When I was a dieter I had a mindbogglingly long list of things I “should” do to reach my goals.

I should go for a run every morning.

I should do 100 crunches per day.

I should be a size 2.

I should not drink calories.

I should never eat ice cream.

It makes me exhausted just thinking about it.

Amazingly I was able to do many of these things (I’ve written before how I actually have pretty strong willpower). But it was a constant battle and it still never felt like I was doing enough. No matter how hard I tried, I was never happy.

It took me years to understand that it was in fact all these shoulds that were holding me back. That I had externalized my motivation, letting it be dictated by goals outside my true feelings, and by doing so sold myself short.

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“It’s been the easiest 33 lbs I’ve ever lost.” ~Angela

Angela just discovered Foodist a few months ago after a lifetime of being overweight and chronic dieting. By changing the way she approaches food and health, she’s been able to lose 33 lbs in what she calls the easiest weight loss of her life.

Despite her success, Angela still has progress to make and is trying to figure out some of the more subtle aspects of her healthstyle. Today she asks a question that every foodist must grapple with at some point along their journey, which is how to know if an urge to eat (or skip a workout or other healthstyle behavior) is coming from a place of physical need or some other impulse that should be resisted?

This question is particularly difficult for people who have spent a lot of time dieting, since by its very nature dieting teaches you to ignore your body’s basic signals and use willpower to stick to your plan. As Angela explains, it can be very difficult to trust the different voices in your head that are pushing you to care for yourself, especially if you believe they were what caused you to be overweight in the first place.

There are several things to consider when you’re learning to answer this question for yourself, including what situations are the most important to get right, how to learn from your mistakes when you get it wrong and how not stress out when you find yourself in a position of uncertainty.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Bonnie Transforms From a Junk Food Speed Eater to a Mindful Vegetable Lover and Loses 40 Lbs

‘The Myth of Willpower’ (chapter from Foodist) and free starter kit

The Worst Thing You Can Do if You’re Trying to Lose Weight

Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting

Way of Life app

Listen:

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Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week the secret to self-control, saturated fat is good for you, and why you aren’t a “picky eater.”

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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If there’s anything 2016 has inspired me to do it’s to go back to the basics. While some years I get excited about all the fancy new gadgets that can help me keep my healthstyle running smoothly, this year I’ve been more interested in the things I already know I can rely on.

One of the nice things I’ve noticed about my healthstyle after doing this for nearly a decade is that my gear doesn’t change much. There are a few notable upgrades this year (Fitbit and Kindle have some amazing new products), but overall it’s still the same stuff I’ve been using year in and year out.

There is something comfortable in that knowledge. Knowing that even going from student to professional, from single to married, from California girl to New Yorker, the things I use to care for myself haven’t changed all that much. When it comes down to it, life isn’t that complicated.

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Shelbey came to me wondering why she has the habit of overeating when she’s alone and supposed to be studying. She sits down to eat and turns on the TV, planning to finish dinner and then hit the books. But instead she usually keeps eating through the entire show until she feels so sicks she can’t do anything at all.

To her credit Shelbey has already thought through possible psychological reasons she’s doing this, but hasn’t come up with any solutions. She’s a very hard working woman who is always pushing herself for self-improvement. She’s a good student, exercises regularly, and meditates often. What she never does is give herself permission to relax.

One of the symptoms of being too productive is having anxiety about down time. All humans need to relax and recharge both physically and mentally, but highly productive people often feel guilty and anxious about taking these much needed breaks. If this goes on for too long it can lead to avoidance behaviors like overeating.

It can be difficult to acknowledge that rest is needed, but Shelbey and I come up with a plan for her to recognize her anxiety and give her the space to unwind.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Imposter Syndrome

What I Learned from 10 Days of Silence

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week how your gut sabotages your diet, how to teach your kids to love veggies, and why exercise leads to weight gain.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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Photo by Jules Clancy

Huge thanks to Jules Clancy of Stonesoup for this week’s article introducing me to the concept of mindful cooking. I’ve certainly made the mistake of viewing cooking as a nuisance, even though I know it ultimately benefits me and my family. I love this new way of looking at it.

Jules LOVES real food and hanging out in her kitchen. She has a degree in Food Science and is the author of ‘5-Ingredients 10-Minutes’. For a free eCookbook of delicious 5-ingredient recipes sign up for the Stonesoup weekly newsletter.

Recently I realized I’ve been making a huge mistake. Like many modern food writers, there’s one thing I’ve had completely wrong. Rather than celebrating the joy that cooking can bring to our lives, I’ve been guilty of apologizing for activity in the kitchen.

I’ve stressed how quick and easy my recipes are (I did write a whole book called ‘5-Ingredients 10-Minutes’) instead of sharing how great they taste or how good they make you feel.

I still believe cooking need not be complicated nor time consuming to produce delicious, satisfying results. But I now realize that apologizing for time spent in the kitchen, sends the message that cooking is a chore. Not an activity worthy of your precious minutes and hours.

The thing is, I love cooking. And I want to share that love.

I hope to inspire you to reframe how you think about cooking. Because there’s so much more to gain than just improving your healthstyle.

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Serena had always enjoyed cooking dinner and it was a Home Court Habit she highly valued. Then when her schedule got a little crazy her cooking habit fell by the wayside. While struggles like this are pretty normal when life gets busy, what stumped Serena was that her cooking habit never resumed even when her schedule got back to normal.

Often what stops you from maintaining a healthy habit is that you view it as a chore rather than as something you enjoy, but this wasn’t the case for Serena. She truly did love to cook and felt very strongly about all the ways it positively impacted her life that were now missing.

So what happened?

It took some digging, but Serena and I ultimately discovered that she had lost one of her Supporting Habits––meal prepping––that gave her the edge she needed to maintain a regular cooking habit. It turns out that meal prepping is the difference between whether making dinner is easy when she gets home from work or feels like a big project she doesn’t have the energy for. We then took a look at her current schedule and found a way to fit meal prepping back into her week so she could start cooking again.

This episode takes you through how to go about identifying and reinstating Supporting Habits that are necessary for maintaining your Home Court Habits and long-term health.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Foodist Kitchen

Decision Fatigue

Zojirushi rice cooker

Farro recipes

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week willpower is the worst, how bias is formed, and the best use for turkey.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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It’s been a heck of week, hasn’t it?

Like many Americans I’ve spent the days since the election trying to process the brave new world that we live in. For me this campaign season has been about more than politics (don’t worry, I won’t go there). I’ve found myself reacting emotionally in a deep, fundamental way to many of the events that occurred over the course of the campaign season and it has caused me to reevaluate my relationship with several of the core pillars of stability in my life.

Some of the things that came up for me are issues that I write about regularly here at Summer Tomato. These are topics I’ve thought deeply about for years, but suddenly I see them in a new light. And while much of what has changed for me started with a negative emotion, the longer I sit with these feelings the more I realize the shift I’ve experienced has brought me closer to the truth. And for this I am thankful.

With Thanksgiving around the corner (and my birthday on Friday) I want to share with you some of the insights I’ve had. Unlike most of what I write here, this is not intended to be prescriptive advice you should follow. Instead my goal is to simply show the messy process of refining your own values when life makes it necessary.

If you do happen to share some of these values (there are no right or wrong values so don’t freak out if you don’t), I hope you can find something to be thankful for this week as well.

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