder set in my phone to remind me to be, “BOLD, CONFIDENT, & DYNAMIC.” These phone reminders go off in the middle of the day, the alarm makes me look at my phone, and I am SHOCKED at how much I need to be reminded of these intentions. I can honestly say, that I am most often NOT doing what these reminders say when they come in. They reorient my thoughts. These alarms are helping me to create and sustain the habits that are needed to create the life I want.

When I married DKC (almost 24 years ago), I wore diamond studs. They symbolized change, elegance, and that we were starting a life of our dreams. Every single day, I wear those diamond earrings as a physical reminder that I am living MY best life. There are plenty of hard & unfancy days that I have to choose to remember that. The earrings are simply a physical reminder to myself. It doesn’t have to be diamond earrings for you, these are what I already had, and I had an intention with them on our wedding day. I’m just giving an example of using something you have near you every day and attaching a deep personal meaning to it.

What do you have in place to keep you focused forward on your vision for your life?

It is one thing to visualize it, it’s another to put action behind the vision. This is a new DECADE, a fresh chance at making new habits that can change your life forever. I hope it encourages you to know that it’s the little discipline repeated frequently that makes great change happen.

Like Tony Robbins says, “People overestimate what they can do in a month, and underestimate what they can accomplish in a year.” Let’s set you up for 2020 to be the start of a different kind of Decade, the getting things done, kind of decade.

Originally posted 2019-12-29 19:33:46.

Is it emotional eating or is it hunger? Do you know the difference?

By CarpenterOne80 Admin 3 months ago in Tips

No more commute time AND skipping Spanx & pointy shoes. While Covid is not how we wanted to go about taking time off from those things, here we are. Our heels have been traded for gym shoes, Spanx for slippers and tennis shoes, and fast lunches for pantry snacks. This might feel like a really pleasant change; however, this shift will cause many people to re-evaluate how they structure their days to stay healthy.

Obviously, a big part of being healthy while stuck at home is diet (pattern of eating). It isn’t just what you eat, but how much, when, and WHY. Physical hunger does play into eating habits, but most of us eat because of emotional hunger. It’s normal, and our emotions are really high right now because of the pandemic. Basically, emotional hunger leads to eating because we are responding to our feelings rather than physical hunger.

The problem with emotional eating is that it leads to overeating, increased frequency, and/or craving specific junk foods or comfort foods. So, it’s normal, we all do it, and it is often triggered by stress, anxiety, depression, and boredom. It can also be a way to distract ourselves (or avoid) other emotions we don’t want to feel and can easily become a habit.

It can be tricky to identify if it is emotional eating or physical hunger. Here are 3 ways to tell if what you are feeling is emotional hunger:

It comes on REALLY FAST

The urge to snack or eat comes on really fast if it is emotional hunger. Physical hunger comes on gradually. If you suddenly find yourself craving food, check-in:

When was the last time you ate?
Was it one hour or several hours ago?

If you last ate a protein, fat, & fiber meal an hour ago and you are hungry, it might be emotionally driven.

Feeling full doesn’t last

Sadly, emotional hunger doesn’t leave you feeling full and satisfied for long. That’s because the food you eat really isn’t solving what you are really hungry for. If it is boredom, food gives you something to do, but only for a few minutes. If it is anxiety, you may feel calm while you eat, but then…regret for overeating. It does not ease and calm anxiousness. To really satisfy emotional hunger, it’s worth identifying the underlying negative emotions and then addressing them.

You won’t feel it in your stomach!

This is fascinating and probably the biggest tell between emotional and physical hunger.

Emotional hunger isn’t felt in the stomach. Physical hunger has a sign we all recognize, our stomach growls and there is a gnawing if we go too long without food. Did you know that we feel the rumbling and the sound we hear is actually audible because there is no food to buffer the sound? What you hear are the organ and muscular activity. Emotional hunger is coming from our thoughts, not our bodies.

Because emotional eating is triggered by thoughts and not our bodies (biology), it is easy to get trapped in an emotional eating cycle. Boredom can lead to larger quantities & increased frequency… which can create feelings of guilt. To minimize the guilt feelings, we might reach for a treat to soothe us (temporarily). This is where food and emotions feed the emotional eating cycle. It makes sense that since so many people are suddenly under chronic stress, it would be more difficult to mindfully change our behaviors since there seem to be so many more triggers.

Is emotional eating something you are struggling with? If yes, you are not alone. This is a big part of what I work on with clients. SOS will educate WHAT to do, and as you see success, we begin to tackle what gets in the way of consistency, which is one of the biggest problems is emotional eating. The good news is, when done right and with the right person, you can get back on track to eating for physical hunger MORE OFTEN than eating for emotional hunger.

Originally posted 2020-04-25 13:32:01.

Wellness