How What You Eat Affects How You Feel

 

Hey hey beautiful human!

Most women are taught to think about food in terms of what it will do to their body.

Will this make me gain weight? Will this set me back? Did I stay on track? Did I mess it up?

But, what if that is the question keeping you stuck?

In this episode of Embrace Your Real, we are talking about food in a completely different way. Not from a place of rules, guilt, or restriction, but from the question so many women forget to ask: how do I actually want to feel?

Because the way you eat can affect your energy, mood, focus, digestion, cravings, sleep, workouts, and the way you move through your entire day. And once you start noticing that connection, healthy eating stops feeling like something you have to force and starts feeling like a way to take care of yourself.

What’s Discussed:

  • How eating well starts to feel different when you connect it to energy, mood, and focus

  • Why the 3pm crash, brain fog, bloating, and low motivation may be connected to how you are fueling

  • Why your best days and hardest days can teach you so much about what your body needs

  • How eating to feel good can shift your relationship with food

  • Why consistency feels easier when the reward is how you feel today, not just a future result

Macro Counting Made Simple helps you understand how to fuel your body without restriction, overwhelm, or guessing. It gives you a simple way to learn what your body needs so your food choices support your energy, mood, focus, and goals. Head to macrocountingmadesimple.com to get started.

If you loved this episode, you’ll also love Episode 536: Can’t Stop Craving Certain Foods? Here’s What’s Really Going On. It is the perfect next listen if you want to understand your body’s signals instead of fighting against them.

If you want more from me, be sure to check out…

Transcript

(0:00) Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, (0:06) a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I give you a dose of real (0:11) talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally (0:16) loving your authentic self.

Stay tuned if you're ready to Embrace Your Real. Let's get it. Let's go.

(0:29) Hello, and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Your Real podcast. So grateful (0:33) that you're here with me today. Today, we're going to be talking about something that I wish someone (0:36) had told me so much earlier in my health and fitness journey.

And honestly, it's something (0:40) that I really do think has the power to completely change the way that you think about food, (0:44) not from a body composition standpoint and not from a macros or calorie standpoint, (0:49) but really from a how do I actually want to feel standpoint? Because here's what I see (0:53) happen with so many women. They approach food from a place of rules and restriction like, (0:57) I can't eat that. I shouldn't have that.

This is going to set me back. And every food decision (1:01) feels like either a winner or a failure. Like either you were good today or you weren't either.

(1:06) You stayed on track or you fell off. And that relationship with food is exhausting. It's really (1:10) unsustainable.

And honestly, it's completely backwards in my opinion, because when you start (1:15) understanding how food actually makes you feel like your energy, your mood, your focus, your (1:19) digestion, your anxiety levels, everything shifts. You stop avoiding certain foods because you were (1:24) afraid of what they would do to your body. And you really start choosing certain foods because (1:28) of how incredible they make you feel.

You move from a, I can't eat that because it will make me (1:33) gain weight, which feels like a punishment to, I would rather eat this because I want to feel (1:38) energized. I want to feel clear headed and good today. And that shift, that is the shift that (1:43) really makes consistency feel natural instead of four.

So today I'm breaking this down into five (1:49) points that I really want you to sit with, because I think by the time that you're done, (1:52) you're going to look at your plate, hopefully a little bit differently. And more importantly, (1:56) you're going to start making decisions from place of self-care instead of self-control. (2:01) But before we dive in, I want to share this review because you guys leave the most incredible (2:04) messages and I never want to stop acknowledging that.

She gave a five star review and said, (2:09) the motivation that I needed, I cannot express how happy I am that I found this podcast. (2:13) I liked it so much that I decided to start from the beginning. Wow.

That's crazy. Every (2:18) episode is so helpful and uplifting. I feel like listening to this is exactly what I needed to (2:23) start every day off with.

Thank you, Julie, for being so raw and real and being relatable. (2:27) You give me hope. Well, this is amazing.

Also a little bit terrifying that you started from (2:31) the beginning because that was so long ago. That was like over 658 plus episodes, I think ago. (2:38) And the fact that you are listening to that, I don't even know what my voice sounds like back (2:42) then, but hopefully they're giving you value and hopefully you're finding something from them.

(2:46) I remember I was literally podcasting on my closet floor in my, in my old house and (2:51) wow, so many good memories there, like just hustling and doing the podcast from my closet (2:57) floor with me just like holding the mic in my hand. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you (3:01) for taking time out of your day to send in this review. All right, we're going to get right into (3:05) it. Here are the five things that I want you to understand about how what you eat really does (3:09) affect how you feel.

Number one, when you understand how food makes you feel consistency (3:14) stops feeling like punishment and really does start feeling like self care. I want to start (3:19) here because I think this is the foundation of everything that we're going to talk about today. (3:22) And it's the mindset shift that I genuinely believe changes the entire game.

Like for so long, (3:28) so many women included myself included at one point approach healthy eating from a place of (3:33) restriction. Like there's this list of foods that you're allowed to have and a list of foods (3:37) that you're not allowed to have. And every single day you're white knuckling trying to (3:41) really stay on that allowed side of the list.

And when you inevitably eat something that you're (3:46) quote unquote not allowed to, or from the not allowed list, you feel like you failed, (3:50) like you feel guilty. And a lot of times that guilt just spirals into leading you to eat more (3:56) of the thing that you told yourself you couldn't because at this point you've already ruined it. (4:00) So you might as well just continue going.

And does that sound familiar? Like I think (4:03) most of us have been there before, if we're not already there right now, because here (4:07) personally is what has changed everything for me. When you really start paying attention to how (4:12) food actually makes you feel, not what it does to the scale, not what it does to your (4:16) macros for the day, but really how it makes you feel in your body and in your mind, your (4:21) motivation for eating well, in my opinion, will completely transform because you stop needing (4:25) willpower. You stop needing discipline.

You stop needing to white knuckle your way through the day, (4:31) hoping that motivation is shows up. Like you just know, you know how you feel when you (4:35) eat certain things and you know how you feel when you don't. And that acknowledgement becomes (4:40) its own motivation.

And you can stop finally saying, like, I can't have that. And you start saying, (4:46) I don't really want that because I know how it makes me feel afterward. And that is such a (4:50) more powerful place, in my opinion, to make decisions from because it's not a punishment.

(4:55) It's a preference, it's self-care, and it is sustainable in a way that restriction can never (4:59) be. So as we kind of go through the rest of these points today, I want you to hold on to (5:03) this one because I really believe it's the lens in which everything else makes sense. So (5:08) number two is food directly affects your energy.

And most women don't realize how much until they (5:14) actually start paying attention. Because here's the thing, food does not just affect the energy (5:18) in the obvious ways. It affects so much more of your day than most women ever connect to back to (5:23) what is on their plate.

Things like struggling to wake up in the morning, even after like a (5:28) full night's sleep, seven or eight hours, that heavy, groggy feeling when your alarm goes off (5:32) and your body just feels like it will not cooperate, that brain fog, right? That feeling (5:36) where you're just sitting at your desk or you're trying to have a conversation and your mind just (5:39) feels so cloudy and slow and you're just thinking like you're thinking through wet concrete, right? (5:45) Lack of concentration where you sit down, you try to do something and you just cannot stay focused (5:50) no matter how hard you try. You read the same sentence three times and it's just not sinking in (5:54) or lack of motivation, that flat, like I do do not want to do anything feeling. It has nothing (5:59) to do with laziness and really everything to do with your body just not having what it needs (6:03) to feel driven and energized, irritability or mood swings like snapping at your kids or your (6:08) husband over something really small and then immediately thinking like where did they even (6:12) come from, right? Or maybe those afternoon crashes like that 3pm wall that just hits like a truck (6:18) and suddenly all you can think about is coffee or sugar or a nap or maybe bloating or physical (6:23) discomfort like that heavy puffy sluggish feeling in your body that just makes you feel like you (6:28) want to lay down and do nothing or low motivation to work out feeling like your body really has (6:33) nothing left to give even before you start moving.

Maybe it's poor sleep quality, waking (6:38) up in the middle of the night struggling to fall asleep or sleeping that full seven (6:42) or eight hours and still waking up exhausted. Maybe it's anxiety that just seems to come (6:47) from nowhere that low grade like on the edge feeling that you can't really explain and does (6:53) not seem to be connected to anything specific going on in your life. All of those things, (6:57) every single one of those things can be directly connected to how you're fueling your (7:00) body and most women have never made that connection because nobody has ever told them (7:05) to look there first.

Think about the last time that you had like a heavy fast food meal, (7:09) maybe it was convenient, maybe you were starving, maybe it sounded good in the moment, (7:13) maybe it was tasted great while you were eating it, but how did you feel an hour later or two (7:18) hours later? Most women describe it in the same way. They feel heavy, they feel sluggish, (7:22) they feel foggy, like their body is just working overtime to process what they just (7:26) ate. That's not a coincidence, that's your body giving you direct feedback and it works the other (7:31) way too.

Think about the mornings where you woke up, you had a solid protein focused breakfast, (7:36) you drank your water, you just felt ready, you didn't have to drag yourself out of bed, (7:39) you were not reaching for caffeine before you brushed your teeth, you just felt like a (7:43) functioning human that was actually ready for her day and that feeling that is also your food (7:49) talking. Here is what is happening kind of underneath all of those things. When you eat a (7:54) meal that is low in protein and really high in sugar or refined carbs, your blood sugar is going (7:59) to spike, your body responds to that releasing insulin to bring it back down and when it comes (8:04) back down, it comes down fast and that crash is what you're feeling at 3pm.

That's the wall, (8:09) that is the slump, that is the I need a coffee or nap or something because I do not feel (8:15) good right now and overeating plays into this as well. When you eat past the point of (8:21) comfortableness, like comfortable fullness, even after what you ate was relatively healthy, (8:27) your body has to put so much energy into that digestion that you end up really feeling heavy (8:33) or bloated and completely drained instead of fueled and that post meal exhaustion where (8:38) just all you want to do is lay on the couch, that's your body redirecting all of its energy (8:43) towards processing instead of powering you through the day. But when your meals are built (8:47) around protein and fiber and good carbohydrates to actually sustain your energy and when you eat (8:52) enough without overdoing it, your blood sugar stays stable, your digestion feels easy, you wake (8:58) up feeling lighter, you do not have that spike or that crash cycle running your day.

You just (9:02) feel steady and fueled and actually able to function like the person that you want to be. (9:07) And here's what I love about this. When you start experiencing what it actually feels like (9:11) to have that consistent energy all day, when you realize that you can get through (9:14) an entire afternoon without crashing, that you can wake up and actually feel like getting out (9:19) of bed, that you can go to bed at night without feeling like you're just dragging your body to (9:23) the finish line, you stop wanting the things that rob you of that.

Not because someone (9:28) told you that you can't eat them, but because you know how you feel when you do eat them and (9:33) you'd rather feel good. And that's the whole shit that we're really talking about today. (9:37) And once you feel it, in my opinion, there's really no going back.

Number three, you do a (9:42) body check in one to two hours after every meal. Okay, this sounds so simple, but I promise (9:47) you it's one of the most powerful habits that you can build when it comes to changing your (9:50) relationship with food. And it's something that most women have never done, not because (9:54) they don't care, but because nobody has ever told them to.

Here's what I mean. Most of us (10:00) eat and then move on. We finish our meal, we put our plate in the sink, and then we already (10:05) are thinking about the next thing that we're doing on the to-do list.

We never really stop (10:08) and ask ourselves how that meal actually made me feel. And because we never asked that, (10:13) we never really make the connection. And because we never make the connection, we just keep eating (10:18) the same things and then feeling the same way and wondering why nothing's ever changing.

(10:22) So here's what I want you to start doing. About one to two hours after you eat, not (10:26) immediately after, because your body needs a little bit time to process, I want you to do (10:31) a quick check-in with yourself. I mean, super quick.

We're talking less than 60 seconds. (10:34) I want you to pause and just ask yourself a few simple questions. Like, how is my energy (10:40) right now? Do I feel fueled and ready to keep going? Or am I already starting to drag? How is (10:45) my focus? Can I think clearly? Or is there a fog that is starting to set in? How's my mood? Do I (10:50) feel steady? Do I feel even? Or am I really starting to feel irritable or flat or just (10:55) anxious for no reason? And then how does my body feel physically? Do I feel light and (11:01) comfortable? Or am I super bloated and heavy wishing that I could unbutton my pants? And (11:05) then last but not least, do I feel satisfied? Or am I already thinking about food again, (11:10) even though I just ate? That's it.

Five questions. You don't need to write anything down if you (11:14) don't want to. You don't even need an app or a system.

You just need to pause and notice (11:17) because that noticing, that simple act of just checking in with yourself, that's where (11:21) everything's going to start to shift. Because here's what happens when you start to do that (11:25) consistently. You really are building a library of information about your own body.

You start to (11:30) learn what your body responds to well and what it doesn't. And you really start to notice that the (11:35) meal that you had on Tuesday left you feeling sharp and energized all afternoon while the meal that (11:39) you had on Wednesday left you feeling foggy and sluggish by 2pm. And once you start seeing that, (11:45) once you start feeling the difference in real time, the healthy choice stops being the hard (11:50) choice.

It becomes the obvious choice because you know from your own lived experience, not from (11:55) someone telling you how good it feels to feel yourself well. And that's so much more powerful, (12:00) in my opinion, than any meal plan or set of rules than anyone could ever hand you (12:04) because it's yours. It comes from your body and your body is the most convincing teacher that (12:10) you're ever going to have.

Number four, start comparing your best days to your worst days. (12:15) Okay, building kind of on that last point, once you start doing those check-ins, I want you to (12:20) take it a step further. I want you to really start looking at the bigger picture because the (12:23) patterns that show up when you zoom out are honestly kind of mind-blowing once you start (12:27) seeing them.

Here's what I want you to do. Think about your best days, the ones where you woke up (12:31) feeling rested and ready, where you had energy all morning, where you got through the afternoon (12:36) without crashing, where you felt focused and motivated like you were actually on top of life, (12:40) where you felt patient with your kids at dinner instead of completely depleted, where you went (12:45) to bed just feeling good overall about your day. Now think about what you ate on those days.

(12:49) Did you have a solid breakfast with protein? Did you eat consistently throughout the day (12:53) without skipping meals or going too long without food? Did you drink water? Did you have the meals (12:58) that felt nourishing and satisfying without leaving you feel stuffed and sluggish? Now, (13:04) on the flip side, I want you to think about your worst days, the days that you could barely drag (13:08) yourself out of bed, where you're running on coffee by 10am, like you're like on your third (13:12) cup, where you hit that wall at 2pm and felt like you just could not string a sentence together, (13:17) or you're snapping at everyone around you for no real reason, where you're just completely (13:21) done and emotionally depleted by the time dinner rolled around. And now I want you to think about (13:25) what you ate on those days. Did you skip breakfast or just grab something quick with no (13:29) real nutritional value? Did you go hours and hours without eating and then overeat the next (13:35) meal because you were just so hungry? Did you eat something really heavy or processed that tasted (13:39) good in the moment but just left you feeling heavy and foggy afterward? I want you to really (13:43) sit with that comparison because I think when you do, you will honestly look at your best days (13:47) versus your worst days and trace them back to how you fueled yourself.

And that connection (13:53) is going to be impossible to ignore because here's the beautiful thing about that realization, (13:58) it's not scary, it's actually incredibly empowering because it means that how you feel is not just (14:03) something that happens to you, it's something you have a real and significant amount of influence (14:09) over, like every single day with every single meal. You're not at the mercy of your energy (14:14) levels or your mood or your ability to focus. You have more control over those things than (14:19) you probably have ever been told.

And it really just starts with paying attention to the patterns (14:24) that are already there waiting for you to notice. So start looking for them, start comparing, start (14:29) connecting the dots because the pattern is there, it's always been there. You just have (14:33) not likely been looking for it yet.

And once you see it, in my opinion, everything changes. (14:39) And last but not least, number five, when you start eating to feel good instead of eating to (14:43) look a certain way, your entire relationship with food transforms. Okay, I want to close with this (14:48) one because I think it really does tie everything together.

And it's really what the heart of this (14:52) whole episode is about. So much, in my opinion, of diet culture is built around eating for an (14:59) outcome, like eat this to lose weight, avoid this to stay lean, follow this plan to get the (15:03) body that you want. And all of that puts the focus entirely on the external result or how your (15:09) body looks, the number on the scale or fitting into a certain size.

And I'm not saying that (15:13) those goals are wrong. But when the only reason that you are eating well is to look a certain way, (15:18) eating healthy will always feel like a means to an end. It will always feel like something (15:22) that you have to do rather than something that you want to do.

And the moment that you reach (15:27) your goal, or the moment that life gets hard, or the moment that that motivation disappears, (15:32) the whole thing falls apart. But when you start to eat to feel good, to have energy (15:37) for your kids, to think clearly at work, to feel comfortable and light in your body, (15:40) to keep your mood just stable, to avoid that afternoon crash, to sleep better at night, (15:45) eating healthy stops being about the destination, and really does start being about how you feel (15:49) right now, like today in this moment. And that's so much more motivating because the (15:54) reward is immediate.

You don't have to wait months to see the results on the scale. (15:58) You feel the difference today. You feel it in your energy at 3 p.m. You feel it in (16:03) your mood at dinner.

You feel it in how you slept that night, in the feedback loop, (16:07) feeling good because you fueled well. That's what's going to build that real lasting, (16:11) sustainable consistency. And really, this is the whole foundation of what I teach inside my (16:16) Macrokinamine symbol online Academy, because it's not just about hitting your macros or (16:20) reaching a body compositional goal.

It's about understanding how to feel your body in a way (16:25) that makes you feel genuinely good every single day. And when you understand that, (16:29) the consistency piece takes care of itself. I will drop it in the link if you want to learn (16:33) more, but I really do believe that learning how to properly fuel your body (16:38) is one of the most important tools that you can invest in in your lifetime.

(16:44) All right, there you have it. Let me quickly do a recap of what we covered today. Number one, (16:48) when you understand how food makes you feel, consistency stops feeling like a punishment and (16:53) really does start feeling like self-care.

You stop saying, I can't have that. And you (16:57) really start saying, I don't want that because of how it makes me feel. And that shift (17:01) absolutely changes everything.

Number two, food directly affects your energy in more ways than (17:06) most women ever connect back to their plate. The struggling to get out of bed in the morning, (17:10) the brain fog, the lack of concentration, the 3 p.m. crash, the bloating, the low motivation, (17:15) the anxiety that comes from nowhere. So much of that is directly tied to how you (17:20) are fueling your body every single day.

Number three, start doing a just a simple body check (17:25) in one to two hours after every meal, like how is your energy? How's your focus? How's (17:31) that like 60 second pause? That's where the awareness is really going to start to build (17:35) and awareness is really what changes everything. Number four, start comparing your best days to (17:41) your worst days. On the days that you feel amazing, what did you eat? On the days that (17:45) you crashed and felt foggy and depleted, what did you eat? The patterns already there, (17:49) you just have to start looking for it.

And once you see it, you will not unsee it. (17:53) And last but not least, number five, when you start eating to feel good instead of (17:57) eating to look a certain way, your entire relationship with food transforms. (18:01) The motivation becomes immediate.

The reward is how you feel today, (18:04) not a number on the scale months from now. And that is what makes consistency finally feel natural (18:09) instead of forced. Here's really what I want you to walk away with today.

You are not at the (18:13) mercy of your energy levels or your mood or your ability to show up for your day. (18:17) You have so much more influence over how you feel than you've ever been told. And it really (18:22) does start with something as simple as paying attention, noticing, making the connection (18:27) between what you put in your body and how you feel afterwards.

Because once you make (18:31) that connection, once you truly feel the difference between feeling well and not, (18:36) you will never look at food the same way in a good way, in my opinion. (18:39) And that's when eating healthy stops being something that you have to do (18:43) and really starts being something that you genuinely want to do. (18:47) Now, if you really want that clear and simple framework on understanding how to feel (18:52) your body in a way that genuinely makes you feel good every day, again, (18:55) that's what my macro county made simple was built for.

It's not a restrictive diet. (18:59) It's not a short term fix. It's a way of understanding your nutrition at a deeper (19:03) level so that you can make choices that actually serve you and your energy, (19:07) your mood, your focus, and yes in your body to no restriction, no overwhelm, (19:11) just simple, sustainable approach to fueling yourself well.

(19:13) You can head to macrocountymeadsimple.com or just simply find the link in the show notes. (19:18) And before I let you go, if this episode opens something up for you, (19:21) will you just share it with a friend who needs it? (19:23) Maybe someone who is stuck in that punishment cycle with food (19:26) or someone who's just exhausted and foggy and running on empty (19:29) and has never really thought to look at her plate first to send it to her. (19:33) It takes two seconds.

(19:34) It might completely change the way that she thinks about food forever. (19:37) And if you have not already left a review, I would love it so much if you did. (19:40) It takes less than a minute and it really does help the podcast reach so many more women (19:44) who need these messages.

(19:45) I read every single one of them and they genuinely make my day and just (19:49) learning how a specific episode or maybe the podcast in general has helped you. (19:53) So thank you in advance for doing that. (19:55) And then lastly, if you love this episode, I think you will also love episode 536.

(19:59) It's all about the signals that your body sends through cravings and what they're (20:03) actually trying to tell you. (20:04) And it really does pair well with everything we talked about today. (20:07) So I will leave that episode, episode 536 in the show notes for you.

(20:12) That is all that I have for today's episode. (20:14) Thank you so much for being here. (20:15) I love you so much.

(20:16) I mean it and I'll talk to you in the next one. (20:27) All right, sister. (20:29) That's all I got for you today.

(20:30) But I have two things that I need you to do. (20:34) First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so Julie A. (20:38) Ledbetter. (20:39) Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post-workout real talk, (20:43) healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check.

(20:47) The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. (20:52) Thank you so much for joining me. (20:56) It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last thought.

(20:59) The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely (21:03) confident and secure in being authentically themselves. (21:08) Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. (21:11) So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.

 
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