We recently connected with Leslie Cabral and have shared our conversation below.
Leslie , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the best advice you’ve ever given to a client? (Please note this response is for education/entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice for the reader)
To eat the pizza! I told them that if we eat the foods that truly satisfy us – we actually tend to eat much less.
My client was eating cottage cheese when she was craving pizza. Yet she was not reaching her goals. I explained to her that no amount of cottage cheese will ever make that craving go away. Yet she was eating the cottage cheese instead of the pizza because she was taught that cottage cheese is what we “should” eat. She hated cottage cheese but convinced herself that that was the right thing to eat. She wanted to be “good” and ate the cottage cheese but then she would look for something else, and then something else, and then something else. Why? because it’s not pizza! she was not satisfied. Just the mindset that she couldn’t ever eat pizza was making her overeat.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a Registered Dietitian and Nutrition coach. I used to struggle with emotional eating, binge eating and weight gain.
I discovered the solution by exploring and getting to know my hunger. That was the foundation of everything. Then I was able to break diet thinking, learn how to choose foods and stop self-limiting beliefs that kept me unsuccessful. This resulted in me being able to feel in control with food and lose 30 lbs. – that I have kept off for over 20 years.
We aren’t taught how to feel our feelings as we grow up. We eat to get out of negative emotion as fast as possible, or at least get to a numb place. Overeating is a habit that isn’t really complicated. It’s not a shameful thing about you, or a bad thing. It’s a learned habit that can be unlearned.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I started dieting to lose weight. But that completely backfired. The stricter I got with my eating, the more out of control I felt: the cravings increased, and it was a constant fight between trying to be “good,” and failing. Even though I managed to stick to my diet for a while, I always ended up giving in and binging on all the prohibited foods. I struggled so much with food and sugar cravings. I felt addicted to the act of eating. I kept going up and down 20-30 pounds.
I didn’t want to continue this cycle my whole life, so I became determined to find a better way. I wanted to be able to eat without having to restrict or cut out any foods AND I wanted to be able to lose the excess weight and maintain it. I wanted to feel a sense of ease when eating without having to control food.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn my belief that going on another diet or fasting was the answer. I discovered that weight gain and binging were a just a symptom of the actual problem.
I had to break what I call “diet thinking” that teaches us to:
*Spend our time obsessing over past diet failures,
*Implementing harsh food rules that someone else decided for us – like how many carbs to eat and keeps us defeated about how far we’re from our ‘final goal weight.’
*It also makes us pick foods we don’t like because we think we should – listen for those toxic words — “I have to, I should, I need to.”
It’s that language and thinking that creates the feeling of restriction. Once you break this thinking, you start seeing small wins that turn into big ones. Doors begin to open because now we are in a place to make choices to build the life you want to live without any desire to go backwards or fear that you can’t keep up. You’ll be taking healthy actions every day that you love and never want to let go of. (instead of making daily “sacrifices”)
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @eating.freedom
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-cabral-rdn-chc-cic-478b1787