The biggest issue most folks have with nutrition isn’t finding the right diet, it’s stress eating.
We all know that stress impacts our ability to make good choices, and we know that stress is a fact of life. Since we can’t avoid it, you need a system to eat the right foods, _despite_ inevitable stress.
In this podcast, Ryan and Josh present just the thing: two simple guidelines and two skills you can develop to manage snacking when tired or stressed out.
Next, they dig in on how to overcome the obstacles that people encounter when they start working on eliminating stress eating. You’ll learn how to identify, plan for, and change your actions in the face of common obstacles.
Things you’ll learn:
- How your balancing your meal impacts snacking
- A simple guideline for knowing when you should check in with yourself, before having a snack
- The three questions to ask yourself to figure out if you’re really hungry
- One metaphor from cutting edge psychology that could make all of the difference when it comes to managing stress without food
Resources Mentioned:
- Change Your Habits for Peak Performance
- How Diets Work: Developing Your Awareness Around Food
- Josh’s New Book–> Lean and Strong
- Eating Skills Program
Transcript
Ryan: Yo, yo, yo! Welcome to Grandma’s Monster Biceps. She’s jacked. She’s huge.
Josh: Huge.
Ryan: What’s up? Today we’re here with Josh, the man, the myth, the legend. Today we’re going to talk about nutrition. Now some of you know we’ve got the GMB Eating Skills program out there. And just thought it’d be good to talk a little bit about, really, diets. Okay? And the man to talk about diets with is Josh. Today we’re going to be looking at a lot of different things, like some of the problems maybe to hit in order to solve. Some of the issues that you have regarding your goals. That’s the big thing, too. Because, right Josh, everybody, they’ve got different goals?
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: Going to kind of mainly have Josh talk about this stuff today. But we’ve also got other things. We’re moving beyond exactly what to eat, we’re going to be looking at the relationship with food. And really a relationship with your body. This is a big one, as well, that we know that people have. And it just comes down to really self care and making sure that you’re focusing on that. Relating back to autonomy. Lots of different stuff that we’re going to be talking about today. But Josh, let’s just go ahead and get right into it. Roll with it, brother. Do it.
Nutritional Autonomy and Stress Eating
Josh: Okay, cool. We got this great question, which was, “What do I do when I’m exhausted and tired?” Right? And this is such a great question, because it’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter what diet you have, what rules, or what … Like most of the things people are given for food don’t actually handle something like this. Right? Your night goes great, your macros or whatever. But when you’re exhausted and tired, you’re going to have a tendency to make worse choices. Like tiredness, especially, is one of the biggest times that people overeat mindlessly.
Josh: I thought it would be really cool to handle this, since no one else does. And from a skill-based perspective, this is what skills are for. This is what eating skills are for. It’s for handling this kind of thing.
Josh: And I love that you’re talking about the nutritional autonomy. Because that’s exactly what we’re getting at. You can’t be really in the driver’s seat with your nutrition if you have to snack every time you are tired or every time you’re stressed out. Right? Because most of our clients have pretty full lives. They’ve got families and jobs and maybe they do community stuff. They get stressed out from time to time. We’re going to dig in on what to do about that. How to manage stress and tiredness without eating your feelings.
Ryan: Yeah, this is perfect. Actually, Josh and I, just a couple days ago, we were talking about me. And the fact recently, a lot of extra stress going on. And I find myself being hungry more so than normal. This is something that Josh brought up, actually, was like, “Yeah. It’s because you’re stressed right now and there’s a tendency to want to snack.” And I actually don’t snack, it’s just that I’m hungry. I’m a little bit different than most people, where I’ll just really just suck it up and I’ll be like, “No, I can’t eat.” Because I feel bad if I’m going to eat.
Ryan: This is a great topic and I’m really glad that you’re touching on this, because I think this relates to everybody right now during this whole period of the COVID happening and whatnot. There’s a lot of different things going on. Even if you maybe don’t feel stressed, there is that stress happening around us. And so this could be why you feel a particular way in relation to your nutrition. And I think coming and bringing that into the nutritional autonomy is a great topic here, so continue.
Josh: Yeah. I mean, it’s just one of those things where what most people do is they follow diet A until something … until their schedule changes or something gets a lot more stressful. And then they basically snap and they go off it and they take two weeks off, month off, the rest of the year off. And then they start another diet. I just want to reiterate that if the issue that people are having is that they eat when they’re stressed, another diet’s not going to solve that. In fact, diets tend to make it worse.
Josh: Let’s talk about eating skills. Let’s talk about a skill-based perspective. From a skill-based perspective … Actually, we’re going to look at different things. We’re going to look at skills and guidelines. Guidelines are kind of cool when you’re tired, because it’s kind of like a rule of thumb. But has a little bit of flexibility.
Two Basic Guidelines
Josh: So two really basic guidelines that we can start with. One would be plating balanced meals. And another would be fasting four to six hours between meals. Right? If we’re going to work on … I know neither of these directly address the issue. But they’re foundational.
Josh: If you’re not eating balanced meals, then you’re going to be extra hungry anyway. If we don’t take that physiological hunger off the table, then you’re going to have a really hard time dealing with stress. And most people are more full eating balanced meals.
Josh: Our plate guideline is something in the neighborhood of half the plate vegetables or fruit, a quarter of the plate carbohydrates, quarter of the plate protein. And a tablespoon-ish of fat. This is a guideline, it’s a starting place. You can monkey with a little bit. It’s not a rule. But for a lot of people, for most people, the fiber in the vegetables is going to keep them full. The carbohydrates are going to help them notice that they’re getting full during a meal. Protein’s going to help them feel full during the meal and between meals. And then fat’s also really amazing for feeling full between meals.
Josh: It’s like really foundationally, let’s just eat. And I know that seems super boring and people have heard it a million times. And most clients that show up aren’t doing that consistently.
Ryan: Yeah, this is so good. And sorry to interrupt, but again, everything that we’re doing in GMB, it’s looking at certain guidelines. Right? And that’s what I love about your program and the Eating Skills program, is that it’s not saying that you need to eat Paleo style or you need to eat Keto or that. It’s really looking at, again, these guidelines and building particular habits revolving around what you need. And that’s when we’re talking about nutritional autonomy, right? That’s why these guidelines, I think, are fabulous. Yeah.
Ryan: Anyway, for those of you listening, again, there might be certain things that don’t really click with you, per se, in terms of, “Yeah, I know that.” Okay, but keep listening. Okay? Please. Like everything, this is all going to kind of come together the more that we go through this. First guideline, plate balanced meals, so important.
Josh: Yeah. And like you’re saying, there’s a fair amount of flexibility in that. We’re not telling you what any of that’s going to be. Right? Your protein could be chicken, your protein could be tofu. We don’t care. Your carbohydrates could be pasta, it could be brown rice. It doesn’t matter. You might find you want a little bit more protein in that. That’s fine. You might want a little … I mean, it’s just something to shoot at. Something to shoot for.
Josh: That makes it possible for us to put in something like fasting between meals, fasting four to six hours between meals. If you’re eating reasonable meals, it should … it’s actually reasonable to not need to eat again between meals. Right? This, again, it’s just a guideline. It’s not a rule. If you find you’re actually starving between meals, you could eat. But it sets us up where we’ve got kind of a framework to look at. Like, “Hey, I had lunch. I had lunch an hour and a half ago. And I’ve got a craving for something. Maybe I’m not really hungry. Maybe if I’m hungry two hours after breakfast, maybe I need to check in and see what’s going on. Am I just bored? Did I just an email that kind of ruined my day? Did I get yelled at by my boss?” It’s a way of looking at like, this is a time to check in with myself. And all the skills are based around checking in with yourself, right?
Questions to Ask When You’re Hungry
Josh: You’ve got these guidelines that provide a framework for like, “Hey, maybe these are times to check in.” And then in that time, you put in a skill like checking in whether or not this is actual hunger. To find out if it’s actual hunger, you can look at do I feel a hollow feeling in my stomach? Right? Because if you don’t feel a hollow feeling in stomach … Sometimes people check in, they’re like, “Oh, I’m thirsty. Oh, I’ve got a headache. Oh, I’m sad. Oh, I’m pissed off.” If you feel it in your stomach, you know that’s hunger. If it’s not, it’s something else. You can take a look at, “Am I hungry for a balanced meal? Or a specific treat?”
Ryan: Dude. That’s huge right there. I’m sorry to interrupt, but-
Josh: Yeah, yeah. Good.
Ryan: I want to just pause for a second. And that’s actually … Where you’re going with this, basically, is what is your hunger, basically, right?
Josh: Exactly. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, and it’s something, too, where it’s not simply a matter of just I’m hungry, but what am I hungry for?
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: And that awareness, right? Again, talking about it could be talking about movements or the awareness there. But also something else that you mentioned, like thirsty. Are you actually drinking water? Maybe you just … The headache thing could actually be because you’re dehydrated. I don’t know. But the thing is, that to me is that self-awareness. Huge, man. Sorry to interrupt, but I just-
Josh: No, that’s … no.
Ryan: A lot of people don’t think about, right? What kind of hunger is going on here?
Josh: I’m glad you said that. Because it is like with the movement skills. Where it’s all about awareness, right? It’s the same. If autonomy is actually being able to check in with yourself and do what’s best for you. To be able to know and be able to make that choice versus people end up … People end up in a habit of using food to fix a lot of non-food things.
Ryan: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Josh: So often it’s just lack of awareness. Right?
Ryan: And this is cool, too. Again, in looking at just guidelines then, because then you have a way of actually processing it. Being able to assess the situation. Whereas, if we didn’t have these guidelines in place, you would just be like, “Well, I’m just hungry, so I’m just going to eat whatever, because I’m hungry.” Instead of saying, “All right, here’s some guidelines. The plate, balanced meals, what did I eat? Is that actually maybe what I need or maybe I’m lacking something? Or maybe whatever.” And then later being able to become more aware.
Ryan: And I think that’s why I really like the way that you look at nutrition, is that it is bringing this awareness by helping us to use these guidelines that’s going to be good for us. And us individually. That way if it is an hour later and we’re like, “I’m really hungry.” Well, then you can go back and look at what you ate previously and say, “Okay, is it related to that? Or could it be something else?” And so you have a way of actually assessing so then you can address the situation.
Josh: Exactly.
Ryan: Yeah, I love that. Love that, man.
Josh: And then you learn over time, also. You learn a lot about yourself, you learn about food. And you’re learning from your own experience. Right? It’s so much more sustainable. The way that people are able to do this … It’s not just that they get results. And it’s not just that it lasts longer. It’s that when it comes from you, it becomes … it does become self-reinforcing. Right? It actually feels good. It actually changes your relationship to food and it changes your relationship to your body. And I know a lot of people have done things where they tried to … where they’ve tried to eat by their hunger or they tried to pay attention. And they struggled with it because they didn’t have any guidelines. And it was a little bit too freeform.
Josh: I love that you used the word assess, because it really is. Like the guidelines are just like a flag for you to assess. Right? Yeah, that’s the jam, right? Is ultimately, it comes from you. And if it comes from you, it’s going to last.
Josh: And one of the ways we teach people to have it come from them is check in with their stomach, do they feel a hollow feeling in their stomach? Is it something else? Are they hungry for a complete meal or is it a specific treat? And last one would be does it build and fade or does it build and build? Typically, hunger continues to build. And typically, a craving will build and then fade. And sometimes people call it urge surfing, where you surf that building urge and then it fades away.
Ryan: Then it fades. That’s great.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: No, this is really good. I love that. And I think that’s pretty easy to understand what you’re saying. And that image, as well. You know me, I like to place images to certain things so that you can remember them. That urge surfing is that wave, then you know and you’re able to actually assess the situation in-depth. And I think that’s really good. Progressing in hunger, yeah, go eat. If not, if it was a wave, you’re cool.
Ryan: And I think just knowing that, to be honest, helps a lot. Because we don’t know what we don’t know. By having these little tidbits and being able to reference them quickly and understand, “Oh, if I just look at it this way, then I can continue to move on.” Of course, me, I’m always going to bring it back to movement. But like the bear, my big cue, is just push your butt up into the air. Can you push? Are you pushing your butt up into the air? Oh, I’m not. Oh, wow. That kind of fixed a lot of things. Similarly, am I hungry? How do I check? Okay, is this going to go away in 20 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever? Or is it going to continue? Is my stomach going to continue to growl? Well then … I love that. I love that, man. That’s really good. That’s good.
Josh: Yeah, and-
Ryan: And a little bit about skills in. Like you said, you’ve got these guidelines. Sorry to interrupt you there.
Josh: Yeah, no, go.
Ryan:The differentiation between that hunger from stress and tiredness, okay, this is the three questions, basically, right? If you can cover those a bit more there, in-depth, can you just touch on that, please?
Josh: Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you’re asking like the difference between the two? Or how we differentiate those?
Ryan: How we differentiate. Right.
Tiredness, Boredom and Other Feelings
Josh: Okay. If it isn’t any of those things, right, then you get to check in and see, “Okay, so it’s not hunger. What else is going on?” Right? And tiredness is really common. It’s something that shows up in a lot of research, because everyone gets hungrier when they’re tired. People eat when they’re tired more than when they … even like emotional eating. Really, really, really big thing.
Josh: Also, huge at night. I’ve had a lot of clients that get tired at the end of the night and eat to stay up. They’re not consciously eating to stay up, but what it really comes down to is …
Josh: Then you just check in. And usually people can figure it out. Usually people can say, “You know what? I’m exhausted.” Right? Or they can say, “You know what? Actually, my boss yelled at me and I’m …” Like that’s pretty clear. It takes like 60 seconds. Right? It doesn’t take long. But if they check, they can find out.
Josh: Or they can say, “You know what? Something bad happened. I’m just sad today.” Or there’s nothing wrong and I’m just sad today. It’s actually okay for humans to have different feelings at different times.
Josh: Sometimes I’ll have clients that will use a feelings wheel. We’ve got a feelings wheel in the Eating Skills program. Which it’s just like a menu of feelings. And tiredness is in there also. But also stress and anger, et cetera. And there’s something about sometimes just picking from a menu. And they’re like, “Oh, yeah. That’s it.” Right? And then other people will journal. And they’ll take a minute, write how am I feeling?
Ryan: Sure. That’s really good. And again, really, comes down to awareness. And then having some guidelines to be able to go back and reference. That feelings wheel that you have, that’s a good one, too. Am I hungry because I’m pissed off right now? Am I hungry just because I’m bored.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: You know? Or whatever. Right?
Josh: Oh! Procrastinating!
Ryan: Procrastinating.
Josh: Procrastinating is another good one.
Ryan: Yeah. I don’t really want to do this, so I think I’m just going to go and eat a doughnut.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: Something like that.
Josh: Oh, or another one. I’ve had so many clients where the only time they give themselves a break during the day is when they have a snack.
Ryan: Oh, wow.
Josh: And so, if the only time you give yourself a break is when you have snack, of course you’re going to snack all the time.
Ryan: Absolutely.
Josh: Right?
Ryan: Absolutely. It’s actually programming yourself to equate a break to having a snack.
Josh: Yes.
Ryan: Wow, that’s … Again, coming back to the guideline of looking at that four to six hours of fasting, well, without eating, basically fasting between meals. Right? And then looking at the why about it, being aware of what’s going on.
Ryan: This is great. So again, guideline one, I want to say this again. Plate balanced meals. Looking at what you need, what’s good for you. And then guideline two, four to six hours between meals and why. Yeah.
Cravings
Ryan:Let’s talk about cravings, though.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: Which is huge, right? Because if we are aware that, okay, we ate earlier and we don’t necessarily need to eat right now, this is something related to a particular stress or it’s just because I’m bored or something, but what about if I crave something? If I’m sitting here and right now I’m craving tacos or something, okay? That’s just because I live in Japan and I can’t get tacos.
Josh: It’s so sad!
Ryan: But what if I’m really craving? I do know that there are certain times where I’m just like, “Holy shit. I really …” Well, here’s an example. At the end of the day and I’m just like, “Oh, my God. I need a drink.” How many people say that, right? Do you really need a drink? Okay, maybe you do. But can you touch on that a little bit?
Josh: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We actually have a skill called, “You are not your cravings.” Right? And it’s based on a process from contextual behavioral science called diffusion. Which is where you’re able to notice something and be with it without having to fix or change it. Such that you could still take actions in line with what matters to you. Right?
Josh: It’s about getting separation. And this is a really, really big thing where they’ve looked at … There’s been a ton of research on cravings and having people either try and suppress the cravings or fight the cravings or think better thoughts about the cravings. And all those things actually have people … It works for a time, then they snap and overeat. Right?
Josh: On the flip side, if you can practice being with cravings. And actually, it’s the same skill, whether you’re practicing being with cravings or being with emotions or being with stress or being with tiredness. It’s about noticing it, labeling it, and getting a little bit of distance, such that you’re not it, but you have it. And you’re willing to feel it. Right?
Ryan: Yeah. With fear, this is a big thing with fear. It’s exactly the same, right? And this is something over the years … Sorry to interrupt again. But this something that I’ve dealt with. It’s the exact same. Because it is actually just saying, “Okay, this is what’s going on.” And you’re not trying to necessarily overcome it and get rid of it. It’s that you’re understanding. And you’re able to actually have that fear there, but still do whatever you need to do without it really crushing you. Right?
Ryan: This diffusion, plus that acceptance of that. Yes. This terrifies me. Okay? Getting in front of the camera and doing this is not something I love. Okay? It scares me, but I’m able to accept the fact that I am scared and I’m willing to move beyond that and do it because of X, right? Again, I’ve jumped right in there. But I just think that this is so important to look at. Because even though we are talking about nutrition right here, this revolves around with everything.
Ryan: And movement is the same thing. Look at handstands. So many people that are scared to do handstands. But I know where you’re going with this. The thing, of course, with handstands is that as long as you understand how to have an escape plan, how to get out of the handstand safely, you’re going to be able to handle that fear in a constructive way. Yes, please. Continue with this. I love this. Sorry, I just keep jumping in there. But-
Josh: No, that’s great. I mean, it’s like once you get your cartwheel bail, you can all of a sudden … then you can deal with the fear. You can be like, “Oh, I actually have a way out.” Right? Yeah. And the thing about … like you’re talking about being on video. Or doing a workshop. I get freaked out before doing a workshop. And yet I do it anyway. Because it makes a difference for me.
Ryan: Yeah. That might surprise people, but I was the same way. I actually … I thrive on that now, that energy. But the thing is, is there’s still always that fear. To be honest with me, and I’m sorry to hijack this, but-
Josh: This is great.
Ryan: If I actually don’t have a little bit of fear, it almost, in my case, means that I don’t care anymore. If that makes sense.
Josh: Yes! Yes!
Ryan: So, because I get scared, I still care about it.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: I do know … And that means that it’s still important to me. Yeah. Looking back at these cravings and looking at diffusion and acceptance of that. And being able to be there with it. I want to hear a bit more about that, please. Yeah.
Josh: Yeah. Man, that was a good … That was perfect, though. Because I’m sure so many people have heard something like, “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s acting even with fear.” That’s exact same thing we’re going for. It’s just a matter of giving people some tools to make it a little bit easier.
Josh: And so what we’re looking for, is we’re looking for a way to create a little bit of separation. If people can … It could be just as simple as picking from that feelings wheel and going, “Oh, I’m feeling that. I’m willing to be with that right now. And I also know it matters to me. I’m willing to do what matters to me, even though I have these feelings.”
Josh: Or it could be like, “You know what? I’m craving this chocolate chip cookie. Chocolate chip cookies are awesome.” And chocolate chip cookie’s my thing. Just so you know. And it’s normal, as a human, to want to eat chocolate chip cookies. It would be crazy to never want to eat chocolate chip cookies. I know that at points I’m going to have cravings for chocolate chip cookies. I know if …
Josh: For some people, it’s like, “If I walk through the store,” they’re like, “Oh, I know if I’m in the supermarket and I see this, I’m going to want it.” It’s knowing that we’re wired to want to eat delicious things, and that’s okay. And just accepting that. Right? And being able to be with it. And then, you can … just to put in a flexibility piece. Knowing that, “Oh, I can actually have chocolate chip cookies when I choose it, when I want it. When I’m having chocolate chip cookies in the date night with my spouse or my kids made some or I’m at the best bakery in my town.” Versus just, “You know what? I had a crappy day and I want a chocolate chip cookie to make it better.” Right?
Ryan: Now, this is so good. And that’s autonomy, right?
Josh: Yes.
Ryan: And that’s absolutely what it’s about, is you have that control. Control in a sense that … Let me not say control. Let me say mastery. You have the mastery of being able to decide when and how you do something. Exactly what I talk about all the time with movement, right? You’re able to go, “Wow, that looks like a really fun thing to do, I’m going to go do that. Because I know what my body’s capable of doing.” And I have the mastery and physical autonomy to be able to understand whether or not I can actually do that safely or not. The same with the eating skills, right? Where, “Oh, my God, this is the best apple pie restaurant in the world!” Well, let’s have a little piece. Cool.
Ryan: And also, the other thing is after eating it, not being down on yourself or thinking that you’re a bad person because you ate it, right?
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, a whole other topic that we can get into. And actually might be good for another chat. And I just want to say by the way, leading in here talking about a little bit the GMB community that we have, this topic that we’re talking about today in the question, it comes from our Alpha Posse, or even our Facebook group. We have a Facebook podcast group.
Ryan: Please, if you haven’t signed up for that, or at least checked that out, please do. This is where we get all of our questions. And we really encourage you to be a part of this and to ask questions. This is why we continue to do this. It’s not a passive thing at all. We truly want your feedback. Please join, if you want to have an active part in this discussion. Check it out over at Facebook.
Ryan: All right. Let’s continue moving on here, man. I’m sorry, I get so excited about all this stuff. Looking at … I got to pull up what we’re doing here. Sorry. Just lost my notes. Move on just a little bit here, if that’s okay.
Josh: Yeah, let’s do it.
Obstacles
Ryan: Let’s talk a little bit about obstacles. Right? And what happens. You know one of my favorite books is by Ryan Holiday called The Obstacle is the Way.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Learning how to actually accept what we’re just talking about, accept, accept obstacles. And understand that they can be used as a learning process. Let’s talk a little bit about that in terms of nutrition.
Josh: Obstacle planning is huge. Right? It might be … for a lot of people with their nutrition, spending some time on obstacle planning might be the most important thing for actually making … for actually being able to be successful at making new changes. Right?
Ryan: And let’s give some examples if that’s okay. If you could give examples of for what? What are we talking here? When we have Thanksgiving and things like that. Right? If you can give some examples, real world examples that we might…
Josh: Yeah. Actually, one of the best … Just one of the best things is going back to what we were just talking about. Eating when they’re tired. What happens to most of us, and it’s not our fault. We just get caught up in our day to day stuff. We’re busy and we have a lot of things going on. We don’t have that awareness of, “Hey, I always eat when I’m tired.” It’s like classic diet thing is assuming that everything’s going to be perfect. But then you’re exhausted at the end of the day.
Josh: Obstacle planning could literally be as simple as going, “I always have a longer work day on Tuesdays, I should plan to be exhausted at the end of that day. I should know that ahead of time. And if at the end of Tuesday I feel exhausted, what I’m going to do is I’m going to … If I feel exhausted and I want to eat, then what I’m going to do is I’m going to go through that checklist of is this actual hunger? And I’m going to use some diffusion.” And then they do that and they’re like, “Oh, actually I was starving. I had a super long day and I was starving at the end of that day.” And then they can go like, “Okay, wait. I’m supposed to fast four to six hours between meals. And actually, because my day is so long on Tuesday, I had lunch at noon and I don’t get to have dinner until 7:00 or 8:00. That’s way longer than six hours, of course I’m starving. Maybe I actually do need a snack in there.”
Ryan: Awesome. Like that, again, that awareness. And actually taking the time to look at that and be able to auto-regulate in terms of what you need that particular day. Right? That example, I think that a lot of people fall into that. Another example, especially this happens to me. I’ll get so involved, absorbed in something, that it ends up being like six hours and not eating. And then all of the sudden I’m like, “Oh, man. I am so hungry right now.” And end up overeating or whatever. Just stuffing my face beyond the point of return.
Josh: Totally.
Ryan: Yeah. Right? That, what you’re just saying, I think is great. Is understanding and looking at your week in terms of not just, “Okay, I’m going to do my exercise on this day. And this is what I’m going to do on this day.” But also take into consideration your eating plan, if you will. Your nutrition.
Josh: Right.
Ryan: But I love the way that you’re doing it. Instead of saying, “I’m going to just eat this.” It’s more on the lines of, “Okay, this is what’s going on in my lifestyle, therefore you look at it that way.”
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: And that’s, of course, me with movement with GMB. Looking at your lifestyle and looking at what you need for your lifestyle, same thing with nutrition, what you’re talking about. Which is cool, man.
Josh: Yeah. It has to actually fit you. It has to fit into your real life. I love what you said about how you get absorbed into something and you wait too long and then you run into … and then you’re starving.
Josh: What’s cool about that, is because when people start off with obstacle planning, they start off looking at the things that are obvious in their schedule, which is like the first example I gave. Your example is something that you don’t plan for. But it probably happens often enough that you can assume that it’s coming. Right?
Josh: In that case, you would look at it like, “Hey, you know what? This is something that regularly happens. If I end up waiting too long before I eat and I’m ravenously hungry, I know when I’m ravenously hungry I eat way too fast and I eat way too much. And sometimes I have seconds. If I’m in that situation, then what I’m going to do is I’m going to deliberately put my fork down in between bites to slow myself down, I’m going to plate one good meal, and I’m going to stop at the end of that plate. I’m actually going to prepare myself for the fact that I know that it’s been too long, so I know one plate isn’t going to feel like enough, even though I know that it is. And so I’m going to expect it to feel like not enough.”
Josh: And you can even go a step further and say, “I’m going to put in a 10 minute break or a 20 minute break before having seconds.” And then if you wait 20 minutes and you’re like, “Oh, you know what? I’m fine.” Cool. If you wait 20 minutes and you’re like, “You know what? Actually, I’m hungry.” Cool. But you gave yourself the time that you can actually check in with yourself.
Ryan: Dude, that’s great. Yeah. That’s really good, man. Again, coming back and being aware of what’s going on.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: So good. So good. So good, man. We’re talking about a whole lot of stuff here. I think before we just go any deeper, it might be good to kind of finish here. And then we can come back and-
Josh: Cool.
Ryan: …to this conversation if that’s cool.
Josh: Yeah.
Recap and Bonus Tip
Ryan: Kind of give a summary here. A quick thing again, we’re talking about guidelines. This is huge, right? There are those two guidelines. If you can cover those two guidelines quickly again for us. Yeah.
Josh: Yeah. So the two guidelines were plating balanced meals and four to six hours between meals. And then the two skills were-
Ryan: Yeah, two skills. Do it.
Josh: … distinguishing hunger from tiredness. I mean, distinguishing hunger from tiredness or stress. Which is asking those three questions. And then the skill of you are not your cravings. Getting a little bit of … Noticing what’s going on and labeling it. Because that gives us a little bit of space to take actions. To be able to be with it. And take actions alongside it and to be able to be willing to feel that discomfort in service of what matters to us sometimes.
Ryan: So good, man. And really looking at that. One thing that really is just jumping out to me right now is when you mentioned looking at your week in terms of certain things that might come up. And being able to plan for those revolved around your lifestyle instead of the opposite way around. Which I just think is so good.
Ryan: Know that there’s going to be obstacles. And instead of just going, “Oh, my God!” And freaking out about it. Taking a step back and just saying, “All right. This is a good opportunity for me to address the situation.” And like fear, understanding that it’s going to happen, but actually be able to use these guidelines as a key to apply, like the Triple A framework we have in GMB. You assess the situation, you address what’s going on, and then you make the proper application based on what you need.
Ryan: This is great. Bonus tip. What’s a bonus tip for us today?
Josh: Bonus tip would be to spend like 10 minutes with a journal and write about who you want to be about food. What kind of character strengths you’d want to embody. Whether that’s like conscientiousness or reasonableness or self-compassion. You could google values list. And there’s a million values lists out there. But taking a look at who you want to be about food, outside of just your goals and everything. What would be a really cool expression of you?
Ryan: Dude, that’s super cool. All right. Thanks for chatting with me, man. We’ll be having a lot more of these coming up.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Thank you everybody for listening again. I’m going to have Josh on here from time to time. If you do have any questions, please jump on there. Leave questions for us. We’ll cover those. And, yeah, I’m going to go eat a taco. Thanks, man.
Josh: Thanks, everyone. See you!
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