3 Solutions to Comfort Eating

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If eating healthy and maintaining your ideal weight were easy, everyone would be doing it.
While the foundations are simple, they aren’t often easy. And one of the BIGGEST ROADBLOCKS to these goals is using food for comfort.
Food as comfort is a complex topic and something I help clients to redefine and create ease with.
Today I’d like to share 3 solutions to comfort eating that can change your relationship with yourself and with food.

3 Steps Toward Nourishment vs. Comfort Eating:

1. Get in touch with how you feel.
2. Get in touch with what you need.
3. Follow through on your insights.

Let’s unpack each of these:

1. Get in touch with how you feel. Comfort eating by simple definition is to eat with the intention of creating a feeling of comfort within your body and mind. But what I see every single day is people struggling with their health (weight, blood sugar, digestion, blood pressure, etc) because they are overeating, eating late at night, eating unhealthy foods too often and in large quantity in an effort to calm an uncomfortable feeling they are having.
Food becomes an avoidance strategy and temporary distraction for uncomfortable feelings of fear, worry, frustration, boredom, loneliness, exhaustion, anger, confusion, disappointment, etc. 
But when we feel these feelings, food doesn’t actually fix any of them. In fact, eating in excess or eating unhealthy foods creates MORE problems for you, some of which can actually be the difference between life or death. I don’t say this lightly.
Getting in touch with how you are feeling is the first step toward giving yourself what you actually need to feel better and develop a healthy relationship with yourself and with food.
A simple “how are you feeling right now?” and then compassionately listening to your answer will help you connect with your true feelings.

2. Get in touch with what you need. When you are hungry, you need nourishment. For all other needs, food isn’t the answer.
If you have an emotional need, you need an emotional answer. I hear often that people eat because they are stressed and they need to feel calmer, but stress is not an emotion even though we refer to it like it is (I am currently working on naming the actual feeling when I fall into describing something as “stressful”). Then, it’s really helpful (after you’ve identified your feelings) to then ask yourself what you need. What else besides food meets your need?
If you’re bored, you don’t need food, you need to be interested or engaged or connected or stimulated (this is a great list to refer to, btw). What are ways that you can meet this need that don’t cause you harm? (i.e. reading, going for a walk, listen to something funny, call or text a friend, listen to music, work on a project that is fulfilling). If you’re frustrated, you might need to talk about it or journal or move your body or do some breathing exercises.
Sometimes it’s easier to discover what you need than other times. It can be very helpful to get support from a therapist, counselor, or coach. Friends and family are wonderful…AND, there are times when seeking professionals to help you create a better understanding of yourself and solutions is the way to go.

3. Follow through on your insights. Now that you’ve asked how you feel and what you need, it’s time to follow through on what you’re discovering. Asking and then going right back to the old behavior that’s hurting you in the long run is not kind, loving or nurturing…and that’s really what each of us needs from ourselves is to take a stand to take CARE of ourselves. Neglecting your feelings and needs is self-abandonment. You don’t need that! You need to take even one small step towards your insights and meet the unmet need. Your needs will keep coming up. That’s the nature of needs. They must be met somehow. Use your new insights to meet them in healthy ways.
Reach out to me if you get stuck. You can be strong, resourceful and still greatly benefit from collaborating with someone who wants to help you and has the expertise to do so.I hope that you feel inspired by today’s newsletter.

It is my passion to work with people like you whose health symptoms are getting in the way of you living life fully and with a sense of freedom in your body. I can help you to regain your health so you can feel great and free to enjoy life fully.

If you’re ready to discover where your best health has been hiding, I’d love to connect with you!

Apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Health Discovery Session at http://bit.ly/schedulinghealth (subject to availability). 

Until next time, I’m wishing you unstoppable health!

~Rebecca

Do You Know What You’re Eating?

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If you’re feeling like you need a little post-holiday reset with your eating, you’re not alone.
It’s the perfect time to get back to the healthy eating basics! Let’s make sure we’re on the same page as to what that means.

5 Most Important Healthy Eating Basics Are:

1. Protein at all meals.
2. Quality carbs. 
3. Quality fats.
4. Choosing quality foods with the least processing.
5. Timing.



Let’s unpack each of these:
1. Protein at all meals. Current research tells us that we need at least 30 grams of high quality protein per meal (3 meals/day) per day to support healthy muscle mass throughout our lifespan. This is roughly a palm-sized portion, very do-able. Check out my blog post here for more specifics on types of protein and the benefits.

2. Quality carbs. Do you know what a carb is? Most people think about the least healthy and most processed forms of carbs when asked this question (i.e. chips, pizza, cereal, pasta), but all vegetables and fruits are carbs! Do you eat vegetables every day? With all your meals? Consider this an invitation to include veggies with your protein every day and as often as possible. For example, you can aim to eat 1/2 cup-1 cup of vegetables with at least two of your meals. Fruit is also nutritious but is trickier because most of it is a lot higher in sugar than veggies are…but it’s still far healthier to reach for than processed carbs. Bottom line: choose quality carbs, veggies and fruits, the majority of the time.

3. Quality fats. Some people thrive on a higher fat diet while others feel sluggish and have digestive issues. Know thyself and adjust. Great sources of high quality fats include avocados, nuts, seeds, olives, salmon, pastured eggs, grassfed meat, pastured poultry as well as olive oil, ghee and/or butter, coconut oil, and algae oil. Depending on your genetics and possible food sensitivities, some fat sources are going to be more healthful for you than others. For example, if genetically you carry copies of the ApoE 2, 3 or 4 genes, you will need to pay special attention to saturated versus unsaturated fats since fat metabolism is altered/slowed.

4. Choosing quality foods with the least processing. There’s a lot of range here and I encourage you to start where you need to start. If you currently buy all packaged foods with a huge ingredient list where you can only pronounce half of what’s on there, your starting out place might be buying some frozen veggies, cans of beans, and pre-cooked but good quality protein with minimal ingredients (rotisserie chicken, hardboiled eggs, organic tempeh). Wherever you are, know that your body does best with simple ingredients and aim to make protein and veggies your base.

5. Timing. Eating breakfast, lunch and dinner makes it possible to get the amount of protein and nutrients you need in a day to thrive. I am not a fan of less frequent eating than this because I too often see nutritional deficiencies. If you aren’t “that hungry”, make small meals. And aim to stop eating 2-3 hrs before bedtime. Our bodies need fuel during the day, not while we are preparing for sleep. Our bodies need at least 12 hours of non-eating time from our last bite of the day to our next bite the following day.I hope that you feel inspired to reset with these simple, healthy eating basics.

It is my passion to work with people like you whose health symptoms are getting in the way of you living life fully and with a sense of freedom in your body. I can help you to regain your health so you can feel great and free to enjoy life fully.

If you’re ready to discover where your best health has been hiding, I’d love to connect with you!

Apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Health Discovery Session at http://bit.ly/schedulinghealth (subject to availability). I’ve also got a weight release webinar coming up on the 18th (details on the top right side).

Until next time, I’m wishing you unstoppable health!

~Rebecca

P.S.
I’ve been nominated for best “Nutrition Center” in the Good Times Santa Cruz annual event and I’d be delighted if you’d cast your vote for me here under the “Health and Beauty” section of the ballot. Thank you so much in advance!

 🥳

Shape Up Your Habits

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Happy 2025! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season.
Whether you participate in New Year’s resolutions or not, this is an ideal time of year to reflect on what’s working in your life. In regards to health and wellness, I see the most struggling occur as a result of habits that are not aligned with what we say or think we want. For example, we say we want to lose weight but we habitually eat too much food or snack late at night. We say we want to be in good physical shape, but we don’t exercise consistently.
It’s easy to come up with excuses why these habits are the way they are, but at the end of the day, if your habits don’t match up with your goals, you’re going to keep struggling.

Much of the work I do as a nutritionist and transformational health coach is actually centered on creating mindset shifts and habit shifts so that all that great information you accumulate gets put into action! Here is one small yet powerful step that you can start applying that will help you shape up your habits and get the results you’re after!

Habit Shaping

Habit shaping is a process of taking a larger habit and starting small and easy. Quite often, we take on too much habit change at once and we don’t combine it with enough support. This quickly becomes overwhelming and we give up.
The first thing worth doing is getting crystal clear on what result or benefit you are after. And the second essential ingredient is WHY. Why are you committed to that benefit or outcome?
For example, maybe you want to release 10 pounds. Okay great. But why is that important to you? Maybe that extra weight is making your back or knees ache and limiting your joy or your ability to do fun activities and you’re committed to staying active with your friends and/or family. Or maybe your goal is to heal your gut because you’re having uncomfortable or embarrassing symptoms that interfere with your being able to do your job well or have a rich social life.
Okay so once you know what you want and why you want it, the next step is to plan out the action necessary to achieve it–and start with small, consistent action!
In the beginning it’s just about getting yourself to show up, you don’t have to do the whole thing: just show up for 2-5 minutes. Revisit this habit about once a week and if you’ve mastered doing two or five minutes, then very gradually increase it toward what ultimately you want to be doing in this area with this habit. For example if you want to develop the habit of exercising daily for 30 minutes, start with 2-5 minutes and master that. Show up for that. Then increase it by a small increment, like eight minutes. Master that habit before increasing. Little by little, you’ll get to your 30 minute habit and it will feel easy. You’ll feel successful.

If you like to read, James Clear’s book Atomic Habits and Dr. Ranjan Chatterjee’s book Feel Better in 5 are great resources to learn more about creating solid habits by starting small and gradually. If you are more hands on and want a more customized approach, that’s what I’m here for. I hope that this tip helps you feel empowered.

It is my passion to work with people like you whose health symptoms are getting in the way of you living life fully and with a sense of freedom in your body. I can help you to regain your health so you can feel great and free to enjoy life fully.

If you’re ready to discover where your best health has been hiding, I’d love to connect with you!

Apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Health Discovery Session at http://bit.ly/schedulinghealth (subject to availability). I’ve also got 2 events in January (details on the top right side).

Until next time, I’m wishing you unstoppable health!

~Rebecca