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4 Unwritten Food Rules That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Goals · Your Strongest Body

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to your Strongest Body.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Betsy Foster, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've worked as a personal trainer for over a decade, helping people build strength, speed, muscles, as well as a deep appreciation for their bodies and confidence that helps them live their life to the fullest.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness, nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of your Strongest Body.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk today about nutrition, to talk about it in a way that I believe is really practical and to talk about a way we think about food.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: That is the reason why you are struggling to reach your goals.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Some of my favorite kinds of conversations revolve around this and sort of how we change our mindset and get rid of the limiting factors that stand in our way of eating in a way that supports our goals and helps us reach them.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: So we're definitely talking about that today talking about four food rules that you have that you maybe don't even know you have, and they are getting in the way.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: But let's start with any quick updates.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Life is pretty much the same as I last left you.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We are in summer mode here kids in summer camp, I'm getting sunshine when I can.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: We're preparing for family vacation soon, so things are rocking and rolling.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: My Built Bodies program small group program for fitness and nutrition to help women build visible muscle, lose body fat and feel their strongest is in its 11th week this week.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: We're in week 11 out of 12 weeks and I'm coming to the end and sort of like creating some reflections for the group and having them sort of talk through some things.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: We and I'm just amazed with their progress and I'm amazed with their observations about the experience and about how they are both, you know, thinking about sort of the 12-week length and thinking about what they've accomplished and how proud they can be and realizing as well that this is a lifelong thing and how they are feeling empowered and feeling prepared to take on their next steps.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm blown away by them.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I'm a little sad that we're coming to the end here, but we are starting.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I'll be starting the program again in September and I'm really looking forward to some new people coming on and taking advantage of this.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Hopefully, if you're listening and have been kind of interested, you pop on the wait list for that next round.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And then I have so many of these folks who are inbuilt bodies, who are continuing with me in one way or another and I'm just, I'm so grateful that I have created this network of clients.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Clients, yes, they're clients, but they're like people who bring me such joy to get to watch how they are navigating their fitness and nutrition as these incredible people, and I'm very lucky for that.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: So, just reflecting on that at the moment, preparing for these last weeks of the program, okay, let's get into the meat of this conversation, which is about four food rules you have that are getting in the way of your progress.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So two things.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: One, we always think about nutrition in terms of numbers.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: We're like how many calories should I eat, how much protein should I consume, how many times a day should I eat?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: And we look at it in such a cut and dry you know facts, a fact based approach, a science based approach.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Here are the you know, here are the numbers, here are the strategies.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Boom.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And while all of that is important and you will hear me speak about sort of knowing how much you're consuming, knowing a little bit more about calories, certainly knowing more about your protein intake.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: When it comes down to it, nutritional change and changing the way you eat on a day-to-day basis is far more about behaviors behaviors and it's far more about the behaviors that we are doing almost subconsciously or unknowingly, these kinds of behaviors.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Becoming a better self-observer and self-assessor is a big part of it, and then realizing that the only way we change those numbers, which are really important, the next thing that I think is standing in the way for people are these rules, these rules we have around food that somehow came into existence, maybe because of how we saw our parents eat, maybe because of something they said at school, maybe something we've seen on social media and for many of us happened long before social media.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: From an early age, you're sort of constantly observing and taking information in about how we eat and what to eat and what that means in terms of appreciating and loving our body.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So we have these rules that we don't even know we have.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: They are dictating our behaviors and we're not even consciously making those choices, and maybe sometimes we are consciously making them, but for the most part there are a lot of things that we're doing so haphazardly because we're not even thinking about it and while we might not consider them rules about it, and while we might not consider them rules, we've never written it down that we can't have blank or don't do blank or don't eat blank.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: They exist in some kind of framework we have for quote-unquote healthy eating.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: When we let go of some of these unwritten rules, we open up the possibility for eating in a way that both nourishes us from a nutrient standpoint, from an energy standpoint, helps us train, helps us build muscle, helps us lose body fat, but also helps us enjoy our lives, because food is not just fuel it's one of the things that it does for us but it's also how we relate to people, how we relate to places, how we celebrate all of those kinds of things.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So here are four, and I want you to check yourself on this.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I want you to either write it in your notes app or write it on a piece of paper somewhere.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: If any of these seem familiar to you and maybe you haven't explicitly said that this is a particular food rule for you, but you notice your behaviors sort of align with some of these I want you to make a note and then see if you're able to switch it up.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So number one and this one is a funny one, but I think it stands in the way of people reaching success, especially gaining muscle and losing body fat, is that some foods are breakfast foods, so we have breakfast foods versus lunch and dinner foods.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: This kind of arbitrary divide limits what you can eat in the morning, and for some people who are hungry in the morning or who train really intensely in the morning or whose schedules don't allow for the kinds of foods that they would want, that fall into that breakfast category, they're limiting the kinds of foods they can eat and then getting themselves stuck.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Because, let's talk about it, some of the most commonly recognized breakfast foods, if you put them in that category, are pretty low protein.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: If you put them in that category, are pretty low protein, and if you're starting your day already consuming a meal that's pretty low protein, you're having to catch up for the rest of the day.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: You're having to play catch up all day, whereas if you want to increase your protein intake, you can do that by getting a lot of protein at breakfast, and so you have to allow yourself to see all kinds of foods as foods you can eat at various times of the day, in the same way that you can have breakfast for dinner.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: You know there are lots of, but we don't have to necessarily delineate categories for the kinds of food, because you may find that there are certain kinds of foods at certain times of the day that are going to be far more satiating, far more filling, far more advantageous for your particular goals.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So I would encourage you to let rice and chicken be a breakfast food if you want it to be.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Let a breakfast salad come into play if it's something that sounds good to you.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Now you're not trying to fight your natural cravings, but you are allowing yourself to see that there are different times to consume different kinds of foods.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Number two the number two food rule is, in a similar vein, that there are snack foods and meal foods and that there are sizes for those kinds of things.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So a snack is small and a meal is big.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: What if you just thought about eating and now I know this is a little tricky, because sometimes I'm thinking about as a parent.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It is tricky because I have to have a dinner time for my kids, usually, so that they can have the expectation that we're going to sit down and eat.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And they have an expectation because they are not preparing their own food, of the amount of food and the kinds of food that are going to be served.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Then Same thing with snacking.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: They know that if we're snacking now we kind of get foods out of this area.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: But I also try to resist that with them too, because I think if you're hungrier now and it's not a mealtime, you might need more food now and you might want a food that is typically consumed as a meal, as a snack.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So if we let go of meal and snack distinction, both in size and in timing, you can start to eat in a way that better reflects your personal schedule, your personal dips in energy and fatigue, your personal training schedule.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So eating foods that work for you pre-workout and post-workout.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: A lot of people ask me questions about, like can I eat this food now or can I eat at this time?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean in a lot of ways.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, because we're all on different schedules.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: What we have to do is kind of figure out what works best for us, and so you may find that at dinner time you're eating a smaller meal because you needed to have a larger meal at 3 pm, and it also allows you to not necessarily get stuck in the idea that a snack has to be a prepackaged thing, because oftentimes with prepackaged items, while they're convenient and easy, they tend not to have the kinds of nutrients, and particularly the amount of protein, we're often looking for, whereas if we can think about that meal or that time to eat as just another feeding, let's call them all feedings or all you know.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: There's something.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Feeding sounds a little sterile to me or like a little bit zoo-like.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So I don't know that I'm crazy about it, but just times we eat, you can have any food at that time.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: You can have any amount of food at that time, and you may find that you are feeling better and that you aren't eating a lot of extra food because you're supposed to eat at this time.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: You're not feeling super hungry because you've got enough food, so you're not overeating.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: It can allow you to shape your diet more in line with the goals that you have If you let go of that idea that meals are at this time, snacks are at this time, meals are this size and snacks are this size.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Next one is that there is the unwritten rule that the way we eat is different on weekdays versus weekends.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Now, from a schedule standpoint and from a life standpoint, some of that is going to naturally happen, because maybe if you work a nine to five Monday through Friday and Saturday and Sunday, you don't.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: You're naturally going to eat at little different times, maybe different foods, maybe in different amounts.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: But do you have to?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: No, and is a drastic shift happening because of your schedule?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Or is it happening because you have been limiting yourself so much or structuring yourself so much or restricting yourself so much Monday through Friday that you are, quote-unquote, letting it all go on Saturday and Sunday?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: While you may not have the same amount of activities, you still need energy, you still need nutrients on the weekend, in the same way that Monday through Friday.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Even though you are doing a lot of things and even though you are working hard, you still need to find pleasure in the foods you eat.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And when we think about Monday through Friday and Saturday and Sunday foods as being really different or the way we eat being really different, we almost foster that kind of restrictive eating Monday through Friday and that quote unquote cheating on Saturday and Sunday.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: If we think about these days as more similar, if we think about foods that nourish us, foods that give us enough protein in order to have energy to train and recover foods that feel satisfying and filling, and then foods that we really enjoy, and flavors we like and treats when we want them, and we let that happen all the days of the week.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We do a better job of being more consistent and that makes less of a harsh transition from Sunday to Monday.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It makes less of the sort of undoing that happens because if you're working really hard all week and then you're kind of undoing your hard work, whereas if we spread it out more evenly through the week, you may find that you have more success.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: If you're heavily restricting Monday through Friday, it might be hard to make it to Friday and so suddenly your more restrictive days are Monday through Wednesday and your throw it all out the window days-the-window days are Thursday through Sunday, which is now tipped to the scales.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So let's think about ways in which we can eat similarly Monday through Sunday.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: If we stop with that distinction that eating differently for weekdays versus weekends we can really help reach our goals.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, number four reach our goals.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, number four, we have got to let go of off-limit foods.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: This does not count for foods that you don't consume because you have an allergy, foods that you don't consume because they make you not feel good.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Foods that you don't consume because you don't like the taste, and foods that you don't consume because of religious or any kind of belief system.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Apart from that, let's not restrict foods.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: When we restrict foods, we make them more appealing, we make them more exciting, we make it so that the foods that we can have have less of an appeal.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: We can have have less of an appeal.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: We also tell our bodies, we're signaling our brain is being signaled that we cannot handle that by restricting it, we're telling ourselves you can't handle it, you can't eat these, you can't be trusted.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: No one likes feeling like they can't be trusted.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Nobody kids, adults your body doesn't want you to think that it can't be trusted around certain foods.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: So if you are able to make room for those foods, even if you try to have them less, even if you figure out ways to incorporate them that aren't as heavily featured in your menus, restricting foods is only going to make it more appealing, only more likely or possibly more likely, that you could binge those foods and it's going to tell your subconscious, your mind, that you can't handle it.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: We've got to teach our bodies to trust themselves around food.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: We've got to teach our bodies that we trust them to move, we trust them to drink water, we trust them to eat all these foods because by doing that we lower the anxiety and the stress that comes with eating and comes with exercise pressure.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: If you can teach yourself and allow your body to trust that you are going to move, when you can fit it in and you are going to try to make the workout happen, you will likely have less stress around getting those workouts in and they will have less stress around getting those workouts in and they will have less dread attached.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you have to love every second.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I'm saying that you are signaling to yourself that you are capable of doing it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: You are capable of not eating the whole bag of chips.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: You may have to work on and I don't mean to demonize chips by saying chips just first thing that came to my head you are capable of it.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: You got to show yourself that you are by not restricting that food entirely.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Might not happen overnight, because you may have been restricting it for so long that it still has that appeal right now.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: It's going to take time, but you can give yourself that time and that ability to kind of let that happen and while you may opt to not purchase that food anymore because you don't necessarily like how much, you eat it when you're there.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: That's different than restricting, than saying I will not eat that food anymore.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Now both of them signal to yourself that you don't have, maybe, a great level of trust.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: But there's a continuum there.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: There's a continuum where you're saying I don't necessarily want to have it in the house because I think I I'm going to eat it when I'm most fatigued and I don't really have a great off switch.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: But I know that if I go out somewhere and they have an individual bag or I can get a side like that with my meal, then I'm going to do it then because that food is not restricted.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't work well for me to have it in the house.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And you may not know that you're doing it.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: You may not know that you have created these rules for yourself.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: So here's your homework.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: One I'm going to go over these and I want again remember, see if you can identify if you fall victim to any of these four.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: One you have a delineation between breakfast foods and other foods that's getting in the way of you eating what would be best for you in the morning?
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Two, snacks whether it's timing or size versus meals.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: You have a distinction that's getting in the way again of what would be best for you to eat at a given time at a given hunger level.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Three, you believe that eating is different on the weekdays than the weekends, and so you have these kinds of big swings in how you eat.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: That is slowing down your progress.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: And lastly, you are restricting certain foods.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You have off-limit foods that you both are making more appealing by doing that, and you're signaling to yourself that you don't trust yourself around a given food.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So think through those that you don't trust yourself around a given food.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So think through those, note which ones maybe you fall prey to, and then give it a little focus and try to work on those.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And then I want you to see if you can observe any other unwritten rules you have around food.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: When you're thinking through things, when you're making food decisions, I want you to think about, or I want you to observe, the kinds of thoughts that are helping you make that decision and decide if any of those are limiting your ability to eat in a way that feels good for you and helps you reach your goals.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, All right, I am always appreciative of your time here.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I hope this is super helpful in thinking through your meals and your foods so that you can enjoy your food more, so that you can have more energy, so that you can reach those physique and strength goals you want without giving up things that you love.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: If you want to chat with me, you can send me an Instagram DM at foster underscore strength, or you can send me an email, betsy, at be foster strongcom.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: That's the letter be foster strongcom.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: All right, until next time, go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you later.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Bye.