Less Glove More Fist

Why your hunger signals are broken and how to fix them

September 25, 2022 Coaches Bronson and Natalie Season 1 Episode 3
Less Glove More Fist
Why your hunger signals are broken and how to fix them
Show Notes Transcript

What is the difference between being full and being satiated? How come some people can't stop eating while others can never eat enough?

In this episode, we dig into how our biology and psychology play a role in our hunger. How much control do we really have over our appetite and how much we eat?

7:14 What's the difference between being full vs satiated
14:31 How does the emotional response to eating affect satiety?
16:39 What is satiety?
19:44 Hunger and Satiety are sides of the same coin
25:37 What things affect hunger and satiety?
26:55 How to fix your hormone response to eating
29:35 How digestion affects satiety
32:20 Should you eat if you aren't hungry?
36:15 Satiety is tied to nutrient intake
38:16 Emotional hormone response to food
45:15 Should we enjoy food?
49:21 The psychology of hunger and satiety
52:50 Don't be afraid to challenge your current routine
55:53 Your attitude about your journey will tell people how to treat you
58:29 How to deal with emotional eating
1:06:55 Is it OK to be hungry sometimes?
1:13:15 Avoid extremes and apply what will be effective

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Coach Natalie:

Welcome to the Less Glove morphist Podcast.

Coach Bronson:

With me, Coach Bronson, and me, Coach Natt, where we peel back the curtains and reveal the truth behind Hot Topics in health and fitness.

Coach Natalie:

This is Keto Fitness at Life Unfiltered.

Coach Bronson:

What's going on, everybody? It's cos, bronson. Here Coach Nat. And today we are talking about the difference between and why it matters. Satiety fullness or being content with your food. How are you doing today, Cohnette?

Coach Natalie:

I am very content at the moment. Very content.

Coach Bronson:

Jam some food down your gullet. That's okay. I eat a little bit more today, too. I probably want to eat even though it's late. I feel like I want to eat just because. Is that okay? Is that good?

Coach Natalie:

We'll probably talk about that on today's episode.

Coach Bronson:

What did I eat today? Today I had breakfast earlier. A little earlier. Normally I eat around 1130.

Coach Natalie:

Well, you did eat early because you had a podcast.

Coach Bronson:

I had the video today. Yeah, I did eat a little earlier.

So normally I eat around 01:

00, actually, because I eat after BJJ or after the gym, which is usually twelve ish when I'm on schedule.

Coach Natalie:

I was going to say it's been.

Coach Bronson:

A while since we were in Atlanta, and then the last couple of weeks.

Coach Natalie:

Have been things have been a little.

Coach Bronson:

Chaos, a little round. But after all of that, coach Nat has now finally moved in. How do you feel about being moved in?

Coach Natalie:

I feel cozy.

Coach Bronson:

She has been floating around the apartment like she's on cloud slippers.

Coach Natalie:

Pillows.

Coach Bronson:

Oh, my God. The pillows. And honestly, look, okay, we make jokes about pillows and all the pillows, but there's really not that many more. He added, like, two pillows to the couch, right. And then a few pillows to the bed.

Coach Natalie:

Maybe six or eight to the bed.

Coach Bronson:

No.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. Because we have shams now, and we.

Coach Bronson:

Have what is a sham?

Coach Natalie:

My ladies get it.

Coach Bronson:

Sham.

Coach Natalie:

The decorative pillows that go over the pillows you sleep on.

Coach Bronson:

I don't get it.

Coach Natalie:

They pillow cases, and they're like an extra pillow that makes the bed look pretty, and it pulls it all together, but we don't sleep on this.

Coach Bronson:

If anybody could ever explain to me why beds that no one ever sees, besides the people living in the house, needs to be pretty, I would love to understand that.

Coach Natalie:

It makes us feel good.

Coach Bronson:

It makes you feel good? Okay. Well, then I guess it's worth it.

Coach Natalie:

It is worth it.

Coach Bronson:

As long as you put the pillows on your bed when we're not using them on your side of the bed.

Coach Natalie:

I make the bed in the morning. That's one of my roles. And, you know, there are two different they say there are two different kinds.

Coach Bronson:

Of people in the world when it comes to that. There absolutely is.

Coach Natalie:

The people who make their beds in the morning and the people who don't. Anybody want to guess which one is.

Coach Bronson:

Which in this relationship, yes, there's the Bachelors and then there's the domesticated. Yeah, I'm definitely not a bid making. I've never been that way. Even in the military, you have to you have to make your bed. And so it's not like I've ever.

Coach Natalie:

You didn't get into the habit then.

Coach Bronson:

And keep doing no, actually, when I was done, it was like, no, I'm not doing this. No, I'm not shaving. No, I'm not running anymore, I'm not making my bed. Yeah, those things.

Coach Natalie:

I'm one of the people who feels accomplished when the bet is made. I have done something in my day already.

Coach Bronson:

Right. And there's a lot of people that say that that's a good way to start your day because you are accomplishing something. You're setting yourself up for the rest of the day of doing things.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

So I totally get that.

Coach Natalie:

And we are both list people and we like to check things off. Yeah, we like to feel accomplished. Yes, I know you can feel me on that.

Coach Bronson:

I can feel you for sure. What are we talking about today? So today we're going to talk about after we just spent five minutes babbling. Whatever. You guys love hearing a podcast. If there wasn't some babble, there has to be babble. I will say for anybody listening, we will try in this podcast. There may be some babble and some random discussion at the beginning of our episodes, but we do want to try to get as quickly into the topic as possible. There's nothing frustrates me more than listening to a podcast and having to wait 30 minutes or 45 minutes before they actually start talking about what the hell? They freaking they said they're going to talk about it. So annoying.

Coach Natalie:

So we want to dive in.

Coach Bronson:

We want to dive in. So we're diving into the conversation of satiety versus fullness versus.

Coach Natalie:

Contentedness.

Coach Bronson:

Contentedness. Say that ten times best. This comes up a lot in a lot of different ways with our clients and people that we see posting on social media. Everything from I don't know when I'm full, I'm eating 4000 calories or I'm eating £3 or£4 of meat a day and I can't seem to be full to I can't get 50 grams of protein. And before I feel full at the extremes, I'm eating all of this food and I never feel full or I don't need barely anything and I can never not be full.

Coach Natalie:

Or the conversation that really prompted this discussion, which was about feeling satisfied by our food. So this concept of, well, I know I've eaten enough.

Coach Bronson:

Right.

Coach Natalie:

I'm not satisfied. I'm looking for something after the meal.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. And that goes from right after the meal. I know I've eaten everything throughout the day, but it's 2 hours later, there's something going on, it's the evening, or whatever it may be. Like I was just saying at the beginning of the nighttime snack, I've always been a nighttime snacker. Same I've always been. So when it gets to be around 738, I'm looking like my eyeballs are looking at the kitchen. I'm thinking to myself, what do we have in the fridge? What do we have in the cupboard? I can make a little protein pudding or I can make a shake, something like that. And I know I don't need to. I know that physically, I'm not hungry. I do not have actual need to feed or need. Nourishment. It is absolutely 100% psychological.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. And habitual.

Coach Bronson:

And habitual. And we'll get into it because I think I broke it down when we're putting our notes together, I think I broke it down into there's basically two things that affect everything about this conversation. It's either biology or psychology, and everything falls into one of those two buckets. Before we get into that a little bit, let's talk about the differences. Let's define this is something we talk about, we want to do in our podcast before we talk about a topic, let's define what things are that we're talking about to make sure that we're on the same shoot of music and you're on the same shooting music. Understanding how we're approaching this discussion when.

Coach Natalie:

We utilize the term what are we actually?

Coach Bronson:

Right. Because that's one of the biggest things we see is people use terms incorrectly and interchangeably. And interchangeably. And that's not how words are meant to be.

Coach Natalie:

We always have one of our favorite movies in our head when we see that happen. That word I don't think that word.

Coach Bronson:

Means you keep using that word. I don't think you know what it means. Yeah, that's a T shirt. It's already a meme. And we probably say it once a week to somebody in our heads. Yeah. Let's talk about, first off, well, let's say satiety for less, because that's the one that's really why that's what we're aiming for.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

Okay. What does it mean to be full when someone says, I'm full or I can't get full or I'm full all the time.

Coach Natalie:

Okay. So I'm going to say what the connotation typically is with fullness. And unfortunately, it hasn't been married to society.

Coach Bronson:

Right.

Coach Natalie:

Or what we think society means that if I'm not stuffed, I'm not satiated, I'm not full. Right. So fullness has gotten this connotation over time of, like that Thanksgiving effect.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah, that's a great analogy.

Coach Natalie:

That like, I couldn't eat another bite of anything. I'm stuffed. I can't move. Unfortunately, it usually comes with discomfort or even some digestive upset. For many people, this is what the feeling of fullness feels like to them differently.

Coach Bronson:

No, I think that's it because if we think about the converse of that, one of the tenants of how to Know If You've Had Enough, that I've used a lot in the past and not as much recently, but I have definitely it is something that is part of my toolbox, is the statement never full now I'm losing it now. Now that I got to say on air, I'm totally losing the statement never hungry, never full. So there's a balance line in between being hungry and being stuffed.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

And so if you're at a point where you're just like, okay, I'm done, I can't have another bite, chances are that's too far down that line.

Coach Natalie:

Yep. And most people are out of touch with those signals.

Coach Bronson:

Yes. Okay. And we're going to definitely get into why that is, because there are some things about the awareness and mindfulness and sense of urgency that we like me eating something versus coach not eating something is a very different experience. And sometimes when we eat, the way we approach how we eat our meals can affect some of these things.

Coach Natalie:

Absolutely.

Coach Bronson:

Okay. So full is if we had to define full, I would say when someone says they are full, they are describing a feeling of reaching capacity. How's that?

Coach Natalie:

I love that.

Coach Bronson:

They reach a certain feeling of I'm physically incapable of eating more.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. Uncomfortable.

Coach Bronson:

Right. And you may not know that it's uncomfortable. It may be something you're used to familiar with. That doesn't mean it's supposed to be that way.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. Like so many other things.

Coach Bronson:

Just because that's how you're used to it being doesn't mean it's correct. Okay. So that's fullness. What about contented? What about being content with your meals?

Coach Natalie:

Okay, so when I think of content being content, the word satisfaction comes up.

Coach Bronson:

Okay.

Coach Natalie:

And I don't know if we would define satisfaction differently from contentedness.

Coach Bronson:

Potentially. I think there could be some distinction, but keep going.

Coach Natalie:

I think that to me, that's what that kind of takes.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah.

Coach Natalie:

I'm happy, feel good, I've had enough, and I feel physically and mentally good where I am.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. I think content is all of those things. And if you throw a little bit more of the emotional connection to the food that you're eating into the experience, the idea that what I ate made me feel good enough and it met a need that I had, and now I'm good, if that makes sense.

Coach Natalie:

Right. Okay. So interesting, when you say the word content, the first thing I thought of was early in my career, my former career, before I was in health and fitness, so I was in nonprofit management, and this was early on, and I was always striving for the next level in career. And whenever I would get to a point of, it's been a couple of years, I'm really comfortable where I am, and it's not difficult for me anymore. There's no challenge and there's no struggle, and there's no leveling up, so to speak. Right. I've gotten comfortable with it. The word content, for me, always had a negative connotation because it was, well, when I get too content, I need to be striving for something more.

Coach Bronson:

Okay.

Coach Natalie:

So that's always what it was for me in my career. And it would be the sign that it was time for look for that promotion or that next step or that next level or how can I take on more to do more? Right? So if we apply that, it doesn't have to have a negative connotation, but if we apply that connotation to fullness our food, what our food is doing for us, that content is like, comfortable, not stretching the boundaries. We're not stretching your stomach to accommodate more, not creating a challenge for our gut microbiome, for our digestion. Sure, it's kind of a status quo. It's like everything's good, everything's chill.

Coach Bronson:

Using it that way. You can say there's a corollary between content and satisfied. I think we could use those. Those are two words we probably could use interchangeably. And that's part of what we're looking for when we are talking about being satiated and being at a point that is healthy when it comes to our food. Now, the challenge is, and here's where the challenge is, is that emotional connection? And is it the quality of the food, the amount of the food, what we know that that food is doing for us that is making us content? Or is it the flavor and the texture and the emotional connection or the reason that we're eating the food that is making us feel content and satisfied? So there's some digging we have to do there because that's the emotional side and the psychological aspect of what we're doing. I feel content and satisfied when I eat a pound of lamb and eight eggs because I love how it tastes. I feel perfect after I eat it. I'm never too full. And I know that it's the most healthy thing that I could possibly eat. And I enjoy every single bite.

Coach Natalie:

And you enjoy the flavor.

Coach Bronson:

I enjoy the flavor, yeah, absolutely. I enjoy the process of cooking it and being in control of what I'm putting in my mouth. All the aspects of doing that is part of what my enjoyment of that food is. I used to get. And honestly, still now if you give me a pint of Ben and Jerry's, I am going to devour it and I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to be satisfied. But here's the difference. Here's the difference. I'm going to be satisfied while I'm eating it and then depressed as soon as I'm done.

Coach Natalie:

And you could probably eat another pipe.

Coach Bronson:

And I could probably eat another pint, which we can get into. There's a whole another aspect of that.

Coach Natalie:

Not because you have capacity for it, correct. But because of all of the psychological alarm bells that are going off your brain telling you absolutely that's not enough.

Coach Bronson:

So that actually, as we're talking about this, some things are clicking in my head. And I love talking this stuff out with you because when we talk, if you guys haven't realized, listening to our other couple of episodes, when we talk, things click for us.

Coach Natalie:

There's like light bulbs go off over our head.

Coach Bronson:

This is what happens around the apartment all the time anyways, as we talk about things. And one of us is like, oh, that makes sense. I got an idea. Let's put this like this. Just connected something for me. What we're talking about with contentedness and satisfaction goes to satiety based on when and how long it lasts.

Coach Natalie:

Okay, there we go. So that's a good thing.

Coach Bronson:

So that's a segue into what is satiety. So satiety is basically a okay, I'm going to use fullness and contentedness in this definition.

Coach Natalie:

Okay.

Coach Bronson:

Satiety is a level of fullness that allows you to be content for a long period of time.

Coach Natalie:

You never have to get uncomfortable.

Coach Bronson:

You don't have to get overly full, but you're content. And you're full for long enough that you don't feel the need to create you for cravings for snacks and things like that. You enjoy your food. It fulfilled the need that you had for your body and your sustenance.

Coach Natalie:

Oh, my gosh. I just thought of something.

Coach Bronson:

Oh, here we go. There's another one.

Coach Natalie:

Okay. You know how we talk about comfort foods?

Coach Bronson:

Yes.

Coach Natalie:

Right. Eating for comfort. What better way is there to eat for comfort if you're eating for society?

Coach Bronson:

Right.

Coach Natalie:

Because once again, contentedness to me is comfort. I'm comfortable here. A lot of those early jobs that I did, if they could pay the bills, I could be comfortable doing that for the rest of my life. It wouldn't push me, it wouldn't challenge me. I could just be comfortable there. And that's what contentedness, that's really what you want out of your meals, is this feeling of, I am comfortable.

Coach Bronson:

I'm good right here.

Coach Natalie:

Nothing needs to change. And then when you feel that hunger again, you satisfy that hunger with a meal that satiates you, and now you're comfortable again until your body asks for more nutrition.

Coach Bronson:

Right? Yeah. Satiation is the goal. And the difference really is between feeling full and feeling satiated. The biggest one is I think it's two things. It's feeling satiated doesn't mean you feel full and stuffed. It means you feel content. I've eaten enough and I feel good about what I've eaten.

Coach Natalie:

You have satisfied that innate desire for hunger for nourishment, nourishment.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. And then again, there's that time thing. If you feel good and it only lasts you 30 minutes, then chances are there's a whole nother issue we get into with the quality of food and how that affects your hormones and things like that, which we'll talk about. But true. Satiation lasts for hours.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

And you should start feeling it while you're eating, not 30 minutes after you've finished, which is another discussion. It's another piece. All right. Hopefully that helps you guys understand what we're talking about. When we talk about satiation versus fullness versus attendantness, they all kind of play a role interchangeably. You could kind of say that fullness is an extreme we can't talk about this stuff. Actually, if we're going to talk about fullness as the extreme, what's extreme on the other end would be hunger. So what is actual hunger versus oh, boy. Fake hunger, like false hunger?

Coach Natalie:

Well, this could be a whole separate talk about hunger, but as it relates to wholeness, we have to at least.

Coach Bronson:

We have to talk about the other side of the coin. Right.

Coach Natalie:

So typically in the field, you hear a lot of talk of head hunger versus stomach hunger. Okay, so it's the mental hunger versus physiological hunger. Right. Your body is telling you that you need to eat. You need nourishment. Versus this mental emotional desire for food. That is not a physiological need.

Coach Bronson:

But I really want pork ride.

Coach Natalie:

That was me. I almost bought someone. I was out earlier, and I did not because I know I would eat past the point of appreciation.

Coach Bronson:

Yes. Pork rinds are dangerous. Pork rinds and keto brick in this house. Keto brick for me. Yeah. I got to be careful with keto brick.

Coach Natalie:

I'm grateful that I can't handle dairy, and I don't want to mess with plant proteins. So there's no option for keto brick for me because that stuff is like crack.

Coach Bronson:

It is. Oh, my God.

Coach Natalie:

Okay, so here's the way I like to there's a couple of ways I like to tell my clients to identify whether it's true hunger. One is the sensations of your body. So getting in touch with the sensations of your body. Do you hear your stomach growling if your stomach is growling, even if you don't think you're hungry? Because sometimes it can be the other side of the coin. Mentally, we can turn it off because we're over anxious about something or we're busy or we're just so focused on something that we can push aside the feelings of hunger. But if you notice that your stomach is growling, you need to satisfy that need that your body is telling you that it has. So that is a good indicator on one side or the other. Am I really hungry. Well, I don't know. Is my stomach empty? Is my stomach showing me that it's empty by growling and asking for me to put something in it? The other question that I ask is, would I eat cold leftover chicken breast right now? If the answer is no, I would eat it anytime. I mean, we were eating shredded chicken out of the bowl the other day. Cold out of the fridge.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. That's not a question you can ask me because I probably would eat some. But no, in general, that is one of the most unpalatable things to eat.

Coach Natalie:

Well, bronson wouldn't eat it if it.

Coach Bronson:

Didn'T have salt on it 100%, you're right. So if we're talking about not putting salt on it, then no, I got to be starving if I eat that.

Coach Natalie:

Exactly. And that's my indication. Other people can pick pick a food that you don't like and ask yourself, would I eat that food right now?

Coach Bronson:

Right.

Coach Natalie:

And if the answer is no, then you're not really physically hungry. Because if any of us, if we were starving on a desert island and we could only get one kind of food, and it was something that repulsed us and we were starving, we would still eat it because we need to survive.

Coach Bronson:

Liver. See, I'm 100% serious. I can't stand liver. Yes, I'm carnivore. Yes, I just eat me carnivore.

Coach Natalie:

Who does not?

Coach Bronson:

I don't like liver.

Coach Natalie:

Like organ meat.

Coach Bronson:

I don't. I want to try other ones, but I can't do liver.

Coach Natalie:

I don't know what it would be for me. There's not a lot of foods. Like, I don't have aversion to pretty much anything.

Coach Bronson:

Okay.

Coach Natalie:

I do know that, okay, canned tuna without mayo or some sort of fat.

Coach Bronson:

That would be on there for sure.

Coach Natalie:

I'm not the person who's going to eat tuna out of the can. Some people can do that just fine. I would much rather eat cold leftover chicken than oh, really?

Coach Bronson:

They're kind of the same to me. Like, you got to have a bunch.

Coach Natalie:

Of salt or mustard, something like mustard, mayo, something. Yeah.

Coach Bronson:

Wow. Okay. All right. Being hungry versus feeling hungry versus feeling hungry.

Coach Natalie:

Here we go.

Coach Bronson:

One of the things that when we were talking about this topic prior to actually coming on air, we talked about the biology aspects and the psychology aspects of fullness and satiety. And we realized whatever we talk about in this podcast is going to be applies to both sides of the coin.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

The coin that we're actually talking about is the biology and psychology of hunger and satiety. So while this may be titled something about society, we may be focusing on the difference of satiety versus fullness. We're also talking about hunger because the triggers and all the things are the same.

Coach Natalie:

You really can't talk about one without yeah.

Coach Bronson:

So the hormone aspects, the emotional aspects, the habit aspects, the upbringing, family traditions, environment, stress, all of those things play into both sides of this. So whatever we say for one, you can pretty much just say it applies to the other one, too. Does that work?

Coach Natalie:

I like it. So getting back to society yeah.

Coach Bronson:

So let's talk about what are the things that affect hunger and society? I'm just going to say hunger and satiety from now on because we're kind of talking about both. Okay, so when we talk about the biological or psychological buckets okay, so the biological buckets, let's start there. What I have in my notes you can tell me if I've got everything, is starting with hormones. And when we talk about hormones, we're talking about the natural response to food, the natural response to disordered eating. Because our hormones can get out of whack if we're not eating like we should be.

Coach Natalie:

Absolutely.

Coach Bronson:

And then there's the chemical hijacking of processed foods, highly palatable, designed to trigger things in our body from an actual hunger hormone perspective, but then also from a emotional connection perspective. So there's a bunch of things we can talk about here. So let's start with just what are the hormones we're talking about? We've got two families of hormones that go into this. One is the actual hunger hormones, and we're talking about leptin and ghrelin. And then we have the emotional hormones. We're talking about serotonin, primarily. Yeah, just serotonin. Do you think or dopamine plays it okay. So there's a bunch of different things that kind of play into this. So let's talk about the natural response to eating food. Leptin is the hormone that tells you you're full. Ghrelin is a hormone that says you're hungry.

Coach Natalie:

You know how I always remember which is which?

Coach Bronson:

Go.

Coach Natalie:

Go get food is the go hormone. And then the left. I just remember that with the g, but then that leptin is the opposite.

Coach Bronson:

Got you. Okay. And one of the biggest things that we see from people coming into this is leptin resistance, where their eating habits are eating patterns, the amount of food that they eat, what they eat. It's kind of like insulin resistance. Their body just doesn't respond to it the same way the way that it should.

Coach Natalie:

Right.

Coach Bronson:

So they may be getting the signals, and they're just not recognizable.

Coach Natalie:

Instead of recognizing that you have had enough, it's turned off. You're not capable of receiving that message.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

And that is partially from the habits of how we eat, which goes into slow down when you're eating your food, chew your food. The basics that many skip over, don't eat distracted.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. That is my challenge.

Coach Bronson:

That is her big thing with a lot of people she works with. For me, I do work with people because it's something that I work on. I'm a fast eater.

Coach Natalie:

She's a vacuum.

Coach Bronson:

I get my food. Now, here's the thing. I do enjoy every single bite. There is a process where I take my bite and I save her the bite and I save her the chew. I just do it really fast.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah.

Coach Bronson:

And there are times, especially if I do get off of the practice, where I may be on my phone or watching TV or doing something where my plate will be empty, and I'll be like, ****, where did that go? Where did all that go? I don't even remember eating that.

Coach Natalie:

And this can lead many people to overeat, because it's like, all of a sudden, the food is gone, and you didn't have any experience of eating this food, so now you don't feel satisfied, right?

Coach Bronson:

Well, by the time that leptin is triggered in your body, you're already done with your food. And this is why I say you should start feeling full. You should start feeling satisfied while there is food on your plate. That's what I try to recommend to people.

Coach Natalie:

I like that. That's really interesting. Now, here's another thing that can play into that digestive.

Coach Bronson:

Yes.

Coach Natalie:

Problem. So, if you have issues with digestion, my big one is I have slow gastric emptying, which means the food does not leave my stomach very quickly. So in the time that it's supposed to, so it backs up, it ferments. This is what causes heartburn gerd acid reflux. So we are taught that it means that you have too much stomach acid when in reality you don't have enough. And so your food is not leaving the stomach, going into the small intestines and finishing its journey the way it's supposed to. So for me, if I'm not taking the right supplements, if I'm not doing what I need to do to support my digestion, 4 hours after a meal, I am uncomfortably full and now I can't eat it again. But yet after the meal, I'm still sometimes ravenously hungry. So there can be things that play into this that are purely physiological. None of that is a mental psychological phenomenon. That's all physiological. So if you are really struggling to identify the signals and you are not connecting and you're not understanding what's going on, there could be something physiologically that needs to be looked at.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah.

Coach Natalie:

And then I would highly recommend seeing a functional physician who can run some tests and help you figure out what's happening in your digestive.

Coach Bronson:

Or you could also go to our video on YouTube and watch a video on how to do the home test for stomach acid.

Coach Natalie:

We did do a home test for stomach acid because I did that test and it showed exactly what was. I had also done a hypochloroidria test with my functional physician in the past. I already knew what the outcome would likely be, but I wanted to see if the home test would actually work. If you are super curious, you have no idea what we're talking about. Definitely go check out our video on how to do a home test for your stomach acid level to see if you have low stomach acid.

Coach Bronson:

So some of the ways to get around left and resistance obviously we talked about what we just talked about. Slow down your eating, be more mindful, don't eat distractions. Understand if there is something biologically out of balance that's affecting your digestion and how your body is responding. But then there's the other one that's really challenging. That when I work with people and they ask me, well, do I need to eat if I'm not hungry or do I need to not eat when I am hungry?

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

And depending on what your issues are, there are many times, and this is probably the higher percentage of people that I work with, that I tell them, even if you're not hungry, you need to eat because you have been habitually under eating and you are overly sensitive to the signals that are telling you that you're full and. You need to retrain those signals. So I'm not saying that you need to intentionally gorge yourself on food, but there will be a period of time and every single time this is primarily when it comes to protein in general, trying to get people to eat more protein every single time. And it's amazing to watch. There's no way I can do that. There's no way I can do that. I can't eat that much protein. So we work with them on how to add protein to each meal and kind of build up to increase over protein. And within two, three, four weeks. Four weeks is probably the longest it's taken somebody. The next conversation we have about it is, I can't get enough. And it's like your body will retrain itself and it will be much easier to get the food and the nutrition that you need to get. But you got to retrain that to those signals.

Coach Natalie:

And a couple of things are happening there too. For many people who were not training, weight training, doing anything active, physical before they started working with us, there is this element of your metabolism is ramping up to support the added activity.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

So that's part of it. A lot of the time, especially new lifters, they can't eat all that. They're like, how am I going to eat all of that? And then I'm like, okay, give it a couple of weeks on the new training program because your body is going to desire all of that.

Coach Bronson:

Right. And this is one of the reasons why we talk about it's. Exercise is important because exercise, guys, exercise, building muscle, being active helps your hormones work better. It triggers so many different things in your body. So you're going to feel more hungry. And that's good. That's what we want.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. It's usually one of the biofeedback markers I'm looking for from clients to know that they're moving in the right direction. The other big thing that happens there is they're typically coming from eating higher caloric, but lower nutrient foods.

Coach Bronson:

Yes.

Coach Natalie:

So when they switched to a whole food protocol and now they're eating a lot more real food, first thing that happens is mentally they're looking at the numbers saying that's not enough food. Right.

Coach Bronson:

Because it's not enough calories.

Coach Natalie:

Because they're looking at the calories, I'm.

Coach Bronson:

Only eating x number of calories. Is that enough?

Coach Natalie:

There's no way this is going to be enough. And then a day or two in, I can't eat all day.

Coach Bronson:

Exactly.

Coach Natalie:

And it's simply because when they talk about empty calorie foods, it's not that there's empty calories, like a calorie is a calorie, but it's that it's empty nutritionally.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

It is nutritionally poor. It's not giving your body anything that it needs. In fact, it's probably giving your body a bunch of junk that it doesn't need. So now your body has all this extra waste to get rid of, but you don't feel satisfied after eating those foods. I think this was on your notes as well, Bronson, about how these hyperpalatable foods play into this stuff. It's a very short period of satisfaction, and it's a psychological satisfaction, not a physiological.

Coach Bronson:

Here's the traditional explanation. I used to always get and give. This is what I always got when I first started. Was it's like eating at a Chinese restaurant? If you've ever gone to eat at a Chinese restaurant and you get Chinese takeout, whatever, you know, 80%, 90% of Chinese food is fried carbs. Even if you're getting the meat dishes and sauces and sauces with a bunch of sugar and other stuff in it. So you eat a nice big Chinese meal and then an hour later you're like, I'm hungry again.

Coach Natalie:

You're looking for something else because you've.

Coach Bronson:

Got nothing out of it. Your body is still looking for nutrition. And if anybody's ever interested in learning about how our body responds to actual nutrition, I highly recommend taking a look at Marty Kendall's work.

Coach Natalie:

Oh, yeah.

Coach Bronson:

And nutrient optimizer. Just Google nutrient optimizer Marty Kendall and read a lot of the blogs and the things he's got. He's got data from thousands and thousands of people that he's analyzed to track their information in Chronometer. He's got an agreement with Chronometer where he pulls all the information and he has basically done research and he talks about how satiety can be tied directly to the quantity of micronutrients and macronutrients that your body gets if you're eating extra food. And it has this this is how many calories and how much food you can eat before your body says, I'm full.

Coach Natalie:

It's crazy to that conversation. In one of the carnivore groups today, I saw somebody ask, why do most carnivores not eat chicken? I never see anybody talking about chicken.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

I did. And a whole bunch of other voices that chicken is basically the most nutrient poor food in the animal kingdom.

Coach Bronson:

Bottom of the list.

Coach Natalie:

So this is why you always hear carnivores talking about red meat. And very rarely do you hear us talking about poultry shape.

Coach Bronson:

Poultry. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so that is the natural response to the chemicals of satiety and hunger. What about the psychological chemicals, the emotional chemicals that are triggered when we eat food? So serotonin, dopamine those types of things. Had a client recently this is an example of how this plays into it, who was saying that his meals are one of the only things he has in his life that he can enjoy.

Coach Natalie:

Oh, yeah.

Coach Bronson:

And outside of the bigger picture and connotation of what that means for his life and what's going on with him right now, the idea that you enjoy food can be a dangerous slope, a slippery slope, because here's what was happening and this is why I talk about this. He enjoy all day long, he's thinking about what he's going to eat. He plans it, he cooks it, he gets it. And it takes him ten minutes, 15 minutes to eat the whole meal, and then he's done, and he's moved on to something else. And while he's eating, he's waiting on a Zoom call. He's reading an email, he's doing whatever. So we had the conversation of, OK, if your meal is the only thing you have left in your life to enjoy right now, how come you're not enjoying? You're not even enjoying, right? So it's the dopamine hit or the cerebral, I always feel which one is the hormone of expectation? It's the serotonin, right? Dopamine.

Coach Natalie:

The one that prompts you to chase.

Coach Bronson:

Right. So it's the dopamine hit of preparing the meal and the expectation of eating the meal.

Coach Natalie:

Oh, my gosh.

Coach Bronson:

That is what's drawing him to feel that he's enjoying it. But when he actually gets to sit down and eat it, he's not even paying attention to what he's eating.

Coach Natalie:

Well, and this is how dopamine works also, because many times after you get the reward, if it's not as satisfying as the expectation of it was, then you seek out more.

Coach Bronson:

You seek out more. And that's where Binging and all sorts of other things go. That's an example of an unhealthy relationship to the emotional aspect of eating. The expectation is more valuable than the actual experience of eating the food. So that's another example where I was like, hey, dude, if you really want to enjoy the food, take half an hour to eat it. Sit down, sit down, turn off the distractions, and actually enjoy the food. Because he was complaining of things like palate, fatigue, I'm getting bored with my food, and blah, blah, blah. How do you even know? You're just scarfing it down. You don't even know what you're eating. So how can you say you're bored with it if you're not even experiencing what you're eating?

Coach Natalie:

And this also gets into the what are you making it mean beyond what it means right now? I am the first one who does not say food is only fuel, and you should only look at food as a function of what it does for your body, and that's the only purpose for it. You shouldn't enjoy it.

Coach Bronson:

That's not it.

Coach Natalie:

There shouldn't be anything beyond that. That's it. We should be robots, and we should put this fuel into our system purely for its functional effects.

Coach Bronson:

Okay, wait, I'm confused. Why do we have taste buds?

Coach Natalie:

Right. Thank you. Okay, so I think we should enjoy our food. And I'm a big proponent of if you're not enjoying your food, try other things. Try things. There's usually a couple of reasons why we're not enjoying our food, and a major one is the way the habits that we're trying to change. Right. When we're thinking about getting healthy. Right. We have typically been eating in a way where we are covering our foods with condiments, sauces, cheeses, breading, seasonings, whatever else, oils, frying. It all of this stuff, right? Rarely have. Many of us, before we came to this healthy way of eating, actually knew what the food tasted like, the way it was supposed to taste 100%. Right? So a lot of it is actually, as Bronson mentioned, retraining yourself, retraining your brain, retraining your body on what to enjoy. Right? So part of this is suspending some belief systems that we've created. We have created this meaning around food. And this is where I would say check the thoughts.

Coach Bronson:

Okay.

Coach Natalie:

Because it is likely that if you're saying that I'm getting bored with my food, well, what is it about the food? What is your expectation that this food is going to do for you?

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

What are you expecting? Because before, when we didn't change our habits, we were not thinking much about what we were eating. Right? We weren't planning our meals in advance. We weren't doing a lot of macro tetris right before we even knew what macros were, we weren't thinking about how this food was impacting our bodies. Now, does that mean that every meal we ever had when we were unhealthy was the most exciting thing in the world? And we had fireworks going off, and we were doing dance parties every time that we ate because we were so happy about our food. I know I have countless meals that I can't even remember from the years before I was keto, carnivore, Paleo. I just didn't think about food that much. I know there were probably foods and meals that I did look forward to, but there were likely 90% of my.

Coach Bronson:

Meals were just whatever, just made something. Or you just go out and eat something, you order it and you're like, okay.

Coach Natalie:

It wasn't until for many of us, it's not until we start planning our foods. Because now we're trying to manage our foods and manage our calories, manage what we're taking in so that we can get to a result that we want that now all of a sudden, we're deprived. We're restricted, I can't have this, I can't have that. And now we're looking for excitement from our foods that we never expected from our foods before.

Coach Bronson:

Right? There it is. That's it right there. We're looking for something from our food that we never expected before.

Coach Natalie:

That food is not intended to give us.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

Food is absolutely intended to give us enjoyment and pleasure. As Bronson said. That's why we have taste buds. Evolutionarily. We were built so that we would seek out pleasurable foods, because if it was not pleasurable to the palate, it was poisonous.

Coach Bronson:

Okay? And let's think about that. So if that's the case, then the things that are the most nutrient dense are the things that should taste the best.

Coach Natalie:

They were nature's hyperpalatable food.

Coach Bronson:

Right? So if meat is the most nutrient dense thing that we can eat, then to me, if I'm eating meat, I should feel really good when I eat it. It should taste good. I should salivate.

Coach Natalie:

Can I tell you all? Braunson made the most perfect delays on the grill.

Coach Bronson:

Oh my God, you're making my laugh better now.

Coach Natalie:

Just remembering those the feeling of consuming.

Coach Bronson:

That meal so good.

Coach Natalie:

Oh, my goodness. It made me stop in my tracks. I remember I had a short period of time to eat. I ate half the steak because I was like, I don't have time to.

Coach Bronson:

Enjoy the rest of it.

Coach Natalie:

Just going to have 4oz. I'll come back later and have some more if I need more. But it was so satisfying. I did not need another bite after that meal.

Coach Bronson:

It was good.

Coach Natalie:

And every second of that meal, every time we took a bite, we looked at each other.

Coach Bronson:

You don't want to know what kind of faces we're making. Let's just say it was really good.

Coach Natalie:

So when you retrain your palate to enjoy the foods that nature intended for you to enjoy, it is a level of satisfaction that it is unmatched by anything in this engineered world of engineered foods is because what they've done is they've hijacked. The industry has hijacked there. It is this natural mechanism that we have.

Coach Bronson:

They have scientists that specifically work on making food to hijack your taste buds and hijack your hormones so that you eat more. They want to sell you products so they make it so you overeat the product and have to buy more.

Coach Natalie:

I have never read the book. The Dorito effect. It is a powerful read to understand some of what has happened with the food industry.

Coach Bronson:

Absolutely ridiculous.

Coach Natalie:

And it's why if you're not enjoying food in its natural state with some real salt on it and that's it, then you really have to check yourself and ask, okay, what am I consuming most of the time?

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

Do I still have sucralose daily or.

Coach Bronson:

Other sweeteners or any kind of fake.

Coach Natalie:

Things ingesting artificial flavorings and sweeteners and additives and packaged foods?

Coach Bronson:

One of the biggest things that I've seen with people who actually go whole food only, no process anything for even a week. Even a week. It doesn't take long. I challenge anybody. Just go for a week with nothing sweet, nothing processed, no additives, nothing.

Coach Natalie:

Four days.

Coach Bronson:

Diet drinks, know anything for a week. Ten days. Four days. Some period of time. And one of the tests that I used to see people do is they'd eat an apple. And most of the time they eat the apple and they're like, okay, it's normal. Apple, whatever. And then they go two weeks without eating anything. And then they eat the same apple again and they're like, holy ****. This is the sweetest apple I've ever had in my life. Because your taste buds aren't used to it. They've gotten too used to what real food tastes like. And during that process, the real food starts to taste better too.

Coach Natalie:

Oh, yeah. I would do it with carrots.

Coach Bronson:

Carrots? Yeah. They would end up doing. Sweet as hell.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah. I'd be amazed.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. Okay. So that kind of covers some of the chemical hijacking, the natural response, hormones and things like that. Let's talk about the psychology. So when we talk about the psychology of being full or being hungry, there's a handful of things to go into that I don't know if we want to get into all of them, but on my list, I've got habits which we can maybe even say. Habits and traditions can kind of go together.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah. Ritual things.

Coach Bronson:

Ritual things that we've been brought up or that we've just developed over time. Just how we do things. Environment, big time. How we let our environment affect what we're doing or how we feel about food or how we feel pressured into doing things with food that we don't.

Coach Natalie:

What is the number one thing we hear from our clients that cause them to go off track?

Coach Bronson:

Vacation.

Coach Natalie:

That or stress.

Coach Bronson:

Stress. Yeah. Well, that's the other one I have. I had stress and or emotions on the list as well. Okay, so let's just talk real quick about well, for all of these, one of the first thing when it comes to the psychological aspects of do you feel hungry? Do you feel full or satisfied? Satiate is to understand that you won't be able to make any progress on any of them if you don't practice being aware of what's going on. Awareness is the key, and you have to do some self evaluation, some inner work, some spending time with yourself to understand what's going through your head. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? Why are you thinking that way? Am I making this up?

Coach Natalie:

Absolutely.

Coach Bronson:

Am I living within a limiting self belief or expectation that doesn't exist? Am I basing my actions on what other people think of me? There's a bunch of things that go into there, but you'll never make any progress if you don't take the time to be aware of what the issues are.

Coach Natalie:

Yes. You have to pause. You have to pause and analyze right. What's going on with me.

Coach Bronson:

So it almost doesn't even matter which of the psychological factors we're talking about, because whether it's habits that you have, if you have habits and routine and you're realizing that those habits and routines aren't serving you, number one, you have to be aware that they're not serving you first and identify that.

Coach Natalie:

There has to be a level of.

Coach Bronson:

Self awareness to even recognize to even recognize that. And then a lot of times with habits and routines, there's a self belief issue. This is how I've done it. This is what I have to do. It has to be this way. And you have to kind of think, okay, does it really have to be that way? What if I did it this way? I worked with people, and I've had conversations with people who they're struggling, they're stuck, they're in a rut and you say, okay, well, what have you been doing? What's going on? What types of thing? Oh, I've been eating this much every day. This is my macros. I've been working out, blah, blah, blah. I've been intermittent fasting. I've been intermittent fasting for two years. Okay, why are you intermittent fasting? Goal? Because I want to optimize my autophagy and fat loss. Well, are you losing fat? No. Okay. Maybe intermittent fasting isn't going to work for you. Maybe there's other things that we could do there, but the belief in the person's mind was intermittent fasting is supposed to help with this. So that's what I have to do. Yeah, but you have to be aware of what's actually working and be willing to change and try new things. Absolutely. I guess, like I said, for all of this stuff, it's really awareness. Right.

Coach Natalie:

One of the big ones I see is with snacking. Okay, right. So what am I going to replace my afternoon snack with? Right, okay. Well, could you just eat more at lunch so you can be more satisfied for dinner time and you can see the dumbfounded look on people's face, like, wait, what? No afternoon snack?

Coach Bronson:

Yeah, absolutely.

Coach Natalie:

How will I live without my afternoon snack? That's just how they've always done it. Now, a lot of that is from what we were told about how to balance sugar when we were eating carbs.

Coach Bronson:

Right.

Coach Natalie:

And that came from if you are looking at any of the dietary recommendations from the government, those are all based on a standard American diet. They're based off a high carb diet. So you cannot take that and implement it to your ketogenic lifestyle and think that it's going to work 100%. So you don't have to eat six times a day.

Coach Bronson:

Do not. And the idea of changing things in your lives that are habits, it's almost.

Coach Natalie:

Never a bad thing to challenge.

Coach Bronson:

Exactly. It's never a bad thing to challenge your routine. The other one that I hear a lot is, what do I do in social environments? If I'm going out to eat, I have to eat, right? No, you don't.

Coach Natalie:

There have been many social events where I just didn't eat. You just don't have to eat.

Coach Bronson:

Right. Somebody asked the other day we were on Joe and Rachel's thing the other night, and somebody asked, well, how do we and it was a very interesting question. I thought it was very interesting. As an islander.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

How do I deal with staying keto over the holiday holidays? I'm not sure why, being an island. I know I wanted more context on that. I'm like, why does being an islander matter? But either way, you have three or four options. You can eat before you can bring your own food, or you cannot eat, or you can spend a little bit of time and talk to the person who's preparing the meals there and say, these are the things that I can eat or that I want, not even that I can't eat. These are the things that I will eat. I won't eat the other stuff. So if you have this stuff available, that would be awesome. Thank you. And those are your options.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah. Bring your own food or bring something to share.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah, bring something to share. That's a great way to do it. Then you can participate and be part of the social experience.

Coach Natalie:

But there have been many a night where I had my sparkling water with lime and some elements, and I was a happy camper.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. And especially if you eat beforehand. I like eating beforehand because sometimes you don't even know what the hell is going to be there.

Coach Natalie:

Right.

Coach Bronson:

And you're like, I don't want to eat any stuff anyways.

Coach Natalie:

Taking the breading off the chicken so you can get some protein.

Coach Bronson:

Right. Do you want the chicken plate? Yes, I want the chicken plate. I didn't know it was going to be covered in bread. Like, come on, guys. What do you do when you work with people so that's habits, traditions, ritual, understanding what they are, being aware of them and being willing to change them, that's how you address those environment. Again, the key to success on your journey is to control your environment as much as possible. That means planning, that means thinking ahead. That means understanding that your goals are more important than anyone else's expectations.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

Coach Nat likes to talk about is the less you talk about it with people, the less pressure you're going to get.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah.

Coach Bronson:

So don't tell people what you can or can't do or will or won't do as much as just do it.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah. They don't need to know.

Coach Bronson:

They don't need to know. Don't make it a thing.

Coach Natalie:

If you don't make it a thing, they won't be a thing.

Coach Bronson:

Exactly. So if you don't want pressure from other people about what you're doing, don't talk about it, because if it's just what you do, then people will start to expect that's just what you do.

Coach Natalie:

You train people how to treat you. What I like to say so your consistency is what matters more than anything. If your loved ones are giving you a hard time about this time, this new diet, it's because they've seen you try and quit many other things, and today you're on, and today you're off. But I told them I was on this time.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

Well, it's like the boy who cried wolf. How are they supposed to know that you're not going to change your mind.

Coach Bronson:

That you're on or off this time you visit?

Coach Natalie:

So they're going to keep buying your favorite treats because well, because they love.

Coach Bronson:

You and they want you to be happy.

Coach Natalie:

They've seen that you've done it before when they bought them, and they think it makes you happy.

Coach Bronson:

And that's the thing, is, a lot of times and this is where some of the problem comes in. A lot of times when you're telling people that you're on a diet or that this is what I'm doing, you're doing it in a negative way. You're talking about it because you're talking about it out of feeling restricted in pride. That doesn't make them feel good about where you're at. So they want to make you feel good, which is mean to them. A lot of mothers a lot of grandmothers love with food.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

It's a repetitive theme that I see happen everywhere.

Coach Natalie:

You know what? That's their ****. That is not yours.

Coach Bronson:

Right, exactly. You don't have to say yes.

Coach Natalie:

You don't have to play in you.

Coach Bronson:

Don'T have to say yes. And it helps if you just keep your mouth shut.

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

Okay. Stress and emotions. Going to get her on this one. Okay.

Coach Natalie:

Okay.

Coach Bronson:

Talk to us about emotional eating because I'm an emotional eater coach now.

Coach Natalie:

No, you're not. Okay. So there is no such thing as emotional eating. If you are saying you're an emotional eater, what you're actually saying is that you are avoiding your emotions by eating. Eating is a way of avoidance. It is a way of procrastinating on dealing with your emotions. It is not an emotional it's not an actual emotional coping mechanism.

Coach Bronson:

Yes. It's like anti coping.

Coach Natalie:

It truly is. It's a drug. It's like turning to drugs. Right? What do drugs do? They take you out of your right mind. They take you out of the driver's seat, essentially. And this is what you're doing with food. A lot of people say they're numbing out with food. Right. It's a way to describe that feeling of, like, I don't have to be present to this right now. But one of my favorites, Doctor Glenn Livingston, never binge again. He says, okay, so if you go to the dentist and you're having a procedure, is the dentist going to give you Novocaine or is he going to give you cupcakes? He's not going to give you cupcakes.

Coach Bronson:

Cupcakes.

Coach Natalie:

I want a cupcake to numb you. So you know that it's not actually numbing you. It's just helping you to avoid dealing with whatever emotions you don't want to deal with in that moment.

Coach Bronson:

It's the opposite of accountability.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah. Well, you're essentially it's just like numbing out with TV, right? Watching zoning out, watching Netflix escapism. Exactly. That when you come to after the.

Coach Bronson:

Binge episode or got a face, what's in front of you.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah, the emotions are still there.

Coach Bronson:

And then you've also got to deal with the added overhead of feeling the guilt and the shame of going off plan and doing all that and the physiological effect and the feeling like **** and the inflammation, all the other stuff that comes with it. So, again, awareness is key, and we talk about this a lot with our clients and with people that we work with. And that awareness is the key to this part, particularly I like talking about the relationship between awareness, your trigger interaction, and this is something I learned from Coach Nat in the importance of being aware. If you're not aware during the time something is happening, you have to be aware after the fact. So accountability and this is where I talk about accountability, is making sure that you spend the time to understand why you're doing something or why you did something, whether it's during or after that thing happened.

Coach Natalie:

This is like I like to use the analogy of a child. When you're trying to discipline a child and teach the child why they shouldn't be doing something wrong that they did wrong, you don't just punish the child and don't tell them anything else about what they do.

Coach Bronson:

Why am I getting whacked on the butt, mom?

Coach Natalie:

Maybe a couple of generations ago, that's the way they handled things. But hopefully you are explaining to the child why that was not okay and what they need to do in the future now. But what do you do when you first catch your child doing something wrong? When you catch them, they stop in their tracks like a deer in headlights. They look at you, they look down at the ground. They don't say anything. And then you say to them, why did you do that?

Coach Bronson:

Or, what are you doing?

Coach Natalie:

Or what are you thinking?

Coach Bronson:

Or whatever. I don't know. I mean, there's a family circus that used to be the whole thing. The ghost, the not me ghost.

Coach Natalie:

It's like, yeah, they don't want to.

Coach Bronson:

Acknowledge, I just dated myself.

Coach Natalie:

You sure did.

Coach Bronson:

Say you knew the reference, though. Okay, all right.

Coach Natalie:

But just like when you're disciplining a child, it's the same thing with you. You cannot let yourself get off the hook for the thing. You have to confront it after the fact until you're ready to start confronting it in the moment.

Coach Bronson:

Right. And what happens there is the more you are consistently making yourself aware after the fact, going back, it builds that habit. So the more you do it, the better you get at doing it, and then you can do it more quickly compared to the timing of the event.

Coach Natalie:

You have to kind of treat your psyche like it's a child. You're training it.

Coach Bronson:

You're training it. You're training it. Yes, absolutely.

Coach Natalie:

It's remembering, oh, man, if I'm not accountable now, they're going to make me sit down and explain myself later, and I don't want to have to go through that again. So maybe I just shouldn't do it this time.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah, exactly. And what happens is I use the analogy of time if there's a time gap. So when we go through life and we do things based off emotion or stress or whatever, we have our habits. If you read James Cleary or atomic habits or the power of habits, things like that, they talk about triggers and actions. So we have triggered something happens that. Triggers a thought which we then have an emotion based on that thought and then we take an action. Most of us are not aware of this process going on until after we've taken the action. And then we look behind us in time and go, oh****, I probably shouldn't have done that. That's when you need to get good at being aware and analyzing why you made that decision. Because then what happens is the more you do it, the closer you get to that awareness being in between the trigger and the action. So then you can start wedging the two apart. The trigger happens. Right now it's trigger an action. What you want to do is you want it to be trigger awareness. Change the action is what you want.

Coach Natalie:

It to look like the only way to change a habit. You have to interrupt the pattern.

Coach Bronson:

I have to interrupt the pattern.

Coach Natalie:

So you have to get in between. You got to wedge yourself between the trigger and the response.

Coach Bronson:

Yeah. So that's where practicing being aware, practicing the openness and self honesty. You got to be honest.

Coach Natalie:

I like to call it a post mortem at work. When a team is working on a project, the project is over, you go back and you sit down and you hash out, okay, what went well, what didn't go well. And the most important thing to do when you're doing this is to take all self judgment out of it.

Coach Bronson:

Right? We call it an after action review in the army. And one of the biggest things that we used to train and tell people is when we're doing this after actions review, there is no blame.

Coach Natalie:

No blame.

Coach Bronson:

There is no blame involved. It is a what happened, what didn't happen? What didn't happen? What happened? What didn't happen? Did we execute? Did we not execute? It's an objective review of the activities, the facts of the experience.

Coach Natalie:

Another thing Doctor Glenn Livingston says that I love feelings are not facts.

Coach Bronson:

Absolutely.

Coach Natalie:

So when you start to feel that self judgment, I'm so stupid, why did I do that again? I just keep failing. I'm such a failure. I'm this, that. Take yourself out of that, right? Review the situation as if you're someone else looking at a situation from outside the city. What happens purely the fact, not the emotion.

Coach Bronson:

So this is interesting.

Coach Natalie:

We digress a bit.

Coach Bronson:

We digress a little bit. I mean now we are talking, if you're just coming into the podcast and you skipped ahead and you're hearing all this conversation, we're actually talking about being hungry.

Coach Natalie:

What naturally we would land on things.

Coach Bronson:

Like habit change, habit change, the psychology of how this all works, but that it plays a big role because these are the things that if you're not in tune with, you're going to eat out of order, you're going to have disordered eating autopilot. You'll be on autopilot and you're going to eat till you're full, you're not going to eat when you need to eat again. Awareness matters in this whole thing. Let me just ask a couple of questions before we wrap up here. I'm going to ask you, coach. Now, here's a question, right? Is it okay to be hungry sometimes?

Coach Natalie:

Yes.

Coach Bronson:

Really? How come? How does that work?

Coach Natalie:

Well, it certainly is okay. We're human beings. It's a sensation. That's all it is, a sensation. We don't need to be topped off all the time. Is it okay for your car to get to half a tank? Right, or a quarter of a tank full before you fill it again? Or do you go back to the gas station and get more gas every time?

Coach Bronson:

Every single time you drive, it a.

Coach Natalie:

10Th of a gallon.

Coach Bronson:

The next time we move, I want to make sure we move right next to a gas station so every time we come home, we can just fill up the tank before we get parking.

Coach Natalie:

My light just came on, by the way. Okay, now here's the thing. This is a good analogy, right?

Coach Bronson:

Yeah.

Coach Natalie:

We don't want to be driving on fumes.

Coach Bronson:

Correct.

Coach Natalie:

And now all of a sudden being paranoid that there is not a gas station within our vicinity that we can get to before we break down on the side of the road. So, no, it's not okay to be starving and to allow ourselves to be starving, but is it okay to be hungry? Absolutely.

Coach Bronson:

Sure.

Coach Natalie:

As a matter of fact, I would say it's a physiological necessity to get to the point of feeling hunger before we eat.

Coach Bronson:

Yes. I was just going to say many people don't know what hunger actually feels like.

Coach Natalie:

Right.

Coach Bronson:

So I think in the process of going through this journey and training yourself, you should learn to embrace the feeling of hunger and know when it's actual hunger versus I'm hungry because of a situation or a habit or a routine, which is what we were just talking about. Absolutely get that self awareness going. And am I actually hungry right now, or am I used to eating in this situation?

Coach Natalie:

And, you know, you can start with a very simple they use this in the intuitive eating protocol, start to rank your hunger in your society. And this is something I do with clients. I've now added this to my weekly bio.

Coach Bronson:

I'm learning something new here because I haven't heard this one.

Coach Natalie:

So every week with my clients, I asked them to rate their many different biofeedback markers. Two of those separately are hunger and satiety. They're separate because I want to know how frequently this week you got hungry. How hungry were you? I want to know, on a scale, what did your hunger look like? Your society is different from that as we talked about. Go back and listen to the definitions again. This is that long standing satisfaction after a meal before you need to eat again. So what was your Satiety like? So you can take a scale of one to ten and just start daily. Daily. Assess the day. You can wait. Do it at the end of the day, every day, and just say, okay, if I have to look back at my day and this is why we say start afterwards. So starting at the end of the day and just reviewing the day is a great way to do it until you can get into the moment and say, okay, I think I'm hungry. All right, if I'm hungry, then what would my hunger be on a scale of one to ten right now? And you can give yourself little mile markers, like, okay, describe to yourself, if you were going to create a little scale, what would zero feel like and what would ten feel like? And what would five feel like? What would three? What would seven? So that when you're going through your day, you can accurately start to assess and identify what those little markers were that you put in, and then you.

Coach Bronson:

Can kind of get to know yourself. It's another set of data, guys. If you're not tracking, you're not trying.

Coach Natalie:

This is one of those things that.

Coach Bronson:

You can help you evaluate where you're really I am now a PhD, everyone. Thank you very much.

Coach Natalie:

That's kind of hot. Maybe you need to go for it.

Coach Bronson:

I got the glasses. I got the glasses and the signature. If anybody's ever seen my signature, I have a doctor's signature. She's all flustered now, folks.

Coach Natalie:

Coach Bronson, what he always says is 1% more. How can you improve? What is the 1% you can do better. So when you're looking at your hunger and Satiety scales and your ratings day to day, and you think about, okay, what can I improve for tomorrow? Well, today after my lunch, I noticed my fullness was at a ten.

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

And it really didn't need to be at a ten. That was past the tidy. I was over full. Okay, so I'm going to be a little more present tomorrow, and then maybe I'll stop a little sooner, or maybe I'll adjust how much I'm eating at my lunch, and then I can ask myself before I finish the meal, where am I at right now? What number would I give it now?

Coach Bronson:

Right?

Coach Natalie:

I like it. Here's a little tip. You can always leave food on your plate and come back to it later if you want.

Coach Bronson:

No, what are you talking about? That is crazy talk.

Coach Natalie:

Coach Bronson could never leave.

Coach Bronson:

That is crazy talk.

Coach Natalie:

But I think I told him this little anecdote. I stumbled upon this myself once. I liked my food piping hot, and I got my breakfast off of the stove, my lamb and my eggs, and I ate about half of it. And I was doing social media posting. And then I went back to eat another bite, and it was cold and it was kind of like, I don't want this. I want to go heat it up again. So I went to heat it up, and like I said, for me, my digestion is slow. So by the time I got up to heat it up again, I was like, oh, I'm satisfied. I'm full. Now, had I just eaten the entire thing all in one sitting, I would have a couple of hours later discovered and felt uncomfortable.

Coach Bronson:

You would have been very uncomfortable. Yeah.

Coach Natalie:

So that was a happy mistake. But that's something you can always do if you're starting to feel full. And if you're becoming aware of your fullness and you're starting to feel satisfied and full halfway through your meal, save it for later. You can go back and have a smaller meal later.

Coach Bronson:

Well, here's another thing that goes into the willingness to change and experiment and try things. And the limiting self beliefs is as much as we talk about and you hear people talk about in the Keto Carnival space, you only need to eat two, maybe three meals a day. If you're training your body on what it's like to be full, and you are traditionally, or if you're in the habit of eating smaller meals and it doesn't take much for you to get full, there may be a period of time where you need to eat five times a day.

Coach Natalie:

Yeah.

Coach Bronson:

Not because it's better for your metabolism, but just because that's what you need in order to get the nutrients in your body for the day.

Coach Natalie:

Interesting, because our last two episodes were about not doing extremes right? And not chasing after the perfect formula. Exactly. And this, once again, plays into knowing yourself and trying things, testing things. There have been times where I have had many meals in a day, and there have been times where I have one meal a day. It's all across the board different. And it's not different all the time. It's just tuning in and listening to my body.

Coach Bronson:

This is where the importance of context matters, because we talk about you don't need to eat six times a day, you don't need to eat five times a day. You should be able to get everything that you can in two meals or three meals a day. I recommend usually two meals is good for most people. That intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is something that should happen naturally. You shouldn't have to eat to a clock.

Coach Natalie:

You shouldn't be forcing yourself.

Coach Bronson:

But now that may not work for everybody. So just because we're saying that most people should be able to do it in two meals a day, doesn't mean that you're at a place where two meals a day makes sense.

Coach Natalie:

Right? And if you're looking for muscle building, for example, and you're like, oh my gosh, all of my meals have to have over 30 grams of protein. I can't possibly have a meal that has less than that because that's not ideal. Well, you know what? Look at your schedule, right? Look at what you can handle in that time period. Look at what you have access to. There's a lot of different factors that play it. It's not the end of the world if one of your meals, one or two days a week is less than 30 grams of protein.

Coach Bronson:

Sure.

Coach Natalie:

And I'm the first one to say all of your meals should be at least 30 grams of protein, right? But that doesn't mean that you can never have a day where you missed the mark on your protein macro or you have to have a smaller meal and it has less grams of protein.

Coach Bronson:

Without getting too long because we're at an hour and 15 minutes.

Coach Natalie:

I know.

Coach Bronson:

We could literally just we're about to go into a whole rant on guidelines. Or guidelines, not rules. There are new rule books. Do people? Yeah, there are new rule books. Anyhow all right, you got any last words?

Coach Natalie:

Tune into your body. Tune into yourself. Learn your body and train your body.

Coach Bronson:

That's a big one. That's where I was going to go. Be willing to experiment on be willing to experiment and train your body to do what you want it to do. Your body is going to do what you tell it to do.

Coach Natalie:

Absolutely.

Coach Bronson:

And just because it's doing something now doesn't mean it will always do that. You have to take control and try. Don't be afraid to try new things. Guys, I think that's going to be a recurring theme. I think we've gotten three episodes. In case you hadn't realized, this is episode three of our first season, and so far there's been a recurring theme of awareness, context, and don't be afraid to try.

Coach Natalie:

I have to throw one quick thing in there about this topic. If you are hungry all day and you have not been consistent on your ketogenic or carnivore journey, yes, it is. Because you are ingesting sugar, right? You are ingesting sugar or artificial sweeteners or something. Process package. Something is playing on your signaling, as we talked about earlier in this episode. So really check yourself on that. If you're fitting things in and you're wondering why you can't stick to only two meals a day, you can't go more than 3 hours without eating, without getting hangry and getting headaches. There's something else going on there that you need to look closer at.

Coach Bronson:

Yes. Back to the basics. The basics.

Coach Natalie:

Because every time, even when we went to Keto Con and I was tasting all the things the next week after that, bronson knows every day I was like, I'm starving. Why am I so hungry? I'm hungry all day. I don't want to stop eating. It's just like all I wanted to do was graze all day. Because we had three days at this conference of gray sitting down and eating two meals a day. I went to the vendor booth all day long.

Coach Bronson:

Right? At the end of the day, I was like, okay, what are we doing for dinner? And you're like, I don't want to eat.

Coach Natalie:

I was like, I didn't even want to eat. So truly? And that only took three days. You can change your body that quickly. You can change the signaling. You can change the habits. Your body is going to listen to you. Like, for instance, that it's going to do what you want it to do. So decide what you want and then move in that direction.

Coach Bronson:

Move that direction. Awesome. All right. Thanks a lot, Cojnett. See you guys next time. Have a good gap in between episodes. We got to come up with a good snazzy ending.

Coach Natalie:

I know.

Coach Bronson:

Keto on, folks. Keto on. That was dorky as hell.