- I love receiving all the questions you send in to me.
And this week's topic is all about weight.
So let's get started.
Here's a question I get all the time.
When I had an advice column,
this question would come up every month.
"How can I be happy with my body?"
That's a great question.
I want you to take your phone out
and go into your phone notes, and I want you to make a list
of everything your body does for you.
It digests food.
It keeps you alive.
Your feet take you places.
Your legs take you places.
Your stomach, digests food.
Your hands allow you to wrap your arms around people.
You can hold the hand of a child.
Your mouth allows you to speak, to kiss people.
Your eyes are sparkly clear.
I want you to look at everything you love
about your body.
Its energy. Its wisdom.
The fact that it's here.
The fact that it is working every day
to keep you alive and well.
Your body does so much for you, so much.
And we never really realize how great our body is
until it's out of action.
Suddenly we've got the flu,
we've got a stomach bug and we can't eat.
Or we've got something and we can't go to the bathroom,
or we can't stop going to the bathroom.
We've got a terrible headache and we think,
"Wow, I never appreciated my body
"until I couldn't keep food down,
"I couldn't keep stuff in.
"And now I realize how lucky I was to have a healthy body."
Only when we get sick, do we appreciate our body.
And I promise you,
if you can do one loving thing for your body,
it will do say many loving things back.
I want you every day to focus on what you love
about your body.
"I love my skin.
"I love my shiny, sparkly eyes.
"I love my smile.
"I love my voice.
"I love my energy.
"I love the fact I can wrap my arms
"around my kids and cuddle them.
"I love my voice."
Please move away from what you weigh
and the label in your clothing.
It doesn't mean anything.
When I grew up, I loved my grandmother.
She had arms like sides of ham
and she'd wrapped me in them,
and it was the safest place in the world,
where I had a very skinny mother who was always on a diet,
very beautiful, but I wanted to be with my grandmother.
She cooked.
She made cakes.
She baked pies.
She had no clue what she weighed,
it just wasn't in her radar.
And to me, she was the most beautiful person in the world.
But my mother, always being on diets, helped to give me
a very bad relationship.
My mother was always weighing food.
She lived on diet yogurt and diet shakes,
and she didn't want to have anything bad in the house,
which made me crave the stuff,
we were not allowed to have, fizzy drinks, cookies.
And I was very aware that she did that to me,
and I never wanted to do that to my own daughter.
So don't talk about naughty food.
I used to pick my daughter up from school and go,
"Well, today's little treat is mango.
Today it's hummus.
Today it's olives.
I never made it about sugar, sometimes it was.
You need to fall in love with your body.
The quickest way, the only way
you can have the body you love is to love the body you have,
to honor it, to respect it,
to imagine, if your body was a little child,
someone gave you a perfect little baby,
what would you feed it?
You wouldn't feed it cake and cookies and Coca-Cola
'cause it would be so perfect.
You'd feed it avocado and maybe some fruit,
and maybe some vegetables.
If you can see your body like a baby,
depending on you to care for it, you'll care for it better.
And here's another thing.
When you're looking at junk food,
tell yourself the truth.
Your body does not crave it.
Your body doesn't go, "Oh, yay, look at that,
"colorants, chemicals, emulsifier, pesticides,
"preservatives, let me knock myself out."
Your body doesn't want that.
You've allowed your mind to make you believe you want it
'cause it will make you happy.
It does not make your body happy to eat food
that's not food.
Doesn't make it happy, it makes it unhappy and ill.
Fall in love with your body the way it is now,
respect it, love it, cherish it.
That will help you feed it better, real wholesome food,
and that will help you become the weight and shape
you want to be 'cause it's all based on respect and love
not hate and punishment of being at war with yourself,
and trying to deprive yourself.
I know it works.
I've been showing people this way for years.
It always works.
"Hey Marisa, how can I get away from anxious,
"eating and establish a healthy relationship with food
"with a lifelong balance?"
See a lot of people do anxious eating.
The stomach, right here, it's the seat of all your emotions,
anxiety, worry, fear, stress, all start in the stomach.
It's why children come out of the room, and I go,
"My tummy hurts."
Whatever they want, they feel it in the tummy.
And we have learned to push our feelings down with it.
I feel bad, what can I eat?
I feel angry, what can I eat?
I feel upset, what can I eat?
I feel stressed, what can I eat?
Now when you're stressed, we have taste receptors here,
and when you chew food, you relax.
So when you eat crunchy bread, chewy steak, potato chips,
chunks of crunchy granola, or hard apples,
that very act of chewing is relaxing.
Secondly, when you eat carbohydrates,
they have a very sedating, tranquilizing,
soporific effect on you.
And many of us without knowing it, self medicate,
calm ourselves, sedate ourselves with carbs.
One of the best ways to calm anxiety
is to drink a hot drink,
hot drinks are immensely soothing.
But you don't need to have
a cappuccino with cream and marshmallows,
you can have a mint tea with a little Stevia in it.
So if you're feeling very anxious,
by all means drink something hot.
Actually chewing gum has the very same effect
on these taste receptors here.
I'm not a big fan of gum, but if you eat to relax,
gum will have exactly the same effect.
And thirdly, understand this truth.
When you're anxious and you eat,
it actually causes more anxiety,
the body does not want to digest food.
That's why, when you're scared and nervous and terrified,
the last thing you want to do is eat
because a body doesn't cope with anxiety
and digestion at the same time.
In fact, sometimes when you're scared,
you actually throw up.
Many people who are scared run to the bathroom
because the body tries to get rid of what's in your gut
and in your stomach when you're super anxious.
So I understand you're using carbs to tranquilize yourself,
you're using chewing and biting
to get these taste receptors, to cause a relaxing feeling.
But you can find a better way.
Yes, you can chew a crunchy apple, that's great.
You could have a couple of crackers, that's fine.
You can have a hot drink and drink it slowly.
But eating a lot of food when you're anxious
will make you more anxious.
Now you've got into a vicious circle,
you're anxious, you eat, you feel more anxious,
it's hard to digest that food and you eat more.
Don't do that.
Push your shoulders down when you're anxious,
fill up your mouth with saliva,
nobody will know you're doing it, and say this,
"I'm so chilled, I'm so relaxed, I'm super calm."
You can move anxiety out of your body and your mind
really fast by telling yourself the right things.
"I'm calm, I'm chilled, I'm at ease, I'm at peace."
Push your shoulders down,
fill up your mouth with saliva and even do this,
pushing your arms like this.
This is so calming.
If you feel anxious, do your body a favor, calm yourself.
Actually rubbing your hands together,
very calming and weirdly touching your face like that,
even touching your chin,
these send a message to your mind that say, "I am calm."
A big cake doesn't send that message.
A burger and fries, a bowl of pasta
does not send that message.
They send a, "Oh, I'm already stressed,
"now I've got to digest this food,
"and it's too much, too much."
When you're stressed, and when you're ill,
the last thing you need
is to overwork your body with digestion.
Think better thoughts,
do these funny little actions and you'll become calm,
and you won't need to eat,
and save up your hunger and eat real food selectively,
and you'll do just great.
"Hey Marisa, if I don't limit myself,
"I feel a great sense of shame.
"I'm scared of appearing greedy.
"How can I overcome that?"
Well, that's a great shame
because if you're on a date with a guy,
a lot of guys find a hearty appetite really attractive.
Parents often say, "He's a good eater.
"She's a good eater."
I know when I used to cook for my daughter,
I loved seeing her really eating
something I'd made and enjoying it.
But we've been brainwashed to believe that greed is bad,
that having a second helping is bad.
Many of us are scared of appearing greedy
and we should eat like a bird.
So you shouldn't limit yourself necessarily,
you should be aware of what you eat.
And, in fact, if you want to know how to limit yourself,
if you think, "Oh I'm always hungry, I haven't had enough.
"I need more.
"Now I'm going to go back up to get more.
"And I'm going to feel a sense of shame."
Which happens a lot.
We tend to do this.
If we go out and we order a salad
and a little piece of fish,
or a salad and little bit of chicken,
and then we think, "Well, that wasn't enough.
"I had one sandwich for lunch.
"It wasn't enough, I need more."
So if you're at a buffet,
if you're ordering in a restaurant,
order enough to fill you up, and order more protein.
You should always try to have, kind of, look at my hand
like a palm size amount of protein or more, and eat slowly.
When you chew food,
there are more digestive enzymes in your saliva
than in your stomach.
And if you eat quickly, you still feel hungry,
and then it's very hard to limit yourself.
So chew food, eat slowly,
put your knife and fork down between bites.
Take the time to recognize satiety,
which is just the opposite of being insatiable
is being full, but if you bolt food, you won't feel full.
And if you eat junk food, you will not feel full.
That's why you can sit in a cinema
and eat a bucket of popcorn
and keep going, because when food is worthless
and has no nutrients your body will say,
"Keep going, keep going.
"I need some nutrition here."
So if you're eating diet yogurts, diet potato chips,
diet granola bars, and the ingredients do not satisfy you,
then you will feel, "I need more.
"Now I'm being greedy.
"After all, we've all eaten a whole packet of cookies,
"a whole family bag of potato chips."
But no one says, "You know what?
"I ate a family sized portion of chicken.
"I ate a whole chicken.
"I ate 10 chicken breasts.
"I ate 8 fish fillets."
'Cause when it is real food, it fills you up.
You can eat a bucket of popcorn, a huge bag of candy.
You wouldn't eat a bucket of vegetable soup.
So things to factor in are,
take a look at what you're eating,
make sure the food is real.
If you're at a buffet or a restaurant,
order enough food, there's nothing worse
then ordering a little side salad,
and then thinking, "Oh, I need more.
"And all my friends, and now I need more.
"I'm going to have to order a dessert, now.
"Now I'm going to look greedy."
Be smart, order the right type of food,
eat the right type, eat the right amount.
If you eat slowly, selectively, consciously,
if you engage in the food and eat mindfully,
you'll be less inclined to think, "I need more."
But sometimes it's an emotion,
if you do think you know, "Today, I need more.
"I want more."
Just laugh and go, "Hey, I'm having a day today
"when I want more food.
"I think today I'll have some more food and enjoy it."
And don't allow anyone to shame you, say,
"You'll get fat if you eat that.
"That will go straight to your hips."
You just answer with, "Not if I just do this once a week.
"I very rarely eat desserts.
"Today I'm going to have one.
"I'm going to love it.
"I'm going to savor it.
"And I have a great metabolic rate,
"and my body knows how to burn it off."
Don't allow anyone to shame you for what you eat
or how you eat, but don't bolt your food and eat fast.
That doesn't work.
I know that will work for you.
Thanks for your question.
You know why?
'Cause you're helping everyone else too.
"Hey Marisa.
"How do I figure out what my emotional triggers are
"and how do I counter them?"
Well, many people are indeed emotional eaters,
and they eat when they're stressed.
They eat when they're upset,
they eat when they're anxious,
they eat when something is going wrong,
and they eat when something is going right,
because emotional eaters use food for every occasion.
I feel good, let me celebrate with food.
I feel bad, let me commiserate with foods.
So if you are an emotional eater,
you have to take some time to understand
what are your emotions.
And if you push your emotions down with food,
say, you've just had some bad news.
You've been rejected at a job or by a friend
or by someone you were dating,
and your instinct is to eat tonnes of food
and push that feeling down.
But you see your feelings are rather like
a classroom of children going,
"Hey, notice me, I'm here, notice me."
When you push your feelings down,
you know what they do?
They regroup, and they come back stronger than ever.
So if you feel sad and you eat that sadness,
it returned and you eat it more and it becomes stronger.
And here's the best advice you will ever get
about emotional eating.
You must feel your feelings
until they no longer
require to be felt.
Feel your feelings until they no longer require
to be felt.
And that means you have to say,
"You know what?
"I feel very sad.
"I feel hurt.
"I feel let down.
"I feel lonely.
"I feel overlooked.
"I feel uncared-for.
"I feel unimportant.
"I feel jealous of my sister.
"I feel angry with my mom.
"I feel furious with my partner.
"I feel rage with my child."
When you say it, the feelings go,
"Oh, you've got it.
"You got it.
"So now you've got the message I can go away."
When you feel the feeling until it no longer requires
to be felt, it goes away.
When you try and Netflix that feeling,
eBay that feeling, shop the feeling,
gamble the feeling, drink the feeling,
medicate the feeling or eat the feeling,
it will come back.
And when you simply allow yourself to say,
"This is how I feel.
"It may be unreasonable.
"It may be a illogical,
"but feelings are stronger than logic.
In a battle between logic and feeling, the feeling will win.
So you can't say,
"Well, I shouldn't feel like that.
"What have I got to feel like that?
"It's wrong to feel jealous.
"It's not right to feel angry.
"I shouldn't feel."
Your feelings are the most real thing you have.
Feel them, acknowledge them, accept them.
You know what?
They go away.
It's what I call Triple A.
And here's how to do a Triple A.
I want you to go,
"Okay, let me be aware of what I'm feeling.
"I'm feeling jealousy.
Okay, so we say, "We shouldn't be jealous, it's not right."
No, "I'm aware of it, now I'm going to accept it.
"This is how I feel right now.
"I feel jealous, or hurt,
"and then I'm going to acknowledge it
"and articulate it."
So you're aware of the feeling, you accept the feeling,
you acknowledge the feeling, you articulate it.
"I am feeling sad, lonely,
"pessimistic, negative."
And the minute you do that;
aware, accept, acknowledge, articulate,
you know what happens?
It goes away.
It goes away so fast and you don't need
to do emotional eating ever again.
That's my advice.
I can only tell you one thing: It works.
So remember, aware of your feeling, acknowledge it,
accepted it, articulate it, then you're free of it,
and you never have to eat it.