Weight Loss For Foodies Podcast | Ditch The Diet And Lose Weight With Shari Broder

Do you find yourself drawn to articles and ads about the latest superfood or that special miracle coffee that will help you burn pounds of fat effortlessly?  Do you worry that you’re missing out if you haven’t tried the latest product that claims it will help you feel better, sleep better, have more energy and flatten your tummy?  Do you think you need to buy an expensive cleanse to rid your body of toxins?  The biggest toxin from which to cleanse yourself  is the so-called “wellness industry” that preys upon smart women like you who are concerned about their health and weight.  It seems like you can’t dine with a group of women without at least half of them either trying some new fad diet or eliminating one or more foods from their diet because they read on a website that it’s bad for them for some unknown or unproven reason.  Or maybe it’s under the guise of “clean eating.” Men don’t usually fall for this stuff.  Maybe you’re thinking, “That’s because men don’t have the same pressures as women to be thin.” 

Are you someone  who is like the juggler trying to keep too many balls in the air? Is one of the balls that you keep dropping your goal to change your eating habits and lose weight? How often do you get to that point where you think, “ I don't care! I want to eat! It's okay just this one time."   Or you think that “what the F” thought  as you start chowing down snacks mindlessly. You’ve got too much on your plate. Your mind is so cluttered with your “to do” list that you can’t remember to ask yourself whether you’re hungry before you mindlessly stuff food down.  You become exhausted, and don’t have the energy to make good choices about eating.  I bet you get that “I don’t care, I’m going to eat this anyway” thought more often later in the day, right?  Like late afternoons, or when you get home from work, or after dinner.  That’s when you have the most trouble saying no to your urges to eat when you aren’t hungry. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you how this is undermining your efforts and how to fix that.

As a coach, I can give you some really great tools to use to change your eating habits and establish new habits that will help you lose weight without dieting.  But that is not enough.  You have to be willing to do the work.  If you really want to change, whether it is your eating habits, what kind of shape you’re in, or how you think, it’s up to you to use those tool to make that change happen.  The problem is that so many people who think they want to change actually resist change. They even say that they hate change.  It’s human nature to not like change, but it isn’t a very good happiness strategy because the only thing we know for sure is that change will come, whether you want it to or not.  It’s pretty hard to be truly happy when you hate the inevitable.  People who hate change are also more likely to stay stuck in a place where they aren’t really  happy anyway.  So why not embrace change?  And beyond embracing it, how about initiating it so you can make your life better?  Isn’t that a lot better than

Imagine if childhood stories and behavior science teamed up to teach us how to change our habits. It can actually be FUN! That’s exactly what today’s guest, author and wellness coach Sarah Hays Coomer, discusses with me in this episode.  You’ll learn how the Habit Loop works, and how to establish habits that stick. You’ll get some great tools to keep you focused on making the changes that will make it easier to reach your weight and other goals. You’ll learn about the Presto-Chango Switcheroo (you’ll have to listen to find out what that is!) We discuss using micro-rituals to help you remember to make good decisions instead of staying stuck in your old habits. And Sarah explains how to make an emergency plan that’s ready to go to keep you centered when life throws you those inevitable curve balls.  So much good stuff! Sarah is the author of three books, including The Habit Trip: A Fill-in-the-Blank Journey to a Life on Purpose. It is an interactive storybook for grown-ups that offers a more fun, funny and whim

You’ve heard many times that diets don’t work.  Do you disagree? You’ve tried a bunch of diets, and maybe you lost some weight on at least one of them.  But then what happened? I’m guessing that you gained the weight back. Am I right?  When I say that diets don’t work, I mean diets don’t produce permanent weight loss.  Sure, you can go on whatever the latest fad diet is and drop some weight. Maybe you’ve  even reached your goal once or twice.  But you don’t stay on the diet for the rest of your life.  You go back to eating the way you always did. And then what happens?  The same thing that always happened. You gain it back.  Because the diet doesn't fix the problem that caused you to gain weight, and you’ve made no permanent changes to how and why you’re eating.  When you start a new diet, do you think about how you’re going to keep the weight off?  When I was a dieter, I assumed that once I’d lost the weight, I’d be so happy to be thinner that it would be my incentive to not gain the weight back.  Unfortunat

Do you ever feel like you’re sucked back emotionally to a time when something painful happened to you?  All of those same painful feelings start flooding you again, like it was just yesterday?  Or perhaps there is someone in your life who drives you nuts with their insensitive behavior or comments, and every time you see them, you feel these familiar uncomfortable feelings.  What you’re experiencing are emotional triggers.  What happens when you’re triggered is that you’re reminded of something painful, and your brain will naturally direct you to dive back into that memory.  You may start overthinking the situation, reexamining it, obsessing about it, getting angry, or scared or hurt all over again. You probably haven’t processed the emotions yet, or perhaps only partially.   If you’re an emotional eater, there’s a good chance some of your triggers are feelings that you haven’t let yourself really feel because you distract yourself from them by eating.  When you get triggered, your beastie brain takes the whe

Do you eat to escape from uncomfortable feelings?  Dan Emmons wisely said, “What most needs attention is the part of us that we seek to avoid feeling. When we attend to that, we change and the world changes with us.” When you think about it, emotional eating is avoiding feeling. Avoiding YOUR feelings. Your feelings are your body’s way of telling you important messages.  Eating to avoid your feelings is really using food as a drug.  You briefly take away one discomfort--whatever uncomfortable feelings you’re experiencing--and create the long-term discomfort of not dealing with whatever is causing those feelings, plus you get the added discomfort of gaining weight and the possibility of consequential health issues.  This week’s podcast episode is a guided emotional eating meditation to help you learn to be with your emotions and manage them in a healthy way, rather than eating to avoid them.  It will help you practice being with difficult emotions and thoughts in an open, allowing, and accepting way.  Listen t

Do you sneak food? Have you ever thought about why you do it? I was a sneaky eater for much of my life. As a kid, I’d sneak sweets from the snack drawer and hide in my room to eat them. When I was old enough to drive, I’d buy food while I was out and munch it down in the car on my way home, then pull into a gas station to throw away the wrappers. My sneaky eating habit went on well into my adult years.  I also snuck food because when you sneak food and no one sees you eat it, you aren’t really eating it. Do you know that feeling? You can pretend it didn’t happen! Ultimately, I snuck food as a way of lying to myself, although I didn’t realize it at the time.  Sneaking food isn’t hurting anyone but you. And you don’t need to do it. Listen to this episode to explore why you sneak food and what you can do to change that.

How often do you find yourself upset because of something someone else did?  Something over which you have no control?  Do some people really trigger you--a coworker, neighbor, a sibling or in-law--causing you to not show up the way you want to with them, or just making life unpleasant?  Are there people in your life who seem to need to put you or others down to feel good about themselves?  Do you eat in response to the uncomfortable emotions you feel when you have to deal with these folks?  The fact is that we have less control of most of what happens during our day than we like to admit. We can’t control other people’s behavior, the weather, traffic, or, well, pretty much most things. In reality, the only thing we really have control over is our thoughts. When you are good at managing your thinking, all of those other annoyances and difficulties become less difficult.  Wouldn’t you love to be in that peaceful place of equanimity where you notice this person’s behavior and let it roll off you like water off

How often do you feel guilty? Do you think of guilt as a negative emotion? I don’t think of emotions as negative or positive. They’re all important and have something to tell us. On the other hand, there are pleasant and unpleasant feelings. I think most people will agree that feeling guilty isn’t fun. But that is not a reason to avoid feeling it! To the contrary. Guilt is sometimes very useful and even necessary. And sometimes it’s counterproductive.  Like when you feel guilty because you ate something. When is guilt helpful? When does it simply make us feel bad but with no upside?And what’s the difference between guilt and shame?  Listen to learn why guilt is so important, why you should not feel guilty about eating, and how to manage unproductive guilty thoughts.  If you want to learn more about how to manage guilt and other emotions and emotional eating, watch my free video masterclass, Kick the Emotional Eating Habit for Good. It’s available on my website under Free Resources.

Do you unconsciously sabotage your efforts to reach your long-term weight loss goals by choosing instant gratification from food over the long-term joy of achieving your goals? You’ve probably heard of self-sabotage, right?  There’s a lot more to it  than meets the eye.  When you continue to engage in a habit that isn’t good for you, like one that is counterproductive to your weight loss efforts, it is because there is an unconscious or subconscious unmet emotional need that you’re fulfilling by continuing that behavior.  You’re trying to give yourself what you think you need at the moment to feel better, but you really aren’t.  You see, you don’t really need food under those circumstances. Food can’t fill that emotional void. But you eat so you don’t have to feel your feelings.  Here’s the problem: what you’re giving yourself in the form of immediate gratification is moving you in the opposite direction from what you really want even more: to experience the true joy of achieving a bigger, more important goal

Someone recently told me that her coach asked her coaching group how many times they were going to fail. They were supposed to choose a number. Does that seem odd to you?  I found the idea intriguing.  If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t try hard enough to succeed. Then your failure will be caused by your own misguided beliefs.   Why do we think of failure as such a horrible thing? It isn’t. It just means things didn’t go the way you hoped or expected.  Yet so many people avoid achieving their dreams because they’re too afraid to fail along the way.  Do you think of failure as something that happens to you that’s outside of your control? Do you blame your failures or mistakes on something or someone? Or do you react by feeling bad about yourself, thinking that you’re a loser and labeling yourself as a failure? Listen to learn why having a healthy approach to failure and learning from your mistakes is a fundamental component of being your best self.

How does drinking affect your weight? Can you drink and still lose weight? If so, how much? SPOILER ALERT: You don’t have to give up alcohol to lose weight.  But if you drink regularly, it could make being a healthy weight more difficult.  How booze affects your weight depends on many things, including what you drink, how much you drink, how often you drink, and what you eat when you’re drinking. Listen to this episode to learn how booze affects your body (aside from the obvious!) and what you need to consider in choosing to consume alcohol while you’re working towards achieving your comfortable weight.

If you want to lose weight, what should you drink? What beverages should you avoid?  How does alcohol fit in?  This episode focuses on nonalcoholic drinks, and I’ll cover alcohol in the next episode.  When deciding what to drink, it’s your total consumption of foods and beverages that will affect whether you gain weight, lose it or stay the same.  Most beverages contain energy, often in the form of sugar, and your body will use it for energy before it uses the food you’ve consumed. In this episode, I’ll discuss considerations for your beverage choices and some ideas for how you can make choices that help you make progress towards your weight goals.

If you’re an emotional eater, it may be because you haven’t learned a better, healthier way to manage your emotions.  Were you taught to suppress your emotions from an early age? Many people ultimately spend years in therapy undoing the damage from suppressing their emotions! Do you suppress your emotions, then feel bad about yourself BECAUSE you have these normal emotions? The reality is that our emotions are our body’s way of giving us important information. As noted author of The Language of Emotions, Karla McLaren, explains, “Emotions are millions of years older than spoken language, and simply put, they’re smarter than words, they’re deeper than any technique, and they can help you in ways you cannot imagine.”  The messages from our emotions are much more reliable than the ones we get from our brain.  Listen to this week’s podcast to learn about how emotional intelligence can not only help you be more successful in losing weight and keeping it off, but also in life! And how to cultivate more of it.

Happy New Year! It’s that time of year when many people have made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight. It won’t come as a surprise to you that most of them won’t succeed, and will quickly abandon their resolutions. Maybe that even sounds familiar.  While it’s a great idea to set health goals for yourself, I don’t think it’s a good idea to set a weight number goal.  Some people have health conditions that are improved by losing weight. Others just want to feel more comfortable in their own skin.  Either way, it is a far better idea to focus on improving your health habits than deciding you want to lose 25 pounds.  There are many reasons for this, including that your chances of success are so much better when you set goals that involve changing your habits instead of focusing on the number on the scale. Listen to this week’s episode to learn why you should focus on health goals, and not a specific weight loss goal this year, and a few goals to consider.  Here’s to a healthy and happy new year!

After getting through a difficult day, or even a not-so-difficult day, do you treat yourself by eating when you aren’t hungry?  If so, you’re among the great majority of people who want to lose weight, but consistently undermine their efforts with this habit. Chances are that your parents started you down this road at a young age. If you cried and they handed you a cookie or some other treat, your brain recorded the connection that food was supposed to make you feel better.  Or you got a treat for behaving well. For being a good girl. So you began associating with food this way.  We’re also bombarded with food advertising encouraging us to treat ourselves.  Do you think, “I deserve this” about food?  I’m no stranger to using food as a reward, although I no longer do it. And I can’t wait for you to learn how to stop, too. There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself, but when food is your main go-to, and you aren’t hungry, it isn’t really a reward. Stop kidding yourself. Listen to learn why using food as a rew

How often do you think the same negative thoughts about yourself or your life?  Have you ever thought about how those thoughts trip you up?  The thing is that most of those thoughts simply aren’t true!  This distorted information that your brain thinks has a name:  Cognitive bias.   Cognitive biases are errors in how you think. They are when you have unrealistic or inaccurate explanations for what’s going on in your life that lead you to make wrong assumptions or conclusions. Those incorrect assumptions cause you to feel negatively about yourself or your life, and they keep you stuck.  There are many different kinds of cognitive biases, this episode focuses on 8 of them that are most likely to interfere with your ability to make positive changes in your life with respect to your relationship with food, eating and your body.  Being aware of your cognitive biases will help you notice when you're having these erroneous thoughts. This awareness will allow you to analyze your thoughts so that you can correct the t

How often do you let a setback cause you to toss in the towel?  If you give up on your goals just because you made a mistake, you need to know this: Setbacks are a normal part of change. To quote Gareth Michael, “Each mistake is simply a lesson waiting to be discovered.”  Think about how that approach could change your ability to succeed at making the changes you want in your life.  No one who sets out to change a habit does it perfectly. We’re humans, and humans make mistakes, especially when we’re learning to do something differently.  One of the most important abilities you must have to make permanent changes to your eating habits is the ability to get back on track after you’ve messed up. That is the difference between the people who reach their goals and those who don’t.  Listen to learn how this simple change in your approach can make all the difference in whether you succeed or give up.  The only way you can truly fail is by giving up.  Thanks to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast. Click the link b

The Weight Loss for Foodies approach is all about ditching your unconscious, unhealthy eating habits and establishing new ones that will not only help you enjoy eating more than ever, but will also move you towards a more comfortable weight.  So much of how most people eat is an unconscious habit, and that is precisely the problem. But how do you kick a bad habit and create a new one? If you want to weigh less, you probably have a number of habits surrounding how you eat that result in overeating, which in turn causes weight gain.  Part of your brain is happy continuing to do what it knows, and doesn’t care if it’s not good for you. That often means your brain helps you to continue doing your bad habits.  This makes changing your habits challenging. People are so inclined to choose immediate gratification instead of their more important long-range goals, even though immediate gratification doesn’t produce the joy that achieving your goal does.  You CAN break any habit and replace it with a healthier, more des