Conscious Eating

In this episode, I am joined by Rosemarie Mitchell, a Conscious Eating Coach, who is currently working on her PhD in Health Psychology.  We discuss the mind principles needed for creating long-term transformation in health, food choices, habits, and weight management.  We give insight into how to be more mindful about healthy daily routines and self-care.  Gratitude and self-acceptance are also part of the framework.  If you have ever found it difficult to maintain or lose weight or stick to a healthy eating regime, you won't want to miss this episode.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, it's Penny Meganson from the Meganson Method, and welcome to Penny for Your Thoughts. I'm joined here today by Rosemarie Mitchell, and Rosemarie is a conscious eating coach, and in this episode, we're going to be talking about conscious eating. And we're going to focus on the mindset principles around changing your habits in a permanent way, permanent lifestyle changes around health, food choices, and body weight. So if you've ever struggled with bad habits or sticking to a healthy eating regime, you won't want to miss this. So let's get started. Hello, Rosemary. Welcome. Thank you for joining. So tell me, um, how did you get involved in the work that you're doing? I know you're a personal trainer, you focus on nutrition, you really combine the two. And uh tell me more about this conscious eating and your story. What was your personal journey?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

So I'll start with myself and how it all happened. I grew up overweight and um, you know, was uh dealing with things like uh being teased and such. And I noticed uh, you know, my self-confidence, uh low self-esteem brought many choices that I didn't want in life. And I, you know, really had not thought necessarily about the connection with weight and your emotional makeup. Um, you know, it was just something that I accepted. I thought it was part of my personality and was pleasantly surprised to find that when I did lose the weight, um, you know, I changed, you know, my sense of ownership of myself and my future completely shifted. And I was determined to share this with other people. I wanted people to at least have the choice and to know that that choice existed. And my path to changing was sort of layered. You know, there were um, you know, I studied with a guru for a while, I, you know, um did some emotional work with a therapist, I did uh some fitness training, and so I realized that change, transformation, long-term change was really um a composite of several different things. You know, it wasn't just eating. And so with that consciousness, I decided to um open up the idea of conscious eating, you know, and um it's been very effective. Uh, you know, it's something that I offer clients. I knew that fitness was great, but I knew without that solid foundation of uh the attachment to other areas of your life, emotional, spiritual, etc., that it would just not stand the test of time. And that's what I wanted people to have long-term success. Um, I've had weight off for over um 20 years. I've uh changed the way I think and and feel about food and in my body. And um I have eliminated struggle, which is what so many people have right now. Even if they have the body, there's still that struggle. And I wanted people to be able to experience a sense of peace with their food and eating. So it's worked out very well.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, that sounds great. Let's break that down then. Um, so I agree with you. I think taking the struggle out is the key element because so many people just follow any diet they see and um and they never stick to the program or they find it so difficult, even for cravings to stop these cravings. And so it really is down to the mindset. It's it's the other stuff, it's not just the food, it's actually that's just such a small component of it. So, why don't you tell me what the defining moment was for you or for your clients? What do you think is really what makes that transformation happen?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, I, you know, there's a sense of readiness when I meet with a client. The first thing I want to know is where is their level of readiness to change? And what does the eating and the food and their connection to it mean to them? And I help them to see not just um the weight loss or you know, the end result, the outcomes that we can point to, but I help them to see uh to have a vision, right? So I do what's called sort of like a health visioning session with them, where I tie um their whole being to how will this change you? How will it change your um and your circle of friends and family, and then how do you think this will somehow impact the environment? So I try to tie them to bigger things and um help them to develop a vision and a purpose for what they're doing. So then it's not just about I want to lose 10 pounds for the wedding or I want to look great for my partner. It becomes, you know, tied to who they are and a sense of purpose. And it's more, it's deeper and they'll fight for it harder when it when it's that much more meaningful to them.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah. Well, I think that's great because it really is the sense of purpose and finding your passion, finding what you're good at and what has meaning for you. That is what that's really what makes them happy, I think. And so if you can get them focusing on that, then the weight loss just happens because they're in a happier place and they're more focused on where they want to be in the person that they want to become, or you know, that the life that they want to be living. I think that's great. Um so what are the mindset principles or strategies that um our listeners could start using now? Um, do you have any tips? Uh even questions that they could be asking themselves?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

I do, you know, and I'm thinking of clients um that I've worked with and some of the ways that I've been able to help them um set themselves up for success. So the first thing that I would say is simple, simple practices, insert little things like say grace before eating, right? And not standing uh while you're eating, right? And maybe even taking time out to write a little bit. There, those three elements of uh saying grace just opens you up to this whole thing of blessing your food and feeling as if your food, it's a reciprocal thing that your food is blessing you. And so it inserts just a tiny bit of what I call reverence for the food. And so it changes the way that you um experience it. You know, I I often uh hear clients say that they eat slower, more slowly, with more appreciation. They're really taking the sensory experience of foods, how it feels in their mouth, how it looks. Uh, one of the things I love to do with them is to make a pretty plate, right? Make your plate pretty, right? Take time to decorate and whatever, and you know, become artistic and creative. So, you know, I tell them the palate will become excited when it sees what you've presented it with, you know, and um, and so that's a whole different approach, you know. Clients have taken pictures of, you know, elaborate things with eyes and seeds and all sorts of things, but it's fun and it gets um built, it forges a different bond with food.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

No, I love that. I've got kids, and so that was always from a young age my way of getting them to explore fruits and vegetables and to make it fun and colorful, like lots of color on your plates. And I I find I I still do that with clients. Try and make everything as colorful as you can, and so it really gets you thinking vegetables are interesting as opposed to oh, you know, um and um also trying new things, trying new fruits and vegetables and things that you've never had, trying quinoa and things like that. Um, but I I get what you're saying about um saying grace, it really gives you that gratitude, and I think gratitude is so important as like a baseline of just being appreciative of what you've got. Because so much of I think what we're focused on is you know, I wish I was more this or that, and we're always striving towards something. And so just taking that moment and having that gratitude for the simple things and the things that we actually have, I think is such an important step. Um, and then having that vision, like you were talking about.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, and uh, you know, just your physic, your physicality, your physiology when you're eating, you know, sitting up um and not standing. When we're standing and eating, you know, popping a few things in our mouth, it becomes unconscious, right? We're on fast forward, the brain's not connecting to what you're doing. And so uh really just setting up simple rules for yourself, you know. I always eat sitting down, I always say grace, you know, I never eat such and such past such and an hour or so. Um these, you know, that's your training ground, right? And so I tell my clients, um, you know, when they start working with me, in phase one, it's all about normalizing the eating, right? Just getting a nice, easy, gentle flow, a nice relationship, having a system, feeling very comforted that, you know, you know, it's the water in the morning, maybe some fruit just to cleanse your system and moving on to something simple, a protein shake, whatever it is, a nice meal. And then they get into that rhythm and flow, and the confidence starts to build, and they start to feel the results of what they're doing, and they feel like they're an active participant in this. Like, wow, look at me. I'm, you know, I did that. And so there are a lot of wins that really boost the self-esteem and um the sense of I can do it. You know, I work with a lot of uh hundred-pound losers, and starting out at the beginning of the race, you know that it's a journey. And so for many, the tools of things like resilience and being able to have that far-sighted perspective is hard when you're not gonna get the immediate rewards. And so if we are only focused on the number on the scale or that needle moving, then it becomes arduous and you're gonna give up. But if you're thinking, if you have chapter after chapter, the pretty plate, the normalizing, the eating, um, just movement for the sake of movement, uh, you know, as a uh precursor to exercise, um, thinking just the experience of your body as a as a moving organism. And uh walking, stairs, everything becomes wow, I'm I'm adding up, I'm racking up, I'm making deposits, and I'm getting the investment. And it um it really does become a thing. Um, it's more of a mental activity at that point, but even so, it translates into actionable steps, which cumulatively bring about results. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah. That's great. Um, do you have an example of one of these clients that you've worked with, one of your maybe hundred-pound losers? Um do you have something that would give some inspiration to those of us that are trying really hard right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Well, I had a client who had started out um with several different experiences before, um, what they would have called failed experiences. They, you know, knew what to do. Um, they'd done it before and had actually lost several pounds before, 50, 60, and always regained it. So they weren't coming with a lot of confidence and a lot of skepticism and a lot of you show me, you know, um, because this is something that I have a handle on, but it hasn't worked. And so um going through the getting enrolling them into that belief that this had nothing to do with food, but had everything to do with the way their life was set up, the hours of sleep, um, you know, the mental, you know, the negativity, um, not feeding their mind with part, the community. And so working with them on those multiple levels, and not, I didn't touch the weight at all. That wasn't, I never, you know, I didn't make that the center of our work. It was everything else. And um what they noticed themselves was, oh my god, you know, the weight is coming off and that this is happening, and I'm feeling brighter and more positive. And it was the biggest turnaround. Her personality turned around 360. Um, her family, her friends, her relationships there blossomed. Um, her confidence grew. And she went on, you know, with this way of taking the focus off of what she thought was the problem and putting it uh squarely on herself and taking better care, self-care, the practice of self-care, the nurturing, the dates with herself, the time to write in the journal, and went on to uh lose about 85 pounds, which completely changed her life. Um, and so, you know, I see, you know, that this is um, you know, this whole thing of self-care is really intimately connected to the way we eat and the way, you know, our attitude towards food and and feelings, how we handle emotions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah. Because I I think it's not really the emotional attachment to the food, it's the emotional attachment we have to ourselves, maybe. And maybe that's what you are really doing is making them really get into that self-love or you know, just realizing that their importance and this self-care on a daily basis, they deserve it, you know. And and when you're not focused on that number on the scale, and it's really just about taking care of yourself and feeling good, uh, you just notice that the weight has gone and you weren't even thinking about it, you know. I've always found that uh when I'm not focused on those little, and for my clients as well, um, when you're not focused on losing the weight, I get clients often when they're getting ready for a wedding, for example. The moment you stop thinking about the dress size, you're just you know, let's do some exercise that you love, let's do something fun, let's start dancing or you know, other activities, and they're doing it because they love it, not because they just want to get down another dress size. It's like the dress size just goes down. What a treat, you know. And I think that that is really um the key to success, just getting them to just love life and enjoy taking care of themselves and realizing that they do deserve this and having that gratitude um and just changing their emotional connection with how they think about themselves. And yeah, um what would you say was maybe the defining moment for you when you were going through your personal journey of uh weight loss? When did you really feel like this is it? This is what's going to change things for me.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, well, the thing is, I had hit a bottom with my uh food and uh weight relationship, and I had started to veer into what I would call destructive, self-destructive eating patterns. And so I um, and I've actually wrote um written about it in a book um coming out of the cave. Um, it's on Amazon, but um that was a chronicle of the darkness that that world creates around you because it does affect your mood, it affects um, you know, it goes into very depressive mental states and also um, you know, the self-confidence, everything. So here I was, you know, poised at the brink of just sort of jumping off of a cliff almost literally, and saying, you know, this is hopeless, you know, I'm going down spiraling. And at that point, I knew that if I did not take focused, conscious action then to save myself, um, that it the end result would not be great. And so I reached out. I, you know, did a couple things. There was Oreaters Anonymous that played a huge role at some point. You know, I uh started enrolling myself into a church. I did, you know, different activities. Like I said, I studied with a guru. Um it was I was reaching out, reaching out, not quite knowing which would hit, and but just reaching out. Um and so with all of that reaching out, there was a connection point where I literally had changed the mental tapes in my head. Um, you know, and so the with that new dialogue with self, because the thing is, um, the thing that really holds us prisoner to compulsive eating or just general disordered eating or overeating is it starts here between the ears. And so once the messages started to change, once my thoughts were more self-affirming, once I, this was no longer my little secret, but I had opened up to receive help and to share my experiences, things started to change dramatically. And um, you know, I started to weave in uh fitness and movement, which is a great mood changer, um, you know, with the endorphins and everything that it does, you know, it just makes you feel great. And so I sort of stumbled on that with a friend, and you know, it had the dance element, which I have a dance background, so that perked me up. I loved the movement sense. And um, so I would say, you know, that the turning point really came when I made the connection, when I connected the dots and understood that it really was a mind-body-spirit shift. You know, I'd started meditation, I'd started my gratitude practice, you know, in came the dancing and the movement, and of course, you know, um, things just shifted. The mental um, you know, the tapes and the dialogue shifted. And so for people really struggling with consistency, I would say accountability is so important. You know what to do, you've read all the books, you're intelligent, it's as clear as a bell, the doctors mentioned it, you've got it. So, what's missing? You need to someone to hold you accountable. But why do I need someone? We we often say, I should be able to do it. And I wasted about two years saying that. And it's if we understand and put it in context and realize that the most successful people on the planet work with coaches, they work with accountability partners. You know, this is nothing that spells, oh, I'm in, you know, I'm a you know, incompetent. No, no, we need that focus. There's so many competing priorities that it's hard sometimes to stay focused and aligned with what will be so impactful. There's nothing like health and wellness. We all know that without it, there's nothing. Yet it's so hard to stay on a path. And so that's what I would say to most people stay on a path. There is no right path, there isn't something over there or here. You know, any path, if you commit to it, will give you exactly what you want. And then find a coach, find a partner who will hold you to your commitments and um affirm you and guide you and such. And that for me has been the missing piece that I hammer into clients, especially when they're just on the brink of success or they've achieved some success, and it's like, bye, you know, I have what I need, I think I can do it on my own. I say, no, wait, you know, this is the point. This is the point, it's all gonna fall apart. Stay the horse, don't go. Um, and fortunately, I've been able to hold on to some clients and speak, you know, some life into them with that, because uh our tendency as human beings is I've got it, this is easy, and it isn't, you know, it isn't so and even more so.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

I think if you start to see the changes happening, um, you go, okay, I've got this, I've done this, and or maybe I'm done. And it really is that you stay on that path and keep going. Because what happens is you get that self sabotage, don't you? I so many people like they're just starting to lose the weight, they're starting to feel great and look great, and they're really happy. And then you find that you start the mind plays tricks on you. It's like the body wants to stay the same. So as you start to lose the weight, the body finds ways of having these additional. Cravings and the bad habits start, you know, it's like that little guy sitting on your shoulder telling you to do all the wrong things. So that's where I think that accountability is so important to keep on that path. So you're absolutely right. I think all of us need an accountability partner when you're really trying to change your goals and step out of your comfort zone and to move forward. Because it's so easy to go back to that comfort zone and it's much harder to keep moving forward. And so you do need someone to help you. So whether it's that you do it with a friend and you both really keep each other motivated, I think you're absolutely right that all people that have, you know, reached some sort of success, um, they've all had mentors and coaches. I think we all need um teaching to reach a new level. So whenever you're trying to aim further than where you are right now, um, the best thing to do is to find someone who has that knowledge that can help you and hold you accountable. So absolutely right. Absolutely right. And and I love your uh take on the mindfulness side of it, that it really is about not just feeling good, appreciating good food, and just enjoying movement for the sake of movement. Um, so I'm in Switzerland at the moment, and in Europe, um I would say, well, it depends on what city you're in in the States, but uh everyone seems to walk all everywhere here and sort of walking and taking the stairs instead of the lift, the elevator. Gosh, I don't even know my words anymore. So, you know, those sorts of things. I think just those little details make such a difference, and we can get so obsessed with our little Fitbit and how many calories have I burned today, how many steps have I taken? And it's not really about that, and it's it's just living a good life. Do you feel good? It's like exercise for the sake of feeling good. And when you're doing that, then it's effortless because you're not doing it because you're trying to count how many calories you've burned, you're doing it because you just feel good, and then you do feel good, and then you don't want to not do it because it feels good, you know, and and just being active because it's great. Yeah, and and finding activities that you enjoy, like you were mentioning the dance, I think that is such an important element of it. If you hate being in the gym, find other activities that you enjoy. You know, if you hate running, find something else. Um, but again, I think having a coach or a trainer really helps you, helps you in the beginning stages as well to make that habit uh the lifestyle change so that you've got the habit. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so it's all about accountability as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Accountability and the recognition that even if you might not innately have the skill of being able to self-regulate with food or eating, just know that you can learn it. I had to make that uh acceptance that this was an area of difficulty for me, and I accepted that. And once I accepted that, there wasn't all this protest and postulating about what I should have known because I studied it. It didn't matter. It was like this is an area of weakness for me, but I can strengthen it. And once I strengthened it, I had the same muscles that people who did it innately did. And so it what does it matter what route we've we come to success, you know, through? The point is to arrive at a place of um acceptance of self, acceptance of your limitations, acceptance of what may be a little hard for you, but not so hard for other people. It's that acceptance that this is my makeup, this is in my propensity, this is what I move towards, this is where it's hard for me, these are my limits, you know, can't bring such and such in the home, you know, it's not really great for me to have almond butter at midnight, doesn't work, you know. You just know what your limits are and you accept them. You accept them without judgment. We judge ourselves so heavily. You should. Why not? Why can't you? What's wrong? And if we just simply say, hey, you know what? I struggle with almond butter sometimes. I notice that it's only at a certain time, and that's it. That's not a safe zone for me. That's a low control point in my day. It's not good for me. Is it helpful? No, it isn't. Okay, great. So we won't do that. We'll go to bed instead, or we'll have some tea. And once those diet, that dialogue is constantly going on, and you've assumed the role of your protector, you know, you've assumed that role that you are going to be not the disciplinarian, but your protector, then uh it's a different relationship.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah, you don't beat yourself up. I think that is such an important part of it. So I think when constantly um it just knocks you back. Exactly, exactly. That you're just on a journey and there's no negative or positive, you're just on a journey, and you're gonna do the best you can, and that acceptance and all of that, I absolutely agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Install so thank you for it.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That is wonderful. So thank you so much, Rosemary, for your time. And I hope uh all of our listeners have enjoyed um some of these tips on conscious eating. And again, if you want to uh get in touch with Rosemary, if you've got any questions or specific concerns, reach out to me at penny at meginsonmethod.com and Rosemary, how can they get in touch with you? Um, Victoria.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Do you have uh specific website? Yeah, conscious uh transformation coaching.com. Conscioustransformation coaching.com on word and just uh reach out. My contact information is there, and I'll be happy to talk with you for sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Great, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, listeners, until next time.