0:00

This is the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.

0:02

I'm Lisa Saulsberry and this is episode

0:04

73. How to feel

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better? Welcome

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to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast

0:13

for women who want to lose weight, but are tired

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of counting and calculating all the food.

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I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm

0:20

a certified health and weight loss coach and life

0:23

coach, and most importantly a recovered

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chronic dieter. I'll teach you

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to figure out why you are eating when you aren't

0:29

hungry, instead of worrying so much about

0:31

what you are eating. Hey

0:34

everyone. Welcome back to the podcast today.

0:37

We are going to talk about feelings

0:40

so fun, right? Okay.

0:43

So before we get into this concept,

0:45

first, I want to give a very quick

0:47

and dirty model review. So

0:50

if you don't know what the model is, I

0:52

sometimes refer to it as the model

0:54

or the self coaching model. You

0:56

can check my full episode on

0:58

this topic. It's very early on

1:00

it's episode four. And,

1:03

I have a full explanation

1:05

there and really teach you all about

1:07

it. There's a download you can get on that episode.

1:09

Um, but I chat about it here and there

1:11

over the course of the podcast. So hopefully you're

1:13

kind of familiar with it. This is the model

1:16

that comes from the life coach school

1:18

self coaching model is what the official

1:20

title is from the life coach school

1:22

designed by Brooke Castillo. There's

1:25

five parts to it, and you can

1:27

actually put anything in the world in it. It's

1:29

based on cognitive behavioral theory,

1:31

psychology, but it's useful

1:33

to the everyday person, not just for

1:35

a psychologist or a therapist, which is.

1:38

Cognitive behavior theory is useful

1:40

in that way. And this is kind of an easy

1:42

application of that theory

1:45

to put it in something that we

1:47

can understand and use on

1:49

our day-to-day lives. So. it has five

1:51

parts. And so I always list it

1:54

down the side of my whiteboard when I've got clients

1:56

as C T F a R.

1:59

So the first line is the C

2:01

line, and this is the circumstance

2:03

line. And we put in this line, just

2:05

the facts. So these are things

2:07

we can agree on in a court of law maybe,

2:10

or if 50 people are

2:12

in a room together, they're all going to agree.

2:15

So this is things like the weather.

2:17

Your age, your weight, other

2:19

people's words, who the president

2:22

is and how many cookies are

2:24

in the cabinet. So when I say

2:26

the weather, what I mean is it is raining

2:28

or it is 72 degrees,

2:31

right? it's not, gosh, it's

2:33

hot outside. Because everybody

2:35

wouldn't agree that 72

2:37

or 85 or 91 is hot

2:39

outside. It depends on your perspective. Right?

2:42

And so the next line is the second

2:44

line. The T line is our thoughts,

2:46

and these are the sentences in the brain.

2:49

And it's the meaning that we give to

2:52

the circumstance. So

2:54

the sound like it's hot outside

2:56

or I'm feeling old today, Or

2:59

I need to lose weight. These are thoughts.

3:01

Other people's words are in the circumstance

3:03

line. So like he said,

3:06

X, Y, Z, and you're thinking

3:08

that was mean, or that

3:10

was delightful. So

3:12

we have all of these things. Um,

3:15

I think one of the circumstances I mentioned was

3:17

how many cookies are in the cabinet. And

3:19

I think that's really valid here because a lot of times

3:21

we're thinking I have to eat the cookies because

3:24

they're in the cabinet, but then being in the cabinet.

3:26

Is neither here nor there until we have a

3:28

thought about them. And, you know, this

3:30

is true because sometimes you forget

3:33

about things that are in the cabinet and you find

3:35

them later and you're like, oh, I didn't

3:37

know this was in there. And

3:39

so that's how you can see that separation

3:42

from the circumstance and the

3:44

thought. So the third line

3:46

is the feelings or emotions.

3:49

We call this the F Lang. So we use

3:51

feelings here, but really the word feelings

3:53

and emotions as completely interchangeable.

3:57

This is a singular word in

3:59

this line. Uh, peaceful, frightened,

4:01

jealous, appreciative, lonely,

4:04

excited, curious. Okay.

4:06

Do you hear it there? Just the way we

4:08

are feeling in a singular emotion

4:11

word. This is

4:13

like the vibration also that is

4:15

going through your body. You're describing

4:18

this vibration in this singular

4:20

word, and we can almost

4:22

always identify a location

4:24

for an emotional vibration. And

4:27

if you don't believe me, think about when you're

4:30

nervous, for example, and

4:32

you maybe have to give a public speech and

4:34

you say I'm so nervous. I have butterflies

4:37

in my tummy. And that is

4:39

one of the best ways you can really think about

4:41

oh yes. Nervous energy.

4:44

Kind of resides right there

4:46

in your gut region. Sometimes

4:49

when we have a craving, we'll get sort of

4:51

a tightness at the back of the throat or

4:53

in kind of like underneath the jaw,

4:55

you'll get kind of that tightness there. You

4:58

have things that sit heavy on your

5:00

chest. Any kind of

5:02

like sadness, sometimes we'll sit

5:05

really heavy. And

5:07

you can feel that as kind of a weight

5:09

on your chest. Sometimes

5:12

I notice that my nervous energy,

5:14

like small, a anxiety, not

5:17

big a diagnosable anxiety, but just

5:19

my nervous anxiety kind of generates

5:21

jitters through my, um, extremities, especially

5:24

my arms and all of a sudden I'll notice

5:26

my hands are, are clenching

5:28

and releasing and clenching and releasing. So

5:31

when you notice what your body is

5:33

doing in response to that

5:35

feeling, that's that vibration

5:37

going through? So like I said, the second

5:39

line is the thought line that's happening in the

5:41

brain. Those are the sentences.

5:43

And then the feeling happens

5:45

throughout the body. as that vibration travels.

5:49

So the next line is

5:51

the a line or actions. This

5:53

is what we do or don't do.

5:55

So procrastination can go here

5:58

as well as all of our active behaviors.

6:02

So everything from eating, yelling,

6:04

cooking, exercising, watching TV,

6:06

all the things that we do with our bodies.

6:09

Those are our behaviors. Those go in

6:11

the AA line. And all

6:13

of the things that we don't do, like sit

6:16

on the couch, don't get out of bed. or

6:18

avoidance things, tasks that we're doing

6:20

to avoid other tasks. All of that goes

6:22

in the line. And

6:25

the last line is the result

6:27

line. That's our, our line. And

6:29

it's just what it sounds like. What is the end

6:31

result? What happens in

6:33

our lives due to these thoughts,

6:35

feelings, and actions. Often

6:37

the result line gets kind of mixed up with

6:39

the action line. And I know there are some

6:41

coaches that actually lump these two together.

6:44

But when you separate them out, if you

6:46

can, you'll notice that the result

6:49

is tied back to the thought

6:51

line. They are always connected.

6:54

Most of the time we believe that our

6:56

results have to do with our circumstances.

6:59

But this just gives away our power

7:01

and removes our brains from the equation.

7:04

So you are actually totally in charge.

7:07

Of your results based

7:09

on your thoughts. So again,

7:11

if you want more on the model, definitely

7:13

go way back and listen to episode four.

7:16

I know an apple podcast. You can sort

7:18

episodes by like oldest first. That's

7:20

the easiest way to find that episode for cause

7:22

then it'll just be a few, just one

7:24

little page down. So I've done episodes

7:27

on thoughts specifically

7:29

like episode 25 as positive thinking

7:31

versus intentional thinking where we really get

7:33

into that T line. Helping you think

7:35

in ways that will change your results? And

7:38

I'm also done an episode specifically

7:40

on the AA line for weight loss, where I discuss

7:42

action or alien things that you can do

7:44

to help you lose weight. But

7:47

today we're going to hone in on that

7:49

F line and see what's happening

7:52

there. And how that F

7:54

line can drive the a

7:56

line. And how

7:58

we can mostly be more in

8:00

tune with that F line. Because

8:03

as much as, as coaches, we like to say

8:05

your thoughts, create your feelings. Your

8:07

feelings, drive your actions.

8:10

So as always, I'm going to use weight loss, examples

8:13

in, in the model. but like I said,

8:15

at the beginning, you can use the model

8:17

and this feelings work for

8:19

really anything that's going on in your life.

8:22

And I will say I never finished

8:24

coaching a client like through their 12 sessions

8:26

with me and not coach

8:29

on something else. Meaning

8:31

something aside from weight

8:33

loss. I have coached

8:35

on dating and parenting

8:37

and not yelling at kids. I have coached

8:40

on adult children, parenting,

8:42

you know, where the child is becoming an adult,

8:44

not Stricky. We've talked about relationships

8:47

with spouses. I've coached on sex.

8:49

I've coached on support of spouses

8:51

with their weight loss. Um, I've

8:53

coached on moms and those relationships.

8:56

So the model is a very,

8:58

very useful tool. So

9:01

even though I am giving examples of weight

9:03

loss, you can apply this to whatever

9:06

you are going through. So. When

9:09

we see overeating in

9:11

the, a line. In the actual line,

9:14

there's a lot of variability

9:16

of what I see in the F line. What

9:18

feelings are driving that.

9:21

Overeating. Sometimes it's

9:23

merely desire or urge.

9:25

This is what we call a craving overall.

9:27

When we lump the thought and feeling together,

9:30

you're thinking, Ooh, that bag of peppermint,

9:32

Hershey, kisses sound really good. And we hardly

9:34

ever get those because they only come out at

9:36

Christmas time. And then the feeling

9:39

is desire. And

9:41

it feels like a strong pull toward the bag

9:43

and it's urgent. And then in

9:45

that action line, you grab the bag and sit

9:47

down on the couch to watch a show and eat the

9:49

Hershey kisses. Sometimes

9:51

though it's an entirely different feeling.

9:53

It's boredom, sadness,

9:55

loneliness. And we end up

9:58

overeating in the F line.

10:00

In response to those types of feelings.

10:03

And when I say overeating, I'm just

10:05

talking about eating beyond physical

10:07

fullness. So whether that's seconds

10:10

or thirds at mealtime, or

10:12

that's grabbing snacks in between meals

10:14

or eating sweets and treats after

10:16

dinner, when you aren't physically hungry.

10:19

All of that is overeating. So

10:21

sometimes we have a feeling like loneliness

10:24

and our lower brains kick into high gear and say,

10:27

whoa, this has got to be fixed.

10:29

This feeling is not our baseline. And

10:31

so something has gone wrong and let's fix

10:33

that. And obviously you're not

10:35

hearing these sentences cause this is

10:37

your lower brain kind of on autopilot

10:39

there. It looks back in the catalog

10:41

of memories and sees that many, many times

10:43

over the years. Starting with when

10:46

we fell and got hurt as a toddler. And we were

10:48

sad that food actually

10:50

fixes this feeling. And

10:52

so it offers up this idea that you could

10:54

finish off that bag of chips in the pantry,

10:57

and that would solve the problem. And

10:59

this happens very fast and very unconsciously,

11:02

by the way, like the searching and the memory banks.

11:04

Obviously we are not doing that on purpose.

11:07

And so the next thing we know, we're standing in

11:09

front of the pantry, looking our fingers from

11:11

the drags of that chip bag. We just finished

11:14

off. And searching for something else

11:16

as well. And all this has done

11:18

in the blink of an eye. And if I asked you later,

11:21

what were you feeling in that moment?

11:23

You would most likely not be able

11:25

to identify it. You'll tell me. Well,

11:28

it just sounded good or. I'm

11:30

not sure. I just wanted a snack. And

11:33

here's where it gets really important to

11:35

start identifying those other feelings

11:37

because it's true. Like I said, from the first

11:39

example, Sometimes it is like

11:42

what I call just quotes. Just

11:44

desire. Sometimes it is just a craving.

11:47

But if there is something else going

11:49

on, If there are other feelings

11:52

driving this over, eating. We

11:55

really, really need to identify those

11:58

and start to feel those

12:00

feelings better. Here's

12:02

the takeaway. Overeating

12:04

problems are actually

12:07

under feeling problems.

12:10

Let me repeat that. Overeating

12:12

problems are actually under

12:14

feeling problems. And what

12:16

I mean by under feeling is we are

12:18

not bothering to feel

12:20

our emotions or feel our feelings.

12:24

And instead we are using

12:26

food to just cover up

12:28

what is happening there. Many

12:30

many times we just ignore things

12:32

and we simply do not pay attention to

12:34

them. And so we report

12:37

to your coach to me that you don't

12:39

know what was driving that action.

12:42

We choose little snacks instead

12:45

of feeling the emotions. Instead

12:47

of interrupting ourselves. on not walking

12:50

to the pantry and asking what's going on

12:52

here. We just eat the snack

12:54

because it works. Little snacks,

12:57

fill the vibrations, those emotional

12:59

vibrations that seem to cause little

13:02

cracks in our system. The food

13:04

fills those up. One

13:06

of my favorite quotes on this is from

13:08

Shonda Rhimes in her book year. Yes,

13:11

I highly recommend it. I actually

13:13

read it several years ago and this quote

13:15

has never left my brain. Although

13:18

I did look up the exact wording so I could read

13:20

it to you. She said don't ever let

13:22

anyone tell you that food doesn't

13:24

work. Anyone who tells you

13:26

that food doesn't work is either stupid or

13:29

a liar, or has never had food before?

13:32

You can tell them. I said, so it

13:35

works putting food on

13:37

top of it works. If

13:39

food did not work, if it didn't work,

13:41

it's slutty. more

13:43

is more magic. Everyone in

13:45

America. I would be Angelina Jolie

13:48

fin. No one would drive through

13:50

no one would sprinkles or pink Berry

13:52

or any of it. I think

13:55

she's so funny, but it's just so

13:57

true the way she says it. This

13:59

is seriously though, Uh, revelation to

14:01

my clients. When I tell them this. We

14:04

do this. We eat

14:06

in response to our feelings. Because

14:10

food works. And

14:12

that's okay. Like, it's just

14:14

good to know. Right? Food works. But

14:17

when we learn how to feel better

14:19

and I mean, the verb feel

14:22

right. Feel our feelings

14:24

and notice them and be with them. Not

14:26

only will you be more in tune

14:29

in that you will end up

14:31

feeling better. Right.

14:34

It's kind of confusing the English language because

14:36

we're using the same word for two different things. But

14:38

your emotional state is going to get better

14:41

and your body will feel better too,

14:44

because you won't be overfilling it and requiring

14:47

it to deal with all that excess food. It's

14:49

got to figure out a place to store. Shonda

14:52

also says this. The food created

14:54

a nice top coat. It helped to smooth

14:57

down the ragged bits sealed off the parts

14:59

of me that were broken. It filled in all

15:01

the holes covered up the cracks. Yep.

15:04

I just put some food on top of any

15:06

and everything that bothered me, the food

15:08

just spackled right on in there. And

15:10

Presto. Underneath the food, everything

15:12

inside me was smooth and cold. And

15:15

numb. I was dead inside

15:17

and that was good. That's

15:19

the end of her quote she's if

15:21

you're not familiar with this book, this is a year

15:24

that she spent saying yes to

15:26

everything in her life. And she ended up kind

15:28

of focusing on. A different topic

15:30

each month that she was going to be saying yes

15:32

to, and this is the month that she

15:34

said yes to her body. And she

15:36

started to really examine what was going

15:38

on with her relationship with food and

15:41

how it was affecting her body

15:43

and how she was feeling and

15:45

her health. And so this

15:47

is how she kind of came to realize.

15:50

And when she started to say yes to her

15:52

body, then that's when she got

15:54

really clear with her relationship with food.

15:56

So it's really fascinating, even

15:58

if you just. Just read that chapter, but again, I highly recommend

16:01

the whole book. But I just

16:03

love this metaphor. The more we use food

16:05

to spackle in the cracks. The

16:07

less, we are able to feel our emotions.

16:10

When we, we can start doing this is to identify

16:13

how we are feeling throughout

16:15

the day and identifying our emotions.

16:18

So recently I heard on the Huberman lab

16:20

podcast, he discussed a study of non

16:22

depressed individuals. There was also a study.

16:25

He referenced of depressed individuals that this was

16:27

also effective for, but he was

16:29

all, there was this study. On

16:31

non-depressed individuals and it

16:34

cued them to touch into their

16:36

emotions multiple times per

16:38

day. I kind of wanted to

16:40

quote him here cause I was like listening to the

16:42

podcast and writing it down, but it's a little hard

16:45

to quote his podcast because he talks

16:47

in such a conversational tone. So I'm

16:49

just going to give you kind of the gist of what he was

16:51

saying. He was saying the key takeaways from

16:53

this study. Are very important

16:56

for us to know which is, first of all,

16:58

the more often you can ask yourself, what

17:00

am I really feeling right now? How

17:02

do I feel. And the critical part

17:05

is to force yourself to not use

17:07

broad labels or simple valence

17:10

labels and a valence label is good

17:12

or okay. Or bad. And so

17:14

you have to understand that emotions

17:17

when you're talking about emotions, good is not an

17:19

emotion. Bad is not an emotion,

17:21

but instead you need to be saying things

17:23

like, oh, I feel curious, but also

17:26

a little apprehensive, if that happens

17:28

to be the case or, I'm fEeling a little

17:30

bored, but in also anticipation

17:33

of what's going to happen tomorrow. So really

17:35

specific, he says, putting

17:37

more nuance and specificity on

17:39

your emotions but also

17:41

touching into, or thinking about

17:44

your own emotional states more times

17:46

per day clearly has

17:48

positive outcomes for mood and mental

17:50

health. And that was kind of the broad

17:53

takeaway from this study

17:55

that thinking about your emotions

17:58

has positive incomes on your overall

18:01

mental health. So this should

18:03

happen in. Uh, according to this

18:05

study, you want to try to aim to do this anywhere

18:07

from three to six times per day

18:09

and all you're doing here is asking yourself,

18:12

how do I feel right now? This

18:14

helps us better understand the

18:16

negative emotions that are coming, which

18:19

might sound like a bad thing. Like, oh, great.

18:21

I have to pay attention to every negative emotion

18:23

I have all day. But. Those negative emotions

18:25

have information in them, right. Because

18:28

when we're feeling them, we can also check

18:30

back and for example, go back up

18:32

the model and think, what, what am I thinking

18:34

right now? That's leading to this emotional

18:37

state where I'm feeling some sort of negative

18:39

way. This is one

18:41

thing that's often lost in

18:43

those broad categorizations of

18:45

sad or down or bad. So

18:48

the data from this study shows that

18:50

the more nuance and the term

18:52

they give here is emotional. granularity.

18:56

So that's the actual term. So the more emotional

18:58

granularity we have, the

19:01

richer, our experience is of

19:03

the positive aspects of life. And

19:06

the more effectively we can navigate

19:08

the negative. Aspects of life.

19:11

So, this is a very, very simple

19:14

way to start feeling our feelings

19:17

better. Right. We can put an

19:19

alarm on our phones or perhaps

19:21

you can have a cue. Like every time

19:23

I get up to use the bathroom. I

19:25

am going to check in with how I feel, or

19:27

if you live or work in a building with an

19:29

elevator, you can say, every time I push

19:32

the button for an elevator, I'm going to check

19:34

in and ask myself, how do I feel right

19:36

now? And using those emotionally

19:38

granular terms, very specific

19:40

terms. Give your emotions or

19:42

feelings, some words. So,

19:45

again, we're not looking for sad or good,

19:48

but we're looking for things like perplexed.

19:51

Anticipatory joyful, excited,

19:53

apprehensive, curious, curious

19:56

as one of my favorite emotions to feel. There

19:59

are plenty of feelings,

20:01

wheels, and charts, et cetera.

20:03

You can Google that kind of thing, but

20:05

I'll give you mine that I use. Um,

20:08

just look in the show notes and I'll provide that as

20:10

a free download for you. Reading

20:12

over these types of feelings, wheels

20:14

can really help direct your brain

20:16

to times that you felt these ways.

20:19

Or you can even just imagine what

20:21

would cause you to feel these ways and

20:23

get these words as more, a part

20:25

of your vocabulary. So you have

20:28

access to them when you do

20:30

this small check-in. So

20:32

using this tool, then this check-in

20:34

tool, we're going to be more aware

20:37

of our feelings throughout the day.

20:39

And then perhaps we can also check

20:41

in before eating something occasionally.

20:45

You may even want to print out the feelings

20:47

wheel chart and put it on the interior side

20:49

of your pantry door. If you notice

20:51

that snacking between meals or late

20:53

at night. Seems to be holding back

20:56

your weight loss. Then you might

20:58

want to check in with your feelings prior

21:00

to grabbing something. And

21:03

take a look at that. What, what am I feeling

21:05

what's going on for me? Make sure

21:07

you aren't trying to spackle some food

21:10

on top of a negative feeling. Now

21:13

as I always say, when I'm talking about overeating,

21:16

I'm not talking about doing this when you're physically

21:18

hungry. Fear like, oh,

21:21

stopping work. I'm physically hungry. It's

21:23

time for lunch. I'm going to go down and get some lunch.

21:26

That's not the time. I mean, you certainly

21:28

can, is certainly Canon in order to

21:30

like, do this exercise. If that makes sense to you

21:32

as one of your three to six times a day, uh,

21:34

to check in with how you're feeling. But

21:37

we aren't trained to not eat meals,

21:40

right. As always the goal of weight

21:42

loss is not to try to eat as little as possible,

21:44

but it's to try to eat. A little bit

21:46

less than when we are eating in order to

21:48

use some of those onboard fat stores to

21:51

actually burn some of that and lose

21:53

weight. So, like I said,

21:56

Over eating problems are actually

21:58

under feeling. Problems.

22:01

And this is the verb of feel. So

22:03

the truth is that this might be enough.

22:06

Just this one tool I

22:08

wanted to keep this episode really simple.

22:11

Just this one concept of understanding

22:14

that food works. We

22:16

do use food to Sue the motions.

22:19

And then improving our emotional

22:22

state, improving our emotional granularity

22:24

by checking in with ourselves

22:26

three to six times a day and really

22:29

asking. What we are

22:31

feeling. This might be enough

22:33

once you get more aware of your actual feelings

22:35

and stop trying to just fix an Uncomfortable

22:38

vibration with food. You

22:40

might find that's enough for you to

22:42

stop eating when you aren't physically

22:44

hungry. If it's not,

22:47

and you still find yourself overeating

22:49

to soothe emotions. That's

22:51

where coaching comes in. So

22:53

tap on my scheduling link and the show notes,

22:55

get a free session scheduled with me. Let

22:58

me help you figure out what's really going on for

23:00

you. I can ask more questions when

23:02

we're one-on-one and

23:04

really help you dive into what

23:06

is going on. What's driving the overeating

23:09

and possibly working on some thought patterns

23:11

that are leading to those emotions as well that,

23:13

I could help you with. I've got one

23:15

spot left for one-on-one coaching. And

23:18

then if you miss that spot,

23:20

you'll either go on my wait list.

23:22

Or I'm going to be launching a group

23:25

program here very soon. Those

23:27

details will be forthcoming, but if you are.

23:30

Interested in getting on the wait list for that,

23:32

that link also is in the show notes. I know I've

23:34

directed you to a lot of links in the show notes.

23:36

You're definitely going to want to check those

23:38

out. Um, my scheduling link,

23:40

the feelings wheel will be there as

23:43

well as, like I said, that waitlist

23:46

for the group program. As

23:48

always. Thanks for listening to the eat. Well

23:50

think, well live well podcast. I hope you're

23:52

having a beautiful holiday season and

23:55

lovely December. And I'll talk to you very

23:57

soon on your free session.