Ketones and Coffee Podcast with Lorenz
Ketones and Coffee Podcast with Lorenz
Episode 171: Andrea Caprio ON Empowering Wellness Through Mindful Eating and Overcoming Emotional Eating
In this episode of the ketogenic coffee podcast, host Coach Lorenz interviews Andrea Caprio, a master certified transformational coach specializing in weight loss and emotional eating. Andrea shares her personal health journey, highlighting her struggles with bloating, low energy, migraines, hormonal issues, and how a shift towards healthier eating and lifestyle changes significantly improved her well-being. She emphasizes the power of nutrition, sleep, stress management, and holistic health practices.
Discussing the common triggers of emotional eating such as stress, boredom, and other emotional states, Andrea offers strategies like mindful eating, journaling, understanding the root causes of cravings, and employing tiny habits for replacing unhealthy behaviors with positive ones. The conversation also covers the importance of sustainability in dietary habits and balancing health goals with enjoying life. Andrea encourages listeners to seek information and resources that support a holistic and mindful approach to eating and living. She also offers listeners access to her Food Freedom Foundation Workshop for further learning on achieving sustainable health changes.
00:00 Introduction to Emotional Eating with Andrea KPO
02:44 Andrea's Journey: From Personal Struggle to Professional Coach
05:02 The Power of Nutrition and Lifestyle Changes
07:15 Andrea's Holistic Approach to Health and Wellness
12:12 The Importance of Balance and Sustainability in Diet
18:55 Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Eating
27:51 Understanding the Impact of Stress and Gut Health on Eating Habits
29:12 Steps to Address Emotional Eating and Its Root Causes
31:43 Identifying and Managing Triggers for Emotional Eating
40:49 Practical Tips for Mindful Eating and Improving Digestion
46:06 Navigating Cravings and Building Healthy Habits
51:50 Connecting with Wellness Methods for Sustainable Lifestyle Changes
My gift:
Free Food Freedom Foundation Workshop:
3 steps to achieve permanent weight loss without falling off https://wellnessmethods.com/food-freedom-foundation-workshop/
1. How to build rock-solid habits for lasting weight loss without motivation
2. My proven way to end cravings despite a negative mindset
3. How to achieve effortless weight loss, despite being busy
Website: www.wellnessmethods.com
- Call to action for listeners: Follow ketones and Coffee Podcast on Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/keton.esncoffee ), Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsZZmBEenvZnU8tA1npAODA ),
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Hey guys, we've got a special episode here for you. This may interview with NGL KPO, a master certified transformational coach, specializing in weight loss and emotional eating. We discuss the common triggers of emotional eating, such as stress boredom and other emotional states. She encourages us to seek information and resources that support a holistic and mindful approach to eating and living. I can't wait for you guys to hear this. And without further ado, here's my interview with Andrea KPO.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:to a better health. So excited for this guy. Stick around today. We have a very Caprio is a renowned weight is a renowned weight loss and emotional eating coach as well as a master certified transformational https: otter. ai coach. Her focus is on helping business professionals conquer overeating using proven tools and lifestyle tips. Andrea is on a mission to empower individuals to reclaim their health and vitality, guiding them through personalized nutrition plans and empowering them to overcome emotional eating patterns. Her unique approach combines cutting edge nutritional science with With holistic wellness practices, ensuring her clients achieve long lasting results, Andrea Caprio, welcome to the ketogenic coffee podcast.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:Hey, Lawrence and everybody. Thanks for having me here. I'm super excited to be here. Let's do this.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Let's do this. I'm so excited to have you on, you know, I love your energy As you just we were talking before we went live and I I can see that that energy that passion comes from somewhere that's Really deep and I I know that this is something that you love talking about so much Thank you for for joining us today. You know so happy that we Cross paths because I love what you're doing. I love your message the message of how can we free ourselves from that? Yo yo trap, right? I love this because you gained all these wealth of knowledge through just trial and error Looking at your story mostly going through yourself almost, you know Everyone that I had on, on this podcast was a yo yo dieter, you know, trapped in their own ways, right? I'm not an exception, we talked about this. I too struggled with it for years, especially since you talk a lot about how to curb our cravings. So, would love to go deeper in these topics. So, Andrea I love it when health experts talk about personal experiences. And their own health journey, you've went through major health struggles and tried many different approaches for many, many years, not just for weight loss, but also just for, you know, healthy to be healthy in general. Can you take us back to that moment when you realized that your lifestyle habits or maybe emotional eating, as we call it, are negatively impacting your well being? And Now you wanted to make that change. When was that moment? And can you tell us that story? Mm-Hmm.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So, yes, I, I, I believe like many in, in this field have their own journey and, you know, I'm no exception to the rule here. So I had probably around like 10 years or something like that. And even before that, obviously building up to that, but 10 years ago, nine, 10 years ago, I had kind of this. epiphany that maybe I've been eating a little bit too much sugar or too much unhealthy things, right? And that is basically came at a time where previously, I have been suffering for many, many years on various little things that became bigger things, right? So initially you don't really notice it, right? So for example, for me, it was, I was feeling bloated all the time, right? Like every day, all the time. And I kind of thought it's normal, right? Everybody has it because, you know, for me it was just something. I have it, right? I had a little bit overweight. Not too much, I must say. I mean, weight was, you know, I, I had a few kilos to lose, obviously. But the, the things that really affected me a lot were very low energy all the time, like brain fog and things like that. So I was always feeling tired. I had migraines and they were on a frequency of roughly weekly, so weekly migraines that were quite high. As anybody who has migraines can understand is obviously really not great. And then eventually I, I had hormonal issues. So I had several times over several years fibroids that grew and they had to be removed. And each time I went to see a doctor, a gynecologist, they said, Oh, you have to do a hysterectomy. And I always opposed myself to that. And but, you know, they had to, to be removed and, Then I had acne as well as an adult, right? And, you know, a lot of things. There were just a lot, a lot of different things. And the kind of initially I thought, you know, They're normal, like the acne is normal or whatever, and they had nothing to do with each other. And, as I mentioned, sort of 10 years ago, roughly, I came across a way of eating healthy. Right? It happened, I have even no idea how it happened. I must have, you know, read something online or something like that. And I did a three weeks detox. And after that detox, or even during the detox, My health literally improved and it happened almost like no not overnight, but within a few days in a few weeks That gradually my energy improved my weight dropped. I had no bloating anymore My skin cleared up. I was feeling obviously much better and further on from weekly migraines Now I have like one week three or four times a year only migraines and I never had any hormonal issues anywhere after even now I'm, you know, on menopause and, you know, I had no menopausal symptoms and I know all my friends do. So, you know, I really changed my lifestyle, obviously, as well. It's not only nutrition, but it started definitely with the nutrition and then, you know, I cleaned up my lifestyle as I went. But when that happened, I had realized a little bit before that I was eating too much sugar. And I thought I was eating sort of healthy because you know we were eating vegetables and you know I'm from Europe in general in Europe one eats a little bit better, right? Not always but in general so, you know, there were it was not all bad But there was a little bit of sugar here in in the coffee Then there were cookies then there was more tea with sugar, etc, etc, and it built up I don't remember how it was, but I calculated it all together and it was something like I don't know You 10, 20 grams of sugar or something that came. No, it was more actually than that. Sorry. No, that was more 50 gram or something over that sugar, you know, it kind of added up all together. And then also, you know, there were a few other things, I mean, you know, partying, so a few drinks too many and this and that. So it just added up, right. And when I really changed that and my health improved, I realized the power of nutrition and also the lives. sleep and stress management and all that, that came a little bit later. So, and at the time I was, I just had moved to Miami and we were before living in South Africa and realizing how bad people lived in the States how unhealthy they were. Lots of people were overweight and, you know, I just, it really came down. as a shock to me. And as it is, I must have googled something. And suddenly I got a Facebook ad of a nutrition school. And I said, Oh, I was kind of at a crossroad. I said, Oh, that's interesting. I want to help other people, you know, to achieve the same as I had. And so I searched 60 different nutrition schools after looking for the best one. I wanted a holistic approach. I wanted really something that's based on science, but the holistic you know, like emotional, psychological, spiritual health as well, incorporating all that. And also, later when I, so I did that school first, I did my first certification, and then I did the master and I specialized in gut health and
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Mm.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:hormonal health, autoimmune diseases, weight loss, emotional eating, diabetes, and some other things, cancer as well, to get a really deeper understanding how to help people at the time. Deeper level. So it's a kind of functional level that I'm working on. So, yeah, that's has happened like eight years ago or so. And since that I've helped hundreds and hundreds of people overcome mostly their weight loss or their weight issues, right. Achieve permanent weight loss. That's what for me is important instead of your dieting, overcome emotional eating cravings. And of course, with that address their health issues that had developed. related to it.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:That's that's a really interesting story because coming from, you know, just eating a, you talked about it, you know, in Europe, they think of Europeans as healthier than most Americans, right? But you, I really don't know that, you know, sugar is adding up if you don't track, you know, when you eat sugar. You know, and people actually really don't know where sugar are coming from, right? We are We think that, you know, sugar comes from sweet things, right? Now, we are aware that sugar can come from bread, from processed foods, right? And just having that knowledge is really important when we were talking about sugar and what sugar is. Really interesting because When you talk about when you change your lifestyle, you didn't just talk about nutrition. You also talked about lifestyle. I want to dig deeper into that. And You seem like you have this great intuition with what's really going on with your body because you didn't just focus on one thing. You didn't just focus on diet alone, right? Some people would just you know, pinpoint what's going on in their body and have that one intuition. One culprit, which is diet, right? But I am a believer of holistic health as well. And looking into lifestyle, sleep, you know, we talk about the four pillars of health, right? Sleep, stress diet are, are one of the biggest culprits of if we're, if we didn't have all four foundations foundations. Your health can go in a different direction. Thank you so much for sharing that. And as also somebody who, you know, have yo yo diet in the past, it's really mind boggling to say that, you know, it's, you know, our life can be a cycle. Sometimes, you know, we talk about life as a wheel. Sometimes, sometimes you're really motivated. And sometimes you're, you have that motivation to work out, to lose weight, go on diets. And then life can come to you real quick and, you know, stress at work. You know, something happens in life that Can really give us a lot of stress and I appreciate that you look at all areas of life Lifestyle itself and what can you do to reduce stress to improve sleep to improve nutrition, right? so I want to talk about that in depth and Also, I want to ask you first When you finally made that change, what do you think was the difference there? In that moment that made you say, Hey, I'm going to look into this. I'm going to finally change my, not just my diet, but my lifestyle. What do you think that is in that moment?
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So, I, okay, for me at the time, I think there are a couple of things that had happened in my life. I mean, I, I have two children, they're now adult, so, but at the time they're, they're They actually were almost adults, I must say, but, you know, when you have that, you're still they were young adults so you still want to be a good role model and I still today I want to be that. So I know that has always in my life as through various ways. Also, you know, I had a That was earlier, actually, a particular time where I really looked after myself, practice self care, right? Because that was one of the big things as well. And you mentioned the four pillars. There are, I believe, a little bit more than four pillars that are really important. And for example, self care is, or self love is, is definitely that as well, or goes into that field as well. So, you know, looking after myself. It's also probably at that time was a defining moment that You know, I'm not getting younger and you realize, you know, when you see like your parents getting older or maybe even friends around you or so having various health issues, you know, I just want to do the best I can do. And with my husband, we are at home. We are really trying to Trying to do the best we can, you know, we work out we, we make sure we get sleep. Stress is always a little bit my, my thing where I have to be careful. I get easily stressed. So I have definitely to be very mindful and it's definitely an ongoing work. I mean, my nutrition is really worked out. Now, the one thing I want, however, to say is I am not eating only healthy. Right. So I personally believe, and I must say that depends a little bit on where everybody is. And like when I work with my clients, that depends on my client as well, because some clients need to abstain completely from sugar. Otherwise, if they have a complete sugar addiction, for example, it's like. You know, when you have drug addiction or whatever you know, you might need to abstain. So I just want to say that very clearly, but for me is like 80 or 90 percent of the time. I really eat healthy, clean food, very well balanced. I'm very much paying attention to a macro balance and obviously clean, you know, holistic. Hold some food. But I have like, you know, we have a cheat day on Saturday. We're there. Yes, we have the occasion pizza. We have occasionally maybe an ice cream even or so. But we make sure that it still falls under the healthy thing. So maybe we have a gluten free pizza, right? Or, you know, whatever it is. So we're still trying as much as possible. That is for me something where I say, you know, there are certain things in my life Still, I enjoy them and my body, if I have small amounts of them is okay with it. But I cannot have too much of it. Right. So it's all about balance because after all, and that's maybe also one pillar is, you know, the fun in life and the social part, like social connections. And I know during the pandemic and I'm jumping a little bit here, but during the pandemic, I think that was one of the biggest issues of, you know, For many people is that didn't have the usual social connections anymore. Right. And then of course you go, because then you go into the other extreme, right? It's a little bit, and that's the problem with this whole, you're, you're dieting. Like so many people go on very strict diets, right. And if they're happy with it, like, you know, if somebody goes on a keto diet and they're happy with it all fine. Right. But if they're not happy with it and it's a struggle. then eventually somebody will fall off the wagon and go the other way and I don't believe that is the right way to do.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:It's important that you mentioned that because you know, I had many many experience about you know friends and family going on diets and they would go on these very strict diets and Go on it for maybe 30 days and they may see results But because I, I, I, I tell them, don't, your body and your mind gets traumatized from an experience and going on diets is an experience. And when your mind experience a, you know, some may say that going on some strict diet of chicken breast and broccoli may cause some trauma. And so we we view diets as. Very restrictive. We view diets as very how, as you may call it hard to go on because of their past experiences with dieting, right? When, when they go on very strict diets. And so I feel like going on very strict diets without really researching and learning about what's good for you, nutritional wise, and you talked about a good, a very good piece about sustainability. And if. If it makes it sustainable for you to go on an off plan meal or a cheat day, then if you're 80%, 90 percent eating clean, then you're still going to be coming out ahead, right? Your body's still going to be healthy because you're 80%, 90% eating healthy, right? As opposed to eating the standard American diet every single day. Right. Which is a very good piece because people forget that sustainability is key for me, for me, it's key. I always talk about, you know, I don't really recommend, you know, a short term diet, we can all lose the weight. But if it's not sustainable, right? What good does it do to our body? Your mind should think about how can I make this lifestyle a long term lifestyle, as opposed to, Hey, I want to lose weight now. I want to be able to, you know, go on, you know, this next three months losing 20 plus pounds. And then once I reach that weight goal. Then what now? Right? What comes next? Then winter comes along. Boredom comes along. And when you slip up once, and, you know, winter comes along there's winter blues. Next thing you know, you've gained the 20 pounds back. And we're now emotional. We're now doubtful of ourselves. And I wanna jump here and talk about emotional eating. I want to set aside diets for now and focus on what's actually getting us into this yo yo cycle, you know, I'll talk to you about when we're sad, when we're lonely and depressed, we turn to food for comfort, whether we consciously do it or unconsciously do this. We build this unhealthy relationship with food, right? Where, wherever we feel these emotions coming up, now we associate food with happiness, which is another piece to this puzzle because food sometimes, you know, we. We use this as to comfort ourselves. But the problem is whenever we do this, it gets harder and harder to break. So when you're in this loop of unhealthy yo yo yo yoing, right, trying to find the solution, why does, why doesn't diet work and we blame ourselves. It's just a messy situation. So Andrea, instead of looking at these diets, not working for us. We got right to the root cause of the problem. It's the trap that we built to help us cope with stress. The eating we subscribe to when we are sad in the press. You talked about this in depth in your YouTube channel and social media channels for our listeners, right? How do we finally break out of this trap we put ourselves in to finally lose the weight and keep it off?
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:That's a really, really great question, I must say, Lawrence. So, it's a long answer though. Let me try and cut it down a little bit in, in bits and pieces here. So first of all the, the first thing is always for me, always, always, always is awareness, right? Being aware that you have an issue. I don't want to call it a problem. Might be a problem. Whatever you want to call it. But that there is something. That basically being aware that you are not eating because of Eating, right? Basically, eating of food rather, the, the, the job of food is to nourish our body, right? Provide us with macro and micronutrients. That basically is the, the job of food, right? There are a few other things as well there, but let's just stick to the basics here. So, if we use food for anything, then basically satiate our hunger and give us those nutrients, then it is a form of emotional eating. It can be because of sadness, happiness, whatever it is, right? Stress doesn't matter really. So being aware of whenever you eat, is that because you are physically hungry or is it because you are emotionally or spiritually hungry, right? And that's the first. thing that you need to find out. Now, I, for example, with my clients, I have a really very simple tool, a table of all kinds of characteristics, sorry, of emotional eating and of physical hunger. So, for example when we have when the hunger comes on slowly and our stomach starts like growling, right? And we are really hungry for anything, that is most likely to be physical hunger. But if we come if the hunger comes very sudden like this, Pang! It's there, right? And it's like, you know, additionally maybe we're a little bit tired or something like that and we want a certain food to comfort us. then it's most likely to be emotional eating. There are obviously a few other things I can't go through everything now because obviously it takes training, it takes time, but it's just by being aware of these these differences because then once we know it, we can actually Take a decision. Do we want to feed the let's assume it's emotional hunger. Do we want to feed that emotional hunger? Or do we want to find out how we can address our emotions, whatever they are in a healthier way in a different way than with food, because we know obviously, the conscious level, not always on the subconscious level, but we know that it will not solve the problem, right? So if we eat emotionally, because we are stressed or sad, or so, yes, it will give us a short relief of something. But usually we feel worse after because either we've overeaten, and then obviously, we feel worse, or we feel guilty. Or we just you know, get a little high and then it drops down. That happens especially when, for example, it is in conjunction with our blood sugar spikes, right? That's, by the way, why sugar, sugar and other forms of refined carbohydrates affect our blood sugar, our energy so much. And that's why often we then go up and down in the blood sugar and eat and eat and eat. So it goes up, we are happy, and then it crashes down. And so on. So we have to look at this as well. So we can just kind of find out and then decide accordingly, right? Do we do something different or are we really hungry? And then we go and eat something. So that's the first thing that I would really say is super important to look at it. And then we want to look at the root cause as well. And so that's one of the things that I, I'm really passionate about with everything I do with my clients, obviously, not only addressing eating, but also health issues or so. But speaking of emotional eating, you mentioned it a little bit earlier already, Lawrence that You know, we have we react to stress or an emotion or something like that. And very often that is actually has started in our childhood, right? So very often in our childhood. We had situations where food solved the problem, right? And it might have at the time. Absolutely. So for example, to give you an idea, I don't know. Yeah, you're pretty young. Maybe nowadays they don't do it, but when I was young, you went to the dentist and at the end of the dentist, they gave you a sweetie or, you know, a lollipop or something like that. I don't know if it's still dentists do that today, but anyway, so, you know, it's like, I mean, if you look at it, it's. It's completely stupid, basically, you know, you eat this lollipop just to go back straight to the dentist because you have holds of that, but they basically give you that because you had pain and you know, the sweetie makes the pain better. So if you think of it, there are plenty of other moments in lives of children and obviously also adults, but especially children, where, you know, sometimes, for example, I had a client there, you know, when they were a child, the parents came home, they were tired, they put the child in front of TV with a bag of chips, because the parents just needed a break, you know, they wanted some time off or so, and the child thought the parents don't love them, right? And The bag of chips is the love. So whenever they feel maybe tired or after work or they're down or so, they will go obviously to the bag of chips, because for them that's the, the comfort, the love and so on. So we have basically to look at the root cause of where does it come from. Now this is not something that happens overnight, right? That's normally the work I do with my clients to help them find that. And again, being aware, we can then reverse those, limiting or false beliefs we picked up during that time. Because when that happened, like in the instance of the child with a bag of chips, they said, Oh, nobody loves me. Because the parents were maybe not available or so. The parents loved them. There was nothing wrong with the parents, right? But the child kind of said, Oh, my parents don't love me. They don't spend time with me and whatever. I'm not worthy. And then we develop those patterns in life. I'm not worthy. I'm not lovable. I'm not able to achieve my goals. Or whatever it is, right? And we keep that during our lives. Throughout and and that holds us back obviously in several areas, but this leads often to emotional eating right to a reaction, and it could be also leading to alcohol or drug use or so. But you know, food is just a available. That's why so many people struggle with us. And then we go in there and, and that's where, then, you know, we address, so we address, like I said, we are aware we address the root cause. Positive, and then we start repla repairing the root cause, of course, working on it because, By that time, often we have also developed maybe some physical root causes because we have eaten unhealthy over many years and maybe abused our body a little bit, we have then maybe developed some hormone imbalances or, you know, our adrenals because of stress are always on overdrive. So our adrenals are fatigued or our gut health has been compromised or our liver health or so. So we need to address all these because this will also influence our health. Eating response, because, for example speaking of hormones, what I mentioned earlier is that let's say, for example, somebody is stressed the adrenals you know, are are part of our endocrine system. And this can, for example, affect our hunger and satiety hormones, ghrelin and leptin, respectively. And when we are overly stressed, and maybe you have some thyroid issues or so that all plays a role together, and then our hunger and satiety Hormones are not working. And that's when we overeat, for example, right? So these are all filling in. Our gut health plays a huge role as well. So if we eat really unhealthy, a lot of sugar, we feed our bad gut bacteria. I don't know if you and the listeners know, but we are about 90 percent of our serotonin is actually produced in the gut.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Mm
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:Now, when our gut health is compromised, this will affect our serotonin levels. And this, of course, will affect all our, you know, happiness and our relaxed thing, which then feeds back into the emotional eating, right? So it becomes a complete vicious cycle.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:yeah. So, I feel like I feel like this are steps into making a change, right? So we start with identifying and being aware, which is the most important thing because if you are not aware, it seems like you are unable to address what's going on, right? Right. It's, it starts with acceptance, I believe, and accepting that you do have an issue with emotional eating, or you have an issue with coping mechanisms. And so, identifying, you talked about this earlier, identifying between the physical hunger and emotional hunger. And being aware of that is critical because if you are feeding yourself because of emotions because of your triggers that triggers your emotional eating, then you know that you do have a problem. You now you're aware. And now your next step is to get to the root cause. Okay. What's the root cause of me? What's the underlying issue for my emotions? And as you go through that, there's another layer there, which is now understanding gut health and, and hormones and addressing that issue. Okay. Because we talked about if you don't, it just becomes this cycle, right? If you, if you don't
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:yeah.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:figure out what's causing you to have gut issues, which actually plays in a bigger role into all of this because now diet is important. We talked about that. Stress and emotions, stress which triggers emotions are actually a big part of that as well. And so just knowing, just knowing, I think leads to taking action and taking change, right? Now we, we we, we know that identify what, what is, what are the triggers, right? What are the triggers that causes me to yo yo dieting, to yo yo diet and go into this vicious cycle? For you what has, what in your experience, what has been the common triggers for emotional eating? Now, I want them to be able to identify this in themselves because I believe that that's the first step. And you talked about this is to identify emotional hunger. So what are those triggers? And what, what are the common symptoms of someone who is going into emotional eating.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:Okay, great question. So the triggers it literally depends, right? But what I'm seeing a lot is so first of all, a trigger, specific trigger is very often fatigued. you know, just being tired. And that's again, going back to the blood sugar is when your blood sugar goes down, that might play a role. So you might want to check on on these things. So that's the one thing stress, as we mentioned earlier, or several times actually plays a huge role. And that, you know, usually can be the stress trigger itself, right? It could be each time your boss calls or each time, you know, you have a fight with your husband or, you know, whatever is happening in your life. So it would be a
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Everything is thrown out the window.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:yeah, so it's a specific trigger. It can be maybe some trauma, you know, your child is sick or, you know, whatever it is. So, so fatigue boredom as well is a lot. I see that a lot actually. And it's sort of a, I believe it's almost more of the, the root cause of that is very often almost more like a missing purpose in life. I see that often with Yeah. Not exclusively, but often with people maybe you know, the kids have moved out of, of the house or maybe that they changed jobs and the job is, or they, they even stopped working or whatever it is, right. So, can be really boredom is a lot. Some people is obviously it can be happiness as well. So happy occasions like you know, going out with friends or wedding, you know, things like that, which obviously don't happen every day usually, but you know, they can be as well. So it's, it, it really depends on the person. It can of course be sadness feeling lonely or so these things as well. A lot of people are. anxious or depressed and that plays a huge role. And I think that's one of the, um, reasons that are definitely up coming more and more. You see that more especially going back again since the pandemic and just, you know, with life going faster and faster and all this, we're just bombarded with everything. So it's definitely something to be aware of. So that's in terms of the triggers and then What people can do about it, it depends a little bit now, of course, right? So it depends a little bit on the trigger, but the first step, I mean, besides what we discussed, like being aware or so, what I would suggest is one, one really great tool is to have a little journal with your, use your phone or whatever it is, and write it down over maybe a week, You know, write down really whenever you eat or especially whenever you eat unplanned, right? So outside of the normal mealtimes or so, and write down how you feel, you know, if you're tired or so, and what happened before is important. Is there any circumstances and how you feel after as well? And you will pick up when you do that over a couple of days, you will pick up some patterns, right? And you will say, Oh, it's every day at four o'clock, right? Or each time I come home and my kids bother me, you know, whatever it is, right? So you, you will find that. And then, you know, again, you can go back and then address that. I thought that you need help maybe, or you want maybe to do some other ways to to overcome this because depending on what the trigger is, then you can start working. So if it is, for example, stress, maybe you need to do more meditation or just, you know, a couple of deep breaths will actually kind of ground you. That's all that's needed sometimes, or maybe just going for a walk. If you're bored, right, if it's boredom eating, then maybe you want to take up a hobby or, you know, just. Just make sure that, you know, you keep yourself maybe at those times busy with something that's obviously healthy. Read a book or, you know, whatever it could be. If it's a stressor in your life, you might need to address that. One, you can obviously choose how to react to it. And you can choose not to eat, right, and do something else. But you might also need to address that stress itself, especially if it's something regularly, right? And of course, if it's, you know, anxiety, depression, or something like that, yes, you will obviously you need to deal with that and find other ways to overcome it, because in the end, Eating unhealthy makes it only worse. I mean, that is the one thing I can guarantee you. When you are at that stage and you additionally eat emotionally, it's just making things worse because it will affect your hormones, your neurotransmitters, et cetera, et cetera. And that will just make matters worse. So you definitely want them to start working with a therapist, with a nutrition coach or, you know, your kind of People who help you there and try and eat as healthy as possible, which I know is not always easy, right? That's why we need help
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Mm hmm. I love how you point out that it's not always easy. It can be a simple change of, you know, maybe eliminating one thing at a time. Okay. If we're having too many sugar, maybe we should cut down, we should cut down on, on sugar. And I feel like it, we, and then we talked about awareness already. And I feel like it's it requires a lot of mindfulness at the end of the day and being mindful that also knowing that causes harm to the body. Because we may fall into a trap of, hey, you know, it's one bag of chip, one bag of chip wouldn't help, wouldn't hurt me. I'm not going to deprive myself of a bag of chip. And I feel like when we fall into that trap, and we talk about this cycle, and we do, when you do have that promise to yourself, that, hey, I'm going to finally start working out, I'm going to finally start eating healthy. But then that one day comes along and you fall into a trap of, Hey, I'm just going to have one bag of chip and fall into the trap that, and so much guilt comes from that. And you don't know all these emotions that gets triggered because you've had that one bag of chip, right? And that comes from not being aware of not being mindful of the harm that it does to you. And I feel like having like mindfulness techniques, mindfulness practices will help because it can make you. Aware in that moment. Okay, this happened before. I know this is a some side of some sort of cycle. I'm emotional right now. And for you to be aware in that moment of weakness, especially. Allows or requires, sorry, it requires a lot of awareness.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:Sure.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Any mindfulness practices or exercises that you've particularly been helpful with clients? I know not a lot of people subscribe to meditation, right? Not a lot of people subscribe. You mentioned journaling is what one key piece to being aware.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:How, how does that help your clients?
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So sorry. So, so first of all meditation, I really wish that meditation gets a better name or vibe or so because so many people, I don't know about you, if you meditate, I meditate for, I don't know, decade more than that, much more than that every day with Very few exceptions. And I enjoy meditation and I really go through different meditations all the time. And people think, oh, they need to sit one hour and whatever. You can do a walking meditation, right? You can do a meditation while you shower or, you know, just sit there or whatever. Meditation can be as long as one minute. It can be a breathing meditation. It can be a fun meditation, whatever it is. So there's so many different ways. So I believe. You know, it's about finding the right meditation for you, but Fine, not everybody is into that. I know some people struggle with journaling. I struggle as well. I do journal, but it, I needed to find the right way. But speaking about mindfulness, I really love mindful eating or practicing mindful eating. And that's what I teach my clients and it really works well. And literally you can do it. can lose weight by mindful by learning how to eat mindfully. And it's literally requires only that you So you sit there when you eat and you are in the present mindfulness for me means just being in the present right not being on your phone right while you eat, or, you know, watching TV, or even sometimes it depends but sometimes even engaging in a lot of discussions might take away the focus from eating. So you might to decide to, to eat quietly, right? Some, sometimes I know some families do that for five minutes, they eat quietly. But basically it is about, So the mindful eating starts before the eating, right? It starts with shopping or even thinking about what you're gonna cook, right? Shopping, then the cooking, right? Because what happens is actually while we cook, Already our juices, our digestive juices in our mouth start flowing, and we start developing enzymes. And that helps us with digestion. And it also sends signals to our stomach, Hey, food is coming. So we have also the stomach acid is raising, the enzymes are developing, etc., etc. And that prepares for a better digestion. Which means, when we digest better, we absorb more nutrients. When we absorb more nutrients, our body needs less food. Because very often what happens, and it's a very important thing, I think, to understand is, if we eat all fast, fast, fast, the body doesn't have time, one, to kick on the hunger cues or the satiety cues more and we eat often more. But also, when we eat too fast, As I just mentioned, you know, our digestive system is not ready and cannot take all that food and the nutrients are just not there. And our body will ask our brain or give me more food because it needs more nutrients. By the way, also often, if our digestive system has been compromised, that might be an issue actually. And that's why we are overeating. Can be. But to go back to the mindful eating. So we want to start really with preparing our mind and our body for the eating. So cooking has its role really. And then the next step would be to set your table. Right? Maybe a nice plate, nice decoration, whatever, flowers, candles, whatever it is, right? But really make the food look nice because, you know, it helps. And then when you eat, be aware of what you're eating. So take the food in your hands. I mean, don't do it in a five star restaurant, but, you know, when you're at home, take it and actually feel how it is, right? So, I mean, you might not want to do that with every food, but, you know, let's say you have a strawberry or raspberry. Something like that. You can feel how it's different from maybe nuts or, you know, whatever. And then you do the same, you know, you smell the food before you put it in your mouth. And then when you have it in your mouth, really, you know, swivel it around. Try to taste the different tastes of the food. The consistencies as you chew. The taste might change as well. I don't know if you've noticed that, but sometimes initially something might be sour and then it develops to sweet or whatever it is, right? So it changes as well. So becoming more aware of what you do and then chew, obviously, enough. That's important for your digestion. And then, you know, just be mindful in, in what you eat, also the portion sizes and things like that.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Those are great tips you know, I'm s I'm sure, guys, these are tips that can help you really really be mindful of what you're eating. I love that you said that. Now, cause now kids nowadays, you know, they They look for their iPads or they watch YouTube videos while eating, right? And we're, we get so used to that and now we're not even sitting down at the table anymore, right? We, we are, we are, we are parents because they're so busy on their phone while they're eating, right? And that's really hard to do nowadays. And, and love that you talked about this in depth because. There, there is a negative effect to that if you're not mindful, mindfully eating and you're not appreciating the food in front of you. You talked about a very good piece where you're not gonna be digesting that food and absorb everything if you're, if you're not mindful of what you're eating, right, which is one of you wanna be able to absorb. all the nutrients that you need, right? To be able to fire, fire off those hunger cues, hunger hormones properly, right? Really, really, I hope you guys are taking notes. Those are the things that are really valuable here and what we're talking today, talking about today. I know we have a little bit of time here. I want to get to ask you about cravings. Which you've talked so much you, you talked about really religiously on your socials on your YouTube channel. How do we how do we now manage cravings, right? Because cravings, you know, it's, it's almost a weekend now. I'm sure we have plans for the weekend, right? And how do we manage cravings without derailing us to the ultimate goal to be just healthy long term, you know, we talked about just, you know, going on an off plan meal, maybe a cheat day once a week, if that makes it a sustainable lifestyle for you, but what's stopping a lot of people is. That one day turns into a week and that all starts with a craving, right? What's, how do we manage cravings and how do we manage this lifestyle and navigate a lifestyle if we want to live a healthy lifestyle?
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So I, I had recently a client who said to me, Oh, she, she had just started with me and she, she said, Oh, but I'm eating, I don't know, some kind of horribly sounding chocolate thing, you know, one way, you know, it's sugar laden and it's, it's like super unhealthy. Right. And she says, Oh, I have that in the afternoon, but I don't have cravings. And I just. Right. Obviously, I mean, we, we know that unfortunately, you know, by the food industry that put, I don't know, whatever, I mean, already the sugar, obviously they're put in plus all the other things that make us crave, right. So the food industry is unfortunately not very helpful in there that there's so much. So one is of course, by, by reducing the. What makes you crave? And that's difficult, of course, right? So, to go back, some people might do better with abstinence, at least for a while. Because if we continue eating it we continue craving it, right? If we stop eventually, we will also crave it less or not at all. Right. And it's just how our, you know, it's with everything, no matter if, you know, maybe cigarettes or, you know, other things or so eventually we are, but the trick here is to find something that replaces the, the substance we are craving with something else.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Mm.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So we obviously addressed already about the awareness and emotional eating and all that. So taking that aside, is that we need to replace that because craving is, we are craving repetitively, because it goes into our dopamine. right, our dopamine receptors. When we crave something and we eat it, let's say it's that chocolate or whatever, our dopamine receptors get that kick, right? That dopamine kick and we feel great,
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:hmm. Mm hmm.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So we continue craving whatever the chocolate or whatever it is, right? Because we are, in fact, we want that dopamine kick because we love it.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:Mm
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:We get the same from, you know, maybe from dancing or from being on our phones or whatever. So we need to replace that. So what I do is I have a really great system that I learned from a wonderful book called Tiny Habits. And so it's the tiny habits that I help implement my clients and I obviously use it myself too. And it's really great. So basically what you do is you start to have a trigger. So whatever that trigger is that makes you normally eat something unhealthy. And you can use that for replacement habits or for new habits as well. So you have that habit. You then replace, let's say, the chocolate with something healthy. So it might just be that it's a glass of water. Because by the way, sometimes we are actually just thirsty and we think we are hungry and we crave that food, right? So just drinking that water or maybe going on a two minutes walk. So for a very short time, find something else to do than eating that chocolate. And then, the very important part is to celebrate. So it could be yay, or a happy dance, or a high five, or you know, whatever it is. Now, the trigger, the new habit, and the celebration are part of these tiny habits, and it must go all together. You need all the three of them, so don't skip on any of them. The celebration, and that's why we get into the dopamine, the celebration gives us that dopamine kick. that replaces the dopamine kick we got from the chocolate before. And eventually, we will crave the habit that gives us that dopamine kick. So if it's the glass of water, we will crave to drink a glass of water instead of chocolate.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:hmm. Mm
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:That's worth a lot what I shared with you guys here. I hope you all write it down. You might to re listen, want to re listen, because if you got that, you can overcome any issues. And you can learn specially also all kind of new healthy habits, because in the end then a healthy habit becomes a habit that you can rely on, not anymore using willpower. Hehe.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:much for sharing that really important tip for us. I'm sure I'm gonna re listen to this and, and so, so I'll make sure I don't miss anything. I have, I have everything here. I'm glad that we can just take all this transcript and put it, put it in in, in, in a few words here. So thank you so much. I know we are almost over time here, but I want to be able to get our listeners to connect with you. Where can people find you? Where can people connect with you?
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:So I I'm all over social media. My handle is wellness methods wellness methods. I'm sure you share that in the notes here, podcast notes. And so on Instagram, on Facebook. I have even a group and my website is also wellnessmethods. com. And then I have also for your listeners, I have a really great gift that I bring to the party here. It's my food freedom foundation workshop. I, I'm sure you can share the link. Otherwise you find it also right on the top of the page on my homepage on my website. And that's a workshop where actually I teach you those healthy habits. I mentioned, I teach you also how to change your mindset from this negative, or I can't achieve it to a positive one. And the pillars really on achieving food freedom and implementing healthy habits and goals. Keeping them. So, you know, not only like a quick diet, but really achieving a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:I love that. I love that. Thank you guys again so much Andrea for coming on here. Preaching sustainable lifestyle, you know, I'm all about sustainability and all about lifestyle. Thank you again so much. I appreciate you coming on here. Guys, if you, if you want to connect with Andrea here link is in the description box below. So you guys can check that out guys. So thank you guys. Thank you again, Andrea, for sharing your story here with us.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:Thank you, Lawrence, for having me and thanks everybody for listening. And if you have any questions or so just you know, contact me on one of those things I just shared on the channels,
squadcaster-fgc8_1_04-19-2024_090334:All right. bye.
squadcaster-h6g5_1_04-19-2024_150334:bye.
