What to eat when exercising

We all have desires and wants, goals and dreams!  These are what motivates us. The great news is that we all have potential to bridge the gap between our current state and our desired state. It often just requires a change in our behaviour. Easy right??. Not always. This is where a coach comes in.

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Many studies have found that merely instructing someone to make behavioural changes often leads them feeling frustrated, depressed, and angry when the desired result is not achieved. We can all relate to this in some way, I’m sure. Human behaviour cannot easily be changed unless there is internal motivation to do so.  Internal motivators are the  fuel source for peak performance and positive change. A coach specialises in drawing on your internal motivations and helps develop strategies to help you achieve your goals.

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Let’s dive into behaviour and explore how a coach can help change certain behaviours that might be doing us harm, and  stopping us reaching our potential.

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It would be great if new 'desirable' behaviours would just appear, and the undesirable ones disappear; unfortunately they often do not. Behaviours are ‘learned’ which means neural connections have been made in our brains that enable us to easily recall and carry out the behaviour. Some of these are helpful like not touching a hot object or running away from a lion, but some are harmful like eating too much sweet food even though it tastes so good!

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A little science about food and energy to whet the appetite. While there are centres in the brain (the hypothalamus) that regulate energy intake within narrow limits, there are other areas (the mesolimbic system) that provide the emotional, pleasurable and rewarding aspects of eating: here is where we can be led astray!  This “reward” centre can greatly influences us and allows our brains to crave and to enjoy food even when we’re completely full. We all indulge!  Because of the power of these pleasure centres, the desire to eat can be triggered by emotions such as sadness, or environmental triggers, such as the smell or sight of delicious fast food, rather than just energy depletion.  And here is where we need to think what might trigger the drive to eat in us individually. Are we feeling down? Are we influenced too much by that freshly baked cake? Are we working too hard? Probably.

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The reward that is associated with eating can become an addictive behaviour and a nasty cycle can ensue resulting in weight gain, unless we unlock the triggers behind these behaviours. Enter the health coach.

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For any undesirable behaviour to be changed we need to first look at the parts that make up the behaviour. Firstly,  the triggers (called Antecedents) that prompt or cue the behaviour. Secondly, the action, or the Behaviour itself. And thirdly, the Consequences (or outcome) that reinforce the behaviour. In short, it’s all about the ABCs (antecedents, behaviour and consequences). When an individual and their coach has identified a behaviour they’d like to change, the initial focus is on identifying and understanding  the ABCs of that specific behaviour.

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Embarking on a journey to change long-standing habits, particularly around food and weight loss, can be challenging and sometimes overwhelming. But remember, you don’t have to do it alone. Health coaches are here to guide you every step of the way. They understand the complexities of behaviour change and are trained to help you uncover the internal motivations that drive you. With their support, you can develop personalised strategies that align with your goals, making the path to a healthier you not only achievable but sustainable. Stay encouraged—positive change is within your reach, and your health coach is here to support you on this journey.

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At rfynd, we have a range of programs that have the option of health coaching support. We know habit change is hard, and we want to support you the best we can to make the changes stick.

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By Lexi Andrews, Health Coach at rfynd.

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Health and wellness coaching is a transformative process that empowers individuals to achieve sustained change in their lives, leading to a biological transformation of mindset and behaviour. This transformation is facilitated through four key coaching mechanisms: fostering growth-promoting relationships, eliciting self-motivation, building confidence, and guiding the process of change. Let's delve into each of these mechanisms and explore how they contribute to lasting change.

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Mechanism 1: Growth-Promoting Relationships

At the heart of effective coaching lies the establishment of a growth-promoting relationship between the coach and the client. This relationship is grounded in the principles of humanistic psychology, which emphasise the inherent potential of individuals to be creative, resourceful, and resilient. Rather than viewing clients as broken or needing to be fixed, coaches adopt a strengths-based approach, recognizing the client's capacity to optimise health, well-being, and performance in life and work.

In a safe, nonjudgmental, and invigorating space, skilled coaches help clients discover what they truly want and need. They assist clients in carving away the layers of life's clutter to reveal their best selves, much like Michelangelo's famous quote, "I saw the angel in the stone and carved to set it free." This process involves valuing the client's learning journey more than the coach's expert knowledge, fostering a partnership where both coach and client learn and grow together.

A crucial aspect of this relationship is the coach's mindful presence. Coaches support clients in developing new behaviours and mindsets by facilitating client-directed neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to grow, adapt, and change. This involves rewiring the brain by forging new neural connections and networks, a process that can take months or even years to solidify.

Through coaching conversations, clients focus their brain's attentional resources on personal ambitions and growth, enhancing their brain's ability to learn and adapt. In today's distraction-filled world, undistracted attention is a rare and valuable state, enabling the brain to enter an integrated, coherent state where creativity and learning thrive.

Coaching is inherently a creative process, helping clients imagine new possibilities and develop new mindsets. This creativity is supported by seven brain activation states identified by Carson (2010), which include absorbing new information, intense reasoning, envisioning outcomes, brainstorming, experiencing a flow state, and evaluating options to implement action plans.

In essence, coaching relationships engage, arouse, energise, and challenge clients to do the work needed to change their brains. Coaches employ both "doing" skills, such as listening and inquiry, and "being" skills, such as mindfulness, empathy, and authenticity, to promote brain learning and growth.

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Mechanism 2: Elicit Self-Motivation

Motivation is a critical driver of change, and coaching helps clients tap into autonomous motivation, which leads to sustainable change. According to Deci and Ryan (2002), motivation can be categorised into two types: external and autonomous. External motivation involves external influences, such as doing something to avoid conflict with others, and is often short-lived.

In contrast, autonomous motivation is future-oriented and aligned with personal values and desired identities. It involves connecting behaviours to meaningful future outcomes or the identity one wishes to project. For example, a client may be motivated to become fit and strong to have the energy to make a difference daily or to prevent future health issues that could burden loved ones.

Autonomous motivation also includes activities that produce flow experiences, where individuals engage in activities they love for their own sake. Although finding such activities can take time, they provide a powerful source of motivation for health behaviours.

Coaches support clients in developing future-oriented, positive identity-based motivation by exploring the "why behind the why." By digging deeper into their motivations, clients can tap into longer-lasting, meaningful reasons for change that sustain them through the challenges of daily life.

Authentic motivation enhances cognitive function, attention, emotion regulation, and creativity, providing a reliable source of energy for the change journey. It taps into intrinsic and biological energy sources, such as the drive to help others, be a role model, and make life meaningful.

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Mechanism 3: Build Confidence

While motivation is essential, it must be accompanied by self-efficacy or confidence in one's ability to overcome obstacles. Confidence is built through diligent efforts over time, and small successes contribute to an upward spiral of motivation and confidence.

Many individuals face challenges that have led to failed change attempts, resulting in low self-efficacy or chronic contemplation. Coaches help clients overcome this by leveraging positive emotions to enhance resilience, creativity, and problem-solving.

Coaches also tap into Deci and Ryan's (2002) self-determination theory, emphasising the importance of competence. People are more successful when they apply their strengths, talents, and values, leading to quicker mental processing and creative solutions.

The Transtheoretical Model of Change (Prochaska, 1995) provides coaches with tools to assess client readiness for change, self-efficacy, and processes of change. This model helps clients identify their stage of change and develop personalised plans to navigate challenges.

Coaches engage clients in creative brainstorming and relational flow, generating new insights and increasing hope and optimism. This process empowers clients to find new paths around obstacles and harvest valuable learning from setbacks.

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Mechanism 4: Process of Change

The final mechanism involves guiding clients through the process of change, similar to structured projects with strategies, goals, and timelines. Coaching often begins with assessments to track progress, followed by envisioning the ideal future and designing experiments and action plans to achieve goals.

Behavioural or SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound) goals provide clear targets for clients to work toward. Clients may set skill-building, performance, or habit-based goals, with regular progress reports and milestones to celebrate achievements. Accountability is a crucial aspect of the change process. Clients determine how they want to be accountable, using tools like mobile apps for tracking and reporting progress. Coaches also connect clients with other health experts and resources as needed.

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While coaching sessions may follow a structure, coaching is not formulaic. The heart of coaching lies in relational flow, where both coach and client engage in intuitive, creative exploration. These peak moments lead to shifts in perspective and insights that drive lasting change.

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By Margaux Pelletier, Health Coach at rfynd

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Embarking on a weight loss journey often involves more than just changing what we eat and how much we exercise. It requires a deep understanding of the psychological factors that influence our relationship with food and our eating behaviours, and often involves looking toward our inner thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The good news is, when you are willing to look inward and develop this deeper awareness of what makes you tick, you can take steps to better look after yourself in ways that promote positive health and wellbeing

The Connection Between Emotions and Eating: 

For many of us, food is more than just fuel – it's tied to our emotions, memories, social and cultural traditions and experiences. Emotional eating refers to the tendency to turn to food in response to unpleasant emotional experiences with the function of providing ourselves with comfort, soothing, or stress relief, and as a form of distraction. Whether it's reaching for a bowl of ice cream after a bad day at work or indulging in a bag of chips when feeling lonely or bored, emotional eating can sabotage our weight loss efforts and contribute to negative emotional states such as guilt and shame, which in turn may lead to further emotional eating – it can be a vicious, and subconscious, cycle!

Understanding Food Cravings: 

Food cravings are intense desires for specific foods, often high in sugar, fat, or salt, that can feel irresistible. While cravings are a normal part of being human, they can sometimes be driven by emotional triggers or physiological factors such as hormonal fluctuations or nutrient deficiencies. Cravings can also be reinforced by environmental cues, such as seeing or smelling a favourite food, which can activate reward centres in the brain and lead to compulsive eating behaviours.

Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Eating:

• Understanding your triggers: Identifying the major life events or, more commonly, the daily life stressors that trigger unpleasant or aversive emotional experiences is important in the life cycle of emotional eating. Such triggers could include work stress or conflict, health issues, or financial stressors. It could also be a certain time of day, such as the afternoon slump at work when you feel fatigued, or the period of time after you have navigated the chaos of your kids dinner and bedtime.
• Emotional Awareness: Learning to ‘notice and name’ our emotions and then regulate these without immediately turning to food is a crucial step in overcoming emotional eating. Carrying out a daily emotion ‘check-in’ with yourself using an emotion list or chart is a helpful step in increasing your emotional awareness – research indicates that we sometimes only need to ‘name it to tame it’ to get some relief from the heat of an emotion. Journaling and talking to a trusted friend, coach or therapist are also ways to develop your awareness of the underlying emotions driving our cravings and open the door to developing healthier coping strategies.
• Emotional regulation: Once we are consciously aware of our triggers and the emotions that arise from these, we can move on to regulating, or managing, the unpleasant or aversive emotions in ways that promote positive health and wellbeing. Engaging in relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or muscle relaxation, or using mindful meditation to ‘ride the wave’ of the emotion can be helpful. Having a go-to list of other forms of distraction is useful, such as engaging in hobbies, reading, going for walk, or calling a friend, or just generally keeping your hands busy doing something else (there will always be chores to be done!). Keeping a list of emotion regulation strategies that work for you in a place where you can see them in times of vulnerability, such as on the fridge or pantry wall, is a top trick that many clients use.
• Mindful Eating: Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment without judgement, including our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. By practicing mindful eating, we can become more aware of our hunger and fullness cues, as well as the emotional triggers that lead us to overeat. Taking the time to savour each bite, chew slowly, and tune into our body's signals can help us make more conscious choices about what and how much we eat.
• Building Resilience: Building resilience involves cultivating coping skills and resources to deal with life's inevitable challenges and setbacks. Engaging in regular physical activity, getting enough sleep, and prioritising self-care activities that bring us joy and fulfilment can help bolster our resilience and reduce our reliance on food as a source of comfort.

Strategies for Overcoming Food Cravings:

• Balanced Nutrition: Ensuring that our meals and snacks are balanced and nutrient-dense can help stabilise blood sugar levels and reduce cravings for unhealthy foods. Aim to include a variety of whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats in your diet to support overall health and well-being.
• Planning Ahead: Planning meals and snacks in advance can help us make healthier choices and avoid impulsive eating behaviours. Keep nutritious snacks on hand, such as fresh fruit, nuts, or yoghurt, to satisfy hunger between meals and prevent cravings for less healthy options.
• Distraction Techniques: When faced with a craving, distracting ourselves with an engaging activity or taking a short walk can help redirect our attention away from food and reduce the intensity of the craving. Finding alternative ways to cope with stress or boredom, such as listening to music, practising a hobby, or spending time with loved ones, can also help diminish the urge to eat.

Navigating the psychological aspects of weight loss, including emotional eating and food cravings, requires patience, self-awareness, and compassion. By understanding the underlying causes of these behaviours and implementing effective strategies for managing them, we can develop a healthier relationship with food and achieve our weight loss goals more successfully. Remember that progress is not linear, and it's okay to seek support from friends, family, or professionals along the way. 

At rfynd, we believe in the transformative power of psychological change when individuals are provided with the right support and resources. That's why we offer a comprehensive support system that includes dietitians, health coaches and psychologists to guide and empower our clients on their weight care journey. We believe that sustainable change is not only possible but achievable for everyone.

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By Dr Minthali Price, Psychologist at rfynd and Kylie Russell, Dietitian at rfynd.