My friend and Wellness Coach, Jen Baucom, who specializes in thyroid + PCOS hormones shared why taking care of hormones is SO important, how you can find the imbalances, and 3 great tips on what you can do about them. If you want to feel energized and great all the time right, make sure to watch the video!

I shared information about Japanese culture that didn’t serve me for having a healthy body and mindsets, some differences between emotional eating and eating disorders,, and how emotional eating looks like, what to watch for, and what to do about them.

Excited to hear about your takeaways!

Kanna

In my mindful eating support community, there're many who have challenges with sugar addiction. Are you one of them?
I sure was and it was controlling my life, but I'm happy to say that I have a healthy and fun relationship with sugar now.

If you have problems with sugar, here are a few things you can dig to start breaking free from the addiction.

What does your sugar addiction look like? Needing to eat doughnuts first thing in the morning throughout the day? Or a box of cookies at 8 pm?

Is there a pattern for the sugar craving? Maybe every time you talk with a certain friend, you'd crave for a muffin?

Why do you want to stop eating sugar (yes, health reasons, but deeper reason, like "I want to lose muffin tops so that I'm confident going on a date again")

Add some healthy nutrients (like green juice, smoothie, veggies, nuts etc) in your system, focus on ADDing to avoid having scarcity mentality (this deprived feeling tend to evoke "I...

Who here believes walking away from junk food is all on your strong wills?

I did and so did my clients for mindful eating support for a long time.  Can you guess what happened to us? 

Binged on what we restricted on. 

So, all the efforts - starvation (haha, it felt like it), mind-games, (unhelpful) disciplines only worked so long but took us to the worst place than where we started.

This is why I dive deep into WHYs you want to buy junk food.  Not to restrict you from buying it against your will.

It's so important to know the reason why you need to do the habit that you want to change.  There's an underlying reason for it and unless we address that, you'll repeat the same act. If you ignore it and force it to change the unsupportive behavior with your strong will, it'll only last so long and you'll binge on the food you deprived.

So, it's a good day to think about WHY you want to buy junk food. 

a). Write down the why

Example...

Hi dear! Are you eating more junk food than ever since COVID-19?

If so, you’re one of many. There are so many emotions you go through during this uncertain time; anxious, scared, worried, overwhelmed, and STRESSED.

Yes, having more stress can increase the chance of turning to junk food for a quick reward. Junk food lowers our immunity when keeping it high is so important right now!

In an ideal world, going cold turkey on junk food makes sense, but it’s not that simple for many, right? Without any mindsets and habits shift, it’ll just increase your stress level and lower your self-esteem.

While there’re so many chemically added things I like to avoid, here’s a list of 6 basic ingredients I’d try hard to stay away from, aka “G.A.T.C.H.A”!

-Artificial colors (Blue nos. 1 and 2, Red no. 40, Yellow no. 6)-GMOs (Genetically modified organisms)

-Trans fats (hydrogenated oils)

-Chemically created artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose,...

I live in Kirkland, at the heart of pandemic, and wow...it was different this time than all the other viruses I’ve heard/lived through. 

We were very careful from the beginning as I had other info from Japan, and my parents who are in their 70s are with us here.  We’ve kept our kids from school days before they finally decided to close. We stopped going to our Yoga studio and cafes. We’ve isolated ourselves and stuck together, full house with 6 people.  It was quite a stressful shift for me, who was used to having a quiet space 8+ hours/day, but now I have a lot less stress and am still enjoying all sorts of healthy food with pure joy.

So, here I am sharing some ideas that have been working for me to keep the stress low (high stress weakens your immunity!) and not turning to food.

1). Block off a 15 min slot to yourself daily (if it means getting up earlier, it’s worth it) and write down/type up all the stressors.

2). Find out what you can do...

Are you good at following rules?

If you were, chances are you’ve committed to many diets and ended up gaining weight.

Why?  Because no one diet works for everyone.

So, that diet or those diets didn’t work for your unique being. Just like we have our unique abilities and talents, our body is so unique and different to individual. You probably didn’t blame the diet(s) you tried, but blame on yourself and your self-esteem totally dropped. Am I right?

If you can relate, tell me why are you still on diet if you are.

Also, come and join us in the “Mindful Eating Support ~Reframe Your Eating Story~” FB group where you will feel safe and connected in a nonjudgmental environment.

Once Brene Brown said, “connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
That’s what I hope to give to...

If you’re trying to lose weight but emotional eating always gets in the way, I have a question for you.

Do you NEED to be on a diet all the time so that you feel “safe” and “under control” (while it’s working out for you)?

Or, are you sick of tired with all the diets so much that by seeing/hearing “diet” want to make you rebel?

I was both. I had believed that I needed a diet (AKA “Rigid Rules”) to follow to lose weight. But nothing worked. The more I did, the more I gained. I trusted all those diets and gave my 100% commitments, energy, money and time for them, but they betrayed me. They repeatedly did that to me. I was so lost. I got angry and felt disappointed in me many many times. I started repelling. I ate all the “I-can’t-eat-this-food”. I binged and binged. And felt awful and so hopeless.

Can you relate? Connect with me if you want to talk about ways how I break the vicious diet cycle and...

We tend to focus on WHAT we eat, but HOW we eat is also very important.

We wouldn't really put all 24 Oreos on a plate and spent 20 minutes at a dining table for truly indulging them, rather gorge them in from the bag in 5 minutes in your room....at least it was my case.

So today, I have a challenge for you.
Put one meal (or snack) you are to eat on a plate, nicely display with a placemat, add a candle or flowers if possible (just grab some from the street or park, lol), use knife and fork if the food is supposed to be eaten with them. Maybe put down your cell phone and play calming music, like jazz or Spanish guitar!

It doesn't matter what the food is to me at this moment. If they need to be Oreos, put them nicely on your favorite plate, and sit at a dining table, and chew 20 times instead of swallowing. ENJOY them.

By doing this, it will makes a huge difference on your soul satisfaction level.

Remember, whatever the food is, it's ok.
You don’t need to pretend that you are...

My parents didn’t recognize me after gaining about 50lbs.

I attended a high school for a year as an exchange student in the U.S.
It was those days with no internet and international calls were crazy expensive. So, I wrote some letters to my parents occasionally but I don’t think I included any photos.

A year passed and I was super excited to see my parents back at Narita airport, Japan. I saw them, I’m waving frantically but they were giving me some frown faces. I thought..that’s odd...

So, I ran to them and gave a big hug. They finally recognized that it was their daughter waving and hugging them!

My over the top excitement instantly became a huge embarrassment.
I lived with the embarrassment, the body shame, too long. I should have asked for help, I should have focused on my inner beauty, but couldn’t.
I shouldn’t have valued others’ values and opinions but that’s all it mattered back then.
Cultural ideals and norms totally won over...

No, you don’t need to feel deprived anymore.

There’s so many, soooo many nutritious and delicious foods you can enjoy while trying to break free from emotional eating.

I will NEVER EVER ask you to diet and restrict your food. Because I know it will only backfire at 9pm tonight.

I’m so proud of you trusting a diet giving a 100% go, followed by another, and another...but, did they end up giving you extra weights and stealing your self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth? 

This is why adding in works rather than taking away to start overcoming emotional eating.  Start adding delicious smoothie, whole-foods, healthy and fun looking salad!  High quality dark chocolate (cacao 70%+).  Also start adding more joy from non-food sources like relationships, career, dating, parenting, exercising, movements, hobby, community, spirituality and many more!

Once you add so many 'nutrition-rich-things' in your life, you'll start craving less and less of junk food...