Food becomes a source of comfort for many people early in life.  If you skinned your knee, maybe your mom gave you a cookie to help you stop crying.  After a hard day at school, ice cream was what helped.  Food does bring comfort, in the immediate sense.  However, it doesn’t help over the long haul.  Instead, it causes other problems over time.

So after years of using food to quiet emotional pain or discomfort, how do you stop the old habit?  Here are some steps to follow that are simple, but require effort and repetition.  They do work, but give yourself patience and practice along the way.  After all, this pattern has likely been with you for a long time.

1. Set your intention to stop eating when you’re not physically hungry.  This is more important than you may realize for it serves as a basis for all of the rest of the steps.  Without this commitment to yourself, it will be easier to just eat.

2. Catch yourself in front of the pantry or in the refrigerator.  This is crucial to catch yourself in the moment of going for the comfort food, because this is the moment that you can use to make a different choice.  You might find it helpful to place some gentle and kind reminders in these areas of your house, or car, or wherever else you might be eating.

3. Stop and do an internal inventory.  Ask yourself these questions:

Am I hungry?  If so, then allow yourself a small, healthy snack of a protein and carb.

Am I tired?  If so, either take a nap, rest/relax, or allow a small protein snack for an energy boost.

Am I bored?  If so, find something to do.  Have a jar of ideas you can pick from to make it easier to move away from the food.  Make them fun or relaxing things, such as paint your toenails, read your favorite magazine, call a friend.  Often a 20 minute delay can help you move past the immediate craving to eat.

Am I anxious?  If so, find a calming technique.  Try music, yoga, journaling, breathing techniques.  Then shift your thinking into plan mode.  If there is an issue that needs to be resolved, work on it so it doesn’t have to keep spinning in your head.

Am I sad?  If so, find comfort elsewhere.  This may be from a friend, music, prayer, or writing it out.  Sometimes it’s OK to let yourself cry for a while to release what’s built up inside you.  Again, working on the issue will help to move you away from your sad feelings.

4. If you decide to eat to quiet your pain anyway, then follow some guidelines to keep it contained.  Go for the serving size suggested on the package.  Take only that amount and leave the area to eat it, so it’s not too easy to eat more.  Choose the healthiest food you can.  Eat as slowly as physically possible, focusing on savoring the flavor, the texture.  You might find some trick to help limit the time spent eating, like using a kitchen timer or the length of one commercial break.  When these become conscious choices, you can have control over them.

5. Most importantly of all, work on being more comfortable with uncomfortable aspects of life and being human.  Knowing how to manage and handle painful moments will give you other options to use to cope.  Having the confidence that you can handle it and knowing that it won’t last forever also can help you ride out the feelings.  Work on your internal dialogue and replace any self-derogatory thinking with thoughts that are more true and positive.  Many people find it helpful to create a list of all of the reasons they are awesome that they can refer to when they forget.

If you still engage in emotional eating, notice if the progress is in amount, duration, or frequency and focus on that.  Don’t beat yourself up, that will just perpetuate the problem by making you feel bad.  It can be overcome.  You are wonderful.  You are strong.  You can do it.

Healthy weight loss can drastically improve health markers; a master in public health provides information on how to curb emotional eating and other healthy life choices.

–L. Nikki Instone, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, published author, and professional speaker.  For more from her, visit her website at DrInstone.com.

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I hate cardio – one reason why I loved Dustin’s way of training.  HIIT and heavy weights.  I do like the feel of when I finish cardio though!  Try to beat my numbers!

Workout Breakdown

This workout takes exactly 24 minutes and it is an amazing cardio and core training. Set your Interval Timer for 36 rounds of two intervals: 10 seconds and 30 seconds. Your goal is to push at your maximum effort during each 30 second interval and write down your reps during the 10 seconds intervals.

• Low Jacks with Jump Rope max. ( I didn’t have my jump rope, so this was like in and out sqats) reps  #183
• One Leg Dead Lift -left leg max. reps   #88
• One Leg Dead Lift – right leg max. reps   #105
• Jump Lunges max. reps   #148

I love my GYMBOSS.  I use it for HIIT like this.  I set it for 30 seconds and 10 seconds, 36 times.  During the 10 second rests I jotted my number down and then when I was done, and my body was done shaking (!) I added the numbers up.  I will try this again next week and try to beat my numbers.  Can you beat them?

I also took advantage of the 15% of prograde krill oil this morning.  I just started using this a few weeks ago so thought it would be a good time to get a refill!  And also – thought I’d try the Prograde Metabolism.  I try to drink green tea every day, but in the summer don’t always.  Even though today I am brewing some green tea and peach oolong tea and taking it in a cooler with ice for a long baseball tournament tomorrow! 

Do you have a CSA available to you?  I first learned of this through, who else but Dustin.  I was so excited when I saw in our local paper earlier this spring that there was one starting near me.  Here is my first bunch of goodies last week.  I am going to pick up another bunch today including spinach, strawberries, greens, etc!

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I posed the question to my Fit Fun Bootcampers yesterday, “how do you deal with negative people in your life?”

I got a lot of great responses and I wanted to share with you a few of them combined with my own strategies.

I realize this doesn’t have to do with fitness, but it has all to do with quality of life and happiness of life.  The less time you can spend with negative people and listening to negative media, the far better off you will be and the happier you will be.

So here are some ideas

1.  This is pretty obvious, but get them out of your life.  If they are people that you can easily avoid, that would be the easiest solution to the problem.  Unfortunately, many of them are your family members, coworkers, or someone you have to see on a regular basis.  It makes it much tougher then.  If it is someone at work, you can maybe try to work slightly different hours, find another place within the company to work from, or keep your door shut when they are around.

2.  Kill them with kindness.  Negative people have a hard time being around positive people, just like water and oil don’t do well together.  So when they are complaining about something, in a sweet tone, point out a positive that you see from the situation.  If someone is being negative towards you, smile and give them a compliment.  Then later on in the day, go out of your way to do something nice for them.  Maybe is it buying them lunch, bringing them their favorite coffee (although I don’t really endorse coffee much), or send them an article or funny video via email.  This will either make the person be less negative towards you, or it will cause them to not want to hang out with you.  Either way a win.

3.  Tell yourself it isn’t your fault.  Many times someone will lash out at you for something you did or did not do.  Don’t take it personal, most of the time they are dealing with other issues and it just so happened they let it out on you.  Realize it is their problem and not your own.  Smile and walk away.

4.  Try to be positive as much as possible.  This is similar to #2, but do your best to be upbeat and not let negative things come out of your mouth.  We all have our moments, I am guilty as anyone, of saying negative things, but if we consistently can stay positive, those who are more negative will leave us alone or maybe not complain quite so much.

5.  This isn’t my favorite, but sometimes kindly letting them know that it is their choice to think a certain way and show them how just looking at the situation a little differently can bring out a positive.

I am curious… How do you handle negative people in your life?  Please share some strategies to help us out.

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I recently visited Philadelphia for the start of a year long coaching program to teach me how to promote my book and improve my speaking at a national level.  There are 120 people in the program from all walks of life.  Most of the people are authors or soon to be authors.  They all have a burning message that they want to get out to people to help change lives.

These types of coaching programs generally attract very successful and positive people, which is so nice to be around.

I wanted to share with you an interview I did with a father/son.

It is pretty amazing to see the sacrifice Bob has shown, but I am guessing if you asked Bob he wouldn’t think he is sacrificing anything.

I am so inspired by Shane’s story that I wanted to share it  with you.

For more information about Shane visit his website at http://www.shanemichael.us/

Shane will be reading this blog post, so please write a comment below about how his interview has changed your life or challenged you.

Here is what I got out of meeting Shane…

It isn’t the body of a man that is important as much as their mind and spirit.  When life seems to be challenging and painful, there are always ways to look at things to make it seem ok.  Shane could have taken the cards that were dealt him and be negative and upset about his condition, but instead he took that, and is inspiring others who don’t have even 1/1000th of the challenges that he has to go through each and every day.

Next time you want to complain or not believe something is possible, remember Shane and what he has had to go through and what he is accomplishing.  Your mind is the only thing that limits your potential.  Weather that is losing weight, changing careers, developing a new skill, or achieving any goal that your heard desires.

This also reminds me of another father son that have inspired me.  I have shared the Hoyt’s with you before, but it is worth another look.

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