Melissa McCreery

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. Try out these new strategies:


If you are an emotional eater or someone prone to overeating, you know well that it’s one thing to decide to change your eating habits—to cut back your portions, stop snacking in the evening, or to stop turning to food at the end of a long day. It’s another thing entirely to act on your intentions and not overeat when you find yourself in the situation where that’s all you want to do.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. In fact, for most people, this is the time when good intentions unravel.

Why? Well, you’re tired, your defenses are pretty low, and you likely don’t have a lot of energy or creativity to conjure up an alternative to that big bowl of popcorn or ice cream or the leftovers that are calling to you from the refrigerator.

Relying on willpower alone is a recipe for self-sabotage and frustration. Plus, it’s not very fun. If evening is a tough time for you food-wise, I recommend you take some time NOW to sketch out a list of things you can do instead of eating.

Here’s an important tip: this list should not be a to-do list of projects you’ve been neglecting in disguise. If you’re turning to food for comfort or to help you relax, the alternatives you come up with should have a similar effect and they should take into account your low energy level (i.e. your exhaustion).

Make a list now and start trying out these new strategies. Expect to tweak and revise it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some ideas of what to do instead of overeating in the evenings to get you started:
Take a bath
Soak your feet (really—this feels great)
Blow bubbles
Brew a cup of tea
Listen to music
Watch a movie
Sit outside (or if it’s cold, by a fire)
If you have a cat who will let you, pet him/her and be one with the purr
Curl up with a good book
Update your Netflix list or put some new books on hold at the library
Buy yourself some new music for your mp3 player
Call a friend
Play Scrabble or chess or even solitaire online. Better yet, get your family to play a game—live and in person
Catch up on magazines
Do a crossword puzzle
Work on your birthday wish list (no matter how far away your birthday is)
Listen to a relaxation CD

I’d love to hear what you’ve found as an alternative to eating when you are tired and want to overeat.

In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Learn about the 5 most common triggers now!


In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Simply focusing on what to eat misses an essential point–Your eating choices may be strongly affected by your emotions and your environment. And your food plan is useless if something is preventing you from following it.
Here are five common overeating triggers that you can take control of by taking some smart, proactive action before they sabotage your weight loss efforts.
1. Getting too hungry
Do you stick to your plan through Breakfast and lunch only to find yourself irritable, craving carbs, and ready to eat everything in sight by the time late afternoon or evening rolls around? The end of the day tends to be stressful for many. The transition between work and home, mealtime decisions, and other peoples’ hunger or tiredness can push a busy woman over the edge. When I start coaching a new private client, it’s not unusual to hear that this is THE most difficult time of day.
The key here: take control of what you can. This means doing what you can so that you don’t arrive at the end of the day feeling exhausted and starved. Too many women who are trying to lose weight, eat too little in the middle of the day and, as a result, lose control and overeat before, during, or after dinner (or all three). Make sure you are eating a balanced lunch (with protein) and then calculate the hours you are expecting yourself to last before eating again. Most women do well with a small snack midafternoon. Again, adding in Protein can make all the difference.
2. Evening eating
Evening (and late night) is a strong overeating trigger time for many busy women. If you are working hard all day long, it’s easy to come to see the quiet of evening as your reward. And if you are too tired and depleted to really enjoy it, food and emotional eating can become a big part of the evening ritual. “I eat in the evening because I want to treat myself.” “It’s my me-time.” “It’s the only time of the day where no one expects anything of me.” Women also overeat in the evening because they are tired (but don’t want to go to bed because this is the only alone time they have).
Breaking free of the evening overeating triggers can be challenging, but it’s essential. Start by creating a policy for yourself about eating after dinner. Be realistic but be firm. Now, identify the bedtime you need to honor so that you are getting a minimum of 7.5 hours of sleep a night. This alone can make a huge difference in your overeating. Trust me. Create a new wind-down ritual that includes some nice things for you but that doesn’t include food. Finally, start carving out some me-time (even ten minutes) on the front-end of your day. You might need to get up earlier, but you’ll be focusing on you when you have the energy to do it.
3. Snacking on treats at work
Are you overeating or grazing at work on the sugary treats that your coworkers leave all over the office or the break room? Make it easy on yourself by making one decision instead of hundreds. Set a policy with yourself about your eating at work. Make sure it’s a policy you can stick with. Sometimes something as simple as “I’ll only eat homemade food that is truly a treat that I can’t easily have any time” will do the trick. Spend a bit of time strategizing how you will avoid temptation and how you will reward yourself for doing so. And don’t forget to enlist support. If you are putting on pounds at the office, I guarantee that you aren’t the only one being haunted by the food.
4. Stress eating and overeating
Emotional eating—using food to cope with feelings—is one of the biggest causes of overeating and weight gain. Smart women take this one seriously! Take the time to check in with yourself before you eat. Try to identify how you are feeling. Become aware of patterns. Are you a stress eater? Comfort eater? Boredom eater? The key to taking control of emotional eating is to create better strategies—ones that really address the emotions you are having. Start creating ways of addressing your feelings that you can use INSTEAD of turning to food.
5. Too much on your plate
When you are too busy, stressed, and overloaded, overeating can seem like an easy way to sneak in a reward, some comfort, or a much-needed energy boost. The problem is that any benefits tend to be short-lived and the costs and negative consequences aren’t. If you want to take control of your weight, your eating, and your relationship with food, you MUST take control of your life. Learn to say no, cut back your schedule, carve out time that’s just for you and start practicing the art of asking for help.
The best part of addressing overeating triggers is that when you take charge of what drives your overeating and emotional eating, you are almost always fixing a problem that’s bigger than food. When you get to the root cause of your overeating and address it head on, the triggers often lose their power. When you find strategies for dealing with stress, overeating, and overload, you are also creating strategies for living a better life.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. Try out these new strategies:


If you are an emotional eater or someone prone to overeating, you know well that it’s one thing to decide to change your eating habits—to cut back your portions, stop snacking in the evening, or to stop turning to food at the end of a long day. It’s another thing entirely to act on your intentions and not overeat when you find yourself in the situation where that’s all you want to do.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. In fact, for most people, this is the time when good intentions unravel.

Why? Well, you’re tired, your defenses are pretty low, and you likely don’t have a lot of energy or creativity to conjure up an alternative to that big bowl of popcorn or ice cream or the leftovers that are calling to you from the refrigerator.

Relying on willpower alone is a recipe for self-sabotage and frustration. Plus, it’s not very fun. If evening is a tough time for you food-wise, I recommend you take some time NOW to sketch out a list of things you can do instead of eating.

Here’s an important tip: this list should not be a to-do list of projects you’ve been neglecting in disguise. If you’re turning to food for comfort or to help you relax, the alternatives you come up with should have a similar effect and they should take into account your low energy level (i.e. your exhaustion).

Make a list now and start trying out these new strategies. Expect to tweak and revise it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some ideas of what to do instead of overeating in the evenings to get you started:
Take a bath
Soak your feet (really—this feels great)
Blow bubbles
Brew a cup of tea
Listen to music
Watch a movie
Sit outside (or if it’s cold, by a fire)
If you have a cat who will let you, pet him/her and be one with the purr
Curl up with a good book
Update your Netflix list or put some new books on hold at the library
Buy yourself some new music for your mp3 player
Call a friend
Play Scrabble or chess or even solitaire online. Better yet, get your family to play a game—live and in person
Catch up on magazines
Do a crossword puzzle
Work on your birthday wish list (no matter how far away your birthday is)
Listen to a relaxation CD

I’d love to hear what you’ve found as an alternative to eating when you are tired and want to overeat.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. Try out these new strategies:


If you are an emotional eater or someone prone to overeating, you know well that it’s one thing to decide to change your eating habits—to cut back your portions, stop snacking in the evening, or to stop turning to food at the end of a long day. It’s another thing entirely to act on your intentions and not overeat when you find yourself in the situation where that’s all you want to do.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. In fact, for most people, this is the time when good intentions unravel.

Why? Well, you’re tired, your defenses are pretty low, and you likely don’t have a lot of energy or creativity to conjure up an alternative to that big bowl of popcorn or ice cream or the leftovers that are calling to you from the refrigerator.

Relying on willpower alone is a recipe for self-sabotage and frustration. Plus, it’s not very fun. If evening is a tough time for you food-wise, I recommend you take some time NOW to sketch out a list of things you can do instead of eating.

Here’s an important tip: this list should not be a to-do list of projects you’ve been neglecting in disguise. If you’re turning to food for comfort or to help you relax, the alternatives you come up with should have a similar effect and they should take into account your low energy level (i.e. your exhaustion).

Make a list now and start trying out these new strategies. Expect to tweak and revise it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some ideas of what to do instead of overeating in the evenings to get you started:
Take a bath
Soak your feet (really—this feels great)
Blow bubbles
Brew a cup of tea
Listen to music
Watch a movie
Sit outside (or if it’s cold, by a fire)
If you have a cat who will let you, pet him/her and be one with the purr
Curl up with a good book
Update your Netflix list or put some new books on hold at the library
Buy yourself some new music for your mp3 player
Call a friend
Play Scrabble or chess or even solitaire online. Better yet, get your family to play a game—live and in person
Catch up on magazines
Do a crossword puzzle
Work on your birthday wish list (no matter how far away your birthday is)
Listen to a relaxation CD

I’d love to hear what you’ve found as an alternative to eating when you are tired and want to overeat.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. Try out these new strategies:


If you are an emotional eater or someone prone to overeating, you know well that it’s one thing to decide to change your eating habits—to cut back your portions, stop snacking in the evening, or to stop turning to food at the end of a long day. It’s another thing entirely to act on your intentions and not overeat when you find yourself in the situation where that’s all you want to do.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. In fact, for most people, this is the time when good intentions unravel.

Why? Well, you’re tired, your defenses are pretty low, and you likely don’t have a lot of energy or creativity to conjure up an alternative to that big bowl of popcorn or ice cream or the leftovers that are calling to you from the refrigerator.

Relying on willpower alone is a recipe for self-sabotage and frustration. Plus, it’s not very fun. If evening is a tough time for you food-wise, I recommend you take some time NOW to sketch out a list of things you can do instead of eating.

Here’s an important tip: this list should not be a to-do list of projects you’ve been neglecting in disguise. If you’re turning to food for comfort or to help you relax, the alternatives you come up with should have a similar effect and they should take into account your low energy level (i.e. your exhaustion).

Make a list now and start trying out these new strategies. Expect to tweak and revise it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some ideas of what to do instead of overeating in the evenings to get you started:
Take a bath
Soak your feet (really—this feels great)
Blow bubbles
Brew a cup of tea
Listen to music
Watch a movie
Sit outside (or if it’s cold, by a fire)
If you have a cat who will let you, pet him/her and be one with the purr
Curl up with a good book
Update your Netflix list or put some new books on hold at the library
Buy yourself some new music for your mp3 player
Call a friend
Play Scrabble or chess or even solitaire online. Better yet, get your family to play a game—live and in person
Catch up on magazines
Do a crossword puzzle
Work on your birthday wish list (no matter how far away your birthday is)
Listen to a relaxation CD

I’d love to hear what you’ve found as an alternative to eating when you are tired and want to overeat.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. Try out these new strategies:


If you are an emotional eater or someone prone to overeating, you know well that it’s one thing to decide to change your eating habits—to cut back your portions, stop snacking in the evening, or to stop turning to food at the end of a long day. It’s another thing entirely to act on your intentions and not overeat when you find yourself in the situation where that’s all you want to do.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. In fact, for most people, this is the time when good intentions unravel.

Why? Well, you’re tired, your defenses are pretty low, and you likely don’t have a lot of energy or creativity to conjure up an alternative to that big bowl of popcorn or ice cream or the leftovers that are calling to you from the refrigerator.

Relying on willpower alone is a recipe for self-sabotage and frustration. Plus, it’s not very fun. If evening is a tough time for you food-wise, I recommend you take some time NOW to sketch out a list of things you can do instead of eating.

Here’s an important tip: this list should not be a to-do list of projects you’ve been neglecting in disguise. If you’re turning to food for comfort or to help you relax, the alternatives you come up with should have a similar effect and they should take into account your low energy level (i.e. your exhaustion).

Make a list now and start trying out these new strategies. Expect to tweak and revise it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some ideas of what to do instead of overeating in the evenings to get you started:
Take a bath
Soak your feet (really—this feels great)
Blow bubbles
Brew a cup of tea
Listen to music
Watch a movie
Sit outside (or if it’s cold, by a fire)
If you have a cat who will let you, pet him/her and be one with the purr
Curl up with a good book
Update your Netflix list or put some new books on hold at the library
Buy yourself some new music for your mp3 player
Call a friend
Play Scrabble or chess or even solitaire online. Better yet, get your family to play a game—live and in person
Catch up on magazines
Do a crossword puzzle
Work on your birthday wish list (no matter how far away your birthday is)
Listen to a relaxation CD

I’d love to hear what you’ve found as an alternative to eating when you are tired and want to overeat.

When I wrote my earlier article on overeating and self-sabotage, I realized that I had just touched the surface. Creating a mindset for success is critical if you want to end overeating and create a lasting peace with food. This is also true if you are trying to break free of struggles with stress, overload, and overwhelm. Little things add up and the way you talk to yourself and approach your life can have a big influence on whether you are sabotaging your success or creating changes that last.
Now is a perfect time to take a look at your thinking to make sure you are not falling prey to these five beliefs that can sabotage your success with overeating and emotional eating.
Five more self-sabotaging mindsets:
1. This is just something I have to accept/ it wasn’t meant to be. Many women live with the secret belief that they will never be successful. “I’ll always be fat.” “I’ll always struggle with food.” “I’m going to be dieting for the rest of my life.” If this sounds familiar—please pay attention. You are working against yourself every time you start a plan to change with the belief that you will fail. Put your efforts into goals and plans for growth that you can see success with. Start with a goal you can wrap your mind around. If you don’t believe you can lose 150 pounds (and you want to), set a goal that you believe you can achieve—even if it’s losing two pounds. Then, find someone who you trust who believes in you and can help you grow your belief in yourself. Changing this mindset will change your life. Truly.
2. Faulty filters. We see what we expect to see. Research has proven over and over that our brains are trained to collect information that confirms what we already believe and filter out the rest. That’s one reason becoming aware of mindsets that can lead to self-sabotage is so important. If you believe you are unlucky or a failure or that you are lazy or that you can’t live without dessert, you will find all sorts of evidence to confirm that belief. You will create that reality. You’ll also be highly likely to miss the other evidence—the things you do well, the strengths that you have, or the ways that you can be successful without that sweet treat at the end of a meal. Practice creating the filters that create success. Make an effort to notice your accomplishments and your good moments. Practice acknowledging gratefulness and times that you are lucky. Try this—practice seeing the good in yourself and making a note of three great things about you every single day.
3. I don’t have time. It’s time to take this sentence out of your vocabulary. Time is the great equalizer. We all get the same amount, every single day. We all choose how we spend and manage our time. How would it feel to replace “I don’t have time” with “I’m choosing to spend my time on something else”? The truth is, claiming time for you is a choice. Here’s another truth: claiming time for self-care and your other priorities can have a big impact on your success with emotional eating and overeating. Try scheduling your needs like you schedule everything else and see what happens.
4. It will upset people. If you want a sure way not to accomplish your goals, make it your mission to make everyone happy. It’s not possible. People get into self-sabotaging traps with overeating (and other unhelpful habits) when they neglect their own needs and feelings because they are trying to please others or avoid conflict. This becomes even more tangled up because many women overeat as a way to try to cope with conflict and other people’s anger or frustration. If you want to break free from overeating, learning to handle conflict with a degree of comfort will pay off big.
5. I missed out/I’m too old. Do you believe that it’s just too late for you? Here’s a way to turn that show-stopping belief on its head: if you feel like it’s late in the game, than the stakes are even higher. Life is short and every moment counts. Don’t make the self-sabotaging mistake of spending THIS moment looking over your shoulder regretting the past. Take a deep breath and own THIS moment. It’s the only one that you can count on and it is the only one that you can control. Set your sites on where you want to go and then get the help you need to start moving in that direction.
You write the story of your life. That story can stop you in your tracks and it can also propel you powerfully forward. The beauty is that you can edit and rewrite as you go along. Choose your mindset and your story carefully. Be mindful of feeding the beliefs you want to nourish and let the old unhelpful ones go hungry. That’s a powerful approach to taking control of overeating. Let me know what amazing changes you start seeing.

Most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less. What’s this about?


If you are like most busy women with too much on their plates, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is to practice indulging—really indulging. Interestingly, most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less.
What’s this about?
Let’s get really clear about what indulging is.
From my perspective, to indulge means to allow yourself to experience something really wonderful. Indulging comes from a place of compassion and kindness and respect. It’s a gift, freely given.
Indulging means to allow yourself to enjoy fully.
It means to thoroughly experience something and soak up and savor the experience. An indulgence is not a candy bar from the vending machine that you shove into your mouth while driving to your next appointment. It’s your favorite food on a beautiful plate in a setting where you can truly savor it.
Indulging isn’t just about food, but it’s something that feeds our senses in a wonderful way. You might indulge in a bubble bath or a foot massage or a solitary walk in the woods. Your indulgence might be your favorite CD played in your car or fresh flowers on your desk or a glass of red wine enjoyed on your deck.
Indulging is a full-body-use-all-your-senses experience.
It fills you up, brings you joy, refuels you and adds color to your life. Indulging feeds your soul and is a necessary ingredient for thriving. Your inner champion, or what you may think of as your “best self” absolutely purrs when she is indulged.
So why does indulging have such a bad rap? Why do so many women think that indulging is selfish or nonproductive or just plain wrong?
I’d like to bust some myths about indulging, and while I’m at it, let me remind you that many bad habits such as overeating, procrastination, and spending too much time online or “not doing” what you really need to do, happen because you aren’t indulging enough.
When your spirit and soul aren’t being fed, you will grasp at straws (or potato chips or chocolate chip cookies) to try to make up for it. When you don’t allow yourself to truly indulge, you will find yourself reaching for poor substitutes that might help you feel better temporarily, but that don’t make anything better in the big picture.
Here are some more truths about indulging:
1. Indulging is not about greed or sloth. Indulging isn’t about excess. It’s about allowing yourself something wonderful or special and allowing yourself to really experience and savor it–without guilt or shame. It’s not eating the whole box of Cookies or bingeing on clothes at the mall. It’s about allowing yourself just the right amount of what you really crave and fully enjoying the experience. Indulging is not about gulping, it’s a melts-in-your-mouth experience.
2. Indulging is not laziness. Indulging is a way of feeding an important part of yourself and adding dimension to your life. Some women worry that if they start to indulge they’ll “lose control.” The truth is, when you really allow yourself to indulge, you tend to be more satisfied with less.
3. Indulging does not have to be earned or “deserved.” Some women believe that they haven’t “worked hard enough” or “accomplished enough” to indulge. When you don’t allow yourself this kind of self-care, it’s easy to become caught in a cycle of working harder and harder and feeling more and more behind and burnt out. Again, indulging yourself is a way of refueling. It actually enhances your productivity.
4. Indulging does not decrease your productivity or make you fat. I’ve already addressed this, but this is such a common myth, it’s important to restate. Allowing yourself truly indulgent experiences, ones where you are completely present and savoring the moment, satisfies you. Real indulgences don’t leave you hungry and craving more—they rejuvenate you and fuel you to be your best. What does leave you primed for a binge of food or laziness is the feeling that your special treat is forbidden or undeserved. The message that you are never going to be allowed to rest or feel like “enough” or eat chocolate again will almost certainly create a craving for the forbidden that can be almost impossible to resist.
My challenge to you:
Start indulging. Make a list of things that you experience as special treats. Keep it somewhere where you can add to it as new ideas occur to you. Begin scheduling these into your life on a regular basis and enjoy.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. Try out these new strategies:


If you are an emotional eater or someone prone to overeating, you know well that it’s one thing to decide to change your eating habits—to cut back your portions, stop snacking in the evening, or to stop turning to food at the end of a long day. It’s another thing entirely to act on your intentions and not overeat when you find yourself in the situation where that’s all you want to do.

Many women find themselves using food as a treat, or resorting to stress eating or comfort eating at the end of a long difficult day. In fact, for most people, this is the time when good intentions unravel.

Why? Well, you’re tired, your defenses are pretty low, and you likely don’t have a lot of energy or creativity to conjure up an alternative to that big bowl of popcorn or ice cream or the leftovers that are calling to you from the refrigerator.

Relying on willpower alone is a recipe for self-sabotage and frustration. Plus, it’s not very fun. If evening is a tough time for you food-wise, I recommend you take some time NOW to sketch out a list of things you can do instead of eating.

Here’s an important tip: this list should not be a to-do list of projects you’ve been neglecting in disguise. If you’re turning to food for comfort or to help you relax, the alternatives you come up with should have a similar effect and they should take into account your low energy level (i.e. your exhaustion).

Make a list now and start trying out these new strategies. Expect to tweak and revise it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some ideas of what to do instead of overeating in the evenings to get you started:
Take a bath
Soak your feet (really—this feels great)
Blow bubbles
Brew a cup of tea
Listen to music
Watch a movie
Sit outside (or if it’s cold, by a fire)
If you have a cat who will let you, pet him/her and be one with the purr
Curl up with a good book
Update your Netflix list or put some new books on hold at the library
Buy yourself some new music for your mp3 player
Call a friend
Play Scrabble or chess or even solitaire online. Better yet, get your family to play a game—live and in person
Catch up on magazines
Do a crossword puzzle
Work on your birthday wish list (no matter how far away your birthday is)
Listen to a relaxation CD

I’d love to hear what you’ve found as an alternative to eating when you are tired and want to overeat.

Are you fed up with struggling with overeating, starting another d-i-e-t that you know will probably blow up on you, or wishing your pants were not so tight? Here are five simple things you can implement today to control your cravings, eat less, and thrive more.


Are you fed up with struggling with overeating, starting another d-i-e-t that you know will probably blow up on you, or wishing your pants were not so tight?
Here are five simple things you can implement today to control your cravings, eat less, and thrive more.
1. Sleep. Don’t keep working harder and harder. Play it smart. Women who average five hours or less of sleep per night weigh more, gain weight more easily, and crave more carbohydrates and fattening foods—and it’s not in their heads! Sleep deprivation leads to chemical changes in your body that cause overeating and weight gain (even if you don’t overeat). Aim for at least seven and a half hours of sleep per night. Not only will you be less hungry, your productivity, focus, and creativity will probably improve. You may even find yourself accomplishing more than when you were burning the midnight oil.
Additional bonus: you’re likely to feel a whole lot better.
2. Pay attention to your feelings. Emotional eating—eating as a response to feelings—is a major cause of overeating and packing on the pounds. Stress eating, comfort eating, eating out of frustration and even eating out of boredom or happiness can all sabotage your weight loss plans. Develop strategies to check in with yourself and with how you are feeling so that you can respond to your emotions in ways that don’t involve food.< /p>
Added bonus: when you address your feelings instead of feeding them, you will be taking charge of your life and responding to what you really need. When you do this, life gets better.
3. Carve out time for you. Stress and overload can be a direct path to weight gain. If you’re feeling time crunched, you’re likely to make the all-too-common mistake of cutting out the activities that are actually the best for you. Me-time helps you relax and unwind. It also gives you an opportunity to pay attention to yourself and what you need to function and flourish. When you meet your needs and care for yourself in quality ways, you are less likely to find yourself using food as a “special treat” or a “band aid” to help you get through the day. Practice giving yourself a five or ten minute time out a few times a day.
The bonus: these short breaks help you get perspective on your day. You’re likely to feel more organized and relaxed as a result.
4. Feed yourself quality food at regular intervals. If you are trying to eat less, it can be tempting to cut back too far and allow yourself to get too hungry. Big mistake. While depriving yourself with strict diets may initially seem to create results on the scale, in the long run, eating too little leads to stronger cravings (usually for foods that will spike your blood sugar levels quickly), overeating, and binge eating. Do you find that your healthy eating plan always gets blown in the afternoon or evening? Try eating smaller, more frequent meals during the day and make sure that you are including some Protein each time you eat.
Bonus: when you feed yourself well, both your energy levels and your mood are likely to improve.
5. Savor. You might be surprised to find how little of what you eat you actually allow yourself to savor and enjoy. Eating on the run and multitasking while you eat mean that your attention is divided between food and your hunger and whatever else you are doing. When you eat without giving it your full attention, you are likely to eat more and not feel as full. Impose a ban on multitasking when you eat. Take your time and practice eating mindfully—paying complete attention to your food—the taste, smell, even the texture. Notice how full or hungry you are and allow yourself to enjoy the act of eating.
Bonus: savoring is a pleasant activity and it tends to be relaxing. Practicing enjoying your food in this way and getting in the habit of doing one thing at a time is a great strategy for reducing stress. If you apply the concept of not multitasking to other areas of your life, you’re also likely to see an improvement of the quality of your results.

Peace with food and weight loss that lasts are possible. Here are some common traps that even the smartest women fall for and the success strategies you can use to avoid them:


Peace with food and weight loss that lasts are possible, and yet, these aren’t the places where most women who struggle with overeating end up. Emotional eating and overeating can feel like a never-ending battle and a roller coaster ride of diets, gimmicks, and “new” approaches that don’t take you where you want to go.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Here are some common traps that even the smartest women fall for and the success strategies you can use to avoid them:
1. Getting too focused on what to eat. Cycles of overeating and weight gain are rarely fixed by focusing only on the food. A focus on what to eat doesn’t address or fix the situations, feelings, or relationships that may be triggering overeating. Yes, portion size matters and sometimes food intolerances or metabolic difficulties cause weight gain. However, even these situations become clearer and easier to sort out when you start listening to yourself and paying attention to how you feel, instead of focusing your attention on every bite, calorie, or fat gram that you put into your mouth.
2. Disregarding what you really need. You know yourself better than anyone. Instead of focusing on what “should” work and what you “should” do, take this bold step that many high-achieving women skip:
Ask yourself what you really need to be successful—and then give it to yourself. You’re likely to spend less time, energy, heartache and even money in the long run when you trust your inner wisdom. Do you need the help of an expert? Be honest about that. Better tools to deal with stress or difficult emotions? Do you need some one-on-one mentoring or support? Don’t cheat yourself. Investing in what you know to be true and getting the targeted help you need will likely make more of a difference than all the self-help books you can’t figure out how to make work for you.
Too many women spend too much money on solutions that aren’t comprehensive or individualized enough and don’t really meet their needs. Not only does this lead to failure, it burns up your hope and your sense of effectiveness. Do you feel like you know what you need but it isn’t possible? Don’t let that stop you. Ask yourself what it would take to make it happen and ask what is do-able that would start allowing you to have more of what you need. Start believing that you deserve to get what you need and start asking for it. You might be surprised what shows up.
3. Refusing to ask for help. High-achievers can fall into the trap of believing that lifestyle change has to happen solo. Many women who are successful in other areas of their lives feel embarrassed and even ashamed of their struggles with overeating. They feel like they are alone in their struggles. Unfortunately, not reaching out for help increases the sense of isolation and decreases your potential effectiveness. Asking for help might be the scariest step you take in order to make peace with food, but stepping outside of your own head, your own mindset, beliefs, and traps, can start change happening—and quickly.
4. Not addressing time issues. My heart almost broke when I heard an outwardly successful professional woman tell me that given the hectic state of her life, she believed that she wouldn’t be able to focus on her own goals for the next ten years. Really? What kind of life is that and what kind of example are you living? Change requires a commitment to making it happen. Whether it’s taking the time to attend a class, listen to audios, create a plan for healthy meals, or meet with a coach, if you don’t create the time, it isn’t really a priority. Honest truth. If you need help learning how to make or find the time, or how to put yourself first, make this your first action step.
Coaching Challenge:
What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to making peace with food? Where do you get stuck or thrown off course? Please join the conversation by sharing a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Then, be bold and share one step you will take to start doing it differently. Peace with food is possible. I challenge you to go for it.

Are you fed up with struggling with overeating, starting another d-i-e-t that you know will probably blow up on you, or wishing your pants were not so tight? Here are five simple things you can implement today to control your cravings, eat less, and thrive more.


Are you fed up with struggling with overeating, starting another d-i-e-t that you know will probably blow up on you, or wishing your pants were not so tight?
Here are five simple things you can implement today to control your cravings, eat less, and thrive more.
1. Sleep. Don’t keep working harder and harder. Play it smart. Women who average five hours or less of sleep per night weigh more, gain weight more easily, and crave more carbohydrates and fattening foods—and it’s not in their heads! Sleep deprivation leads to chemical changes in your body that cause overeating and weight gain (even if you don’t overeat). Aim for at least seven and a half hours of sleep per night. Not only will you be less hungry, your productivity, focus, and creativity will probably improve. You may even find yourself accomplishing more than when you were burning the midnight oil.
Additional bonus: you’re likely to feel a whole lot better.
2. Pay attention to your feelings. Emotional eating—eating as a response to feelings—is a major cause of overeating and packing on the pounds. Stress eating, comfort eating, eating out of frustration and even eating out of boredom or happiness can all sabotage your weight loss plans. Develop strategies to check in with yourself and with how you are feeling so that you can respond to your emotions in ways that don’t involve food.< /p>
Added bonus: when you address your feelings instead of feeding them, you will be taking charge of your life and responding to what you really need. When you do this, life gets better.
3. Carve out time for you. Stress and overload can be a direct path to weight gain. If you’re feeling time crunched, you’re likely to make the all-too-common mistake of cutting out the activities that are actually the best for you. Me-time helps you relax and unwind. It also gives you an opportunity to pay attention to yourself and what you need to function and flourish. When you meet your needs and care for yourself in quality ways, you are less likely to find yourself using food as a “special treat” or a “band aid” to help you get through the day. Practice giving yourself a five or ten minute time out a few times a day.
The bonus: these short breaks help you get perspective on your day. You’re likely to feel more organized and relaxed as a result.
4. Feed yourself quality food at regular intervals. If you are trying to eat less, it can be tempting to cut back too far and allow yourself to get too hungry. Big mistake. While depriving yourself with strict diets may initially seem to create results on the scale, in the long run, eating too little leads to stronger cravings (usually for foods that will spike your blood sugar levels quickly), overeating, and binge eating. Do you find that your healthy eating plan always gets blown in the afternoon or evening? Try eating smaller, more frequent meals during the day and make sure that you are including some Protein each time you eat.
Bonus: when you feed yourself well, both your energy levels and your mood are likely to improve.
5. Savor. You might be surprised to find how little of what you eat you actually allow yourself to savor and enjoy. Eating on the run and multitasking while you eat mean that your attention is divided between food and your hunger and whatever else you are doing. When you eat without giving it your full attention, you are likely to eat more and not feel as full. Impose a ban on multitasking when you eat. Take your time and practice eating mindfully—paying complete attention to your food—the taste, smell, even the texture. Notice how full or hungry you are and allow yourself to enjoy the act of eating.
Bonus: savoring is a pleasant activity and it tends to be relaxing. Practicing enjoying your food in this way and getting in the habit of doing one thing at a time is a great strategy for reducing stress. If you apply the concept of not multitasking to other areas of your life, you’re also likely to see an improvement of the quality of your results.

Most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less. What’s this about?


If you are like most busy women with too much on their plates, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is to practice indulging—really indulging. Interestingly, most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less.
What’s this about?
Let’s get really clear about what indulging is.
From my perspective, to indulge means to allow yourself to experience something really wonderful. Indulging comes from a place of compassion and kindness and respect. It’s a gift, freely given.
Indulging means to allow yourself to enjoy fully.
It means to thoroughly experience something and soak up and savor the experience. An indulgence is not a candy bar from the vending machine that you shove into your mouth while driving to your next appointment. It’s your favorite food on a beautiful plate in a setting where you can truly savor it.
Indulging isn’t just about food, but it’s something that feeds our senses in a wonderful way. You might indulge in a bubble bath or a foot massage or a solitary walk in the woods. Your indulgence might be your favorite CD played in your car or fresh flowers on your desk or a glass of red wine enjoyed on your deck.
Indulging is a full-body-use-all-your-senses experience.
It fills you up, brings you joy, refuels you and adds color to your life. Indulging feeds your soul and is a necessary ingredient for thriving. Your inner champion, or what you may think of as your “best self” absolutely purrs when she is indulged.
So why does indulging have such a bad rap? Why do so many women think that indulging is selfish or nonproductive or just plain wrong?
I’d like to bust some myths about indulging, and while I’m at it, let me remind you that many bad habits such as overeating, procrastination, and spending too much time online or “not doing” what you really need to do, happen because you aren’t indulging enough.
When your spirit and soul aren’t being fed, you will grasp at straws (or potato chips or chocolate chip cookies) to try to make up for it. When you don’t allow yourself to truly indulge, you will find yourself reaching for poor substitutes that might help you feel better temporarily, but that don’t make anything better in the big picture.
Here are some more truths about indulging:
1. Indulging is not about greed or sloth. Indulging isn’t about excess. It’s about allowing yourself something wonderful or special and allowing yourself to really experience and savor it–without guilt or shame. It’s not eating the whole box of Cookies or bingeing on clothes at the mall. It’s about allowing yourself just the right amount of what you really crave and fully enjoying the experience. Indulging is not about gulping, it’s a melts-in-your-mouth experience.
2. Indulging is not laziness. Indulging is a way of feeding an important part of yourself and adding dimension to your life. Some women worry that if they start to indulge they’ll “lose control.” The truth is, when you really allow yourself to indulge, you tend to be more satisfied with less.
3. Indulging does not have to be earned or “deserved.” Some women believe that they haven’t “worked hard enough” or “accomplished enough” to indulge. When you don’t allow yourself this kind of self-care, it’s easy to become caught in a cycle of working harder and harder and feeling more and more behind and burnt out. Again, indulging yourself is a way of refueling. It actually enhances your productivity.
4. Indulging does not decrease your productivity or make you fat. I’ve already addressed this, but this is such a common myth, it’s important to restate. Allowing yourself truly indulgent experiences, ones where you are completely present and savoring the moment, satisfies you. Real indulgences don’t leave you hungry and craving more—they rejuvenate you and fuel you to be your best. What does leave you primed for a binge of food or laziness is the feeling that your special treat is forbidden or undeserved. The message that you are never going to be allowed to rest or feel like “enough” or eat chocolate again will almost certainly create a craving for the forbidden that can be almost impossible to resist.
My challenge to you:
Start indulging. Make a list of things that you experience as special treats. Keep it somewhere where you can add to it as new ideas occur to you. Begin scheduling these into your life on a regular basis and enjoy.

Most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less. What’s this about?


If you are like most busy women with too much on their plates, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is to practice indulging—really indulging. Interestingly, most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less.
What’s this about?
Let’s get really clear about what indulging is.
From my perspective, to indulge means to allow yourself to experience something really wonderful. Indulging comes from a place of compassion and kindness and respect. It’s a gift, freely given.
Indulging means to allow yourself to enjoy fully.
It means to thoroughly experience something and soak up and savor the experience. An indulgence is not a candy bar from the vending machine that you shove into your mouth while driving to your next appointment. It’s your favorite food on a beautiful plate in a setting where you can truly savor it.
Indulging isn’t just about food, but it’s something that feeds our senses in a wonderful way. You might indulge in a bubble bath or a foot massage or a solitary walk in the woods. Your indulgence might be your favorite CD played in your car or fresh flowers on your desk or a glass of red wine enjoyed on your deck.
Indulging is a full-body-use-all-your-senses experience.
It fills you up, brings you joy, refuels you and adds color to your life. Indulging feeds your soul and is a necessary ingredient for thriving. Your inner champion, or what you may think of as your “best self” absolutely purrs when she is indulged.
So why does indulging have such a bad rap? Why do so many women think that indulging is selfish or nonproductive or just plain wrong?
I’d like to bust some myths about indulging, and while I’m at it, let me remind you that many bad habits such as overeating, procrastination, and spending too much time online or “not doing” what you really need to do, happen because you aren’t indulging enough.
When your spirit and soul aren’t being fed, you will grasp at straws (or potato chips or chocolate chip cookies) to try to make up for it. When you don’t allow yourself to truly indulge, you will find yourself reaching for poor substitutes that might help you feel better temporarily, but that don’t make anything better in the big picture.
Here are some more truths about indulging:
1. Indulging is not about greed or sloth. Indulging isn’t about excess. It’s about allowing yourself something wonderful or special and allowing yourself to really experience and savor it–without guilt or shame. It’s not eating the whole box of Cookies or bingeing on clothes at the mall. It’s about allowing yourself just the right amount of what you really crave and fully enjoying the experience. Indulging is not about gulping, it’s a melts-in-your-mouth experience.
2. Indulging is not laziness. Indulging is a way of feeding an important part of yourself and adding dimension to your life. Some women worry that if they start to indulge they’ll “lose control.” The truth is, when you really allow yourself to indulge, you tend to be more satisfied with less.
3. Indulging does not have to be earned or “deserved.” Some women believe that they haven’t “worked hard enough” or “accomplished enough” to indulge. When you don’t allow yourself this kind of self-care, it’s easy to become caught in a cycle of working harder and harder and feeling more and more behind and burnt out. Again, indulging yourself is a way of refueling. It actually enhances your productivity.
4. Indulging does not decrease your productivity or make you fat. I’ve already addressed this, but this is such a common myth, it’s important to restate. Allowing yourself truly indulgent experiences, ones where you are completely present and savoring the moment, satisfies you. Real indulgences don’t leave you hungry and craving more—they rejuvenate you and fuel you to be your best. What does leave you primed for a binge of food or laziness is the feeling that your special treat is forbidden or undeserved. The message that you are never going to be allowed to rest or feel like “enough” or eat chocolate again will almost certainly create a craving for the forbidden that can be almost impossible to resist.
My challenge to you:
Start indulging. Make a list of things that you experience as special treats. Keep it somewhere where you can add to it as new ideas occur to you. Begin scheduling these into your life on a regular basis and enjoy.

Most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less. What’s this about?


If you are like most busy women with too much on their plates, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is to practice indulging—really indulging. Interestingly, most women who really need to indulge more will tell you that they believe they ought to be indulging less.
What’s this about?
Let’s get really clear about what indulging is.
From my perspective, to indulge means to allow yourself to experience something really wonderful. Indulging comes from a place of compassion and kindness and respect. It’s a gift, freely given.
Indulging means to allow yourself to enjoy fully.
It means to thoroughly experience something and soak up and savor the experience. An indulgence is not a candy bar from the vending machine that you shove into your mouth while driving to your next appointment. It’s your favorite food on a beautiful plate in a setting where you can truly savor it.
Indulging isn’t just about food, but it’s something that feeds our senses in a wonderful way. You might indulge in a bubble bath or a foot massage or a solitary walk in the woods. Your indulgence might be your favorite CD played in your car or fresh flowers on your desk or a glass of red wine enjoyed on your deck.
Indulging is a full-body-use-all-your-senses experience.
It fills you up, brings you joy, refuels you and adds color to your life. Indulging feeds your soul and is a necessary ingredient for thriving. Your inner champion, or what you may think of as your “best self” absolutely purrs when she is indulged.
So why does indulging have such a bad rap? Why do so many women think that indulging is selfish or nonproductive or just plain wrong?
I’d like to bust some myths about indulging, and while I’m at it, let me remind you that many bad habits such as overeating, procrastination, and spending too much time online or “not doing” what you really need to do, happen because you aren’t indulging enough.
When your spirit and soul aren’t being fed, you will grasp at straws (or potato chips or chocolate chip cookies) to try to make up for it. When you don’t allow yourself to truly indulge, you will find yourself reaching for poor substitutes that might help you feel better temporarily, but that don’t make anything better in the big picture.
Here are some more truths about indulging:
1. Indulging is not about greed or sloth. Indulging isn’t about excess. It’s about allowing yourself something wonderful or special and allowing yourself to really experience and savor it–without guilt or shame. It’s not eating the whole box of Cookies or bingeing on clothes at the mall. It’s about allowing yourself just the right amount of what you really crave and fully enjoying the experience. Indulging is not about gulping, it’s a melts-in-your-mouth experience.
2. Indulging is not laziness. Indulging is a way of feeding an important part of yourself and adding dimension to your life. Some women worry that if they start to indulge they’ll “lose control.” The truth is, when you really allow yourself to indulge, you tend to be more satisfied with less.
3. Indulging does not have to be earned or “deserved.” Some women believe that they haven’t “worked hard enough” or “accomplished enough” to indulge. When you don’t allow yourself this kind of self-care, it’s easy to become caught in a cycle of working harder and harder and feeling more and more behind and burnt out. Again, indulging yourself is a way of refueling. It actually enhances your productivity.
4. Indulging does not decrease your productivity or make you fat. I’ve already addressed this, but this is such a common myth, it’s important to restate. Allowing yourself truly indulgent experiences, ones where you are completely present and savoring the moment, satisfies you. Real indulgences don’t leave you hungry and craving more—they rejuvenate you and fuel you to be your best. What does leave you primed for a binge of food or laziness is the feeling that your special treat is forbidden or undeserved. The message that you are never going to be allowed to rest or feel like “enough” or eat chocolate again will almost certainly create a craving for the forbidden that can be almost impossible to resist.
My challenge to you:
Start indulging. Make a list of things that you experience as special treats. Keep it somewhere where you can add to it as new ideas occur to you. Begin scheduling these into your life on a regular basis and enjoy.

In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Learn about the 5 most common triggers now!


In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Simply focusing on what to eat misses an essential point–Your eating choices may be strongly affected by your emotions and your environment. And your food plan is useless if something is preventing you from following it.
Here are five common overeating triggers that you can take control of by taking some smart, proactive action before they sabotage your weight loss efforts.
1. Getting too hungry
Do you stick to your plan through Breakfast and lunch only to find yourself irritable, craving carbs, and ready to eat everything in sight by the time late afternoon or evening rolls around? The end of the day tends to be stressful for many. The transition between work and home, mealtime decisions, and other peoples’ hunger or tiredness can push a busy woman over the edge. When I start coaching a new private client, it’s not unusual to hear that this is THE most difficult time of day.
The key here: take control of what you can. This means doing what you can so that you don’t arrive at the end of the day feeling exhausted and starved. Too many women who are trying to lose weight, eat too little in the middle of the day and, as a result, lose control and overeat before, during, or after dinner (or all three). Make sure you are eating a balanced lunch (with protein) and then calculate the hours you are expecting yourself to last before eating again. Most women do well with a small snack midafternoon. Again, adding in Protein can make all the difference.
2. Evening eating
Evening (and late night) is a strong overeating trigger time for many busy women. If you are working hard all day long, it’s easy to come to see the quiet of evening as your reward. And if you are too tired and depleted to really enjoy it, food and emotional eating can become a big part of the evening ritual. “I eat in the evening because I want to treat myself.” “It’s my me-time.” “It’s the only time of the day where no one expects anything of me.” Women also overeat in the evening because they are tired (but don’t want to go to bed because this is the only alone time they have).
Breaking free of the evening overeating triggers can be challenging, but it’s essential. Start by creating a policy for yourself about eating after dinner. Be realistic but be firm. Now, identify the bedtime you need to honor so that you are getting a minimum of 7.5 hours of sleep a night. This alone can make a huge difference in your overeating. Trust me. Create a new wind-down ritual that includes some nice things for you but that doesn’t include food. Finally, start carving out some me-time (even ten minutes) on the front-end of your day. You might need to get up earlier, but you’ll be focusing on you when you have the energy to do it.
3. Snacking on treats at work
Are you overeating or grazing at work on the sugary treats that your coworkers leave all over the office or the break room? Make it easy on yourself by making one decision instead of hundreds. Set a policy with yourself about your eating at work. Make sure it’s a policy you can stick with. Sometimes something as simple as “I’ll only eat homemade food that is truly a treat that I can’t easily have any time” will do the trick. Spend a bit of time strategizing how you will avoid temptation and how you will reward yourself for doing so. And don’t forget to enlist support. If you are putting on pounds at the office, I guarantee that you aren’t the only one being haunted by the food.
4. Stress eating and overeating
Emotional eating—using food to cope with feelings—is one of the biggest causes of overeating and weight gain. Smart women take this one seriously! Take the time to check in with yourself before you eat. Try to identify how you are feeling. Become aware of patterns. Are you a stress eater? Comfort eater? Boredom eater? The key to taking control of emotional eating is to create better strategies—ones that really address the emotions you are having. Start creating ways of addressing your feelings that you can use INSTEAD of turning to food.
5. Too much on your plate
When you are too busy, stressed, and overloaded, overeating can seem like an easy way to sneak in a reward, some comfort, or a much-needed energy boost. The problem is that any benefits tend to be short-lived and the costs and negative consequences aren’t. If you want to take control of your weight, your eating, and your relationship with food, you MUST take control of your life. Learn to say no, cut back your schedule, carve out time that’s just for you and start practicing the art of asking for help.
The best part of addressing overeating triggers is that when you take charge of what drives your overeating and emotional eating, you are almost always fixing a problem that’s bigger than food. When you get to the root cause of your overeating and address it head on, the triggers often lose their power. When you find strategies for dealing with stress, overeating, and overload, you are also creating strategies for living a better life.

In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Learn about the 5 most common triggers now!


In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Simply focusing on what to eat misses an essential point–Your eating choices may be strongly affected by your emotions and your environment. And your food plan is useless if something is preventing you from following it.
Here are five common overeating triggers that you can take control of by taking some smart, proactive action before they sabotage your weight loss efforts.
1. Getting too hungry
Do you stick to your plan through Breakfast and lunch only to find yourself irritable, craving carbs, and ready to eat everything in sight by the time late afternoon or evening rolls around? The end of the day tends to be stressful for many. The transition between work and home, mealtime decisions, and other peoples’ hunger or tiredness can push a busy woman over the edge. When I start coaching a new private client, it’s not unusual to hear that this is THE most difficult time of day.
The key here: take control of what you can. This means doing what you can so that you don’t arrive at the end of the day feeling exhausted and starved. Too many women who are trying to lose weight, eat too little in the middle of the day and, as a result, lose control and overeat before, during, or after dinner (or all three). Make sure you are eating a balanced lunch (with protein) and then calculate the hours you are expecting yourself to last before eating again. Most women do well with a small snack midafternoon. Again, adding in Protein can make all the difference.
2. Evening eating
Evening (and late night) is a strong overeating trigger time for many busy women. If you are working hard all day long, it’s easy to come to see the quiet of evening as your reward. And if you are too tired and depleted to really enjoy it, food and emotional eating can become a big part of the evening ritual. “I eat in the evening because I want to treat myself.” “It’s my me-time.” “It’s the only time of the day where no one expects anything of me.” Women also overeat in the evening because they are tired (but don’t want to go to bed because this is the only alone time they have).
Breaking free of the evening overeating triggers can be challenging, but it’s essential. Start by creating a policy for yourself about eating after dinner. Be realistic but be firm. Now, identify the bedtime you need to honor so that you are getting a minimum of 7.5 hours of sleep a night. This alone can make a huge difference in your overeating. Trust me. Create a new wind-down ritual that includes some nice things for you but that doesn’t include food. Finally, start carving out some me-time (even ten minutes) on the front-end of your day. You might need to get up earlier, but you’ll be focusing on you when you have the energy to do it.
3. Snacking on treats at work
Are you overeating or grazing at work on the sugary treats that your coworkers leave all over the office or the break room? Make it easy on yourself by making one decision instead of hundreds. Set a policy with yourself about your eating at work. Make sure it’s a policy you can stick with. Sometimes something as simple as “I’ll only eat homemade food that is truly a treat that I can’t easily have any time” will do the trick. Spend a bit of time strategizing how you will avoid temptation and how you will reward yourself for doing so. And don’t forget to enlist support. If you are putting on pounds at the office, I guarantee that you aren’t the only one being haunted by the food.
4. Stress eating and overeating
Emotional eating—using food to cope with feelings—is one of the biggest causes of overeating and weight gain. Smart women take this one seriously! Take the time to check in with yourself before you eat. Try to identify how you are feeling. Become aware of patterns. Are you a stress eater? Comfort eater? Boredom eater? The key to taking control of emotional eating is to create better strategies—ones that really address the emotions you are having. Start creating ways of addressing your feelings that you can use INSTEAD of turning to food.
5. Too much on your plate
When you are too busy, stressed, and overloaded, overeating can seem like an easy way to sneak in a reward, some comfort, or a much-needed energy boost. The problem is that any benefits tend to be short-lived and the costs and negative consequences aren’t. If you want to take control of your weight, your eating, and your relationship with food, you MUST take control of your life. Learn to say no, cut back your schedule, carve out time that’s just for you and start practicing the art of asking for help.
The best part of addressing overeating triggers is that when you take charge of what drives your overeating and emotional eating, you are almost always fixing a problem that’s bigger than food. When you get to the root cause of your overeating and address it head on, the triggers often lose their power. When you find strategies for dealing with stress, overeating, and overload, you are also creating strategies for living a better life.

In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Learn about the 5 most common triggers now!


In the battle to lose weight, stop overeating, or break free from emotional eating, it’s important to pay attention to the things that trigger your eating to go awry. Simply focusing on what to eat misses an essential point–Your eating choices may be strongly affected by your emotions and your environment. And your food plan is useless if something is preventing you from following it.
Here are five common overeating triggers that you can take control of by taking some smart, proactive action before they sabotage your weight loss efforts.
1. Getting too hungry
Do you stick to your plan through Breakfast and lunch only to find yourself irritable, craving carbs, and ready to eat everything in sight by the time late afternoon or evening rolls around? The end of the day tends to be stressful for many. The transition between work and home, mealtime decisions, and other peoples’ hunger or tiredness can push a busy woman over the edge. When I start coaching a new private client, it’s not unusual to hear that this is THE most difficult time of day.
The key here: take control of what you can. This means doing what you can so that you don’t arrive at the end of the day feeling exhausted and starved. Too many women who are trying to lose weight, eat too little in the middle of the day and, as a result, lose control and overeat before, during, or after dinner (or all three). Make sure you are eating a balanced lunch (with protein) and then calculate the hours you are expecting yourself to last before eating again. Most women do well with a small snack midafternoon. Again, adding in Protein can make all the difference.
2. Evening eating
Evening (and late night) is a strong overeating trigger time for many busy women. If you are working hard all day long, it’s easy to come to see the quiet of evening as your reward. And if you are too tired and depleted to really enjoy it, food and emotional eating can become a big part of the evening ritual. “I eat in the evening because I want to treat myself.” “It’s my me-time.” “It’s the only time of the day where no one expects anything of me.” Women also overeat in the evening because they are tired (but don’t want to go to bed because this is the only alone time they have).
Breaking free of the evening overeating triggers can be challenging, but it’s essential. Start by creating a policy for yourself about eating after dinner. Be realistic but be firm. Now, identify the bedtime you need to honor so that you are getting a minimum of 7.5 hours of sleep a night. This alone can make a huge difference in your overeating. Trust me. Create a new wind-down ritual that includes some nice things for you but that doesn’t include food. Finally, start carving out some me-time (even ten minutes) on the front-end of your day. You might need to get up earlier, but you’ll be focusing on you when you have the energy to do it.
3. Snacking on treats at work
Are you overeating or grazing at work on the sugary treats that your coworkers leave all over the office or the break room? Make it easy on yourself by making one decision instead of hundreds. Set a policy with yourself about your eating at work. Make sure it’s a policy you can stick with. Sometimes something as simple as “I’ll only eat homemade food that is truly a treat that I can’t easily have any time” will do the trick. Spend a bit of time strategizing how you will avoid temptation and how you will reward yourself for doing so. And don’t forget to enlist support. If you are putting on pounds at the office, I guarantee that you aren’t the only one being haunted by the food.
4. Stress eating and overeating
Emotional eating—using food to cope with feelings—is one of the biggest causes of overeating and weight gain. Smart women take this one seriously! Take the time to check in with yourself before you eat. Try to identify how you are feeling. Become aware of patterns. Are you a stress eater? Comfort eater? Boredom eater? The key to taking control of emotional eating is to create better strategies—ones that really address the emotions you are having. Start creating ways of addressing your feelings that you can use INSTEAD of turning to food.
5. Too much on your plate
When you are too busy, stressed, and overloaded, overeating can seem like an easy way to sneak in a reward, some comfort, or a much-needed energy boost. The problem is that any benefits tend to be short-lived and the costs and negative consequences aren’t. If you want to take control of your weight, your eating, and your relationship with food, you MUST take control of your life. Learn to say no, cut back your schedule, carve out time that’s just for you and start practicing the art of asking for help.
The best part of addressing overeating triggers is that when you take charge of what drives your overeating and emotional eating, you are almost always fixing a problem that’s bigger than food. When you get to the root cause of your overeating and address it head on, the triggers often lose their power. When you find strategies for dealing with stress, overeating, and overload, you are also creating strategies for living a better life.

Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Find out how to make peace with food now!


The yearning to find peace with food is usually a palpable one. When women speak about their motivation to stop struggling with food, find a weight that works for them, stop bingeing, and feel healthy and fit, the energy is usually intense. When you struggle with food, the wish to find peace—permanent peace—usually runs pretty deep.
No more diets. Pants that always fit. Feeling confident that your weight is going to be about the same as it was last week or last month or even last year. Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Peace with food means that sometimes the chips go stale and the leftover candy gets forgotten in the back of the cupboard.
Because the food is no longer that important.
Peace with food  is definitely possible. But in order to get there, you have to go beyond the food. And in order to do that, many women need to come face to face with something much bigger.
In order to make peace with food, you must make peace with your life.
Many women say they want peace with food and an end to yo-yo dieting. They say they’d do just about anything to achieve it. But the truth is, many women are trying to stop overeating without changing anything else.
It doesn’t work.
“I am lonely and I can’t do anything about it—so I eat.”
“I don’t have time to eat lunch and then I come home and binge.”
“I’m dealing with people who are angry and unreasonable. How do I make that okay?”
“I need someone to hold me accountable.”
“I’m busy from the time I wake up until I go to bed. There is no time for me. Food is my comfort. How am I supposed to stop eating?”
Peace with food isn’t really about food. Oh, on one level it is. It’s about feeling in control and effective and able to make choices that are in your best interest. It means (usually) not choosing foods or portions that leave you feeling uncomfortable or sick afterwards. It’s about you (not what’s on the plate) having the power and the control. But I hope you can see that I’m talking about so much more than food here.
Food only loses its power when we own our own power and stop using food as a band aid. Too often, food is the quick fix for things that we are not willing (or are too fearful) to address directly.
No food plan in the world is going to help the women above with their loneliness, their unwillingness to take time for themselves, their struggles with assertiveness, and their ability to ask for help. These are really gnarly difficult parts of life to wrestle with. Honestly, fighting with the chocolate chip Cookies (and even feeling guilty when you lose), can feel a lot less daunting. It’s easier (in the short run) to stay on the diet roller coaster than it is to make peace with food.
Peace with food requires making peace with your life. And sometimes that means creating a life that you can feel peaceful with. Learning to say no. Addressing the difficult relationships. Finding ways to take good care of yourself and sometimes putting yourself first. It means addressing the places that may feel scary: loneliness, fear, worry—even boredom. Taking risks that you might have been putting off taking for years. It’s hard stuff to swallow, but the payoffs can be huge. Creating peace with food really does have the potential to transform your life.
And before you get too overwhelmed, please remember that there are real tools (that work much better than diets) to help you do all these things. All of these challenges get more manageable and less terrifying when you find someone to help you through them—and when you take them on in small, palatable bites.
So imagine again that your pants always fit and your weight stays where you want it to. That you don’t diet and you don’t binge and you generally make good choices. And this time understand that it happens because you’ve looked the loneliness in the eye and gotten the help that you need to change it. You’ve learned to stand tall and speak up on your own behalf. You aren’t ending the day feeling exhausted and used up and like you don’t have the energy to do more than open the ice cream.
You’ve rebalanced your life. You’ve done the hard work. You’ve unleashed your inner champion. That’s what it takes to make peace with food.

Have you ever said, “I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.” Check out these easy do-able steps that can make all the difference.


“I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.”
That’s what a new client said. Her head was so full of diet advice, nutrition tips, weight loss ads, and beliefs about what she “should” be doing, that she was overwhelmed and feeling stuck before she even started.
Should she cut back on carbs? Start working out? Keep a food diary? Rejoin Weight Watchers? She knows she’s a stress eater, so maybe she should start meditating and eating mindfully.
She also really needs to catch up on her sleep, but her desk is a mess and she wants to spend more time with her husband….
Overload is like that and so is emotional overeating. Both can feel like tangled messes with no obvious starting point. When you are stuck in a cycle you don’t know how to stop, taking action can start to feel like it’s going to start an avalanche. Add to that the panic many of us feel when we are exhausted and overloaded that paradoxically causes us to bite off too much, and see our options as “all” or “nothing,” and many stressed-out overeaters see themselves facing a challenge that feels insurmountable.
“If I’m going to go to the gym, I really need to go six days a week and stay for an hour,” said a client who hadn’t felt she could fit in a workout for weeks.
“I need to start keeping track of everything I eat, I need to drink more Water, and I need to start eating more vegetables and stop eating after dinner.”
“I’m going to eat healthy, journal, meditate, and work out every day.”
“I’m so stressed. Nothing can change until I get a new job.”
All of these women started to feel overwhelmed before the words were even out of their mouths.
Guess what? The road to lasting change is hardly ever a major life overhaul. Creating peace with food and peace with your life almost always happens in small do-able steps. Contrary to what your stressed-out brain may be telling you, powerful change can be created from simple consistent shifts.
How do you start taking charge of overeating, stress, or that feeling of having too much on your plate?
You start by creating success and effectiveness and allowing that to snowball. The success and feelings of accomplishment are what help you create momentum—and that, in turn, creates more ease and motivation. Pick one small simple step that you can commit to for the next week. If it makes you tired or feels intimidating to say it out loud, cut the size of the step in half.
Now do it. Check it off every day, and Celebrate yourself profusely. After four to seven days, choose another step.
Your goal here is to choose a step that increases your progress and momentum one inch—not a mile. When you are getting started from a place of stress and overwhelm, your goal is to get into action, but NOT to add more stress and overwhelm to your life.
The first step should feel almost (but not quite) effortless.
Eating Breakfast in the morning
Checking in with yourself midafternoon and and asking yourself what you need
Making a list of five things you can do when you feel stressed (that are not food)

Start small. Create effectiveness, and the momentum and your progress will build. Really.

Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Find out how to make peace with food now!


The yearning to find peace with food is usually a palpable one. When women speak about their motivation to stop struggling with food, find a weight that works for them, stop bingeing, and feel healthy and fit, the energy is usually intense. When you struggle with food, the wish to find peace—permanent peace—usually runs pretty deep.
No more diets. Pants that always fit. Feeling confident that your weight is going to be about the same as it was last week or last month or even last year. Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Peace with food means that sometimes the chips go stale and the leftover candy gets forgotten in the back of the cupboard.
Because the food is no longer that important.
Peace with food  is definitely possible. But in order to get there, you have to go beyond the food. And in order to do that, many women need to come face to face with something much bigger.
In order to make peace with food, you must make peace with your life.
Many women say they want peace with food and an end to yo-yo dieting. They say they’d do just about anything to achieve it. But the truth is, many women are trying to stop overeating without changing anything else.
It doesn’t work.
“I am lonely and I can’t do anything about it—so I eat.”
“I don’t have time to eat lunch and then I come home and binge.”
“I’m dealing with people who are angry and unreasonable. How do I make that okay?”
“I need someone to hold me accountable.”
“I’m busy from the time I wake up until I go to bed. There is no time for me. Food is my comfort. How am I supposed to stop eating?”
Peace with food isn’t really about food. Oh, on one level it is. It’s about feeling in control and effective and able to make choices that are in your best interest. It means (usually) not choosing foods or portions that leave you feeling uncomfortable or sick afterwards. It’s about you (not what’s on the plate) having the power and the control. But I hope you can see that I’m talking about so much more than food here.
Food only loses its power when we own our own power and stop using food as a band aid. Too often, food is the quick fix for things that we are not willing (or are too fearful) to address directly.
No food plan in the world is going to help the women above with their loneliness, their unwillingness to take time for themselves, their struggles with assertiveness, and their ability to ask for help. These are really gnarly difficult parts of life to wrestle with. Honestly, fighting with the chocolate chip Cookies (and even feeling guilty when you lose), can feel a lot less daunting. It’s easier (in the short run) to stay on the diet roller coaster than it is to make peace with food.
Peace with food requires making peace with your life. And sometimes that means creating a life that you can feel peaceful with. Learning to say no. Addressing the difficult relationships. Finding ways to take good care of yourself and sometimes putting yourself first. It means addressing the places that may feel scary: loneliness, fear, worry—even boredom. Taking risks that you might have been putting off taking for years. It’s hard stuff to swallow, but the payoffs can be huge. Creating peace with food really does have the potential to transform your life.
And before you get too overwhelmed, please remember that there are real tools (that work much better than diets) to help you do all these things. All of these challenges get more manageable and less terrifying when you find someone to help you through them—and when you take them on in small, palatable bites.
So imagine again that your pants always fit and your weight stays where you want it to. That you don’t diet and you don’t binge and you generally make good choices. And this time understand that it happens because you’ve looked the loneliness in the eye and gotten the help that you need to change it. You’ve learned to stand tall and speak up on your own behalf. You aren’t ending the day feeling exhausted and used up and like you don’t have the energy to do more than open the ice cream.
You’ve rebalanced your life. You’ve done the hard work. You’ve unleashed your inner champion. That’s what it takes to make peace with food.

Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Find out how to make peace with food now!


The yearning to find peace with food is usually a palpable one. When women speak about their motivation to stop struggling with food, find a weight that works for them, stop bingeing, and feel healthy and fit, the energy is usually intense. When you struggle with food, the wish to find peace—permanent peace—usually runs pretty deep.
No more diets. Pants that always fit. Feeling confident that your weight is going to be about the same as it was last week or last month or even last year. Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Peace with food means that sometimes the chips go stale and the leftover candy gets forgotten in the back of the cupboard.
Because the food is no longer that important.
Peace with food  is definitely possible. But in order to get there, you have to go beyond the food. And in order to do that, many women need to come face to face with something much bigger.
In order to make peace with food, you must make peace with your life.
Many women say they want peace with food and an end to yo-yo dieting. They say they’d do just about anything to achieve it. But the truth is, many women are trying to stop overeating without changing anything else.
It doesn’t work.
“I am lonely and I can’t do anything about it—so I eat.”
“I don’t have time to eat lunch and then I come home and binge.”
“I’m dealing with people who are angry and unreasonable. How do I make that okay?”
“I need someone to hold me accountable.”
“I’m busy from the time I wake up until I go to bed. There is no time for me. Food is my comfort. How am I supposed to stop eating?”
Peace with food isn’t really about food. Oh, on one level it is. It’s about feeling in control and effective and able to make choices that are in your best interest. It means (usually) not choosing foods or portions that leave you feeling uncomfortable or sick afterwards. It’s about you (not what’s on the plate) having the power and the control. But I hope you can see that I’m talking about so much more than food here.
Food only loses its power when we own our own power and stop using food as a band aid. Too often, food is the quick fix for things that we are not willing (or are too fearful) to address directly.
No food plan in the world is going to help the women above with their loneliness, their unwillingness to take time for themselves, their struggles with assertiveness, and their ability to ask for help. These are really gnarly difficult parts of life to wrestle with. Honestly, fighting with the chocolate chip Cookies (and even feeling guilty when you lose), can feel a lot less daunting. It’s easier (in the short run) to stay on the diet roller coaster than it is to make peace with food.
Peace with food requires making peace with your life. And sometimes that means creating a life that you can feel peaceful with. Learning to say no. Addressing the difficult relationships. Finding ways to take good care of yourself and sometimes putting yourself first. It means addressing the places that may feel scary: loneliness, fear, worry—even boredom. Taking risks that you might have been putting off taking for years. It’s hard stuff to swallow, but the payoffs can be huge. Creating peace with food really does have the potential to transform your life.
And before you get too overwhelmed, please remember that there are real tools (that work much better than diets) to help you do all these things. All of these challenges get more manageable and less terrifying when you find someone to help you through them—and when you take them on in small, palatable bites.
So imagine again that your pants always fit and your weight stays where you want it to. That you don’t diet and you don’t binge and you generally make good choices. And this time understand that it happens because you’ve looked the loneliness in the eye and gotten the help that you need to change it. You’ve learned to stand tall and speak up on your own behalf. You aren’t ending the day feeling exhausted and used up and like you don’t have the energy to do more than open the ice cream.
You’ve rebalanced your life. You’ve done the hard work. You’ve unleashed your inner champion. That’s what it takes to make peace with food.

Have you ever said, “I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.” Check out these easy do-able steps that can make all the difference.


“I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.”
That’s what a new client said. Her head was so full of diet advice, nutrition tips, weight loss ads, and beliefs about what she “should” be doing, that she was overwhelmed and feeling stuck before she even started.
Should she cut back on carbs? Start working out? Keep a food diary? Rejoin Weight Watchers? She knows she’s a stress eater, so maybe she should start meditating and eating mindfully.
She also really needs to catch up on her sleep, but her desk is a mess and she wants to spend more time with her husband….
Overload is like that and so is emotional overeating. Both can feel like tangled messes with no obvious starting point. When you are stuck in a cycle you don’t know how to stop, taking action can start to feel like it’s going to start an avalanche. Add to that the panic many of us feel when we are exhausted and overloaded that paradoxically causes us to bite off too much, and see our options as “all” or “nothing,” and many stressed-out overeaters see themselves facing a challenge that feels insurmountable.
“If I’m going to go to the gym, I really need to go six days a week and stay for an hour,” said a client who hadn’t felt she could fit in a workout for weeks.
“I need to start keeping track of everything I eat, I need to drink more Water, and I need to start eating more vegetables and stop eating after dinner.”
“I’m going to eat healthy, journal, meditate, and work out every day.”
“I’m so stressed. Nothing can change until I get a new job.”
All of these women started to feel overwhelmed before the words were even out of their mouths.
Guess what? The road to lasting change is hardly ever a major life overhaul. Creating peace with food and peace with your life almost always happens in small do-able steps. Contrary to what your stressed-out brain may be telling you, powerful change can be created from simple consistent shifts.
How do you start taking charge of overeating, stress, or that feeling of having too much on your plate?
You start by creating success and effectiveness and allowing that to snowball. The success and feelings of accomplishment are what help you create momentum—and that, in turn, creates more ease and motivation. Pick one small simple step that you can commit to for the next week. If it makes you tired or feels intimidating to say it out loud, cut the size of the step in half.
Now do it. Check it off every day, and Celebrate yourself profusely. After four to seven days, choose another step.
Your goal here is to choose a step that increases your progress and momentum one inch—not a mile. When you are getting started from a place of stress and overwhelm, your goal is to get into action, but NOT to add more stress and overwhelm to your life.
The first step should feel almost (but not quite) effortless.
Eating Breakfast in the morning
Checking in with yourself midafternoon and and asking yourself what you need
Making a list of five things you can do when you feel stressed (that are not food)

Start small. Create effectiveness, and the momentum and your progress will build. Really.

Have you ever said, “I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.” Check out these easy do-able steps that can make all the difference.


“I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.”
That’s what a new client said. Her head was so full of diet advice, nutrition tips, weight loss ads, and beliefs about what she “should” be doing, that she was overwhelmed and feeling stuck before she even started.
Should she cut back on carbs? Start working out? Keep a food diary? Rejoin Weight Watchers? She knows she’s a stress eater, so maybe she should start meditating and eating mindfully.
She also really needs to catch up on her sleep, but her desk is a mess and she wants to spend more time with her husband….
Overload is like that and so is emotional overeating. Both can feel like tangled messes with no obvious starting point. When you are stuck in a cycle you don’t know how to stop, taking action can start to feel like it’s going to start an avalanche. Add to that the panic many of us feel when we are exhausted and overloaded that paradoxically causes us to bite off too much, and see our options as “all” or “nothing,” and many stressed-out overeaters see themselves facing a challenge that feels insurmountable.
“If I’m going to go to the gym, I really need to go six days a week and stay for an hour,” said a client who hadn’t felt she could fit in a workout for weeks.
“I need to start keeping track of everything I eat, I need to drink more Water, and I need to start eating more vegetables and stop eating after dinner.”
“I’m going to eat healthy, journal, meditate, and work out every day.”
“I’m so stressed. Nothing can change until I get a new job.”
All of these women started to feel overwhelmed before the words were even out of their mouths.
Guess what? The road to lasting change is hardly ever a major life overhaul. Creating peace with food and peace with your life almost always happens in small do-able steps. Contrary to what your stressed-out brain may be telling you, powerful change can be created from simple consistent shifts.
How do you start taking charge of overeating, stress, or that feeling of having too much on your plate?
You start by creating success and effectiveness and allowing that to snowball. The success and feelings of accomplishment are what help you create momentum—and that, in turn, creates more ease and motivation. Pick one small simple step that you can commit to for the next week. If it makes you tired or feels intimidating to say it out loud, cut the size of the step in half.
Now do it. Check it off every day, and Celebrate yourself profusely. After four to seven days, choose another step.
Your goal here is to choose a step that increases your progress and momentum one inch—not a mile. When you are getting started from a place of stress and overwhelm, your goal is to get into action, but NOT to add more stress and overwhelm to your life.
The first step should feel almost (but not quite) effortless.
Eating Breakfast in the morning
Checking in with yourself midafternoon and and asking yourself what you need
Making a list of five things you can do when you feel stressed (that are not food)

Start small. Create effectiveness, and the momentum and your progress will build. Really.

Have you ever said, “I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.” Check out these easy do-able steps that can make all the difference.


“I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.”
That’s what a new client said. Her head was so full of diet advice, nutrition tips, weight loss ads, and beliefs about what she “should” be doing, that she was overwhelmed and feeling stuck before she even started.
Should she cut back on carbs? Start working out? Keep a food diary? Rejoin Weight Watchers? She knows she’s a stress eater, so maybe she should start meditating and eating mindfully.
She also really needs to catch up on her sleep, but her desk is a mess and she wants to spend more time with her husband….
Overload is like that and so is emotional overeating. Both can feel like tangled messes with no obvious starting point. When you are stuck in a cycle you don’t know how to stop, taking action can start to feel like it’s going to start an avalanche. Add to that the panic many of us feel when we are exhausted and overloaded that paradoxically causes us to bite off too much, and see our options as “all” or “nothing,” and many stressed-out overeaters see themselves facing a challenge that feels insurmountable.
“If I’m going to go to the gym, I really need to go six days a week and stay for an hour,” said a client who hadn’t felt she could fit in a workout for weeks.
“I need to start keeping track of everything I eat, I need to drink more Water, and I need to start eating more vegetables and stop eating after dinner.”
“I’m going to eat healthy, journal, meditate, and work out every day.”
“I’m so stressed. Nothing can change until I get a new job.”
All of these women started to feel overwhelmed before the words were even out of their mouths.
Guess what? The road to lasting change is hardly ever a major life overhaul. Creating peace with food and peace with your life almost always happens in small do-able steps. Contrary to what your stressed-out brain may be telling you, powerful change can be created from simple consistent shifts.
How do you start taking charge of overeating, stress, or that feeling of having too much on your plate?
You start by creating success and effectiveness and allowing that to snowball. The success and feelings of accomplishment are what help you create momentum—and that, in turn, creates more ease and motivation. Pick one small simple step that you can commit to for the next week. If it makes you tired or feels intimidating to say it out loud, cut the size of the step in half.
Now do it. Check it off every day, and Celebrate yourself profusely. After four to seven days, choose another step.
Your goal here is to choose a step that increases your progress and momentum one inch—not a mile. When you are getting started from a place of stress and overwhelm, your goal is to get into action, but NOT to add more stress and overwhelm to your life.
The first step should feel almost (but not quite) effortless.
Eating Breakfast in the morning
Checking in with yourself midafternoon and and asking yourself what you need
Making a list of five things you can do when you feel stressed (that are not food)

Start small. Create effectiveness, and the momentum and your progress will build. Really.