How to Stop Impulse Eating: 5 Strategies for Women Over 40

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Practicing self-compassion. Being kind to yourself. Understand that everybody, regardless of if you are someone who is struggling with impulse eating or just a regular human, everyone has moments of weakness. And that is okay.

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

But for today, we are on episode number 99. And so I was like, man, what am I going to talk about today? So I went back into 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, not one I expected it 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.

Let's resurface this podcast and expand on it a little bit more into different strategies. There's five in that podcast. Now I want to bring in similar strategies, but different strategies, in buckets. 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 important time that we talk about this and bring it back up.

We're bringing it up with the intention of helping 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. We've got, what, Halloween? We've got Thanksgiving. We've got Christmas. We've got New Year's. So what I want to do today 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.

And then we're going to leave the podcast talking about 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 bring in self-compassion as we close out this podcast today.

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. Understanding that being fully present and fully engaged during your meal times can bring about eating mindfully.

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

You almost don't realize, well, how did I get here? How am I eating this right now? And then there's the opposite, which is eating mindfully, which is intention behind your meal. You sit down, you've put together this meal, and now you're mindfully enjoying the meal that you've prepared for yourself. It was an intention to sit down and eat this meal. Those are important to distinguish, because with one, you're consciously aware, which is eating mindfully.

And with the other, you're unconscious, which is eating mindlessly. So it's really important to distinguish between the two. Another point when it comes to mindful eating: I really challenge you guys, the next time you find yourself going in to eat, to intentionally sit down to a meal, slow down and recognize the satisfaction that you are getting from that meal. Slowing down, slowing your chewing down, being more present when you are eating your meals.

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

You're eating mindlessly, and then you may feel full, but you still continue to keep eating. That's mindless eating. Whereas 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 that you are actually full, which could take upwards of 10 to 20 minutes before you even feel that happening. But I challenge you and encourage you to do that the next time you're going into a meal.

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

So that's one strategy that you can start working on. And again, I'm going to go through five of these. You don't necessarily have to work on all five. This could be the 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 you need to come back for that. But these are just strategies, and going out and trying all five could overwhelm you.

So just recognize, where do I need to work the most inside of these strategies, pull that and go implement it after this podcast, okay?

The first one was mindful eating. The second one I want to talk about is structured meal times and snack times. I just want to discuss the benefits of having set times for your meals and for your snacks. When you have a routine for yourself, that can specifically reduce the frequency of you having impulse food and making impulse food decisions.

For myself, for example, I have breakfast, I have a snack, I have lunch, I have a snack, or I have my pre-workout, post-workout snack, or breakfast, snack, snack, dinner. This is just my structure. It varies depending on the day. But I have a structure in place where I know these five meals are typically what I consume on a regular basis. And having that routine for myself gives me less opportunity to make impulse decisions.

For example, maybe for you guys, if you don't have your day planned, you probably end up 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 making impulse decisions. And then you don't feel satisfied, so you have more after that. And you end up overly full when you sit down and relax with your family at the end of the night. Having more plan, structure and balance prevents you from indulging in those impulse actions.

So make sure that you plan ahead. I love saying this to our WarriorBabe 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 there could be another situation, which is a good example: you don't plan ahead, you have your breakfast, but then your coworkers want to go out for lunch, and so then you indulge in impulse food choices and decisions. So it can happen at different times throughout the day.

But it can happen when you just don't have a routine, broadly speaking. And when you have balanced meals, this also prevents you from feeling extremely hungry. Which, like I said, leads to that example where you go half the day without eating, and then all of a sudden you have this ravenous stomach yelling at you because you need to eat, because you haven't eaten anything. So having this structure for myself has been my one key to success when it comes to nutrition.

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 still trying to learn. But once you find what works and you put in the time to plan ahead, having that daily routine eliminates the thought of what am I going to eat, and it limits the frequency of you making impulse food choices and decisions day to day. So plan your meals ahead of time, like I said. Plan your snacks ahead of time.

Another thing that I've found is key, which I used to use when I worked in the emergency room and needed to be reminded to eat, and which I tell my clients to do when they say they're quote unquote busy throughout the day and forget to eat: set reminders on your phone. Literally have a reminder or an alarm that goes off every so often, when you know you're going to feel hungry, to remind yourself to eat the snack or the lunch or the meal that you brought with you that day.

So that was number two, structured meal times and snack times. Number three and number four somewhat go together, but let's first talk about optimizing your environment.

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How the immediate surroundings around you influence your eating habits. With that being said, let's talk about the concept of out of sight, out of mind.

What I've usually told clients, and what I know our coaches tell clients, is this: at the beginning of 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 that's not going to get you the results that you want. Those foods have gotten you to where you are today, not seeing the results that you want or having gained weight. So what I always recommend, and what our coaches recommend, is, dude, out of sight, out of mind.

If you need to raid all of your cabinets and throw out everything that doesn't support you on your journey, and only have Dove chocolate in the cabinet to start, do that. Or store the foods that you do enjoy, that you know have been a culprit, out of immediate reach. So you have to climb up on your kitchen stool and reach to the highest cabinet to get them. Or lock them in one of those lock safe things.

I don't know. But the number one thing that I recommend is, dude, just throw it out. Just get it out of your house. Get the majority of the foods that don't support you out of your sight, and out of the mental knowing that it's there in your kitchen, in this cabinet. That's a huge success tip right there. Then, when you do that, stock up on healthier snack alternatives.

Go to the grocery store and choose things that will better support you, your journey and the results that you are seeking. Some immediate tips for what you can do right now in the house: obviously, throw everything out. But whatever is in close vicinity to you. First of all, Halloween is coming up. The Halloween candy, man. Just put it somewhere where you're not passing it all the time and wanting to stick your hand in it. Or next to it, put fruit or something like that.

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

You just have to eat it in moderation because of all the fats. Fats have more calories per gram than carbs and protein do. So you just have to keep that stuff in mind. Instead, place fruit on your countertops. Place other healthier things at eye level in the fridge. Move other things into the cabinets. The veggies and the fruits have their own drawer thing, so put the food that you don't want to be eating way down at the bottom of the fridge.

And get the containers that slide into the fridge, and have the vegetables and the fruits right in front of you, and the protein right in front of you. 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 with the holidays coming up. It's like, what is an alternative? There's candy here. You can have one or two pieces, but you have to know when to stop, which is hard for people who are trying to work on impulse eating.

And next to it, have something that is a better alternative. Fruit, nuts, something like that.

Now, this next one pairs with the environment, which is your emotional awareness. Recognizing the emotional triggers that lead to you wanting to impulse eat. For example, with your environment, there could be triggers where you've had a rough day, you see the candy, and all of a sudden you want to have the candy.

So you just indulge in the candy, or impulse eat the candy. That's a trigger in your environment. But on a deeper level, there's your emotional trigger behind that. So first and foremost, let's talk about emotional hunger and physical hunger. 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, will turn to food for comfort.

They will turn to food to feel better and impulse eat that food, because it almost comforts them in that sense. Rather than physical hunger, which is like, dude, it's been three hours and I haven't eaten and I feel hungry. You are physically hungry. The things in the brain that control your hunger state are telling you that. Those are the differences.

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

Then ask yourself, am I emotionally heightened? Am I wanting to go eat this because I feel emotional right now? Or is it more like, man, it's been a couple hours. Earlier today, for example, I had meetings from 10 o'clock to 2:30 in the afternoon. And coming up on the 1:30 mark, I'd only eaten one time in the morning. And I was like, man, my blood sugar is dropping.

I was starting to get really, really shaky, and I had to go eat. That's physical hunger. I'm in tune with 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. Common triggers from an emotional standpoint are what I said: stress, boredom, loneliness. Figure out when you are in those states, be able to question yourself in that state, and address them without turning to food.

So techniques for managing those things: when you feel that, and maybe you're already done with your macros for the day or you've hit your nutrition for the day, and you feel emotional, like something's going on that you're dealing with. First, speak to someone in the household if you can. Just be able to communicate, articulate how you're feeling, and emotionally offload the emotions that you're experiencing. Write things out. If you don't have a person to talk to, journal.

I've personally found that journaling is such an effective tool to help you take what's in your brain and get it on paper. And then it's like a release. Another thing, in a heightened emotional experience that makes you want to turn to food, is just taking deep breaths and practicing those breathing exercises a little bit more.

Or going out for a walk. When you feel like you're emotionally heightened and you want to eat food, you want to feel comfort and food is your comfort, just get outside and go for a walk. Nothing else is coming to my brain. So that's the bucket of emotional awareness, and 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, I love so much that you are listening to this podcast. If you ever want the video version of this, which usually has more effects and all that good stuff for those of you who are visual learners, check out the WarriorBabe YouTube channel, if that's what you like. Either way, keep enjoying the show.

It's what I said earlier: this narrative that people have in their brains. If you're experiencing this, and this is one of the buckets that you know you need to work on, I want you to practice self-compassion. Being kind to yourself.

Understanding the significance of self-love. Understanding the journey that you are on to learn how to control these feelings, this impulse eating. Each of these buckets speaks to a different situation or trigger that a human may experience. That's why I say find the one that you need to focus on a little bit more and run with that after this podcast, if you're somebody that needs to work on this specific topic. But be kind to yourself, man. Understand that everybody, regardless of whether you are someone who is struggling with impulse eating or just a regular human, everyone has moments of weakness. And that is okay.

Typically what happens in those moments of weakness for many humans is this narrative in their brain, this harsh criticism that they place on themselves. Almost a feeling of, I am weak. I cannot do this. I don't believe in myself that I can overcome this.

Or you think you're a failure and all of these things. 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. And then when that happens, and you're in that narrative saying those things to yourself, what do you think that's going to lead to? It's going to lead you to impulse eating.

The thoughts that you have create emotions, which create feelings, which create actions. So if you're in these thoughts and 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 get out of this feeling that you're emotionally feeling, and you're going to impulse eat. So, positive self-talk. You've probably heard it a thousand times. I think the most important thing is becoming aware of those conversations that you are having and flipping the script, which is so much easier said than done.

But the second you become aware, the second that you become an observer of your thoughts, where you kind of remove yourself. I'm going to get a little woo here, but stick with me for a second, because I'm going somewhere. You become an observer of your thoughts. You almost detach from your thoughts and look at yourself from a 30,000-foot view.

And when you can do that, you become aware that these are things you're telling yourself that aren't actually supportive and aren't actually true. And when you become aware and you can accept it and surrender to the thoughts, you have the ability to flip the script.

Some things that have extremely helped me, not necessarily on this topic of impulse eating, but just in general, if I have limiting beliefs or I'm tied to these types of emotions and I'm in a negative state: affirmations. They have been an absolute game changer to change the narrative, to 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, if you have something that you want to work on, you don't want to put any negatives in it. I just need to preface that before I try to find an example off the top of my head. Know that any affirmation should not have a negative in it. It shouldn't have a no, it shouldn't have a never, it shouldn't have a don't. Because you're actually just... I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. So, for example: I look to food to feel fulfilled, to provide me performance, to feel energetic, to be able to sleep well at night, and also to create amazing results for myself.

That was a terrible affirmation, you guys. But what you can do is use Google to help you form these affirmations for yourself. The most important things when it comes to an affirmation are that you don't want to put a negative in it, and you always have to finish the affirmation with an emotion. Meaning, after 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 my food intake control me.

Because then you're rewiring these things in your brain to start thinking that way. When you do that, you're creating new narratives and new stories for your mind to believe. It's such a powerful tool, so I would highly recommend that you put it into practice for yourself if this is the bucket that you need to work on to help yourself with impulse eating, which is self-compassion and rewiring your brain to support you.

So, recapping these five strategies. Most importantly, like I said, take one of these buckets and start working on it. And when you feel like you've worked on that for a couple of months, come back and take another bucket. The first one, mindful eating. The second one, structured meal times and snack times. The third one, environment control. The fourth one, emotional awareness. And the last one is practicing self-compassion.

Before we tune out today, let me remind you that change takes time, and it's okay if you fumble along the way, if you hit some bumps along the way, if you need to talk to friends and family about this while you're on this journey. Just be patient with yourself as you make these changes for the better. All right, you guys. I love you all, and I'll see you in the next podcast. Peace out.

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