Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. It’s almost Memorial Day, school is almost out, and you know what that means…Summer is coming!

I love summer, it’s my favorite time of the year, but it does bring a lot of challenges when it comes to our eating – all the summer cookouts, vacations where you’re navigating food on a road trip, or eating on a cruise or at an all inclusive resort, or maybe you’re staying in a hotel and you’re eating most of your meals out. Perhaps you’re doing activities like going to theme parks, or hiking, or camping, or baseball games (hot dog anyone?), or the state fair. Eating can feel tricky in these scenarios, and with diet culture all around us we might feel that pressure to diet leading up to a vacation, or to save up our calories to go to a baseball game. We might feel guilty for eating the funnel cake at the theme park or the state fair. The GREAT news is that with intuitive eating we get to enjoy these situations, while also listening to our bodies, and it doesn’t require you to restrict, save up, or beat yourself up afterwards. It gets to feel enjoyable and easy – which makes summer so much more fun!

Summer can also be really challenging from a body image standpoint. As we’re putting away our sweaters and pants, and getting out our shorts, tank tops and swimsuits we might be feeling more exposed and self-conscious about our bodies. Trying on clothes from last summer can be hard and scary, especially if your body has changed and you might have to get rid of shorts that don’t button, or shirts that are too snug. I want to remind you that BODIES CHANGE and that’s ok. You might need to get some new clothes that fit your here-and-now body, and set the old ones aside and donate or sell them. It’s ok. You are worthy of clothes that fit you right now – even if you don’t particularly like your body right now, and even if you wish you were smaller, and even if you’re hoping you’ll lose some weight. You deserve to have clothes that fit you TODAY. 

I know what you might be thinking, because I hear this objection all the time. You might be thinking, “But Katy, I can’t afford to keep buying a new wardrobe. I’ve already gone up a size (or a couple of sizes) since I started intuitive eating, and I don’t want to keep buying new clothes. I don’t have money for that.” 

I hear you. And I get that financial concerns might be a very real thing for you with this. I would also like to gently challenge you to consider whether you’d be feeling the same way if you lost weight and needed smaller clothes. Do this though experiment with me: Imagine that you lost weight this past year and got a bunch of new clothes in a smaller size. And you’ve since lost more weight and need new summer clothes in a smaller size again. Would you be worried in the same way about spending the money on new smaller clothes? How much of your discomfort with buying new clothes is about having to go UP in sizes, not down? Chances are this is part of it – the fear and shame about your weight going up. So I think it’s helpful to factor that in, and to challenge yourself to give yourself permission to buy bigger clothes just like you would smaller clothes. And if you need to get creative with how to get some extra cash to buy clothes, do it. Sell some stuff on FB Marketplace, have a garage sale, babysit for your neighbors so they can have a date night, If you get creative you can make some quick cash to get some new clothes. You don’t have to buy a new designer wardrobe. Get a few inexpensive articles of clothing that are versatile and build your wardrobe out over time. 

Having clothes that fit this summer is so important. And that’s not even one of my hot tips that I’m going to cover in this episode. That little tangent was a bonus tip – you’re welcome! Always happy to over deliver here on the Rebuilding Trust With Your Body podcast. 

NOTE 

Okay, today we are going to be talking about 3 tips for intuitive eating with summer on the horizon because my flowers are blooming. It’s starting to get warmer outside and. That means that we’re going to be switching over into, you know, shorts and tank tops and swimsuits and we’re going to be having the summer parties and get-togethers and vacations and barbecues and all the summer things that can be really stressful. If you’re struggling with your relationship with food and with body image. The simple act of having to switch over your closet from your winter wardrobe into your summer. Wardrobe can be really really stressful because. What if the clothes from last year don’t fit what if you try to put on your jean shorts from last year and they won’t go up over your thighs or they won’t button or what if you can get them buttoned but you you feel like you’re squeezed in there and it’s cutting me off at the midsection and you’re super uncomfortable and you can’t breathe for the rest of the day. That can be really hard and really triggering and it can send us into that spiral that tells us you know I need to fix this. There’s something wrong with my body shame on me for gaining weight. I need to be more diligent and more in control with my food.

And it leads us right back into those behaviors that keep us in this on again off again cycle with our eating where we’re trying to be really good quote unquote with food especially during the week it’s like every Monday morning you make that commitment to yourself you know and then by Friday it’s like oh. Okay, time to let loose and have some fun on the weekend and things can kind of unravel and then by Sunday you feel guilty and you feel like crap and so you’re determined that Monday morning you’re gonna get right back on the horse. Get right back on the bandwagon and do it all over again and. The irony with this approach is that when we’re trying to be in control with our food. It makes us feel like we’re being good, like we’re doing something productive like we are fixing our problem, the problem being our bodies. But the irony is that the behaviors we usually do when we’re in that mode when we’re trying to eat foods that we deem as healthy and avoid the foods that we think of as unhealthy this sets up. A state of both biological and psychological deprivation that propels us into a phase of thinking about food and obsessing about food fantasizing about food and that thing where.

Once you let yourself eat something. It’s hard to stop eating those foods that you’ve been avoiding and so it sets up that overeating, that act of going overboard, the binging that we’re afraid of and that tends to contribute to a ratcheting up. Of our weight over time. It’s the exact cycle that we see over and over again with dieting whether you’re on a formal diet. You know like weight watchers or keto or intermittent fasting or if you’re just on this like. I’m eating healthy or I’m being good with food. You know, kind of your own you know, internal version of what you would consider healthy eating. It has the same impact on us as a fad diet would and then what happens this time of year with summer on the horizon. It feels like the stakes are even higher when we’re starting to hear this chitter chatter all around us about oh I’ve got to get my summer body or I need to tone up and I need to go get Tan. So I can lay at the pool and feel good about myself. And I need to get my beach body my my bikini body I don’t remember if it was last year maybe it was the year before the popular trend was this idea of hot girl summer I haven’t heard that so much happening this year I hope that that

Phrase and that Lingo has passed and died off because it’s just such a toxic Message. We don’t have to change our bodies for summer but that’s how we often feel consciously or subconsciously. Because it’s the attitude of the culture that we’re immersed in that’s all around us. So What I want to talk about are 3 very specific and actionable tips that you can apply right now to support you on your journey towards intuitive eating. Without getting sucked into all the diet culture nonsense related to summer because we need to sometimes have our elbows up in defensive mode this time of year. So that we can protect ourselves from all of these messages that we’re being bombarded with so let’s dive in tip number one is to actively choose to not buy into this summer body Rhetoric. So. Instead of letting yourself feel like yeah I do kind of need to trim down or slim down to get ready for summer I Want you to think? no, That’s nonsense. That’s some toxic diet culture B s and to affirm for yourself that you do not need.

To change your body based on the month or the season of the year your body that you have right now that you are sitting in at this exact moment as you are listening to this is your summer body. It is also your fall body, your winter body, and your spring body. It is your all season’s body. And yeah, our bodies might change between seasons, sometimes just the differences in the types of foods or the way that our life looks overall throughout different times of the year, sometimes our body and our weight might. Fluctuating in response to that can be kind of normal for some people but that doesn’t mean that you need to be actively trying to change your body to conform to some type of cultural body standard that’s impossible to live up to in the first place. Let’s also remember. That the body standards the beauty standards the appearance standards that we are subjected to are not about actual health or actual beauty in an objective way. It’s about making us feel inferior and insecure. So that we will go buy the products and the programs and the potions and the special foods and the pills and we’ll do all the things that make the diet industry $100000000000 a year based on preying on our insecurities.

That’s what it’s about. It’s not about actually improving your health or happiness. It’s about making you feel like crap about yourself so that you will buy into this stuff that you supposedly need to do to change your body. Nobody makes money if you accept your body so that is the first thing is let’s push back against that. Let’s embrace our bodies unapologetically as they are. I know that that is easier said than done. But I’m trying to give you a little bit of a pep talk here and I really challenge you to intentionally push yourself to go out this summer and do the. Things that you want to do you want to go to the pool go to the pool get in the pool. Even if you’re uncomfortable in your body and you’re worried about what other people are thinking and you’re worried about all the judgment and you don’t like your thighs and your cellulite and your rolls and your jiggles and all the things get in the darn pool I promise you will be glad that you did. Same thing with shorts, wear the shorts, wear the tank tops. Even if you feel insecure because it’s kind of like ripping off a band-aid once you start doing it. You will feel more comfortable. Your body will sense that nothing terrible is going to happen because the more we avoid doing those things. It creates this sense within our body that it’s not safe to go out and be seen that it’s that it’s vulnerable and risky to be seen in shorts or our swimsuit or short sleeves and we have to prove to ourselves that it is okay.

And this is not to negate the fact that weight stigma and fat phobia are very real things and there are traumatic experiences in our culture where people very much are shamed and that’s a problem that says so much about the people who are shaming others then it does you. You still deserve, no matter the size or shape of your body, to go out and do the things and to live life fully this summer and year round. you do that by getting out there and doing it and maybe you need to have like your hype person that you take with you. Maybe you have a buddy or a sister or. An aunt or your mom or a co-worker, somebody who can go out and do things with you so that you can go out and have those beautiful life experiences. Okay tip number 2 to help you stay in the zone with intuitive eating and not get sucked into diet culture for the summer. Is to practice what I call the powerful pause so this is a technique that I teach my clients and the people who are inside my programs and it’s really really easy. Basically what you’re going to do before you eat. So imagine that you’ve got your plate of food in front of you whether it’s a meal or a snack before you dig in and start chowing down. Take a minute to take a pause and take 3 big deep long slow breaths in and out and what this does is a couple of things so it’s at at a biological level. It’s stimulating your vagus nerve which is getting your body out of.

The stressed out fight or flight mode that we tend to live in a lot of the time and it gets you into what we call rest and digest mode so you might have fewer digestive issues when you’re doing this if you tend to be someone who gets kind of indigestion and bloating when you eat. The other thing it’s going to allow you to do is be more attuned with and connected with your appetite signals. You’re going to be better able to listen to your body when you are in a calm state of your nervous system and when you have grounded. Yourself and you’re present and mindful in the moment and I’m not saying you have to be obsessively mindful with every little bite of the food that you take. I’m just saying that when you calm down and take that minute, take that beat. Before you start eating, you’re gonna just automatically eat more intuitively because you’ve done that so file that away the powerful pause. It’s such a game changer and it’s beautifully simple. Okay tip number 3 I call this my snack hack and I like it because it rhymes so when you’re thinking about it. Snacking and this isn’t just a summer thing but definitely here was summer instead of being like oh I need to choose the healthy option. Whatever that means to you. Let’s come back to your body and say okay, what sounds good right now. That’s always what we want to start with.

Sounds Good. What’s my body telling me I’m hungry for when it comes to snacking and from there to think about not just what sounds good from a taste perspective. But what’s also going to make you feel good and what’s going to work Well for you in that situation because sometimes the thing that sounds good. Is not really gonna make you physically feel good in that moment and we want to factor that in as well and to think about pairing together foods that are based in carbohydrate primarily Plus Protein. So. That’s going to give us some quick energy from the carbohydrates that tend to be the foods that we think of as junk or unhealthy or processed or bad or that’s too much sugar Blah Blah blah Now. It’s just carbohydrates. It’s energy for your body and then let’s pair it with protein because that’s going to give you Satiety. It’s going to stick with you Longer. It’s going to keep your blood sugar more stable and it’s going to give you this nice blend of a snack that usually has a good combo of taste and textures too which also helps with satisfaction in that experience. So some examples of carbohydrates could be. Crackers. Let’s say you love Ritz Crackers or Triscuit Crackers. You could pair that with some cheese. So. The crackers are carbohydrates and the cheese is going to give you some protein. It’s going to give you a little fat that is going to help with satiety and that is a delightful snack with taste and texture.

And it’s going to fill you up and fuel you for a period of time. Another example could be um in the summer berries or watermelon like all the fruit that’s really fresh and um, flavorful. Maybe you pair that with some yogurt so fruit. For carbohydrate yogurt for protein I really like the greek yogurt because it has more protein in it but whatever type of yogurt you prefer is totally fine. Another example could be um, let’s see here. Another carbohydrate could be let’s say gram crackers. I love Graham crackers. I keep those on hand at this time of year so that we can have more if we have a fire outside. We just did that the other day that’s why they’re fresh on my mind. Graham crackers would be carbohydrate if you want to pair it ah for a protein put some peanut butter on your graham cracker or you could dip your graham crackers in milk. Another thing sometimes I do with grain crackers is I’ll crunch them up and I’ll stir them into my yogurt. So it’s kind of like a granola it gives that little crunch to the yogurt and if you do that with some chocolate chips. It’s like this extra little texture and then you get that chocolate flavor. It’s a very satisfying combo and so you can see where. Going with this so we’ve got carbohydrate and protein and you can basically think of it like a mix and match strategy for your snacks so start with whatever sounds good and then whichever food category that falls into just pair it with something from the other category and that’s the snack hack carb plus protein.

And we’re doing it while still listening to your body, and the cool thing about this strategy is that it works for any food because literally all food on the entire planet breaks down into some version of carbohydrate protein and fat. Those are our 3 macronutrients, those are the 3 essential nutrients that our bodies need that give us energy and now yes, some foods don’t really have much of any macronutrient in them. They might just have a gram or 2 of something I’m thinking of like broccoli and other non-starchy vegetables. Sometimes that trips people up because they’re like well wait. What would that food be.. It’s kind of in a category of its own where it’s mostly made up of fiber water vitamins and minerals and those non-starchy vegetables. Yeah,, they’re giving our body wonderful things. But they’re not going to give you much in terms of energy because they’re very low in calories and calories are. Energy for our body and so sure, let’s say you have um like some hummus and some ah pita bread and you want to have some raw veggies with it. That’s great, but I would encourage you to make sure you have the carbohydrate with that snack so that you’re not just doing raw veggies in hummus because that might not give you enough of the actual. Energy that you need from the carbs. So but ah, but aside from the non-starchy vegetables pretty much any other food that we could list breaks down into some type of macronutrient and you can pair it with another type of food to give you a good combo and that’s where I think that that diet culture leads us.

Awry with our judgments and labeling of the food as good and bad healthy and unhealthy words like junk and processed because it makes us feel guilty for eating those foods when at the end of the day inside our digestive system. Those foods are being broken down into individual molecules of carbohydrate protein and fat and it’s those individual molecules that are getting absorbed into your body. So by the time that carb hits your liver. Your body does not know or care. What food source it originates from could have come from an organic blueberry or an oreo. It’s still a carbohydrate and we can start to neutralize our judgments about food in this way so that we can choose to pair together things that have different nutrients and different flavor profiles in a way that doesn’t get us hung up. In this morality about food as if you’re a good person when you eat the salad and you’re a bad person when you eat the burger because you’re not and that type of thinking is often what leads to these chaotic and dysfunctional behaviors with food that stress us out so much. When we’re chill with food and when we have neutrality about food. It allows us to actually listen to our bodies to intentionally give ourselves the nourishment we need but we don’t have these big emotional reactions and all of that deprivation that will sometimes play out with binge eating or overeating. So.

Those are my 3 tips. Let’s recap those real quick. So the first one is to actively rebel against this summer body nonsense. You do not need to buy into that you do not need to participate in that nonsense this summer. The second one is the powerful pause before you eat it will help you be more connected to your body. So that you can listen to your body and enjoy your food and digest it more easily and then the third thing is the snack hack to pair together foods that have carbs and protein when you’re snacking for a combination that’s going to fill you up. Keep you satisfied and allow you to incorporate all types of food. I hope that this was helpful. I’d love to hear any thoughts that you have. I’d love to hear any additional questions that you have and ah my Dms are always open if you ever want to connect.

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Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. It’s almost Memorial Day, school is almost out, and you know what that means…Summer is coming!

I love summer, it’s my favorite time of the year, but it does bring a lot of challenges when it comes to our eating – all the summer cookouts, vacations where you’re navigating food on a road trip, or eating on a cruise or at an all inclusive resort, or maybe you’re staying in a hotel and you’re eating most of your meals out. Perhaps you’re doing activities like going to theme parks, or hiking, or camping, or baseball games (hot dog anyone?), or the state fair. Eating can feel tricky in these scenarios, and with diet culture all around us we might feel that pressure to diet leading up to a vacation, or to save up our calories to go to a baseball game. We might feel guilty for eating the funnel cake at the theme park or the state fair. The GREAT news is that with intuitive eating we get to enjoy these situations, while also listening to our bodies, and it doesn’t require you to restrict, save up, or beat yourself up afterwards. It gets to feel enjoyable and easy – which makes summer so much more fun!

Summer can also be really challenging from a body image standpoint. As we’re putting away our sweaters and pants, and getting out our shorts, tank tops and swimsuits we might be feeling more exposed and self-conscious about our bodies. Trying on clothes from last summer can be hard and scary, especially if your body has changed and you might have to get rid of shorts that don’t button, or shirts that are too snug. I want to remind you that BODIES CHANGE and that’s ok. You might need to get some new clothes that fit your here-and-now body, and set the old ones aside and donate or sell them. It’s ok. You are worthy of clothes that fit you right now – even if you don’t particularly like your body right now, and even if you wish you were smaller, and even if you’re hoping you’ll lose some weight. You deserve to have clothes that fit you TODAY. 

I know what you might be thinking, because I hear this objection all the time. You might be thinking, “But Katy, I can’t afford to keep buying a new wardrobe. I’ve already gone up a size (or a couple of sizes) since I started intuitive eating, and I don’t want to keep buying new clothes. I don’t have money for that.” 

I hear you. And I get that financial concerns might be a very real thing for you with this. I would also like to gently challenge you to consider whether you’d be feeling the same way if you lost weight and needed smaller clothes. Do this though experiment with me: Imagine that you lost weight this past year and got a bunch of new clothes in a smaller size. And you’ve since lost more weight and need new summer clothes in a smaller size again. Would you be worried in the same way about spending the money on new smaller clothes? How much of your discomfort with buying new clothes is about having to go UP in sizes, not down? Chances are this is part of it – the fear and shame about your weight going up. So I think it’s helpful to factor that in, and to challenge yourself to give yourself permission to buy bigger clothes just like you would smaller clothes. And if you need to get creative with how to get some extra cash to buy clothes, do it. Sell some stuff on FB Marketplace, have a garage sale, babysit for your neighbors so they can have a date night, If you get creative you can make some quick cash to get some new clothes. You don’t have to buy a new designer wardrobe. Get a few inexpensive articles of clothing that are versatile and build your wardrobe out over time. 

Having clothes that fit this summer is so important. And that’s not even one of my hot tips that I’m going to cover in this episode. That little tangent was a bonus tip – you’re welcome! Always happy to over deliver here on the Rebuilding Trust With Your Body podcast. 

NOTE 

Okay, today we are going to be talking about 3 tips for intuitive eating with summer on the horizon because my flowers are blooming. It’s starting to get warmer outside and. That means that we’re going to be switching over into, you know, shorts and tank tops and swimsuits and we’re going to be having the summer parties and get-togethers and vacations and barbecues and all the summer things that can be really stressful. If you’re struggling with your relationship with food and with body image. The simple act of having to switch over your closet from your winter wardrobe into your summer. Wardrobe can be really really stressful because. What if the clothes from last year don’t fit what if you try to put on your jean shorts from last year and they won’t go up over your thighs or they won’t button or what if you can get them buttoned but you you feel like you’re squeezed in there and it’s cutting me off at the midsection and you’re super uncomfortable and you can’t breathe for the rest of the day. That can be really hard and really triggering and it can send us into that spiral that tells us you know I need to fix this. There’s something wrong with my body shame on me for gaining weight. I need to be more diligent and more in control with my food.

And it leads us right back into those behaviors that keep us in this on again off again cycle with our eating where we’re trying to be really good quote unquote with food especially during the week it’s like every Monday morning you make that commitment to yourself you know and then by Friday it’s like oh. Okay, time to let loose and have some fun on the weekend and things can kind of unravel and then by Sunday you feel guilty and you feel like crap and so you’re determined that Monday morning you’re gonna get right back on the horse. Get right back on the bandwagon and do it all over again and. The irony with this approach is that when we’re trying to be in control with our food. It makes us feel like we’re being good, like we’re doing something productive like we are fixing our problem, the problem being our bodies. But the irony is that the behaviors we usually do when we’re in that mode when we’re trying to eat foods that we deem as healthy and avoid the foods that we think of as unhealthy this sets up. A state of both biological and psychological deprivation that propels us into a phase of thinking about food and obsessing about food fantasizing about food and that thing where.

Once you let yourself eat something. It’s hard to stop eating those foods that you’ve been avoiding and so it sets up that overeating, that act of going overboard, the binging that we’re afraid of and that tends to contribute to a ratcheting up. Of our weight over time. It’s the exact cycle that we see over and over again with dieting whether you’re on a formal diet. You know like weight watchers or keto or intermittent fasting or if you’re just on this like. I’m eating healthy or I’m being good with food. You know, kind of your own you know, internal version of what you would consider healthy eating. It has the same impact on us as a fad diet would and then what happens this time of year with summer on the horizon. It feels like the stakes are even higher when we’re starting to hear this chitter chatter all around us about oh I’ve got to get my summer body or I need to tone up and I need to go get Tan. So I can lay at the pool and feel good about myself. And I need to get my beach body my my bikini body I don’t remember if it was last year maybe it was the year before the popular trend was this idea of hot girl summer I haven’t heard that so much happening this year I hope that that

Phrase and that Lingo has passed and died off because it’s just such a toxic Message. We don’t have to change our bodies for summer but that’s how we often feel consciously or subconsciously. Because it’s the attitude of the culture that we’re immersed in that’s all around us. So What I want to talk about are 3 very specific and actionable tips that you can apply right now to support you on your journey towards intuitive eating. Without getting sucked into all the diet culture nonsense related to summer because we need to sometimes have our elbows up in defensive mode this time of year. So that we can protect ourselves from all of these messages that we’re being bombarded with so let’s dive in tip number one is to actively choose to not buy into this summer body Rhetoric. So. Instead of letting yourself feel like yeah I do kind of need to trim down or slim down to get ready for summer I Want you to think? no, That’s nonsense. That’s some toxic diet culture B s and to affirm for yourself that you do not need.

To change your body based on the month or the season of the year your body that you have right now that you are sitting in at this exact moment as you are listening to this is your summer body. It is also your fall body, your winter body, and your spring body. It is your all season’s body. And yeah, our bodies might change between seasons, sometimes just the differences in the types of foods or the way that our life looks overall throughout different times of the year, sometimes our body and our weight might. Fluctuating in response to that can be kind of normal for some people but that doesn’t mean that you need to be actively trying to change your body to conform to some type of cultural body standard that’s impossible to live up to in the first place. Let’s also remember. That the body standards the beauty standards the appearance standards that we are subjected to are not about actual health or actual beauty in an objective way. It’s about making us feel inferior and insecure. So that we will go buy the products and the programs and the potions and the special foods and the pills and we’ll do all the things that make the diet industry $100000000000 a year based on preying on our insecurities.

That’s what it’s about. It’s not about actually improving your health or happiness. It’s about making you feel like crap about yourself so that you will buy into this stuff that you supposedly need to do to change your body. Nobody makes money if you accept your body so that is the first thing is let’s push back against that. Let’s embrace our bodies unapologetically as they are. I know that that is easier said than done. But I’m trying to give you a little bit of a pep talk here and I really challenge you to intentionally push yourself to go out this summer and do the. Things that you want to do you want to go to the pool go to the pool get in the pool. Even if you’re uncomfortable in your body and you’re worried about what other people are thinking and you’re worried about all the judgment and you don’t like your thighs and your cellulite and your rolls and your jiggles and all the things get in the darn pool I promise you will be glad that you did. Same thing with shorts, wear the shorts, wear the tank tops. Even if you feel insecure because it’s kind of like ripping off a band-aid once you start doing it. You will feel more comfortable. Your body will sense that nothing terrible is going to happen because the more we avoid doing those things. It creates this sense within our body that it’s not safe to go out and be seen that it’s that it’s vulnerable and risky to be seen in shorts or our swimsuit or short sleeves and we have to prove to ourselves that it is okay.

And this is not to negate the fact that weight stigma and fat phobia are very real things and there are traumatic experiences in our culture where people very much are shamed and that’s a problem that says so much about the people who are shaming others then it does you. You still deserve, no matter the size or shape of your body, to go out and do the things and to live life fully this summer and year round. you do that by getting out there and doing it and maybe you need to have like your hype person that you take with you. Maybe you have a buddy or a sister or. An aunt or your mom or a co-worker, somebody who can go out and do things with you so that you can go out and have those beautiful life experiences. Okay tip number 2 to help you stay in the zone with intuitive eating and not get sucked into diet culture for the summer. Is to practice what I call the powerful pause so this is a technique that I teach my clients and the people who are inside my programs and it’s really really easy. Basically what you’re going to do before you eat. So imagine that you’ve got your plate of food in front of you whether it’s a meal or a snack before you dig in and start chowing down. Take a minute to take a pause and take 3 big deep long slow breaths in and out and what this does is a couple of things so it’s at at a biological level. It’s stimulating your vagus nerve which is getting your body out of.

The stressed out fight or flight mode that we tend to live in a lot of the time and it gets you into what we call rest and digest mode so you might have fewer digestive issues when you’re doing this if you tend to be someone who gets kind of indigestion and bloating when you eat. The other thing it’s going to allow you to do is be more attuned with and connected with your appetite signals. You’re going to be better able to listen to your body when you are in a calm state of your nervous system and when you have grounded. Yourself and you’re present and mindful in the moment and I’m not saying you have to be obsessively mindful with every little bite of the food that you take. I’m just saying that when you calm down and take that minute, take that beat. Before you start eating, you’re gonna just automatically eat more intuitively because you’ve done that so file that away the powerful pause. It’s such a game changer and it’s beautifully simple. Okay tip number 3 I call this my snack hack and I like it because it rhymes so when you’re thinking about it. Snacking and this isn’t just a summer thing but definitely here was summer instead of being like oh I need to choose the healthy option. Whatever that means to you. Let’s come back to your body and say okay, what sounds good right now. That’s always what we want to start with.

Sounds Good. What’s my body telling me I’m hungry for when it comes to snacking and from there to think about not just what sounds good from a taste perspective. But what’s also going to make you feel good and what’s going to work Well for you in that situation because sometimes the thing that sounds good. Is not really gonna make you physically feel good in that moment and we want to factor that in as well and to think about pairing together foods that are based in carbohydrate primarily Plus Protein. So. That’s going to give us some quick energy from the carbohydrates that tend to be the foods that we think of as junk or unhealthy or processed or bad or that’s too much sugar Blah Blah blah Now. It’s just carbohydrates. It’s energy for your body and then let’s pair it with protein because that’s going to give you Satiety. It’s going to stick with you Longer. It’s going to keep your blood sugar more stable and it’s going to give you this nice blend of a snack that usually has a good combo of taste and textures too which also helps with satisfaction in that experience. So some examples of carbohydrates could be. Crackers. Let’s say you love Ritz Crackers or Triscuit Crackers. You could pair that with some cheese. So. The crackers are carbohydrates and the cheese is going to give you some protein. It’s going to give you a little fat that is going to help with satiety and that is a delightful snack with taste and texture.

And it’s going to fill you up and fuel you for a period of time. Another example could be um in the summer berries or watermelon like all the fruit that’s really fresh and um, flavorful. Maybe you pair that with some yogurt so fruit. For carbohydrate yogurt for protein I really like the greek yogurt because it has more protein in it but whatever type of yogurt you prefer is totally fine. Another example could be um, let’s see here. Another carbohydrate could be let’s say gram crackers. I love Graham crackers. I keep those on hand at this time of year so that we can have more if we have a fire outside. We just did that the other day that’s why they’re fresh on my mind. Graham crackers would be carbohydrate if you want to pair it ah for a protein put some peanut butter on your graham cracker or you could dip your graham crackers in milk. Another thing sometimes I do with grain crackers is I’ll crunch them up and I’ll stir them into my yogurt. So it’s kind of like a granola it gives that little crunch to the yogurt and if you do that with some chocolate chips. It’s like this extra little texture and then you get that chocolate flavor. It’s a very satisfying combo and so you can see where. Going with this so we’ve got carbohydrate and protein and you can basically think of it like a mix and match strategy for your snacks so start with whatever sounds good and then whichever food category that falls into just pair it with something from the other category and that’s the snack hack carb plus protein.

And we’re doing it while still listening to your body, and the cool thing about this strategy is that it works for any food because literally all food on the entire planet breaks down into some version of carbohydrate protein and fat. Those are our 3 macronutrients, those are the 3 essential nutrients that our bodies need that give us energy and now yes, some foods don’t really have much of any macronutrient in them. They might just have a gram or 2 of something I’m thinking of like broccoli and other non-starchy vegetables. Sometimes that trips people up because they’re like well wait. What would that food be.. It’s kind of in a category of its own where it’s mostly made up of fiber water vitamins and minerals and those non-starchy vegetables. Yeah,, they’re giving our body wonderful things. But they’re not going to give you much in terms of energy because they’re very low in calories and calories are. Energy for our body and so sure, let’s say you have um like some hummus and some ah pita bread and you want to have some raw veggies with it. That’s great, but I would encourage you to make sure you have the carbohydrate with that snack so that you’re not just doing raw veggies in hummus because that might not give you enough of the actual. Energy that you need from the carbs. So but ah, but aside from the non-starchy vegetables pretty much any other food that we could list breaks down into some type of macronutrient and you can pair it with another type of food to give you a good combo and that’s where I think that that diet culture leads us.

Awry with our judgments and labeling of the food as good and bad healthy and unhealthy words like junk and processed because it makes us feel guilty for eating those foods when at the end of the day inside our digestive system. Those foods are being broken down into individual molecules of carbohydrate protein and fat and it’s those individual molecules that are getting absorbed into your body. So by the time that carb hits your liver. Your body does not know or care. What food source it originates from could have come from an organic blueberry or an oreo. It’s still a carbohydrate and we can start to neutralize our judgments about food in this way so that we can choose to pair together things that have different nutrients and different flavor profiles in a way that doesn’t get us hung up. In this morality about food as if you’re a good person when you eat the salad and you’re a bad person when you eat the burger because you’re not and that type of thinking is often what leads to these chaotic and dysfunctional behaviors with food that stress us out so much. When we’re chill with food and when we have neutrality about food. It allows us to actually listen to our bodies to intentionally give ourselves the nourishment we need but we don’t have these big emotional reactions and all of that deprivation that will sometimes play out with binge eating or overeating. So.

Those are my 3 tips. Let’s recap those real quick. So the first one is to actively rebel against this summer body nonsense. You do not need to buy into that you do not need to participate in that nonsense this summer. The second one is the powerful pause before you eat it will help you be more connected to your body. So that you can listen to your body and enjoy your food and digest it more easily and then the third thing is the snack hack to pair together foods that have carbs and protein when you’re snacking for a combination that’s going to fill you up. Keep you satisfied and allow you to incorporate all types of food. I hope that this was helpful. I’d love to hear any thoughts that you have. I’d love to hear any additional questions that you have and ah my Dms are always open if you ever want to connect.