Most women will question – at one time or another – why do I binge eat? This can be such a tough question – and one that can be so isolating. We believe so deeply that binge eating is our struggle alone. But, as I have connected with hundreds of women over the last two years, it’s become clear that binge eating is a super common problem that leads to a lot of food guilt, weight gain, and an overall poor relationship with food.

Do you think this thing will ever stop? I’m so afraid of this never rending as I want to recover and do want to get happy, healthy, and free.

I lost a lot of weight on a very restrictive diet and lifting. After a while of that, I found myself on the floor binging on ice cream and chips.

My number one goal is to deal with the guilt around binges – I want to improve my relationship with food.

And I get it.

For years, I would eat clean every week until Friday…when I would drink three Mike’s HardER Lemonades, takeout sweet potato fries, and Halo Top ice cream. I’d wake up feeling guilty, bloated, and miserable every Friday. It was a vicious cycle that I didn’t know how to escape.

So I too asked myself the same big question…

Why do I binge?

From working with dozens of women 1:1 over the last two years, I’ve found there’s one main reason that keeps you from quitting binge eating and finally finding consistency.

And it’s pretty simple: you’re restricting too much.

When we hold ourselves back, try to eat perfectly, and follow strict food rules, we have a really hard time with consistent healthy eating…all because we’re restricting like crazy.

It’s not about willpower or finding the perfect diet plan. It’s about making sure you’re getting enough food.

First, I encourage ladies to focus on protein and produce. This should be the foundation of every meal. Show me how you’re doing it by hashtagging #proteinandproducefirst so I can support you!

Once you have a solid foundation of protein and produce,  it’s really important to actually incorporate indulgences to help keep you from binging. When we allow ourselves to indulge, in a structured way, we make progress towards eating intuitively without gaining weight. One way you can do that is through using #MyConsciousIndulgence Guide. This simple guide will help you incorporate indulgences in a way that helps you feel IN control and making progress to your goals.

By ensuring you’re eating the right diet for you – and including indulgences in a non-bingey way – you can start to lessen your binging AND get more consistent.

When ladies come to me for nutrition coaching, their goal is always consistent healthy eating. Often, they’re trying intuitive eating but they’re gaining weight (here’s how to stop), which is leading them to diet, deprive, and binge. Which is so common, because honestly…it can be so hard to eat consistently, can’t it? There are SO many things that get in the way of consistent healthy eating.

Happy hours with coworkers

Crazy schedules

Boredom

Lack of planning

And while most coaches preach the importance of planning for high stress situations and maximizing willpower, the solution isn’t necessarily that simple. Psssst….if you want my guide on #ConsistentNutriton, you can grab that here.

We need to get more self aware in order to make lasting changes.

And that’s tricky.

So, to help, I’ve compiled the 10 questions you need to ask yourself if you want to achieve long lasting, consistent healthy eating. You can pin this list for later here.

10 questions to consistent healthy eating

What emotions are coming up for me today when I’m eating?

Most nutrition plans fail, because we forget to pay attention to how food makes us feel (I’m actually not always opposed to emotionally eating, either. Here’s why). It’s super important to tune into the emotions that come up when we eat so that we don’t neglect our mindset.

How hungry am I?

Hunger can be tough to track – especially if you’ve been dieting for long periods of time (PS – if your body isn’t changing, check yourself. You might be telling yourself one of these 4 lies) – so, start tuning into your levels of hunger throughout the day. If you’re super hungry – or not at all – that’s telling you something.

Am I feeling full after my meals?

If identifying hunger is tough, start by tuning into your fullness levels. For most of my clients, it’s easier to know if they’re getting full. If you’re not feeling full after eating (maybe you’re eating tons of mini meals instead of 4 meals), it’s time to make a tweak so that you can get to consistent healthy eating.

Am I satisfied by my meals?

Hate to say it, but if you aren’t satisfied by how you eat, you won’t be eating that way for very long. This is one of the top reasons you struggle with consistent healthy eating: you’re trying to eat in a way that just plain doesn’t satisfy you!

If you’re struggling to feel satisfied throughout the day, I’d recommend trying out the tools in my Conscious Indulgence Guide. You can download that here.

Am I have cravings?

Cravings are SUPER helpful, because they can give us information about how to tweak your diet to better fit YOU. If you’re having cravings, it can be because of:

Hormones

Exercise

Emotions

Nutrient deficiencies

So no matter the reason, you wanna tune into your cravings (especially if they’re for a specific trigger food). If binge eating is your issue, here’s how to stop.

What thoughts keep coming up for me around food?

We often forget about the importance of our thoughts and how they affect our food choices. So pay attention to the thoughts that come up and make sure that they’re not causing you to restrict. Sometimes, our healthy eating actually makes us unhealthy, simply because of all the negative thoughts that come up.

Do I have stable energy throughout the day? If not, when does it lull?

And it makes sense that we struggle with consistent healthy eating if we are exhausted most of the time doesn’t it?

Lovely, it’s not normal to be falling asleep at your desk at 2pm or need a giant cup of coffee as you’re cooking dinner. When our energy levels wane throughout the day, we often are missing something in our diet.

So if you’re not having sustained energy all day, it’s time to troubleshoot.

Do I find myself restricting to make myself smaller?

If the only reason you’re choosing certain foods is because they’re low calorie or they will “help” you lose weight, you can bet that you’re gonna struggle with consistency. You are worth SO much more than that, AND it’s keeping you from staying consistent.

Am I feeling guilty over my choices? Which ones?

Ackkkk! Food guilt is the enemy of consistency. If you’re feeling guilty, here’s my extensive guide to end food guilt. I’ll walk you through my 3-2-1 system to ending food guilt and make sure that we use your food guilt as a tool to improve your relationship with food.

Do I actually like the way I’m eating?

This is the final question, because it’s what I call the “gut check” question. You could answer the above 9 questions favorably but honestly lovely, if you don’t actually like or enjoy how you eat, there’s no way it’s gonna stay consistent for you.

But I promise, it is possible to eat consistently and still see changes in your body (if results have stopped for you, it might be because of this).

I know it can feel overwhelming to try to put all these pieces together. So I’d recommend starting with a couple of these questions each day. Tune into the answers and make tweaks based on what doesn’t feel right. If you need help doing that, no problem. Fill out the form below and we can get on a quick call to troubleshoot. It will be totally free and at the end of the 30 minutes, you will have 1-2 steps to take in the next week to get you more consistent with your eating!

Intuitive eating sounds pretty appealing, especially for those of us who’ve dieted off/on for as long as we can remember (like me before about 2015). Eat what we want…without limits or restriction…and just live our lives. But how can we eat intuitively without gaining weight?

Well, lovely, it’s not easy.

The problem is, most intuitive eating advocates and nutrition coaches give general advice that just doesn’t work for those of us who struggle to listen to our bodies (here are a couple ways to listen to your body when you have no idea what that means) or who’ve restricted for long periods of time. And while intuitive eating books are a good place to start, they don’t offer a way to incorporate the specific guidelines into your life.

So…we end up standing on the scale, questioning how the heck we’ve gained ten pounds by following intuitive eating guidelines. It can be super frustrating—and can often send us backwards in our restriction recovery journey.

How does this happen?

We forget that intuitive eating is the destination—not the roadmap to get us there.

Throwing yourself into intuitive eating—with zero structured guidance—is setting yourself up to fail. And frankly, it’s irresponsible of the nutrition professionals who suggest it.

It’s kind of like telling an alcoholic, go ahead and drink until you come to peace with it; as long as you think positively about the alcohol while you drink it, it’ll balance out.

Yeah, no.

Instead, I recommend Strategic Intuitive Eating as a solution to eat intuitively without gaining weight.

What’s strategic intuitive eating?

Strategic intuitive eating offers specific strategies that you can implement as you attempt to eat intuitively without gaining weight. Instead of throwing you into the deep end, you have specific steps to follow and questions to ask yourself along your journey to intuitive eating.

If you want specific guidance on how to do this, you can sign up for a free 30 minute strategy call with me here. We will discuss how your intuitive eating journey is going and come up with 1-2 things to focus on during the next week.

But to get us started, I’m gonna give you three tips to get started with strategic intuitive eating.

How to eat intuitively without gaining weight – 3 tips

Don’t throw your nutrition knowledge out the window

I know, I’m going against all the intuitive eating wisdom by saying, that trying to eat intuitively does NOT mean that you can eat whatever the heck you want.

That is the #1 reason that intuitive eating isn’t working for you, and it’s causing you to gain weight.

As you get started with strategic intuitive eating, maintain focus on basic nutrition.

• Get plenty of protein (here are my favorite protein foods)
• Add veggies wherever you can (some suggestions here)
• Don’t stuff yourself – stop when you feel full

Just by doing this, you ensure that you’re not going overboard when it comes to food, which helps you to eat intuitively without gaining weight.

Be conscious of your indulgences (AKA choose them)

Being mindful of your indulgences is central to intuitive eating, but I’d argue it’s especially important when it comes to treats. For those of us who’ve struggled with restriction, dieting, or disordered eating, indulging can be really hard. We associate indulging with guilt (here’s how to process food guilt), and it can be tough to get past this, even when giving ourselves freedom to eat what truly sounds good.

So, I suggest structuring your indulgences and being super conscious of them—especially at the beginning. I show you exactly how to do that here.

Pay attention to thoughts and feelings as they come up

Our mindset around food and the thoughts that come up are often ignored by nutrition coaches (I address that topic and all the things to consider when it comes to healthy eating here), which perpetuates many of our issues around food. Instead, it’s super important you work through emotions and thoughts that come up as you experiment with strategic intuitive eating.

For example, if you feel guilty about choosing a cheeseburger instead of a salad at a restaurant, you can use my 3-2-1 system to process that guilty emotion. If we don’t work through the emotions that come up, we will continue to struggle with things like binge eating (here’s how to stop).

These three tips are a great place to get you started but if you want specific guidance, sign up for a free 30 minute strategy call with me here. We will discuss how your intuitive eating journey is going and come up with 1-2 things to focus on during the next week. Can’t wait to chat!

Hello from Florence! If you’ve been following along on Instagram stories, you’ve seen my travels through Europe over the last week. Last week, I was in Budapest for work and ended up chatting a bunch with my amazing coworkers about food (isn’t it interesting how we always end up talking about it?!), losing weight, and what hasn’t worked. Of course, a common theme emerged: diets don’t work.

But instead of getting frustrated, I took some time to break down WHY we are struggling so much. Through all these conversations, I’ve been able to break down three key reasons that we’re still struggling with nutrition on our diet plans.

And if you’re looking for some specific help with your nutrition so that you can feel successful and confident, signups for #ConsistentlyLean are now open. We have a couple spots left and start on September 17!

3 reasons your diet plan keeps failing you

1) Your diet plan focuses on the wrong things.

So many diet plans list out foods that are okay to eat, tell you to track how many ounces of water you’re drinking, or measure all your food.

Sure, these things are not (all) inherently bad but they do take away valuable time and energy from the things that really matter (like protein, produce, recovery, and stress management). If you want some personalized guidance on WHAT to actually focus on to start eating intuitively, stop overthinking food, and finally get consistent, sign up for my #ConsistentlyLean Coaching program which starts on September 17. You can get more info and sign up here.

When we have limited energy and we focus it on the wrong thing, we inevitably run out of willpower, slip up, and binge (here’s how to stop). Not fun…which leads me to another key issue with diet plans.

2) You’re restricting too much.

Sure, when you eat tilapia and asparagus for a week straight, you’re gonna lose weight. But what happens the following week when you are “free” again…you eat crap. A lot of crap. And that crap causes you to regain weight and feel…like crap.

If your diet plan is too restrictive, you’re gonna end up binging, because it’s not sustainable.

And most women will rebuke me and say, “I just can’t do moderation. I need a food list of what to eat, what not to eat, and when. Otherwise, I can’t do ‘just have a little bit.’” And I get it; taking a more balanced approach can be really tough, especially when you try to do it without structure (like #MyConsciousIndulgence framework) or support. Which leads me to…

3) It’s not customized to you.

When you download a food list on Pinterest or join your gym’s 6 week weight loss challenge, none of what you do is structured specifically for YOU, which 100% sets you up to fail. It’s honestly not your fault. People want to sell you their nutrition knowledge but not teach you exactly how to implement and evaluate it in your life. That’s why, with my clients, I give them specific frameworks to follow when it comes to the following questions:
-what changes should I make?
-how do I know if the change is working for me?

If you don’t have a series of steps (and a way to evaluate if those steps are working), your plan is gonna fail. How could it not?

As a result, almost every single day, I hear from women that they’re feeling so unsure about their nutrition.

My first response is always the same — OF COURSE YOU’RE STRUGGLING…and in no way is it your fault. With all the information flooding your feed, all the nutrition coaches preaching their special macro plan, it’s pretty impossible to know anything for certain. And as long as coaches keep preaching their once and for all solutions, we’ll continue to struggle.

Because we know it doesn’t work that way.

>>How many nutrition plans have you purchased, only to feel dissatisfied and stressed as you try to make it work in your life?
>>How many coaches have you followed on Instagram only to try their advice and end up binging a few days later?

That’s why I am SO STOKED to open signups for #ConsistentlyLean Coaching. This is the 6-week fitness + nutrition coaching program for women who are ready to stop obsessing over losing weight & getting leaner and learn to get consistent results that last.

Click here to grab your spot for this exclusive, high access program.

This post may ruffle a few feathers. But as a Precision Nutrition L1 coach, I felt compelled to share some of the reasons my clients come to me, still struggling, after working with other personal trainers and online coaches.

Most nutrition coaches ignore mindset

Here’s the thing. Good nutrition is so much more than how we’re fueling our bodies. It is about so much more than the food we eat, the macro counts, and how often we eat.

And honestly, as a nutrition coach, for the first year in business, I kind of neglected this fact too. I thought that by teaching women all the things about protein, veggies, and nutrient timing, I would help them make lasting changes.

But even I was forgetting the importance of MINDSET and how we feel around food.

When we ignore mindset:
-We keep struggling with the same food situations, even though we “know” the right thing to do.
-Guilt around specific food situations continues.
-We struggle every time that we cannot easily apply our nutrition rules (because the underlying feelings haven’t been addressed).

There’s SO much information out there but information is never enough. If it were, wouldn’t we all be perfectly consistent? 🤷‍♀️

Most nutrition coaches don’t dig deeper than food

When working with clients, nutrition coaches are focused on food. Duh…Katherine….isn’t that what they should be doing?

Yes and no.

Yes…

• Good nutrition is important
• Clients come to coaches looking for nutrition advice
• Sometimes we need explicit guidance on what to eat/when

BUT

No…

• There is a shit ton of information out there.
• We often KNOW what to do but have a hard time DOING it.
• Underlying beliefs about food play a HUGE part in how we show up and engage with food.

When we only focus on food, we ignore the underlying beliefs that really, truly change the way we eat and drink. By doing so, we perpetuate our struggles, because we are not dealing with the baggage that’s underneath the surface.

Nutrition coaches want to keep their jobs

Unfortunately, the exact things that we, as clients, say we want (meal plans, macronutrient guides, food lists) keep us struggling and relying on nutrition coaches to tell us what to do. Many coaches and companies build their business off of people being unsure around food – because that keeps clients coming back, doesn’t it?

My point in writing this post is not to trash the nutrition industry—but to shed light on some of the issues so that we can be the solution.

As a restriction recovery coach, I pride myself on tackling mindset, digging deeper, and teaching clients how to move forward on their own. One way I do this is teach them specific strategies to help where they’re struggling.

Take #MyConsciousIndulgence Guide as an example.

My clients struggle with depriving all week, binging on the weekends, feeling guilty, then starting the cycle all over again.

So, I put together this step-by-step guide to stop the binging and the guilt, while also addressing the underlying issues leading us to binge.

Check it out and download your free copy here.

How to eat healthy every single day can be really challenging. Through working with women online with nutrition and fitness over the last two years, I’ve found that women struggle for one simple reason: they’re obsessed with food and making the *right* nutrition choices.

This makes it soooo hard to eat healthy, because:

(1) We constantly second guess ourselves. There’s so much information out there that it becomes easy to question if we are doing the right thing for our bodies and minds.

She’s doing keto, should I try keto?

Everyone’s counting macros, maybe I should do that.

Low carb is best, so I have to eat low carb.

We’ve all done this, haven’t we? In our attempts to eat healthy, we question ourselves and make decisions based on what other people online are doing. We perpetuate negative food rules and keep on struggling.

(2) We focus on the wrong things and stop tuning into our bodies/minds, perpetuating obsession around food (more on that here). Obsession makes us restrict. Restricting makes us binge. Binging and restricting make us miserable.

So why do we continue down this same path? It’s pretty simple: because we are not taking our headspace into account.

I propose an alternate solution.

How to eat healthy every single day

I’ve found that so many other nutrition coaches and programs forget the importance of how you’re thinking about food. And frankly, I’ve been guilty of this as a coach, as well.

Take Metabolic Effect’s HEC model for example.

This model focuses on your hunger, energy, and cravings, which is a great place to start. By tuning into these three areas, we improve our chances of hormonal fat loss, which is great.

But it completely ignores how where our heads are at, which can lead to restriction, obsession, and even binging.

That’s why, I felt compelled to create a new system to help you automate your eating once and for all so that you can master your eating (heh, get it?).

MASTER your Eating System

In the MASTER System, the goal is to get all of these six elements to a stable, comfortable level.

M – Mindset

Before we dive into nutrition from a physical health perspective.

We’ve GOTTA tackle how it’s impacting your emotional health.

For me, mindset is all about your attitude around food. This is different than the thoughts you have but more, how you’re feeling and experiencing food.

How does food make you feel? What emotions surround eating/food?

A – Appetite

Sooo, how hungry are you?

This question tells so much, so we’ve gotta dive into your hunger levels, when they occur, and how intense they are. If your appetite is out of hand, we’ve gotta fix something.

S – Satisfaction

If your meals aren’t satisfying and you’re constantly craving other food – even (and especially) after meals – something is off in your diet. And frankly, if we’re gonna eat ‘well’ forever, we’ve got to actually like how we eat. When we don’t like the way we eat, when we’re bored, or stressed out, we end up experiencing serious cravings > binging > guilt. This is not where we wanna be. Instead, start considering your satisfaction level throughout the week to keep tabs on it.

T – Thoughts

This is similar to mindset but more specifically, it’s time to tune in and understand which thoughts keep coming up.

If you’re living in a world where your thoughts are constantly about food, we can’t sustain it forever. It’s really important, if long-term, automated eating is the goal, to not obsess over thoughts of food.

E – Energy

Sustainable nutrition fuels your body with energy throughout the day.

If your energy is all over the place or just plain low, we might need to do a deeper dive into what’s going on.

It could be nutrition (not getting enough protein?), exercise (overtraining? Maybe you need help creating a short, effective workout routine), or stress related.

R – Restriction

In some ways, we are back where we started: restriction. When it comes to nutrition, we do not want to ever feel like we are restricting. BUT – often, restriction can be a great warning sign that something else is off in your relationships with food, exercise, and yourself. So don’t beat yourself up for noticing restriction – look at it as a tool. Here’s more support on identifying if healthy eating is actually making you more restrictive.

By implementing this system, you’ll be able to eat healthy every day, stop thinking about it so much, and finally see results.

If you need a little more guidance, take my free quiz below to determine if you’re in control of your eating and exercise. Once you complete the quiz, I can send you personalized suggestions of what to do next.
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