Welcome Program - Day 3

With Amber Kay

Nutrition – Why & How to Eat

Yesterday we talked about the importance of mindset for getting the best results after your surgery. Today we’re focusing on your mindset in relation to nutrition and specifically why and how to eat.

Amber also discusses one of the most common challenges that people who have weight loss surgery experience -   “emotional" or "mindless eating”. This is where we eat not because we really need food to meet our nutritional needs but because we’re trying to change the way we’re feeling – for example to reduce stress or tiredness or to relieve boredom, anger or frustration, or as a source of comfort and security.

One step at a time

The key to success is to continually take small, achievable steps towards your new healthy lifestyle. In today’s resource we’ve focussed on the nutrition principle that we believe will have the biggest impact on your weight loss and that will prepare you most for eating after your surgery. You can download the resource here.

We've also included a bonus Relaxation Breathwork Audio that is designed to act as a powerful alternative to emotional eating.

Tomorrow’s lesson

We’ll be back again tomorrow, talking about how to make physical activity and movement work for you. And if you haven’t had much success with this area recently, you’re going to love the secret principles that we’re going to share with you that are going to really change the way you approach this area of your life. 

 

You can read the transcript for this video below:

Transcript: Welcome Program - Day 3 (Nutrition)

Hello and welcome back to day 3. Today’s focus is on Nutrition and what I’m going to talk about is probably going to be a little bit different to what you might expect, because I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about what foods to eat and what foods to avoid to get rid of excess weight. 

By now it’s likely that your dietitian or your surgeon has put you on your pre-surgery diet and you’ll also have received lots of detailed information about what you can eat in the post-surgery phase – immediately after your surgery and for the first few weeks until you can tolerate a normal textured diet. You may even be listening to this at the early post-op stage.  

So I’m not going to be talking about that today, instead I’m going to be talking about your mindset towards nutrition. I’m going to focus on why and how you eat rather than on what to eat. This will help you if you’re struggling with your pre-operative diet now and it will also help you after your surgery once you start to eat normal textured foods again. 

Your surgeon or dietitian has probably already told you that weight loss is generally easy in the initial few months after your surgery. This is because the recovery from the surgery and the special post-op diet means that most people initially feel much less hungry than they used to before the surgery. 

After this initial period though, to keep the momentum going and to guarantee great long term results, you must use this opportunity to really change your relationship with food and to make choices that are going to support your surgery and give you the best chances of success. 

Research shows, and we’ve also found at Fresh Start, that those people who truly transform their health and bodies after surgery are those who stick to the initial recovery diet (even though it’s very simple and possibly lacks variety), who change from processed foods to nutritious foods, and who also really improve their relationship with food and eating. 

Those people who don't change their food habits, or those that fall back into old habits, tend to struggle over time and don't get the full potential that their surgery offers them. 

Now, you're listening to me so I know that you're one of those people who are taking this seriously and want to do whatever it takes and make the changes necessary to get your best long term results.

And today I want to talk about one area that can make a huge difference to your weight and health results, because it’s one of the most common challenges that we see people facing before and after they have their surgery.

I’m talking about “emotional or mindless eating”, which is eating where we’re not eating for genuine physical hunger, and / or where we’re not focusing on our food when we are eating, because we’re distracted, or we’re focusing on how we feel rather than what we’re doing. Emotional eating happens when we eat not because we need food to meet our nutrition needs but because we’re trying to change the way we’re feeling – so for example to reduce stress or tiredness or to relieve boredom, anger or frustration, or as a source of comfort and security.

Does this sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone.

Although some food cravings are there because we’re genuinely physically hungry and our body is telling us that it needs specific types of nourishment, a lot of our cravings today for particular foods when we’re not hungry are there simply because we’ve created habits of eating to change our feelings. So even though you may not be able to eat the same amount after your surgery, you might find yourself facing some of the same food cravings that you had before your surgery, or you may start to get different ones, and this can happen immediately or over time, or not at all. Everyone is different. 

So I want to give you more awareness about emotional eating today so that when you start to eat normal textured foods when you’ve fully recovered after your surgery, you’ll be aware of possible old patterns, so that you can help yourself if necessary. Rest assured that we go into all of this in a lot more detail in the post-surgery program as well.

For now, all I want you to do is to become aware of whether you have or have had a habit or pattern of using food, of eating when you’re not actually hungry. If your first impulse is to eat (or consume liquid calories) when you’re feeling upset, angry, tired, lonely, stressed, frustrated, bored or some other negative or unconformable emotion. Or perhaps you eat when you want to enjoy positive feelings like love, and comfort or to reward yourself after a long or busy day.

So I want you to think about the situations and feelings that are linked to you eating emotionally. What are the triggers for you? Is it in the evening when you’re tired? Is it every afternoon when you’re bored at work? I’d like you to pause this video now and to write down when it tends or has tended to happen for you. Perhaps there are 2 or 3 main triggers that happen on a regular basis. The sooner you create change around this pattern of behaviour, the easier your life after you’ve recovered from your surgery will be, when you can’t do that old pattern in the same way. So pause this video now and write down your main triggers – either the feelings, situations or times that lead to you eat emotionally.

Okay, welcome back. Recognising that what you really want in the moment is a change in how you’re feeling, this means that you can then start to give yourself more choice around other ways to help yourself feel the way you want to feel, or move yourself from what you don’t want to feel. The more choice the better, as then you’re not relying on food to change your emotions.

Swapping your old emotional eating habit for a new empowering habit will have a huge impact on your life. Imagine if every time you felt bored, instead of reaching for your favourite comfort food, you picked up a musical instrument, or phoned a friend, or did a quick breathing meditation, or danced to your favourite song? In a year’s time instead of struggling with a habit that can make your post-surgical journey more of a challenge and feeling frustrated or demotivated or anxious, you could be lighter, healthier, feeling fantastic and balanced, and a whiz at the guitar, or better connected to your loved ones, or more relaxed and connected to yourself, or fitter and more energetic, and more!

So what are the alternatives available? Really this is a very personal thing – what’s going to work for someone else may not necessarily work for you. So what I want you to do know is  brainstorm lots of options – aim for at least 10 and start to use them today, when you notice you might be feeling the pull of a craving.

Here are a few suggestions that you might like to consider:

• You might like to let yourself feel the actual emotion, to acknowledge and process it, because this is healthy. Move through it and allow yourself to do it so that so that you’re not simply trying to suppress it. Trust that you can comfort yourself without food, because you can;

• When it comes to changing how you’re feeling, If you’re feeling lonely then a good strategy might be to call a friend, or to buy a pet, or to write an email to a loved one; 

• If you’re feeling anxious, you could expend some energy by going for a walk, or doing some strength movements, or taking some deep breaths or do some journalling; 

• If you’re feeling exhausted you could book yourself in for a massage, have a hot cup of tea, read a book, lie down for 10 minutes or listen to a guided meditation; 

• If you’re bored, you could read a book, go for a walk around the block, watch some TV, take a shower, or learn a new language or skill on the internet;
• If you’re still struggling for options then try listening to music. This is one of the quickest and most accessible ways to change the way that you’re feeling, so make sure you write down at least 3 of your favourite feel-good songs or artists. 

So pause this video and write down at least 10 ways that you can change the way you are feeling that don’t involve food.

Our lives are determined by our habits – and if we just swap some simple habits our lives can go in a completely different direction.  

Welcome back. To finish off I want to talk to you about mindful eating. It’s really important to start now to slow down when you are actually eating and to move from any mindless automatic eating you do, to slow, mindful eating.

Most of today us rush our food without chewing enough. Over time this can lead to overeating, weight gain and problems with our digestion. Initially after your surgery you are going to be quite restricted in how much you can eat, as you know and also how quickly you can eat. Over time this restriction can relax however and it is really important to start mindful eating strategies now to help you to reach your weight target. When you slow down your eating and really chew your food, you’ll learn to recognise feelings of fullness, help manage your weight, increase the enjoyment of your food, and also improve your digestion. 

You can also start to introduce this awareness and these ideas now, especially if it’s before your surgery, so that once you've had your procedure and have recovered, you'll have a head start on your new healthy lifestyle and can achieve the health and vitality that you desire and deserve after your surgery even more easily. 

To start the process I’ve included a simple nutrition exercise that will help you prepare for eating after your surgery and begin a habit of mindful eating.
 
I’ll be back tomorrow and I’m going to be talking about how to make physical activity and movement work for you. And if you haven't had much success with moving your body recently you're going to love the secret principle that I share with you that’s really going to change the way you approach this area of your life.