Misusing Food…

It was about 4 years ago that I was travelling from our newly growing fitness studio to my steady 9-5 job and back to the gym after work each and everyday. I enjoyed both jobs but couldn’t do one without the other. We had just opened our gym and we were trying to grow our small group training and athletic training program, which meant minimal funds floating around to hire any more help. Things got crazy….

Do you have any of this craziness in your life?!?

Juggling both jobs and doing both well, was wearing on me. The stress started to rise and as did my cortisol levels – high. The fight or flight feeling shot up as soon as the alarm went off, stayed with me most of the day and barely subsided for bedtime.  Yes this “adrenaline rush” was a key contributor to the amount of work I accomplished in a day but at what cost…

Do you have a stress habit that is your go to?!?

Being in the fitness industry, you should be a role model for those around you to live a healthy life and to be fit. At this time in my life I felt like a “fake”. Yes I was training 6-7 days a week in the gym but it is what happened outside of that 1 hour that affected me.  As the cortisol levels rose as did my stress eating. Multiple times on my trip back to the gym at night my car would magically end up at Baskin Robins with ice cream in hand… And it wasn’t until I was done that ice cream did it really sink in what I was doing. But I just couldn’t seem to stop it.  When the stress was there, so was the food. 

Who’s on your Team?!?

Yes, I didn’t feel like the best person to be helping other people in the fitness industry at this time, but, being in the fitness industry lead me to one of my now “team members” who I rely on all the time – my Naturopathic Doctor.

Visiting her was my first step in:

Actively Accepting It 

and then

Having the Power to Change It

I was finally able to see that the extra food I was eating wasn’t solving any of my problems. I was just misusing it…

Are you eating for hunger or desire?

I was definitely eating for “desire”. A desire to hide that stress and make myself “feel good” for a few minutes of the day. And at this point, I needed to break this habit, badly.

One of the first laws of behaviour change is to make it obvious. And this is what I did.

Taking the time to figure out the root cause of my “bad behaviour” was the first step to having the power to change it. What were my triggers? And, how could I reduce these?

This is where my Food Habit Log came into play. Every time I found myself digging into that bad habit, I would write down the following things:

• Who’s with me?
• What am I doing?
• Where am I?
• What time is it?
• What am I feeling right now?

Sometimes I forgot and sometimes I wasn’t able to answer all of the questions but I was aware of the action. And after a little while, I gained valuable insight into what needed to change. And I did.

Is there a bad habit that you have on your mind? Something that you would like to try and minimize or totally get rid of? Let’s dig in to see where they are coming from. Download my Food Habit Log to get started today.

We don’t need our bad habits. And we do have control over changing them. Once we know the cues that cause these habits, we are well on our way to getting rid of them.