Weight Loss for Foodies podcast | Ditch the Diet and Lose Weight with Shari Broder | Life Coach School certified

How do Italians eat pasta every day and not gain weight? Why do they have the lowest obesity rate in Western Europe? Why they don't gain weight as easily as Americans do?  In October, I was really fortunate to spend two weeks in northern Italy. I visited  Venice, Verona, Florence, and Tuscany, specifically the medieval walled hill towns of San Gimignano, Siena and Volterra. They were each wonderful in their own way. I had a fantastic time, and really loved it there.  While I was there, I talked to a few American expats. One American woman in Florence told me, “I've been living here for a year and have lost 10 pounds without doing anything. I eat pasta every day. Plus I can eat dairy and gluten here with no digestive problems. Back in the States, I couldn't tolerate those foods.” I can't tell you how many people have told me stories like this.  Americans who visited Italy told me that they drank wine with one or two meals a day, ate pasta, desserts, not to mention those breakfast croissants, and did not get the indigestion they normally got back home, and did not gain weight. The Italians are known for their fantastic cuisine. Italy was the EAT in Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love.  And for good reason.  Have you ever wondered why Italian cuisine is so delicious? And how do they eat that carb-heavy diet filled with pasta, bread, croissants (see typical Italian breakfast to the right) and other delicious things, and not have the obesity problem that much of the rest of the world is experiencing?  Italy has approximately half the obesity rate as the United States.  Tune in below (or wherever you get your podcasts) and learn how you too can eat like an Italian. If you're ready to learn to eat in a sustainable way that is in tune with your body's hunger and fullness signals, to end emotional and drop down to your healthy weight, sign up for my online Weight Loss for Foodies program. In it, you'll go beyond what I talk about in the podcast, and can download worksheets to practice what you're learning and guided audio practices. The cost is less than half of the price of the coaching program.  Learn more and sign up HERE.  

How many times have you heard this saying? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So many people get stuck and have difficulty reaching their weight goals (and any other goal for that matter) because they get caught in a repetitive pattern of doing the same thing that doesn't work, or that makes things worse,, over and over again. Maybe you keep stopping at that bakery on your way to work, buying three pastries under the pretense that you'll share them or save some for tomorrow, then eat them all.  Maybe you binge on chips after dinner while watching TV every night.  The Weight Loss for Foodies method is all about achieving permanent weight loss success by changing your habits and developing a peaceful relationship with food and eating.  Some people can dive right in and do all of the things that I recommend. But that doesn't work for everyone.  For many people, what works the best is to take baby steps  to break patterns of overeating or emotional eating that you keep repeating to your own detriment.  Stay tuned to learn how you can get out of your rut and start making progress by taking baby steps to change your eating habits. And stay tuned for a very important announcement  at the end–and it isn't a sales pitch! 

Do you eat foods you don't like very much because they're low in calories or carbs, then feel unsatisfied afterwards and still crave something tastier?  There's a scientific reason behind that! I have something exciting and NEW to share with you about mindset and eating.  Surprising evidence supports the role of mindset in weight management in a totally unexpected way.  How you think about what you're eating affects your weight! What that means is what you think about your food affects how your body responds to it physiologically. I mean how full or satisfied what you eat  makes you feel.  It's totally consistent with the Weight Loss for Foodies approach to eat what you love when you're hungry as a way to lose weight and experience a peaceful relationship with food and eating.  It's backed by the research of Alia Crum, a psychologist and researcher in the field of mindset at Stanford University.  Dr. Crum  discovered that what people believed about what they were eating affected both their satisfaction with the food AND the levels of the hunger hormone their body made, which affected their appetite.  Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts to learn why this is so important and how you can make it work for you so you get to your comfortable weight. If you're ready to learn to eat in a sustainable way that is in tune with your body's hunger and fullness signals, to end emotional and drop down to your healthy weight, sign up for my online Weight Loss for Foodies program. In it, you'll go beyond what I talk about in the podcast, and can download worksheets to practice what you're learning and guided audio practices. The cost is less than half of the price of the coaching program.  Learn more and sign up at my website, ShariBroder.com.

Do you have family members who make comments about your weight, other people's weight, their own weight, or what you should and shouldn't eat? Do you have friends or family who are always talking about their latest diet? It's summer vacation, which for many of us means eating meals with family members we don't see all the time. For some of us, that's a blessing. For others, it can be very difficult and stressful.  For many people, dealing with their extended family is wrought with all kinds of mixed emotions and potentially difficult interactions.  As a weight coach, one thing I hear repeatedly from my clients is that they have family members who make comments about how they look, their weight, or their food choices. Some people come from families where the significance of appearance, and weight in particular, carries undue importance.  Then there's that person at the table, be it friend or family member, who has to tell everyone about their latest miracle diet.  Tune in and learn why their comments are NOT OK, not well-meaning, and how to deal with them gracefully.  I'll give you some tips about how to deal with these situations.  You can download a free copy of my PDF entitled “Managing Comments About Weight And Eating” HERE.  If you're ready to dive in and make peace with food and eating, sign up for my online Weight Loss for Foodies course. It will give you all the tools you need to make peace with food and eating, and lose the weight for good. Learn more and sign up HERE. Love Weight Loss for Foodies? Support it HERE.

When was the last time you felt physically hungry?  Do you eat in response to your body's hunger signals? Or do you eat for all kinds of other reasons that have nothing to do with your body's need for food? One of the most important tenets of the Weight Loss for Foodies approach is to only eat when you're physically hungry, and stop eating when you're lightly full.  The reason this is so important is that when you only feed your body when it's hungry, and stop eating when you're lightly full, you give your body the amount of food it needs to be your healthy weight.  Most people don't pay attention to hunger and fullness, and eat for all kinds of other reasons, like you're bored, tired, it's noon, or whatever.  When you eat but aren't hungry, your body stores that energy as fat. That's why obesity is in epidemic proportions nowadays.  BUT once you start eating in tune with your hunger signals, miracles happen! You start dropping extra weight without giving up the foods you love! You feel lighter and have more energy. Food and eating become easier and less stressful.  The tool I use to decide when to start and stop eating is the Hunger Scale, and that's what I'm talking about in this episode.  TUNE IN to this week's episode below and learn how totally KEY eating only when you're hungry is if you want to eat what you love, lose weight and keep it off. Download your free copy of the hunger scale HERE, and keep it near where you eat.  Weight Loss for Foodies is now available as an online, self-paced course without coaching. In it, you'll go beyond what I talk about in the podcast, and can download worksheets to practice what you're learning and guided audio practices. The cost is less than half of the price of the coaching program. Learn more and sign up HERE.

If you want to lose weight, how you THINK about food is even more important than what you eat. You see, your mindset about food and eating, especially if it's a diet mindset, could be the single biggest thing standing between you and weight loss success.  The good news is all you have to do to change that is change how you think! And that's one of the few things in life we can actually control.  The reason why diets don't work for sustainable weight loss is because they teach you to think of food as scarce.  When you think of food as scarce, you set yourself up for a binge, or at least, to overeat. But when you have a mindset of abundance about food, you can be much more relaxed around it.  You know you can eat what you really want when you're hungry, so there's no need to eat food just because it's there.  You can trust yourself around any food.   Listen to learn the many advantages of having an abundance mindset, how it frees you to lose weight relatively easily,  and how to change your mindset around food from one of scarcity and dieting to one of abundance so you can trust yourself around any food.  To get all the tools you need to make peace with food and eating and lose the weight for good, sign up for my online course, Weight Loss for Foodies HERE

Do you have a lot of rules about what you can and can't eat?  Some people have lists of food rules that are almost as long as the United States tax code.  No sugar.  No carbs.  No refined flour.  Only eat fruit before noon.  No fried foods.  No dairy.  No gluten.  Eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.  Drink apple cider vinegar before every meal. Only eat during an eight-hour window.  You get the idea.  Well guess what? These rules are probably keeping you from losing weight.  You can overeat healthy food. I know. I did it for decades.  And they're stressful, right?  I don't like rules. Especially ones that are counterproductive. So I want you to forget all of these rules that tell you what to eat and what not to eat and when to eat.  Toss ‘em all! Tune in to this week's episode to learn the only four guidelines you need to be a healthy weight while enjoying the foods you love.  Weight Loss for Foodies is now available as an online, self-paced course without coaching. In it, you'll go beyond what I talk about in the podcast, and can download worksheets to practice what you're learning and guided audio practices. The cost is less than half of the price of the coaching program. Learn more and sign up HERE. Thanks to our sponsor, Betterhelp. Sign up today with this link and save 10% off your first month.  Support this podcast HERE

Eat what you love and increase your metabolism? That's entirely possible,  and there's even science to back it up. Eating mindfully and savoring food away from the distractions of your smartphone, the television or other distractions, can actually help you lose weight. I was surprised to learn this, too, but a study done a few years ago at North Carolina State University backs it up! I am not saying that simply eating what you love will help you lose weight. It's more complicated than that. But there are lots of ways you will benefit from eating what you love and enjoying it without distractions. Food is a source of pleasure in our lives that we have to experience every single day, so why not enjoy it?  In this episode, I discuss the North Carolina State University research on the subject of eating foods we love, the benefits of listening to your body and eating without distractions.  Stay tuned to learn why and how that works, and how to do it! Do you eat to avoid difficult emotions? If so, check out my free video masterclass, Kick the Emotional Eating Habit for Good. Available on demand! Click HERE. If you're enjoying this podcast, I would love it if you would show me by supporting it. Click HERE and leave me a tip in any amount. Or leave a review wherever you listen. Share it with a friend. Thanks for sharing the love.

You've decided you're going to finally do what you need to do to lose those extra pounds. Starting today, you've resolved to eat better.  You're going to eat only when you're hungry.  You make a yummy salad and bring it to work for lunch.  You vow to eat fewer sweets and exercise for an hour three times a week.  Then you stop in the grocery store, and they are giving away free doughnuts to customers. You had oatmeal for breakfast and aren't hungry, but you grab a chocolate glazed one and wolf it down while walking to the cash register.   At lunch, your coworkers order some pizza, and you decide to join them. You put your salad in the fridge and think, “I'll eat it tomorrow.”  At the end of your work day, you decide you're too tired to stop at the gym.  So much for good intentions!  Can you relate?  Ever since the first humans evolved in Africa, people have done things that are against their better judgment. It's not because you're weak willed.    No doubt you've delayed gratification many times in your life.  Stay tuned and learn how you can consistently do it with food, too!  If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider supporting it in any amount. You can leave a tip to show your appreciation from the link on my website.

Do you get derailed from your efforts to lose weight because you lose your inspiration?  How do you stay on track long enough to get results? So often, people ask me how to stay inspired to eat right and lose weight.  Many people believe that inspiration is what you need to be successful, but that's a fallacy.  Sure, inspiration is great! It feels good, and it makes doing certain things easier.  For a little while.  The problem is that you CAN'T stay inspired for very long, no matter how well things are going.  Maybe you can stay inspired to do something for a week or a month, but if you want to lose weight and keep it off, that won't get you there. That's exactly why diets fail. Because when you start a new diet, you're excited by the newness of it and the hope that this diet will be different.  But when you start to get weary of the stress of food restriction, your inspiration leaves, and so does your adherence to the diet. Establishing positive, healthy eating habits is the secret to success.  Because once you establish good habits, staying on track is effortless most of the time.  Inspiration really is more of an emotion, and our emotions are fleeting.  We simply can't be inspired all the time.  So when your inspiration tank runs out, how do you stay on track?  How do you lose weight and keep it off? Tune in to learn why you can't depend on inspiration to get you to your goals, but what really does work!  If the habit you want to change is emotional eating, check out my free video masterclass, kick your emotional eating habit for good. You can find it on my website or in the show notes.

Is exercising easier for you than managing your eating, but it isn't producing the results you want?  Do you exercise like crazy to make up for overeating?  Do you hate exercise and avoid it like the plague?  Unless you're training for a half-marathon or something else intense, exercise alone isn't going to get you to your weight goals.  Are you surprised to hear that? While you can  lose some weight through exercise, it doesn't make up for bad eating habits.  It takes a lot less time to eat less than to exercise more!   But that doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise.  To be truly healthy, exercise is essential, regardless of how much you weigh.  But if you expect it to make you thin, you likely will be disappointed.  Tune in  and learn the role of exercise in weight loss, some benefits of exercise you may not know about, and how to fit it into a healthy lifestyle. Weight Loss for Foodies is now available as an online, self-paced course without coaching. You'll learn even more than what I discuss in the podcast, and can download worksheets to practice what you're learning and guided audio practices. Learn more and sign up at my website, sharibroder.com

I think women spend way too much time and energy trying to meet some societal standard for how we should look, and this confirms patriarchal ideas that what women look like is the most important thing about us.  In this episode, I'm talking about how we unknowingly do things that perpetuate this problem and what you can do to change that.  I'm not blaming you.  I think many people are unaware of how their behavior on social media and elsewhere contributes to or exacerbates a problem we didn't create.  The problem of viewing women as objects to admire for their appearance has persisted for a very long time.  In 1792, Mary Wollestonecraft wrote, “Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”  The problem of focusing on our appearance is in some ways worse than ever, now that we spend so much time on social media and are constantly comparing ourselves with others. Not only is a lot of womens' valuable time and energy spent trying to make our bodies look a certain way, it's hurting us psychologically AND physically. Think about the time you waste fretting about your appearance. Think of how you could put that time to good use!  Listen to learn what self-objectification is, how it harms both the women who objectify themselves and the ones who see their self-objectifying photos, and what you can do to stop or reduce it.    To learn how to have a peaceful relationship with food and eating, check out the free resources on my website.

Are you curious about whether those ads claiming you can miraculously lose weight effortlessly by boosting your metabolism are true?  You've probably seen some of the ads that say things like this:  Lose 30 pounds in 30 days (or fewer days).  Boost your metabolism and lose weight while eating all the food you want! To lose weight permanently, all you have to do is take this pill.  This amazing coffee diet will boost your metabolism & melt the fat off you effortlessly! Is this really true? Can you really lose 30 pounds in 30 days?  Spoiler alert: Any promise of miraculous weight loss is not true.  There is no magic way to lose weight.  You cannot eat all the food you want whenever you want it and still lose weight.  Any products promising unbelievably fast weight loss are a scam, and are very likely dangerous.  Even if you did lose weight, you'd almost certainly gain it back after you stopped using the product.  In this episode, we talk about:  whether there are “fat burners” that cause your body to burn fat faster why it's hard to increase your metabolism whether there is anything you can do to speed it up  why dieting permanently slows down your metabolism If you want to try a system that will not only work, but it will help you make peace with food and eating, which I personally think is even more instrumental in your future happiness  than losing weight, check out the free resources on my website, https://sharibroder.com/free-resources/ and keep listening to the Weight Loss for Foodies podcast.

It was a tough decision to make, but this is the last time I'm going to offer the Weight Loss for Foodies group coaching  program. Podcast listeners can register until March 30 or it fills up, whichever happens first. I'm not ending this podcast, just the coaching program.

Does your brain make lots of excuses for you to eat when you aren't hungry, undermining your weight loss efforts? Excuses like:   “I had a hard day and deserve this,” or,  “I've been so good all day.” We talk about thoughts a lot in this podcast. Some thoughts are happy and some aren't.  Some are helpful, and some aren't.  But the fact is that they're just thoughts.  And there are two things that thoughts aren't: Who we are. We aren't our thoughts. We're the observers of our thoughts.  Always true. We tend to assume that our thoughts are true.  Most of us fully buy into what our thoughts are telling us, and we let them run around our minds like a toddler with a knife.  Do you let your thoughts direct your actions and choices without really questioning them? If you have thoughts that seem to sabotage your efforts, stay tuned to learn how you can “defuse” those unhelpful thoughts and make choices that help you achieve your weight goals!  By the way, it's the fourth anniversary of this podcast! If you've been enjoying it, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Do you often get the urge to eat when you aren't hungry? Do you find yourself regularly having cravings for certain foods?  The inability to manage cravings can be the downfall of the best efforts of many who want to lose weight.  But why is it such a problem? And what can you do about it so you don't routinely overeat and gain weight? Before you judge yourself too harshly for having cravings, craving food and eating when you're hungry is a normal human thing.  The problem arises when you regularly have cravings for certain foods when you aren't hungry, and let the urges be in the driver's seat.  Tune in to learn the three main causes of cravings AND four things you can do to reduce, manage or eliminate those cravings.  Using these four strategies when you have a craving will help you establish positive eating habits that will allow you to enjoy the foods you love without overeating them.  Check out the free resources on my website to inspire you to make those positive changes.

Does the idea of loving yourself and your body while you're working to lose weight seem counterintuitive to you? Why would you want to change your body if you already loved it?   Your body does so much for you. It allows you to experience life on earth!  It carries you around, lets you feel and express love, hug people, and so many more things that it would be silly for me to attempt to list them all.  Your body works hard for you, and always tries to support you.  Even if you are struggling with health issues, your body is trying to do the best it can.  So why are so many of us at war with our bodies? Why do we take them for granted? Have you ever wondered where you got the idea that your body isn't okay in the first place?  When you were a small child, you didn't dislike your body, did you?  Do you value thin and small in other things in your life? Do you like skinny cats or dogs or horses? You'd probably be worried about the health of your pet if it were as skinny as a fashion model.  I can guess where you got the idea of how your body should look–from diet culture! And from a diet industry that makes money from convincing you that your body is not acceptable, while selling you ways to change it that don't work long-term.  Tune in to learn the importance of learning to appreciate your body right now for both your happiness and to facilitate your weight loss success, and learn seven things you can do to appreciate and accept the body you have.

Do you eat to avoid feeling shame? Do you feel shame because your body doesn't conform to societal  ideas of what it should look like? Do you feel shame about your food choices or how much you eat? Were you ever told that you were somehow inadequate because of your body size?  Or because you chose to wear certain clothing that revealed too much of a body that someone thought was not worthy of being revealed? As a child or adult, did people make comments about your weight, including your parents, siblings or friends? Were you bullied in school, in sports or on the playground because of  your weight?  Did your parents use shame to get you to behave the way they wanted you to?  Any of these things can cause feelings of shame. What is shame anyway? How does it differ from guilt?  That's a lot of questions!  Stay tuned to learn about shame and how it could be at the root of your issues with food and eating, and what you can do to manage or eliminate those feelings.

How many times have you heard this saying?  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  That's how I think about dieting. Even if you try different diets, you're still restricting what foods you eat, not listening to your body, and trying to lose weight by doing something unsustainable.  Diets are designed to be temporary, so even if you lose some weight on one, you ultimately go off it. Because you haven't changed your eating habits, you've got at least a 95% chance of gaining it back. So many people have difficulty reaching their weight goals (and any other goal for that matter) because they're caught in a pattern of doing the same thing or a not-so-different version of it, that doesn't work, over and over again. Maybe you snack after dinner while watching TV every night.  Maybe you eat at your desk at work and don't really pay attention to how much you're eating or whether you're hungry.  Maybe you try to skip meals and then end up overeating.  These are all habits that move you away from your goal of being a healthier, more comfortable weight.  The thing is that every time you repeat a habit that moves you in the opposite direction from your goals, you're reinforcing that pattern in your brain, and making it a little harder to break the habit.   But you can turn that around.  Stay tuned to learn a pretty simple technique to break those patterns and establish better habits that move you TOWARDS your weight and health goals.

Do you have a voice in your head that says things like:  “I shouldn't eat that!” “Stay away from that food! It's SINFUL!” “I can't control myself around that food!” “I can't keep that in the house, or I'd eat the whole thing in one sitting.” “I'm too fat to eat that,” or, “I'll never lose weight if I eat that” Do you feel guilty because you ate an ice cream cone or a few cookies?   Over the years that I've been coaching people, there's one thing everyone seems to agree is the best part of the Weight Loss for Foodies method. And believe it or not, it's not the weight lost! It's the liberation from that voice in your head! When you're  liberated from that voice, you can listen to your body and feed it what it wants and needs. Nothing is forbidden, as long as you're hungry. You're liberated from spending so much of your time and energy trying to decide what to eat, avoiding what you really want to eat but think you shouldn't, and thinking about what foods you SHOULD be eating that you don't really care for, but have been deemed healthy by the latest media.  Liberated from researching the latest magic fad diet that will help you effortlessly lose the weight.  The fact is that those voices are a distraction. They're unproductive. They're actually destructive and a waste of your time.  AND they suck the life out of you, like a dementor. Stay tuned and learn why you should liberate yourself from this diet culture thinking and how to do it!

Happy New Year! Ready to start AND end 2022 on the correct foot?  Here are four positive things you can do to change your relationship with food, eating and your weight so you can lose the weight for good while enjoying your life, including the foods you love! It's been a tough couple of years for many of us.  In this episode I want to help you make this new year better. Listen below to learn the four most important changes to make in 2022 to change your relationship with food and eating, AND your weight.  These  include:  Stop dieting and cultivate an abundance mindset. Eat using the Hunger Scale Eat consciously and slowly, savoring every bite Eat the foods you really enjoy--no forbidden foods! Learn why it's so important to do these things, and how they can help you lose weight and keep it off without dieting. FOREVER!

How many times a day, on average, do you think you make decisions about eating food and drinking beverages?  Years ago, a Cornell University researcher asked that question to 139 people. They estimated 15 times a day. But the researcher concluded that it was more like 226! I'm not sure how he figured that, but if we have 60,000 thoughts every day, surely a mere 226 could be decisions to eat or drink, or not.  The important question is how do you make those decisions?  Are they semi-conscious? Do you  find yourself stuffing food in your mouth and wondering how it gets there?  Do you habitually grab the barrel of pretzels and down a bunch of them while watching TV at night, not really thinking about what you're doing, and barely tasting the food? Or do you first notice that you're hungry and then think about what you really want to eat before going to get some food?  Awareness is the first step to changing your relationship with food and eating, and losing weight. Mindless eating is the opposite of that. Learning how to eat mindfully takes practice and time. But there are ways to make it easier. What if you simply changed certain environmental factors surrounding your eating so that you essentially were required to be more aware of your choices?  Tune in to learn six ways to  disconnect you from your unproductive eating habits so you can pause and make  intelligent decisions about what and how much to eat that will move you in the direction of your weight goals.

Are you wondering why following all of those diet rules about what to eat, what not to eat, and how much to eat haven't helped you lose weight and keep it off? Wouldn't you love a simpler, more relaxed solution that actually does work? Today's topic will sound familiar if you're a regular listener, but it is so important that I thought I was overdue for revisiting it.  If you've been dieting, or just living in our diet-oriented culture, you've probably followed a lot of rules about what and how much to eat. And what not to eat.  The problem is that these rules have nothing to do with you or your body's needs. It's all so stressful, and it's not even working.  The solution is simple, but not necessarily easy at first, although it does get easy.  And that is to start listening to your body's hunger signals and eat in tune with them. That means knowing when you're truly physically hungry. The reason most people gain weight is because they eat for all kinds of other reasons.  Some people are not even sure what physical hunger feels like anymore  because they confuse it with “head hunger.”  So this week, I'm going to help you understand the difference between head hunger and body hunger.   Because getting in the habit of eating only when you're physically hungry is the cornerstone to your permanent weight loss success.  Being in touch with your body's hunger and fullness signals is essential if you want to be able to eat what you love and lose weight. And keep it off.  Listen to learn how to tell when you're truly hungry, and not when you're brain is encouraging you to eat for other reasons.  If you eat for emotional reasons, which is a form of head hunger, don't miss my free video masterclass, Kick the Emotional Eating Habit for Good! Sign up at the link below.

Do you think it's unfair that you keep gaining weight even though  you think you don't eat more than your slimmer friends?  When I was about 50 pounds heavier, that's what I thought.  But I was wrong, and you may be, too.  When I was in weight-gaining mode, I didn't realize it, but I overate often.  That's why my weight kept going up. That's why most people's weight goes up. Overeating. I know this might not be what you want to hear, but there's a good chance that if you weigh more than is healthy or comfortable for you, you're probably eating more than you realize. And you're eating more than your body needs to be at your healthy weight.  You see, 96% of people who gain unwanted weight do so because they overeat. Yup, no big secret there, except that so many of us don't realize how often we overeat or how much. While some people may gain weight for other health reasons,  for most of us, we're just eating too much.  Plain and simple.  Tune in to learn the two ways people overeat, the most common excuses for overeating, and what you can do to stop overeating and lose weight without dieting.  Check out the  free resources available on my website, and start learning how to lose weight without dieting by changing HOW and WHY you are eating!

How often does that voice in your head tell you you're going to fail before you even start?  Then when you prove yourself right, your inner mean girl tells you how much you suck, and why are you even trying to lose weight when you simply can't do it? Here's the problem with that negative thinking that you can't do what you need to do to reach your goals. Instead of getting the results you want, you make failure a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When you think or believe you can't do something, you can't. You make that your reality.  When you believe you can, you do!   Seriously, what you think and believe is so important. It's key.  Weight loss, and success at pretty much everything, is all about how you think.  So is failure.  You see, what you focus on grows.  As I've heard Tara Brach say many times on her wonderful podcast, good experiences slide off us like Teflon and bad ones stick like Velcro.  So if you remember only the times you over-ate or binged, you'll see yourself as someone who overeats or binges and can't lose weight.  But what if you flipped the scenario? Stay tuned to learn about your brain's amazing stimuli filtration system, and how you can flip those BS thoughts on their head to make it much easier to achieve your goals.  If you want to start the process of changing your mindset about food and eating, check out my free 7-Day Change Your Food and Eating Mindset Challenge at the link below.  What you think makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

Do you focus on what's wrong with your body, rather than what's right with it?  Do you focus on what your body can't do, rather than what it can and does do? Have you been critical of how your body looks throughout your life, even when you weren't overweight? I'm revisiting one of the most popular Weight Loss for Foodies podcast episodes, updated and even better than before. It's such an important topic because so many women are dissatisfied with their bodies. This is something so upsetting and disempowering, but certainly understandable, given how much value is placed on our appearance, and the messages we get from the media.  So many women  have trouble feeling at home with the body you have right now, yet the only way you can change it is to accept it, even love it, and take better care of it, and you won't want to do that if you hate it.  Do you resist feeling at home with the body you have now?  Your body is truly amazing. It receives and processes millions of bits of sensory information every second, processing way more information than your brain can.  What if, instead of hating things about yourself, you chose to accept your body, and love and care for it?  Stay tuned and learn why, fighting against your body, hating it, criticizing it and wanting it to be different actually prevents you from losing weight and keeping it off.  One way to learn how to care for your body is to listen to my guided emotional eating meditation when your brain starts telling you to eat and you aren't hungry. You can download a copy for free at the link below.

Let's face it. It's been a tough couple of years. Has dealing with it taken its toll on your eating habits? Your self-care? Your body? Your weight?  I've never done a Black Friday promotion before, but thought that this year was the time to offer you the opportunity to finally nip those issues with food, eating and your weight in the bud, and make it history.  I'm not going to go on and on here. I'm sure you've gotten a ridiculous amount of Black Friday emails, and will surely get a ton of promotions over the next few days.  I just want to offer you the chance to sign up for the full Weight Loss for Foodies group coaching program and course at 20% of the regular price. Regular price is $499, but until Monday November 29th, you can get it for just $399 or three easy payments of $149. Enrollment is limited, so don't miss your chance! Get the help you need to finish the job. Give yourself peace of mind, end the obsession with food and eating. Develop habits like those naturally slim people you know. Eat what you love while the weight comes off.  To learn more and sign up on my website, ShariBroder.com.  If you have questions, email me at lifecoach@sharibroder.com and I'm happy to answer them personally.  You won't regret it.

Do you gain weight over the holidays every year?  Do you eat your favorite holiday foods like it's the last opportunity of your life?  We're now entering the holiday season. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus or whatever, you're likely to celebrate with a wide array of delicious food.  Maybe the holidays are the only time of year that you make some of these foods.   Do you tend to overeat during the holidays and gain weight, then make a resolution for the New Year to go on a diet?  For most of my life, I routinely over-ate and gained weight over the holidays. Despite my resolution to lose the weight after New Year's Day, I rarely lost any. My weight kept going up. I bet that approach hasn't worked for you, either. And it won't work this year. But there's a better way! Nowadays, I enjoy the holiday foods I love without overeating or gaining weight. There's a much better way to enjoy the foods of the holidays so you don't feel like a stuffed turkey.  Stay tuned to learn 6 guidelines for enjoying  your favorite holiday foods–nothing is forbidden–without overeating and gaining weight.  Download the free Negative and Positive Food Beliefs Think Sheet from my website now! Find it under Episode 91. Support this podcast HERE

How old were you when you went on your first diet?  How did your upbringing influence your ideas about food, eating and how your body “should” look?  In today's episode, I talk with podcast listener Brooke Streufert.  Brooke spent most of her life hopping from one diet to the next, until she started listening to the Weight Loss for Foodies podcast two years ago.  Her story is an inspiring one of someone who was didn't fit our culture's idea of how our bodies are supposed to look from a young age, and how she struggled with dieting until she finally decided to never diet again. She found the Weight Loss for Foodies podcast through a google search, started listening, and “never could've imagined what that choice would do for my life.” Tune in to hear Brooke's journey, and how her decision to ditch dieting and start listening to her body changed her entire relationship with food and eating, and did what she never thought was possible: she, along with her husband,  lost weight without dieting, and gained a whole new perspective on life! Brooke is an inspiration, and I hope her story will help you stay (or become) motivated to completely abandon the diet mindset and diet culture, and enjoy food and life more.  Brooke's success came from listening to the Weight Loss for Foodies podcast and being a member of Ditch the Diet Tribe, my free facebook group. If you aren't a member of Ditch the Diet Tribe yet, you can join at the link below.

One of the reasons why so many people weigh more than they'd like, and keep gaining weight, is because they use food to meet needs that it can't meet.  You're lonely and want connection, so you eat. You're fearful, so you eat. You feel misunderstood, so you eat.  But what's wrong with those examples?  Food can't meet any of those needs. It can't be your friend or lover, although Heaven knows some of us have tried. It can't quell your fears.  It doesn't have the ability to understand you.  All food can do is give your body fuel and make your hunger for that kind of nourishment go away.  Sure, eating will take your mind off your real needs for a few minutes, but then you've eaten a bunch of food your body may store as fat, and still will be left with those underlying needs. That's why in this episode we discuss the fundamental categories of human needs, and why your happiness and well-being depends upon meeting them for real, instead of trying to meet them with food. Tune in to learn how to get in touch with your needs and work towards meeting them in a lasting, meaningful way, and notice how your urge to eat when you aren't hungry dissipates.  If you haven't checked out my free video masterclass, Kick the Emotional Eating Habit for Good, click on the link below. It will get you focused on some of the issues I've been discussing, give you some tools to stop emotional eating, and help you lose the weight for good.

Do you find yourself constantly thinking about food?  Are you stuck on a weight loss plateau?  When you set certain reasonable limits on your eating, does it feel like restriction? I recently received these questions from listeners, and am excited to answer them on this week's episode. If you believe you think about food too often, we'll explore the reasons you may be doing that and come up with solutions for you.  Is there a way to set reasonable limits on what you eat without feeling like it's a diet? And what are some strategies for getting past a weight loss plateau?  Stay tuned and hear the answer to these questions!  Head on over to my website, Shari Broder.com, and grab some free resources that will help you!

Are you afraid of being hungry, even though there is no shortage of food in your life? Do you get anxious if you feel hunger pangs?  Do you eat when you aren't hungry because you're afraid to feel hunger?  Hunger is a natural feeling. You're supposed to feel hungry.  Just like how your brilliant body tells you when you have to urinate, it tells you when you need food for energy. When you feel hunger, that's your body saying, “I need food now.”  Unfortunately, most people pay no attention to their hunger and fullness signals. They eat for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. And that's why the majority of the population struggles with their weight.  The thing is that when you listen to your body's signals and eat only when you're hungry and stop when you're lightly full, you eat precisely the amount of food that your body needs for you to be your healthy, comfortable weight.  You can get back in touch with those signals and learn to eat in that natural way you ate when you were a  young child, before you became immersed in diet culture and learned bad habits. But if you're afraid of feeling hungry, you need to get over that hurdle first.  The good news is that the people I've worked with who had fear of hunger didn't have  much trouble getting over their fear.  Tune in to learn why the idea of feeling hungry makes you anxious and how you can overcome it. For a free resource to help you manage your thinking about food and eating, check out my free 7-Day change your food and eating mindset challenge under the Free Resources heading on my website.

Do you eat because you're bored?  The kind of bored where you have lots to do but don't want to do it?  Or that kind of boredom that feels like something is missing in your life? I recently asked my fantastic Facebook group, Ditch the Diet Tribe, which emotions caused them to want to eat when they weren't hungry.   Two out of three responses were BOREDOM. Although psychologists and philosophers have come up with all kinds of causes for boredom, I'm concerned here with boredom that has you running to the  kitchen for something “interesting” -- FOOD! There are three main types of boredom that cause people to eat: When you feel like you have nothing to do  When you have something you must do but don't want to do it right now When you feel like something is missing in your life. This response summed up the second type well:  Sometimes when I am working on something that I don't really want to be doing......usually because I am overwhelmed and don't know where to start......I find myself in the pantry or fridge. Probably trying to avoid the uncomfortable feeling. The struggle is real! As we have more and more stimulation, we're more inclined to be bored. We want constant stimulation. When we set the bar that high, we're bound to feel bored more easily.  Tune in and learn how to manage that boredom so you don't eat to avoid feeling it! If you're ready to stop all emotional eating, check out my free video masterclass, Kick the Emotional Eating Habit for Good and Lose the Weight at the link below.

Do you think you really want to lose weight, but when it comes to actually doing what it takes to get results, it's hard to stay on track?  The reason why most people who are unsuccessful with weight loss don't reach their goals isn't because they can't do it.  It isn't because you don't have self-control or willpower.  What you may lack is commitment.  Commitment is a key ingredient necessary for reaching your goals, whether your goal is to lose weight or anything else.  If you're not fully committed to your goal, you won't make it a priority. You'll be more likely to make excuses for not doing what you know you need to do.  You won't give it all the effort required to succeed. You'll give up before you really give it your all.  Most people think they're committed because they desire the outcome. You want to lose weight. You want to be thinner. You want to fit into that dope dress you wore a few years ago that's gathering dust in your closet.  That's not commitment. That's desire. There's a big difference.  Tune in to learn the difference between desiring something and actually committing to getting results, and how to commit to doing what it takes to reach your goals.  If you're ready to make a commitment to yourself to change your eating habits to lose weight, check out my free video masterclass, Kick the Emotional Eating Habit for Good, available on demand by clicking  http://bit.ly/EEE-Webinar

When you embark on an effort to lose weight, do you start thinking about how much weight you should be losing each week, and how long it will take you to reach your goals? When I was a dieter, I used to do that. I'd plan out how quickly the weight should come off. If I lose X number of pounds a week, by Y date, I will weigh Z. How exciting and motivating! NOT. It never happened like that. Not once. In fact, that approach is a sure route to becoming discouraged and quitting. It's a diet culture mindset. The diet industry tries to hook you into trying the latest fad by promising fast weight loss.   But they don't tell you that only a tiny percentage of dieters lose weight. And they don't tell you what happens to the ones that do a year later. Or two years. That's because almost every one of them will gain the weight back. When you start a new effort to lose weight, part of the reason you don't succeed is because you have an idea of how that will turn out. How fast you SHOULD lose weight. But that is a fantasy. You can rarely anticipate what it will really be like.  Tune in and learn why it's so important to give up on the BS fantasy from the diet industry about how weight loss is supposed to happen, and approach it at your own realistic, sustainable  pace. And how to overcome the fears you may encounter along the way. If you're ready to kick the emotional eating habit for good and lose the weight, start with my free video masterclass available on my website, sharibroder.com

I think about emotions a lot. Not just because I teach people how to kick the emotional eating habit so they can fix what's causing them to overeat. I think about them for other reasons, too.  One is because I'm an emotional person. I wasn't taught to suppress my feelings, and I don't have trouble expressing them. I have trouble NOT expressing them.  Another is because my husband was taught by his parents to suppress his emotions, and learned how detrimental that approach was on many levels. In other words, emotions play a large role in both my work and home life.  So when I was listening to Glennon Doyle talk about emotions in her We Can Do Hard Things podcast episode 24, it got me thinking about how to get the point across to my listeners and students just how super important it is to stop eating to avoid your feelings, not just because it is the doorway to weight loss and a life of enjoying food without struggling with your weight, but because if you want to live a fully human life, it's necessary to  understand your emotions, use the information they provide you, and to feel them, both the fun ones and the not-so-fun ones. Tune in and learn why being human is not just about feeling happy, it's about feeling everything, and the importance of befriending all of your emotions.  If you're ready to kick the emotional eating habit for good, start with my free video masterclass on that subject, coming soon! 

Do you wonder what you “should” weigh? Where did that “should” come from anyway? Who or what determines whether someone is a healthy weight, overweight or obese? Is BMI legit? How do you know when you're at a healthy weight for you?  All bodies are different. Every body has its own naturally healthy weight range. I can't tell you what that is, but I can give you an idea about how to figure yours out. Do you already have an idea what you think your weight  “should” be? Where did that idea come from?  In this episode, I discuss:  Whether Body Mass Index is a legitimate measure of a healthy weight; What factors play into determining your weight; What set point is and whether you can alter it;  How dieting negatively affects your ability to change your weight; and How you can determine what is a healthy weight for you.  If you enjoy this episode, please feel free to rate and review the podcast on whatever app you're listening on, and share with a friend!

I have a question for you. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, are you having great success losing weight and keeping it off? I regularly get emails from listeners telling me how grateful they are for the podcast, how great they're doing and how much weight they've lost using the tools I teach. I never tire of hearing this, and it makes the effort worth it. To be helping people end their struggle with food and eating is why I do this! Or maybe you aren't having success. YET. If you're like the way I was before I lost weight, you know what to do. It's just actually doing it that is tripping you up. The difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it is the difference between success and failure.   Listen to learn what you can do to get from knowing what to do to actually doing it! 

Do you know why people gain weight?  Overeating. Yep. There's no escaping that fact! What I mean by the word "overeating" is when you give your body more food than it needs to support your natural, healthy weight.  There are two ways you can overeat: 1. Keep eating until you're overly full or stuffed, or 2. Start eating when you aren't hungry.  Both are overeating because either way, you're giving your body food that it doesn't need and will store as fat. Overeating every now and then isn't a big deal. Everybody does it occasionally.  But if you are someone who feels like you can't stop overeating, and you do it regularly, whether it's a few times a week, every day or every time you eat, then it's very likely that you've gained more weight than is healthy or comfortable for you.  Why do you do it? I'm willing to guess that there's a lot more to it than that you love food.   You can love food and not overeat it. I know because I love food and used to overeat it, but don't anymore, and I bet you can think of at least a few celebrity chefs who are trim and likely in that category. One of the reasons for this podcast is to teach everyone who wants to know how to enjoy food without overeating! Overeating is actually a symptom of something else going on in your life.  It's a coping mechanism.  Are you in that vicious cycle of overeating that looks like this: you get a craving and you're not hungry, you eat anyway, overeat, then you beat yourself up for it, vow to never do it again, then you repeat the same cycle over and over?  Then this week's episode is for you!  Listen to learn how to end the cycle of overeating for good! If you're sick and tired of being in the cycle of overeating, and are ready to stop it, stop emotional eating, make peace with food and eating, learn how to eat what you love without even wanting to overeat, AND lose your extra weight, join the Weight Loss for Foodies group coaching program! Doors open on September 10th. Get on the waiting list from the link below!

I have some exciting news to share with you. You probably know that my mission is to teach anyone who wants to know how you can ditch dieting and learn to enjoy the foods you love without overeating or even wanting to overeat while you drop down to your comfortable weight and stay there. In other words, You can be a foodie, eat what you love and be your healthy weight. You really can. That's why I'm doing a free workshop on September 10th entitled How to Ditch Dieting and Lose the Weight for Good! And it's not just physical weight that you shed when you make this shift. You experience this amazing freedom when you can actually eat what you love without obsessing about every bite, overeating or feeling guilty.  Sign up now for my free September 10th workshop at Bit.ly/ditch-dieting 

You're not imagining it.  Stress makes people want to eat.  If you're an emotional eater, when you're stressed out, you're more likely to feel the urge to eat. That's because when your body feels stress, it produces certain stress hormones which cause you to crave comfort foods.  Sometimes, stress might kill your appetite because the stress hormone adrenaline puts you in a state of fight or flight.  When stress is chronic, however, the opposite happens.   Too much stress upsets your hormonal balance, making it harder to lose weight and easier to gain it.  This is made even worse by the overconsumption of simple carbohydrates, which are sugary snacks like candy bars and soda. They also can cause a hormone imbalance.  Basically, being consistently stressed out for a long period of time causes your body to produce an assortment of hormones that make it more likely that your body will store fat instead of using it for energy, and cause you to want to eat more.  Stress also seems to affect your food preferences, making you more likely to consume foods high in fat, sugar, or both. These foods reduce the stress response and can calm your emotions temporarily. That's why many people associate stress eating with feeling better. And guess what? That causes you to want to keep doing it.  The problem is that it doesn't solve what's causing your stress in the first place. And by consistently eating in response to stress when you aren't hungry, you'll gain weight.  So what can you do to prevent stress from undermining your weight loss goals?  Listen to learn more about how stress makes weight loss harder and how you can manage stress and, feel better.

You know the feeling. You feel a strong urge to eat, but you aren't hungry. It's undermining your weight loss efforts, but you find it so hard to not give in whenever it arises!  Maybe you just ate lunch an hour ago and you're working on a tough project. Or maybe the kids and the pets are driving you nuts and you either can't get anything done or even just take that break that you desperately need. Or you're stressed out because you have to pay bills today.  What makes you feel like you want to eat when you aren't hungry? How often do you choose to eat for a reason that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether your body is physically hungry?  Why do you feel the need to eat at those times? Perhaps by now you've realized that this feeling is an emotional and not a physical need. After all, you're not hungry, so your body doesn't need food to nourish it. Food is easy and readily available. It tastes good and brings you instant pleasure to escape from whatever is going on in your life that is making you want to eat. But that's precisely the problem. By eating, you temporarily feel better, but you're avoiding dealing with the real problem, and that is that something is going on in your life that is making you want to eat.  Tune in, and I'll tell you where the urge comes from and how you can manage it without emotional eating.  Are you ready to learn what's eating you so that you can be free from overeating, food and weight issues for the rest of your life? If so, join the Weight Loss for Foodies group coaching program! Get on the waitlist now so you'll be the first to know when the doors open next month! Space is limited. Sign up at my website, ShariBroder.com, there's a link in the show notes.

Do you obsess about what you should and shouldn't eat?  Are you always looking for the next miracle diet that promises results but doesn't deliver? Do you feel guilty enjoying the foods you love?  It pains me to hear so many women talk about being afraid to allow themselves to enjoy food, hearing them obsess about it, and waste so much of their precious energy worrying about what to eat.  I hear them talk about what they should and shouldn't eat. How they were “bad” because they ate some fried food or dessert or pancakes. Or how they can't keep chocolate in the house because they'd eat the whole package in one sitting.   I bite my tongue when people say they're starting a new diet on Monday to justify eating foods they love today because they have chosen a fad diet that won't allow them to eat even the healthy foods they enjoy because they have carbs.  It pains me to hear this because I know that despite suffering through this diet, it's highly unlikely they'll lose much weight, even more unlikely that they'll reach their goal and MOST unlikely that they'll keep it off for over a year.  That's because depriving yourself of the foods you love doesn't work as a long-term weight loss strategy.  Listen to this week's episode to learn why, once you've taken away the restrictions about what to eat, and change how you're eating, you can dump the guilt, experience that amazing freedom of getting your life back from the dungeon of diets and deprivation, and lose weight at the same time!  If you're ready to forever change your relationship with food and eating, enjoy your food more and experience the liberation from the world of diets while you're slowly melting down to your comfortable weight, get on the waiting list for the Weight Loss for Foodies group coaching program. Registration opens soon, and by getting on the wait list, you'll be the first to know so you can grab your spot before they're all gone! Click on the link below.

Are you waiting until you lose weight to put on a swimsuit?  Go to your high school reunion?  Attend parties or weddings?  Go hiking?  Or do anything else you really want to do? Why are you holding back?  You're missing out on the fun! You only get this one precious life, so what's the point of not living fully just because your body doesn't look the way you think it should?  Are you not going to certain places and doing things you enjoy because you're worried about other people judging your body? Judging how you look? Thinking you're too fat?  It's time you started caring less about how you think you look to others, and more about how you feel towards yourself. And one way to start cultivating good feelings about yourself is to stop holding back because you're afraid about how others might judge you.  Listen to this week's episode to learn  why that approach to life  actually prevents you from losing weight, and how to make enjoying life the ultimate goal.

Do you find yourself drawn to articles and ads about the latest superfood or that special miracle coffee that will help you burn pounds of fat effortlessly?  Do you worry that you're missing out if you haven't tried the latest product that claims it will help you feel better, sleep better, have more energy and flatten your tummy?  Do you think you need to buy an expensive cleanse to rid your body of toxins?  The biggest toxin from which to cleanse yourself  is the so-called “wellness industry” that preys upon smart women like you who are concerned about their health and weight.  It seems like you can't dine with a group of women without at least half of them either trying some new fad diet or eliminating one or more foods from their diet because they read on a website that it's bad for them for some unknown or unproven reason.  Or maybe it's under the guise of “clean eating.” Men don't usually fall for this stuff.  Maybe you're thinking, “That's because men don't have the same pressures as women to be thin.”  I didn't say anything about weight loss, though, did I? And neither does the “wellness industry” that's trying to sell you their ideas about what you should and shouldn't eat. What they're really doing is selling you diet mindset and products under  the guise of “wellness.” You see, the so-called wellness industry doesn't really care about your wellness. It's the diet industry in disguise. As Jessica Knoll said in a 2019 article in the New York Times about smashing the wellness industry, “the diet industry is a virus, and viruses are smart. It has survived all these decades by adapting, but it's as dangerous as ever.”  Listen to learn why you shouldn't fall prey to the claims  of the so-called wellness industry and celebrities who use their fame for financial gain by promoting these products.

Are you someone  who is like the juggler trying to keep too many balls in the air? Is one of the balls that you keep dropping your goal to change your eating habits and lose weight? How often do you get to that point where you think, “ I don't care! I want to eat! It's okay just this one time."   Or you think that “what the F” thought  as you start chowing down snacks mindlessly. You've got too much on your plate. Your mind is so cluttered with your “to do” list that you can't remember to ask yourself whether you're hungry before you mindlessly stuff food down.  You become exhausted, and don't have the energy to make good choices about eating.  I bet you get that “I don't care, I'm going to eat this anyway” thought more often later in the day, right?  Like late afternoons, or when you get home from work, or after dinner.  That's when you have the most trouble saying no to your urges to eat when you aren't hungry. Stay tuned and I'll tell you how this is undermining your efforts and how to fix that.

As a coach, I can give you some really great tools to use to change your eating habits and establish new habits that will help you lose weight without dieting.  But that is not enough.  You have to be willing to do the work.  If you really want to change, whether it is your eating habits, what kind of shape you're in, or how you think, it's up to you to use those tool to make that change happen.  The problem is that so many people who think they want to change actually resist change. They even say that they hate change.  It's human nature to not like change, but it isn't a very good happiness strategy because the only thing we know for sure is that change will come, whether you want it to or not.  It's pretty hard to be truly happy when you hate the inevitable.  People who hate change are also more likely to stay stuck in a place where they aren't really  happy anyway.  So why not embrace change?  And beyond embracing it, how about initiating it so you can make your life better?  Isn't that a lot better than spending your time grousing about what isn't right in your life? Wouldn't you rather get out of that trap and feel the freedom of being at the helm of your own life?  If you fear change, it may be that you are trying to avoid the temporary discomfort that is required to move towards your long-term goals.  Listen to learn the seven steps necessary for successfully changing your eating habits, other habits or any aspect of your life.

Imagine if childhood stories and behavior science teamed up to teach us how to change our habits. It can actually be FUN! That's exactly what today's guest, author and wellness coach Sarah Hays Coomer, discusses with me in this episode.  You'll learn how the Habit Loop works, and how to establish habits that stick. You'll get some great tools to keep you focused on making the changes that will make it easier to reach your weight and other goals. You'll learn about the Presto-Chango Switcheroo (you'll have to listen to find out what that is!) We discuss using micro-rituals to help you remember to make good decisions instead of staying stuck in your old habits. And Sarah explains how to make an emergency plan that's ready to go to keep you centered when life throws you those inevitable curve balls.  So much good stuff! Sarah is the author of three books, including The Habit Trip: A Fill-in-the-Blank Journey to a Life on Purpose. It is an interactive storybook for grown-ups that offers a more fun, funny and whimsical approach to sorting your life out, figuring out what's possible and how to fix those aspects of your life that aren't going the way you'd like.  If you enjoy this episode, please feel free to rate and review the podcast on whatever app you're listening on, and share with a friend! Hit “subscribe” to keep up with new episodes.

You've heard many times that diets don't work.  Do you disagree? You've tried a bunch of diets, and maybe you lost some weight on at least one of them.  But then what happened? I'm guessing that you gained the weight back. Am I right?  When I say that diets don't work, I mean diets don't produce permanent weight loss.  Sure, you can go on whatever the latest fad diet is and drop some weight. Maybe you've  even reached your goal once or twice.  But you don't stay on the diet for the rest of your life.  You go back to eating the way you always did. And then what happens?  The same thing that always happened. You gain it back.  Because the diet doesn't fix the problem that caused you to gain weight, and you've made no permanent changes to how and why you're eating.  When you start a new diet, do you think about how you're going to keep the weight off?  When I was a dieter, I assumed that once I'd lost the weight, I'd be so happy to be thinner that it would be my incentive to not gain the weight back.  Unfortunately, that's not how it works.  Listen to learn the only way to both lose weight AND keep it off.

Do you ever feel like you’re sucked back emotionally to a time when something painful happened to you?  All of those same painful feelings start flooding you again, like it was just yesterday?  Or perhaps there is someone in your life who drives you nuts with their insensitive behavior or comments, and every time you see them, you feel these familiar uncomfortable feelings.  What you’re experiencing are emotional triggers.  What happens when you’re triggered is that you’re reminded of something painful, and your brain will naturally direct you to dive back into that memory.  You may start overthinking the situation, reexamining it, obsessing about it, getting angry, or scared or hurt all over again. You probably haven’t processed the emotions yet, or perhaps only partially.   If you’re an emotional eater, there’s a good chance some of your triggers are feelings that you haven’t let yourself really feel because you distract yourself from them by eating.  When you get triggered, your beastie brain takes the wheel, and makes it difficult for you to see that you have other options. That’s how triggers lead us to make bad decisions or react in ways that we don’t like.  But you do have other options.  To reclaim your power, you need to break that trigger pattern.  Listen to learn the steps for  managing your triggers so they don’t take your power away.

Do you eat to escape from uncomfortable feelings?  Dan Emmons wisely said, “What most needs attention is the part of us that we seek to avoid feeling. When we attend to that, we change and the world changes with us.” When you think about it, emotional eating is avoiding feeling. Avoiding YOUR feelings. Your feelings are your body’s way of telling you important messages.  Eating to avoid your feelings is really using food as a drug.  You briefly take away one discomfort--whatever uncomfortable feelings you’re experiencing--and create the long-term discomfort of not dealing with whatever is causing those feelings, plus you get the added discomfort of gaining weight and the possibility of consequential health issues.  This week’s podcast episode is a guided emotional eating meditation to help you learn to be with your emotions and manage them in a healthy way, rather than eating to avoid them.  It will help you practice being with difficult emotions and thoughts in an open, allowing, and accepting way.  Listen to this guided meditation when you want to eat because you’re feeling uncomfortable emotions. When you’re feeling frustration, stress, anger, fear or whatever.  There’s no theme music, just a very short introduction, so get into a comfortable position, preferably in a quiet place, relax and listen!  Then celebrate allowing your emotions to move through you without eating!