INDULGE: How can you give yourself THE FEELING?

I want to tell you about a story about when I was at New York Penn Station recently and I had just finished a dinner with friends and I was going home on the train to my family, and I had about a 30 minute wait before my train left. And so as I was doing, as I was waiting for the train, I started browsing around Penn Station. And there's a lot of food places to go to. So there's all of the places that have quick pick me up, like Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell, pizza places, and all of those places were calling my name. And the thing is, I had just eaten dinner, so I wasn't really hungry, but I felt like I should have something so that I could enjoy myself on the train ride home and so that I could treat myself because I would be going on this train ride for an hour or so by myself. And so I stood in line at Dunkin Donuts and. And I decided to get a chocolate donut because I love those. And so while I was standing in line, I just thought, nikkina, you're not hungry. You don't need this. And I looked at all of the donuts and the croissants behind the counter and suddenly a word just flashed over the donuts. And that word was comfort. And what I realized is that that donut equaled comfort for me. It was a way that I was going to comfort myself on a long train ride home at night. A time when a lot of us want to have people close by or we want to feel comfortable and we want to feel taken care of. So I was looking at the donut to take care of me. Now I just want to take a moment and just let you think about that, because when that happened to me, it was so interesting that I was relying on a donut for comfort. And it hit me so hard that this is why it is going to be hard for me to feel good in my body and to feel comfortable with my decisions, because I am relying on food for something other than nourishing me. So in that moment when I recognize that association, I realized I did not want that donut. I did not want to rely on chocolate flour to be my comfort. And so I thought I became aware of it, and instantly the desire for the donut went away. It was that quick. And so what I did instead was that I got a bottle of water and I sipped it and I loved it. And that craving for the donut, it had been washed away. I took my train ride home and I was totally fine. So I wanted to tell you that story, because I'm sure that there's many other associations that you have where you may be using food to give you a feeling that you need. And what I want to tell you is that it's so ingrained in our culture and it's so ingrained in the way that we are living that we don't even realize that this is happening. We often use food as rewards. From the time we were children. Maybe our parents gave us ice cream for doing really well at school, or our moms or dads would make us a really special after school snack because we did really well at school. When it's a birthday, we go to dinners to celebrate, and we are often seeing people around us having wine and having alcohol as a form of making yourself feel good, making yourself relaxed. There are such associations that they are just accepted and we don't even realize where they come from. And so to actually have this conversation with you, I wanted to bring out the subtleties in our life that dramatically affect our approach to food. And when we are approaching food in a way where we are making, where we are using it to make ourselves feel good, or a variety of other reasons that I'm going to talk about, we will not be able to get the bodies that we actually want. So we have this desire for maybe a lean body, a slim body, an energetic feeling inside and out. And maybe it's that you want to just feel good and feel comfortable in your clothes. Maybe it's that you want to be able to wear a bikini or wear even a bathing suit and feel comfortable during the summer. Maybe it's that you just want to be able to get back into those clothes after having kids. Maybe your kid is one or two, or maybe your kid is 12 or 20, and we. And we're ready to get back into those clothes, and we want these things. And I want to help you get there, because living in a body that you're more comfortable in is a much more enjoyable way to go through life. But if you have this goal and you have this relationship with food that's happening, it's very hard to skip over and get that body that you want and keep it. But when you actually get deep into why you are using food in your life, you can literally eliminate your unhealthy cravings. It can go away. It doesn't go away every second of every moment. Sometimes it does come back, but let's say that it's eliminated for like 98% of the time. And I can tell you, because I Actually went through that myself. So I want to tell you a couple of other reasons that we use food and see if this sparks anything for you. Let's see. So one thing I talk to you about is comfort. So comfort is something a lot of times you might feel when it's late at night. Now, I want to talk to you about a couple other things. Now, these are things that can also happen late at night that may be a feeling that you have also late at night. So this would be something like when you feel like you need to take care of yourself. It's similar to comfort, but maybe it's like you've gone through an entire day. You either were working or you were at home or both, and you're tired. It's finally your time to sit down and give yourself a moment to yourself. And what do we naturally think? Well, I want to treat myself. I want to give myself a gift for having enduring this day and going through this day and finally having a moment to myself. And what do we associate with a gift? What do we associate with treating ourselves? Well, often it could be Haagen Dazs caramel cone ice cream. Often it could be peanut butter that we don't stop eating. It could be eating chocolate or cookies or chips that are in the pantry, or it could be having a glass or a bottle of wine. And it's almost like the food is taking control of us rather than us taking control of the food. So even if you say, okay, I want to have a bite of ice cream, it's pretty challenging to just stick to that. It might even be challenging to stick to one bowl of ice cream. And so really what it is is like the food starts taking over. And the reason for that is because we're using it to treat ourselves. We're using it to make ourselves feel good. And because we have that association with food and because it actually physically creates hormones to be released in our bodies that give us excitement and give us joy. Well, that's the reason that we keep doing it. So I want to give you go into the nighttime cravings because that is often something that's very common, especially for women. There's one other time of the day that I want to talk to you about and I want you to understand and see if this resonates with you. And it might be something that you're doing. But often in the afternoons, it could be around 2pm or it could be around 4 or 5pm so what's happening around 2pm is that you may feel a post lunch kind of lull and you need a little pick me up. So there you may need some, you may feel either like really tired so you need some sugar to like get you going. The other thing is that you may be feeling a little bit bored or like you're ready, like you want something else to happen and so you need a little pick me up of excitement. And so you go for, go to get some coffee and maybe you stop and get a cupcake or maybe you stop and get a little croissant, something like that to give you that excitement that you need or that pick me up that you need. And you're using food to give you that now just to share with you. That doesn't have to be the only way that you get a pick me up. It's just an easy way that we know and that we've grown up with. Another way to get a pick me up could be to take a five or ten minute walk, which is probably the same amount of time that it'll take you to go and grab something to eat. It can also mean having a conversation, calling your best friend, calling your sister, calling your mom, calling your partner and having a conversation and just getting a little pick me up like that. These are just a few examples of why food is something that we easily go to, but it's not the only thing. And we're not actually needing the food. What we're wanting is the feeling that the food gives us. So I want you to really think about that now that other time that I was talking about, around 4 or 5pm this is a time where many women feel very stressed. And this is because you're getting home from working or your kids are coming home, or both or neither. It may just be like you're done with the day and now you got to think about the evening. And there's a lot of things sometimes to do. And so we often feel stressed. And because we feel stressed, we want something to calm us down. And that may be a time where we start going in our pantry and getting some cookies, chocolate or often wine. Those are many of the common things that happen around that time. So I also want you to see that this is the reason that we're going to eat something isn't because the actual food or drinks, it's the feeling that it's giving us. We want to feel less stressed. And so as a result we eat something that calms us or we drink something that calms us. So just to summarize these three points of the day, I want to share this with you. So there's the 2pm time where we often may feel bored or may need a pick me up around 4 or 5pm in the day is when we may feel stressed. And in the evening after dinner is when we often feel like we need comfort or we need love. And for those reasons we go to food. Okay, but it's not that you're hungry. So I want you to really keep a focus on what you want your body to look like and what you want your body to feel like. How you want to be able to get up in the morning and just be able to feel light and be able to feel in control and have your body the way that you want it to be. You have your body to carry you and give you energy and move you through different parts of your life. Well, if you have that goal or if you have anything similar to is important for you to really recognize your relationship with food because this is one of the unlocked, the often unlocked reason that prevents many of us from losing weight is our relationship with food. And the reason that we are looking to food, it's actually blocking us from losing weight until you really get a hold of it. And once you do, it's like a light bulb goes off and you start living in an entirely new mindset. Now I want you to really think about how you can become aware of when you are craving unhealthy foods. That's the number one thing and that's the way for you to really bring this bubble, this up is to think, when am I out of control with my eating? Think about when it is and then think about what you need to do or what you're seeking. What are you really seeking? Is it release of boredom? Is it relief of stress? Is it comfort? Is it something else? What is it that you are seeking and that can actually open up so much for you? Now I also want you to really be aware of the fact that taking care of yourself is so important and that's what you're actually doing with food. You're taking care of yourself. You're giving yourself self care. You're giving yourself self care through food. And what we're doing now is becoming aware of what you're doing. But you still have that need. So you still have that need at 2pm to get out of your boredom. You still have the need to feel less stress. You still have the need for comfort. So the next step is to really see how can you give that self to you, give that to yourself in a healthy way. So how can you Relieve your sense of feeling, of boredom or how can you kind of feel more balanced in the afternoon? Well, it doesn't mean that you just like, you take that, you kind of don't eat food, but then you don't do anything else. Well, you still have to give yourself that feeling because otherwise you're going to end up going back to food. So see how this is, it's very related. You don't, you can't. Like a lot of other people, a lot of people who tell you who teach about losing weight or these weight loss programs, they'll just tell you to stop eating chocolate, they'll tell you to stop eating cupcakes, to stop drinking alcohol. And the worst one for me is to stop drinking coffee. And honestly, that is not a sustainable solution because you are using that for something. So what we really want to focus on is self care. And how can you give yourself what you are really seeking? The way that you can give yourself, that is first of all to understand what you are seeking, which we talked about. Now number two is to think about some ways to give yourself what you really need. So like for example, when I was coming home from the train and I needed comfort, really all I needed to do in that moment was to become aware of what I wanted. And then I realized I can give myself comfort. I am able to comfort myself and I am going to do that. But I want some water also because that will make myself feel better. So I gave myself water and I focused within and I gave myself comfort and that worked and I felt amazing when I got off that train. Now some other things, some other forms of self care could be things around connecting with others. It could be things around giving yourself energy by walking or by stimulating your mind. A lot of people talk about forms of self care like grooming, such as nails, getting your hair done, getting a massage. Those are also forms of self care. But I found that the most powerful form of self care is to actually connect internally and to connect with yourself and to say, what do you need and how can I help you? Like tell yourself that. And when you say that and when you, when you internally connect, you don't feel like you have to rely on something external to give you what you want. You don't have to rely on a cupcake or you don't have to rely on Hershey's Kisses or anything else. You can actually just rely on yourself for it. But, but sometimes it also helps to connect with people calling someone or a lot of times what I love to do to give myself either comfort or to relieve boredom in certain situations is to look through my pictures on my phone because that gives me happiness and it makes me feel connected. So these are some ideas, but you can definitely come up with your own ideas on how to give yourself that feeling that you are craving. You're not necessarily craving the food, but that's the form that it comes into. So how can you give yourself, how can you fulfill that craving you have in a way that's healthy for your body and in a way that's going to lift you up instead of sucking out all the energy. So this is really a way for you to really look at your relationship with food. And this is the number one thing that you can do for yourself to really crack and really crack the code on losing weight and really beyond that is to really make yourself feel good. And make yourself feel amazing all the time is really to understand what you want and to take care of yourself. Give yourself that self care. It is going to pay off in ways that will make you feel like you are just like flying through life. It will feel so amazing. Okay, so that is what I have to share with you today. Thank you.