Ep #111: What It Really Takes to Stop Overeating

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #111. What does it really take to stop overeating? It’s more than a diet plan.

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, where you’ll learn how to build both a strong body and a strong mind by eating, moving, and thinking. I’m your host Physician, Personal Trainer, Certified Health Coach and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland.

Hey, how are you? What’s new, what’s good? So, what’s good here, we are going to talk about what it really takes to stop overeating. I know that I have talked about overeating before, but I want to go there again today because I want to give you a different perspective on your approach to ending overeating.

This approach has absolutely nothing to do with your diet plan or how much protein you eat or what your fitness tracker says, or really any of that. I want you to see firsthand, from one of my clients, what it takes to stop overeating.

This episode today is entirely inspired by a recent coaching call I had. The conversation with this client was so awesome, and it was so impactful both to the client and to me, that I felt the need to share it. Because I think what came up in this coaching session can help someone else listening.

So, we finished the session, and afterwards, as I was looking at my notes and reflecting on her words, I realized that what this client said reaffirmed why I do what I do. The A-ha moment she had was super powerful for her. But then hearing her describe it back to me, it woke me up and made me realize, this is it. This is what I am striving for with all of my clients. This is what I want everyone to know

I’m bringing it here, because if this client benefited from this realization I think you can too. As you listen to what happened in this coaching call, I think you’ll see what it truly takes to put an end to overeating and what it’s actually about. And you’ll see, again, it has nothing to do with whether she does low-carb Mediterranean or intermittent fasting. Okay?

Let me explain. This client had been working super hard on unravelling her overeating. When we started working together, we hit the ground running and we created a plan for her during our first session. And when I say a plan, I don’t mean ‘you eat this many eggs and this many cups of oatmeal at this hour.’ No.

Instead, her plan was an outline that included things like how many meals and snacks she was committing to. What the place of processed food and sugar was in her diet. How she was going to self-monitor. How she was going to factor in planning; those sorts of things. That is what I mean when I say “a plan”.

So, she had her plan, and she was following it more or less. She was sticking to the plan that she had laid out for herself. And then she went on vacation. She gained some of her weight back while she was on vacation and that really did a number on her mindset.

She sent me a message explaining exactly this. In fact, her exact words were, “I just feel like such a failure right now. I have so much weight to lose and I feel like I am not capable of doing this.” And in the same message, she went on to finish by sharing all the things she had done since returning from vacation.

She had planned out all of her meals. She returned to self-monitoring, was keeping track of what she ate, and she was weighing herself. She had a system in place to keep track of her successes. She had answers ready for when justifications came up, which was an exercise we had done in a previous session.

In short, even though she gained weight on vacation and was disappointed, she came back from that trip and got back to doing all the things. Despite this, the things that were really sticking out for her were how she failed, that she was overwhelmed, and she felt like she had such a long way to go and so much weight to lose. And she felt she wasn’t capable.

Interestingly, she also said, “I feel like the only thing I’m good at is failing myself.” I just found it all really interesting, because on one hand she was totally ripping herself apart, calling herself a failure, letting what happened over vacation totally overwhelm her. But on the other hand, she came home and took action by putting all of her systems back in place to get her back to following her plan.

So, even though she had done all of these positive things for herself she couldn’t see it. And this is why I am so very glad that she let me know what was going on. Because as much as I love hearing about the wins and what’s going well for my clients, I also want to know when things are not going well. Because that’s when coaching can help the most.

When she reached out, I asked her to reflect on the things that she had put in place since coming back from vacation and to look at the wins that she created for herself by getting back on track as soon as possible. Because she absolutely could have let the weight that she gained on vacation send her into a total spiral and let that be a reason to give up.

But she didn’t. She checked in with me. Checked in and let me know what was going on. And more importantly, she got back to it. She got back to her plan and put all of her habits back into place. I wanted her to see that. Because, and this may be true for you too, but sometimes when you fail you focus on it so much that you can’t see anything else. I know, I do this.

If I have a solid day of eating and I stick to my plan all day, but then I go and eat my weight in leftover cake at the end of the night, which I’ve definitely done, that’s what I focus on. I forget everything that went well during the day because I just ate a piece of pineapple upside-down cake as big as my face. And that’s where I will focus.

So, we look for the negative even if it’s surrounded by the positive, most humans do this. It’s your brain’s negativity bias trying to protect you. Your brain is always looking for signs of danger so that you’re always on alert. And while that may have been helpful in caveman days, when we had to be on the lookout for predators, it is not as helpful now.

This client was doing what normal humans do, which is zoning in on what went wrong. But I wanted her to offer herself evidence of what went right because she had actually done quite a bit for herself. And then, beyond that, I asked her to consider how she wanted to feel.

Initially, she said that she was feeling overwhelmed. When I think of overwhelm, I think of that as a place of spinning and spinning, sort of out of control like a pinball, without really getting anywhere. You’re expending a whole lot of energy being overwhelmed but you have nothing to show for it. Because there is a very low return on investment for overwhelm.

So, I asked her to decide how she wanted to feel instead of being overwhelmed. Then I offered, what if she decided to feel like she is in control? What if she decided that whatever happened on vacation, it’s done, it’s over? It’s in the past. And now she has today and tomorrow and the next day and the next all in front of her. And what can she do to feel empowered and in control now?

I asked her what decisions she could make? And what actions she could take that would put her back in the driver’s seat? She could stick with a salad and chicken for dinner. She could choose to skip dessert tonight. Because she made an empowered decision that she didn’t want it.

And none of those decisions are huge. They’re all small decisions backed up by small actions that will move the needle in the right direction. I asked her, instead of feeling like a failure, what if she decided that her vacation was nothing more than a learning opportunity? What if this vacation was nothing more than a short blip in time that showed her the cumulative impact of multiple small decisions?

Because in all honesty, there was nothing particularly wild about what she did on vacation. She had a few more sweets here and there, a little bit of snacking because food was always out and available. But it’s not like she sat down and downed an entire gallon of ice cream in one sitting. Her actions were more subtle than that.

And so, I offered that she could use this vacation as evidence that all the small decisions add up, and she could leave it at that. I reminded her that she gets to decide how she feels as she does the work of changing her life and changing her habits. She could choose to be down on herself and make her vacation mean that she’s a failure. Or she could decide to give herself some grace and compassion and keep moving forward.

If you’ve ever messed up, whether on vacation, at the end of a stressful day, or after a long weekend, you have the same choice.

You know this already, but let me remind you. As humans, it is inevitable, we’re going to mess up. Not just while you’re starting out changing your habits, but even later, after you feel like you’ve got it mostly together. Because no one has it together all the time, and anyone who says they do is lying. Okay?

You’re still going to have off days. There will be days when you eat totally off plan. There will be days when you eat half a pizza, or two pieces of cake when you meant to have none. And you can choose to let those off days mean your failure, or you can choose to let your off day or your off vacation mean absolutely nothing about you. And I promise you that one approach is going to feel a whole lot better than the other.

And to be clear here, you are allowed to feel all of the things. I want you to acknowledge whatever it is you are feeling. But then you can decide if it’s helping you. So, just as I asked my client, I’ll ask the same for you. How does it help you to think that you are a failure? Does that move you forward? Does that compel you to keep trying?

My point here is that I want you to choose how you feel while you change your life. You will feel so much better if you are kind to yourself, even when you mess up. You will learn to trust yourself more this way, and you’ll also learn to ask more of yourself this way.

So, when you know that you’ll be nice to yourself, even if you mess up, you will be more willing to take risks. You’ll be more willing to stretch yourself. You’ll be more willing to get uncomfortable. Because you know that no matter what happens you’re going to take care of yourself. And that is huge.

Imagine knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that you’ve got yourself, that you’ve got your own back. That you’re going to take care of yourself no matter what you do. And this isn’t to say that you brush off your mistakes. Instead, you’re just treating yourself the same way you would treat a friend or a family member or your kid when they mess up. You’re treating yourself nicely, that’s it. And you get to decide this, okay?

And then, as far as my client’s concerned about how far she had to go, I know she is not the only person out there who has been bogged down by this. So, what happens when you feel like you have such a long way to go in order to lose the weight you want to lose? What do you do when you feel like you have so far to go to change your habits, and it feels like it’s taking forever?

Well, let me offer you this. What if you decided that the length of time it takes to change your habits, or to change your life or to lose weight, is irrelevant? What if you truly believed that you don’t have to be in such a rush?

Because this is the rest of your life we’re talking about. What if none of that matters? Because at the end of the day, you’ve got a goal. And you’re working to change your life here. The amount of time it takes to do that is irrelevant because you’re not going back to where you came from. That is it.

You are not going back to where you came from, so what if you actually believe that to be true for you? How do you think you would show up differently for yourself if you believe that time doesn’t really matter, because you’re not going to stop, and you’re not going to give up on changing your habits? What if you decided that the goal is to change your life instead of simply seeing the scale go down?

Think about that for a minute. What would happen if you decided that your primary goal was to change your life instead of lose weight? Let me clarify what I mean by this, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight.

I’m not trying to talk you out of that. But it’s often when you are so overly focused on the goal of losing weight that you lose sight of what it really takes to achieve it. So, instead of working on really changing your life and changing your mindset and changing your self-talk and working on your self-doubt and working on how you respond to failure, instead you focus solely on the scale? That often leads you to do all kinds of restrictive, extreme diets in order to hurry up and lose weight.

But if you don’t change your life to go with it, that weight is going to come back in no time. I’ll get some more into this in just a little bit, but I wanted you to see where this client was coming from. She had so much going on all at once; there was self-doubt. There was feeling like a failure. There was a sense of urgency, and lack of self-belief on top of it.

So, I offered her some things to consider, to address the roadblocks that were getting in her way. And if you’ve ever come up against these same roadblocks I would offer the same to you.

And the last thing I suggested was something I’ve said here before, and that is you can feel less than awesome and still show up for yourself. I acknowledge that she was feeling down and disappointed, but I also suggested that feeling this way did not have to stop her. She had the choice to recognize and acknowledge the emotions she was feeling coming off her vacation. And she also had the choice to continue showing up for herself even though she felt disappointed.

I reminded her that she didn’t have to feel perfect in order to keep following her plan. I reminded her that she just needed to keep showing up even if it was hard, and even if she didn’t feel like it. So, I let her take all of those ideas and think about them. I didn’t know what was going to land, but all I knew was that I wanted to give her a number of things to think about, and concepts and tools to pull out, in order to keep her vacation, which was over, from turning into a total downward spiral.

I met with her a few days later and what she shared with me was such pure gold that I scribbled as much of what she said as I could. Because it was a complete 180⁰ from where she had been a few days prior. She told me about how earlier in the week, she was headed into the kitchen to get a brownie. It was a

Cosmic brownie, the kind that have those little rainbow chips on top. She said it was mid-afternoon, and she knew she wasn’t hungry, but this was her pattern. She typically headed to the kitchen mid-afternoon for something sweet and that’s the way it had been for years. Then she said it. She said, “I was about to overeat and I stopped myself.” Her exact words were, “I was able to pull myself out and realize ‘you don’t have to do this.’ I was about to ride on impulse but I didn’t.”

And that, in and of itself, was just awesome. The fact that she stopped herself before acting on autopilot, that she gave herself a choice, and that she decided she didn’t need to act out of habit, that alone was huge. But it was what she said next that blew me away and made me so thrilled for her. And what she said was, “I felt with myself for the first time in a really long time.”

There it is. Hearing her make that connection and hearing her verbalize what was going on for her in that very moment, and hearing her state very explicitly that she was there with herself, that is it. That right there, is what I want every person I work with to be able to experience.

Because that is what change is made of. And the significance of this cannot be overstated, okay? Do you see what’s going on here? This is not about the brownie, right? It’s never about the brownie. This is about paying attention, observing yourself coming off autopilot, and staying engaged. Sometimes I think of autopilot as if your brain is like an old-school TV with static, or with snow on the screen. You know I’m talking about. It’s when there’s no show playing and instead it’s just white snow and that white noise to go with it. And when you’re on autopilot, that’s what’s going on in your brain.

You’re there, but you’re not really there. You’re acting, but you’re not really thinking. But for my client, she changed the channel. She got out of that snow. She got out of that static and snapped out of it enough to decide, “Hey I can create a different ending to the usual story here.” She stopped herself.

And as she described what happened, and as she described walking out of that kitchen without the brownie, she said she surprised herself. She said, “I made the choice. I said no, and the conversation was over. That was it. It didn’t seem hard. There was no white knuckling again.” Well, this was one short instant and it was saying no to a brownie.

There is something much deeper going on here and something I want you to take away from this. Real change is more than just walking away from the brownie. Do you see that? It is so much more than strong-arming yourself to say no to a Little Debbie. Real change happens when you go inside, like inside your brain.

It is one thing to take action, and in this case my client took action in the form of walking away from the brownie. But that’s external, that’s outside. Where the real change happens is when you go inside and evaluate your thought process. That’s leading you to take action and walk away from the brownie in the first place.

And she did that. She named it. She said, “I don’t need to do this.” She stayed with herself. She paid attention. She stayed engaged. I call it “staying in the game” and she did exactly that. And it worked.

When I asked her how it felt after the fact, she said it was great. She said that instead of feeling exhausted and depleted as she had in the past from trying to white-knuckle it, this time she felt filled up. She felt energized, her word, empowered.

She even went on to say, after all was said and done, she told herself, “Okay, maybe I can do this,” and I 100% agree. She absolutely can do this. So, look at the difference here. Because you may have experienced this. You may know what it feels like when you’re not staying with yourself, and you’re trying to willpower your way through your decisions, and you’re white-knuckling it. How does that feel?

It feels exhausting because it takes a lot, a lot, a lot of energy to muster through decisions using willpower. And it makes sense that you would walk away feeling completely gassed after that. And it also makes sense that you would have nothing left for subsequent decisions. The amount of energy you have to willpower your way through decisions is finite and it’s in short supply.

So, hear me loud and clear, the answer here is not more willpower. The answer is not to push harder, okay? I’ve had clients tell me, verbatim, that their answer when things are not going well is to push harder. And that could be related to food decisions, or exercising, or even in the way they talk to themselves.

But please understand that “push harder” is not the answer. Clamping down and pushing harder is a recipe for burning out, revolting and rebounding.

So, how about you push nicer instead of pushing harder? That’s what this client did. Not only did she stay with herself while she decided not to have the brownie, but she was nice to herself and she was real with herself. She just said, “You don’t need to do this.” It wasn’t, “Oh my God, don’t screw this up. You’ve got to walk away. You really should not be in this kitchen, what the heck are you doing?”

No, her dialogue came from a place of kindness. It came from a place of choice. And it came from a place of clarity. I would argue that when you make your decisions from that space, where you’re engaged and kind and clear, that is going to result in you walking away feeling empowered and energized, versus feeling depleted. And the difference is huge.

Again, this was a brownie, okay? I just made an entire podcast about my client saying no to a brownie. But hopefully, as you’ve been listening to this, you realize that it’s actually not at all about the brownie. The reason I’m sharing this interaction is to show you what it really takes to stop overeating.

So, if you have faded out at all, come back to me. Because this is what it takes. It takes a willingness to stay with yourself. I cannot say it any better than the way my client said it. You stay with yourself. You observe your thoughts. You come off autopilot. And you realize that you have a choice

And if you truly want to change your habits and change your lifestyle, you make your choice from a place of sufficiency, from a place of kindness, and from a place of empowerment. That is exactly what my client did at that moment. And she walked away not only successful, but she walked away proud, as she very well should.

It gets even better. As we were talking through all of this, she said something else that really stuck out to me, that I want to share with you. She said, “My mental dialogue meant something that day. I really want to change. I want to do the new thing even if it’s challenging. I want to get off autopilot. I can do this honestly.”

I do not know if I could have paid her to say that because it was so good. I scribbled all of this down because it was such a stark contrast to her conversation a few days prior, and I wanted her to be able to come back to this as often as she needed to remind herself of what is possible. I want her to provide evidence to her brain whenever she starts to doubt herself that change is possible. That it does not have to involve moving mountains or doing anything wild or crazy; she just said no to a brownie.

What’s even more cool about this though, is that after she had this experience the rest of her week went better. She said that she stuck to her plan pretty well. She said it wasn’t perfect, but she still stuck to her plan for the most part. And that’s just it. I don’t expect you to follow a plan perfectly.

If you’re following your plan absolutely perfectly, you’re probably not treating yourself enough and that’s no good. Or if you’re being perfect, you’re probably being super strict and so hard on yourself and that’s no fun either. And it’s not sustainable. So, I really don’t want you to be perfect. That is creating an impossible standard that most people just cannot uphold.

There is a happy medium here that balances consistency with perfectionism, and my goal is to help you find it. I want to help you find what that sweet spot is. Where there’s enough consistency to keep you moving forward, but it’s balanced with imperfection. Because no human can follow a plan 100% of the time.

We need to find what that sweet spot is for you, and I think this client is finding it. And more than anything, she proved to herself that it’s the smallest things that really do add up. So good. This coaching situation reaffirmed a few different things for me. First, the session reaffirmed that I learn so much from my clients. While it’s my hope that I’m able to teach them tools and concepts, I realize I learn just as much from them by listening, hearing and acknowledging their stories when they are open, vulnerable, and willing to share both their failures and successes.

I learn, and I can take what I learned from them and use it to help other clients and listeners of this podcast. It’s a ripple effect, and it’s just one of the many reasons that I truly believe that I have the best job ever.

The second affirmation I got was that while things like protein and squats and calories and macros are important, they really do pale in comparison to what’s going on in your brain when it comes to changing your lifestyle. I have said this many times, but I think it’s important to keep repeating it.

Anyone can tell you how to eat and move. Really, anyone with the proper training can figure out your calories and macros or write you a four-day weightlifting plan to build muscle. And you can go follow it. And for some of you, that’s what you want. Some of you want to be told exactly what to do and how many grams of protein to eat and what exercises to perform.

And I can do that, but your diet and exercise plan is one small piece of a much larger, much more complex puzzle. If it were as easy as following a step-by-step process and then you arrived at lifestyle change, imagine how much easier that would be. But we know that doesn’t work, right? We know that simply following a diet plan or a workout plan, it is not that easy.

Despite that, despite having that knowledge, we still feel compelled to look for it. We still feel compelled to look for the next thing that will get us to weight loss. But you know this already, you know that diets don’t work. You know that following instructions to lose weight, like following the steps of a recipe in a cookbook, where it’s ‘do a little of this and a little of that’, and boom weight loss, you know that doesn’t work.

And while you have this knowledge, and many of you know this to be true, you can still be wooed by the newest trend, or fad diet that promises results. It’s easy to be swayed by it because it’s everywhere. Open a magazine, go to social media, and it is right there in front of you. Follow this plan and you will lose weight. But I call their bluff.

You know where those diets land you? They land you right back where you started. So, it’s not the diet, right? The diet just does not matter because it does not work. It’s your brain. It’s working on your very powerful brain. That is what works. If you want to change your life, it’s going to come from your brain.

It’s going to come from staying with yourself, even when it’s hard, so that you can see yourself through change.

And the third affirmation I got from this session was that two things can be true. You know I don’t like to b.s. you, so I’d never tell you that changing your habits or changing your lifestyle is a cakewalk. But that being said, changing your habits does not have to feel like moving mountains. It does not have to be so hard.

And what I took from this client session is that you can lean into the hard and let it be hard, but you can also let it be easy. I know, that sounds crazy; you can let it be hard and you can let it be easy. But I really do believe that both statements can be true here.

You can acknowledge that changing your habits, including changing your thoughts, because thoughts are habits too, is hard. It takes legit work. But at the same time, that is hard. You don’t have to fight so hard. You don’t have to push so hard. Making decisions and executing them does not have to be an uphill battle, okay?

I know I say that often, but I think this client’s experience shows it. She walked away. She did something hard, but she let it be easy. So, I hope something you heard today inspired you. I was so inspired by this conversation, and the client and her words. And I hope that you can take something away from this and apply it to yourself.

If you want to stop overeating, please know that you absolutely can. The diet plan really does not matter. What matters is staying with yourself. What matters is your self-talk. What matters are the small wins that you keep accumulating, because they all add up. And it does not have to be so hard. You can let this be easy.

All right, if you want to talk more about this, let’s go. When you coach with me, I will work with you to stay with yourself so that your decisions about eating and moving are less autopilot and more intentional. And the result is a better relationship with yourself.

Check out my website. Go to www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact, send me a message to schedule a consultation, and let’s get started. All right?

Thank you again for hanging out with me, and I’ll catch you again next week. Hey, if you’re looking for your next great read, I’ve got you covered. Head over to

CarrieHollandMD.com/books and download my list of most favorite reads. I’ve got two collections waiting for you. One is all about work-life balance. The other is a collection of books that have changed my life. I’ve referenced many of these books in the podcast, and now you can access those titles all in one place.

Again, that’s CarrieHollandMD.com/books. Check it out and find your next great read.

Thank you for listening to the Strong Is a Mindset podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build both a strong mind and a strong body by eating, moving, and most importantly, thinking, check out CarrieHollandMD.com.