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Barrier Busting
The Barrier Busting podcast offers insights, strategies, and inspiring stories that explore practical tips and powerful tools for unlocking our full potential.
Barrier Busting
Mindful Eating: Listening to Your Body for Healthier Habits
What if you could revolutionize your eating habits just by listening to your body? In our latest episode, we sit down with registered dietitian Heather Fiore to uncover the secrets of recognizing and responding to hunger and fullness cues that many of us overlook due to societal and dietary pressures. Heather sheds light on the art of mindful eating, providing actionable tips to help you develop healthier eating habits.
Exploring the fine line between overeating and binging, we dive into how habits can dramatically influence our eating patterns. Inspired by James Clear's "Atomic Habits," this episode offers practical strategies for breaking unhealthy routines, from changing grocery stores to separating TV time from meal time. We also tackle the complexities of intermittent fasting, balanced nutrition, and the pitfalls of fad diets. Plus, we demystify nutritional buzzwords like "superfoods" and delve into the controversial topic of coffee's health impacts. Tune in for a balanced, thoughtful approach to nutrition and healthy habits that promises to leave you better equipped to make mindful eating choices.
Are you feeling stuck? Is something holding you back? Are there obstacles in your way? Well, let's smash through those obstacles so that you can live your best life. Hi, I'm Matt Brooks, founder of Matt Brooks Coaching, and I'm fascinated with how people overcome barriers and achieve success. Join me for insights, strategies and inspiring stories as we explore practical tips and powerful tools to unlock your full potential.
Speaker 1:This is the Barrier Busting Podcast. Well, hello and welcome everyone to yet another Barrier Busting Podcast in which we are talking about habits. This is actually part five of a series on habits and I'm very, very happy to bring back my guest from last week. Just to recap, the first show was about how habits are formed in our brains. The second show was about how we develop new habits. The third show was about bad habits and last week we started a very interesting discussion with a registered dietitian who is back to talk to us again today. My guest again is Heather Fiore. She is a registered dietitian in private practice in Lawrence Kansas, although she is also licensed to work over telehealth through several states. You can check that out on her website, which is freestatenutritioncom. She holds a degree in nutritional science from Cornell and a degree in health education from SUNY Brockport and, as I mentioned the last time, she and her family are the proud owners of a pet bearded dragon. Welcome back, heather. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 2:Hi, matt, good to see you too.
Speaker 1:Now, before we get into the topic, let's take just a quick break and talk about the bearded dragon thing for a second. Sure, how long have you had? Well, first of all, what's the bearded dragon's name?
Speaker 2:Well, she's had a number of names. None of them really stuck and we just call her Beardy now.
Speaker 1:Beardy, she is eight years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's eight, and fun fact about her is that we just had our oldest child is a senior in high school and senior photos are a big deal here, not like the East Coast, where you go on location, you change outfits, it's like a whole thing. And she just brought her bearded dragon to her photo shoot yesterday and it was quite adorable.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's awesome. Are they tough to deal with and take care of?
Speaker 2:No, she's so chill, she doesn't like one of our cats. Well, one of our cats just died but, no, it's okay, she was, she was sick, it's okay. But yeah, the bearded dragon could clearly you could tell she didn't like that one cat who was kind of mean, but otherwise she's very chill. She doesn't like run around too fast or she just kind of hangs. She's, she's great.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. That's very cool Never having one in my house, but that's very cool. I knew someone who also had a pet monkey in the fifties, who lived in Soho, in the city, and had a pet monkey like just freely roaming around her house or her uh, whatever it was, or whatever. Yeah, um, all right, we'd left off. Left off last time teeing up the idea of binge eating. Let's talk about something you mentioned to me, which is the difference between hunger and fullness. Talk about hunger and fullness, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yes, it sounds like such a basic concept like listen to your hunger. You know, eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, and it is much more difficult for a lot of us than it seems like it should be. We just are not trained or encouraged to listen to these signals and a lot of times we're trained to try to avoid them or put them off, particularly hunger, you know, we just. You know, there's all these tricks of like oh, maybe you're not hungry, you're probably just thirsty, like, drink some water, wait 20 minutes. You know, do this and do that in order to avoid eating, when in fact you might just be hungry and you should probably just eat some food.
Speaker 2:But we just have all these tips that tell us, you know, oh, don't listen to your body. You know, follow this schedule of like here's when to eat or here's when to not eat and here's how much food you should have. You know, all this stuff, all the sort of diets or meal or plans or wellness or whatever they call it out there, all the programs are training you to just do a certain thing follow the rules instead of listen, and your body actually knows when you're hungry. Your body knows also how much food you need to eat. So if you listen you will get a signal of fullness, but we just tend to blow past it for a variety of reasons. But we just if we could listen more often, it would just be a lot easier. For us.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is really important and in particular, because most of us don't understand what it means when people like you say listen to your body. Do you know what I mean? To be honest, we don't understand because we, you know, we have our stomachs and our brains and they're often working in conflict with each other. How do we listen to our body to know when we're full? That may seem like a silly question to some people. I'm sure there's some listeners out there going, oh, he's just shut up. But I think a lot of us really don't know what we're listening for. Help us with that.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, and that is one of the things that I spend a decent amount of time on with my clients, separately, talking about hunger and focusing on that and then focusing on fullness, and, you know, asking a lot of probing questions about what are the cues, how do you know when it's time to stop eating. Sometimes I ask it that way If I say, like, oh, how do you know when you're full, people are like, oh, I don't know what you mean, because sometimes full they think is a bad thing. Like, oh, if I'm full, that means I ate too much, and they stop eating basically when their food is gone. Right, that's their usual cue.
Speaker 1:Well, when the bag of chips is empty, right. When the bag of chips is empty right.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct. So instead, you know, let's think about what are some, what are some signals your body gives you. Sometimes I've had a few people mention you know that there's. They're going along eating their meal and then all of a sudden they sigh and they kind of lean back and they just figure, oh, I'm just taking a break and then I'm going to dig back in and it might be your body saying I think I'm finished, you know, like that little side is a tip and you missed it because there's still food there. So it just depends.
Speaker 2:For everybody it feels different. Sometimes it's like, oh, the food doesn't taste quite as good anymore. Or, yeah, I could keep eating, but I don't really need to. Or maybe there's a physical sensation in the stomach. But it's really about connecting the brain and the body, right, like the brain is saying like oh, this food's delicious, keep going. The brain does not care what happens beyond the mouth. Right, it's like this tastes good, keep it coming, but your stomach has a different idea. This tastes good, keep it coming, but your stomach has a different idea. So it's like opening the communication. Use that big brain of yours to find out what your stomach is saying, not just think, oh, food's good. I should eat more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I'm glad you said that too, because in my series on habits, one of the things about bad habits is that the brain does not distinguish or discriminate between good and bad habits. The brain, the basal ganglia, records behaviors and turns them into automated habits. I call it the human automation app, right? It automates our behaviors and it does not care if it's good or bad. It makes no determination there. It's just going to record that habit and you are stuck with it, right? And so it's the same thing here. The brain just wants more of that. You know, more chips, right?
Speaker 2:Or whatever, we're having a good time, let's go.
Speaker 1:What's give it? Give us a little bit from your perspective of the difference between binge eating and overeating. There is a difference, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Overeating is really just the simple matter of when you've eaten more food than your, than your body really needs. It's not what your brain thinks is overeating. Because of our conditioning, our brains might have various ideas about what's too much food just based on oh well, it's not a portion, so it must be. I overate, but overeating is really.
Speaker 2:You know, you're full to the point of uncomfortable. You might want to open up your pants or put on some sweatpants, or you're just feeling a little bit nauseous or whatever You're like. I wish I could take a few bites out of there because I went too far. That's overeating. And binging is a much more compulsive. And, you know, out of control type of eating where you've really eaten a larger volume in a relatively short period of time. Usually and you know you may not register fullness. Frankly, in these situations, because you're just so dissociated, you're just going through the motions of doing this thing. Again, there could be a variety of reasons why someone is doing it, but it's not just like oh, this food's really delicious, I think I'll binge on it. It's not, you know, there's no thought, it's just, it just happens. And then you're like whoa, what happened? What did I do?
Speaker 1:And that's the point of habits is there's no thought. It's all automated, so you don't think about it. And I've talked about habits from the perspective of everything, from simple things like what foot you put a shoe on first in the morning to how you shop in a grocery store. I mean one of the things that I found interesting in this one book that I've referred to a lot. It's called Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is a fantastic book I can't recommend enough to people. But one thing it said was if you feel your eating habits are not good, if you want to make changes there, shop at a different grocery store, because if you go to the same grocery store, you're in the same habits. There's certain habitual behaviors. You're going to go down the same aisles the same way. You go to a different grocery store, everything's moved slightly different, it's in different locations. It's going to force you to think more than just act out of habit. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Does that make sense to you? Yes, it really does. And I will add to that because a lot of folks, since the COVID lockdown and you know people started ordering online and then people are like, oh, this is great, I never have to go to the. Some people have not returned to the grocery store and they just re-up their order every week. And if you want to do something different, that is not the way. You're just ordering the same thing over and over, You're missing out on who knows what's out there in the store. Yeah, and so I would add not just go to a different store, but go to a store if you're somebody who's ordering online.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you also get. If you're one of those people obsessed with 10,000 steps a day, you're going to get a lot more steps if you go to the grocery store right. So we talked last time a little bit and I think it fits in with this topic of overeating and binging and all that about unhealthy eating habits, skipping meals in the morning and eventually you're really hungry late at night. What are some tips for breaking those kinds of habits like snacking late at night or skipping meals?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think for one, you do have to explore your personal reasons for doing it. You know, for the purpose of this discussion I'm kind of making an assumption that you know the person is, you know, skipping breakfast and, you know, not eating much lunch, trying to get away with as little food as possible. And then you know, sort of, as the day goes on and their willpower decreases, you know, they eat more food and their body is like trying to get them to eat the food because they're really hungry. And there's that part where they're saying, oh, I shouldn't do that. So then they do it again and more.
Speaker 2:So interrupting could happen anywhere along the process. Really, you could start by saying, like, all right, today's the day I'm going to start trying to eat some breakfast and see if I can have a different day. So you might start at the beginning of the day, you might start, you know, in the evening, or sometimes I'll tell people if they're really not eating much during the day, during work, and then they get home starving. What if you either have a snack before you leave work or something, even in the car? Like you know, it's not great to be eating food in the car when you're sort of you know mindless about it, but maybe that would help you get home and have a different outcome.
Speaker 2:You know you're not quite as starving, so now you can come home and maybe start cooking dinner instead of running through the drive-thru. Or maybe you know you're not having this big snack while you're cooking, or whatever. You know, it's just a way to interrupt that habit, so that might be the place to intervene. Or maybe it's lunch, or maybe you need to add more snacks during your day, or maybe you literally start with your evening of like. If you're somebody that takes the bag of chips and you sit down in front of the TV. I don't know. Do people still watch TV? Some people, I guess.
Speaker 3:Some of us do.
Speaker 2:I don't know what people do. Maybe they're on their phones, but if you're sitting there with your food, with your activity, whether it's your phone or your TV, interrupt that right, Say like, well, I can watch TV or I can eat my snack, but I'm not going to do those two things together. And now I have to decide do I want this snack or do I want the TV? And that might just cause a little bit of disruption for you to decide like, oh, I actually don't really need this snack that much. Or oh, yeah, I actually am really hungry. I'm going to go sit down and eat something, but now you're a little more intentional about it. So it's like just break that cycle somewhere anywhere in the process.
Speaker 1:It's actually some of the advice given by James Clear in his book that I've talked about it. But if you want to break certain habits, change the environment, change the cues, all that sort of thing, so again, read it real quick before we go to a quick break. I'm one of those people who just does not want to eat in the morning, and so years ago I started forcing myself to like eat a banana just to get something in my stomach, or eat a little, a few forkfuls of cottage cheese or a little yogurt. But I don't enjoy it. I'm not hungry in the morning. What advice do you have for people like me, because eating breakfast is important, but there are those I just, I just don't want to eat. So what, what? What thoughts do you have on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think if you can start with something a little, you know, pretty small, and maybe you stay there right, maybe maybe you eat the banana and and you never progress into, like you know, whatever real breakfast is, you know that's breakfast is. You know that's still something that you you've provided a little brain food which it didn't have before. So I think there's value in that, but it maybe, you know, maybe you try something like liquid nutrition. You know some people like to make a smoothie or like a protein shake or something, and that feels easier to get down than food when you're not hungry.
Speaker 1:So the advice is don't drink your breakfast is not necessarily you know it's. You can drink your breakfast if you're someone who just doesn't want to eat Right. Good, because I do take protein shakes in the morning just to get something down. So, thank you, you've made me feel better about myself. I appreciate that we're going to take a quick break and we will be right back with Heather.
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Speaker 1:Okay, we're back. Let's talk a little bit about the effects of diet on the brain and, in particular, about this really become controversial topic of intermittent fasting. Right, that's been all the rage. I mean, king Charles is famous for never eating lunch, so he sort of was one of the early proponents of intermittent fasting, but that's turning out to maybe not be the best idea. Talk about effects of diet on the brain and how intermittent fasting comes into play with all that, please.
Speaker 2:So intermittent fasting is not a monolith right. There are lots of ways to do it, and sometimes it's just like shortening your eating window in a day, right, it could just mean, okay, so you, instead of fasting for eight to 10 hours, maybe fast for 12 hours overnight or, I don't know, maybe fast for 16 hours. But intermittent fasting could also mean, um, like taking a couple of days where you only like throughout the week, where you only eat 500 calories, and then other days you eat more or whatever. So it really um, it's, I think, hard to study because people have all these different interpretations of what. Does it even mean to do this? Some of the research shows like, oh, it's great for insulin resistance or it's, you know, longevity or whatever, that there's potentially benefits for some folks, depending on which form of this we're talking about. But I also think there are a lot of us where who it doesn't work for at all. For, for myself, I don't think I could do it. I would be a cranky mess, I don't think I would get used to it. Some people are like, oh, I feel, I feel great, now I'm doing this.
Speaker 2:The other piece is and obviously, if you have an eating disorder or any. You know history of disordered eating. I don't think it's advisable. And two, you really have to be careful, if you're shortening your eating window, about the choices you're making. You really want to like, make sure you get the food you need, all the nutrition you need, in that window. You can't just be you know all the nutrition you need in that window. You can't just be, you know, eating a bag of chips like you can't afford to eat a bag of chips. You got to get the stuff you really need, nutrient wise.
Speaker 1:And if you're working out every day things like that, you need fuel right, and that's a problem if you're intermittent fasting or it can be right. Talk about that.
Speaker 2:It can be. Yes, I, I think you know it is not advisable to work out on an empty stomach, nor is it advisable not to replenish shortly after. If you want to get the best out of your workout, you want to have some you know energy to utilize in the workout, and then you want to help your body and your muscles recover afterward by providing some food. So in this scenario of intermittent fasting, that workout would have to be in the window of your eating, and that's going to shorten your time of getting nutrition in too. Or it's outside of the window, I don't know. It's hard to imagine how it really works. I just can't picture it myself.
Speaker 1:Well, it's also. You know there's a lot of fad diets right. There have been fad diets my whole life, always. Do they ever work? Do you know what I mean? Do fad? Diets ever really work.
Speaker 2:It depends what you mean by work right. There are lots of ways for people to lose weight. Now, they don't all work for everyone, but they all work for some. You know, However, you reduce your calories can cause weight loss. But when we say, does it work? People don't want just weight loss for a short time. People want long-term weight loss, and this is something we do not have. We do not know how to accomplish that part. A hundred years of research show us we do not know how to help people lose weight and keep it off long-term. Yeah, yeah, and that's tricky for all of us. A hundred years of research show us we do not know how to help people lose weight and keep it off long term.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's tricky for all of us. You know I'm so tired of losing a bunch of weight and then a year later bouncing back to where close to where I was. I'm just happy when, I bounce back.
Speaker 1:I bounce back to five pounds less than what I was. You know what I mean. It's sort of, over the years, tried to get my window of where my weight is down gradually over the years, tried to get my window of where my weight is down gradually. And we talk I've talked about this in shows in the last few shows about habits is is don't you know, metaphorically, don't let your eyes be too big for your stomach. Make small changes, small changes that you can succeed. You know I talked about why most new year's eve resolutions fail because we make grandiose things and they're just not achievable. But if you make 1% improvements throughout the year, you might find by the next New Year's Eve you've actually achieved that goal. You know, um, are there any uh particular eating habits or food myths that have been debunked by research, recent research?
Speaker 2:Uh, probably Let me think let's talk coffee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because coffee's done a lot of research on coffee over the years. I jumped for joy about 15 years ago when I read an article that said it's one of the most potent antioxidants we have and you can drink as much as you want. And then I've been paying attention to the articles over the years and it's like a ping pong game that goes back and forth between don't drink it drink as much as you want Only have four cups. Have eight cups, it doesn't you know. So what about coffee?
Speaker 2:Well, here's just my personal opinion about why that is. People who do research drink coffee, right? So they don't want to find out that it's bad for you.
Speaker 1:It's because they're up all night. Oh, that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I think you know there's probably some benefit for some people to having some, like you know, reasonable amount of caffeine from coffee itself. But, like, other people are very sensitive to caffeine, you know, can affect their heart rate and their blood pressure and there are some downsides. So it's like, across the board you can't say like, oh, it's good for you. It's like, well, just some people that might have some benefit and for other people it can be really harmful. It might disturb their sleep, it might, you know, cause, you know, bladder irritations. It can do all sorts of things. Or if you don't have any of those things, maybe it's great.
Speaker 1:But it does have some pretty potent antioxidant qualities to it, right. Correct it does have that it does, and you know we keep hearing this term superfood, right Like Superman, superfood. You know? Tell me for us, lay people, what the hell is superfood and why is it good or bad? Fill me.
Speaker 2:Uh, it is not a like defined word and this is sort of like, uh, like ultra processed food and we don't have to go down that rabbit hole, but, like these are words that don't really have any real defined meaning, it's just something that, like, we think we know what that means.
Speaker 1:I mean it's full of nutrients and everyone should eat it, and I guarantee there were people when I asked the question listening to this going oh my God, why is he asking this? This is so obvious, but I asked it because we really don't know what the hell that means, right?
Speaker 2:Right, right. And it just goes back to how we like to put things in categories of good and bad. And now it's not just good and bad, but good and bad and like the best, like superfood, is way over here in this category of like awesome and like it's just. It's just not true. Like, eat a balance of a variety of foods. You know, blueberries Sure, those are good, but also eat apples and bananas. You know, we don't just, don't just get honed in on. Oh, I can only eat kale.
Speaker 2:That's like no, you can eat, yeah right, like those are great, but don't eat that without eating all these other things. Variety is one of the main things that we are not doing. Going back to, you know, ordering your groceries online. That is the opposite of variety, you know. We just that's what we need.
Speaker 1:Well, I so appreciate you saying that, because I feel that sometimes these phrases come from marketing geniuses. They want to sell more avocados. So all of a sudden they put it out as a superfood and guess what? Starts showing up at Starbucks and everywhere else Avocado toast right.
Speaker 1:I don't know I'm a cynic in that way, but let's shift now over to something that you're pretty passionate about, that I'd like to hear more about, and that's something called intuitive eating. What is intuitive eating? Because for me, intuitive eating is again, you know, a bag of potato chips, right, but what?
Speaker 2:is intuitive eating. Well, it's the thing we've been talking about the entire time for these last two episodes last week and this week about listening to your body, finding out about hunger and fullness cues. It's about sort of neutralizing food, not thinking of it as good and bad. It's about addressing the shame and guilt we feel about eating certain foods or not eating the food, our relationship to our food in general and our relationship to our body and our relationship to exercise and movement, and then finally bringing nutrition in. But we do not bring nutrition into the conversation until we've addressed all these other pieces, so that nutrition doesn't feel like the most important thing, like, sure, nutrition's important. We want to get all the nutrients that we need for our bodies, but we also enjoy food. Food's delicious, food provides pleasure and comfort and all these things, and that's no less important than like the calcium in the kale or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I just think when I see the word intuitive, it refers to, obviously, intuition, and I wonder, even in myself, how to trust my intuition. Sometimes, sometimes in my life, they've served me well and sometimes they haven't. And when we turn that into food, you know, as I get older, I think a lot more about food. You know, I didn't think about it before.
Speaker 1:All I thought about before was getting something in my stomach when I was hungry. Now I think a lot more about it and wonder if I can trust my intuitions because of all the bad habits I've developed in my lifetime without even realizing they were bad habits. Which brings me to my final question to you, Because this is a series on habits what are some small, manageable dietary changes that can lead to significant long-term health improvements for all of us?
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll say two things. One is being intentional. So not just going for the thing you think of first oh, I'm going to grab this because I see it or because that's the first thing I thought of, that I wanted to eat but being intentional about hmm, what do I feel like eating today? Or you know what nutrients might I need, or you know what am I wanted to eat, but being intentional about what do I feel like eating today? Or you know what, what nutrients might I need? Or you know what am I going to do for lunch tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Being intentional is going to create a better diet that aligns with your values. Okay. And then, just if you want like an actual like food nutrient, you know specific, just if you want like an actual like food nutrient, you know specific. I'm going to say fiber. If you try to eat more fiber, it's going to lead you to more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, more legumes, more nuts and seeds Basically, the foods that we know help reduce chronic conditions. People who eat more of those, you know they're not maybe living longer, but living healthier. So, like fiber, if that's like the one thing you want to focus on, that's what I would do.
Speaker 1:Okay, fiber Excellent. You just reminded me of an episode of the Sopranos, but I'm not going to get into that. It wasn't having enough fiber in their diet. I had a heart attack. Anyways, you know, I live in Jersey now, so Sopranos are part of my existence.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, heather, I'm so grateful for you to do these two shows and I hope you'll come back in the future. We can talk about diet in a different. You know in one of my different series of topics that I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:I'd love to it series of topics that I'm going to do I'd love to. It's been very fun. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:You're the best. Check out Heather at freestatenutritioncom and she's in Lawrence Kansas, but she does do telehealth for people in several states and it's all on her website, so be sure to check her out. Thank you again, Heather. Thank you all for listening today and be well. Oh, by the way, I keep forgetting to say this. If you like this, please hit the subscribe button or the follow button so you'll find out what's coming up next.
Speaker 1:Next week I'm going to surprise you. I'm not going to tell you what next week's show is going to be about, but I'm going to do another series coming up on pivoting and career pivoting in particular, and in particular, pivoting in your fifties, which is extremely complicated, but something I personally have done. So I have a few insights onto that myself. But next week I'm going to do a one-off. That's going to be a little fun. All right, I'm going to tell you I'm going to do something on memes and give you my opinions on memes, and I think you're going to get a kick out of that show. But for now, thank you to Heather, Thank you for listening, Be well, and I'll catch you next time on the Barrier Busting Podcast. Thank you.
