Struggling with the siren call of the snack cupboard is a battle I know all too well. In our latest heart-to-heart, I, Coach Mikki , pull back the curtain on the tough love and tender strategies that have helped me sidestep the chips and dodge the cookies to stay on the path of healthy eating.
We'll crack the code on why your brain thinks a cookie is the hug it's been missing and how to reset that thinking to find comfort elsewhere. I know your struggles to well and the habitual eating. Join me as we confront the psychological triggers behind emotional eating and learn how to rewire our brains to break free from the sugar-salt emotional loop. Together, we'll build a toolbox not just for resisting temptation, but for understanding and transforming our entire approach to food and feelings.
Struggling with the siren call of the snack cupboard is a battle I know all too well. In our latest heart-to-heart, I, Coach Mikki , pull back the curtain on the tough love and tender strategies that have helped me sidestep the chips and dodge the cookies to stay on the path of healthy eating.
We'll crack the code on why your brain thinks a cookie is the hug it's been missing and how to reset that thinking to find comfort elsewhere. I know your struggles to well and the habitual eating. Join me as we confront the psychological triggers behind emotional eating and learn how to rewire our brains to break free from the sugar-salt emotional loop. Together, we'll build a toolbox not just for resisting temptation, but for understanding and transforming our entire approach to food and feelings.
https://pixabay.com/users/sergepavkinmusic-6130722/ Thank You Serge Pavkin for the preroll!
Speaker 1:
Hey, I'm Coach Mickey. I'm so glad that you've joined me and if this is your first time joining me, come on in and make yourself comfortable and if you join me on a regular basis, thank you so much. I'm so glad that you do. This is not an easy journey. Benjating is something that is very difficult and we keep it as a secret between ourselves and I know that is something that sometimes is difficult to address and it's a challenge to overcome and get through, and that is why I'm so glad that you join me here each and every time on this YouTube channel and also onto my podcast, benj on Life. I'm going to just ask real quick because many of you have been reaching out to me with your comments, your questions, and I really do appreciate that, because everything that you're asking me, I guarantee someone else is thinking it but maybe is afraid to ask. So I want to go over a topic that was brought up to me in a conversation and has been some multiple questions that I've gotten over the over the past couple of weeks, which is okay. So I'm doing all these things to overcome binge eating. I'm trying to keep the foods in the house, but what do you do when you have got a family that still wants to eat chips and cookies and ice cream, and to help you get through that, when you know that they're available on the house. And I can tell you firsthand, this is a tough one. This is a tough one. However, I can give you the insight of what I do that helps me to get through it, because I'm in the same predicament that you might be going through, where I have got all these things in my house. Now, right, I always try to have healthy choices and that's what I've always taught my kids. However, when you have got a partner or spouse that is not willing to use the happy or the healthiest choices that you are trying to do and you still have those available in your cabinet how do you? How do you deal with that, especially when they're staring you right in the face?
Speaker 1:
Well, I can tell you right now for me, there's a couple of different things that I've done through the years and I still continue to do, and the first thing is we have that mechanism that sets us off and triggers our emotional eating, and a lot of it is salt and sugar and, as I expressed before and I said in some of my other podcasts and my YouTube videos is that when we have these cravings, it really is part of what is engineered into a lot of the foods that we are craving, such as the chips, the fast foods, the sugars, and what it does is, as soon as it hits the pallets in your mouth, it automatically goes right to your brain and your brain goes Whoa, this is awesome, because it triggers all the dopamine that is in your brain that says this feels really good. It fires off the neurotransmitters and now we have got that association of if I eat ice cream, if I eat chips, that it's going to all of a sudden say in my head I feel good. And that is where we make that association. And then we remember it. We remember how good that feels. Unfortunately, when we start doing this on a regular basis, it ends up creating almost a tolerance to all the sugar and the salt and the fats that we're eating that our brain needs more and more and more, just like any other addiction, when you start it feels good, but then you're going to need more and more and more to be able to get that same association of dopamine that gets fired off into our brains that makes us feel good. So when we take a look at these foods and we know for a fact, as soon as we walk in there and open up the refrigerator and see the gallon of ice cream, or we open up the cabinets and see the sleeve of cookies or the bag of chips, our first instinct is to grab that, because that's what we've always done.
Speaker 1:
Now, what I've done, and that is how, maybe before. There's two elements that I do. One is you've got to reset your brain. You've got to reset the thought of this is what I need to make me feel good. And, first of all, we're lying to ourselves, because food is not the answer to make us feel good. What means to make you feel good is one associating the feeling of why you're going there to begin with. If it's boredom, if it's stress, if it's anxiety, what's the reason that you're going there to begin with? The second thing is is this something that's just a habit? Is it a habit that you've always done it, so you've got to be able to break that habit?
Speaker 1:
Now, when we binge, a lot of it really contributes to either eating, consuming it very fast and in a lot of it, or it could be just Habit, where we've done it. All the time. We were constantly reaching for something to put in our mouths because we keep our hands busy or we've got. That's how we are dealing with whatever motion that we're feeling at the moment. So I do two things. One is I started keeping an adult coloring book and I friend of mine had suggested that, and that was about maybe eight months ago.
Speaker 1:
Prior to that, I had to make choices to go okay, do something different. But we can't always get up and go for a walk, especially if it's nine o'clock at night. You know, within a stark outside. You know we can't always contact a friend if we have a binge where we're working late, or we get up at night or we're dealing with stress. You know, maybe there's other things. We can always sit and meditate, we can pray, we can deep breathe. However, I think having that connection from your brain to your hands Gives us more of a pathway that gives an opportunity for your brain to readjust.
Speaker 1:
So I picked up the adult coloring book and what I've done is, as soon as I feel as though I've got to go in and grab that food, based on the emotion that I'm dealing with, I keep it running my kitchen counter with a packet of coloring pencils and I make it a habit before I go to the cabinet, before I go to the kitchen, I flip open the book and I start Coloring and I just go, okay, I'm gonna color for like five minutes and you see, what happens is that craving, that neurological path, that thought process gets changed completely because I've allowed myself to relax and Do something different. That doesn't have that connection that I have because I feel this way, I've got to fulfill it with a certain food Also can help us with the form. I've been very excited and Honored and thrilled because a lot of you have been so kind. I just Published an adult coloring book, but it's also a guided journal For you. That has got all the questions of why we've been jeek, such as how do you feel you know, why do you feel this, the date, the time, who are you with? What could you have done differently? And then it gives you an opportunity to write this out so we can actually see where this, this habit or this habitual Eating comes from and what are the triggers.
Speaker 1:
Because you're gonna find a pattern, I'm gonna find a pattern, I and you can go on to Amazon or you can go down the link below and that'll have all the links to not only the guided journal but also a coloring book that I have or any book I'm guessing it's to be mine pick up any coloring book that you have and have something if. If coloring is not your thing, then maybe put, maybe have a puzzle, maybe have something else that is sitting on that kitchen counter that allows you to do that for five minutes. He maybe just turn on the radio, maybe it's just turn on some music, maybe just turn on your phone to your favorite song and have your go-to song that makes you feel good every time you hear it, that makes you happy, it just anything that brings that, that, that trigger that actual path that goes through your, that goes through your head. So that's the first thing. The other thing, too, is if you find yourself Going and grabbing that food.
Speaker 1:
The next thing I've learned to do is I go is this my moving forward food or is this my holding back food? And and I can tell you right now, when I Want something and I go and I have that choice and I go and I grab a big bowl of raspberries and blueberries and Blackberries and berries my go-to. I love that because those are those are my favorite thing to snack. There's a lot of them, you know. You can eat them one at a time, Then we'll go over mindful eating on how to do that and enjoy that instead of grabbing a bag of chips.
Speaker 1:
When I've gone to grab the chips or the ice cream or the sleeve of cookies or the cheesecake or whatever other thing I've used as my binge food, I have to look at it and go is this my moving forward food or is this the holding holding me back food? And that really has helped it. Plus, it gives you an opportunity to journal that down and if you do, you know okay, so what? It's not a big deal. Don't, don't beat yourself up over it. You know we all make mistakes, you know it's going to happen. This is what we do on on binge eating journeys. It's it's a lifestyle and it's not going to happen overnight. So I don't want you to beat yourself up over, but write it down. Write it down so you see and you recognize it and you understand it.
Speaker 1:
I'm so proud of you. I know this was a lot of information and remember just a couple things. One, one little step each day is going to get you closer to your goal, and I really appreciate all of you and I appreciate everything that you do, so please remember to subscribe. If you know some way that might benefit from this podcast or from this YouTube channel, please share it with them and like it and subscribe, because I'm going to keep giving tips to help you on this journey. Again, we're not alone. I know. I know what you're going through. I know this because I'm doing this myself. I'm a. You know I'm a mindful eater now because I am a. I'm a binge eater, but now I consider myself a mindful eater and and I hope my journey and my tips and the information that I give you can help you along the way and let you know that you're not alone. All right, until our next podcast, I will look forward to seeing you. I'm proud of you and, until then, see ya.