2022 - 9:16 Summer Wrap up - Managing Urges - Audio Public
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Coaching Kara podcast. I am Kara Hackleman. I'm a certified life and weight loss coach. I help people just like you lose weight for the last time. Primarily, people are a little people pleasing, a little procrastinating, and maybe a little perfectionistic. I can help you overcome those so that you can finish losing weight and get out of your own way.
Join me each week to get a little motivation and a lot of inspiration. Another week in the 20 pound down summer challenge wrap up. Today, we're going to talk about managing urges. All right. Urges are simply a feeling, a feeling of desire. for something specific. They might come from like trying to avoid a specific feeling.
They could be that you're trying to create one. It could be that you simply, [00:01:00] simply have a thought that that sounds good, that that would be delicious. That could be as simple as where that urge came from. So managing it. is understanding that's truly where it's at and then deciding how you want to react.
What action do you want to take when you feel that compelling desire to eat something? What do you want to do? Do you want to say not now? Do you want to say, I will put that on my plan for tomorrow? Those are all things you can do. I want you to first start with understanding it's completely normal.
Everybody has them. You will have them always, even when you make it to your goal weight. Always. Now, the urgency of them. It does go down. And as you practice understanding like, yeah, it's there. I'm just choosing not to answer that. [00:02:00] It's like not answering the telephone. Everyone's had a telephone call, and you see it.
And you don't want to talk now, or you don't want to talk to that person. And so you just don't answer it. You don't send it directly to voicemail because you, whatever reason, don't want them to know you just let the phone keep ringing until it's done. That is what managing an urge is going to feel like.
You're not sending it off into the neverlands. You are there. You're not fighting it or beating it down. You're not judging yourself for even feeling it. You are there. Course you want it. It probably would taste delicious and I can have it tomorrow. I can write it on my plan whenever I want. I'm choosing my goal today.
I'm choosing myself. I'm choosing my weight loss. And I'm simply saying not today. Not now. That is just truly sitting with an urge. It's not being [00:03:00] upset that it's there. It's not being upset with yourself for still having them. Or thinking you should not be. having it or feeling it or that it makes you bad at weight loss because you have it.
None of that. It's just something that happens from time to time and you don't act on it. When I was teaching this one in my main course, I talked about people practice Not acting on urges all the time. So maybe, I think the examples I gave in that one, where maybe you see somebody in the grocery store line ahead of you, and you really want to throat punch them.
You are thinking all the things that they should not be doing something, that you don't like how it's happening, and you really, really, really want to throat punch them. And you don't. And so that is just allowing the urge. You didn't stop the urge. You just stopped the action. And that's exactly what managing an urge is.
You're just [00:04:00] stopping the action. You understand that. Yep. That happened. I think the other example I've used in the past is that maybe you're a married person and have made the decision that you will not go outside your marriage. You see somebody that is a very attractive person, and you have lots of thoughts and desires as you see the person.
And you can appreciate the beauty, you can appreciate the attraction, and do nothing about it. That is also Managing an urge. So you have the feeling it happens. Those are responses, but you, they're just like triggered. You just do not act on them. You do not respond to them. And so that is exactly what managing an urge is going to be like.
So something we've talked about now is that you just sit with it. You understand it. You allow it to be there and feel it. You just choose not to act on it. Okay. All right, so that's one way. [00:05:00] Another thing sometimes is that you have these thoughts, and this might be you, just ask yourself if it is, maybe you're having a thought that you can't be trusted with certain foods.
And so it's built this food up in your head to being like extra powerful. It's got power over you. And so the more power it has, the more urges are thrown at you. Maybe you want to intentionally practice putting that food on your plan. Sometimes you're going to eat it and sometimes you're not, but it's always going to be on your I've done this with, um, desserts.
I thought desserts had all the power in the world. And I put them on my plan. I just knew I was going to put them on my plan every single day for a week. I can have it if I want to. And the only thing was, I wanted to ask myself, Am I hungry, physically hungry, before I eat this? And so I could have it, but I had to be physically hungry.[00:06:00]
I am a person now who eats when they are hungry. And that's why I eat. I eat foods I love. I eat foods I enjoy. But only when I'm hungry, as I did that many times, I realized I'm not hungry. I just want it that helped me understand when things were more of an urge and less of a hunger issue. Then as I started having things like, sometimes I would say, oh, I'd rather have this dessert than I would rather have my dinner.
And sometimes I still do that, but it helped me also kind of put into perspective, if I'm only eating when I'm hungry. Is this what I want? A lot of times, I would rather have nutritious food because my joints feel better, my digestion's better. I just feel better with more nutrient dense foods. And sometimes I still want the sugar.
But what I did was I put that on my plan every day, like I said, for a period of time. And it started to lose its power. I [00:07:00] began to trust myself around that food. I totally disempowered the food. The food was desirable, but the food held no power over me. So that's another way. Practice eating it, practice planning it, practice being allowed to have it, and making sure that you're the one that's empowered here, not the food.
As you work through these urges, make sure that you're celebrating when you sat with the urge and not eaten. It sounds silly in the beginning to some people, but be like, I didn't eat today when I wanted that pizza. I walked by the candy dish and I didn't take a piece. Make sure you're understanding that's what you did.
Understand that you're celebrating so that you can collect those gold stars, and those gold stars really boost your confidence. All right, you've got homework, manage your urges, sit with them, understand them, [00:08:00] choose yourself and your weight loss, and then practice having the foods. Sometimes planning them, having them, asking yourself if you're really hungry before you have it and take all the power back.
Food does not get any of your power anymore. Like what you heard today? Leave a review wherever you are listening and check out the free five day quick start course. Get started losing weight for the last time. You will find the link to this and many other helpful podcasts and videos in the show notes.
I can't wait to see you in the course. Thanks.
