The Meat Mafia Podcast

What's happening guys? I wanted to share some thoughts I've been having recently on building on a blueprint for understanding what emotional eating is and how you can actually improve your relationship with food. We had an episode of the podcast, episode number 272, where we talked about the ultimate guide to getting healthy. And then one of the first stops we talked about was this emotional relationship with food. And I think it's a really critical topic for us to dive into because a lot of people don't even really understand that they lack a little bit of awareness around the food that they're putting into their body.

You know, a lot of time can just get into the flow of the day and we just start to eat whatever's available to us. We go down the street, we order food from overeats, go to a restaurant, all these things and these food decisions are happening to us instead of us making the choices. And, I think that's a little bit confusing the way I said that, but I honestly, I, I do think that a lot of times we just get trapped in this cycle of following our taste buds instead of making a cognitive decision around food. So I wanna do a little unpacking here, and this is an exclusive to our newsletter. This is a video that will go nowhere else, unless you guys download it and post it, which would be a little bit creepy, but, here we go.

So why is your relationship with food important? 1st and foremost, a lot of people struggle with their habits around food. And I used to play cos sports, but I used to not really mind what I was eating. And I definitely fall in the camp of being the person who goes to the gym and just thinks they can eat whatever they want. So I certainly have and have had a different, or different, but I've I've had, you know, my own personal journey here with food and understanding what I should be eating, what I shouldn't be eating, what I should be eating, why do I have certain cravings.

All these things are somewhat deeply psychological and I think worth exploring. It helps us understand how we're feeling ourselves. That's critical, I think, to understand that stuff if you really wanna be healthy. So first and foremost, cravings, understanding, and raising awareness and understanding that you are in control. You are the person who's gotten a ship here.

If you don't get these things under control, ultimately they will control you. And as someone who used to just go into the kitchen and at their office and just grate on chips, this was me. I wasn't in control. I was letting letting the hyperpalatable foods take control of me. And, my goal here is to kinda unpack some of this and let you guys take away with it what you will.

So I personally believe that poor dietary choices are directly linked to emotional eating. 49% of people participate in emotional eating on a weekly basis. And 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. So I truly believe that there's a link here, then that we're not really being mindful of just how we are coping with certain things that are happening in our lives. So there's a psychological component where we get stressed, we get hungry, we get tired, and then we go to the thing that we need.

We go to drugs, we go to alcohol, we go to food, we go to X number of 1,000,000 of things that there are to go to to cope with these things instead of being in a place of power, being in a place of control and trying to pull it back so that you are building a foundation upon, Just emotional steadiness and steadiness when hard times do hit and those stressful days do hit. You're not inclined to make those bad decisions or I don't I don't even really wanna say bad because I I don't think there should be guilt associated with these types of things, but you're empowered to make the right choices. Say it that way. So what does a healthy relationship with food look like? What does it not look like?

So binge eating, eating when stressed, eating when you're not hungry, these are signs that you're not eating, or or that you don't necessarily have a healthy relationship with food. And if those things stick out to you as things that maybe you've done in the past or that you do to help, take a look, Give yourself a, a nice little pause and try to understand, you know, what are the cues for those habits and those patterns? Because there's probably something more that you should pull on there. And a a good exercise that I'm gonna get on in a sec is some of these tools that you can use to actually improve your relationship with food. 1st of which is a food journal.

I think food journals are an incredible way to understand not only what you're eating, but when you're eating, why you're eating, and really give yourself a full audit of what a day looks like in terms of your dietary patterns and choices. So I would really try to get tuned into starting a food journal for about a week, write everything up that you eat over the course of a week, and start to understand some of these patterns. You know, when you're stressed, when you're tired, when things aren't going your way, do you have an inclination to want to graze? Do you start grazing? Do you start going towards foods that you shouldn't be eating?

These are all signs that maybe you can improve your relationship with food. So first one, food journal. 2nd one, CGM. So this is what sparked this whole, this whole topic for me. I recently ordered a CGM just because I wanted to test out and come just get a baseline understanding of where I'm at and wanted to get some data for myself.

So the CGM is an incredible tool. I think it's a great tool. But I do not think you should live and die by the CGM. I think it's a great way to get the data that you need to understand how food is interacting with your body. And then you get that understanding who you take the CGM out and you live in your whole life.

That's what you should do. I think if you're too in the weeds on some of this stuff all the time, the stress that you put on yourself to eat a certain way, do a certain thing then becomes a roadblock in itself. So the idea is to get the information, have the tools, make some progress, build some momentum, and then you're not struggling as much. That's the thought. So CGM, great tool, great way to kind of measure measure measure that baseline and give you the data that you need to make more empowered decisions.

I think this is an incredible tool. A lot of doctors are doing a great job helping patients get on CGMs, work with them, and reverse diabetes using a CGM. Lots of great things. And for anyone who doesn't know what a CGM is, I probably should have said it at the beginning. It's a continuous glucose monitor.

It's measuring your blood sugar throughout the day, and you'll be able to see just exactly how your body is interacting with food. And particularly, obviously your blood sugar is really reacting to food. And why that's important is when your blood sugar spikes, your body produces hormone insulin, which when your insulin is spiked, it actually inhibits fat loss. So if you're someone in desire looking to improve their body composition, who's on a bit of fat, this is a big topic You should understand and do a little bit of a deep dive. So CGMs.

Great. The next way to improve your relationship with food is fasting. Removing food altogether. So I think fasting along with a food journal can really have a powerful effect because you'll truly understand the nature of how you think about food, how you have cravings, how your habits around food are driving different types of behavior, different moods. And removing food altogether, I think it really establishes a baseline.

And the data that you get and the information that you get from removing food allows you to feel what it's like to be in a lower inflammation state. Now I'm not saying that your inflammation's gonna go away if you stop eating food for 24 hours, but you're not gonna have these massive peaks and valleys in your blood sugar throughout the day. And you're probably gonna end up feeling and understanding really this beautiful relationship and understanding of what it means to go a certain period of time about food. And that information in itself should drive some realizations for you over the course of 24 hours, which is what I would recommend starting with. And then maybe go out for 48 hours.

Typically, I think the data shows that between anywhere from 16 to 24 hours, you're gonna see an increase in ketone bodies, which is a different type of fuel within your body that is created internally to allow your body to actually live during a period where you don't have food. So ketone bodies are really interesting and unique and worth doing a separate deep dive on. You know, we can do a whole different different video on that, but ketone bodies really improve, neurological there's neurological benefits from it, anti inflammatory benefits from it, tons of things that ketone bodies do differently than what, a glucose derived energy source would would, provide. So last not least, don't think this necessarily scroll falls perfectly under the scope of understanding your relationship with food, but getting your blood work done. I think this is step 4 in really improving your relationship with food more so because it will give you clear information into where you're nutrient and mineral deficient.

So you can start to work on those things over time and make more empowered decisions around food so that you're actually building up your health by prioritizing the minerals and vitamins that you're deficient. And then those minerals and vitamins that you're deficient in will hopefully slowly grow over time and build more robustness within your health. Your blood markers will show that. Then once you start to address some of those problems, it could entirely change your relationship with food. You go from being the type of person that follows their cravings every single time to being the person whose hormones are balanced to his blood sugar is balanced, to his vitamins and minerals are all balanced and in a good range.

And you actually don't have these stress related cravings that a lot of people have. So I'm getting my blood work done tomorrow. I try to do it once every year. I think that's a great practice. Do it twice a year.

Great. I did it this time last year. I saw that my vitamin d level was really low. I think it kind of makes sense because we're coming out of the winter, but it did surprise me because I do eat a lot of food high in vitamin D. So I'm hoping to see some different results.

I would love to compare contrast last year or this year and share that with the guys. So, Gits, I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope you guys got a lot of information out of this. And if you want to do a little bit more of a deep dive or understand Bright Mind's perspective on this topic, go listen to episode number 272 on the podcast. I think that was a great little deep dive that Brett and I did.

And, yeah, we'll be writing about this topic a lot more, but I hope this is helpful. And for people who are struggling with their emotional relationship with food, if you feel free to reach out, newsletter at the meat mafia.com, I will be responding to anyone who has any questions. So please reach out. Love you guys.