Podcast: How to Stop Rewarding Yourself with Food

Transcription of How to Stop Rewarding Yourself with Food

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Hello, hello and welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. I hope that you are feeling amazing, amazing, amazing today. Okay. I want to talk to you about how to stop rewarding yourself with food and why rewarding yourself for food is. Just not a good idea, and we'll dive more into this. Now before I dive into this exciting topic,

Are you signed up for the, the New Year, new Me Challenge?

It is amazing. Now, if you're listening to the Facebook Live, it is Friday or later, and it's starting on Monday the 16th, and we really will be diving into. How to lose weight in an easy way. And what I really want to show you is that it doesn't have to be difficult. It can be fun and easy. And I'll show you the system that I use with my clients who get amazing results.

One Client Lost 2 lbs in a Week with Healthy Eating

So for example, last week, one lady lost two pounds, another lady lost. Oh my goodness. How much did she lose? 1.8 kilograms. So, , that's like four pounds in sorry. I had two bit of maths there in 10 days. And the thing that they say to me is, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. It was easy.

Healthy Living and Eating Can be Easy!

And I really want to show you how it can be easy. Now, later on in the week, we will be discussing emotional eating and. Thinking about emotions and cravings and all of these things, because that is really what SCS people. So if you're listening to the podcast, it's at least Tuesday now, do not worry.

You've missed day one, but you can get a replay. So sign up and take part. Don't worry about the fact that you've missed the first day. Sign up you, you sign up with your email and then most of the stuff is happening in the Facebook group, and it will tell you how to join the Facebook. But amazing stuff. I really challenge you this week to take action.

Why? Because action is where things are. If you carry on doing the same things, you aren't going to get the results that you want. And my aim for you is to lose 12 pounds in 12 weeks, and I'll tell you more about that next week. Okay.

Why Rewarding Yourself with Food isn’t a Great Idea

Let's have a think about rewarding yourself with food. So this conversation came up because I gave a workshop and I was talking to people and one of the ladies said, well, you know what?

Do You Feel You Need a Reward?

On Friday evening, I like to reward myself with a glass of wine or two or three, and that leads to eating cheese and all of this, all of that kind of stuff.

And the conversation really revolved around. Yeah, but you know what?

I feel like I have. working really hard all week, and I feel like I have been diligent. I feel like I have been strict, all week, and I deserve to have whatever it is I deserve to have now, my friend. Yes, of course you deserve to have it. Yes. I'm not saying don't reward yourself. Well, actually, you know what I am saying?

Stop Using “Reward” as an Excuse and Just Do It!

Don't reward yourself. I'm gonna scrap that last sentence. I am saying don't reward yourself and let me explain why. So in this workshop, other people basically chimed in with, yes, I agree. I want to reward. And I want to present a different way of doing things for you. A few thoughts that really came out of this conversation.

Or Find a Different Type of Reward that Isn’t Food

Now, number one, I ask you, I put to you that you could reframe things. . So my first thought is this. I personally don't see something like chocolate as a reward. It's not a reward for me. When you think about all the bad things that it does to you, it increases your glucose levels, it increases inflammation, it leads you to want to have more chocolate.

Part of Your Brain Doesn’t want the “Reward” (Otherwise You Wouldn’t be Calling it a “Reward”)

For me, the thing that I dislike about chocolate, It sort of hijacks my brain. I notice that when there's chocolate around, my brain starts thinking about chocolate, and I don't want that. So for me, I don't equate chocolate with rewards and whatever your reward is, I ask you to reevaluate that. Now. Yes, I know that there are good things that you get from that.

Otherwise you wouldn't be using that as a reward. So you might say, well, I love the flavor. I love. How it makes me feel. I love the texture. I love that moment of just sitting, relaxing, indulging, and really what I'm asking you to do is get clear on the positives that you are getting from that thing. Now, another way of looking at this is to say, okay, I have created my amazing life in such a way that I get those rewards, those positive emotions throughout my life.

How Can You Find the Benefits of the Reward Without Food?

So for example, you might say, well, alcohol really helps me feel relaxed. Well, how else can you feel relaxed? What else can you do to feel relaxed? And it might be something as simple. Having a bath. Yes, I know. Having a bath or like, one of the things that I really love is doing exercise to feel relaxed. So yeah.

Okay. I get re, relaxation isn't exactly the right word that you use for exercise, but it is disconnecting your brain. , and one of the things that I really love is going to the swimming pool and having a sauna afterwards. There's a sauna in our swimming pool, and it's like a little piece of summer in the middle of winter.

Now, I have to confess, I don't like the swimming pool as much as I like going to the sea. But I went to the swimming pool yesterday because there were so many jellyfish in the. on Tuesday that I didn't want to risk going all the way to the beach and then not being able to swim more than seven minutes.

But my point is this, I have created my life, and you can too. I know you're busy. I know you've got all of this stuff going on, but I have created my life so that I get these things throughout the day. I get time to get the positive emotions that a lot of people get from food. . I think that everybody has difficult moments in their life.

There are Always Challenges in Life

There's always a struggle. There's always a challenge. I'm not pretending that life is easy and fun. . But there's two things here.

Are The Challenges So Bad You Need to Make Big Changes?

Number one, if your life is so awful that it's stressed and you find that all you are is stressed and that really, this isn't a mindset, it's that you actually don't like what you do or you don't like the situation that you are in, well, I invite you to think about that and think, okay, it's, I can change my life.

This is my life. We only get one go at this life. And I can change it. And yes, I know that sounds scary. I know I gave up an amazing career in medicine and moved to Spain with my eyes wide shut, as I like to say. Like I didn't really know what was going to happen and it's taken me time to build my amazing life.

It didn't just happen overnight, and there were lots of times when I thought, oh my goodness, have I done the wrong thing? Perhaps I should have moved to Australia or stayed in the UK or something else. But if really you are thinking, okay, my life is such a disaster, that that is the problem, then you need to do something about your.

Or Are the Challenges Acceptable? How Can You Create Habits to Deal with the Stress?

Now the other aspect is, okay, you might really love your life. You love where you are. But yeah, there are stresses. There is there are things happening on a daily basis that stress you out. Well number two, go and listen to last week's podcast because we talked about stress, and stress is something that you really need to learn to manage, but whatever your stress is, , do not reward yourself with food.

Now here's the thing, or you know, to be perfectly honest, the reward of the challenging thing is getting over the challenging thing. Working out how to figure out that challenging thing, surviving that challenging thing. Let me give you an example I used when I was working. Junior doctor in the uk, we worked so many hours, and although I loved my job, a lot of it was routine and we had to do a lot of horrible out of hours, so nights, weekends, evenings.

Rewarding Yourself with Food Doesn’t Really Make the Challenge any Better. It Just Distracts You

Now, the worst thing for me was nights because it really affected my sleep pattern, and I basically spent the whole week of nights feeling sick and nauseous basically because of lack of sleep. I don't know if I'm strange or whether other people manage nights better, but for me, I just didn't enjoy. How I felt during that time and when I first started doing nights, I thought, okay, I'm gonna make this a little bit better.

I'm gonna buy myself some nice food and I'm gonna eat fat. Nice food. Did that help? No, not really. Like, yes, I got to eat the nice food. I was always kind of a bit disappointed in the nice food. I wasn't like, oh, that was as good as I thought it was gonna be. That really helped. No, I still had to do the nights.

It didn't really change the fact that I had to do the nights and I gave up doing. Eating nice food or nice food. I use nice in, in, in convert, in inverted coms that basically it was junk food packaged as, you know, posh, nice food. But really it didn't make me feel any better. I still had to do the nights that the yucky niceness was still there and to use that food just didn't help, didn't help in any way whatsoever.

Now, you might be saying to me, but food does help me. Food does help me, and I put it to. Does it really? Because here's the thing, if you are saying this, whatever it is, is a reward, then part of you is also saying, I know I shouldn't be doing this. I know that I don't really want to do this. I know that it is bad for me.

That there are things that it. It's not benefiting me. So, you know, if your goal is weight loss, then you know that it's not helping you lose weight. Because if you weren't thinking that, you wouldn't think of it as a reward. You'd just be like, oh yeah, I'm going to go and do that. So for example, I think of rewards as my reward is going cycling, going swimming.

Parents, Please Don’t Modify Your Kids’ Behaviour with Food

I make time for me and I do these things that really and truly help my. Now there was one other thing I was gonna tell you and I've totally forgotten what it is. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I think coming back to this idea of rewards as well and using food as reward, when I have my pediatric hat on and I did a lot of work on how to teach children how to eat healthily, one of the big things that I would teach people was don't make that connection between emotions and food.

So don't reward your children. with food and don't punish them with food. What does this look like? It looks like don't say to them, Hey, if you don't behave nicely, you can't have dessert. Or if you do behave nicely, we can go and have ice cream. I've just remembered what I was gonna say. Harrah . So, It's not that you can't have these things.

If You’re Going to Do Something, Chose to Do it and Enjoy It (Not Feel Guilty About it)

I'm not saying you have to exclude these things from your life. Here's what I'm saying. If you choose to drink alcohol or eat chocolate or whatever, whatever the thing is, choose to do it anyhow and enjoy it a hundred percent, enjoy it. Don't feel guilty about it. So for example, I don't drink much alcohol.

These. For various reasons. One of the reasons is because it makes me feel a little bit yucky the next day. Like, it doesn't matter how much I drink, I always feel a little bit, ugh, the next day. And I don't like that feeling. But that doesn't mean I don't ever drink alcohol. And when I do drink alcohol, I decide it's not a reward, it's just I choose to do it.

Remember Your Future Self Wants to Feel Great Too

Yes, I feel like drinking alcohol at this moment. and I'm gonna do it, or I feel like I'm gonna eat a cake at this moment, and I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna enjoy every single mouthful, and I'm gonna enjoy every single bite now. What I'm basically saying is enjoy it a hundred percent. Enjoy it With bells on.

That doesn't mean go and have loads and loads of it. It means enjoy what you are eating. One slice of cake, one glass of beer enormously. Really get every single ounce of pleasure out of it. Be mindful to what you're doing and really take, pay attention to it and get as much pleasure as. you can from it.

Now it's interestingly, there are studies that show if you have dessert after a meal, it doesn't matter what the size of the dessert is. In retrospect, hindsight afterwards, you enjoy that dessert the same amount, whether it's a small dessert or a large dessert. And this just is backing up what I'm saying, that you can really enjoy a small amount of something and you don't have to feel deprived about it.

You just go, yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. It was amazing. And now I'm feeling full of chocolate cake or full of beer or whatever it. So if you are going to eat or drink something, do it a hundred percent without feeling guilty about it. It doesn't have to be a reward. It can just be something that you choose to do.

So, Please don't reward yourself with anything. Like what I mean is incorporate those rewards, those positive times as part of your life. Don't make your life, oh my goodness, I have to get through this bit to get this bit. Just enjoy all of your life and when you eat food, eat it a hundred percent and enjoy.

Okay, my friends, I hope that has helped you. This is a lot of the work that we do in my program, my group program, which really is looking at the mindset and how we think about food and how we can change that so that we can create our healthy lives. And it is easy to not eat all the food. You don't feel deprived about eating it.

You're just busy eating food that you enjoy. And it doesn't mean exclude. All the treats and things, as I have said, so come and join me for the new Year New Me challenge. It is amazing. It's fun, it's exciting, it's happening right now. If you're listening to the podcast, it's happening on Monday the 16th, which is next week.

If you are listening to the Facebook Live. Have a fabulous day and I look forward to connecting with you. Bye.