How to stop bored eating

Hello ladies and welcome to the podcast.

So today I wanted to talk about one of the emotions that come up the most with emotional overeating. And it may not even be one that you know that you are trying to push away, and that emotion is boredom.

But before we start, I just wanted to tell you about an amazing webinar that I am doing on Thursday, the 10th of March at 12:00 PM, so noon GMT or 7:00 AM CST and it is about how to stop evening overeating.

This has been one of the most common things that I coach on and one of the most common questions that come up in my groups and with my clients and with my potential clients. And so I thought that I would do a webinar for you and teach you how to stop evening overeating.

So, if you would like to sign up for that, go to my website, www.amruticoaching.com and look for the place to sign up for that webinar. It is going to be amazing and you need to listen to it if you wanted to stop your evening overeating.

So let's get started with the podcast. So boredom is one of the main emotions that my clients tend to eat to avoid and boredom eating is just something that I describe as eating when you're bored. So if boredom is an emotion, what you know from self coaching model is that all our feelings are created by our thoughts. So the boredom isn't created by the situation or the circumstance, it's created by our thinking about the circumstance.

So I'll give you an example. It's not the task that's boring. It's our thinking about the task. So some people love taxes, but let's just be honest it's not my cup of tea. I don't like doing all the numbers. I find it boring. I find it something that I would much rather not do. And so what tends to happen for me is I'm like, oh, should I just go and have a snack?

And even as a weight loss coach, these thoughts are still there, but I just don't make them as much of an issue anymore. I accept them. I allow them to be there and I decide that I only eat when I'm hungry and I don't need to eat to push away boredom because boredom isn't too bad. Right.

So. If some people love taxes and taxes aren't my cup of tea, it's not the taxes that's creating the boredom. It's my thoughts about them. So the same thing with housework. So especially ironing, I find it really boring, but I know a few people who find it really therapeutic and actually would choose ironing of all the housework. Let's just be honest, that is not me. I find it boring. I buy clothes especially that I don't have to iron. And if I do have to iron then, like, for example, if I'm going to a wedding or something, it is a big deal for me. I don't like it.

So another example is watching certain sports. So for me, for example, watching cricket or watching football - most of the football, like if it's a certain tournament or anything, then I don't mind too much, but otherwise I find it really boring and my husband loves it. So he would be getting so much enjoyment from watching it and I would just find it really boring. So it's not the football that's making me feel bored. It's my thinking about the football that's making me feel so bored.

So I think one of the problems is that we are socialised to think being bored is wrong. We grow up in a society where the more you do the better, that's a lot of the thinking. We watch our parents who are often doers as well. They get a lot done and if we are in a society where being bored is wrong, then we are always going to want to push away the boredom. We are always going to want to make sure we don't feel bored. We often fill our calendars because we don't want to feel bored because we have thoughts about the boredom that are not acceptable for us.

We may think that we are being lazy if we're not doing things, we may make it mean that we're wasting our time. We may make it mean that we've got so much to do so we can't afford to be bored. Now these are the thoughts of a lot of my clients. They often find it difficult, being high achieving women, they find it very difficult to not do things, to actually feel bored.

And when they do feel bored, they have thoughts about the boredom, which make them want to run away from it. Right? And often when we think we have so much to do, when we actually feel bored, we make it mean that something's gone wrong. We make it mean that we need to fill the day with things that we have on our to-do list so we don't actually feel bored. Right.

So how is that showing up for you? How often are you overfilling your calendar because you don't want to feel the emotion of boredom? How often are you making it mean something about you being lazy or you wasting time when you are bored? Right?

Now, one of the important things is that the feeling of boredom normally triggers a thought for someone else. So what's important to know is what are you making it mean when you're not doing something and I'm actually coaching one of my clients through this exact thing. So she is a person who has always done so so much. She has done so much for her three children for her husband. She's always doing things around the house.

She's constantly busy. And when I asked her what it would be like for her to feel bored, she was like, I don't even know what boredom feels like. She was like, I never allow myself to feel bored. And when I questioned her as to why that was the case, she talked about how, when she was growing up, her parents were always doing things.

They were constantly finding things to do. She was always told that there's always stuff to do. And so when she felt bored, she was making it mean that she wasn't doing enough. And so she just went and did more. So she constantly felt on this hamster wheel where she had to do more and more and more. And so it was really difficult for her to even contemplate feeling bored at all because of what she would make it mean about herself.

Right?

A lot of my clients struggle to feel boredom and this may be showing up for you because you may notice that it's easier to eat on protocol when you're busy, when you're at work, but you may find it harder to stick on protocol when you are on holiday or in the evenings or at weekends. And that may be because you are struggling to feel the emotion of boredom.

What would it be like if you felt bored and you didn't need to push it away? Now, interestingly, you may not even think that you are overeating. You may not even realise that you're doing it, but what I want you to do this week is I want you to look for all the times when you are eating and just question, am I eating because I'm bored or am I eating because I'm actually physically hungry right now?

And just question the times where you could potentially be bored and it may reveal quite a lot for you. Other questions that may help you with this are to ask yourself, when was the last time that you were bored? How does boredom show up for you? What do you think about boredom? Is it a problem or is it fine?

And if it is a problem, why is it a problem to feel bored? A lot of my clients think I don't want to feel bored. And then what they do is they think that they need to be entertained all the time. And this is a problem because when we don't want to be bored, we often go to the false pleasures to make ourselves feel better.

So these are food that's not fuel for our body, scrolling on social media, watching or binge watching TV, going to alcohol. So what would it be like if boredom actually wasn't a problem? What if we thought of boredom as one of those emotions that we are meant to feel, it's part of that 50, 50 of life. That actually, we are meant to feel boredom some of the time and it may not be completely pleasant, but also it doesn't have to be a problem.

Life isn't going to be all rainbows and daisies all the time. And when you normalise the boredom, then you don't need to eat to push it out. When you think of the boredom as, yeah that's going to happen sometimes, it's not a problem. When you start noticing the boredom and being more aware of it, when you decide that actually I can become friends with the boredom.

I can actually look out for it. I can notice when I'm feeling it. I can narrate in my brain "I am feeling bored because I'm thinking this thought" that will really help.

Now, this is something that comes up so often in my own parenting. So I wanted to bring it up. My kids often say, mommy, I'm bored. This probably comes up at least 10 to 15 times a day.

And initially I used to think, oh, well, they can't be bored because then I would make it mean that I'm a bad mum. So I would rush to do X, Y and Z with them. I would try and do lots of activities with them. I would think, oh, well, they shouldn't be bored because if they are bored, then I'm not doing a good enough job as a mum.

And it may not be as drastic for you. But I want you to question where this comes up for you. Because boredom, even in our children is not a bad thing. It is essential for them to feel bored sometimes. And what I normally do with my kids is I always normalise the boredom. I always say, oh, it's normal to feel bored.

And they don't like that, but I keep reiterating it to them because if now from this age, they are able to realise that boredom is normal and it's not a bad thing. And it's okay to feel bored sometimes. And I don't need to push that boredom away. Then that's when they don't need to run away to watching TV or reading a book or playing with something to actually run away from the bottom. I

t's okay to feel bored. And what I normally say to them is only when you're bored are you able to access those parts of your brain that you hadn't accessed before. So the way I like to think about it is boredom is essential for creativity.

Only when you are bored, will your brain allow you to normalise the boredom and only then will you be able to access that creativity. For my kids, this shows up as them telling me 10 times that they're bored and me saying it's okay to feel bored and then they would just go off. And when they allow themselves to feel bored, that's when they create the most fantastic games.

Some of the things that they've done so far, they've created some tag games where they have certain rules and they have so much fun and it actually entertains them for ages. They had this box that we got from Amazon and we were throwing it in the recycling and they made it into a car. I mean, isn't that so cool?

Like a four-year-old and a six-year-old. So they cut out some wheels and they stuck it on. And then they even created a phone for the car and they had like a little walkie-talkie thing for each other and they made it like a little like gear stick thing and they coloured it in and they cut out windows.

I mean, it was really cool to see. And the only reason they were able to do that was because I allowed them to feel bored. So I want you to think about what would it be like in your life if you allowed for boredom, what would it be like if, when you felt bored at the weekend, you didn't need to run and do the cleaning, or you didn't need to put the radio on so you could run away from your own thoughts? Because a lot of the clients that I coach, they struggle with being at one with their own thinking. They struggle to allow themselves to hear their thinking, so this is the reason why they always distract themselves with either doing things or listening to things or reading things or doing more work or doing some housework.

What I want you to question is, are you able to do nothing and be okay doing nothing? I used to have a shower and every time I had a shower, I used to always have a podcast on, and my husband used to say, hold on, why aren't you listening to a podcast when I stopped listening to a podcast? And he used to be very shocked because that is what I always used to do.

And I realised that what I was doing is running away from my own brain. So when I realised that I was doing that, I decided, okay, I'm not gonna listen to a podcast. And I'm just gonna basically, it's like a meditation type thing that I do in the bath. And I sit there and I just allow my brain to think whatever it's thinking.

I allow myself to feel bored. And let me tell you the best ideas I have for the podcast or for the business or helping my clients or creating a new training always come when I am allowing my brain to access its creativity. They always come after I allow myself to feel bored. This is why I am so for feeling bored.

You don't need to push boredom away. What I want you to think about is what would you stop doing if you allowed boredom? How many times would you stop eating in the day if you allowed yourself to feel bored? How many episodes of TV would you stop watching if you allowed yourself to feel bored? How many glasses of wine would you not need to drink if you allowed yourself to feel bored in the evenings?

You wouldn't need to chase these false pleasures if you allow this feeling of boredom, and this is something I can help you with in the group coaching program. So if you would like to sign up, I am doing free consults all throughout March and April.

So you are invited to come on a consult and see if this is something that you would like some help with. If you would like to lose weight permanently, this is definitely something to consider.

And if you wanted to get a feel for my coaching, then listening to the podcast is a great start.

And if you wanted an in-depth discussion about how to stop evening overeating, then you must sign up for the webinar. It is going to be phenomenal and it is created specifically knowing the trends of my clients. And I know that this has been something that they have all struggled with. And so this will definitely help you too. So it is happening on Thursday, the 10th of March at 12:00 PM, GMT, which is 7:00 AM CST.

So go to the website, www.amruticoaching.com to sign up and I look forward to seeing you there. All right, then take care, bye bye!