Have you ever sat down to eat and thought, how much am I supposed to eat?
Not anything like, am I even hungry, but what's the right amount I'm supposed to have?
If that question lives in your head, this episode is for you, because you are not confused.
Because you're bad at losing weight. You're confused because you were never taught how to make that decision for yourself.
And it's a coachable thing. So, most of the women I coach don't say, I don't know my fullness!
They say, I don't know how much I'm supposed to eat.
That word, supposed to. It's important.
supposed to, according to who?
a calorie number?
A diet plan, an app,
Maybe a protein rule, or a carb rule.
You are trained to look outside of yourself, not inside.
So, family…
taught you to finish your plate. Don't waste food.
Eat what's served. So stopping early feels wrong.
It feels rude and wasteful, disrespectful.
That… that programming from our family, or…
Whoever you've been around, that runs deep.
So, dieting, it taught us…
That being very hungry is normal, and that being smaller is better.
Eat less than you actually want. White-knuckle it.
So what happens? You under-eat.
You override your body's natural hunger signals.
And then you feel proud of it. Probably even got some weight loss on the scale sometimes.
For a while, until your body starts trying to protect you.
And then, you keep doing that until you just can't anymore. And then guess what happens?
You rebound. You have a binge, you feel so out of control.
You think I have no ability to control this.
No, you were over-restricting. That's different.
Calorie counting and portion rules do one thing well.
They remove your need to decide.
And in the moment, that feels safe.
But when you stop counting,
you feel lost, because you haven't practiced
deciding.
Not because you can't, but because you just…
didn't have that available to you. You were following a diet that told you what to do.
So when clients say, I don't know how much to eat,
Often what they mean is, I…
I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or I don't trust myself to make that decision. I don't know when I'm supposed to stop.
That's not shameful. That's honest.
And honestly, you probably haven't built that
that trust, that confidence in that decision-making yet.
And so, that's something I coach women on every day.
So, I want you to try this experiment. Eat until you feel satisfied.
Not stuffed. And then stop.
Even if you're unsure, because the worst case, you get hungry before your next meal, and then you just eat again.
That's not failure, it's data. It's information. And then we can do something with it.
You don't need certainty or perfection. You need some practice, just some practice about stopping a little bit early.
And maybe if I'm, you know…
give yourself permission to eat again.
That's… that's what I needed. I needed to be able to know that it was okay to get it wrong, and that the worst that's gonna happen is I'm gonna get a little hungry before the next meal, and I'll just have a little bit of something to get me by until the next meal.
That was the worst thing that could happen.
And as soon as I realized it wasn't me getting it wrong, because that's really what I was afraid of, was getting it wrong.
Then I was like, okay, I have a plan. My plan is…
stop, see what happens, and then I can eat a little more if I got it… if I got it wrong. It wasn't that big a deal anymore.
Alright, I want you to ask yourself these questions.
When I say I don't know how much to eat, what am I actually afraid of?
think about that. What are you actually afraid of?
By not knowing how much to eat.
Mine, I was afraid of being wrong. I was afraid that that meant that I would never be able to lose weight.
Um, ask yourself, am I afraid of being hungry later?
In the beginning, I was absolutely afraid of being hungry later, and not having food available. So I had a purse snack with me for a couple years.
Until I realized, you know, that thing ends up getting all mushed up in my purse, and I hardly ever eat it.
And I can stop at any gas station and get a new snack.
Ask yourself, am I afraid of overeating?
And then ask, who taught me what a normal portion is?
For me, it was a lot about, um…
Weight Watchers and SlimFast, and all of those other diets, right?
Uh, what would change if I allowed myself to be wrong?
Just once. Alright, if every meal feels like a math problem, if you feel like you're constantly guessing,
You don't need a stricter tracking.
tracking system. You need support while you practice deciding.
So inside my free webinar, I break down why weight loss feels confusing, and how to simplify it without rules running your life.
You don't need more rules. You need some support while you learn an easier way.
Save your seat at www.coachingkera.com.
forwards life, forward slash sign up.
See you then.
