5 Proven Strategies to Overcome Impulse Eating

00:00Real quick, if you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand that methodology on how they can help you achieve your body composition goals of changing the way your body looks, I put together a free 15-minute training where I dive into macronutrients and how you can control your body for the rest of your life with them. That link is in the description below. Click on it after listening to the show today. Practicing self-compassion. Being kind to yourself. Understand that everybody, regardless of if you are someone who is struggling with impulse eating to just a regular human, everyone has moments of weakness. And that is okay.

00:40What is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. And on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose bifat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkie Stott, and welcome to episode number 99. Y'all are in for a treat for the 100. We're going to have a fun topic to talk about on that one.

01:13But for today, we are on episode number 99. And so I was like, man, what am I going to talk about today? And so I went back into our where we host the podcast and I was like, what is the most popular podcast to date? And the most popular podcast to date, you guys, was first of all, one of the unexpected ones I thought would be. But what it is, is the five strategies to help with impulse eating. So I was like, okay, that was a really good podcast.

01:44Let's resurface this podcast and let's kind of expand on it a little bit more into different strategies. Like there's five in that podcast. Now I want to bring in similar strategies, but different strategies in buckets. Okay, so that's what this podcast is going to be all about. We're going to talk about strategies to help you with impulse eating. And I feel like this is a really, you know, important time that we talk about this and we're re-bringing this back up.

02:17And we're just bringing it to the intention of anybody that needs help or support in this specific category because we've got the holidays coming up. And there can be a lot of impulse eating around the holidays. Okay, we got, what, Halloween? We got Thanksgiving. We got Christmas. We got New Year's. So we're going to talk about today. What I want to do is support you guys in these buckets. First, we're going to talk about mindful eating. Then we're going to talk about structuring meal and snack times. Then we're going to talk about environment control, which I feel like is really important for the upcoming holidays, coupled with emotional awareness.

02:54And then we're going to leave the podcast talking about just self-compassion for yourself. If you are an individual who finds yourself doing this repeatedly tons and tons of times, you probably don't have a very good narrative or dialogue going on inside of your brain. So I want to just bring self-compassion as we close out this podcast today. Okay. So first and foremost, let's talk about the first strategy around impulse eating that I want to help you guys with, which is mindful eating. And understanding that being fully present and fully engaged during your meal times can bring about eating mindfully.

03:30So there's a difference between eating mindlessly and eating mindfully, right? Eating mindlessly is finding yourself inside of the cabinet at the end of the day that's been very stressful. And the kids are now in bed and you're in the kitchen and you find yourself inside of like the cabinet eating a bag of Doritos or a bag of chips or, you know, whatever your comfort food is. That's eating mindlessly.

04:01You almost like don't realize, well, how did I get here? Well, how am I eating this right now? And then there's the opposite, which is eating mindfully, which is, you know, intention behind your meal, sitting down and you've put together this meal. And now you're, you know, mindfully enjoying the meal that you've prepared for yourself. And it was an intention to sit down and eat this meal. So those are important to distinguish because one, you're conscious, one, you're consciously aware, which is mindful, eating mindfully.

04:37And then one, you're unconsciously aware, which is eating mindlessly. So it's really important to distinguish between the two. Another point when it comes to eating mindfully and mindful eating is I really challenge you guys when you find yourself going in to eat the next time, intentionally sitting down to a meal, slowing down and recognizing the satisfaction that you are getting within that meal, right? Slowing down, slowing your chewing down, being more present when you are eating your meals.

05:15That's a little bit more to the mindful side of things. But also when you do that and you've intentionally planned a meal, it's in front of you and you're eating it and the plate is done, you're not seeking for other food. You then allow yourself the satisfaction of finishing the meal and giving your time to recognize that you are full and satisfied. Because a lot of people, I think, when the mindlessness, just eat mindlessly, right? When you're out to a restaurant and you have your meal, but then you have appetizers and you're indulging in other things, right?

05:48You're eating mindlessly and then you may feel full, but you still continue to keep eating. That's mindlessness of eating. Where next time you sit down, even at a restaurant, you eat what's on your plate, you allow yourself to have some things, but then you have the ability to stop and recognize that you feel satisfied and recognize that you are actually full, which could take upwards of like 10 to 20 minutes before you even feel that happening. But I challenge you and encourage you to do that the next time that you're going into a meal.

06:23And then, you know, small little things I could help with eating mindful more is like, you know, slowing down with every single bite that you eat, like I said, or, you know, putting down your utensils in between each and every bite that you have or turning off things around you, your put your phone on, do not disturb, turn the TV off, right? And be a little bit more intentional and present with your food that you are eating. Limiting distractions around you, right? Being more mindful of you and the food that you are eating.

06:59Like I said, okay, so it's the one strategy that you can start working on. And again, like I'm going to go through five of these. You don't necessarily have to work on all five. Like this could be one if you know that you're more of a mindless eater. Okay, let's focus on this one thing of the five and then come back to this podcast. And then maybe there's another area that you have to work on with the holidays coming up and you want to do environment control and emotional awareness. Maybe we need to come back to that. But these are just strategies that going out and then trying all five could overwhelm you.

07:32So just being able to recognize where do I need to work the most at inside of these strategies and pull that and go implement it after this podcast, okay? So the second thing that I want to talk about, first one was the mindful eating. The second one is structured meal times and snack times. And I just want to discuss like the benefits of having set times for your meals and for your snacks. So more when you have a routine for yourself, that specifically can reduce the frequency of you having impulse food and making impulse food decisions.

08:09Right? So for myself, for example, I have breakfast, I have a snack, I have lunch, I have a snack, or I have my, you know, pre-workout, post-workout snack or breakfast snack, snack dinner. Right? Or however, like this is just my structure. It changes variously depending on the day. But I have a structure in place where I know like these five meals are typically what I consume on a regular basis. And having that routine for myself provides less frequent ability to make impulse decisions.

08:45For example, maybe for you guys, if you don't have your day planned, you end up probably going half the day without eating. And then you're so ravenous come four or five o'clock at night when it's time for dinner that you're piling in all this food and you're making impulse decisions. And then, you know, you don't feel satisfied. So you have more after that. And it becomes that you're, you know, overly full when you go and sit down and relax with your family at the end of the night. Okay? Having more plan and structure and balance prevents you from indulging in the impulse actions.

09:20And so making sure that you plan ahead. I love saying this to our worry baby community and the clients that we work with. Making sure that you plan the night before for your next day can set you up for extreme success. Because it could be another situation, which is a good example that, you know, you don't plan ahead. You have your breakfast. But then you find that, you know, your coworkers want to go out for lunch. And so then you indulge in impulse food choices and decisions then. So it can happen periodically throughout the day.

09:50But it can happen when you just don't have a routine, broadly speaking. And then when you have balanced meals, this also prevents you from feeling extremely hungry. Extremely hungry. Which, like I said, led to that example of like you go half the day without eating. And then all of a sudden, you have this ravenous stomach yelling at you because you want, you need to eat. Because you haven't eaten anything. And so when you have this structure for yourself, this is, that's been my one key to success when it comes to nutrition.

10:26You know, I obviously know what to eat and when to eat it. Which I know a lot of you guys at the beginning of your journey are trying to still learn that. But once you find what works and you plan and put the time to plan ahead, having that routine daily for yourself eliminates the thought out of what am I going to eat and prevents you, stops you, limits the frequency of you having impulse food choices and decisions in your day to day. Okay? So planning your meals, like I said, ahead of time. Planning your snacks ahead of time. But another thing that I've found is a key for what I used to use when I worked in the emergency room and I needed to be reminded of what to eat or what I told my clients to do when they say they're quote unquote busy throughout the day and they forget to eat.

11:08Set reminders on your phone. Okay? Literally, you have a reminder or an alarm that can go off every so often when you know that you're going to feel hungry to remind yourself to eat the snack or the lunch or your meal that you brought with you in the day. Okay? Okay? So that was number two, structured meal times and snack times. Number three and number four kind of somewhat go together, but let's first talk about optimizing your environment.

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12:53So, what I usually tell, what I've usually told clients when I know our coaches tell clients is, let's, at the beginning of you starting your fitness journey, nutrition is always one of the hardest things for people to get down. They always want to indulge in foods that they enjoy. While you can have the foods that you enjoy, we can't have them 90% of the day because you're not going to get you the results that you want. And they've gotten you to where you are today with not seeing the results that you want or having gained weight. So, you know, I always recommend and our coaches recommend is like, dude, out of sight, out of mind.

13:25Whether you need to like raid all of your cabinets and throw everything out that doesn't support you on your journey. And only have like dove chocolate in the cabinet to start. Do that. Or like storing like, you know, the foods that you do enjoy that you know have been a culprit out of immediate reach. So, like you got to climb up on your kitchen stool and you got to reach to the highest cabinet together. Or like locking it in like one of those lock safe things.

13:55I don't know. But these are the number one thing that I recommend is like, dude, just throw it out. Just get it out of your house. Get it out of, get majority of the things that don't support you food wise out of your sight. And out of like to the mental knowing that it's there in your vicinity of the kitchen, in this cabinet. That's a huge success tip right there. Then when you do that, stock up on healthier snack alternatives.

14:29Go to the grocery store and choose things that will be better supporting to you and your journey and the results that you are seeking. Right. Some immediate tips of what you can do like right now in the house. Obviously throw everything out. But like whatever is just in a close vicinity to you. First of all, Halloween is coming up. The Halloween candy, man. Put it out of, just put it somewhere where it's, you're not passing it all the time. You want to stick your hand in it or like next to it, put fruit or something like that.

15:03Or even outside of Halloween. If you have stuff on your countertops that just aren't serving you, whether it be chips or, you know, nuts. Because eating a handful of nuts can put you way over in one category of your macronutrients. Which I always used to hear at the beginning of people's journeys. It's like when they tell me they think they eat healthy. It's like, yeah, I have a handful of like almonds like every now and then throughout the day. Or I have pistachios or I have nuts, nuts, nuts. I'm like, you are just, it's a very caloric, caloric dense, healthy snack.

15:34You just got to eat it in moderation because of all the fats. And fats have more grams, have more calories per gram than the carbs and the protein do. So you just got to keep that stuff in mind. Right. But place on your countertops instead, place fruit. Place other healthier things at eye level in the fridge. Right. Move other things into the cabinets. Like how the veggies and the fruits have their own cabinet thing. I put the food that you don't want to be eating away down the bottom of the fridge.

16:06And like have more of the, get like the containers where you can slide into the fridge. I have the vegetables and the fruits right in front of you. Right. And the protein right in front of you. Okay. So that's how you can better control your environment. I think that one's huge, especially for anybody starting their fitness journey. Or even just like what the holiday is coming up. It's like, what is an alternative? There's candy here. You can have one or two pieces, but you got to know when to stop, which is hard for people when they have this thing they're trying to work on impulse eating.

16:40And next to it, you have something that is a better alternative. Fruit, nuts, something like that. Okay. Now, this one can pair with the environmental things, which is your emotional awareness. So recognizing emotional triggers that lead to you wanting to impulse eat. So for example, right? With an environment, there could be triggers of you just seeing, you know, you've had a rough day and all of a sudden you want to have the candy.

17:10So you just indulge in the candy. Okay. Or impulse eat the candy. Um, that's a trigger in your environment, but also deeper in a, in a deeper level is your emotional trigger to that, which is understanding first and foremost, let's talk about the emotional hunger and the physical hunger. So a lot of people who are stressed, who are bored, who are frustrated, who are angry, who have this emotional reactivity throughout their day that heightens them, then they will

17:43turn to food for comfort, right? They will turn to food to feel better and to impulse eat that food so that they, that, that almost comforts them in that sense. Rather than the physical hunger of like, dude, it's been like three hours and I haven't eaten and like you feel hungry. Like you are physically hungry. Like your help, your, the, the, the things in the brain are controlling your hunger state. Okay. Those are the differences.

18:13And the best way you can do is like check in with yourself to decipher the two is like, am I being emotional right now? And if you ask yourself to your question, like if you have that emotional intelligence, that, that awareness to yourself, you're able to answer a yes or no. You can tell when you're heightened. Maybe not. Some people still are learning to have to figure that out. That's totally fine. But if you are heightened in a situation that is leading you to want to eat because you are heightened emotionally, then learning how to recognize that first and foremost, and

18:47then being able to ask yourself, am I emotionally heightened? And am I wanting to go eat this because I feel emotional, emotional right now? Or is like, man, it's been a couple hours. Like earlier today, you know, I had meetings from, uh, not 10 o'clock to two 30 in the afternoon. And coming up on that one 30 mark, I hadn't, I'd only eaten one time in the morning. And I was like, man, my blood sugar is dropping.

19:19And I was starting to get really, really shaky. And I had to go eat. So like, that's like being a physical hunger. I am into my body. I know my hunger cues. I recognize that they are there telling me that I'm physically hungry. And I am not emotionally tied to anything. So those are really good indicators to recognize. So common triggers, right, for an emotional standpoint is what I said, stress, boredom, loneliness, and then figure it when you are in those being able to understand and question

19:51yourself in that state and address them without turning to food, right? So techniques for managing those things is when you feel that and you maybe are already done your macros for the day or you've hit your nutrition for the day and you maybe feel emotional and like, I don't know what's going, maybe something's going on that you're dealing with. First, speak to someone if you can in the household, like just be able to communicate, articulate your words on how you're feeling and be able to just emotionally offload the emotions that you're expressing, experiencing. Writing things out. If you don't have the person to talk to, journal.

20:23I found personally for myself that journaling is such an effective tool to help you take what's here in your brain and get it on paper. And then it's like a, like a release. Another thing is, you know, in a heightened experience that you may be feeling emotionally that wants you to turn to food is just taking deep breaths. And just taking, practicing those exercises a little bit more.

20:53Or going out for a walk. When you feel like you're emotionally heightened, you want to eat food, you want to feel comfort and food is your comfort, just get outside and go for a walk. Or get outside and go for a walk. Nothing else is coming to my brain. So that's really, that's on the bucket of emotional awareness. And that is, those are strategies that can help you when you are experiencing impulse eating. Now the last one that I want to talk about. Hey guys, love so much that you guys are listening to this podcast.

21:25If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects and all that good stuff for those of you who are visual learners, check it out. YouTube channel, Warrior Babe, if that's what you like. Either way, keep enjoying the show. It's what I said earlier. It's like this narrative that people have in their brains. And I want you guys to practice, if you're experiencing this, and this is one of the buckets that you know you need to work on. Practicing self-compassion. Being kind to yourself.

21:59Understanding the significance of self-love. Understanding in the journey that you are on to learn how to control these feelings. This impulse eating, right? And in these buckets, they each kind of allude to a different kind of, you know, situation or trigger that a human may experience. That's why I say find one that you just need to focus a little bit more on and go run with that after this podcast. If you're somebody that needs to work on this specific topic. But being kind to yourself, man, like, understand that everybody, regardless of if you are someone

22:37who is struggling with impulse eating to just a regular human, everyone has moments of weakness. And that is okay. Like, typically what happens in those moments of weaknesses for many humans is this narrative in their brain and this like harsh criticism that they place on themselves. Almost a feeling like I am weak. I cannot do this. I don't have, I don't believe in myself that I can overcome this aspect.

23:10Or, you know, you're just, you think you're a failure and all of these things, right? This, this is a narrative inside of your brain. Well, if you are emotionally at that level, you are going to negatively impact yourself. All the time. All the time. So, and then when that happens and you're in that narrative and you are saying those things to yourself, what do you think that's going to lead to doing? That is going to lead you to impulse eating.

23:42You feel the thoughts that you have create emotions that create feelings that create actions, right? And so if you have these thoughts that you're in and then you're falling into a negative vibration and you want to feel comfort and you go to food for comfort, what do you think you're going to do? You're going to look for comfort to feel out of this, this feeling that you're emotionally feeling and you're going to impulse eat. So positive self-talk, probably heard it a thousand times. I think the most important thing is, is like becoming aware of those conversations that

24:18you are having and flipping the script, which is so much easier said than done. But the second you become aware and the second that you almost like become an observer of your thoughts where like you kind of remove yourself and make it a little woo here, but stick with me for a second because I'm going somewhere. You become an observer of your thoughts. So you almost detach from, from your, from your thoughts and you look at yourself from a

24:5430,000 foot view down. And when you can do that, you become aware that these are the things that you're telling yourself that aren't actually supportive and aren't actually true. And when you can do that and you become aware and you can accept it and you can surrender to the thoughts, you have the ability to flip the script. And so some things that I know have extremely helped me, not necessarily in the, in this

25:27topic of impulse eating, but just in general, if I have limiting beliefs or I'm tied to these types of emotions and I'm only, I'm in a negative state affirmations. Have been an absolute game changer to change the narrative, to create and rewire the brain to think differently than what you've previously been thinking that isn't supporting you. And the way you do that is you, if you have a, if you have this that you want to work on,

26:00it's like, I know long or no, you don't want to say no, you don't want to put any negatives in it. So I just need to preface that before I try and find an example right now off the top of my head, but know that any affirmation should not have a negative in it should have a no, it shouldn't have a no, it shouldn't have a never, it shouldn't have a don't. Because you're, you're actually just, let's, I'm just not going to go down that rabbit hole. So like, um, I look to food to feel fulfilled, to provide me performance, to feel energetic,

26:33to be able to sleep well at night and also create amazing results for myself. That was a terrible affirmation, you guys. But what you guys can do is you can look at Google and help you to form these affirmations for yourself. But the most important things that when it comes to an affirmation is you don't want to put a negative in it. And you always have to finish the affirmation with an emotion. Meaning like with that affirmation statement, you then say, I feel so empowered around food, or I feel so confident and empowered in my ability to control my food intake and not let the food

27:10intake control me, right? Because then you're rewiring these things in your brain to, to, to start thinking that way. And when you do that, you're just creating new narratives and new stories for your mind to believe. And it's such a powerful tool. So I would highly recommend that you put that into practice for yourself. This is the bracket, the bucket that you need to work on to help yourself with impulsing, which is the whole self-compassion, self-compassion and rewiring your brain to support you.

27:40So recapping these five strategies. And the most importantly, like I said, it's like take one of these buckets and start working on it. And then like when you feel like you've worked on that for a couple months, come back and take another bucket, right? The first one, mindful eating. The second one is structured mealtimes and snack times. The third one, environment control. The fourth one, emotional awareness. And the last one is practicing self-compassion. Okay. And before we tune out today, let me remind you that change takes time and it's okay.

28:15If you fumble along the way, you hit some bumps along the way, you need to talk to friends and family about this while you're on this journey. Just be patient with yourself and making these changes for the better. All right, you guys. I love you all and I'll see you in the next podcast. Peace out. Hey guys, real quick. If you're interested in taking your body to the next level, lose body fat, build more muscle, feel more confident. Do it alongside one of our 30 plus professional coaches.

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.