Simplifying Healthy Eating to Manage Stress

063 Simplifying when you eat is one of the easiest (and most underused) ways to manage stress.  I wanted to reboot an old episode (#22) in case you had missed it because it's so freakin important.

Basically - when you are fed consistently, you are a less stressed and nicer human being - you make better decisions, you yell at your kids less, you are more productive- all because you aren't hungry.  

I’ve got some ideas to help you reconsider how you approach meal timing.  And of course this episode will include action you can take today.  That’s right, you can get started changing your life right now.  

In this episode you will learn:

1. Why eating at the same time everyday is awesome and worth your time
2. How we do it in our house
3. How to experiment with eating meals at the same time everyday to see if it will help you with your healthy eating 

More info <<HERE>> 

Transcript

Ellen Leonard: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the healthy, happy and mostly sane entrepreneur. I'm your host, stress management consultant and coach and mostly sane entrepreneur Ellen Leonard. Each week I share my obsession with hearing out how to prioritize your own health and sanity while running a business. Because I don't think you have to sacrifice your own health and well being to be successful. So please stay tuned for today's episode full of actionable tools. And don't forget to hit subscribe to be sure you don't miss out on future episodes. One of my favorite episodes that I've done on this podcast has to do with simplifying how we eat healthy, and time and time again, I find this so valuable not only for myself, but also for my clients. Because when you are being super intentional about when you eat, and making sure you eat, and not forgetting to eat, say powering through lunch to get more work done or something like that. Sure, you've never done anything like that skipped a meal to work or do something you saw as more valuable. I know, I've certainly done that. But this episode really helps to bring together some simple ideas about not only why finding time to eat and making sure it's a priority is important. But how to go about doing that and making it more of a habit. As you know, I love helping people manage stress. And one of the easiest ways to manage stress is to make sure we are well fed because when we are not, that is not good for not only us, but for the people around us our loved ones, as we get hangry or lose a little bit more control of our emotions. I mean, like it gets harder to concentrate. And yeah, being hungry just isn't isn't really good for our overall stress. So I wanted to do a little reboot of Episode Number 22. So if you've heard it before, I encourage you to listen again, it has so much value. And let's get started. Hello, and welcome to episode number 22. A simple way to eat healthy. Today we're going to learn about a simple way to approach healthy eating, that has absolutely nothing to do with what you're eating. I know when you think about healthy eating everything that we tend to think about healthy eating is what we're eating, eat more kale, eat less ice cream. But there are actually a lot of things that can go into healthy eating that have nothing to do with what you're eating. And today, we're going to approach one of those and help to shift your mindset about when you're eating. So let's start off by thinking about some of the things that we may or may not do when we're starving or when we've skipped a meal or we're hungry. Or we're not eating when our body is asking us to eat. So, you know, have you ever yelled at someone you love? Because you're hungry? I totally have. Have you ever tried to throw your computer out the window? Because you forgot to eat breakfast? Yeah, I might I might have done that. Have you ever responded to an email in a way you wish you could totally take back because you skipped lunch? Right? We think about all those things I listed right? yelling at somebody you love, right? Not great trying to throw your computer technology out the window. Also not super awesome. And writing emails that we regret. Oh, so exhausting, right? Sometimes we don't realize that some of the reasons we might be doing those things are that we are hungry. You know, sometimes we're just having a bad day. And there's lots of other reasons that we might be doing those things. But when you think about the power that hunger has over us, it's kind of crazy, but it makes sense, right? Our body needs food and it wants food very specific times it wants food to come into it, so that it can move on to other things, right. And it tells us very clearly that it's hungry for most of us if we're listening. It's telling us that we're hungry and not eating can have a really big implications for us. Not only physically like actual, like those feelings of hunger that we get, but also emotionally right. We tend to get more frustrated, more angry when we're not eating or when we're hungry. And also mentally right our thoughts shift are we lose ability to focus. All sorts of things can happen because of hunger. So I've got some ideas that will help you reconsider how you approach it. your meal timing. And of course, I've got some actionable tips. So if you're out for a walk, or you are listening in the car, I've got you covered, just head on over to the shownotes after you listen, but in this episode, you're going to learn why eating at the same time every day is awesome and worth your time. Number two, how we do it in our house, how we time our meals in our house, and why we why we do that and how we approach it. And number three, how to experiment with eating meals at the same time every day, to see if it'll help you with your healthy eating to see if it's a tool that you could use that would be useful to you. So let's dive in. I'm always looking for easy ways to approach my own health and wellness. And this is such a simple one. And I'm always looking for ways to create lasting sustainable health, right, I don't want a quick fix, I want my life to overall be healthy, right? Whatever that means to me. That's what I want my life to be. So that just like how brushing my teeth magically happens every day without me really thinking about it, that all these other behaviors start to happen every day without me thinking about it. And so I have to try things out and see what works for me, and then include the things that are working in my life in a way that serves me. And so this is one of the things that I learned from Ayurveda. And if you don't already know I Ayurveda is a holistic system of medicine that started in India, I'm an Ayurveda practitioner. And it's still practice there today in India. But Ayurveda says that, ideally, we eat at the same time every day. And I know that things are busy and unpredictable, especially if you're a parent and you're running a business, right things can get crazy. But I think that this is such a powerful and simple idea. It's such a simple approach to eating healthier, that I think you're really gonna find it useful, and it would be worth your time to give it a whirl. So I've talked about this before, but I think you know, that I'm really into this idea of showing up as the best version of myself as much as possible, you know, and that translates to all the parts of my life. So how am I showing up for my students? How am I showing up for my clients? How am I showing up? For my loved ones? How am I showing up for myself? Right? I want to be the best version of me. And there's so much that goes into that. But one of the things that really goes into that is making sure that I am fed at correct intervals for my body, making sure that my body is getting the food that it needs. And so I was trying to think of a specific example of what this looked like for me, like an example, where I hadn't eaten at a specific time, and then the results of that, and blah, blah, blah. And so I asked my partner, my goal of over 10 years, for a really good one, right? Surely after living with me for over 10 years, this man has got an example. And he had about 50 examples, right. And he talked about it for the whole day. All these examples of the way that his experiences he's had, from me not eating at the right time, and how those have impacted his life. And it was just so funny to ask for one example. And then the actual story that I'm sharing with you is that he had too many to count, right? He had like a million examples. He was thinking about how all the different ways that it impacted us. When we traveled together especially that's a big one, because I do not do all the time changes anyway. But how it impacts our everyday life. So apparently, when I'm not Fred, here's here's how he described it overall, apparently, when I'm not fed, I get crappy with him. And everyone and crappy is not the word that he used. He used a different word. And then I can't make decisions really about anything but also about what I want to eat, or about eating overall. So like not only do I get really frustrated and angry, but I lose those abilities to make decisions and I lose that ability to make healthy choices. Right so he said I'm much more likely to pick the unhealthy choice I'm much more likely to just grab whatever and get it in my body to fix that that hunger that all the stuff that's going on in my body, my emotions, my mind to fix that immediately. And it's so funny to hear him talk about it because you know, and it probably just think it's funny because right now at this moment, and while while I was listening to him I had been fed because it probably wouldn't have been as funny if I hadn't been fed if I was hungry. But it's so interesting to think about how much something so simple, making sure that I'm fed affects the rest of my life. And so if it's affected him this much, and he could list so many different examples and was so specific and clear in the way that it manifested for me, right? If he could do that and think about how it's been impacting all the other parts of my life, maybe without me realizing it, if I do, you know, work through lunch, or if I accidentally missed dinner, or if I don't eat something that's healthy and satisfying for those meals. What are the impacts that I don't even know about? Maybe I was a little short with people, maybe I wasn't as focused, maybe I would have made better decisions. Who knows? So it's just really something to consider. And I'm sure you have examples, if not of yourself, but if somebody in your life that's like this, that that has these experiences, but even if that's not necessarily your experience with hunger, that robust of an experience, do you want to call it that, like a robust experience, reaction to, to being hungry. But all humans experience something, right, because our bodies are designed to want food and designed to have a reaction if we aren't giving it food. So just something to consider how is this impacting your ability to focus your ability to show up as your best self, your ability to get things done, your ability to be the kind of parent you want to be to be the kind of friend you want to be to show up as the best version of you. So I Ayurveda suggest that we eat our meals at about the same time every day, meaning that you would eat breakfast about the same time every day, you eat lunch, about the same time every day, and you eat dinner about the same time every day. And here's why. I think that's a valuable idea, I have a bunch of different reasons. Number one, when my body knows that it's going to get food at a certain time, it's less angry when I'm not giving it food in between, right, it knows that it can rely on me to give it food at a certain time, it becomes a habit, it becomes something that my body can count on. It's not freaking out, but it's not getting food because it knows it's coming. And it's it's more predictable that way. Number two, it makes it easier for me to plan because I know what time I'm eating, right? I can play in meetings and schedule clients around having a set time to eat. And it's actually in my calendar, I have set times to eat in my calendar. So I don't schedule things during that time. And that allows me to show up so much more effectively, for the times in between them, right. So I know when I'm eating breakfast, I know when I'm eating lunch, I know when I'm eating dinner. And some days, it's of course not possible if I'm on a plane, or I've got something, an event or something that's different, but most of my days, it's easier for me to plan, right, because then I can also plan what I'm going to eat. So number three, it makes me less likely to snap because when I know when my next meal is coming, I'm not grabbing something to fill that space. I'm not looking for something to eat. When it's like four o'clock and I'm starving. I know that my meals come in around six o'clock, so I'm okay with that. When I'm starting to get hungry around four o'clock when I'm starting to get starving around five o'clock. Number four is probably my favorite. Number four is I make healthier choices when my meals are coming at a specific time, because I'm not making choices for eating from a place of being so freakin hungry. I'm not making choices of what I'm going to be eating when I'm starving. Yeah, I'm hungry for my meals as I shouldn't be right I should want to eat at those intervals. My body should be wanting food around those times. But I'm not going to pick a pizza. I mean, sometimes Of course I pick a pizza. And I have off days when I pick pizza a lot. But I'm not going to pick that pizza because I'm thinking I my mind is so capable of making a choice that supports my value of eating healthy. Number five when I'm starving, because I forgot or postponed eating to get my work done. I don't make the best decisions. Yeah, I don't make the best decisions about eating healthy, but I also don't make the best decisions in my business in how I interact with people in maybe the choices that I make a lot of my impulse buying for my business happens when I'm hungry. Right apps. I don't need services. I Probably won't ever use that I wouldn't have bought if I was doing those things, and I'd been well fed. Number six, my emotions and thoughts are much more stable when I eat at set times. So hunger is this incredibly powerful force that can make us angry, frustrated, it can make our thoughts a little bit more negative. And so I respect that force. And I know that I'm going to have calmer emotions, I'm going to have calmer thoughts, they're going to be more stable. When I'm eating at specific times, then number seven, my energy is more even when I first started this Ayurvedic journey, almost 10 years ago, now,

Unknown: 15:46

I was having that afternoon dip of energy, and I was having to take a nap on. So many of the days whenever I was home, like on the weekend or something, I'd have to take an afternoon nap, I just had such a struggle with energy. And one of the first things I did when I started working with Ayurveda was to approach my meal timing differently, it just seemed like such an easy thing to do. Like, I can put something into a planner, I can eat a specific time, that's something I'm very capable of doing. That's something that's in my wheelhouse. And when I did this, one of the things I didn't expect to happen, I just thought it would help me to eat healthier. And also I love planning. But it gave me more reliable energy, meaning that not only is my energy smooth, and even throughout my entire morning, there's no dip, there's no rise, there's no nothing, the same thing happens in the afternoon, right? If I eat a healthy, satisfying lunch, right around noon, I don't have any energy issues into the afternoon. And if I do the same with my evening meal, then I don't have any energy issues, I don't get that dip right after I eat dinner anymore, where I just want to sit in front of the TV, I still have the same amount of energy that I had in the afternoon, right, I still can do things and make decisions and show up. It just makes my energy a lot more even. So those are just some reasons that you might consider doing it. And I'm sure as you were thinking about this, you maybe thought of a reason that would work for you that maybe I didn't listen, I'd love to hear that. So reach out and let me know your reasons about why you might start to eat at specific times and and keep that as a habit as a part of your routine that supports your healthy eating. But I wanted to talk to you next about what time we eat in our house and how we do that. So in our house, we follow an Ayurvedic lifestyle. And part of that is scheduling our eating right. That's not how Ayurveda talks about it, that Vedic texts aren't saying, put this in your planner, but that's how I approach it.

Ellen Leonard: 17:57

So if we're hungry for it, we have breakfast around 7am. If we're not hungry for breakfast, because we ate too much the night before, or something else is going on with us, then we skip breakfast. But we usually eat around 7am. We always eat lunch around noon. And by around noon, I mean 1145 1212 15. That's when we're eating every single day. There are some serious consequences, as I've told you, as I've shared, if we don't, but I'm so hardcore about this, that my calendar from 1130 to 1pm is always blocked off, so that I have enough time to prepare the meal. And we do a lot of meal prepping. So usually, I'm just reheating or putting things together. But we have enough time to do a little bit of cooking, we have enough time to eat right to value that time of giving my body energy and nourishment. And then I take some time to digest the meat on reset. So I have that time actually blocked off when I don't take meetings then if I have a meeting scheduled then then you better believe there was no other way to do it. Right? You better believe that there was a good reason. And then we eat dinner around six or 630 every single night. I know it's super early. Uh, don't worry, our friends have already made so much fun of us. But I want my body to be fasting for a long period of time at night. Because when you wake up and you break the fast by eating breakfast, I want that to be an extended period of time to give my body the time and the space it needs to digest everything from the day. When I eat later closer to bedtime, I don't sleep as well. I don't sleep nearly as well. The quality and the quantity of sleep are diminished significantly. So that's why we eat a little bit earlier to give my body the time and space it needs before I go to bed and start working on that meal to start working. processing it so that I can get a really nice good night's sleep. Oh, and we don't snack. You know, sometimes, of course, you know, we're going to the movies, we're hanging out with friends, of course, it's an 8020 situation, 80% of the time, I'm doing it awesome 20% of the time, I am not doing it awesome. But we don't eat snacks in general, I want my body to rely on the meals I gave it. And I want those meals to be healthy and satisfying enough that I'm not wanting snacks in between, then I'm not craving sugar or something else in between, I want my body to learn how to use the energy I gave it to power me through the rest of the day. So it took a long time to not snack. And sometimes we do fall off the wagon. But it's definitely been worth it, we have a lot more energy. And we just feel better. And we're really hungry for our meals. And we find we and we enjoy that. That when we're we're sitting down and to be hungry for our meals, it's it makes it a more enjoyable process. And I'm almost more grateful for those meals in that moment. So as you consider this idea, which might be completely new to you, and that's fine, you can let it roll around in your head for a while and kind of think about it. But if you're looking to take action, you want to try this out. And you're like, Oh, just sounds like so much to try and eat every single meal this week at the same time. Right? All your breakfasts, all your lunches all your dinners at the same time. Right? It took us years to get to this point, right? We're 10 years into this stuff. So yeah, we've been we've been practicing, it's a habit, we don't think about it anymore. These things just happen. They're a part of our life now. But here's a way to kind of some action steps to take if you're interested in trying this out. Because, as I've said before, you need to figure out what works for you. And the only way to do that is to try it out. See if it helps you. And if one of your goals is to eat healthier, this might be a really nice way to start to support that. Right? How can you start to support eating healthier, if that's one of your goals. So here are some ways to kind of approach it to help you be successful. So number one, I'd like for you to think about what meal would support you the most. So what meal Have you noticed helps you to show up as the best version of you at home at work, whatever, right? Maybe it's breakfast, you know that when you eat breakfast, you are always rocking it out that day, you've noticed that maybe you know that when you eat a really satisfying healthy lunch, right around noon, or you remember to eat lunch, that you do a lot better, right, you have a much better afternoon you get more done, you show up in a different way. So pick the meal that would support you most right? choose what's right for you. So if you want to eat breakfast everyday this week at the same time. And that would set you up for a successful day, start there. And then just pick one meal to try right? Don't try to do everything all at once. Just pick breakfast, lunch or dinner and see if you can have those even just some of the days this week. So maybe your work schedule doesn't allow you to eat at the same time every day. What days Can you do it? How could you construct this in a way that would actually work in your life? So just pick one meal and try it out? Right? Small steps usually lead to greater success when you take small steps to create this as a habit to try it out and see what works for you. Number three, plan oh my gosh, plan is always part of one of my steps. Right? Have you noticed that? Because it's so useful. So clock off time for not only eating, but remember, you got to either cook or get that food that food does not magically appear unless you have a system that I am not aware of. It would be great like a Hogwarts kind of situation like food just magically appears on the table. But I don't think magic is probably not real. We probably shouldn't rely on that. So how are you going to get that food? Are you cooking it? Is it already prepared in advance? Are you ordering it from somewhere you're picking it up? You need to really have that scheduled in so you're not just blocking off the time it takes to eat. You're also being conscious that Oh, wait, I have to get that food as well. So that you can make sure you have something to eat or have planned time to get it and then eat as well. And then as you try to eat at the same time every day, I'd like for you to reflect a little on that experience. How does it feel? When you eat at the same time every day? What does that feel like for you? What do you notice? What's different? What's the same? And then how could you modify this concept to work for you better? Maybe the meal times I suggested absolutely do not work for your life. That's what works in our life. And that's been what we tried over and over and over again and modified and adjusted until we figured out what worked for us. So what's going to work for you? How can you use this idea to help you reach your goals of not only showing up as your best self, but of healthy eating is one of your goals and I would just highly recommend giving this a try. So that's it for today. I know it was a lot, especially if this is a new concept for you. And I know it's so challenging in this busy, chaotic life to commit to eating meals at the same time to commit to doing anything at the same time, but it might be worth it overall. And so if you want more details and resources, I'd encourage you to head on over to www dot Ellen leonard.com backslash podcast that's e l l e N dash Elio and air D comm backslash podcast for show notes and more. Or you can click on the link here in the show notes for the episode. And don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes full of actionable tips to help you do what you love without sacrificing your health or losing your mind. Thank you so much for listening, and I wish you a healthy, happy and mostly sane week. Hope to see you next week.