031: Mindful Eating with Special Guest Angela Gaffney

Mindful Eating – What a Concept!

Mindful eating is more than just thinking carefully about what you put inside your body. Eating sustains life, provides comfort and in 460 BC, Hippocrates taught “let food by thy medicine and medicine by they food.”

So, when did we get so offtrack?

Overeating, feeling guilty about what we eat, and being frustrated and confused about the latest diet crazes  complicates something that should be so simple. Top it off with frustration about unanticipated weight gain around the middle during menopause and it’s enough to make you dive head first into a tempting and delicious half gallon of Ben and Jerry’s.

But, STOP!

Before you think all hope is lost, our special guest, Angela Gaffney helps frame the simple steps necessary for mindful eating. The episode is packed with valuable information and a surprisingly refreshing mindset around mindful eating, during the holidays and beyond.

Episode Time Stamps

1:15 – Meet Angela! – Her goal is to “to inspire people to take care of themselves.”
2:00 – Learn Angela’s devastating health crisis and diagnosis and how she’s changed her life and figured out how to live.
4:00 Angela’s message aligns with Rhonda’s approach of “Food is Medicine” and how it turned her world around as a medical practitioner and what that means for healing.
5:45 Angela’s theory – crowding out of the “sometimes food” (bad) and replace with “supporting food” (good) and holiday eating approach.  Don’t ever go to a party hungry! Learn Angela’s tips and mindset on the way to the party.
8:50 What can we learn from guilt (i.e. when we eat the bad stuff)?  Most of our decisions come from a subconscious mindset and you act.  Pause long enough to ask this question, “What will this provide me?”  Take part of the celebration, do it consciously and don’t turn back.  If you’re going to eat or drink the “sometimes food”, savor it and you consciously choose to do it and it is serving you in some way.  If guilt comes up later, consciously say “Stop It”.  This type of thinking does not serve you in any way.  You own the decision and move on.
12:10 What do we do when we have to eat something that someone prepared for us?  Angela provides some great perspective.
15:00 Holiday stress and eating – Angela’s top tips (“Quality over quantity” in every aspect during the holidays – not just food!)
15:48 External vs. Internal Stress – what we control and what we can’t.  You decide how to participate in these situations.  “My best looks like THIS”.  Release the need to please.
17:08 – Angela’s mindset secret around our holiday “to do” lists: “I have all the time I need.”  How do you choose to participate – engaged and present or frantic?
18:15 (Rhonda) Stress and menopause – how does increased stress affect a woman’s perimenopause/menopause symptoms
20:15 Menopause Benefits – you don’t CARE as much about what people think/say.  It’s a phenomenon that naturally happens.
22:00 Rhonda and Angela’s Top Strategies to “Dump Sugar”
26:15 Angela’s online course and her special offer to Dr. Rhonda’s Community.  The side effects are weight loss, increased energy, reduced pain and you won’t even realize how good you will feel when you complete the course!  It’s adding goodness in to create lifelong change.
30:00 Rhonda’s recommendation for vegetable consumption (1lb a day – helps metabolism of estrogen) and protects you against breast cancer and heart disease.
30:00 Fat and fiber are your best friends to help against the sugar over consumption during the holidays.
31:48 Angela’s final thought –as women we take on the world and were really good at doing it.  Don’t take the back seat.  Above all else, be kind and true to you.  When you live like that, stay true to yourself – you will be able to participate in a new way.

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