4 Types of Hunger and How to Beat Them

4 Types of Hunger and How to Beat Them

Feb 25, 2022

Distinguish between false and true hunger and what to do with these sensations.

So, there are 4 different things that we may describe as hunger. I’m going to teach you how to deal with them so they don’t stop you from losing weight.

 

Now, let’s be clear, I don’t teach starvation. I eat food and I recommend you do, too. But most what I am going to describe below is actually false hunger that we let stop us from losing weight because we think they are emergencies we need to deal with by eating immediately.

1. Low blood sugar.
For most people, this is a light-headedness and a sort of hangry “feed me now” violent sort of emotion.
What you are actually feeling is NOT hunger. It is the symptoms of withdrawal from your drug of choice, sugar.

There are some people who truly do suffer from medical low blood sugar, but if you don’t have a diagnosis from a doctor, what you are actually feeling is what we expect any addict to live through when they quit their drug of choice. If you quit using sugar (and flour, which breaks down into sugar) and break your addiction, this feeling will permanently go away.

2. Cravings.

A craving is an intense mental urge, either for a specific food or a category of foods. It usually is more mental than physical. If you pay attention to your mind, you will likely start to hear the thought that goes with this. It may be a thought like “I’d like just a little something sweet” or “two mint Milano cookies won’t hurt anything.” The best way to deal with this is to shine the light of awareness on these thoughts and realize where they are leading you – to a continuation of your weight problem. Then treat them like an urge (check out my other videos on how to deal with urges).

3. Emotional discomfort.

Again, we’ll need to get a little more introspective to pick up on this one. Most of us have been trained (or trained ourselves) that if we are feeling an unpleasant emotion, the solution is food. A great time to observe this is when we are sitting on the couch in front of the TV after dinner and have the desire to go get a snack. What emotion are we also feeling? Is it boredom? Restlessness? Loneliness? Let yourself actually feel that feeling instead of covering over it with a snack.

4. Physical hunger.

Physical hunger is a sensation that starts in the body and then lets your mind know something is going on. It can be a growling stomach or other feeling, perhaps in the throat or mouth. This is the most legitimate of the 4, because it is at least a physical sensation, so it makes the most sense to give that a physical solution, like food.


One thing to note, here, is that physical hunger, while it is legitimate, is like a warning light coming on the dashboard. It’s like needing to pee. It’s not healthy to completely ignore it, but you can wait a little while until you get to a safe place to address it.


It’s also important to note that sometimes physical hunger is programmed. If you eat at noon every day, you may start to get hungry at noon every day. It doesn’t actually mean that you will die if you don’t eat right that minute. It just means your body is reminding you “hey, we usually eat now.” It’s the same way the dog knows when it’s time for him to be fed. So while you may choose to pay attention to it, if you are 40 pounds over weight, you are unlikely to die within the first 5 minutes of feeling hunger. You do have a reserve source of fuel on your body that you stored for a moment just like this that can be utilized.

P.S. It's time for your to lose the weight.  You absolutely can do this once you have the right support.  Jump on a Zoom call with me and we'll get you started.  Just find a time on my calendar.

 

The Secret Ingredient That’s Keeping You Overweight

The Secret Ingredient That’s Keeping You Overweight

Feb 18, 2022

Learn how industry is using your brain against you and how to fight back.

 

Believe it or not, almost all the foods you buy that are in a box or a bottle are loaded with sugar or with high fructose corn syrup.  These ingredients keep us addicted to sugar, and keep us eating and buying more than we should.

 Food manufacturers know EXACTLY what they are doing.  They make their products as sweet as possible without tipping over into being unpleasantly sweet.  They call this the “bliss point”, and it’s when food has the maximum ability to hijack your brain chemicals, including dopamine, to cause you to buy and eat more of this food again.

Because most of us don’t understand how damaging and how addictive these ingredients are or how ubiquitous they are (there’s even sugar in ketchup), food manufacturers have us in the same position cigarette manufacturers used to have their customers.  As a nation, we are completely blind to the connection between this sweetness addiction and the obesity crisis.

Breaking the sugar addiction is the most powerful thing you can do to lose weight.  As a coach, I can help you through it.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

Hormones & Weight: Cortisol

Hormones & Weight: Cortisol

Feb 11, 2022

Stress makes you fat.  Get your stress level down to lose weight naturally.

 

When we feel threatened, our stress response kicks in. Cortisol is one of the chemicals our body releases to respond to that threat as part of the fight/flight response.

Our bodies are very much built to survive the conditions we have lived in for thousands of years – not the conditions we live in today.

So when we get stressed out, our body pulls energy from the core of our body and sends it to our limbs so we can run away or fight off our attacker. That’s fine in a short term situation where that response is helpful, but today, most of the threats we face are long term and mental or emotional, not short term or physical.

That means our bodies end up having energy pulled from the core of our bodies, which is the area responsible for digestion and for our thyroid, amongst other things. This is part of why so many women have digestive issues and thyroid problems – due to the long term effects of stress.

Cortisol also increases blood sugar, which again makes sense if we were in a situation where we needed physical energy. Instead, most of us eat too much sugar and already have too much circulating in our bodies, so the cortisol response just adds to that.

Cortisol assumes we’ve burned energy escaping our attacker and wants to make us refuel, so it makes us crave high calorie foods. It also leads to irritability, difficulty concentrating, and belly fat, which as we all know is the least cute kind of fat.

 Guess what?  I help clients deal with stress so they can lose weight just by changing their hormones. Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

How to Break a Bad Habit

How to Break a Bad Habit

Feb 4, 2022

Train yourself to lose bad habits.

 I work a lot with clients at the beginning of our engagement on how to create new, positive habits, but for many clients, breaking bad habits goes hand in hand with creating good habits.

If you remember the story of Pavlov’s dogs, they were trained that when a bell rang, they would get fed. So after enough repetition, they learned to start drooling as soon as the bell rang, because that meant dinner was on the way.

So having trained them to drool when they hear the bell, how do we train them to stop?

The answer is, you ring the bell and you don’t feed the dogs. You still have the cue of the bell ringing, but you don’t allow the behavior or the reward.

It’s the same with humans. If you currently have a habit that every time you walk through the kitchen you get a snack, you’ll need to provide the cue, but not engage in the behavior and not get the reward.

And instead of resisting the urge, you need to just allow it. Allow yourself to feel the emotion of wanting to engage in the behavior and not giving in to it.

It won’t be fun, but it won’t last long, and it goes a long way toward breaking the habit.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

The Vodka Trick

The Vodka Trick

Jan 28, 2022

Most of my weight loss clients are trying to cut down on refined sugar, since we all know sugar has a lot of empty calories.

Now, I believe, and there’s a good amount of research that shows, that sugar is addictive, so it’s important to know how addictable you are before you try this trick. For some people, any sugar at all sets off their addiction and cravings, so this may not work for everyone. But if you aren’t super addictable and you want to cut down on your sugar without completely eliminating it, this trick may help you moderate your consumption.

What I want you to do is go through and tell me everything you ate today, but if the food you are eating is sugar or has sugar in it, substitute the word vodka.

So here’s an example to a day with a moderate amount of sugar.

1. Black coffee – skip breakfast (intermittent fasting)
2. Lunch – salad with protein (chicken) and fat (vinaigrette dressing)
3. Dinner – fish with veggies, then vodka.

In this case, the “vodka” was a piece of chocolate mousse cake.

So for me, if I eat clean all week and then eat that way once on the weekend, I can still have a little sugar and lose weight.

Now imagine a typical America’s day.

“I got up this morning and put two tablespoons of vodka in my coffee”. Right there, your friends would be concerned.

Now add in all the sugary pastries, the mid-afternoon vending machine, desert every night – we see there’s a problem.

So if you are the kind of person who can eat sugar in moderation and wants to continue to do so, there’s a mental trick to help you balance how much you have and how often you have it.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

Treasure Coast Weight University

Treasure Coast Weight University

Jan 21, 2022

Losing weight on the Treasure Coast – from Sebastian to Palm Beach.

 

Are you a Treasure Coast resident who is looking to lose weight?  Local weight coach Lisa Duke can help you meet your weight loss goals from her office in Stuart, Florida.

Whether you are a Florida native or you just moved to the area, the fact is that living on the Treasure Coast means – for better or for worse – that it's always shorts weather.

In fact, whether you live in Palm City or Port St. Lucie, pool parties in paradise are a perk and a peril of our endless summer.

If you are tired of declining invitations from friends because you are self-conscious about how you look, weight coach Lisa Duke can help.  With her new signature program, Weight University, Lisa teaches the 12 concepts and 3 skills that she used to lose 50 pounds.

So if you are ready to go sleeveless at the beach (or just in downtown Jensen Beach), consider scheduling a time to chat with Lisa Duke about your weight loss goals.  She can help you with a unique and innovative approach to help you clear the blocks and limiting beliefs that have stopped you from keeping yourself at your goal weight in the past.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

3 Strategies to Choose From For Weight Loss

3 Strategies to Choose From For Weight Loss

Jan 14, 2022

You can lose weight while still enjoying life – and food.

 I wanted to share 3 great strategies that you can choose from while designing your own weight loss plan.  You don't have to use all (or even any) of these, but they are tactics that have worked for me.

1.  Skip breakfast during the week.

Breakfast is only the most important meal of the day when you are trying to generate profits for a cereal company.  Otherwise, you may be able to cut it out and never even miss it.

I usually skip breakfast during the week, and then we often go out for breakfast on the weekends.  Even then, we try to delay breakfast so it can work more as lunch and then I can have an eating break between that meal and dinner.

 2.  Cut out all snacking.

Snacking between meals keeps your insulin high, which keeps you in fat storage mode. 

Often people advise snacking between meals to stave off hunger, but for most of my clients, hunger has zero to do with when they are eating or how much they are eating, so it's a moot point.

Snacking after dinner is also just junk calories.  You can't possibly be hungry – you just ate what is most likely your biggest meal for the day.  Figure out what is driving this eating.  Is it a habit you can break?  Are you just restless?  If so, can you deal with your restlessness by allowing it or doing a substitute activity, like having tea or doing a craft project?

3. Take half home.

When you do eat out, plan to put half your food in a to go box.  Restaurant portions are ridiculously huge.  You can go, eat half, be satisfied, and have a “free” meal for tomorrow that will still be yummy then.

 

P.S. It's time for your to lose the weight.  You absolutely can do this once you have the right support.  Jump on a Zoom call with me and we'll get you started.  Just find a time on my calendar.

 

What to Do When We Fall Off The Wagon (Actual Text)

What to Do When We Fall Off The Wagon (Actual Text)

Dec 4, 2021

Here's the actual text to the “what to do when we fall off the wagon” post.  Not sure what happened with the October 1 post.

So let’s talk about what happens when we “fall off the wagon” and how to get going again.

First, I think it’s important to note that there is no wagon. This isn’t Oregon Trail, and you are not going to get left behind or die of dysentery. So no worries there.

But seriously, what do we do?

I think the most important thing to realize is that in the moment of awareness you have an opportunity to make a new choice. No one is perfect, and you don’t have to be perfect to lose weight. Just acknowledge that you ate off plan, and then forgive yourself.

Realize that you did the best you could in that moment. Your weight today is a reflection of your best attempts to deal with life up until now with the tools you had. Now, you are learning new tools if you are working with me as a client, such as The Model and allowing emotions, that will help you make different choices going forward.

We often were trained growing up that a good scolding is what you need to get back on track, but there’s actually lots of evidence that you can’t hate yourself to sustainable weight loss. So just let that go.


So my best advice for getting back on the wagon is just to take a moment, take a breath, and reset. Make your plan in writing for the next 24 hours, and make it realistic. Then recommit and move on.

P.S. It's time for your to lose the weight.  You absolutely can do this once you have the right support.  Jump on a Zoom call with me and we'll get you started.  Just find a time on my calendar.

 

Achieving Your Weight Loss Goal

Achieving Your Weight Loss Goal

Nov 1, 2021

Once you set your weight loss goal and step out into a new way of thinking, feeling, and acting, you are going to feel discomfort.

Your brain wants to be efficient, and making a lot of changes takes effort and energy.  So it will fight you to go back to your old patterns of being as you try to change into someone who can succeed.

That feeling of discomfort is what we call the River of Misery.

Why is the analogy of a river so helpful?  

A river might be scary.  But we know it can be crossed.  We know the experience of being in the river is temporary.  The other shore is in sight.

When we step out into activities that are challenging and not part of our current behavior, we will feel discomfort.  But over time, that discomfort can become our new normal.  What was difficult, awkward, or scary can change into routine and easy over time.

Think about the last time you moved, or started a new relationship.  At first, it can be overwhelming.  There are too may unknowns!  But over time, we learn the ropes and no what to expect.  Life becomes more smooth again.

The most important things to know about the River of Misery is that what you are feeling is totally normal and natural.  You have to manage your mind during this time so you can keep going.  Over time you will fully become this new version of yourself.

Need a coach to help you manage your mind as you cross The River of Misery for your weight loss goal?  Schedule a complimentary initial consultation on my online calendar at https://lisaduke.net/schedule

 

 

How Hormones and Weight Are Affected by Insulin

How Hormones and Weight Are Affected by Insulin

Oct 1, 2021

Smile if you are eating in a way that doesn't spike up your insulin (at least most of the time).

One of the main hormones you need to understand if you want to lose weight is insulin.

Insulin is basically our body's response to sugar in the blood.

When we get a normal, natural amount of sugar, such as what's in fruit, our body goes to work.  The body starts moving that energy out of our blood and into our muscles and liver (to use as quick energy).  Then the excess goes into fat cells, to be stored for future use.

After storing all that sugar, insulin levels drop back down. Once they do, your body can use that energy.  First the body uses the energy stored in your muscles and your liver.  You use that energy to do things like go on a walk or power your brain while you think about this blog post.

When sugar gets used up and insulin is low, your body can then access stored fat for additional energy. It's like a second fuel tank for emergencies!

The problem is, we may accidentally keep our insulin high most of the time.  We overeat without realizing it.  Or perhaps we eat lots of refined sugar and flour (which breaks down into sugar).  Many of us are almost constantly snacking.  When we have these habits our insulin never drops down and our body never switches from fat storage mode to fat burning mode.

Now this is very much a layman's explanation.  For me, though, thinking about what I was eating and when I was eating it differently helped.  I had to approach eating with an understanding that I had to get out of fat storage mode.  I had to switch into fat burning mode.  Knowing that helped me eat more veggies, lean protein, and plant-based fat, smaller portions, and helped me snack less.

So now let me ask you: do you think you’ll make changes to how you eat based on this new information? Do you think you might need support from a coach to make this change?

If you’d like to learn more about how I can support you in your weight loss journey, schedule a call with me to learn more.