Come Hang With Me! It’s Free!

I’ve been talking on the podcast about how I’m in the exciting, scary process of writing my first book.

To the surprise of many, it’s actually not a book about fat loss strategy, nutrition or hormones. I know, right?! I was surprised at first, too!

It’s a book about creating change. It’s about making massive changes in your life without battling for them for years. Fundamentally it’s about ending the ways we make change hard and embracing strategies for making change much easier.

It’s been super tough to not share every single idea, paragraph & chapter with you guys! This week, however, I’ll be sharing a teeny glimpse inside.

This week I’m hosting a totally free online seminar to talk about 3 specific things you can do to make change easier, starting right away! I’ll also open up the last opportunity to work with me in 2018 because after this spring coaching program I’ll be hunkering down to devote more time to finishing the book.

There are two sessions you can choose from – Wednesday March 21 and Thursday March 22nd – you pick the day/time that works best for you!

To register and join me live, click here!  I’d love for you to be there!

I’ll make sure to stick around around afterwards & answer your questions!

3 Books That Will Make You Happier

Who doesn’t want to be happier? Who doesn’t want to be less easily angered, frustrated or upset? The world needs more happy people and we have to begin with ourselves.

Today I thought I’d share with you a few books that have made me happier & less stressed.

How To Communicate Like a Buddhist 

Just to be clear, this is not a religious book. It is, however, a book that will transform your relationship with yourself and others. It’s a short read & I highly recommend it!

The 4 Agreements

Even if you just read half this book, it will make your life better. When you stop making assumptions and taking things personally, you can’t help but be a happier person!

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

I am determined to re-read this book every year. It continues to check my ego & reset my priorities. It’s a fiction book told through the story of a college student trying to find himself, and has made a huge impact on my life.

Whether you read any of these books or not, I just want to remind you that you can be dramatically happier and more peaceful than you are now. It’s a choice. It’s something you have to pursue.

Don’t settle for the status quo. Don’t settle for anxiety and discontent.

Create a better life, one choice at a time.

Two Options

Yesterday I shared a quote on Instagram, borrowed from therealflyingyogini. It said:

In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.

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That’s such a powerful choice, isn’t it? You know what it made me think of?

Alice In Wonderland. I’m gonna have to watch that movie again soon…

Remember when Alice comes to the fork in the road? She looks to the Cheshire Cat & asks, “Which way do I go?

He replies, “Where do you want to go?

Seems like a pretty benign response but it’s powerful & instructive.

As you consider a choice, understand that where you want to go can and perhaps should be a factor in your decision making.

It’s not just “what do I want?” or “what do I not want?”

Where do I want to go?

Do I want to step forward into growth or do I want to step back into safety?

Do I want to step out of my comfort zone and into a future I desire or step back into familiarity & security?

The choice is yours.

Where do you want to go?

3 Ways To Use Coconut Wraps

Coconut wraps sound like something that could either be a food product or a beauty product, don’t you think? Fortunately for all of us who love to eat, I’m talking about food. But before you get too excited, I’m not exactly giving you recipes, just meal ideas. More often than not, the way I eat is far too simple to require a recipe or I just kinda wing it. But I’m happy to tell you what results from my winging it!

If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click here. Otherwise, keep reading below.

I am a huge fan of Nuco Coconut Wraps. Interestingly, I’m not a big fan of wraps or sandwiches in the traditional sense, but the flavor & versatility of these coconut wraps is pretty awesome!

Here’s the scoop with these wraps (at least the Nuco brand ones): they don’t contain any gluten or grains. Though I wouldn’t eat anything just because of the ingredients, (it’s gotta taste good, ya know?) I do love that the only ingredients in these wraps are coconut meat, coconut water & coconut oil.

For inquiring minds: each wrap contains 6 grams of carbs, 2 of which are fiber and the rest of which are naturally occurring in the coconut. The wraps have a touch of sweetness to them.

You could absolutely use them to make sandwiches/wraps but since I’m not a fan of that to begin with, I use them in a few other ways that I thought I’d share with you guys.

The Breakfast Burrito

Though my breakfast/brunch of choice remains my famous cabbage salad bowl, sometimes I don’t have the ingredients on hand or I want to switch it up. Enter the breakfast burrito.

Just the other day I shared this on Instagram and got a dozen or more questions about the wrap.

coconut wraps

Here’s how I make the breakfast burrito:

First, I cook the bacon* in a skillet. When the bacon is nice & crispy, I set it on a plate and immediately add the eggs to the pan in which the bacon cooked. (If I am making more than a couple slices of bacon, I’ll pour off some of the fat first.) I like to add a spicy element to the eggs – either a hot salsa (as was the case in the above picture) or I’ll put some Primal Kitchen Chipotle Lime Mayo on the wrap.

*Of course you can omit the bacon. You can make it however you’d like. Recently, I started getting my bacon (with no sugar or nitrates) from Butcher Box & I absolutely love it.

After the eggs are done, I’ll remove them from the pan & put the wrap in it’s place, allowing it to warm up on low heat for about 15 seconds on each side. I’m not trying to cook the wrap, just soften it a little bit. Otherwise it’ll be kinda chewy.

After it’s warm, I put it all together. Voila. See? No recipe really needed. I recently did this with leftover steak (steak & egg burrito) and it was super delish!

Quesadillas!

Let me first say that I do try to limit dairy. I feel better, I’m less bloated and my skin is more clear when I’m eating less dairy rather than more. But I do love cheese and eat it every once in a while. For more on my perspective on dairy, take a listen to episode 128 of the Primal Potential podcast.

Quesadillas are quick, easy, inexpensive and super delicious. In fact, as I write this, I’m mentally planning the next one I’m gonna make….

A beef fajita quesadilla!

I’ll cook up some peppers, onions and steak like I’m going to have fajitas (you could also easily do this with dinner leftovers after Mexican!) and I’ll toss it inside two wraps with some pepperjack cheese.

These wraps can burn pretty quickly, so you’ve gotta go low & slow when heating them, okay? I’m thinking about 3 minutes on each side over low heat, but it’ll really depend on your pan & how much stuff you put inside.

Either way, crazy tasty. If you’re following me on Instagram, you’ll probably see this one show up in my stories sooner than later!

Coconut Chips

I don’t know about you, but I could effortlessly eat a couple baskets of chips & salsa or queso. Thankfully I don’t anymore (pretty sure I’ve hit my lifetime quota of tortilla chips) but I certainly could. Sometimes I really want that combination of crunchy, salty and creamy in a way that carrots or celery doesn’t reallly satisfy.

Enter coconut chips.

Let me first acknowledge that this is what makes me a bad blogger. I could have a recipe but I don’t. Maybe I will change that, we’ll see. But my style is really to put something in the oven and watch what happens. Here’s the great news about that: I believe that we overcomplicate cooking. We think we need to know exactly how to do something before we’ll try. WRONG. Just get in the game and see what turns out!

Here’s how this creation started: I burned a wrap. It was flakey & crunchy like a chip, which wasn’t what I was going for but certainly a happy accident.

So, I cut the wraps into pieces and put the pieces on a sheet pan in a 400 degree oven. I watched them bubble and pulled them as soon as they started to brown. It only took a couple minutes.

I made 2 wraps worth, which was great, because I could have easily eaten more. They were super tasty dipped in guacamole!

There are other flavors of the wraps, but I’m a big fan of the original (plain) flavor. I haven’t tried the turmeric or the cinnamon but I totally added them to my cart while I was writing this post! I bet they are AMAZING (and of course I’ll let you know). The cinnnamon flavor doesn’t have sugar added, just cinnamon, so I’m pretty pumped about that. Make sure you’re following me on Instagram to see what I do with those ones when they arrive!

In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.

If you live in an area Thrive Market doesn’t yet service, you can get them on Amazon, they’re just a bit more expensive there and you have to buy them 2 at a time (you can’t buy a single pack at present on Amazon.)

The Lie That Makes Change Hard

It’s high time for a brief post, eh? I’ve been getting a bit wordy over here lately!

There is a lie you believe, a story you tell yourself, that is making change much harder than it needs to be.

If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below. 

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Here’s the lie:

Your circumstances are more powerful than you are.

Your temptations, excuses & exceptions are bigger than you are.

It’s not true. It’s not even a little true.

You are exponentially stronger and more powerful than every circumstance in your life, than every temptation, every excuse, every exception, every doubt and delay.

When you convince yourself that your obstacles & habits are so big & overwhelming, you’re convincing yourself that you’re small.

You’re not.

You’re powerful.

It’s a matter of convincing. You’ve talked yourself into a lie. If you don’t quite buy it, you need to listen to episode 447 of the podcast. Now. Don’t wait.

You’ve repeatedly heard me talk about the book the The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard on the podcast. and I want to leave you with a few words from that book.

Why, having been endowed with the courageous heart of a lion, do we live as mice?

We must look squarely into our own tired eyes and examine why we waste so much time sniffing at every distraction, why we cower at the thought of revealing our true selves to the world, why we scurry so quickly from conflict, and why we consent to play small. We must ask why we participate so humbly in society’s frantic race, allowing our- selves into its mazes of mediocrity and settling for scraps of reward when nature has offered unlimited freedom, power, and abundance to the bold, the determined, the creative, the independent—to each of us. We must ask if our desires to feel safe and accepted are in fact enslaving us to popular opinion—and to boredom. We must ask: When will we be ready to ascend to another level of existence?

Stop with the story of your smallness. Stop convincing yourself that your excuses are so much bigger than you are.

It’s a lie.

Improving Your Response To The Opinions Of Others

My friends. Yesterday I sent out a long, personal email to my VIP email list and I got hundreds of responses. Many people asked if there was a link to it they could share so I decided to let it live here on the blog. I have no doubt that it resonated with so many people because receiving feedback can be a really hard thing. It’s easy to take it personally, but that is only one option of many. If you aren’t on the free VIP email list, just click here to hop on it.)

If you’d like to listen to this blog instead of reading it, click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.

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Hello hello!!

I hope you hare a having a fantastic day! I’m going to be super real & honest with you guys today. That’s not easy to do, but I like to do hard things. It makes me better. Hopefully it makes all of us better. I want to talk to you about what I learned from some feedback I received.

I am grateful for ALL feedback, even when I don’t agree with it, because it’s a really important opportunity for me to practice receiving it well, not making it about the other person, and looking at what I can do better.

Here’s the mistake I used to make with feedback:

I made it all about the person giving it. I made it about how and why they were wrong or how and why their approach sucked. I made it about what they didn’t know and how they should have done it differently. I poked holes in their logic because, as is always the case, their perception of my reality didn’t match my actual reality. But of course, it can’t. That’s not even possible.

Guys, feedback is NOT about the person giving it.

Yes, you can choose to make it about them, but you’ll be unhappy, you’ll lack emotional control and you’ll miss massive opportunities for growth.

Yes, we could choose to call someone judgemental or out of their lane, but that is arguing with reality. They shared their opinion. Choose to be coached by it, even if the only thing you learn is that they don’t have all the facts & their opinion is based on their perception. Their perception is real to them, whether you agree with it or not.

I’m challenging all of us to make feedback exclusively about what you can learn from it. 

You don’t have to believe, accept or agree with all or any of it, but understand there’s something you can learn from ALL feedback, even if it’s just serving as a reminder that you would be better served to stay in your own lane and focus on your own work before YOU give feedback next time.

I can be coached by ANYONE. Every single one of you are my coaches. Every single email is a chance for me to do better, be better, communicate more clearly and know myself more honestly.

Instead of tearing someone down (in my head or in my response) because I don’t like what they said or how they said it, I will learn from them. That’s a choice.

We can all make the giver of feedback the villain, but that would not help.

The feedback I got is not about how the giver of it chooses to see me (that’s entirely their choice). It’s not about the facts omitted or the experiences this person passed up that could have drastically altered their opinion. It’s not about the giver at all. It’s about how I can grow not just from the feedback itself, but also from how I choose to respond to it process it.

Here’s why I’m sharing this with you:

  1. I think we all need to practice improving how we receive feedback as well as how (and when) we give it.
  2. The feedback brought up some things that are actually very relevant to changes I’m making within Primal Potential. In fact, some of the changes suggested are things I’ve already announced on the podcast within the last couple episodes!
  3. I want to encourage everyone who reads this to not place your goals or standards on another person and to not let anyone else place their standards on YOU. 

I’ll start with the easy part.

I wholeheartedly agree with one of the suggestions and had actually already announced it on a couple podcast episodes recently. Essentially, the suggestion was that I should do more video. Yes! You might have heard me share that we are, as of a week ago, moving from 3 podcast episodes a week to 2. There were a couple reasons I shared for this change including:

  • Spending more time with my clients
  • Creating more video

As I mentioned on the podcast, there’s so much I want to do, but sometimes to make time for it, something has to go. In this case, it’s the Saturday episode of the podcast. The new podcast schedule is Monday/Thursday.

Last week I asked on my Instagram story what topics you’d like to see me tackling on video.

The actual words of feedback were that I need to stop hiding. Again guys, I don’t have to agree or disagree. If this person followed me on Instagram, went to ASCEND in Boston, knew how often people stop me & say, “Are you Elizabeth from Primal Potential?” or was coming to my upcoming Masters Club retreat (aka, if the perception more closely matched my reality), the perception would be quite different. But remember guys, feedback isn’t about the person giving it. It’s about the person recieving it. I don’t have to submit to someone’s interpretation of my life or my visibility.

This person is missing a lot of facts and the facts that are missing explain the perception. That’s all. I choose to not tell myself it’s personal.

Someone’s perception can’t possibly match our reality. It’s not fair to expect that of them when getting feedback. A person giving you feedback can’t possibly know or see everything you want them to know or see. You’ll make yourself crazy by holding people to that standard.

(Side note – I make conscious decisions about where things get shared. Instagram stories is where I’ve chosen to share the look inside my own life because my business decision is that Primal Potential is NOT Elizabeth Benton and Elizabeth Benton is not Primal Potential. So if you want to see more of me personally, what I eat, what my days look like, that does exist to the extent I wish to share it with the world and it exists on Instagram stories.)

Then, the feedback suggested that I practice what I preach and lose more weight.

Remember, this is about me, it is not about the giver of the feedback.

I am the only one who gets to decide how much weight I should lose, when I’m happy with my body or the pace of my progress.

No one can decide for me when I’m small enough, lean enough, healthy enough or not.

Anyone is welcome to give their opinion if that’s what they want to do, but I don’t have to take it on as my own.

(Addition: after this email went out, I noticed that CrossFit Games elite athlete Kara Webb addressed this very thing on Instagram yesterday. She’s very lean, incredibly strong and chose to address judgements about her body. No matter what size you are, someone will tell you it’s wrong. Personally, I refuse to submit to that and I hope you will too. I’m going to share her words here because though my body is different from hers, her sentiment perfectly reflects how I feel about my body. The only difference is, she’s 28 and I’m 34.)

This body is 28 years old. Was grown by & is a branch of my sweet, beautiful mum. Cuddles my loved ones. Represents years of commitment and dedication. Will carry my future babies. Is healthy & strong as a result of hard work & good nutrition. Is resilient. Was fortified with persistence. Is not limited to any of the above qualities. I am proud of everything it has done, can do and will do in the future. This is not a byproduct of anything other than what is listed above. If you question it, gawk at it, or need to find another excuse as to why I am this way, I assure you this makes you weak & foolish. If in your eyes, true grit seems so far fetched than you will never get to experience that satisfying feeling of pure accomplishment as a result of my favourite phrase right now…Relentless Persistence.

Obviously our bodies are different but if you’re here, you know where I started and I couldn’t agree more. What got me here was relentless persistence. What keeps me going is relentless persistence. And that relentless persistence is me practicing what I preach. I wouldn’t personally call someone weak & foolish but her point reinforces mine:

no one gets to set goals and standards for my body other than me.

I am BEYOND proud of where I am in my journey and I can respect that someone might feel my pace & priorites should be different.

However, as for the giver of any feedback, I cannot expect anyone to know, understand or respect what it has taken for me to get here and what I’ve been through along the way. That’s not a fair or reasonable expectation.

Someone’s perception of my body is just that. It’s shaped by their beliefs which may or may not have anything to do with my reality.

This is why I’ll never make judgements about someone else’s body or suggest that they practice what they preach because, quite frankly, there’s just too much I can’t know and too many judgements that would require I make. 

Someone telling me that I don’t practice what I preach is kinda like telling me I have green hair & purple eyes. It’s more a reflection of their view than my reality.

That one doesn’t ruffle my feathers there because I’m solid and confident in my choices and my DAILY application of what I talk about on the podcast. In fact, I share that application with my clients every single day. I am human & I apply the principles I talk about every.dang.day.

I should practice what I preach? I agree. And I do. The end.

I care much more about what I think about my choices than what someone who isn’t in my life thinks about my choices.

I know for sure that some people think, “Well, you have a podcast. You put yourself in the position of being a leader and leaders are judged.”

I agree about the leader part. The judgement part is up to the individual. I do, however, need to clear something up.

My leadership is NOT based on the principle that everyone NEEDS to be in a mad dash to weight loss and that they aren’t done until they just can’t possibly lose anymore.

This makes me more determined than ever to be super clear about what Primal Potential stands for and what it doesn’t. What I, Elizabeth Benton, stand for and what I don’t.

I stand for every one of us pursuing our best life and our highest potential.

That will have different shapes. Different sizes. Different paces & different priorities.

I won’t rush you or myself. I won’t judge you. I want you to know that this space and this community is above placing priorities on others and I do not have the view that there is one acceptable size or shape and everything else reflects incompleteness.

I will fight for that for every one of you and I will stand for that in my own life.

If you want to hear more about my perspective on maintenance and shame around not losing weight faster, please listen to episode 463.

To anyone who is wondering: I am not ashamed. When I first got divorced, I was. I felt like a failure. Thank God my mindset has improved since then through hard work and maturity. I won’t take on anyone’s pace for my progress. I am proud. Immensely proud. I am not doing something wrong. What I am doing is right for me.

THAT’S what my leadership is about.

I’m not here to do it the way you think I should. And I’m not here to tell you my way is the right way.

But as long as I’m learning, growing, improving every day, taking great care of myself and being honest, I feel good.

That’s not defensiveness, it’s confidence.

If you don’t believe in my approach, that’s 100% okay. Simply stop following me. There are so many amazing voices with different opinions. Find one that resonates with you. Don’t invite noise into your life that you disagree with. Zero hard feelings. I don’t want you here if it’s not right for you.

If you don’t trust me, we have two options: reach out to let me know how we can work together to build that trust. Alternatively, find someone you connect with.

If this is your tribe and you trust me and my approach feels right for your world, I am so glad you’re here and I respect your pace, your goals and where you’re at right now.

To all of you who provide your feedback in any form, thanks for helping me be a better version of myself and for making Primal Potential a better community.

Regardless of your values, priorities or delivery, I respect and honor your opinions.

5 Mindset Shifts That Transformed My Life (5 of 5)

This week I’m sharing 5 mindset shifts that have completely transformed my life. Today is the last post in this series, part 5 of 5, but let’s make sure you’re caught up.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

If you’d rather listen to today’s blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below. 

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Yesterday I had an exchange with someone who follows me on Instagram that reinforced this 5th mindset shift.

She has messaged me before, several times, sharing that she wants to change but ‘can’t’. She asks where & how to begin. I tell her. A week later, she asks again. I share the same answer. It hasn’t changed.

In response to something I posted, she messaged me yesterday, “Can you move in?

Here’s the actual exchange.

mindset shifts

This exchange really summarizes the 5th mindset shift that truly transformed my life.

No matter how far off change feels, it’s right at your finger tips. The ability you have, right now, to create massive change is called CHOICE and it’s the most powerful force in the world.

It is always at your disposal.

Just because you tell yourself you can’t change doesn’t make it true.

You simply aren’t choosing to create change. You simply aren’t choosing to make a different choice.

You’re choosing to stay the same.

I did that too, for most of my life. Repeatedly choosing to diet. Repeatedly choosing to over-restrict. Repeatedly choosing to binge. Repeatedly choosing to turn away, to stop trying, to stop paying attention, until I’d choose another diet & cycle through again.

I was choosing to stay in a pattern of failed choices. I could have also, and eventually did, make the choice to do things differently, one single day at a time. One choice at a time.

You have the ability to make one great choice. One improved choice. You have the ability to choose differently just one choice and one day at a time.

That is the simplicity of how change happens.

You can continue to overwhelm yourself thinking that you need to have a whole plan or a make a behavioral 180. You don’t.

You can activate this change-making super power by making one great choice. Just one.

One choice that represents an improvement for you.

You don’t need years of willpower or a reserve of self-discipline.

The problem may be or feel complex but the solution is simple.

The solution is limited to just this next choice.

The solution doesn’t extend beyond this next choice, except maybe in your mind.

Win one moment.

Then, face the next one.

You always have the ability to make one great choice.

With each new moment, you have another chance. Change happens one choice at a time.

The only super power you’ll ever need to create change is fully at your disposal right now.

It’s the power of choice.

5 Mindset Shifts That Transformed My Life (4 of 5)

This week I’m sharing 5 mindset shifts that completely transformed my life. Today is part 4 of 5, but let’s make sure you’re caught up.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

If you’d rather listen to today’s blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below. 

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Today’s shift might be my very favorite. Ready for it?

Tomorrow is a lie.

Yes, most of us will wake up tomorrow. I’m not denying the probability of a future.

However, I used to use “tomorrow” as my permission to blow off today.

“Tomorrow” was my get-out-of-jail-free card.

I’ll do better tomorrow. I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll workout tomorrow. I’ll fast tomorrow. I’ll check my weight tomorrow. I won’t eat this tomorrow.

It was a well-intentioned lie. It was permissive.

It was an effective negotiating tool to let myself off the hook.

Most importantly, it wasn’t working.

My new mindset is both more simple and more honest.

Tomorrow has nothing to do with today. I refuse to bring it into the equation.

Great, yes, I plan to workout tomorrow. That has no bearing on what I do today.

Tomorrow isn’t relevant.

Today is all that matters.

I will do my best today. I will make myself proud today.

I refuse to dimiss the opportunities today while piling burdens onto my future moments.

“Tomorrow” doesn’t exist in my new mindset. I stay exclusively focused on what I’m able and willing to do to win TODAY.

For daily motivation from Primal Potential, subscribe to the free Primal Potential Daily Bites currently available through Amazon’s Alexa.

5 Mindset Shifts That Transformed My Life (3 of 5)

This is part 3 in a 5 part series about mindset shifts that changed my life (and of course, my body). To catch up on the first parts of the series, click here to read part 1 and click here to read part 2.

The third shift we’re going to explore today is considering if I’m even hungry. I know, it sounds super obvious, but it wasn’t even a consideration for most of my life. If it was offered or it looked good, I ate it (especially if I had been over restricting for a while).

If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below. 

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Before we look more closely at that, I want to point out a trend in all 3 of these shifts we’ve talked about so far. They have one important thing in common:

Paying attention. 

These are all really about shifting from not paying attention – being influenced and even ruled by impulse – to paying attention and asking great questions and, because of that, being more in control.

Back to hunger. For most of my life, I was always living in one of two extremes:

Over restriction or over indulgence.

It was never about hunger or if my body needed fuel. I was either trying to eat as little as possible, concerned only with the rules & restrictions of the diet-du-jour or I was overindulging – again, not worried about hunger, but just what I wanted.

Over-indulgence was, for me, usually a response to over-restriction.

I would get to a point where I just didn’t want to tell myself “no” anymore.

Here’s one of the beautiful things about asking myself if I’m hungry…

I’m never telling myself “no”, I’m just saying, at worst, “maybe later”.

I know I’ll feel hungry & need fuel again soon, so I’ll consider whatever it is then.

If I see some salted cashews and they look delish, it’s not about allowing myself or denying myself. It’s far simpler than that.

Am I hungry?

Does it make sense for my body to need more fuel right now?

When it comes to hunger, remember that it’s a spectrum. You can be kinda/maybe/a little hungry or you can be legit feed-me-now hungry.

I use the second question to help me navigate the hunger spectrum.

Does is make sense for my body to need more fuel right now?

Sometimes I don’t know the answer. If I’m not sure, I turn to common sense.

  • When did I last eat?
  • What did I last eat?
  • How much did I last eat?
  • What have I been doing since?

That gives me so much clarity and takes about 10 seconds to consider.

When I ate 20 minutes ago and have been sitting & writing since, I know the answer is no.

When it’s been an hour since a full meal and I’ve been sitting in front of the TV, I know my body doesn’t need more fuel.

Those questions go together. Am I hungry? Does my body need more fuel?

If I feel pretty confident the answers are yes, I eat.

Otherwise, it’s simply: maybe later.

Often, asking these questions gives me enough of a pause to go beyond impulse & desire into rational thinking.

Rational thinking was missing in my life for quite some time.

Give these questions a go!

Am I hungry?

Does it make sense for my body to need more fuel right now?

  • When did I last eat?
  • What did I last eat?
  • How much did I last eat?
  • What have I been doing since?

Win the day, friend!!

To read part 4, click here