It takes 20 minutes to feel full. The hormone called ghrelin turns on your “I’m hungry” switch. As you eat, your ghrelin hormone drops. It takes about 20 minutes for your food to travel from your stomach to your colon. Here’s where the “I’m full!” switch gets turned on by the hormone peptide yy. Patiently give your body enough time for it to work!
You can slow down your eating to give your body time to turn on your “I’m full” switch. Here are a few ways to slow down:
Sit down to eat.
Cut up your food into small pieces.
Chew each bite 25 times or more.
Notice the taste of each bite of food. Savor it.
Set your fork down between bites.
Talk to others while your mouth is empty.
Listen to others while engaging in eye contact. Eye contact produces happy hormones which allow you to slow down and savor!
2) Eat when your body is hungry.
Know your signals for hunger, emotions & activities.
Activity Signals are: vacations, holidays, birthdays, events, good news, bad news
3) Eat communally at purposeful times & places.
You’re the ‘king of your castle’! You get to create your healthy eating environments. Avoid eating straight from the food container & use smaller plates & bowls. Fill your plate and put away leftovers before you eat. Keep healthy high protein & fiber, low carb snacks available all the time. Set up your ‘Salad Bar in the Fridge‘. Cook your ‘Freezer Fiesta~ a month of meals in a day to save 19 hrs a month!‘ When we eat alone, randomly or sporadically, we sabotage ourselves.
4) Eat nutritionally dense foods that nourish you.
Some foods help you and others are emotionally manipulative. Fried, sugary, salty and low protein foods rob us from feeling great & manipulate us into eating them by promising lots of pleasure. Unfortunately, the ‘pleasure’ they provide is so short lived and the ‘pain’ they cause lasts for hours. Eating them is like putting glue in your fuel tank. We can tell ourselves stories about how certain health foods don’t taste good. Yet, when we slow down to appreciate them, our stories can prove to be false. Take the ‘savor my raison’ activity. You look at the raison and probably think it won’t be that satisfying. But, when you suck it, savor it, and see how long you can enjoy it in your mouth, you notice the sweet flavor. It gets better the longer it’s in your mouth. Give it some time to satisfy you.
5) Eat on purpose, with intention.
When we multi-task, we diminish our ability to pay attention to whether we’re nourishing ourselves or just shoveling it in. Our bodies work so hard all day long. Why do we spend longer making our bodies look good (hairstyle, makeup, outfits) than we spend to make sure we actually feel good? Have you noticed that well nourished people naturally look better too? And, they get to feel better the whole day long! Choose to do this for yourself. No one else can make this choice for you.
6) Eat gratefully, trusting your needs will be met without waste.
When we’re grateful, we stop grasping for more. This is true with our eating habits as well as all other areas of life. Many of us have developed a fear-based coping mechanism regarding food. Some of us were punished as we grew up by being denied meals or being forced to eat foods we didn’t like. Some were given unhealthy foods as ‘bribes’ for good behavior. Others were forced to eat all the food on our plates even when we weren’t hungry instead of just saving the food for our next snack. These actions can cause us to distrust that our real needs will be met regarding our food. We’re afraid we won’t get nourished! When we purposefully stop these behaviors, we’ll begin to trust that our needs will be met with our food. We won’t waste food anymore by overeating and we’ll feel more satisfied. The more we make a decision to nourish your bodies, the more we’ll trust our bodies to tell us what they need. Believe me.
Truly, we don’t have to ‘diet’ to have a healthy weight. When we refocus our attention on the right things, our bodies will respond. Trust me.
I’m like a woven basket with holes in it. By the time I got married, my basket was pretty crooked, in need of repair. I felt like the Lord kept pouring His love into me and it just drained out the bottom. I was exhausted, trying to love others out of ‘be nice adrenaline’ instead of ‘genuine overflow-love’. The Lord showed me He wanted to heal my holes and make me ‘holy whole’. My husband’s endurance and love has been the ‘stopgap’ during this process. His virtue supports my good repair. This is one of the benefits of a Catholic marriage. Spouses really can be the tools the Lord uses to heal us. Lovers love better when they’re full of love.
Imagine two individuals each holding their own identity symbolized by a piece of rope held on each end by both hands. Now, imagine these two find each other and decide to let go of part of themselves to hold hands with each other. This is really beautiful, but as soon as someone starts pulling on them, they can easily come ‘undone’. When my husband and I decided to let go of our old self identities and give them to the Lord to hold, He was able to take those loose ends and tie them together into a knot. As the each rope rubs against the other, some of the external fibers (outer borders) are removed. It’s like sand paper. This rubbing allows our inner selves to touch, mingle and become one. The Lord can pour His love into each of our ‘ropes’ and that love flows into each of us and into each other. We end up with MORE love than we started. The two loves from God become one. This love can flow through us & energize us. The more we’re connected to God’s love, the more love can actually flow out the other ends of our ropes. This is the love we can use to love the world with.
I really believe that Pope St John Paul 2nd is so right in this quote. When we let the Father’s love flow (and keep asking Him for more and more of it every time we’re angry, hurt, disappointed or taken advantage of), we really start to think and act like Him. Our real capacity to reflect His love starts to be actualized!
What if every action we did for our household was done out of love? What If we really did wash the laundry and clean the toilet because we love the person who will use it next? What if we spent our resources wisely (our energy, time and money) because we loved the ones we share those resources with? Would respect grow in our families?
Catholics believe that marriage is a sacrament with a mission! Yes! How do you know what your family mission is? One way we’re figuring this out is to be honest about what gifts the Lord has given us. We know that all gifts are meant for us individually and for the good of the whole Church and the whole world. So, what are your gifts? (see pic above for ideas). What are your spouse’s gifts? What happens when they’re used together, synergistically? The two gifts become one and the sum total is greater than the individual parts. This is so exciting! What do we do with these gifts? Well, there are so many spiritual and corporal ways we can spend our time using them! Examine the merciful acts above. Which ones resinate with you? Which ones could really be done using the gifts the Lord’s given you? Marriage gives us so many opportunities to practice ALL of them! It’s a perfect setting to practice works that are merciful! And, when we spend time doing merciful works, we develop attitudes of blessing. (The Church calls these the Beatitudes.) Our mind actually begins to recognize blessings in so many situations. The veil of ‘unknowing’ gets lifted. This purposeful thought pattern and purposeful decision making leads to us bearing good fruit. Others get to benefit from these fruits as we bring them into every situation we’re in. They’re a part of us. And these fruits forge eternal virtues in us. We actually become people of virtue, with virtue. We begin to reflect God in ways we only dreamed of. We begin to bring light and hope to the world! And, we get to experience them ourselves first.
Did you know that sleeping just 5.7 hours a night for one week changed the expression of 711 genes! (Many of these cause obesity, heart disease & dementia.) [see gene study] Just one night of severe insomnia can cause the same injury to the brain as a concussion. It’s alarming to know that occasionally taking a sleeping pill (like Benadryl or antihistamine) raises the risk of premature death by 300%! Insomniacs are 55% more likely to die from heart disease! [see insomniac study]
Three Ways Insomnia Hurts our Hormones
It Bombards us with Stress Cortisol & Adrenalin
Cortisol makes us gain weight. Did you know steroids like Prednisone are a form of cortisol? One of their common side effects is weight gain.
It Floods Us With the Raging Hunger Hormone Ghrelin
Ghrelin tells us we’re hungry… sooo, sooo hungry! Insomnia steals our Leptin hormone that tells us we’re full. Imbalance leads to sugar & fat cravings that are out of this world.
It Skyrockets Blood Sugar
Some reasons this happens is that the brain can’t use glucose efficiently when we become insulin resistant. So, our blood sugar raises. Then, we produce more insulin. Insulin stimulates hunger & we eat more than we need. This causes even higher blood sugar.
7 Ways to Stop Insomnia & Weight Gain
Stop Eating @ 7pm
Eat Tryptophan Seeds & Nuts
This amazing amino acid found in turkey, nuts & seeds, helps us produce sleep inducing melatonin. Nuts & Seeds help us stay full (with protein, fat & fiber).
Eat: walnuts, cashews & sesame seeds.
Eat Lots of Calcium & Magnesium
Calcium & Magnesium relax the nervous system & muscles & help us sleep. Calcium can help our brains make melatonin from tryptophan.
When we move, our muscles release hormones. The more fat we have, the more estrogen we store. This estrogen-dominant situation makes it really difficult to cut weight. Exercise lowers estrogen. It’s really helped me to wear a step tracker to make sure I’m getting 10,000 steps every day. To get the support to reach your great weight, request access to our private ‘Healthy Fit – Move It Challenge‘.
Eating too much or too little can lead to weight gain.
For every pound of overweight mass, the person ate 3500 too many calories. Or, he/she has a thyroid problem or they’re in ‘fasting mode’ because they didn’t eat enough.
If you’re eating too much, determine your basal metabolic rate (bmr). This number will tell you how much you’ve been eating to get to your current weight. Set your caloric goal to be less than your bmr. Women can go as low as 1200 calories a day, men as low as 1500. Breast feeding women 1800 a day. If you’re not eating enough, increase your caloric intake with healthy, nutrient dense foods.
When the bowels are covered with mucus, they can’t absorb nutrients very well. So, we overeat. Herbs and flora help keep the intestines clean! When the liver is sluggish, we feel sluggish and gain weight. The liver’s job is to remove toxins (chemicals, etc). Milk thistle, reishi mushroom, schizandra, dandelion, turmeric and artichoke all help the liver do its job. Here’s a great 7 day Healthy Cleanse I love! For more private support, request access to our ‘Detox This‘ group.
Here’s an inspiring video about how stress can actually be a signal for growth.
It’s really important to identify what’s stressing us out and solve the source of the problem.
If you want support in your journey, request access to our ‘Stress Relief | Brain Power‘ private Facebook group and let us know Deb Headworth sent you there.
High cortisol causes weight gain and inflammation. It can damage nearly every organ. 90% of all illnesses are stress related. We must find ways to remove this stress induced excess cortisol.
My 4 favorite ways to remove cortisol
Exercise till I’m dripping with sweat.
Contemplation / Meditation / Prayer till I feel peaceful love and slow breathing.
Ashwagandha, L-theanine, beta sitosterol & L-tyrosine all help remove excess cortisol and support a calm, relaxed state without drowsiness. It really helps to use these stress relieving herbs before bed.
Inflammation leads to pain which leads to excess weight.
