Good morning, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your Brain's Coach, I'm your host and it is my job here to bring to you all the insights and lessons and science and strategies to help you. As I'm talking to you, I'm looking at a squirrel on the top of a tree doing this crazy stuff for no apparent reason for me, but, as you find out on this episode, there is always a reason. So skills, discoveries, strategies from all the different fields of human performance, sciences and everything related to that. So we could get out there and take better control of our thoughts, our emotions and, most importantly, of our actions that are driven by thoughts and our emotions in our environment. So we could create the life experience that we absolutely love living.
Speaker 1A couple of things I wanted to share with you before we jump into nitty-gritty, practical stuff to help you stop overeating for good. Guys, it's been 10 years or more since the last time I overeat. Can you imagine? Now overeating feels like the most unnatural thing one would do, kind of like making yourself sick or hurting yourself on purpose. That's how it feels at the moment, but that took some work and you'll find out what I did exactly, based on research, going through my certifications with precision, nutrition and developing certain skills. But before that number one about where our podcast is listened to and what countries, and all the numbers I was kind of surprised to A find out that the most popular city this podcast is listened to is Clearwater in Florida. So guys listening to this podcast from Clearwater in Florida say hello, I still need to look it up and see where on the map. It is Never been to the city, but yeah, please do, let me know where the place is. Please give me a shout out via Instagram or there is also a link to leave me a fan mail somewhere in the podcast notes that Buzzsprout, my podcast host, creates. So that's that. Also, we are a global trotter podcast, meaning our podcast is listened to in 82 countries. I don't even think I'm into 82 countries, but my podcast apparently has what else interesting? The country where my podcast is listened to the most is US, but also we are in Australia, on the African continent, we are in South America, uk, europe and Russia and different parts of the world. Guys would love to learn more about you. Where are you tuning in from? Send me a fan mail or reach out to Instagram at Angela Brain Body Coach and just say, hey, I love your podcast and I'm from there and it's an awesome city because of this. Let's build community through this listening experience and connect on things that we are passionate about.
Speaker 1What else, the last couple of weeks of the year, guys, what are you excited about? What are you committed to? What do you want to change? And, as you learn on this podcast today, this actually podcast is going to bring together a lot of the ideas you might have about how to make this year different. Isn't this what we all hope for? Making this year different?
Speaker 1I kind of know about you, but I have a few goals. Well, one specifically growing my business. Well, it's been growing, but not as much as I'd like it to grow, and this goal has been for a few years, just kind of like going from year to year not really changing much. And I realized why just a few months ago, and I realized how common it is to approach certain goals and aspects of our life in this way. That is not an effective way and that's how we can keep being stuck, year after year after year, in one area or a few areas of our life. So my first question to you guys where are you in your life insane? Where do you practice what Einstein calls insanity principle? Well, maybe he didn't call it that, but he has this famous quote Insanity definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results. So where are you insane? Let me start with a story, guys.
Speaker 1In my mid-20s, somewhere in that period of my life, while traveling the world, I struggled with overeating. World, I struggled with overeating. Actually, I struggled with overeating for much longer. It started in my teenage years, when there was this phase of self-determination and discovery and trying to look like some models on the covers of magazines and then trying to fit in with my peers. And then, yeah, going through this phase of trying to be skinny, I guess, and then my sister didn't have the best relationships with food, which affected me a lot as well, in a bad way, but also then in a good way. So all serves a purpose, as we're going to learn today. So I struggled with overeating for quite a while, really binge eating, where I would eat to the point where I would feel sick and I wouldn't want to do much because I just felt stuffed. So that's been going on for quite a while and in my mid-20s I still had it in all different shapes and forms. And what I realized? I was struggling with emotional eating.
Speaker 1And I did the insanity thing for years. Guys, what does it mean? Well, again Einstein's quote insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results. Every morning I would wake up frustrated, trailing myself, feeling crappy. Also because when you eat a lot, a lot late at night, especially not the best stuff, from cookies to I don't know ice cream, to whatever I happened to get in the grocery store. So every morning I would wake up frustrated, telling myself next time I'll do better, I'll be stricter, I'll be more focused, I'll push through. And you probably know what ended up happening many times after I did the same thing. Okay, over and over and over again for years, like insane. Right, that's how it would end up. I would still do the same thing and then wake up and then feeling upset, frustrated, and tell myself that I'm going to do differently next time, not really changing a lot of things about my behavior in the meantime.
Speaker 1The turning point and it wasn't until later into my mid-20s, somewhere getting closer to my 30s when I started going through Precision Nutrition Certification, which was a nutrition certification that a gym buddy advised me to take if I wanted to advance my career as a coach and kind of have bigger range of skills and work with more people on different things. So a buddy advised me and I took his advice and I went through the certification and it changed my life. It changed my eating behaviors, but it also completely changed my life. So I learned at Precision Nutrition, this GSPA framework, that they have goals, skills, practices, actions. And what I learned is that when we fail to hit a behavior goal like, for example, stopping overeating, it's a behavior goal. It's not about lack of willpower, it's about missing skills that cause this behavior to continue. And once I started building those skills, everything changed Again. My whole life changed. Skill number one emotional regulation. And that skill, guys, is going to transform your life in so many areas.
Speaker 1I discovered that overeating was my coping mechanism, basically something that helped me to deal with life. When I felt anxious or lonely, food became my emotional stabilizer. And traveling around the world when you don't have your family, your friends, your familiar things, a lot of uncomfortable emotions come up. And when you don't have tools to deal with them. You use the tool that you have. Overeating Food was everywhere you know, in any part of the world. There were familiar foods that made me feel comforted, familiar, safe. My body was trying to do good. I didn't realize it at that time. It was my coping mechanism. Again, my body was trying to do good, helping me to balance things out.
Speaker 1And then I learned that there are better ways or different ways to deal with your emotions. Things like journaling when you experience those uncomfortable emotions. Writing down my thoughts, labeling them, processing them. That helps with processing your emotion. Journaling, writing it down, reframing, shifting perspective on more positive aspects of my life, what I can control, body awareness, just tuning into my body and asking myself like, okay, am I feeling something in my body, something uncomfortable? Where is it? Where am I feeling exactly? Noticing naming that's called grounding, practice Walking.
Speaker 1I realized actually, if I move for the next 10 minutes, if I change my environment, if I get out there and just put the steps in that urge, it's not going to last. It disappears and you get distracted. Refocusing on your surroundings and walking outside helps a lot with that Actually shifts your emotions really, really fast. Talking to a friend or my mom on the phone when I could. You know, back then mobile and WhatsApp wasn't such a big thing, you know, 10 years ago. It's like the whole world changed and so I called whoever I could call, whenever I could call them. If I couldn't call anyone, then I would just go for a walk or start dancing, just distract myself in a productive way, I would take a shower, I would take a bath, listen to my favorite music for the next 30 minutes.
Speaker 1Emotional regulation there are so many research-based tools that shift your emotional state and that's what your body needs when you deal, when you do all these emotions, when you do all these behaviors that you don't want to keep. They help you to shift your emotions, to bring back the emotional balance, which is biochemical balance in your body and brain, actually. But I also realized that probably starving and going on all the different diets isn't that great, and I went through again nutrition certification and I realized oh, you know this thing that I learned back in my fitness training certification about nutritionally balanced diet. It actually works for your emotions and your cognition as well, when you eat well, when you don't skip meals, when you eat balanced diet and you don't starve yourself. Guess what? Your body also wouldn't want you to overeat when emotions go high and you feel additional stress. So I also developed all these different skills. Instead of dieting, I'm like, okay, these are the things that I need to eat for my body and my brain to thrive and I'm going to have regular meals. It's also a skill set and my cravings vanished, overeating stopped. And it's been 10 years, guys Again, overeating now feels like getting myself sick, like that.
Speaker 1How unnatural it feels. It was the most unnatural thing to do, even over the holidays, when I'm full and full, I'm like, well, the cake is there, but it's not going anywhere. If I need any sugar in my body is available anytime. So I don't feel that urge. Why we repeat behaviors in general? That's what I also learned. That was a mind-blowing aha moment.
Speaker 1Every behavior serves a purpose. I'm like, oh my God, it's like some Yoda or some enlightened person came to earth and enlightened me. Every behavior serves a purpose. I'm like my brain is always trying to keep me alive, try to make me survive and evolve and grow and thrive. So every behavior serves a purpose. We just are not always aware of what purpose that is.
Speaker 1Overeating isn't random, it's solving a problem for your body or your mind. So the first step to freedom is asking, even before the skill building, what purpose does this behavior serve? It is serving you somehow, like how? Figure that out and then, once you know the root cause, start building skills around them to address that cause with behaviors that serve you in many other ways long-term, instead of serving some purpose but then sabotaging your long-term efforts in some other area of your life. Right, a bit of water to keep my voice sharp. So what purpose is this behavior serving? Right now, you're overeating. Why is it there for? What is it trying to help you do? Figure that out and then figure out what skills you need to address that root cause.
Speaker 1For a lot of people, for a lot of my clients I worked with, emotional regulation. Stress management is a set of skills and it's also a set of skills that we worked through and then for them overe. I were to name one, it was business is exactly the same. I keep getting the insanity thing because I have underdeveloped skills to address the underlying cause of, let's say, low leads and sales. I do not have a good skill set developed there and so my business isn't stuck. I have skills to work on. I'm like blew my mind and it also empowered me and I wrote down a set of skills and I'm going to brainstorm solutions with AI and people smarter than myself who already achieved what I want to achieve, and I'm going to work on those skills. And then the result it's going to be an afterthought, it's going to be a side effect. It's kind of like if you figure out all the skills of balanced eating and recovery and emotional regulation and stress management, et cetera, being in the best shape of your life, it's going to be an afterthought, something that you're going to get as a side effect because of all of these skills Goals that you have are the skills that you haven't built yet. That's it, and that I find empowering, because once you learn all the skills that you got to develop and once you start working on those skills, that result you want and feels like a struggle it's going to become the easiest thing on earth.
Speaker 1So my homework to you is overeating. If you're struggling with that or any other area of your life where you keep doing the insanity thing, where you keep yourself stuck, ask yourself first, first. Well, I'm specifically talking about behavior what this behavior like overeating is serving, in what way it serves my life, my body, my brain, my mind, my emotions? What job is this behavior doing and how can I develop skills to deal with the root cause of this behavior? Like for emotional, for overeating, it might be, again, stress management under sleeping, not having good sleep hygiene practices and habits. It might be emotional regulation. It might be not eating a balanced diet and always trying to be on some diet or skipping meals. So we're doing all I don't know the crazy stuff that is not scientifically research-based. Like what is it? Figure out the lacking skill set.
Speaker 1If you're having troubles, then use the link in the show notes, sign up for our session and we're going to break down together what you're missing and how to build it in terms of skills to address the behavior that you don't want to keep in your life, and then work on those skills and you'll be blown away how easy the goal achieving the goal becomes. That's it for today, folks. I hope you found this inspiring and empowering and it gave you a couple of aha moments, and I want you, after this podcast, to A share it with another person who you're gonna work on. This Social learning is a very powerful concept. It's going to make sure that you're not just going to listen, but you actually do something about that and make your life better because of this right. So share this podcast episode with one person. Screenshot it, send the link to them to their favorite podcast platform in whichever way, or at least tell them about what you learned and work on things together.
Speaker 1Help yourself to break down the areas of stuckiness into skills that you don't have, and then, if you are working on your nutrition and healthy lifestyle with those skills, then do get in touch. There is a link in the show notes for our nutrition, deep nutrition and health coaching session. And 2025, just in a couple of weeks. What do you aspire to change and what skills do you need to make this happen? Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. From all over the world, say hello. Send me a fan mail. There is also a link somewhere in the show notes to do that. Have an awesome blousome week Always wanted to say that and keep working on skills and the results you want are going to be a pleasant side effect. Talk to you soon, have an awesome day and stay in the growth.