Hey, everybody, welcome back to the too much on her plate podcast. If you are somebody who feels like you are in a circular pattern with overload, with overwhelm and overeating, it can feel like you are in the cycle that is impossible to break out of. But it’s not.
Today that’s what I’m going to talk about. I’m going to talk about how to break the cycle of overload, overwhelm, and overeating. I’m going to start with the really obvious. You can’t pay attention to what you aren’t paying attention to. And unfortunately, this is the problem that shows up over and over and over again, after you’ve been indoctrinated in diet mentality and deprivation mentality, and the whole idea of having to work harder and, blame yourself if you’re not getting results.
If you feel like you are caught running on a hamster wheel with overload, overwhelm, and overeating, it is probably because you are focusing your thoughts and your efforts in the wrong direction. You’ve probably been taught to focus your thoughts and your efforts in the wrong direction. And now let’s throw in the fact that you’re a high achiever.
If your strength is being somebody who makes things happen, then you most likely almost certainly have this overdeveloped “do” muscle. You are a doer. And your automatic response when something happens is, what do I need to do? What do I do? What should I do? And by the way, this isn’t just you. We all tend to be hardwired in this doing direction.
So we’re hardwired that way. And if you’re a high achieving doer, your wiring to do is doubly strong or probably triple strong. It’s really, really strong. So let’s assume that you are a doer. Okay? Doers look for what needs to be done. And from this perspective of being a doer and, okay, we just need to figure out what needs to be done. Problems are most quickly solved by immediate action.
You want to stop overeating. You figure out what to do. You do it immediately. The tendency to just do it is a very fine skill. It’s a strength, and it has probably brought you lots of important accomplishments over the years. Lots of rewards, lots of results.
But that’s not usually the case when it comes to emotional eating and overeating. And if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you’ve probably heard me talk about that in different episodes. The problems start when you do, when you jump into doing prematurely with, without considering not doing or doing it differently.
This jumping right in with what do I do and starting to do is reactive. It’s reactive doing. And it can, probably will keep you stuck in this cycle of doing the same thing that you have been doing that you tried before. Doing the same thing while pushing yourself harder or blaming yourself because you didn’t get there the last time. That whole starting over on Monday cycle. Right?
Telling yourself that this time you’re eating is going to be better. This time you’re going to be stronger. This time you’re going to have more willpower. This time you are going to sit on your hands and not eat the chocolate. Those kinds of things are telltale signs that you are in a pattern of reactive doing.
So reactive doing, jumping into doing, instantaneously doing- leads to overdoing. And overwhelm goes hand in hand with overdoing. When you overdo or when you’re so focused on doing and all that you need to do that you aren’t enjoying the ride, then you’re also burning out. Or you’re absolutely starting to run on fumes. There is no end to the doing.
You might be a high achiever, but even your ability to do has its limits. And this cycle of constant doing, needing to do the answer is doing. Is going to lead to overdoing and overwhelm.
You’re going to reach your limit and reaching that limit, whatever that feels like for you when you get to that limit and some of you are living at that limit. This is a big cause of overeating, exhaustion eating, procrastination eating, stress eating, anxious eating, eating to numb out, eating to escape everything. All of these things happen when you have crossed the line. When you’re at your limit of doing.
And when you are all done in from all that doing, it is so much more tempting to use food because it’s easy because it’s there. You can grab something to reward yourself or to boost your mood or to give you a little something extra. Or you can reach for something to eat so that you can just keep doing.
And some of you are saying, I am not an overdoer. I am not doing too much. I’m not doing anything at all. But here’s the thing, being wired to focus on all that doing, to be thinking about the doing, to be creating the list in your head of what you should do. All that doing can also be your undoing.
Because when the pressure gets too much, when the to do list gets too long or overwhelming, even if you aren’t taking action, when the to do list gets too long, sometimes it just feels too hard to do anything at all. Even a teeny tiny step. That constant focus on doing is Also leads to that feeling of frozenness of feeling completely stuck, a feeling unmotivated, a feeling like you can’t do one more thing to make a change.
This is a part of the overeating pattern. This is what happens to a lot of women who are caught up on the overeating, overwhelm hamster wheel. It can start to feel like nothing works. Like there’s too much to do. That it’s impossible to make an impact that nothing you are going to do is going to make a difference.
And so, it can begin to feel difficult to even know where to start or to feel motivated to start. And if your brain is caught in this trap, it is going to continue to press you to do something or do lots of things. And so, you’ll either keep trying to do things with minimal results because they’re the same things. Or you’re going to feel paralyzed and overwhelmed and possibly quite possibly very, very frustrated with yourself.
Because the other part of this dynamic, this doing dynamic is you need to be doing. You should be doing more. You just need to do something. And if the doing isn’t working, you’re not doing it right. It’s all the doing. So, have I just described a pattern that feels all too familiar?
Let’s talk about what to do more doing. Okay. Let’s talk about what you can do. Or how to shift gears when you’re doing is undoing you. When you’re doing is not getting you to where you want to go with your eating.
There is a way out of this cycle of overload and overwhelm and overeating. And it starts with the F word. Yep. The F word and not the F word that you are feeling that you want to say when you find yourself caught in this cycle and you think like, oh, I’m never going to get out of here.
I want to call your attention to the other F word, which is feelings. Feelings here they are again. And here’s what I want to suggest the next time that you are overwhelmed. When you catch yourself, experiment with not asking yourself what you should do.
I want you to experiment with changing the question. Instead of thinking about what do you need to do. Ask yourself, how do you want to feel? When we get hyper focused on making things happen and getting things done. Doing. It is so easy to forget or to just run right over your feelings.
And it is so easy to get out of touch with what you are feeling now and what you’d like to feel in the future. You might not even think about it. And perfectionistic thoughts show up here too. Because it is also very easy to get sucked into believing that it’s all about getting all these things done. Getting all these things done is the path to feeling the way that you want to.
Another way to say this is, if I can just get everything completed and lined up perfectly, then I’ll feel the way I want to feel. This is such a lie. Every woman on the planet knows, when you really think about it, that when you get to the end of your to do list, there will already be ten more things on it.
If done is the key to happiness or joy or ease or calm, you are never going to get there. And, spoiler alert, it isn’t. The idea that getting everything done, that you making yourself perfect is what is going to lead you to ease or joy or happiness is a lie. And by the way, if you happen to land in done for a moment, if you happen to get to that place with inbox zero and all the little boxes checked off, the feeling is never going to last.
Also, and I think this is a really important point. The belief that I have to do everything first. Before I can feel the way I want to feel means that there is no joy or pleasure in getting to the destination. It’s all delayed gratification.
And you know how you tend to get the gratification while you’re getting to the destination? It’s by wandering into your pantry and grabbing something to eat. So, can we all agree that this pattern isn’t working for you?
The good news is it is not hard to turn things around. It takes practice. It takes re patterning. So, it’s a process, but the steps to break out of this circle are not difficult.
So let me give you an example, because I think that will be really helpful to show what this actually looks like. Let me tell you about. I’ll call her Mary. Mary is a former client. I’m going to use that name to protect her privacy. And in the situation I’m thinking about, Mary was stressed out. She was really stressed and anxious about a couple of things.
She had this huge work project going on and also this upcoming wedding that she was going to with a photo shoot that she was absolutely dreading. She had all sorts of negative thoughts and, feelings about what that was going to be like and how she was going to look in the pictures when they came back.
So at the time we’re working together, she is stress eating and that’s feeling really out of control. She wants to lose 10 pounds before this, wedding and the photo shoot. And she’s got this work stuff that is on, you know, really high level. So her stress is up there.
So we have this coaching session and she is in like hyper speed describing to me her plans for what she’s going to be doing over the next weeks. The plans to get the project done while also losing the weight. And she’s, her mind is just running a mile a minute and it’s fixed on this long list of things that she has told herself she needs to do to be successful.
And you’re probably familiar with it, right? It’s what she’s going to eat. She’s going to eat this. She’s not going to eat that. She’s going to have more willpower. She’s going to eliminate sugar. She’s going to start going to the gym more often. The list is going on and on and on. And then there’s this also a parallel list of all the things she needs to do, all the stresses that are related to the work project, all the things she’s going to tick off over there.
So listening to Mary describe her plans made me exhausted and I’m starting to feel tense. I can feel her anxiety also as she’s describing the million and one things that she is going to do. Mary has no enthusiasm or motivation. She’s like a robot going through this list. The whole plan is rooted in this get-tough attitude. Right? I need to get down to it. This is serious business. This is the time I need to get it done.
So not only is Mary sounding like she wants to poke her eyes out with a fork while she’s describing to me what the next weeks are supposedly going to look like. She’s already starting from this place of exhaustion because she’s been working hard on these things because overworking is already second nature to her.
So not surprisingly, the reason that we are having this coaching session and the reason Mary is sharing all this stuff with me is because this whole list of stuff, her list of rules and the steps and the requirements that by the way, she’s been through before she can make these lists in her sleep.
This list was getting her nowhere. Because she’s also frustrated already because she can’t stick with the plans. She’s not sticking with them. And of course she’s blaming herself for that. She’s overeating because of the stress and the overwhelm and the expectation she has for herself. And here she is with this huge list, this plan that to her human brain is like, oh, this is just perfect. If I can just execute it, she’s got the plan, but she’s actually gaining weight instead of losing it.
I’m laughing as I’m recording this because I actually feel like I need to take a deep breath just describing Mary’s situation. Her doing was in overdrive. And so was the pressure that went along with that. The pressure that she was putting on herself. So, this is where we did the feeling F word thing.
I stopped her because we could have gone through this list for the whole rest of the session. And I said, Mary how do you want to feel?
And that question, it just completely derailed Mary’s train of thought. Just stopped her in her tracks. And I think in that moment, she may have thought that that was the most ridiculous question I could ask. And she took a pause and then she took a deep breath and I think she realized she didn’t have an answer. Except for, I want to feel 10 pounds lighter. Which by the way, is not a feeling. It’s not an emotion.
So we stopped at this point and I had her check in with feelings. We checked in with how was she feeling in this moment? How was she feeling right now? And then the next question, what are the feelings that she wanted to have more of moving forward?
How do you want to feel at the wedding? How do you want to feel while you’re having your picture taken? How do you want to feel when you finish this project, this work project? And how do you want to feel over the next several weeks while all of this is going on? How do you want to feel when you get in the car to go to the wedding? How do you want to feel the morning when you’re delivering the project?
I even asked that question directly to the part of Mary’s brain that has still fixated on, I want to feel 10 pounds lighter. I asked her, so what are you hoping that losing the weight will help you feel?
In case you’re like Mary? I want to say one more time, I’m going to gently remind you that thin is not a feeling. And her brain took her back to that answer repeatedly. I want to feel lighter. I want to feel like I’ve lost the weight. I want to feel 10 pounds lighter. I want to feel like my pants fit. These are not feelings.
We had to spend time on this. How do you want to feel? What’s the goal feeling when you are the person who has achieved these things that are important to you? How do you imagine you will feel? We played with this for a while and eventually Mary came up with three feelings. She wanted to feel energized purposeful and alive.
So my question for you is what if your to do list? Focused on the feeling states that you want to have more of or that you want to create? To go back to this example with Mary, the feelings that she was craving, they were getting buried by all her doing.
In her effort to work herself to her goal, she was actually creating the opposite feeling states. Very little that she was trying to do was helping her feel energized or purposeful or alive. In fact, she was feeling exhausted and dead inside and hopeless.
So we went back to the feelings, we went back to the feelings and we reverse engineered things. Mary and I worked on what it would take to feel just a little bit more of those feelings immediately. What could she do to feel a little more of these feelings in the next hour?
And then what could she do to feel more energized and purposeful and alive over the next week? What would it take? What would it look like? We strategize we played with things. She scheduled those things. And also, in doing that she ended up crossing quite a number of things off of her to do list
Here’s the secret when you get clear on your feelings when you get clear on the feelings you want to have more of the feelings That you want to be actively working towards. You get clearer on your priorities.
And here’s another fun fact. When you get clear on how you want to feel more of the time, so many people also get some instant clarity and instant motivation related to how they want to eat. This is what happened for Mary. And I’m going to give you the formula.
I asked Mary, okay, how would you eat over the next seven days if your only goal was to feel more energetic? Not for 15 minutes. Right? Not to get through the next 15 minutes because your blood sugar had dropped. But if your goal was to feel energetic for the long haul, purposeful and alive? How would you eat over the next seven days if that was your only goal to have more of those feelings?
And when I asked her that question, something clicked for her. And it was so different from the ways that she had been approaching her choices about what she would eat and what she should eat and what she needed to do to change her eating. Do, do, do in the past. How would you eat if what you want is to feel more of the feelings that you want to feel?
She liked this idea. And so eating for solid energy, clear, solid energy and vitality became the goal that she set. And guess what? You don’t feel vital and energetic zoning out with a pint of ice cream. Focusing on how she wanted to feel instead of what she thought she should do. Changed the entire cycle in her brain when it came to how she was approaching her eating.
It is so much easier to make changes that grow something you care about. In Mary’s case, it was energy and confidence and purposefulness. It’s so much easier to do that than it is to work very hard to do things just because you think you should.
You can just hear the difference in the energy. So that’s what Mary did with these feelings. Her stress level began to shift. Her eating changed dramatically. That day. Because she started asking different questions. She started focusing in a different direction.
Instead of thinking about all the negative things that she might be feeling at the photo shoot, she got clear about what it is that she wanted to feel at the photo shoot. And thinking about what are the kinds of things that I can do to put myself in that place? How can I generate more of those feelings?
You and I both know that creating the kind of feelings that she wanted, that focusing on, wait, this is how I want to feel. How can I set myself up to feel that way when I walk into that room? How can I hold myself? What can I tell myself? What can I remind myself of? Created an entirely different situation.
You will never do yourself out of a vicious cycle of overwhelm and overeating. You can never do enough. You will never do yourself into feeling the way that you want to feel. Because you will never be done. Mary’s relationship with food shifted. And the first step was Aiming her path, aiming her efforts around creating more of the life that she wanted to have. The feelings that she wanted to be experiencing.
I do not work with Mary anymore, but I will tell you that the last time I spoke with her, she was still eating for energy and for vitality and she was losing weight. And by the way, Mary is still a doer and a high achiever. You don’t have to let that go. She’s a doer and high achiever who has retrained her brain to ask herself how she wants to feel before she jumps into doing. Play around with this and let me know how it goes.
I’ll talk to you soon.