Ever wonder why you’re totally fine…until you’re eating your favorite foods?

In this episode, I break down the REAL reason food feels so powerful — and why you lose control the second it’s in front of you.

There’s two types of restriction (and the 2nd type is a sneaky).

When you learn these…you’ll start to feeling a lot of confidence around foods that make you nervous as hell right now.

Get my FREE weightloss videos (The Secrets to How I Lost 100lbs):

www.nobsfreecourse.com

Welcome back, everybody. So today, we're going to talk about something that a lot of

women don't even realize is messing up their weight loss, and that is restriction.

It's why you might be thinking that you're fine all day long, and then when you

get around food, especially things that taste really good, you're going to be

thinking things like, I just can't stop eating Korean. So let's start with this.

First of all, there are two types of restrictions that could be causing you a lot

of trouble. So I want to talk about them because most women, they really don't have

any idea that they're doing both. And both of them can make losing weight feel

harder than it really needs to be. But before we even get into the two types,

first of all, we got to define what restriction actually is and whether or not

restriction when it comes to weight loss is even a bad thing. Because restriction is

not always a dirty word. It's not automatically some horrible -ass thing that you

should avoid at all cost. Restriction simply means that you are now limiting

something. That's it. And if you think about your life, you do it all the time

without thinking it's a punishment. So very often you restrict money when you are at

Target, walk in the aisle.

more sleep in order to make it. We restrict our mouth. When our boss says something

stupid, instead of going ham on the boss, we smile. We go back to our desk,

and we text our bestie everything that we wanted to say to said boss. We restrict

when we're parenting, and we decide not to yell at our kids when we really want to

be yelling and screaming just like they are. We restrict our schedule. When we tell

somebody, you can't come to something simply because you're tired or you got

something else to do. So we do a lot of restriction. We're restricting constantly.

The only difference is that you don't think it's a bad thing. You're not falling

apart over those things. So when we Think about restriction in and of itself. If we

are going to say no to things, if we are going to remove a few things, restriction

in and of itself isn't the real problem. The problem is how you do it and where

it's coming from. Because the way you think about what you're going to do, which is

the actual like, I'm going to now not eat this food for a little while.

you might feel restricted, or you could feel like it's a gift,

like you were just trying to take care of yourself, that you're just going to try

to make the next few weeks a lot easier on yourself while you get you, you weight

-loss feet underneath you. So,

when we think about it, restriction can actually be helpful. It's just you being a

grown -up and making a decision that takes care of you. But feeling restricted

because you are going to do or do not do certain things, especially when it comes

to what you eat, it does not come from what you actually do.

Okay? I want you to really hear that. Let's say that you are going to,

like I used to do, I used to take peanut butter out of my house. For some reason,

back in the day, I could not be around the peanut butter. When I was around the

peanut butter, half a jar was going to get ate. I was not a, just a spoonful on

my sandwich kind of girl. I was a, take the jar to the couch, pop on some kind

of TV, and just eat until I'm sick kind of girl. So you could look at all the

times when I decided to not have peanut butter in the house as restricting myself.

I could easily have felt really restricted because I could be telling myself,

I can't have that. I could be telling myself, I'm such a loser. I can't control

myself. I must be addicted. What's wrong with me? I've got problems. That right

there is the fuel to feel restricted. But I will tell you,

there was a point when I finally started telling myself, until I feel more grounded

in weight loss, until I have lots of foods that I enjoy, until I get better at

not emotionally eating at night, it would be easier for me to not have peanut

butter as a knee -jerk reaction. The second I'm uncomfortable, the second I'm having

a craving. That didn't feel like restriction anymore. It felt smart.

It felt logical. It felt like I was taking care of myself. So when we think about

restriction, it does not come from what you're going to do or don't do.

It comes from how you're thinking about the act of taking something way itself.

So for most women, feeling restricted has this fear -driven, panicky energy to it.

And that is what makes your brain go wild around the food when you are around it

again. So there's something happening inside you that's telling your brain,

this food is very special. This is my chance to get it. This may even be my only

time to get it. And the minute your brain thinks something is scarce or is going

to disappear, guess what it does? It tries to get you to eat as much of it as it

possibly can. Even when you aren't hungry, even when you've had plenty of food,

even if you are eating foods that you actually love. And I just want to say that

this happens for a really good reason. Why so many of us, it doesn't feel logical

to us that these foods are on a pedestal, especially if you're working with me, you

know that I encourage you to eat the food you love in order to lose weight, that

we are going to make peace with all the foods so that we don't have to feel this

weight anymore.

But if you've dieted a lot in your past, this is probably one of the reasons why,

even when you're doing it my way, it can kick up what we call faux restriction.

diets, especially the ones that we've all been doing, like keto, counting points,

counting calories, trying to fit our macros, whole 30s, those diets taught us that

being good around food meant you were hungry,

you're going without weight watchers back in the day when they used to give you

points for exercising also taught us that we were earning food any diet you've ever

done that had a cheat day which meant if you did really good during the week you

got one day to just eat your face off eat whatever you wanted it taught us without

us even thinking about it that the foods we love must be earned. Otherwise,

we are being bad.

Diets taught us that our cravings, they are the enemy. And wanting food must mean

something's wrong with you, especially the clean eating diet phase. Remember back in

the day when we all were trying to do the clean eating in the 90s, magazine, there

was even a clean eating magazine. I don't even know if it's still around. But it

gave off this impression that there were clean foods and there were dirty foods.

And when you think about it, if foods on lists, like keto kind of does this,

there are the foods that the morality police have deemed are okay. And there are

foods that the morality police have deemed are not okay. And when you think about

the act active eating. You are ingesting. And so if you're ingesting things that are

bad, your brain starts making this assumption that I am being bad.

It's not just the food is bad. It's me. I'm the bad one. So that's why I don't

subscribe to any of that stuff. That is why I stopped teaching that shit because it

doesn't work. it backfires. It makes weight loss too emotional for us.

And I don't want you to have all of that. So what ends up happening is when

you've spent decades and years and years and years doing morality police type

dieting, dieting that has tons of rules around what's good, what's bad, which can

do, which can't do, all the things, you now feel threatened with even what we call

a normal.

suddenly decides to order dessert.

Well, instead of just being calm and like, you know, I'm not really that hungry, I

think I'm going to pass. All of a sudden, you're feeling panicky inside. You're

freaking out. Oh, my God, I'm going to miss out. Oh, my God, I never get dessert.

Oh, my God, I don't want to be bad. What if I get too tempted?

This is where sometimes normal things like being in front of a dessert table at a

party and feeling anxious, instead of just standing there and just being like, here

I am at a party. And there's some desserts and stuff. I guess I'll have something

if I really want it. This is why normal moments can feel very threatening and very

scary. And it's not because the food has some kind of magic power.

Like we tell ourselves, like certain foods have control over me. Certain foods have

power over me. They don't. What's really happening is there are certain foods that

you have a restrictive relationship with it in some way. And so when you see those

foods, when you think they're bad, when you think you shouldn't eat them,

when you think that somehow you're bad if you eat them, that now you start getting

panicky. Now you start getting anxious. And very often it can feel like,

well, I can't have that. So now you feel restricted, even if in reality you're not

that hungry. It's not even a dessert you would naturally choose. It's literally not

a big deal, but it feels like it's a big deal. So before I teach you the two

types of restriction, I want to explain this part. You do not do well with weight

loss when you constantly feel like you're not going to get enough or you're scared,

you're fixing to do something wrong. If every food decision is going to feel like

some kind of test, some kind of morality test, some kind of test of your willpower,

your strength, your discipline, all of those things, you're not going to lose weight.

You are always going to quit, and it ain't going to be because of you. It's going

to be because the system that is set up is very hard to operate in.

This mental system you've got going on needs to be rewired and broken down so that

losing weight feels a lot less stressful, a lot less pressure filled,

and a lot easier. All right. So let's talk about the two types of restriction that

show up. First of all, there's physical restriction. And this is all about what's

happening in your body, like what you do or do not eat, period. How much you eat

And how little you eat, whatever that is. That's physical restriction. The second

one, though, is the, I think the unsung hero, the one that we don't talk about in

diet circles at all. And it's probably going to sound really like a new concept to

you, unless you're a nobious woman. If you're working with me, this will come as no

surprise because we talk about this one a lot so that you can feel at ease when

you're trying to lose weight. I do not want my women feeling overwhelmed and jacked

up all the time trying to lose weight. That is no way to live, and it shouldn't

be that way. So the second one is called mental restriction, which is all about

what happens in your head around food. So just so that we're clear,

both exist. There is physical restriction and mental restriction. Both of them matter.

Neither is good or bad. Neither is better or worse than the other one. All that

matters is what's going on underneath each one so that we can figure that out, we

can learn from it, and we can do this better. So if restriction is coming from

fear, punishment, or panic, most of the time you will find yourself, you're going to

be overeating. But if restriction is coming from self -care, understanding of yourself,

helping yourself, logical and thoughtful decisions, your brain and your body

automatically relax. And things make sense. Things feel very doable.

It's almost like things slow down. So let's talk about the physical restriction

first, because this is the easiest one to recognize. Physical restriction is when

your body legitimately needs fuel and it's just not getting it. That can happen when

you go too long without eating. It can happen if you're skipping meals because

you're really busy. Or you're eating way less than what your body actually needs.

Or you are cutting out foods that you think are bad. These are all physical

restrictions. And when you are physically restricted, it doesn't matter how much

willpower you think you should have. Your body is automatically tripped into wanting

to look for food. That is a biological response. This is not a,

I'm so undisciplined. I must be lazy. I must not want it bad enough. I don't have

enough wise. It's none of that. Physical restriction automatically tells the body,

please start looking for food. Notice foods, please. That's just what's happening. And

then what else happens is that food tastes better when your body is physically

deprived. This is not your imagination. When you say,

oh, my God, I haven't had this in forever and it tastes so much better than I

remember. Or you say, Cran, I'm just telling you, it tastes so good when I finally

eat it. That's for real. Your senses, when you are physically depriving yourself or

over -restricting, maybe eating way too little, your senses get dialed up. You smell

everything stronger. I remember back in the day when I used to do like bullshit

diets. My diet of choice was always some diet that made me so hungry that I would

have ate my cat if it won't buy me. I just remember all of my diets where I was

just like, I just felt like a starving all the fucking time. Even when I was on

Weight Watchers, it was like, oh, my God, there's just not enough points in the

day. And I would drive down the road. And of course, Home of the Walker would be

flame grilling every single time. It was crazy to me that when I wasn't dieting,

I seemed to never smell Burger King. The second I was on a diet, I would smell

Burger King a mile away. I would notice every commercial and the food that was on

there. Like, right now, I couldn't even tell you food commercials. If I'm really

hungry and depriving myself and over dieting, I guarantee you, I was like,

that looks good and that looks good. And shit that I wouldn't even normally eat

suddenly looks like it's like something I should have. It is natural for your body

to start looking for food. So it's going to smell things more. It's going to see

more food. Stopping when you start eating is going to feel harder because your body

is like, oh, my God, we've been not getting enough. So we should keep eating just

in case this happens again. Everything gets magnified. That is not you being weak,

lazy, or weird. This is not you having an addiction. This is biology simply trying

to keep you alive. It thinks something bad is happening. So if you're physically

hungry and you're around your favorite food, of course it feels harder to stop.

Of course you would eat more than planned. That is your body just doing its job.

Now, I'm going to tell you, this is why I teach slight hunger,

not hangary fucking hunger like most diets do to you. This is why you need to eat

a little bit less, not a fuck ton less, because I don't want you having no sense

of control when you are around food when you're trying to lose weight. I want you

getting enough food so that you feel safe when your brain starts scanning to say,

I'm good. I don't need it. We need to not be needing willpower because we're

starving. Now, there is a second type of restriction, and this is the mental

restriction, and this is the one that really jacks most of us up that have done a

lot of diets in the past because it's never talked about. Nobody mentions it, and

it is a real phenomenon. Mental restriction is when you are Actually,

a lot of my clients, this is what we work on the hardest. I think the first

couple of months, they come into my program because they're not physically

restricting. I am asking them to plan the foods they love. We are working towards

food freedom. I'm not starving them. I am having them eat at slight hunger,

which is the body's natural way to want to eat, not the unnatural way,

which is withholding way too many calories and food. So mental restriction happens

when you're actually eating plenty of food and the things you like, but on the

inside, you're restricting. And it sounds like this. You're eating something you

really like and you're eating to enough and you're saying, I shouldn't have this. Or

you're telling yourself like, oh, this is bad. I'm just going to have to be really

good tomorrow. Or you do something, you're like, you know what, I'm just going to

start over on Monday. Or you say, you shouldn't be eating like this. You start

feeling guilty. You say things like, see, I'm blowing it. There's no way I could

eat this and lose weight. That's called mental restriction. Even if you eat to,

like, let's say you're eating the way that I tell you to, plan food you love,

we're going to do it when we're hungry, and we're going to learn how to stop it

enough. The reason why most women can't wait for hunger or can't stop it enough is

because mental restriction is a part of the game. That thinking makes your brain

behave as if you are being deprived, even when you're not. That type of thinking

creates a level of panic inside of you. And panic creates urgency. And urgency

creates overeating. So you can have a full stomach and still feel mentally

restricted. This is why someone can eat dinner and then find themselves eating a

half a pound of brownies later. The stomach is full, but the brain is screaming.

Get as much as you can before this moment ends. Mental restriction also, one of the

things that you need to know is if you're eating something that you really like,

and the whole time you are beating yourself up over it. So for example, the other

night, my sister -in -law made spaghetti and meatballs, and she asked, hey, I have

some extra, do you want me to bring you some tomorrow.

restricting. I was telling myself, don't eat too much. This is a lot of carbs.

There's not very many vegetables in here. I was like making it out to be that that

spaghetti and meatballs was somehow a big problem. And because I've done this work

so much, in that moment I could say like, oh, you're mentally restricting.

So I slowed down and reminded myself, this is okay, you know how to eat. We're

going to stop it enough. And then I started slowing my eating down and really

paying attention to the enjoyment of the food, thinking about how good it tastes.

Appreciating that I give myself foods now that I used to in my old diet days

wouldn't have done. And I tell you this story because it's really important for you

to hear this. An important part of eating things you love is actually enjoying the

experience. When your brain is screaming at you, this is wrong. You shouldn't be

eating this. You shouldn't have this many carbs. You're being bad. You're going to

screw it up. There's no way you can lose weight doing this. The enjoyment factor

sucked out of the room. This is why people will tell me, I don't understand why I

keep eating past enough. I'm literally doing exactly what you say. I'm planning the

foods I love, but I'm eating past enough. Sometimes it's an emotional issue.

It could be tied to something else. But nine times out of ten,

women don't realize they're mentally restricting the entire time they're eating. And

so when they get to the end of the meal or they get to enough, their brain is

like, wait a fucking minute. Now, where was the joy? Where was the good time,

damn it? I didn't get it. And so now your brain is like, eat a little more, eat

a little more, because your brain thinks you miss something. Your brain is like, I'm

still waiting for the feel good. I'm still waiting for the joy. I'm still waiting

for this part. Where's the pleasure, damn it? And so it's going to prompt you to

keep eating. It'll throw every excuse at you that it knows that will keep you

eating because it's just trying to complete the loop of you're eating something you

enjoy, but you're not enjoying it. You're stressing out. So your brain is trying to

help you. This is important to hear because we want to create the mental,

we want to complete that mental loop for our brain. So mental restriction tells your

brain that you didn't get what you said you wanted. This food's going away.

You should eat more so that we can feel good. And once your brain starts thinking

something might be disappearing, going away, or it didn't get what it thought it

should, guess what it does? It wants all of it. It wants you to keep eating until

it feels like you have completed.

shows from the 2000s. We were like, where the hell were we? There were so many

amazing pop culture moments. Well, we were with our son watching Thomas, bowling,

and that was about it, on repeat. So I was watching Grace Anatomy and I hit this

one chain of shows where something was constantly going unresolved.

Well, guess what I was doing?

I kept trying to complete the loop. We wanted to know how the story ended. And

your brain is very much like that. Your brain is just trying to complete loops. It

doesn't like thinking it didn't get what it thought it should. It's the same thing.

It's like when a vacation is almost over. And suddenly like you're trying to cram

in every fucking experience that you can in that last little bit. Same thing.

Your brain, if it's convinced that the fun is about to go away,

and this happens because of past diets, if you're eating something, then in the

past, you have said, oh, you shouldn't eat that. You can't be around that.

This diet says that's bad. And you took it away for a while, your brain is like,

I need last chance energy because the last time you ate this, that's what we did.

So we just have to get really good at noticing these things. So now what I want

to do is I want to talk to you about how to know if your food rules around food

are actually mentally restricting you or if they're just thoughtful, helpful guidelines

for your life. And I think this is important. This is where I want to give you an

example, all right? Because I don't ever want you thinking that I live without any

kind of boundaries. I have plenty of guardrails and boundaries and rules for myself.

They just come from a very loving place, not a panicky place. So one of the things

I do not keep in my house is ice cream. And I love ice cream.

But it's not because I'm restricting myself in a bad way. I feel like I'm

restricting myself in a very helpful way. I love ice cream and I don't think ice

cream is bad for me. I'm not even scared of it. And it's not like I can't control

myself around it. But I also don't keep ice cream in the house because I know me.

I know that when I have ice cream, I want it to be a real experience. I want it

to be my favorite kind of ice cream. I want to enjoy it in my bed, usually,

watching TV, with my man, relaxing and watching something good.

And if I really want ice cream, I know I'll just go buy me some. I'll put it on

my plan. I'll enjoy it on a day when I can have a great experience. That is a

very helpful guideline for me. It helps me take care of myself. But you know what

the biggest thing it does for me is I know my old emotional eating patterns.

When I was before I was losing weight, I used to eat ice cream every single night

and I mean a buttload of it because I felt like a loser. I usually felt like I

should be doing more, but I was too tired to do more. I felt guilty?

If I feel bad and I can't outthink it, if I can't do something else for myself in

the moment to solve it, my brain will always say, there's ice cream in there.

Do you want to go get some ice cream? You deserve it. You've had a long day. I

mean, you are really tired. I mean, come on, you don't feel that good. Let's just

take care of ourselves. My brain's always going to offer that up. And I don't think

that's wrong? I think that's normal neuropsychology.

You see, your brain lays down patterns all throughout your life. And just because

you change a habit doesn't mean that your brain retires an old one for good. It

doesn't purge it and delete it. It just puts it in the back room. It's not easy

to to anymore because all the new habits are stacked up in front of it. But if

you really want it, your brain is like, oh, I can go find it. I know exactly

where it is. I just got to climb through all these other habits to get to it. So

knowing that that is likely to happen for me, I don't keep ice cream in the house.

So on the days when I am really tired and I'm feeling really bad and it wasn't a

good day,

that I can't go find the ice cream easy,

that my brain is now forced to figure out how to take care of me in a way that

is actually helpful. That is the reason why I do it. That is a helpful guideline

for me. That helps me take care of myself. That is restriction in a good way

because that rule helps keep my food noise low on my hardest days and then it also

leaves plenty of room for ice cream when I know I'm going to eat it because I

really want it. That is the difference. So a helpful guideline is going to sound

like I know myself and this makes my life easier. A mentally restrictive rule sounds

like, I better do this, I should do this, otherwise I can't control myself,

otherwise I'll never lose weight. One comes from support and the other comes from

fear. And this is why understanding the two types of restriction really does matter.

Because when you don't understand the difference, you think you're being good when

you're really stressing yourself out. And when you don't know your brain is stressing

and you don't know your brain is actually feeling restricted, do you think you're

overeating because something's wrong with you? When actually your brain is just trying

to seek a little bit of safety and a little bit of feeling like,

oh, this isn't being taken away because now you're eating it. So when you understand

restriction, especially the mental kind, you should see some overeating finally start

making sense to you. You stop asking what's wrong with me and you start saying, oh,

I wasn't hungry. I was scared. Or I wasn't hungry. I was tired and eating stuff I

liked and the entire time I was actually mentally restricting. Or I wasn't really

hungry, But I really did believe I wasn't going to get this food again, even though

now that I'm looking back, I would. Understanding all of this should help you calm

down a little bit. It helps you trust yourself. It helps you make choices from a

place of support instead of just from fear. And when that happens, I promise you.

No, like, dieting, losing weight, any of it gets so much easier.

So inside of no BS, y 'all, this is exactly the work that we do. And it's

important work. It's the only work you're ever going to do that's actually going to

help you lose your weight, not only for good, but lose your weight in a way you

want to actually live your life, where you have rebuilt your relationship with food,

where you understand how you think so that diet rules don't have to run your life

anymore. And it helps you create those really good supportive boundaries with yourself

instead of punishing boundaries.

So just remember, restriction isn't really the enemy. It's the fear. The fear that's

going on beneath the surface. And once that fear starts going down, I think

everything about your weight loss can get a lot easier. All right, everybody. I'll

talk to you next week.