Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shade Podcast. I'm Paula Parker. So I thought today's episode would be a kind of Q and A episode. So there's some questions that I get asked frequently, and I just thought if I'm getting asked them, you might be wondering them as well. And so this way, I can help you out and directly respond to them.

And if you have any questions that after this, you're thinking, Oh, you know, I'd really love to ask her this. Please feel free to email me directly. You can email me at Paula. At mindful shape. com. And I would be more than happy to either address it on the podcast or just send you an email. All right. So one of the most common questions I get, even with clients is how many exceptions should I have?

Q: How many exceptions (indulgences) should I have?

And when I'm talking about exceptions, I'm talking about a category of food that you think of as an exception to how you would normally eat. So I am not a proponent of  banning. groups of foods or specific foods unless you've decided that's like really you love your reasons for doing that and you really feel Empowered by doing that and it just serves you then I'm not opposed to it at all  But I think for most of us It's more of wanting to be feeling more free around food and just wanting to  know that there's really any food that we can have.

It's just a matter of wanting to feel like we're in control of that. And so exceptions are foods that are going to be exceptions to your regular eating because if you overdo it with these types of foods, they are going to make your body go into storage mode and put extra weight on your body. So you're going to store fat.

And so when you're trying to release that off your body, you want to limit these. And so that's why I call them exceptions. You don't necessarily want to get rid of them completely, but we want to think of them as exceptions. So that's why I call it that. And what are these things? This list for me has ebbed and flowed based on my own information, but here's where it stands today.

Sugar, flour, any kind of processed flour that includes the healthier flours, like almond flour, that kind of thing deep fried foods, artificial sweeteners. There are a few exceptions, I think, to this but I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty. That's not really my area of expertise, and it seems like there's always different studies and different research depending on who you're listening to.

So I would say do your own research there, but in general, artificial sweeteners, in my own personal experience and with a lot of my clients, they just noticed that they, they keep those sugar cravings going. So for no other reason than that, it's a good idea to think of it as an exception. Okay. Some studies will show that it actually really spikes your insulin, even though it doesn't spike your blood sugar.

So just something to keep in mind there, do your research and then do what's best for you. The other exception I think of as alcohol, couple of reasons for that one, of course, is just that we, when we drink, we're just, Not using our brain in full capacity. And so we just have a tendency to either over drink and or overeat.

And also these are going to be, you know, what we think of as empty calories. I'm not very conducive for weight loss. So just to recap, we got sugar, we got flour, we got artificial sweeteners, alcohol, and deep fried foods. I also would put onto that list dried fruit because dried fruit, especially dates, they just like will really spike your insulin.

And so. It's kind of funny what you notice is that when you classify exceptions, your brain will start thinking, Oh, well, you know, dried fruit is okay. At least my brain does. So I include that as well. It's just something that we can easily overeat and it's really going to spike your blood sugar, right?

So the whole point of eating optimally for your body and reducing all of those cravings and all that over hunger is to really eat so that you're balancing out your blood sugar. These exceptions are going to be items that increase your blood sugar. So just something to keep in mind. How many should I have?

So such a good question, right? And I never like to be very directive on this because I really don't know how many you should have. It's  like, I, I really don't know. It's completely up to you, your body, your preferences, what, how much weight you want to release all of that. I don't want to be telling you what to have.

As soon as I, as soon as I tell you what to have, there's going to be a healthy I call it like healthy rebellion. It's like you need to feel autonomous with your choices and your food. So that number say, if you're deciding on a number per day or a number per week, it really needs to come from you. So I like to just explain kind of the mechanism around it.

And then you get to decide how many you have. So. If we look at what the mechanism is, it's the more you have of exceptions in terms of quantity, and the more often you have them, the more you're going to be in storage, and the less you're going to be in releasing fat. So we don't want to have a large number.

Because that's not going to be conducive for releasing weight off our body. We don't want zero exceptions because that can lead to some fear around food. So in terms of planning, I like to just suggest that you plan at least. one or more per week. And then, and it can be up to any number. Like if you are doing three exceptions a day for seven days a week, then going down to one may or may not serve you.

So it might serve you if you are feeling very determined and you're thinking, I really Just really want to bring my blood sugar down. Like I I'm feeling very fueled. It's a really perfect timing for this. And I'm willing to do the work that it's required mentally and emotionally to get through it. And you have a coach.

Then I would say, absolutely. But for most of us, it's taking small steps and that is going to make the biggest impact. So try going down to two a day. I tend to think that long term  smaller steps. It reaps more reward in my personal experience, but again, it's completely up to you. All right, so there's no, all that to say, there's no right number with it.

I would say take a look at your situation. The less you have, the more it's going to be conducive for weight loss. 

Q: How much weight can I expect to lose? 

Another question that you might be thinking is, well, if I start implementing some healthy changes, how much weight can I expect to release or how much weight can I expect to lose? And this is going to really vary from person to person.

It's going to depend on. The types of changes you're making and where your starting point is, right? So how are you eating? If you're eating kind of like a standard American diet and you're eating often and you're taking in a lot of excess calories or like overeating quite a bit, then you're going to see, you're Big drastic change right in the beginning in terms of your weight.

But if it's more like you're very getting close to your natural weight, then there's not much bandwidth there in terms of the changes that you can make in the way that you're eating. Just makes sense. That is just going to be slower. So, there's not like a rate of weight loss that I say is standard. I, to give you a general idea, I would say that if you're implementing a sustainable way of eating, it's typically one pound a week.

That's what I see. It's about one pound a week, and you might be thinking, Whoa! Like, that is not enough,  right? And so I totally get that. And so that's something that we would need to work through mentally, which is, what's the rush? If we can get to a place where we are not in a panic, when we are not in a rush, then what I notice is that It's that it's easier to implement changes, more sustainable, long lasting changes so that when you do release the weight, it stays off forever.

So there's no sense in losing like 10 pounds in one month. If in two months you gain eight pounds back. It doesn't make any sense. What you're likely looking for. If you're listening to this podcast is when you lose that pound, like that's gone, like your weight range has just gone from say one 60 to one 59 at the top of your weight range, which for most people is about four pounds, right?

So that's what we're looking for. That's just like. Gone. All right.  

Q: I'm doing all the right things and the scale is not moving. What should I do?

This is such a really there's so many answers like I could probably take a whole podcast to answer this question because First of all, we really want to define what are the right things.

So we're always taking a look at What's your strategy? And then the scale is one indication of whether your protocol, I call it a protocol, it's like a strategy of way of eating, right? That is going to  help your body release weight. So the scale is going to be one indication, but of course, as we know, the scale is not the best indication.

It's a leg indicator. And so, although we're looking at that. We want to look at it in terms of, I like a two week timeframe, two to three weeks. Like if you were seeing it in general, that it's going down, there's even if it's like very small, but if it's going down, then something is working. That's really good to know, right?

Because likely if you've developed this new healthy lifestyle, you could be Also gaining muscle at the same time. And when we're releasing weight, I've actually changed my mind on this a little bit with more research. I used to think that you just want to get all the fat off of your body and then you want to put on muscle.

I'm starting to learn a little bit more about that. And especially as we age,  it's actually really important to maintain that muscle mass as we release fat. So what we want to be doing is trying to optimize. Muscle maintenance. So we can do that in a couple ways. Of course, there's like weight training and different types of working out like pilates or yoga or like strength training types of things like your bar, which I'm doing right now, which I'm noticing a huge difference in my muscle, which is amazing.

And then, of course, making sure that you have protein at every meal. On average, what I've learned, again, this seems to be always changing, but what I've heard is roughly for women, 100 grams a day. Okay. Okay. So roughly, so also take a look at some things that you might be eating. You might be surprised at how little protein that yogurt has, or that the eggs that you're having are, are mostly fat, right?

There is some protein, but it's mostly going to be fat. So if you're really trying to increase the protein, you want to put a little bit of egg whites in there or something else, right? So just try to make sure that you are maintaining As much muscle mass as possible while you release the fat. Okay, so just a, just a little extra there. 

We want to be taking a look at what are some of the reasons why it's not moving. So I like to put this into kind of two categories. Is this a strategy issue in terms of, okay, I am following, let's say you call it a protocol, right? I'm following my protocol to the letter, and I've been doing that for three weeks, and the scale's not budging.

Okay, well, then, that's pretty clear. It needs to be a strategy that we need to change. There's something in your protocol that's not working, whether it's that you maybe are not allowing any hunger or enough hunger. Maybe you are overeating at your meals and being a little too satiated. Maybe the, it's the foods that you're eating.

So maybe it's the number of exceptions you're having or the foods that are not working for your bodies and in terms of the ratio, like, you know, with your macros, that kind of thing. I don't count macros, but like in general, we know what like a balanced plate is. And so that's something that we want to take a look at.

We also want to be taking a look at in terms of your protocol is like your sleep, what's going on with your sleep that can definitely affect how hungry you are and just also your body's willingness to release that fat. And then also we want to take a look at if you're still in your cycle, like where are you in your cycle that is going to affect.

Things too. So I've even heard the suggestion of. Compare, like, say you're on day 17 of your cycle, then you want to compare your weight on day 17 with your weight on day 17 from last month. And that's actually a more accurate way of seeing whether you are releasing weight or not. So just something to keep in mind there.

I thought it was kind of an interesting way of looking at it. But I think for most of us, most often, it's not so much the strategy. It's typically we We have a great strategy, but the scale is not moving because we're just not following that strategy. So, oftentimes we might think we are doing all of the right things, but if we're not paying that close attention and we're not tracking it, then we might not be doing that.

We just tend to underestimate how much we're eating and how often we're eating unless we are really paying attention and even tracking something like that. So, we just want to make sure that what you're doing is going to be conducive for releasing weight and that you're actually doing it. And we won't know that unless you are actually tracking that.

When we have the data, then we will know, Oh, you know what? I really felt like I was doing all the right things. But when I actually look at what I have been doing, I've only been doing it like 75%. Well, 75 percent might not be enough to move the needle for where you're at right now. 

Q: My schedule conflicts with how I want to be eating. What should I do?

Another question I get a lot is if, Your schedule conflicts with how you want to be eating.

So let's just say that you are wanting to allow hunger, but you also want to eat with your family at a certain time, but you're not hungry. Like, what do you do? Or you're in a situation in which you're working. And so if you don't eat now, then you won't be able to eat until like six hours later or something like that.

So I think where we want to go with this question is Knowing that this is a problem that you can totally solve. And I think the more interesting question is what's getting in the way of you coming up with a solution, right? I think a lot of questions are like that. We ask questions that we are just, maybe our brain is just a little lazy.

Maybe our brain is just, doesn't want to come up with the solutions because we don't like the answers. Right? So sometimes that could be the case. So just be onto yourself. For instance, what if you're not hungry? And it's dinner time because you had a really big lunch. The only reason you would eat is if you're afraid of future hunger, say in the evenings or something.

But typically before you go to bed, it's okay to feel a little hungry. Like it's not the end of the world. If you're going to be so ravenous that you cannot sleep, then yeah, have a little snack, but otherwise you're going to be totally fine. Have some water, have some tea and just eat earlier the next day.

Like this is not a big problem. Okay. If your work. conflicts with your schedule. One is that when you start eating in a way that's going to allow your body to really use your fat store as a storage eating, like going without food for a few hours is really not going to be a problem for you. Okay. So that's the first thing is just if hunger is like very much an emergency, it's just one indication that you're probably, your body's just really using a lot of glucose and it's, it's, using a lot of food as energy, right?

And so we want our food to be, or our diet, the way that we're eating to be supportive of allowing our body to tap into our fat stores. And so there are some dietary changes that you'd want to make to support that. If your schedule is such that if you don't eat now, you're going to get super hungry. A couple of things there is one is More than likely, you can figure out some sort of snack situation if your hunger level gets to the point where you're ravenous and you need something, okay?

So if that's the case, Then totally eat beforehand. It's not gonna be a problem. What you want to be looking at is like the overall day Yes, we're trying to optimize fat loss but we also want to be flexible with our lifestyle and we also want to Be thinking of it as like the overall day. Am I overeating?

So yeah, it's optimizing fat loss But also we're taking a look at is my day balanced Is there any overeating because that's really what we're trying to avoid Okay. 

Q: What do I do when I’m eating out of control?

And my last question is maybe something that you are really In the thick of like you were just dealing with this a lot, which always comes up in my coaching calls with clients is I know what to do.

It's like in that moment, I know maybe the thoughts that I need to be thinking, like, I know this isn't, this food isn't serving me or I know I'm not going to feel better after, but like, I just feel like I have to have it. I feel like I'm out of control and I'm just, it's like something takes over. It's like a monster that takes over and I'm just eating.

And I just want to normalize that for you. I think a lot of people we doing that in private and we think that nobody else is doing that. Well, lots of people are doing it. So, so don't feel bad. And it happens for a number of reasons, which I won't get into here. I'm just going to talk about how do you handle this?

So one tip that I really want to give you is just to know that every bite is a new decision. Even if you are feeling You're eating and you're just kind of feeling terrible, or you're eating and you're thinking, Oh, that wasn't enough. I feel like I need a little bit more. Like that was too salty. Maybe I need something a little sweet or something.

Just know that you can stop at any time,  right? You were, you are actually in control. And so just because you ate or you overate, it really doesn't mean you need to continue eating. So just conceptually, I want you to have that as like your foundation, right? Every bite is a new decision. You don't have to continue eating.

And then secondly,  really want you to tune into your body.  When you are trying to battle a craving in real time, it feels like a battle because you want two things at once. You want the food, but then you also want your goal, right? You want to like release weight off your body and those things feel like they're at odds, right?

So it's like you want the food and you don't want the food and that's why it feels like a battle. But what I want to offer is  remembering that you  It's okay to feel that wanting of the food, that it's okay to feel that intense desire, and nothing has gone wrong there.  Okay? So. What I want to offer is that you don't really want it because what you truly want is to like, feel good in your body and, and achieve those goals that you set out when your emotion wasn't really high and you weren't in that intense craving space, that highly emotional space.

That's what you truly want. But in that moment, your brain is really believing this lie that you do want the food, right? And maybe it looks delicious and all these things. And so. The opportunity there is to really not go into, okay, how am I supposed to think about this? What am I supposed to think? I'm not even motivated by my goal.

No tune into your body. So direct all your focus into your body and give your brain something to do. Your brain needs something to focus on. And right now it's focusing all on the food and how badly you want it. And that only intensifies the craving. So instead, what I want to offer is that you can create some psychological distance from that intensity of craving by.

Noticing the sensations in your body. So where do you feel that wanting? Is it in your chest? Is it in your stomach? Is it in your mouth? Do your arms feel tingly? Does your head, is your head feeling like it's buzzing? What's going on there? So you want to go in. Another trick that you can do is to, it's like it's called the fly on the wall.

This is another psychological distancing technique where you imagine that. There's a fly on the wall and it's watching you, okay? So it's like you are in the mind's eye of the fly and you're just watching yourself. And It, you see the food and you see yourself and you see yourself being able to be separate from the food.

And you see this person who's like thinking it's a big deal. Okay. So again, it's just like a mental exercise to get you out of the high intensity of that emotion and into a new perspective that creates some distance so that you can not feel the Like you're out of control. Okay. You want to maintain control.

All right. I hope that was helpful. This was a little bit, I don't know, a little bit rift, a little bit scattered, but I hope I, I maybe it's a little long winded and not super organized, but I hope that it was helpful in some way and that you derived something from it. Again, if you have any questions at all and you're thinking, Oh, I really wish that she did a podcast on this, or I really wish that I.

Had her perspective on this, then you are more than welcome to reach out to me. You can also find me on Instagram at mindful underscore shape.