And so if we look at eating out, you have likely had a few hacks that have worked for you in the past, like. Planning your meal ahead of time, looking at the menu before you go, and then eating  whatever it is that you planned or since you were only looking at it from the physical, that you would encounter a variety of obstacles and because you didn’t know how to handle them emotionally. 

You would see yourself do things that you judged as wrong. For example, maybe you didn’t follow the plan that you thought you would have and you decided to eat something else, and then you would just shame and guilt yourself, and then that feels horrible. So then you would overeat at a restaurant and that feels horrible, because you had no emotional tools. 

Another thing is that you might have seen, one of the obstacles that you encounter  eating at restaurants is that you overeat, even if it’s a planned something. so you start eating and it’s just so delicious.You find that you’re full, but then you keep overeating. Well, if you’ve never addressed the emotional and spiritual components of that, and only the physical. 

Then you have no tools, right? You just only have the tool of, well, you should stop eating when you’re full. Okay. Well, wouldn’t that be nice if we could all just stop eating when we are full because we decided to, none of us would have a weight problem. This wouldn’t be a problem.  And so I guess what I wanna say is, of course restaurants have been a problem for you. 

Because we don’t have the tools to deal with them until now, and there is really no dealing with them. For the majority of women who are emotional eaters. It just happens to be one of these things that I call a vulnerable situation. 

You might find that birthday parties or weddings or being home alone at night or watching TV are what I call vulnerable situations or situations that lead you to overeat. So guess what? Friends? All we do is solve for them. 

One of the things I really hope that you can take away from the podcast, not only this, but in all the podcasts that I do, is that everything in life is solvable. Everything in life is solvable, either by practical solutions and or mindset.

We just identify the problems and then we solve for them. And you guys, this is such a simple concept. I was working with a client. It was her very, very, very first session. She had never heard of mindset work. She didn’t know any of my weight loss with the Holy Spirit work. She wasn’t even Catholic. 

Okay? She a woman who came to me for weight loss mindset help. Never heard this stuff before. And when we got done with her first session, and I ask this at the end of the majority of my personal coaching client sessions, is I say, what are your takeaways or. What’s your brain saying? I’ll say one of those two things, and she said to me, my takeaway is that everything in life is solvable. 

And I was like, oh my gosh, well drop the mic.You just like literally  projected yourself and propelled yourself into this very new realm in one session. She said everything in life is solvable, and she could see clearly that if we can just identify what the problem is, then we solve for it. 

And that’s what I want you to take away from restaurants, and I’m gonna lead you through a very simple process here that you will be able to identify what have been the obstacles and what has been challenging or the problems or what’s been hard or preventing you from eating the way that you want to at restaurants.

And then we. Solve for them. Included in the link or included in the description of this podcast, I have a form. It is a form that you can use and I’m gonna lead you through that form right now. If you don’t have the form, you can do this on any sheet of paper, but I really encourage you to write it down.

It gets it outta your brain. Plus then you’ll have it for every time you go to a restaurant, you can reread it. Okay, so restaurants, I believe that, any vulnerable situation, we just make a game plan for it. Some people call it a protocol. I like to call it a game plan. Sounds a lot more fun, feels a lot more strategic.

There is no wrong way you can do this. Essentially, it’s think ahead how you want it to go down. And you can do it that way, but I think this structure really gets to the root a little faster of what could have been throwing you off in the past, and it helps you solve for it even easier.

Okay. So the no sabotage game plan for restaurants, eating out, whatever you wanna call it. First you’re gonna ask yourself, how do I wanna feel at the restaurant? You can make this for restaurants in general. You can make it for a specific event.  

I am just going to say, I wanna feel calm. I wanna feel present. I usually wanna feel very connected. I wanna feel relaxed. You just get to decide how you want to feel when you’re there.  And then you ask yourself, what can I think to create that feeling?

So if I’m gonna create the feeling of calm, I might say I’m learning to eat calmly. I am learning to be aware of this event. I’m learning to be aware of the things that aren’t food. I’m learning to be connected to my husband or whom I ever I’m going out with. I’m learning to enjoy each bite. I am learning to detect when I’ve had enough. Maybe you wanna feel satisfied.  

So that’s how you want to feel during the event. And then I love the second question, which is, how do I want to feel about myself at the event? Or you could even think, how do I wanna feel when I’m done? When this is all over, maybe satisfied. Proud, uplifted, wise,  controlled.  

How do you wanna feel about yourself?  I’m gonna really encourage you to not use the word good. I wanna feel good. Yeah. What do you mean good? I wanna feel proud. And then what can I think to create this feeling?  

I’m learning to be in control. I love this. I’m learning to enjoy each bite. I’m learning how to take care of myself. I know I already said this, but I’m learning to detect when I’ve had enough. I’m willing to practice slowing down. I’m willing to practice pauses. 

There’s no wrong answer for those two questions. It just helps you be intentional and decide how you want to feel, what you want to think. Okay. Then the next section is the foods that I will eat and why and the foods I won’t eat, and why. 

So for me, the foods that I will eat and why at a restaurant I will eat what I want, I will order what I want you guys for so long, I order diet foods or what I thought I should eat, which is what I won’t eat.

So the foods I won’t eat and why I’m not gonna eat should foods. I’m not ordering food because I should,  why? Because I feel deprived. I will eat  what I want. Why will I do that? Because I can trust myself, because I’m here to enjoy my food. Because I know how to savor my food. I know it won’t lead me to chaos eating. 

I know how to eat calmly. You can just decide the foods that you will eat and why. Oh, another food I won’t eat. I won’t eat my husband’s leftovers. I won’t eat people’s leftovers. I used to do that a lot. 

Why won’t I do that? Because it makes me feel like a human garbage can. If I want a portion of what they have, I will ask for a bite or a portion of it, or we’ll decide to split, but I won’t simply eat their leftovers because it’s left on their plate. 

That does not leave me feeling good about myself, and it’s usually at the end of the meal when I’m already full anyway, this kind of goes into the way I will eat and the way I won’t eat. Maybe going back to the foods I will eat. And why are things like I will eat foods while I’m hungry. Why? Because I’m hungry. It’s time to eat. 

Foods I won’t eat and why I won’t eat food after I’m full. Why? because I don’t wanna feel uncomfortable. I don’t wanna feel stuffed. We talk in our community a lot about tornado thinking, and when I feel stuffed and I’ve overeaten, it’s a big trigger for tornado thinking and I can really get into a shame spiral. 

So if I can prevent that by stopping when I’ve had enough. So good. Going into the way I will eat and the way I won’t eat and why the way I will eat. I will follow our three habits where I chew my food 20 times. I empty my hands between bites and I empty my mouth before the next bite.  

You guys, it’s kind of challenging when you’re in conversation as well as at a restaurant, it can be a little distracting, so I probably won’t do it perfectly, but that is my aim. 

Because it helps me slow down. It helps me savor my food, enjoy each bite  helps me stay connected to the humans that I’m eating with. And it also helps me detect when I’ve had enough  or the way I won’t eat, and why I won’t eat fast and quick and impulsively.  

Why? because I feel horrible when I do that. I will eat calmly. I won’t eat after I’ve had enough. Okay? So it just helps you just decide what I will eat, what I won’t eat. You won’t get this perfect, but it does help you develop a game plan. 

Now moving on to the next section. It is obstacles I anticipate. No, I will encounter. So you get to list the obstacles that come up at restaurants. And the easy way to answer that is what’s hard about eating at restaurants. And you’re like, well, I overeat. 

Okay, so overeating, that’s an obstacle. What else? Well, eating with people,  I’m in conversation. I eat too fast. So you just get to think about the way, and I’m gonna give you some examples in a second, but the obstacles that tend to make restaurant eating challenging for yourself. And if you say, why overeat, then ask why.  

And usually the why answer is the actual obstacle. Okay. And those why, answers are typically found in what you’re thinking. So for example.You are thinking, I never get this. This is a special occasion. This is so good.  

And listen,  you can either think about the last time that you overeat at a restaurant and think, what was I thinking? Or you can start to observe yourself when you do go to restaurants, because it’s not gonna be the last time. And you can always add and make changes to this game plan. 

You’ll list the obstacles and then you’ll write down my old sabotaging response. To this was answer that, and then you get an opportunity to say, my new game plan to create what I want is this.

So for example, if you have the thought, I never get this. My old sabotaging response was to just overeat it and over consume it because I never get it. My new game plan is to say, I can order this whenever I want. This is actually my favorite. I can have this again next week. I can have this again tomorrow. 

And you’ll have to practice those new thoughts. ’cause your brain is very used to saying the old thoughts. If you say, oh, this is a special occasion, which kind of goes into, I never get this.  My old sabotaging response probably is, oh, it’s a special occasion. We celebrate with food and overeating food. My new game plan is to enjoy the special foods and savor them.  

Without overeating, with trying to detect when I’ve had enough. So you just get to look at your thoughts that you’re having and just decide how you’d like to think instead. Someone was telling me the other day that one of the obstacles they encounter at restaurants is they eat with their husband and he eats a way larger portion, which triggers her to want to eat more.

So a couple things that can happen there is either a, you find that your husband is still eating even though you are full. And so you want to match his pace by continuing to eat. So if you want to just match his pace, you can just eat slower. 

And if your brain thinks you want to have the same portion, you get to check in with that thought. I wanna have just as much as him. Oh, that’s interesting. 

What does that thought typically lead you to do, lead you to have as much as him? It’s not fair. I don’t get as much as him. Well, how do you wanna handle that? Knowing that you’re a woman who wants to feel good when she leaves a restaurant? Go back to the top, see how you want to feel about yourself.

Do you wanna feel proud, in control?  What does a woman who feels good about herself when she leaves a restaurant, how would she handle that obstacle? Maybe one of the obstacles is that you notice when you’re full and you still eat more  ’cause it’s just so good. 

And in the past you have just eaten more because it’s so good. Maybe now you would like to start detecting when you’ve had enough  and start telling your brain, oh, this is gonna be so good tomorrow. Maybe you wanna save a portion so that you can enjoy it the next day. So I can enjoy this twice. 

Maybe you decided that you would look at the restaurant menu and plan your food. Oh, maybe that was one of the ways that one of the foods that you said you would eat is that you said, I will look at the menu ahead of time and I will eat that. 

And the reason why you want to do that might be because it makes you feel like you don’t have to make any decision when you get to a restaurant. Now, if doing that ahead of time makes you feel deprived or in a box or feels too strict, then you probably don’t wanna do that. 

But if it makes you feel calm and in control and peaceful, then you might wanna do that. But let’s say one of the obstacles that happens for you at restaurants is that you do make a plan ahead of time and you get to the restaurant and you wanna change your mind. 

And in the past, maybe the way that you handled that was changing your mind, but then feeling so much guilt and shame that you changed your mind, that you ended up overeating. Maybe now when you change your mind, you want to think, I think I’d rather have this. It’s okay to change my mind. I wanted this instead. 

I am learning that I can trust myself to change my mind, and I really find that with food and food choices, if we can start to recognize I’m learning to trust myself, I can trust myself to eat food that I enjoy. And that there literally are no food rules. I will never get tired of telling you guys that normal food, restaurant food, food does not keep you overweight.

Eating food that you enjoy does not keep you overweight. The only kind of food that keeps you overweight is any food that you eat for emotional reasons that you’re sad, lonely, stressed.  Procrastinating or believing. I never get this. This is the only time because we’ve been feeling so deprived at other times.  

So you’ll just go through, you’ll list all the obstacles, you’ll get very clear on how you’ve handled it in the past, and then just decide how you wanna handle it in the future. And what’s so cool is you have then created this beautiful game plan for yourself, and then at the end of this game plan, what I like for people to do  is to visualize themself at the restaurant doing these things. 

If you really want this to stick and you really want to overcome this,  the more you can visualize yourself, just kind of play it through your mind. Likely you’re going to a restaurant that you’ve been to before. 

Your brain knows the old way, and so what you’re going to start doing is to. Teach it the new way, even before you get to the restaurant, because teaching it the new way, playing it out in your brain and  in your imagination, is creating those new neural pathways so that when you actually get to the restaurant, your brain thinks you’ve already done this several times and your new way will become even easier.

I don’t wanna say automatic at first, even easier. My final suggestion is that you read through your game plan  before you go and just ask the Lord to protect you as you go and stay in a very calm brain. The majority of you will find that if you can keep a calm brain while you’re at a restaurant, you will not overeat. 

Calm brains. Don’t. Overeat. Even if you start to find yourself overeating, that small pause, that small acknowledgement, oh my gosh, I’m overeating. Wow, my brain is really stressed here.  Your brain literally is believing that it’s safer to eat more than to stop. 

Retraining your brain that it is safe to stop eating when you’ve had enough is a skill. And it will take practice, but just know your brain is doing what it’s really good at. Your brain is simply doing what it’s known how to do and what is very familiar to it. 

And so you get to come alongside your brain, love all over it, support it through these new changes, these new ways, creating new patterns, new neuro pathways. And we’re not going to shame it or criticize your brain for just doing what it’s always known,  but.  You can teach it in a new way. 

So I hope this has been very helpful for you and very practical so that you understand, on a real way, how you can enjoy your restaurant meals  and get to a healthy weight and maintain your healthy weight.

And you can see how focusing on truly the emotional and spiritual parts of weight loss. Get you to a lasting weight for the rest of your life because if you start creating this new way of eating out, you won’t be overweight. 

Do you see that? Do you see how if you become a woman who savors her food while she eats out, you won’t be overweight when you are able to detect when you’ve had enough? And happily stop. You are a woman who leaves a restaurant feeling satisfied and proud, who feels in control. You won’t overeat. 

You won’t have a need to overeat. You’ll be satisfying nothing because you’ll have so much joy from the food that you’re eating, and you will know that you’ll have leftovers if you choose to take leftovers. 

There will be no hole that you’re filling. You’ll be fully  encouraged and uplifted by yourself.  You’ll have learned the skill to savor each bite, to detect when you’ve had enough to learn to eat slowly, to be present, to order the food that you want to eat. Because it is special and you are special, but you don’t need to overeat it. 

You’ll slowly teach your brain that, and as you have challenges and you find that your brain might be resisting, that you can continue to say, brain, you’re safe. And we’re just gonna continue to teach our brains. 

It is safe to stop when we’ve had enough. And I’ll tell you, one of the best ways  to show your brain that it’s safe to stop when you’ve had enough is to notice when you have overeaten, and really lean into how you feel.

Do you feel good?  How do you feel physically, emotionally, how do you feel? And we always feel terrible, and we’re going to start protecting ourselves from that to show our brain that that’s actually the unsafe thing. We don’t wanna feel terrible. We don’t wanna feel stuffed. We don’t wanna get into that shame cycle. 

I don’t think we should shame ourselves. I’m just saying we can protect ourselves from even potentially shaming ourselves. Just know that if you overeat, it’s your brain doing what it feels safe doing. That’s all. And when you’re ready to do the work to show your brain, Hey, we’re safe to stop when we’ve had enough. 

In fact, we feel amazing when we stop. When we’ve had enough, we’re learning to pause. It’s a skill and I promise you you can learn it. So I hope this has been super duper, duper, duper helpful. Please grab the handout that is in the description. 

And my friends, when we recognize that more is needed than just a diet, than attention to the physical, and we recognize that to have lasting weight loss, you must have a transformation emotionally and spiritually. You’ll see this work is not only so worth it, but so joyful your whole life will change. 

So come on over to weight losswiththeholyspirit.com. Get in our community of hundreds of other Catholic women who are learning to live this way and a very practically joyful, simple way.  All right, everybody. Have a blessed day.