Outsmart Overeating

We silly earthlings tend to be final-hour creatures: we tend to wait until we hit rock bottom to initiate a change for the better, all while at the same time wanting the results to appear overnight. While this might work flawlessly in the movies, real life operates by a different set of rules. Join co-coach, Steph Miramontes and me as we dive deep into why your expectations are killing your progress softly. Topics discussed:

• Why it's important to understand the power of the two words: "should" and "is"
• How to embrace slow progress and see it as the super strength that it is -- slow weight loss is permanent weight loss
• The benefit of slowing down and how it allows you to be present in your life, and as a result, less interested in food
• The value of reframing your "struggles" and how to recognize them as an integral part of your success
• Why you can't diet your way into a healthy relationship with food

What's an area of your life where you've benefited from slowing down and removing the pressure of racing against a timeline? I'd love to hear your experience.

Connect with Leslie:

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If you're struggling with emotional, binge, or compulsive eating and you're interested in personalized coaching, apply here. If you want to learn how to not-only lose weight, but lose the struggle along side it, get my free guide — Lose the Diet, Gain a Life. I'll show you how to drop unwanted pounds without ever having to diet again. Go to lesliehooper.com for the guide.

In this week's episode of the Fat Murder Podcast, I invited our Unstuffed Team Leader, Miriam Blyth, on for a chat about three pillars for long-term, sustainable weight loss.

Can you guess what they are? In my 17 years of coaching, I've never seen a client achieve permanent results without addressing these three core issues.

If one of these pillars isn't in place, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Give this episode a listen and let me know how you're doing with each pillar.

Connect with Leslie:

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If you're struggling with emotional, binge, or compulsive eating and you're interested in personalized coaching, apply here. If you want to learn how to not-only lose weight, but lose the struggle along side it, get my free guide — Lose the Diet, Gain a Life. I'll show you how to drop unwanted pounds without ever having to diet again. Go to lesliehooper.com for the guide.

Research shows that "normal eaters" think about food 10-15% of the time throughout the day, but dieters often think about food for up to 70% of their day. That's a lot of wasted time. Constantly thinking about food, dieting, and body image can make it feel like you have an addiction. However, it's normal to think about food when feeling deprived. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? One of the most unfortunate truths of dieting is how it robs you of being in the present. Food is no longer a pleasurable experience, but rather an anxiety-inducing situation riddled with guilt and shame. And that is exactly why I created my online group coaching program, Unstuffed — to help you break-free from the shackles of restrictive dieting and develop the psychological tools to lose weight while enjoying all of your favorite foods — without the drama. In this week's Fat Murder Podcast episode with co-coach, Eileen Trujillo, we're going to help you get started.

You'll learn:

• I can't stop eating sweets once I've started
• I'll just have a couple of bites of this and do more cardio tomorrow (it's never just a couple of bites, is it?)
• I'll start over again on Monday
• How many calories will that cookie put me over my daily limit?

Connect with Leslie:

• Website
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• Facebook

If you're struggling with emotional, binge, or compulsive eating and you're interested in personalized coaching, apply here. If you want to learn how to not-only lose weight, but lose the struggle along side it, get my free guide — Lose the Diet, Gain a Life. I'll show you how to drop unwanted pounds without ever having to diet again. Go to lesliehooper.com for the guide.

People who are overwhelmed love to talk about how they're overwhelmed.

Unsurprisingly, most people who claim they're overwhelmed have never seriously sat down for even 10 minutes and developed a plan to stop feeling that way.

In many ways, they become addicted to the feeling of overwhelm, especially since it elicits so much sympathy from others.

When I call clients out on this, you can see how this makes them uncomfortable.

Their natural reaction is to unconsciously revert back to running their automatic mental scripts of how overwhelmed they are and deflect by asking questions or trying to change the subject.

But, in the eloquent words of Homey D. Clown, "Homey don't play that."

I always turn it back on them and ask for their plan. I encourage them to find ONE THING they can do, today, to bring them one step closer to their goal.

Join co-coach, Eileen Trujillo, and I in this week's episode of the Fat Murder Podcast while we talk about how everyone is busy. You're busy. I'm busy. That's why we create plans and make appointments.

Honestly, I've had this conversation literally thousands of times with clients and these are some of my key observations:

• "Overwhelm" is contagious. These people have also surrounded themselves with other "overwhelmed" people like them who support their beliefs. This is a perfect example of the dark side of "You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with."
• "Out of control" = no plan. People whose lives are out of control love to talk about how their lives are out of control. They love to talk about how tired and busy they are. The one thing they don't love talking about is a plan to change things.
• Accountability matters. Finding one person who calls you on your shit is one of the rarest opportunities in life. If you find this person, treasure them.

Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure. They're the only thing preventing you from living the life you truly want.

When you're good at making excuses, it's hard to excel at anything else.

Give today's episode a listen and share a key takeaway you can begin implementing right now. I can't wait to hear what it is!

Connect with Leslie:

• Website
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• Facebook

If you're struggling with emotional, binge, or compulsive eating and you're interested in personalized coaching, apply here. If you want to learn how to not-only lose weight, but lose the struggle along side it, get my free guide — Lose the Diet, Gain a Life. I'll show you how to drop unwanted pounds without ever having to diet again. Go to lesliehooper.com for the guide.

One of the first hurdles our clients struggle to overcome is answering the basic question: what should I eat?

When you've come from an extensive background in dieting, you've been told what to eat in what quantities, and at what time for YEARS. When you make the decision to drop dieting, it starts with dropping the food rules, too.

This can be overwhelming, if not altogether scary. Dieters want to lose weight, and they want a step-by-step plan telling them exactly what to eat to get to their goal weight.

Without a plan, they think they'll be out of control and never stop eating, but that's not how it works.

So in today's episode of the Fat Murder Podcast, Coach, Steph Miramontes, and I visit the subject of what to eat.

A few topics discussed:

• Why you look at food as good or bad and where that perspective came from
• Why 'good' and 'bad' food labeling can actually make weight loss harder
• When you see certain foods as forbidden, what happens when you do eat one of these foods?
• And if you manage to stay away from forbidden foods, why do you feel so deprived?
• How can you look at different types of food without the good vs. bad division?

I want you to learn how to trust yourself and work WITH your body. There is no exact prescription of what and how much to eat.

When you learn to speak the fluent language of your body, you will always know what to eat and how much to eat.

Give it a listen and share your favorite takeaway.

Connect with Leslie:

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook

If you're struggling with emotional, binge, or compulsive eating and you're interested in personalized coaching, apply here. If you want to learn how to not-only lose weight, but lose the struggle along side it, get my free guide — Lose the Diet, Gain a Life. I'll show you how to drop unwanted pounds without ever having to diet again. Go to lesliehooper.com for the guide.

The go-to fat loss tool that most people clamp onto right out of the gate is cardio, often at the expense of the most powerful tool of body composition change: strength training. Join co-coach, Steph Miramontes, and me on the Fat Murder Podcast as we put exercise in its proper place in your fat loss tool belt to help you get the results you're working towards so you can move on to other, more interesting things in your life. Topics discussed:

• Why people engage in extreme exercise (hint: it's rooted in fear)
• The problems most people run into when they ramp up their exercise while decreasing their food intake (and what to do instead)
• Physical signs that you're doing too much exercise and what the "right amount" actually is
• Psychological clues to look out for to determine whether your relationship with exercise is unhealthy
• Subtle ways that MORE exercise actually reduces your chances at weight loss success
• The BEST exercise for weight loss

Those are just a few of the topics covered in this week's episode. Which one of the bullet points are you most interested in learning about?

Connect with Leslie:

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Sure, reading is cool, and I've definitely learned a lot over the years by doing it, but it's not a substitute for taking action. Body transformations are a lot like dancing – you don't learn by watching, you have to get on the floor and learn the steps. Sadly, the action step is where most get stuck and ultimately fail. That's why, today, co-coach, Steph Miramontes, and I want to talk to you about the 6 primary reasons why people never achieve their goals (and what you can do about it). I used to be a massive procrastinator and called myself lazy. As it turns out, I just didn't have any strategies in place to set myself up for success. It was going to take more than installing a productivity app on my phone if I wanted to finish the things I started. Today, on the Fat Murder Podcast, we talk about the strategies we use to help our clients stop dragging their feet and take action on the things they truly wanted in life. What's a goal in your life that you've been struggling to achieve:

• consistently flossing your teeth?
• waking up 20 minutes earlier?
• completing 3 workouts a week?

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In last week's episode, I interviewed client, Sophie Milner, on how she was able to transition from a food-obsessed chronic dieter to someone who feels completely in control in any dining scenario while effortlessly maintaining her weight through the power of habit. This week, I'm excited to share the interview of Unstuffed client, Macarena Niada, on her unique experience in my group coaching program. As you know, no two dieters are the same and we all have different challenges, backgrounds, habits, lifestyles, and emotional eating struggles. Macarena was kind enough to open up and share some of hers. Topics discussed: Why Macarena decided to join the program and how it turned out to be exactly what she needed to stop bouncing around from diet to diet and commit to unraveling her emotional ties to food. Macarena shares some of her biggest challenges in the program and how the introduction to "trigger foods" was the breakthrough she didn't know she needed. At what point in the process Macarena witnessed her relationship with food beginning to shift and how she's been able to overcome her self-limiting beliefs and history of self-sabotage. Macarena also discusses why this process "worked" when others never did. Her best piece of advice for those who fear gaining weight if they stop macro/calorie counting, and why confronting this fear is essential for long-term success. Thanks again to Macarena for being a guest and sharing her valuable insights. Be sure to give this episode a listen and let us know what topics you'd like us to cover in the future.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing former Friends With Benefits (now turned UNSTUFFED) client, Sophie Milner. In the spring of 2021, Sophie was frustrated and fed up with dieting. As someone who experienced a classic history of yo-yoing with no long-term results to speak of, she reached out with the intention of getting off the maddening merry-go-round once and for all. In this episode Sophie shares the story behind her dieting checkered dieting history and how those struggles propelled her into a negative spiral of chronic dieting. In this week's episode, we discuss: The biggest challenges she faced when the program ended and how she's been able to execute the psychological tools she learned to remain consistent in her habits. Sophie shares why she decided to try hunger directed eating and how the program helped her identify herself as a struggling perfectionist Why having a more structured program was the game-changer she needed What eye-opening revelations she's made while continuing to step further away from diet culture What holiday and social eating looks like for her now compared to years previous (hint: no more food anxiety or losing control) Sophie's BEST piece of advice for those who fear they'll gain weight if they stop calorie counting and focus on weight loss through behavior change. For more conversations on topics like binge eating, emotional eating, the all-or-nothing mindset, and your inner critic, you can check out previously recorded episodes. If there's a topic you'd like us to cover in an upcoming episode, let us know in the comments below. •••LINK IN BIO•••

Every year, millions of dieters -- maybe even you -- set their eyes on a weight loss goal for the new year. Generally, the SAME weight loss goal they've had for the previous decade on January 1st. This year, I'm encouraging you to try something different; something that actually works. Screw what the 90% of unsuccessful dieters are doing, and learn what the successful 5% are doing instead. In this episode with co-coach, Eileen Trujillo, you'll learn: WHY you self-sabotage, and lifelong strategies to end it forever. How perfection is the enemy of progress, and why embracing your imperfections is essential for long-term success. How diets lead you down a path of hopelessness and frustration, and actionable steps you can take TODAY to help you lose weight without one. The real reason you feel out of control around food (hint: you're not addicted), and how understanding your inner psychology will change the game. Do you have a resolution for the new year to lose weight? Have you mapped out your plan on how you're going to get from Point A to Point B? I'd love to hear about your pathway to success. How are you going to achieve your goals this year?