136 Regretting What You Ate

How often do you regret what you eat? Like eating that leftover easter chocolate. It wasn’t even good quality.

Oftentimes we eat really healthy food but regret the amount of food we ate. We look down and the whole bag is empty. The whole sleeve of crackers is gone. How did that happen? 

Regret can be one of our most powerful emotional reminders that reflection, change and growth are available and necessary. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

• 5 Self Coaching Questions to answer if you’re experiencing regret

• Instagram: @mindful_shape
• Free Self Coaching Resources
• Interested in getting coached by me? Go to my website mindfulshape.com

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, please forgive any weirdness.

Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. My name is Paula Parker, and I am a certified coach specializing in food and body. So if we were having coffee together and I said, do you have any regrets? What might you say? Here's what I would say, everything and nothing. The minute I published this podcast, I think, Ugh, I regret that I should have said this or that, or I forgot this thing.

I messed up here. Burn it all down like every time. I regret not doing things I should have done years ago that if I had done them, I would've, you know, I would be benefiting now if I had done them. I regret things I said that were maybe thoughtless or insensitive or where I may have overstepped. I regret this one time when I was out living in Vancouver and there I saw this girl who was obviously inebriated and I didn't help her.

I just kept walking with my friends. I regret where I've been reserved or timid, and it's just as true that I also regret nothing because why I'm here now. Okay. I've gotta focus on where I am now and move forward. Like there's no point in spending all this time in regret. Right? How often do you regret what you eat?

You really regret eating the leftover Easter candy or Easter chocolate wasn't even that good. It wasn't good quality or you regret what you drank. You really didn't need that second or third glass of wine. Often we eat really healthy food, but regret the amount of food we ate. We look down and the whole bag is empty.

The whole sleeve of crackers is gone. How did this happen? We know we've overdone it because our bodies tell us we feel puffy. Bloated, heavy, sluggish, and oftentimes even like physically uncomfortable. We have instant regret. The thought is, I shouldn't have done that. I wish I hadn't done that. We regret it, or sometimes we regret it even though we haven't over eaten, but we've just eaten off our plan.

We've eaten in a way that is not consistent with really how we wanna show up with food or what we've said we would do, or a way that's conducive to releasing weight. Like say you said, okay, I, I wanna do a fast for a certain amount of hours, and then you can't stick with it, and then we regret it.

Something that comes up a lot with the women I work with is after finally figuring this out with the whole food and body stuff, releasing the weight and feeling like they're the ones in charge with food, that they can make decisions that they feel really good about. They regret a lifetime of.

Struggling with it. Those missed years in which they didn't maybe participate in life, how they might have wanted, or they spent so much time and energy and money, you know that now they're telling theirselves I wasted on food, on trying to change their bodies that wasn't spent on more meaningful things, cultivating hobbies, interests, maybe traveling.

In Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart book, it says that research tells us that in the short term we tend to regret bad outcomes where we took action. However, when we reflect back over the longer term, what we didn't do, and we think of those as missed opportunities, that's where we have regret. Even if you're an exceptional planner and you've mapped out exactly how you're going to eat or how you're gonna handle it, when you get offered something, say you get offered dessert or cake or whatever, you won't be perfect every day.

That's okay, because when you take a misstep, you can learn from it. You can grow, you can change. Regret can be one of the most powerful emotional reminders that, you know, reflection, change, and growth. Are not only available, but also necessary. So it plays a role. It's not something you wanna avoid or go into self-blame or disappointment with ourselves.

That's not what I'm talking about here. Regret is I did the thing and I wish I didn't do it. Okay. I should have done something differently. Sometimes something will be easy to brush off, like you'll regret it, but think, ah, it's not that big of a deal, and you'll get right back on track. That's mild regret.

Other times it takes you down. The regret is deep. We can feel very disconnected from ourselves. Now the way out of all of this is going to be compassion and curiosity, or both. I did an episode recently on self-compassion. So if you haven't already after this episode, go back and listen to number 1 27, Self-Compassion.

And today I wanna focus on curiosity and share with you five self-coaching questions you can answer in your head or on paper to move. Out of regret. You can use this for any kind of overeating over-drinking for really anything in life for buying that house that ended up needing a million more repairs than you were expecting.

So our five self-coaching questions for when regret comes up are as follows. Number one, how can I undo this? Now, of course we can't go back in time, at least not yet, but we can address the impact of overindulging. How can you support your body now? Maybe you drink lots of water. You allow your digestive system to reset to rest, even if that means skipping a meal, not as punishment.

I wanna be really clear. It's not like you overeat and you're like, okay, well I'm not eating dinner or breakfast tomorrow. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is, okay, I'm not gonna eat again until I'm actually physically hungry. So that might mean dinner or it might not. It's not.

Because you are punishing yourself, it's because you are honoring your body. You don't need any more food if you're not hungry. Because you maybe overindulged earlier, maybe you wanna balance things out. You wanna create some balance. So if you did high carb meal, you just take that into consideration.

Your next meal, you'll do low carb. Okay? This can happen if you feel regretful even after one bite. So if this is you, bonus points for this level of self-awareness. Oftentimes, our self-awareness happens after we overindulge. And so if it's happening while you're eating. Points for you because there's more self-awareness there, right?

We wanna get to the point where there's all the self-awareness is happens before you wanna overeat, right? When I work with clients, that's what we move towards is you are self-aware before you wanna overeat so that you can address it then rather than as it's happening or afterwards when it's like the damage has already been done kind of thing.

So if this is happening, this is great. You're having awareness during and you can stop. You can simply stop at any point. Number two is what is the good here? Don't let your brain catastrophize, which is likely what it will want to do to get your attention. It'll say things like, I'll never get there. Use words like never or always.

I always do that, but it already has your attention 'cause you're, you're onto yourself, right? So reframe the situation for yourself. At least you didn't eat the entire bag. At least you only indulged at that one meal and not the whole day or the whole weekend or the whole week. At least you stopped before you got physically ill.

Whatever it is, use that at least. Okay? At least you chose the healthier option this time. Okay, look at it from another angle and try to find the positive. What is good here? Do you know something about yourself that maybe you didn't know before you're learning about yourself? Maybe I simply eat when it's time, not when I'm actually hungry and I regret eating because now I don't feel good in my body and take comfort in this.

At least if you regret something, it means you are taking full accountability. You can't regret something that you are not taking responsibility for. So by nature you're saying, this was my decision. I was the one in charge. At least you can own it and acknowledge your role and your power. If you are the only one responsible, you are the one who can also change it.

Question number three is, with whom can I share? If you're feeling some shame here, disclose it with somebody that you trust. Somebody who might get it. Okay? Just share your mistake, say it out loud, get it off your chest. You will feel better immediately. We all know that shame lives and you know, breeds in secrecy.

Number four is, am I the only one? Your brain might be telling you that you are, that you are the only person on Earth who has ever done this. Just you. No other person has ever struggled with food or ever overindulged, and what's worse? No one has ever figured this out either. And change their eating patterns.

Okay, so just normalize it. Recognize that what you're experiencing is probably pretty normal In my work. This comes up a lot with overeating, sweets, overeating, salty stuff like chips, overeating, carbs like bread, even healthy food, overeating, healthy food. Okay, eating in secret. It's a big one that we think, oh, I'm the only one that does this.

That's not true. I did a whole episode, a whole podcast episode on eating in secret and even eating till discomfort, right till we feel physically ill. This happens, it's very normal to plan to do one thing and do the complete opposite, to plan on having one cocktail and have a few instead. Number five is how much will this matter a year from now?

So get some perspective. Imagine it from someone else's perspective, or imagine it you know, one or even 10 years from now, will it even matter if you are at your desired weight in one year? How much will this truly matter? Will it make a difference? This can just help you separate yourself a bit from what's going on.

Another way to have a different perspective is to compare this misstep from what you might have been doing, say a few months ago, or a year ago or years ago. This might be nothing. This might be really, it might be a misstep, but it might be relatively small compared to what you may have done before. So remind yourself of your progress.

You can really repair anything with yourself, any kind of regret, but you have to be honest with yourself about it. I'm gonna share some of my maybe like food or kind of like weight loss regrets using some of these examples. So some of these questions. So the first one is, how can I end do this? There have definitely been days in which I eat a later lunch or a heavier lunch, or I snack at like four o'clock, and then I'm not hungry at dinner.

And sometimes I regret that because we have this fresh prep service in which the food comes prepped, and then we just make it. It's still a lot of work. It's still like 30 minutes to make it, but the food is delicious. And if we're doing that one of these nights where I'm not eating, I regret it.

Because I feel like I'm missing out on this great meal. So how can I undo this? Well, I can't really go back in time, but there are a couple of things that I can do, which is one, I don't make myself wrong for it. It's totally fine to skip dinner. People skip dinner all the time. It's not a problem, and I use it to my advantage.

So I skip dinner, which means. I will have a longer fasting window overnight, which is great. It allows my body to digest. I feel really good in the morning. I can also decide that it's not gonna take away from my family time. I can still enjoy my dinner with my kids and my husband, even if they are eating.

I don't have to be eating. The hardest part about that is going to be maybe what, 15, 20 minutes. Either right when the food is prepared or people are eating it, that's gonna be like the time when it's most challenging. Even if I'm not really physically hungry, I might have some fake hunger in which my body can smell the food, see the food, and tells me, you know, you could eat right now even though I don't need more food.

So as one of my clients always says. I can do 15 minutes. She says I can do 15 minutes. That's not a problem. That's gonna be the toughest time. And in that time, even for me, 'cause I have little kids, sometimes it's almost more enjoyable because I can attend to them. They need a lot of stuff, right? They are constantly asking me for things.

They are making a huge mess. And if I'm not trying to eat my meal, then I can attend to them and be more available for them. So in some ways, I'm just looking at the bright side there, but I am. In, in terms of undoing it, I am allowing my body to rest and digest and I'm not overdoing it with food. The next question, or next story I wanna share with you is, what is the good here?

So, when I first started working with my coach, I didn't tell her for a long time that, you know, weight loss was one of my goals. And when I finally did reveal it to her, I remember one time where I was having a call with her and it was over the phone at this time and. This was maybe 20 years ago, really long time ago, and I was crying and I was like really struggling.

And she said to me on this call, we were talking over the phone, she said, what's good about these tears? And in that moment I realized that what was good about it was that I. Was acknowledging what was going on for me, and at least I was talking about it instead of trying to avoid it or overeat over the pain.

Right. And try to continually, like when we overeat, sometimes we'll feel bad about it, and then we will continue to overeat. I wasn't doing that. I was talking about it. I was addressing it. Next one is. With whom can I share? So I always joke that coaching with me is not food confessions. I don't need to hear exactly what you've been eating to help you move past it and help you learn from it.

And oftentimes this one can be hard because you don't wanna tell your significant other or your best friend that you ate, you know, all of those chocolate chips or about your struggle with your body or anything like that. I know for me personally, I kept my struggle around food and body stuff hidden from my husband.

For a very long time. When we were first dating, I even kept it from my coach, as I mentioned, for like two years before I brought this up as a goal of like weight loss and feeling in charge with food. But then once I opened up about it, it really felt like a big weight had been lifted. This was because these two people that I shared with, they didn't understand because they didn't have that same struggle, but.

I could trust them and I felt very safe with them. So share with people that you feel held, that you can feel supported and held with, right? That you feel safe. They don't necessarily have to have the same struggle, although if you have a coach or you have a community in which people will get it, that's also another opportunity.

If you don't wanna share with your partner, you can share with them and they just get it right. They will support you. They won't judge you. The next one is, am I the only one? I've been in many coaching programs in which I felt like although it was somebody else doing this speaking, it might as well been me.

We are often much more similar than we are different. You sneak a handful of chocolate chips or a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter, even though you've just finished a full meal, that's normal. You don't wanna get on the scale after you've overeaten the day before because you can't face that number going up.

You don't wanna see it. Also very normal. You tell yourself that you're okay. I'm gonna Sunday night. You're like, I'm gonna give up sugar. And then Monday night you're eating cookies and cream, ice cream. That's normal. You don't wanna walk on the beach in your swimsuit. You're trying to cover up, you're dressing to camouflage, not dressing to, you know, express your, maybe, maybe your creative flare or just how you wanna look, but you're dressing to camouflage your body, or you don't wanna go to the pool.

Or maybe you don't wanna see people you haven't seen in a while because you've gained weight and there's a lot of shame around your body. All of this is very normal, okay? It's not what we want. It's not a great experience, but it's very normal. I just wanna normalize it. Okay? You may often feel isolated and alone in what you're going through in that pain of it, but I just want you to know others are experiencing a lot of those same things.

I promise you that. Okay. Last question is about distancing it. So how much will this matter a year from now? How I eat now, my relationship with food, my movement is light years away from where it used to be, right? We change, we learn more, we evolve, we grow. Your current regrets are likely not going to even be on your radar.

If you keep going, if you keep doing this kind of mindfulness work, right? If you keep working with your brain and you don't give up, I love the example of thinking about a tunnel and you have a flashlight, and the flashlight only goes so far in this tunnel and you can't see the end of the tunnel. You don't even know where you're going.

You don't know what you're capable of. For me, I, I didn't see the end of the tunnel. I couldn't even where I am now, I wouldn't have even been able to see it like, say 20 years ago when I was working with my first coach. So your flashlight, what you can see is really only the first few steps ahead. And that's fine.

You don't need to see the end of the tunnel. You just have to trust that it keep, that it's there. Right. And I'm, I'm here to tell you that it is. All you need to see is those first few steps ahead of you and know that some of the struggles that you are experiencing now. They're not even gonna be a problem down the road.

Okay? A year from now, you're gonna be looking back with such like compassion and such heartache for the struggle that you might be currently going through or what you are currently regretting. And you can easily think of this if you think about in and maybe another area of your life where maybe in your career when you're.

In your early twenties and you're broke and you have no money and you're really wishing that your credit card will go through and you're not a hundred percent sure like we have such compassion for her. Or maybe she overspent, right? And she regretted that you like, have such compassion. Now because you're on the other side of it, you have savings, you're, you don't regret your purchases in the same way.

You don't make silly purchases maybe, and so you're on the other side of it, but you maybe couldn't see it. Then it felt like a really big deal. Okay. What we regret most is not. I overdid it on the ice cream. What it really is about is, oh, I didn't show up for myself the way I could have. It's being honest with yourself that the reason you want the ice cream is because maybe you're a bit lonely or you're overwhelmed and stressed out and you can't deal okay, or you think you can't deal.

Of course you can. We know you have resilience. It's that you're not treating yourself or your body with reverence. That's the real regret. It's not eating, overeating, the chips. It's how you're. That you're not treating yourself the way you know you can. And so regret can really be a window into learning about ourselves and the relationship that we have with ourselves.

It's not always fun. This kind of learning is not always fun and comfortable, but it is very useful if you do exercises like these questions. Again, whether you do them in your head and you're just answering them as I'm reading them out to you in this podcast, or you sit down with them later and you actually write them down and do them on paper, I.

All right, so let's loop back to the beginning. Now, if we were sitting at a coffee shop and having coffee, and I asked you, do you have any regrets, what might you say? And if I'm being honest, everything and nothing is not the real answer because I. Of course if I could go back, I would do things differently, right?

There's things that I've learned and I've grown and I would totally do things differently. It's the path toward wisdom. So if you are feeling regret, know that if you can answer questions like these and you use the regret as emotional fuel to learn, this is your path toward wisdom and you'll be more wise.

Alright, I'll talk to you later. Bye.