Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 506 The Mind-Body Connection: How Food Impacts Mental Health

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EP 506 The Mind-Body Connection: How Food Impacts Mental Health · Celeste The Therapist

0:02
Hey, y'all. Thank you so much for joining another episode of Celeste the
0:05
Therapist podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. And
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for my longtime listeners, this is the first time
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I've actually taken a month break. I really needed to
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take this break. uh and it was helpful but I
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missed podcasting uh since 2018. I've
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never been away from this podcast for longer than a
0:27
week. I don't even think I've taken a week off of
0:31
podcasting so When you're doing something consistently
0:35
for a long time, it definitely feels weird not to do it.
0:38
And to not set up a podcast and
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not do this was so weird for me. But I'm back, I'm
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back, I'm back. Today we're talking about the
0:49
mind and the food and how it connects. What
0:53
made me think about this topic is because I just seen
0:56
that DoorDash collaborated with
1:00
Afterpay. And I
1:03
think about how people will Uber and DoorDash food
1:07
so quickly. And then just why we're
1:10
doing it, right? Food is a way for us to
1:14
escape. And so I want to talk about that. But before I talk
1:17
about that, I just want to let you know. So I am having a
1:20
mental health wellness day. I am May 3rd from
1:25
12 to 4. I am going to be providing a
1:29
wellness day for the community free. We're
1:32
going to have four different classes. We're going to have a sound bath bowl
1:36
class, We're going to have rest and recharge, mindful yin,
1:40
and we are going to have restorative yoga. So
1:44
there's going to be four classes, each class at the top of the hour. It's going
1:47
to be first come first serve. I will also have two massage therapists
1:51
that's going to be providing 15 minute chair massages, which is going to
1:54
be so cool. We're also going to have an arts and craft room
1:58
where people can go. And then another room, we're going to have a game
2:01
room. And of course we're going to have food because I mean, I
2:04
can't have an event without food. So that's something I've been working on
2:08
for the last couple of months. May
2:12
is mental health awareness month. And if you know me, you know, mental health is so dear and
2:15
near to my heart. So that's something that's happening in May. And
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if you want to sign up, just go to Eventbrite, you will see
2:23
the link there. I'm so excited about that. But in the meantime, I
2:26
still have programming happening at the center. We have three
2:29
classes that take place every month, regularly, outside
2:34
of the people that may rent it for space. So we have our Mindful Yin
2:38
class that happens every month. We have restorative yoga and
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we also have rest and
2:45
recharge. So these are somatic classes. If
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you're feeling like you're wound up in the body and you
2:52
want to release some stuff, I promise you when you finish the class,
2:55
you will be like, what just happened to me? So it's
2:59
a really powerful thing. It's something that has been so beneficial to
3:02
me and I want to offer it to the community. So if that's something that you're interested
3:06
in, if you go to stwyt.com or you
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can go to Eventbrite and you can find the links there. Is
3:12
there anything else I want to say? So those are things that are coming up that
3:15
I'm excited about. So yeah, let's just jump right into the
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content. When it comes to the
3:22
way we escape in general, people talk about drugs,
3:26
they talk about alcohol, they talk about sex or relationships, and
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a lot of times people miss food as a way to escape. It's
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not something that my clients lead with. I end up understanding it
3:37
the more I meet with them and understand. I start to help
3:40
them make the connection that, hey, maybe you're using
3:44
food as a way to cope with certain things that you're dealing
3:47
with. The way my mind works, because when I seen that they were collaborating,
3:51
and I'll talk to people, they were like, yeah, Uber, food, or DoorDash. I
3:55
need to get off DoorDash financially, too. A few podcasts ago,
3:59
I said, be mindful of the way you're spending money. And
4:02
so when they bring up the DoorDash or the Uber Eats,
4:07
I'll talk about the financial aspect of it, right? Because obviously
4:10
it's super convenient to have it delivered. And if
4:14
you're having a hard day, if things are really hard,
4:17
it's easy to just like, you know what, let me order this, right? So that's
4:21
where I would lead with. But then a lot of times with other
4:24
things, we start talking about food and how it's related. One
4:27
of the things I understand is that we're not really educated on how food
4:31
affects us. I wasn't educated. I know that for a fact. It
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wasn't until I got older and I started to get more into
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the holistic piece of wellness and not, you know,
4:40
we only know physical MD health,
4:44
right? Going to the doctor or psychiatry or therapy, right?
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Those are the general modalities that are consistently talked
4:51
about that you can get insurance to pay for. You can't get them to
4:54
pay for those somatic work. Sometimes nutritionists,
4:58
they will pay for nutritionists, right? But that's a specialty, so
5:01
that's more money out of co-payments. So there's a lot of
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ways in which we don't understand how food is
5:08
affecting us, how it's affecting our mental health, how it's
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affecting our sluggishness. All of
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the things that we may find ourselves dealing with,
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we don't realize just how much Food plays
5:21
a role in it. So let's, I have visual. So
5:25
if you are not following me on YouTube, you can find me by searching
5:28
Celeste the Therapist. And I always try to add
5:32
visual to the content because for me personally, I'm
5:36
a very visual learner. So it helps me to be able
5:39
to follow along. So the nutritional impact on mental health. So it says,
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research shows that a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole
5:46
grains, and lean proteins can positively influence mental
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health. Nutrients like omega-3 fatty
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acids, vitamins, minerals play a crucial role in brain
5:56
function and regulation. So there's a lot of research that
6:00
shows there's a link between our mood and our mental health. And
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one of the things that is definitely clear is that, The
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foods that we have, even if we're eating somewhat healthy,
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they're not as dense in nutrients that they were before because
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there's so many ways. Our country, if you live in America, America
6:20
is about making money. At the end of the day, it's
6:23
about how much money can I make off these people, not how much can we help. And
6:28
one of the things that I struggled with, oh, I think I talked about,
6:31
I don't know if I talked about it on the podcast, but really quick, for
6:35
two years, I was struggling with a lot of physical health
6:39
issues. My liver turned on
6:42
itself. They diagnosed me with predisposition to autoimmune hepatitis.
6:47
And so my labs was all over the place, right? It
6:50
started in my eye. And then my eye was inflamed.
6:54
So I went to the eye doctor. The eye doctor was like,
6:57
if it happens again, I want you to run these tests. He gave me
7:01
a list of specialty tests. It happened again. I went to
7:04
the doctor. The doctor never seen these tests. And honestly,
7:08
I wasn't met with real, because it was more like flu-like
7:12
symptoms, but not flu. I can't really explain it. I
7:15
just remember telling my husband, I feel like my body's attacking itself,
7:18
right? So I had these crazy symptoms. that
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if it wasn't for the eye doctor asking the doctor to run specific
7:26
labs it would have just seemed like i was having some kind of like
7:30
flu like episode right so anyways my
7:34
pcp wasn't there as you know i seen a doctor a philand doctor
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he was very um what's the word i want to use he
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wasn't really like I was like, God,
7:44
I want to use a word. I don't know what word I want to use. So he basically wasn't
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really attentive. It was like, yeah, OK. And
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he had to do more work to look up the lab numbers at the eye doctor. He
7:55
tried to push it on the eye doctor. The eye doctor was like, you're the primary
7:59
care. You run it. So he ran it
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and he said they'll be back probably in a week. I called him in a week. He
8:06
was like, I mean, I emailed him. He was like, oh, it's not ready yet or whatever, but it's probably
8:10
going to be nothing. That's literally, I have the email. Let me see if I can see
8:13
it so I can post it. But I'm saying it's probably nothing.
8:17
two weeks later it came back because the labs took a long time because
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it was a specialty lab literally all of my freaking
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uh stuff was off the charts like my liver was jacked up so
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much stuff was jacked up and um so
8:33
then they referred me to a gut doctor he's called a gastronologist
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gastro sorry i might be pronouncing it wrong So I
8:40
go to the gastro person and he said my labs were very elevated It
8:44
wasn't to the point where I would have needed to get on steroids right away But
8:48
he was going to monitor me. So every three months I would go get my liver labs
8:52
done and um over like the course of
8:55
a year, right so For me, starting July
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2022 is when symptoms first started, where
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I was just like, I didn't feel like myself. And at the time, a
9:07
friend of mine passed away, and I thought I was just sad only
9:11
about him passing away. And
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then my eye was jacked up, so I thought I was sleeping too much and crying too
9:17
much. That's why my eye was jacked up. It was a weird coincidence of
9:21
this time. And so
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I'm seeing this liver doctor, I'm having these symptoms. At night, sometimes my
9:30
bones would ache. I wouldn't want to do any speaking engagements because I'm like, I
9:34
don't know how I'm going to feel. So March 2023, that's
9:38
crazy. We're in March now. I can't believe this story wasn't planned.
9:42
This story wasn't planned. So literally last year, this year,
9:45
this is crazy. So last year, this year. I
9:49
decided I was going to, I
9:54
went to the doctor. It was going to be my last liver appointment. So I went to the doctor because I
9:58
was sick. I have lymphoid. My lymph nodes are swollen behind
10:01
my ear. I'm feeling this weird sickness. It's
10:05
happening more at an increased rate. I
10:09
felt like I wasn't getting any better. The liver doctor discharged me because he's like, yo,
10:13
your liver's fine. since the year I've been monitoring it
10:16
hasn't been elevated to the point where I felt like you needed anything. So
10:22
the doctor at the PCP office is
10:25
telling me I'm fine. The liver doctor is like, you're
10:28
good. I know I'm not good. So what your girl do? So
10:32
I didn't know what to do, but I don't know what made
10:36
me do this, but I went to Quest Lab. I
10:39
was like, yo, give me the full panel. Give your girl the full panel. So
10:43
they gave me the full panel. Literally the next day they called me,
10:46
they was all like, yo, your vitamin D
10:50
level is 12. It
10:53
should be at least 30. You need to call your PCP and start getting on
10:56
the, there's a weekly dose of high units to take. And
11:01
I go down the rabbit hole of looking at the vitamin D
11:05
and the deficiency. crazy literally all my symptoms
11:09
were because i had a vitamin d deficiency and
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the thing that i'm struggling with is that i've seen three
11:17
different doctors remember if you're following the story i've seen my eye doctor i've
11:21
seen my the pcp and i've seen the
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gastro doctor Nobody said, yo, let's run her labs.
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I was struggling with, I had a constipation. I would
11:32
have to take prune juice to use the bathroom. I
11:35
had aches and pains at night. I was losing weight rapidly. I
11:38
wasn't mad about the weight loss, but I knew it wasn't normal. I
11:43
knew it wasn't normal. You know what I'm saying? That's the only good thing that came out
11:47
of it was a little weight loss. And I knew it wasn't
11:50
normal. And not one doctor said, let's run her
11:53
vitamin. In fact, after I learned about all of
11:56
this, I Went on my chart. I've
12:00
never had vitamin. I've been with this lady, uh since Since
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my son my son's gonna be 14 since my son was born Not one
12:07
time have I had labs ran and um So I
12:11
went down the rabbit hole and I seen all the ways that it can affect
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it creates autoimmune disease issues Um, it
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can create mood issues It could create so much
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havoc on your body. So boom, your girl start taking the
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weekly dose. Also, if I'm deficient, I
12:27
said, let me get everybody in the house checked. Everybody in the house is
12:30
deficient. Everybody in the house is deficient. We all
12:34
on vitamin D now. We all on multivitamin now, right? And
12:37
even I noticed an improvement in my daughter's mood.
12:42
Not only was she vitamin D deficient, she was iron deficient. She's
12:48
12, never had her vitamins checked. crazy right and
12:51
the fact that like and it's not by accident it's designed this
12:55
way because guess what if i had my vitamin check i would have been at
12:58
walgreens cvs grabbing some pills and all them
13:01
tests i have i have to pay for insurance out of pocket The
13:06
amount of bills that I have had from
13:09
these specialties and all of these things could have been avoided if
13:13
I was at Walgreens getting vitamin D. And now that
13:17
we're talking about this, this was not my plan, but March, this
13:20
is one year. So I started taking those vitamin D pills.
13:24
They gave me like a, I had to take one for eight
13:27
weeks. It was a high dosage, now I take it regular. Since
13:32
then, I haven't had once, I've been a year symptom-free. None of those
13:35
symptoms came back. And
13:38
so I'm constantly sharing with my clients, can you please check your
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vitamin D? Hey, you know your vitamin D is low? Get it checked because
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it creates so much havoc. I say all that to say, even
13:49
if you're eating the right foods, that there's a possibility that
13:53
there could be some vitamins that you're missing. So when you go to
13:56
your PCP, because when I've had clients talk to their PCP, they
13:59
were like, oh, they said, what do you need that for? And it's so annoying. I
14:03
get so pissed off. I was like, tell them that your therapist wants to
14:06
rule out medical. Because if you're telling me you're tired, if
14:09
you're telling me you're giving me all these symptoms and we're working
14:13
on things, we need to rule out that you're functioning at
14:16
your optimal level. At 12, my vitamin D
14:19
should have been at least at 30. I was not functioning at my optimal level and
14:23
still trying to function. And especially being Black in America, we
14:26
consistently do that. So if your doctor gives you
14:29
pushback, please do me a huge favor and say, like, hey, I
14:33
need to make sure to rule out medical because I'm having these symptoms, right?
14:36
And then after I did the test and
14:40
I sent it to my PCP, she was like, oh, why didn't you tell me you want these RAN? Because,
14:43
lady, I didn't know I needed them RAN. I'm not the doctor. And
14:47
that's why you got to take your medical health into your own hands. I'm
14:50
getting off topic, but y'all feel what I'm saying. All
14:54
right, so let's go on. So that's the nutritional impact
14:57
on mental health. Now, emotional eating, right? This is
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something that's important. This is why a lot of times we get to the point
15:04
of using food. Many people turn to food as a coping mechanism for
15:08
stress, anxiety, depression, while it can provide a
15:11
temporary relief, because we don't want to lie. You know what I'm saying? When you get that cake in your system,
15:14
when you get that ice cream in your system, you'll be like, ooh, you
15:18
know? um it does give you that temporary relief
15:22
emotional eating can lead to negative outcomes including weight gain increased
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feelings of guilt and shame right so that's something that is
15:29
important a lot of people don't realize emotional eating is a real thing it happens
15:33
um and you know towards the end we'll talk
15:36
about like how to be more mindful of how you eat But understand
15:40
that because food is free, it's legal, right? You have access
15:44
and all that DoorDash is offering after pay. Even if you ain't got the money, you
15:47
can finance it. I don't want you financing food. I
15:50
do not want you financing, especially food that has no nutritional value. I
15:54
know you're not going on DoorDash to get no salad, right? And
15:59
just be mindful of how you are eating,
16:03
when you are eating. It's so important. But yes, a lot
16:06
of times, emotional eating is such a huge part of how
16:09
we find ourselves coping. And it's
16:13
important to understand that it does offer relief, right?
16:18
Anytime I'm frustrated, I crave
16:22
sweets or something greasy like a burger. And
16:26
when that craving comes up, I'm mindful. Every now
16:30
and then, do I cave in and I get the burger and the cake? I
16:33
do. I get the burger and the cake. Do I do it every time? No.
16:36
I'm constantly checking in with myself. That's why the mind-body connection
16:40
is so important, because your body's gonna give you signs that you're okay before
16:43
you do. Gut-brain connection. So the gut has
16:46
been linked to mental health. A healthy gut can produce neurotransmitters like
16:50
serotonin, which is essential for mood regulation, right?
16:53
A lot of times the people who are on psychiatric medications, there's
16:57
some serotonin. It helps with the mood stuff, right?
17:01
And even if you are on that medication, on those medications, don't
17:05
just rely on the medication, right? Like take the stuff that
17:08
I'm talking about in regards to food into account. So
17:13
you can actually have more added, like the medicine is one component, like
17:16
therapy is one component, but then what can we do to
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be more healthy and mindful, right? I don't think a lot of doctors
17:23
talk about this. So maintaining good health
17:26
is essentially for overall wellbeing. It supports your digestion, strengthens
17:30
your immune system, regulates metabolism, improve mental
17:33
health, and reduces risk of chronic diseases. So when
17:37
you start taking care of your gut, you're actually taking care of your overall health,
17:40
right? That's important to remember. Now,
17:44
let's talk about the socioeconomic factors that kind
17:47
of affect us. So, access to healthy food can be limited
17:51
by our socioeconomic status, which can exasperate mental
17:55
health issues. Food deserts and financial constraints can lead to reliance on
17:58
unhealthy and processed food. Let's be clear. It's
18:02
not by accident that there's food deserts and we
18:05
don't have access to certain foods. I remember when I
18:08
first went to Trader Joe's, I was
18:13
in Florida and then we drove to the
18:16
Trader Joe's. Then I'm in Massachusetts and my son is in
18:20
AAU. Anytime we would go to certain games, which was in more affluent, higher
18:24
socioeconomic areas, Trader Joe's would be there. I
18:28
love Trader Joe's. And I remember my son said,
18:31
how come it seems like Trader Joe's are all only in the good areas, right?
18:36
No shade to Trader Joe's. But it's not by
18:39
accident that in some of the areas where there's
18:42
a low socioeconomic status, there's not healthy food
18:46
choices. And I remember when
18:50
I was working at this agency, I was making pretty
18:53
decent money. I was a supervisor, and there was a cheap place across
18:56
the street where you could get like a little meal for $5, like some rice, some
19:00
fried pork, and something else. And I remember this white lady, she was
19:03
like, I don't understand why they eat at that place. And
19:07
I remember thinking, because it's cheap and it's affordable. And
19:12
when I became a supervisor, I've worked in the field since I was 19. So
19:16
I was hustling and bustling. And then the higher I got, the
19:20
less hustle and bustle I had to do, but the more money I received.
19:24
And when she made that comment, I was just thinking
19:27
how uninformed people are about the lack of choices people
19:31
have when you don't grow up with money,
19:35
when you don't grow up with the knowledge on how food affects you.
19:39
Now, there's certain foods I won't eat if I'm about
19:42
to go to bed or if I have an event because
19:45
I don't want to feel heavy. You know what I mean? I'm more of
19:49
a conscious eater, but I had to learn that over time. And
19:52
so just because, like I said, I didn't grow up like this, just because you
19:56
didn't know or you didn't learn don't mean you can't learn and understand. But
20:01
it's real when you go to the grocery store if you don't have access to
20:04
a car and they don't have a lot of choices and the choices they
20:07
do have is actually cheaper to get certain
20:11
unhealthy foods than it is to buy healthy foods. The
20:15
households with a higher socioeconomic status spends more
20:18
money on food Not because the quantity,
20:23
it's not like they have a lot more food and that's why they're spending
20:27
more. They're spending more on food because to have healthy
20:31
food, it costs more money. To eat
20:34
healthy, it costs more money. And even
20:38
now, I think about how everything is so freaking high. And
20:42
so I understand how it gets to that
20:46
point. And I just want people to challenge themselves, right?
20:50
Because it's easy to get stuck in, well, I don't have this and I don't have that,
20:53
so I can't do this. So I hear you, right? But
20:57
I do want you to think about, OK, I don't have certain
21:00
things that would be nice, but maybe I can make this substitution here.
21:05
Maybe instead of having burgers and fries, I can do
21:09
a burger and a salad. Start making small choices. The
21:12
choices, in order to get yourself to a place of healthy eating,
21:16
it's not going to happen overnight, right? I don't have access to
21:20
like fresh corn or fresh beans cost
21:24
a lot of money, so let me try the frozen ones, right?
21:28
And also there's cultural factors to how we eat, right?
21:32
So my husband's Haitian and in the
21:35
Haitian culture, rice is a huge staple of the
21:39
foods that they eat. A lot of times, if you think about it, rice, it fills you up.
21:43
A lot of the ways that we eat, I think about slavery and how they gave us
21:46
crap and we made it work. We seasoned it,
21:50
we made it taste good, we made it work. We
21:54
needed enough food to fulfill us because we
21:57
didn't have access to a lot. A lot of the ways that we thought
22:01
and we operate gets passed on. A lot of people,
22:04
especially in the Haitian community, I know
22:08
because I work with the population so well and my husband's
22:11
patient, there's a lot of like high blood pressure, right? It's because
22:15
of the type of foods that they're eating. Even
22:18
when people are trying to transition from like not so much rice to maybe
22:22
like couscous or something else, it feels hard to accept because
22:26
your palates aren't used to it. That's why I said, as you're trying to
22:29
work on change, understand it's going to take some time. I tell the story
22:32
all the time on the podcast when I was starting
22:36
to go to the gym and lose weight after I had my daughter, I was
22:39
going to Burger King because, you know what I'm saying? I thought I was trying
22:42
to reward myself, you know? And then I learned I wasn't losing the
22:46
weight because I'm at Burger King, you know? give me a
22:49
number one whopper baby and um i was like
22:52
oh that's why okay let me change up let me change it up i started changing it
22:55
up i was like let me get all this stuff at the time i didn't know how
22:58
to cook i know how to cook now but i got all this stuff and
23:02
found myself um wasting it because i didn't know what to
23:05
do with it so then i started uh buying these naked
23:08
drinks it's called naked it's like a smoothie And
23:12
then I said, let me just try to make changes
23:16
little by little. I started with breakfast and I would make my own smoothie at home. So
23:20
after three months, I got used to that smoothie. At first it was probably like,
23:23
ugh, you know, cause my palates was used to Burger King and processed food.
23:28
There was a day that I forgot to make the smoothie. So I said, let me just grab one
23:31
of these naked drinks. Man, when I tell you that drink was
23:34
so sweet, that drink was so sweet and I was like, oh my gosh, look at
23:37
all the sugar, right? And so now I don't buy the
23:41
naked drinks and I make everything on my own. And
23:44
it took time, it took patience, it took grace. I had a
23:47
lot of grace with myself. I had a lot of patience with myself. I
23:51
realized it's a process, right? And if this is the
23:54
first time you're hearing this and it's speaking to you,
23:58
have grace with yourself, have patience with yourself, like let this be the start
24:02
of your journey. And if you are already on your journey, this is
24:05
a reminder to keep going because over time you're
24:08
going to find yourself getting more acclimated to the
24:12
new system that you're trying to create, right? Like your
24:15
palates are going to get more acclimated to the system you're trying to create. Um,
24:20
so last thing I want to talk about, you know, if you're not, if you're new to the podcast, I'm
24:23
talking about the struggles, but I'm gonna talk about the solutions. That's what I do
24:27
on here. Um, so when it comes to solutions, what comes up for me
24:30
is like being mindful of how you are eating, right?
24:33
Mindful eating practices. So practice, as
24:37
you can see on the screen, practice, mindful eating can help you
24:40
develop a healthier relationship with food. This involves paying attention to
24:44
your hunger cues, right? So when you're hungry, so
24:47
now I don't have it on my phone, but for probably six months on
24:51
my phone, I said, are you really hungry? Well, would you have some broccoli? And
24:55
I was like, no, I guess I'm not that hungry. So I'm more
24:58
mindful of, um, The stuff that I
25:02
eat, I would put peanuts, pistachios, almonds
25:06
around. My snacking started to look different. Over
25:10
time, I don't even bring certain things into the house. If I do, I
25:14
don't bring a bulk of it. I just get one serving, because it's not
25:17
about not having any savory foods, but it's about not
25:20
doing it every day. That's the issue, is that we're doing
25:24
it more often. and then recognizing emotional triggers
25:28
for eating. So like I said, when I'm stressed out, your
25:31
girl want a burger and chocolate cake, like give me it fast, baby.
25:36
So I know like, okay. And then, you know, it's
25:39
crazy, but after dinner, I don't know if
25:42
it's in my blood. I want something sweet every time. And
25:46
I recognize that cue. I don't have it in the house. So
25:49
then I started doing like Greek yogurt and bananas.
25:53
Like now it's crazy. I would have never
25:57
thought I got to this place, but bananas feel like something sweet for me. Um,
26:00
it's, it's taken a while for me to get there, but I really was on
26:04
a whole, like, I need me like some cookies and some cake. So
26:09
yeah, paying attention to hunger cues and savory meals, keeping a food journal can
26:12
be helpful to identify your emotional triggers. Right. Um,
26:15
just write it down. Get, it doesn't have to be fancy. You don't got to get no app,
26:18
you know, any kind of a thing I talk about on here. I want it
26:22
to be accessible or you could start now where there's no, income
26:25
barriers. So when you think about keeping a food journal, like
26:29
you could take the notes from the app off your phone and every
26:32
time you eat, pay attention to it and then check in with yourself. How am I
26:36
feeling? Right. Because sometimes, like I said, you're going to go for that
26:39
juggler and get that thing that feels like it's numbing the
26:42
pain in the moment. But at least now you're mindfully doing
26:46
it. You're you're in tune with what's going on and
26:49
you're not doing it like without realizing what's happening.
26:52
A lot of us are just eating, we're going through the motions and not realizing what's
26:56
happening. As you're eating, eliminate distractions
27:00
and eat slow, right? It's easy to be on our phones, watch
27:03
something and eat, right? So if you're trying to work on the
27:07
way you're eating, try not to have distractions around,
27:11
try to sit and eat. And smaller
27:15
plates are better, right? Like if you, you know, the thing is
27:18
like when we grow up, you know, finish your food, right?
27:22
And we feel guilty about not finishing all of
27:25
our food. Like I will wrap up my, when people don't
27:28
wrap up their leftovers at restaurants, I'm like, I want my leftovers. Even
27:33
if it's a little bite, I'm gonna take it. And so what you
27:36
can do is grab smaller plates put smaller portions on
27:40
there, even have a glass of water before, a glass of
27:43
water after, because a lot of times we think we're still
27:46
hungry, but we're not really that hungry. And so you'll be
27:49
surprised, the more you learn your hunger cues, the more
27:53
you learn how to manage the way that you're eating, you'll
27:57
find yourself eating slower and less, right? So
28:01
this is important. This is a topic I wanted to talk about
28:04
because I recognize that there's so much going on around
28:07
the world, right? Unprecedented times, especially for
28:11
me as a therapist. I thought the pandemic
28:15
was the top tier of unprecedented times,
28:19
but this definitely matches anything. And we're
28:24
all trying to figure it out. And so if
28:27
this message speaks to you, I just want you to understand that
28:32
it's important when you learn something about the
28:35
way you're operating to be intentional about making changes
28:39
in your life. If that's something you want to do, if you're listening to this and you're like,
28:42
you know what, Celestis is really good and I want to start making changes. You
28:47
got Google at your fingertips, right? You got AI, like,
28:50
how can I make a plan? What can I start with? I would challenge
28:54
you to start with one meal at first. If all of your meals are not really healthy
28:58
or good, start with just breakfast or start with dinner. But
29:01
start slow and be mindful that it's going to take time, but
29:05
it's only going to happen with intention. Like I said
29:09
on the phone, I had a screensaver that said, are you really hungry? Would
29:12
you have broccoli? I would see it so much that It sticks with
29:16
me even just last night. I was I had what did I eat? I
29:19
can't remember Um, whatever I ate and I remember thinking like
29:22
dang. I want something else. But then I said do you want broccoli? That's how much
29:25
it stuck with me So make sure you're intentional about the process If
29:30
you enjoyed this episode do me a huge favor share with somebody that you
29:33
love If you're not following me on youtube or watching me on youtube go
29:36
over head on over to youtube and uh, check me out And
29:40
then what else I want to say, follow my wellness page,
29:45
STWYT. You could find it on Facebook and
29:48
Instagram. And then my podcast, social media, Celeste
29:52
the Therapist. You could find in my stories, I talk a
29:55
lot about me and a lot of things that are
29:59
going on. And if you enjoyed this episode, I
30:02
would love to hear what part stuck out for you. You can
30:06
email me, you can write it under my page when I promote the
30:09
episode. So thank you all so much for listening to
30:12
me and for rocking out. I truly appreciate it. And