208: The Truth About Food Guilt

208: The Truth About Food Guilt

What is food guilt? We’ve all done it to ourselves, one bad food choice leads to throwing in the towel on the entire day. That gross feeling and disappointment with ourselves, that is food guilt. Beating yourself up and assigning emotion to your food choices is the essence of food guilt.

Looking at yourself as good or bad based on your food choices – that is food guilt.

Here’s what I want you to consider: Is it working for you?

Is it improving your choices or is it keeping you stuck in a negative cycle of your own creation that leads to more choices you feel badly about?

Does it help you feel better about yourself, or help you make a better choice the next time you think about cheating? Chances are it doesn’t, and it never will. So you’ve got to stop beating yourself up over FOOD!

In today’s episode, I’ll be diving into why food guilt doesn’t work, why you should stop it, and what you should be doing instead.

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Let Food Guilt GO!

The choice you made was in the past! Don’t let a past choice affect your current emotions or your future choices. Let it go, and MOVE ON. Instead of focusing on your bad day, focus on what is next and how you are going to push forward to achieve your goals.

Create a Different Strategy

Food guilt is only making yourself miserable about choices you’ve made in the past. You can’t move forward if you are focused on the past. It is time to get rid of old bad strategies and create new strategies to move towards your goals in a positive light.

We have to eliminate what doesn’t work & embrace what does. Does food guilt work for you?

Be Objective

Don’t assign unnecessary emotions to decisions that should be objective. Food is neutral!

Take a step back from your food choice and ask yourself, does eating this get me closer to my goals? If I eat this how will it make me feel immediately? How will it make me feel in a couple of hours? How will it make me feel tomorrow? Take your answers into consideration, make the choice, and MOVE ON. Don’t spend time dwelling on the choice you made. Focus on your next choices!

Practice looking past the immediate consequences. Ask yourself hard questions about the choice. How will this food choice make you feel about yourself as you are laying in bed tonight? Will this choice stall your overall progress towards your larger goals?

Examine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Order Consequences

Don’t ignore 2nd and 3rd order consequences for immediate satisfaction!

A 1st order consequence would be what happens immediately after a decision is made (i.e. The great taste of the cookie!). People who focus solely on 1st order consequences struggle and sabotage their overall goals.

A 2nd order consequence is what happens later, but not necessarily long term (i.e. The cookie may trigger cravings and doesn’t satisfy your hunger). A 3rd order consequence would be a long term consequence (i.e. The cookie does not push you towards your fat loss goals).

Examining your 2nd and 3rd order consequences may not come easy, and can take a bit of practice. Those who consider these consequences are more aligned with their goals and are more likely to achieve them.

Every Choice You Make Is A Lesson To Be Learned

Find a lesson in every choice you make, and implement that lesson into future decisions. Make your choices productive for you and you will accelerate progress towards your goals.

Not every correct choice will be an easy choice, but it is important to understand objectively why you are making that choice and move forward after the choice is made.

Resources

Why You Should NOT Go To ASCEND

Podcast About ASCEND:  203: Happy Anniversary, Primal Potential (Will You Join Me?)

Save the Date for ASCEND Nashville!

Support The Show

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208: The Truth About Food Guilt

207: Lessons To My Future Self

Everyone knows that hindsight is 20/20. We all wish we could go back and give our younger self’s advice. Today’s podcast focuses on the exact opposite idea. The past is in the past, we’ve learned lessons the hard way, and it is time to move on and look forward. In today’s podcast (one of my favorites!), I’m talking about lessons to my future self.

All of this introspection was inspired by the article, “20 Tips I’d Give Myself 20 Years Ago” which has NOTHING to do with fatloss. In the podcast, I’m breaking out key points from the article that really hit home for me, and I’m sharing the 3 lessons I would give to my future self.

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Your life is not about how much you weigh or what size you wear. Your life is about how you feel.

Are you happy? Happiness is about JOY! As you create more joy, you create more happiness. The goal is not about a number, the goal is about the joy in your heart.

Don’t let fear influence your decisions.

How many times have you not done something because you were scared of what other people would think or say? How much have you missed out on?

Don’t let the fear of rejection, looking stupid, or getting hurt keep you from experiencing all of the things you want to experience and enjoying life like you deserve.

You matter more than the work you do. You are not the work you do.

Make yourself a priority. You will have more to give the world when you give more to yourself.

Resources

Join me at ASCEND in Nashville!

20 Tips I’d Give Myself 20 Years Ago

Support the Show

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Motivational Phone Backgrounds

Phone Background Download Instructions

  • View primalpotential.com/motivational-phone-backgrounds/ on your phone
  • Click on the button to download the image you want.
  • The Image will pop up larger for viewing.
  • Press and Hold the image until you see a small menu at the bottom of your phone.
  • Select “Save Image”
  • Close your Internet Browser on your phone.
  • Go to Settings on your phone
  • Select “Wallpaper” in settings
  • Select “Choose New Wallpaper” from the “Wallpaper” menu
  • Select the Image you have saved!
  • After you choose a wallpaper you can move or scale the image
  • Tap Set. And you are good to go!

 

Phone Background Download Instructions

  • View primalpotential.com/motivational-phone-backgrounds/ on your phone
  • Click on the button to download the image you want.
  • The Image will pop up larger for viewing.
  • Press and Hold the image until you see a small menu at the bottom of your phone.
  • Select “Save Image”
  • Close your Internet Browser on your phone.
  • Go to Settings on your phone
  • Select “Wallpaper” in settings
  • Select “Choose New Wallpaper” from the “Wallpaper” menu
  • Select the Image you have saved!
  • After you choose a wallpaper you can move or scale the image
  • Tap Set. And you are good to go!

 

208: The Truth About Food Guilt

206: My #1 Fat Loss Recommendation

OK, you’ve decided to make a change, but you have no idea where to start (or restart). Today’s podcast will dive into my #1 fat loss recommendation: tracking.

We aren’t talking about calorie counting, carb or macro counting, just some down and dirty quick journaling. In less time than it takes to obsessively count your item of choice (and with far less frustration), you can learn more about what is and what is not working for you. It’s easy, it’s quick and it’s crucial to laying the groundwork for finding a solution that works for you.

I’ll be talking about what to track, when to track, and most importantly WHY we track.

I’ve even created a totally free tracking cheat sheet and template for you. You can download it now by clicking the button below.

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My #1 Fat Loss Recommendation

Tracking! Think of it like a journal. You don’t have to spend time worrying about exact calories, or even exact portion sizes. What you are really after is a documenting what you ate and how it made you feel.

It does not need to be a chore. You can get this done in less than 5 minutes each day. Ultimately, it will help you establish trends and analyze those trends as  a tool in our weight loss journeys.

Why You Should Track

1. To learn more about your body and what works for you

2. To keep you objective.

3. To anchor yourself to your goals

What You Should Track

Food and Feelings. It is that simple. If you get in a workout, add fitness, too!

Food is easy, just track what you eat (approximately how much), and when.

Feelings don’t have to be hard, but it is the most important. Include your hunger, cravings, and energy over the course of the day. I encourage you to expand past the basic feelings and include your mood, the quality of your sleep, and events that occurred during the day. These really helps create a comprehensive picture of what exactly is going on in your world.

Most everyone should be able to effectively track in under 5 minutes a day.

Where You Should Track

I’ve created a tracking cheat sheet and template to get you started. Find a routine that works for you and stick with it!

Learning From Your Document

Revisit. Revisit. Revisit.

Take time to look back through your tracker and identify trends.

Analyze the food you are eating and correlating body reactions. Analyze your workouts to identify how that affects your energy level and hunger.

Resources


Free 31-day journal

How To Track Without Counting Calories

Save the Date for ASCEND Nashville!

Support The Show

Subscribe in iTunes

Subscribe in Stitcher

Why You Should NOT Go To ASCEND

On July 12th, Primal Potential’s 2nd anniversary, I announced ASCEND, the first ever women’s transformation weekend. If you didn’t hear the details, you need to listen to this episode.

I will be spending a weekend, November 3-5th in downtown Nashville TN helping 50 women transform their lives in the best ways imaginable.

I thought I’d take a minute today to tell you why you should NOT go.

Trust me, I understand the position you’re in. I considered and passed up on a ton of opportunities while I was trying to shake myself loose from the bad habits, food obsession and inconsistencies that defined me and my life for decades. I kept falling for the same yo-yo diet approach for years. I get it. I’m gonna shoot straight and be really clear on why you shouldn’t buy a ticket and attend ASCEND.

It’s expensive. It will require travel. You might even have to get a day off work.

You probably won’t know anybody.

You won’t get a food list or a meal plan or someone to script out all the exact steps you need to take to lose the weight and take control of your life (even though you probably wouldn’t follow them anyway).

It might be uncomfortable. Heck, it probably will be.

You don’t really know what will happen.

You might have to face the real issues that are holding you back instead of just talking about carbs, fat, protein and exercise.

You’ve never really done the work anyway, so how will this be different?

You might be the biggest person there, or the smallest. That might make you uncomfortable.

You really think you can do it on your own. You never have, and you keep trying, but dang it, if you just keep following the same approach that hasn’t worked yet, it’ll eventually turn around.

It’s probably best to play it safe and stay in your comfort zone. That’s what you’re used to.

There’s always the podcast, and that’s free.
This event isn’t really worth the risk.
Totally valid points. You probably shouldn’t go.
There’s a chance that you’re at the same point I got – there’s a chance that you’re thinking, “No. I don’t want to take the same approach. I don’t want to waste anymore time. I want to do something different so I can make my life different.
Maybe you know that if you keep doing the same types of things, you’ll keep getting the same types of results.
Maybe you realize that your best life lives beyond your comfort zone and you’re ready to dive right into that discomfort to get to the life you want…
Maybe you’re excited to go beyond the food lists and meal plans to understand and eliminate the things that really hold you back.
Maybe you’re ready to let someone who has been there & done that and helped hundreds of others help YOU in a focused, concentrated weekend workshop.
If that’s you, you might be one of the 50 women who should spend the weekend taking your life to to the next level!

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