How to be a foodie and still lose weight

Apr 05, 2022

Hello ladies and welcome to the podcast. So today I'm going to be talking about how to be a foodie and still lose weight, because this is one of the things that comes up so often when people are considering joining the group coaching program, they often say, no, I enjoy my food too much. And they think that them enjoying their food is actually going to stop them from losing weight.

And this is just a false, it's thought error. So I wanted to start off by saying the may group coaching program is open for enrollment. So if you would like to join, then please go to www.amruticoaching.com/group, and you can sign up there. It is going to be the best class ever. I have created this amazing planner for you and it is the best planner because it's the one that I use I have used to help maintain my 42 kilogram weight loss over my weight loss journey. And it's the one that I use every single day. So I basically used to use all of these methods and, you know, had questions that I was asking and things like that.

So now I've created a specific planner that is going to be available for the first time ever in the course that I offer you. In, the group coaching program. So this is the best time to join because this is one of the best additions that I've ever offered for the course. So make sure you go to www.amruticoaching.com/group to join.

So let's start off by defining what a foodie is. So what I think of a foodie, I think of someone who really enjoys eating food. However, the problem comes when people think that if I am going to lose weight, I will have to deprive myself of eating the foods that I enjoy. And that's just not true. I eat more food now than I probably ever have eaten in terms of calories.

So in the group coaching program, we do not count calories at all. We learn how to eat to enough. We learn how to pay attention to our hunger signals that are the innate signals from our own body. We learn how to balance our hunger hormones and then eat how much our body actually needs. So I don't say to my clients, you can't eat certain foods.

There's no good or bad foods. There's just foods that serve you and foods that don't serve you. Now don't get me wrong. There may be some foods for some people that just don't suit them very well. Like for me, flour and sugar just don't suit me very well. I know that when I eat it, I get bloated. I tend to feel very, very exhausted.

I feel sluggish. My concentration goes down. I feel like I'm getting clenching in my tummy. I genuinely don't want to eat it very much. Now that doesn't mean that I can't eat it. Like I still enjoy having some ice cream. I still enjoy having a tiny bit of things. In fact, just before recording this podcast, I had some that my mother-in-law bought from India and it was really delicious and I enjoyed it, but I had the one piece previously I would have had one piece and then another, and then another, and then another, and that's just not needed for me anymore.

And the reason for that is I don't kid myself into thinking that if I eat 10 pieces, it will taste better than one piece. That's what a lot of my clients do they think. No, but it's going to taste even better when I eat more, but that's just not true.

The taste is actually going to be the same, whether you have one, whether you have 10. But it's just the story that you're making up in your brain about how I need to eat more about if I only eat one, then that means I'm depriving myself. Or if you say to yourself, actually it would be better if I eat the 10 pieces.

Right.

Being a foodie just means that you enjoy eating food. And actually we're primed to enjoy eating food because we have a natural desire for food that all humans have. And that is something that's always going to be there. That is something that we were born with because evolutionarily we needed to have a desire to eat food so that we would go and find the berries when we were in the kind of caveman and cave woman days so that we would go out and hunt because we wanted to carry on surviving. So it's that innate thing that will always be there, but it's only when you have an over desire for food, that it doesn't serve us, only when you are overeating, does it not serve us?

So when you are thinking that the more I eat the better, and because we have that primitive brain, that is what is always going to be the best. Remember our primitive brain wants us to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how we are. So that means it's always going to want us to eat the extra food. So cue the 10 instead of the one it's always going to want you to eat more and more and more of it.

Because it thinks the more I eat, the more I am saving on my body. So when there's a famine or when I'm being chased by a saber tooth tiger, I will be able to have the energy on my body to fuel myself. But what our lovely primitive brain doesn't realize is that in this day and age, there's such an abundance of food.

We don't actually have that danger that we had when we were in the cave man, cave women era. Right. Also in the south Asian culture, it's often all about food. It's, I'm going to make this, I'm going to provide this food when someone comes around and it's often how we show our love and appreciation to someone it's very much like when we're celebrating something, there's going to be some, a tie when we are.

inviting someone to a wedding or a birthday. It's all about the food. Right? So in our culture, it's very much about when you are happy, you eat, when you are sad, you also eat because that makes you feel better. If that is something that you're doing, you're not doing anything wrong. You're just responding to what society has been teaching you.

Right. And that doesn't mean that it can't be changed. For over 30 years of my life, I was eating a certain way. And then I decided that what I had learned, I wanted to challenge it because you know, you're not born with overeating. If you think about babies, Stop when they've had enough.

When I look at my children, even when they're eating dessert, when they're are actually physically full, they can actually eat anymore. Sometimes I'm, shocked watching my son very, the other day he was having a banana and the banana is his favourite fruit. And he said, mommy, I really want to eat it.

I said, okay. And he had one bite and he said, okay, mommy, I'm done now. And I was like, but this is your favorite fruit.  Are you sure you don't want anymore. He's like, no, mommy. And he was just so certain in himself and I was just like, wow. And I've seen him do the same thing with chocolate or cake and things like that as well.

Sometimes he tries to force himself because he really enjoys it. But you can actually see when he's getting uncomfortable because he's physically full. And I just look at him and I think, wow, that is just so amazing that this is how we are born. We are born with hunger hormones that are balanced.

We are born with the signals already in us. So it's just something that we have learned as we grow up. That food is something that we use to celebrate food is something we use to push away our negative emotions. Food is something that we eat when there's a wedding or a celebration or. And so we can unlearn those habits as well.

So you can still be a foodie and you can lose weight. I call myself a foodie. I love food. Now, what I do is I don't try and fight myself and say, okay, I can't eat this. And I can't eat that. If you see what I eat, you would be shocked because calorie-wise I eat a lot of fat, a lot of healthy fat, because it actually dampens the insulin response in my body and it keeps me full for longer. So compared to previously, I use a lot of double cream, a lot of ghee, a lot of butter in my cooking and you know what it makes it taste absolutely delicious. A lot of people think fat makes you fat. That's just not the case. I have maintained my 42 kgs of weight loss and, I eat a lot of fat. I probably eat more calories wise than I used to eat when I was trying to lose weight and I wasn't actually losing anything. So if you're, wanting to learn a little bit more about this, go and listen to my weight loss myths debunked podcast, and you will be able to hear a lot more.

So when you are thinking that you're a foodie, how can you still lose weight? So there's a few things that I do that I thought I would share with you. As you know, I'm very big on planning because when we're planning our food, we are using that prefrontal cortex of us, we're using that part of our brain that is the human part of our brain, the part of our brain that can actually do the reasoning. And the part of our brain, that's thinking of that greater good of losing the weight and keeping it off as opposed to the primitive brain that wants us to seek pleasure, avoid pain, stay how we are. So whatever I plan my food, I'm always using that higher part of my brain.

So when I want to eat food, that is off my protocol, like sugar and flour, I plan it. As I said, I have Kaju Kathli, I have ice cream. I have cake. I have a lot of chocolate and it's not that they're bad foods, but I also don't overeat them. I put a certain amount on there and I stick to that. Sometimes I may put one square of dark chocolate and I eat two.

But that's quite rarely. And I'm the reason I'm telling you this is, even as a weight loss coach, I'm not perfect. And we don't aim for perfection in the group coaching program because there's just no such thing. And actually that holds you back. But the vast majority of the time I eat on protocol and the reason for that is I make my protocol doable.

Now that being said, if I'm not getting the result that I want, so say you want to lose half a kilo a week and you're making a really doable plan and you're sticking to it and everything, but actually you're not getting the result that you want. You may want to go back and see, okay. When I'm thinking these thoughts, I'm creating this result.

So I'm thinking this, I'm feeling this I'm taking these actions and creating this result. It's not the result that I want. I want to go back and change my thinking, change, what I'm feeling, change, what I'm doing to create a different result for me. And that may mean making a few food choices and that's when you get to decide, okay, this is what result I get when I'm thinking this way, feeling this way and eating this food.

So how do I want to make these choices? For me, I decided that I wanted to be stricter when I was not kind of on holiday or not at the weekends and things. And at the weekends, I'm not as strict with my food plan. I prefer to plan my food to the T and eat it. I prefer to do myself care. I prefer to have all of that in there, so that it's easier for me to stick to my plan.

I prefer to drink three liters of water a day because thirst shows up as hunger for me. So the planning is a really important aspect of being a foodie and still losing. Not the thing that I do is that when I am eating off plan, I make it worth it. So for example, I don't particularly like, lots of flowery things.

Like, for example, I used to really love cake, but now I would prefer like a rich, dark chocolate dessert compared to a vanilla cake, for example. So if there was a vanilla cake there, I probably wouldn't. Eat that because I know that it's just not kind of worth it for me really. Whereas if it was a really lovely dark chocolate that was rich and the thing that I would really enjoy, I would put that on my protocol.

So I would make my off plan eat something that I really wanted to eat. So it wouldn't just be one of those, one of those kinds of off planets, another thing. I make the food that I do eat. So delicious and nutritious that when I do go out, for example, if it's food that I don't particularly enjoy, like McDonald's or pizza or something like that, then I can very easily say, no, I'm fine.

Thank you. I don't want to eat here. I'll I'll eat when I get home, because I know that the food that I've got planned is way nicer, way more nutritious and actually tastes much better than the food. Everyone else is eating. So I've kind of become a bit of a food snob, but I much prefer it because I know that I'm filling my body with actual nutritious food.

Another thing that you can do. Be very mindful of how often you're having these, of protocol eats. So what I normally suggest is for two, months, you know, really balancing your hunger hormones. And then if you want to start having off plan eats, then start having them say once a week or so, but plan them 24 hours in advance because the whole point of it is it's not the.

It's that you want to plan it with your prefrontal cortex, so you are able to have it, and you are able to tell yourself that I can stop it at any time. So it doesn't mean you have to have the huge whole portion. You stop eating it when you have stopped enjoying it. And that way you are allowing yourself to eat it.

But you are also allowing yourself to say, you know what? I've actually had enough now, so I don't need to eat it. Okay. So this is how you can still be a foodie and lose weight. I'm doing it. All of my clients are doing it. And it's something that is totally possible for you too.

So right now, enrollment for the group coaching program is open. So if you would like to join, make sure you do do this for yourself. I know you've been listening to my podcast. I know you've been thinking, do you know what this sounds really interesting. It's totally possible for you too. So I welcome you to join.

Go to www.amruticoaching.com/group. And I look forward to welcoming you.

All right, ladies, I'll speak to you next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

 

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