Episode Transcript
Are you a hardworking woman who finds herself overeating in th
evening? Whether you work in an office, run your own business, o
manage a household, it doesn’t matter. If you’ve ever wondered why you
can juggle so much during the day but fall into patterns of emotional
eating at night, this episode is for you.
Hey everyone! Welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode 49!
So here's what we're going to talk about today. Are you a
working woman who overeats in the evening? By working
woman, what I mean is working in the home, working outside of
the home, working in an office for a company or your o
company. It doesn't matter. If you're a woman in the world who
works, I'm going to explain the connection between why you
were able to hold it together all day, and fall apart with your
eating in the evening. So get comfortable, let's get started. And
we're going to dive into this topic.
Now here's something I see all the time. No matter how you
define yourself in the world, no matter what type of work you do
whether it's for family or a company, you are a woman who
achieves things. You are a woman who has skills. You're a
woman who has responsibilities. And you're smart. And you get
through your day, juggling multiple responsibilities, multiple
priorities, rising to the occasion, using all of your resources,
switching gears whenever necessary. You are hustling, all day
long, and you're good at it. You're really good at it. And that's the
MO of your typical day. This is what I see all the time. You know
how to shift whenever necessary. You know how to get things
done. But here's the contrast that I see when day turns into
night. You typically hold things together, juggling all the balls
during the day, but at night, all bets are off. And that is usuall
when you slip into emotional eating. And what happens is your
resources are used up, or at least you think they are. You're tired
of course, your blood sugar may be low, your focus is fuzzy in
the evening. Your energy, yep, it's depleted. And your willpower
from the whole day is at an all day low. That's understandable.
But what also happens at night for you and many of the women
that I work with, is that emotionally and physiologically, both,
you're at a low. You need relief. You may still need more energy if
you still have work to do in the evening, or you have a family that
you still need to be present for and get things done for. It's like
you're on second shift or third shift. It doesn't end. So, naturally,
one of the habits that you learn, one of the habits that you taught
yourself, is that reaching for food will make you feel better. And
you know, and I know, that it's not usually chicken and roasted
veggies that you reach for. But it's food that lights up the reward
center of your brain. And it allows you to veg out, and it allows
you to kind of give up. And when you do that, you will slip into
your overeating habit in the evening, and then you beat yourself
up for the rest of the evening, which doesn't make for a good
recovery from the day. It doesn't leave you feeling great about
yourself. And it certainly doesn't help you accomplish anything. It
doesn't reinforce the idea that you are a woman who can hold it
all together. So during the day, you're one person, during the
night, you're another. Here's what you're not seeing about
yourself. The big picture. Now, remember how we talked about
your ability to rise above your situation and look down to switch
perspectives. To go from in the moment, to the big picture. So
let's rise above your nighttime eating situation, and I don't mean
middle of the night eating, I mean more end of the day, eating,
let's rise above it and look down and see what you're doing.
Here's what you're not seeing about yourself at night. You are a
woman who looks at problems that come your way, as projects.
You put on your analytical hat, you evaluate what's going on, and
you look for a solution. And if one solution doesn't work, you look
for others. When you put on that problem solving hat during the
day, what's happening? You know you have resources. You know
your strength. You know you have all kinds of different abilities
and you know that these abilities, in the back of your mind, I
think you know, that they could help you in all kinds of problems.
But you're not using them when it comes to this personal issue
with eating. And why don't you use those skills? Well, firstly,
would bet that you're looking at the evening eating with
tremendous emotion, and you're interpreting the fact that you fall
into that habit as one, big, lumpy failure, instead of what you do
during the day, which is analyze a problem, break it down, create
steps to take. But when it comes to a personal issue like your
eating after work in the evening at the end of the day, you look at
it tremendously through the lens of your emotions. And you come
out wanting, you come out not looking so good, not feeling so
good. But it's really not the problem. It's not the eating that
makes you feel not good about yourself. It's the lens through
which you're looking at it. The other reason that you're not using
your skills that you use all day on this evening eating issue, is
that you're not looking to the big picture. You're stuck in the
moment. You're stuck in your emotion. You're stuck in the
situation. You're stuck in a ruminating thought. You're just stuck.
You're not looking at the big picture, which is something that you
do during the day. So instead, I want you to think of this totally
differently. I want you to think of your emotional eating at the en
of a long hard day, and put it through what I'm going to call, the
business plan for your body. I want you to look at your desired
outcome in terms of your end game. How will your life look when
you've achieved stopping eating from exhaustion and from
frustration? When your weight is where you want it, and where
your arms are where you want them? And when overeating is no
longer a problem? I want you to really visualize yourself at that
goal. We're going to tackle this just as you would tackle any issue
that you tackle during the day, whether it's for your kids, your
partner, yourself, a medical issue, or an actual work project. So
instead of being so together, and being so resourceful for
everybody else in the world and every thing that you're working
on, and then falling apart in the evening, I want you to approach
the evening differently. I want you to approach your evenin
eating problem, just like you would a project.
So the first way of looking at your eating in the evening, is you'r
dealing with fairly specific situations that create the desire for yo
to run away from an uncomfortable feeling, and to eat
emotionally. This is what I consider level one eating. And you're
dealing with specific issues, you're not looking at the whole bi
picture, but let's break it down just like you would an issue that
you would deal with with work. What are you already doing well?
And I know that your tendency may be to say ‘nothing, nothing is
going well’. But that's just because you're used to putting your
focus on what's wrong. So let me ask you again. What are you
doing well? And where is the gap between where you are and
where you want to be? What do you need to learn? And where
do you need support? And then finally, what should your fi
step be? So if you're dealing with these evening eating issues,
what is the first step you could take to change your habits in th
evening?
Now think about level two. Level two is where you do look at
using your skills that we've been talking about for eating, on a
broader plane. So instead of dealing with one situation like, not
overeating snacks when you're taking your kids to soccer, and
you're starving because you didn't plan. That’s situational. Level
two is where you use the skills that you use all
day long, and you learn how to eat on the broader plane, which is
how to eat from hunger, and how to manage your mind on a
regular basis. And we're going to continue to talk about these
two really big, big ways of dealing with the eating issues. So just
think about it now. If you're thinking about focusing on, ‘am I
hungry, and what's going on in my mind right now’, at this level,
what are you already doing well? Look for it. Don't automatically
reject that because you're still working on things, that you're
struggling. Where is the gap between where you are now and
where you want to be? What do you need to learn? Where do
you need support? What's your first action step? This is jus
exactly the way you would handle any issue. What is my
problem? Where do I want to be? Where am I, and where is the
gap? What do I need to get me through this? If you can do this to
solve an issue in your home, with your family, at work, you can
do this for the emotional eating that you do in the evening.
And now let's look at it from level three, which is more global.
Which is the bigger bigger picture. Which you may not
consciously ask yourself during the day, but it's what I want you
to train yourself to do. And that is, a global level. What kind of
woman do you want to be, and how does she act in her world?
What are you already doing well in the big picture of your eating?
Where do you want to be? Where is the gap? And again, notice
how unemotional these questions are. Notice how I'm just taking
apart a problem, and I'm approaching it from three differen
ways. From the situation, the exact situation you're in. For
example, when I am tired I tend to eat after dinner. Then I'm
approaching it from another level, where I look at the broader
picture, which is, I only eat when I'm hungry, and if I'm in a
negative mood, I look at what's causing that negative mood and I
manage it. And now I'm looking at it from an even higher, more
global level, of ‘who do I want to be, how does she act, how
does that woman act’. So, what are you already doing well in the
world of eating? Where's the gap? What do you need to learn?
What do you need to support you? And what will your first actio
step be if you could look at this evening eating, this emotional
eating, which usually comes from being exhausted, and look at it
really objectively, like you probably do with most other problems
or questions in your life? It will be so much easier to take apart
and see what your steps should be, instead of falling into it
automatically with no hope of making anything different or better
Where are you now? What do you want? What's in between
those two places? And then create a plan to wake up and notice
what you're doing. Notice what steps you're taking, and what
you wish they were instead. And little by little, start to create
something that you can be proud of, and eliminate a problem. It's
a challenge. It's a project. It's a problem, but problems are meant
to be solved. And, you know, during the day when you're working
on solving something, once you figure out what to do, I woul
bet that there's a little bit of competitiveness that comes out.
Where you not only want to solve the problem, but you want to
ace the problem. You want to do it in the best way possible. You
want to feel proud of yourself. You want to chalk it up to your
abilities to know what you're capable of. And in order to do that,
you need to create confidence. You need to creat forwar
momentum. And you need to do that by looking at it as a
challenge, instead of being defeated before you even start.
So when you get home in the evening and you're tired, and
you've been through a full day, instead of defaulting into your
usual giving up and just going right into your old behavior of
cleaning out the fridge before you go to bed, and then feeling
awful and regretful and ashamed, then I want you to try to step
back and begin to look at it as a project. What level am I viewing
this on? Am I looking at it as just in this moment how to not
overdo the chocolate, or am I looking at the big picture of why
am I eating in the first plac
And each evening, each night, the end of each work day, I want
you to not dread it. I want you to look at it, and this may sound a
little strange and possibly unbelievable in the beginning, but
every time you encounter your typical eating problem after work,
after a full day, it is a good thing, because it's another chance to
practice. If you are suddenly going through a very unusual and
lucky period, where everything's going very smoothly, and you
just go right to bed and take care of yourself, and you don't feel
the need to overeat, this does not mean that the problem is gone.
What this means is that by luck, by chance, you've avoided those
triggers that usually lead you to eat from exhaustion, or from just
not wanting to deal with things. But the way to truly eliminate
those desires to overeat at the end of your full day, is to hope
that they come. And to face them, and to not respond to them.
To look them in the eye, feel the pull, feel the urge to do what's
familiar, and not give in. That's what will help prune those
pathways that are not helpful, from your brain. Hoping that they
don't come up and maybe being lucky for a few nights or a few
weeks, it feels good. I know. It feels like relief. But the problem is
not gone and it will come back as soon as something triggers
you the way it always used to. So I want you to welcome and
really kind of think to yourself, ‘All right, the only way that I'm
going to eliminate these habits and change what I do, is by
changing what I think. So I want life to bring it on for me. I want
those triggers and those challenges that come up for me in the
evening. I want them to come up so I can look them in the eye
and not respond to them, and I could look at them just the way I
do all the other issues, all the other challenges, all the other
problems that you deal with during the day, that's how I want you
to view these. They are problems to be solved, and you can solve
them because you do it all the time in so many different ways.
want you to focus on what you've accomplished in life. What are
some of the things that you feel proud of? I keep a little index
card and I keep adding to it. And every time I do something like
create content or tools for my clients, or teach a class with
someone in the world of work, there's many other things I'm
proud of in life, but focusing on my work. And, you know, the fact
that I've raised two really wonderful kids and have a good
marriage. It could be any subject you want. But if you keep a little
list or even a little mental list on what you've accomplished,
periodically you pull it out and you look at it, and you give
yourself a little mental pat on the back. I want you to see yourself
as a woman who can do great things. And the proof is of what
you've already done. And if you're thinking, ‘Well, I haven't done
much’, I don't agree. I think you're not looking hard enough, or
you're not looking in the right place. And then I want you to think
about this, and I'd love to hear from you if you want to share it
with me, what skills have you used in what you've accomplished,
because I want you to begin to make this connection between
skills that you use in the world, and skills that you need to then
turn around and apply to your eating issues. You do it in the
world. You can do it for yourself.
And that is where I'm going to leave you today. Stay focused on
what have you accomplished, what skills do you use, and begin
to consider the possibility that you can apply them to anything, in
particular to your personal eating issue, that shows up at the end
of a hard day.
So I hope you come back next week for another coaching
session. See you soon!
