How Context and Personal Values Influence What You Eat

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your somatic nutritional counselor.

Have you ever noticed eating a meal, feeling relaxed, connected, and at ease, and by the end of the meal, feeling complete, like you didn't need any more? And then, have you noticed eating that same meal, stressed, tight, tense, and overwhelmed and having a hard time ending the meal and feeling like you want more and more. The context of when you're eating, what you're eating affects your bodily experience of that food. The environment, thoughts, people, sounds, smells, and internal state will increase or decrease your desire for food. For example, eating in a calm, aesthetically pleasing space with soft lighting and minimal distractions can enhance the enjoyment of a meal, making flavors more pronounced and satisfying. Conversely, eating in a chaotic or rushed setting might dull your sensory awareness, leading to a lack of connection with your body and the meal and an increased likelihood of overeating. Social interactions also influence your eating experience. Sharing a meal with loved ones you feel safe around can create a sense of warmth and fulfillment, while eating alone or in a tense atmosphere with activating conversations can increase stress, leading you to lose your appetite or eat more than your body may physically need at that moment. I chat about this and more with Josh Hillis today.

Since 2004, Josh has coached 1,000s of people on eating behavior between one-on-one clients, online coaching programs, and live workshops. Josh is the author of two books. His latest book, Lean and Strong: Eating Skills, Psychology, and Workouts, won the Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal Book award for psychology. He is studying psychology at the Metropolitan State University of Denver and won the psychology department's Promising Teacher of the Year Award as a TA. Josh and his books have been in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Men's Health, and the Denver Post. Josh is the creator and head coach of JH Eating Skills program. We explore the importance of understanding personal values, the role of self-determination theory, and the necessity of context in making food choices, the significance of practicing self-awareness, learning to recognize hunger cues and the impact of emotional states on eating behaviors.

As a reminder, beginning January 1, I'll be emailing every person who signs up for Satiated+ every first of the month, where you can ask me anything. To become a part of Satiated+ and give back to the show, click HERE. Now, welcome, Josh. I am really excited that you're here today and just to have a chat with you about relationship with food. And you know, I always like to get started with people around just how you got into this work. Everyone has their own unique backgrounds of how they specifically chose to work with people around their relationship with food, and I'm wondering where the ebb and flow of life took you to take you here, where you are now.

Josh Hillis 03:48

Back in the day, I was a personal trainer, and I thought I was going to work like, in my head, I was like, I want to teach kettlebell to jiu jitsu fighters, and like, it didn't show up like that. What actually showed up was a lot of people who wanted to lose weight. We worked on really basic stuff like food journaling and calorie counting, and at one point I was with a company that had a registered dietitian who would provide meal plans, so I, like, I did all that kind of stuff. It worked for a certain segment of the population that happened to show up at those kinds of gyms that I was working on at the time. But then there was this other group of people that it didn't work for, right? I remember having this one super cool, super motivated, super smart, like one of my favorite clients ever. She's like, I know what to eat, but I can't stop eating at night. I was like they haven't trained me for this, like I had nothing to offer. It was one of those things where not only was it obviously she wasn't the only one, but that was where, all of a sudden, I started to notice. I was like, we've got nothing to offer a lot of people. I had that kind of experience myself in other things, with in sports, with coaches that, like, I was a little bit tougher to coach than everyone else. They didn't know how to help me. And then maybe, like, at some point, I found a coach that actually, like, had, like, a little more and could actually help me, and I was like, Oh, that's me. And, like, I didn't want to be another one of those people that, like, didn't have anything to help the people that needed it the most. It was so clear. It was like, what I was doing before was helping, like, the 5% fittest people get 1% more fit, you know, like, I was like, that's silly. And so that's what led me to reading about psychology and reading some research and toxicology books into textbooks, into research, and realizing I didn't know how to read research, which led into like going to school to like statistics, research methods. And that's where I ended up getting into motivation science and contextual behavioral science and looking at different ways of helping with the hardest situations. Well, at this point, that's what people hire me to work with. Most people actually need something better than what they're getting. That's how I ended up here.

Stephanie Mara 05:55

Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. I really resonate with that experience of what is being offered isn't cutting it. In working in a lot of the places in the facilities that I have worked with, both in the health world but also eating disorder world, it's just why are we still struggling? Like, obviously we haven't found it yet to support individuals and really feeling like they can have a more peaceful and regulating relationship with food. And so I'm curious on your path: what did you find were the missing pieces for you that, like you said, I don't have the answers here, and you discovered more of what the answers were that were missing?

Josh Hillis 06:37

At a really foundational level, finding self-determination theory was a really big deal for me. For people listening, self-determination theory is a theory of intrinsic motivation and well-being. You know, there's like 45 years of research now looking at or maybe 50 looking at, like, what are the conditions that have intrinsic motivation show up? They're autonomy, competence relatedness, right? Like feeling like we've got some self-directedness, and like the people that we're doing stuff with or share values and related to that, we're getting better than starting to look at like, How can I be the kind of coach that supports people's autonomy, versus just always, like telling them what to do or assuming goals, or all the things like that? And then also looking at levels of motivation, there's four that we can kind of like work with, and those are, like, basically reward and punishment, then going up to like, guilt and contingent self-esteem is actually a little more self-determined than reward and punishment. Goals that are derived from values really different than goals derived from guilt and contingent self-esteem. And then actions that are like related to values that are fully integrated into our sense of self. Looking at motivation from that standpoint, that was really, really, really big because I'd been at a point where I'd gotten people weight loss results, and it didn't change how they felt about themselves. You know, like, some of them were, like, kind of shocked and disappointed that it drastically changed some things that they hoped it would change about their experience of being themselves. That all led into looking into, like, how do we actually get at what actually matters to people? If we can start making choices based on what actually matters to them, they can actually feel good about the choices they're making. Then, they feel good about the results they get. It opened up a whole new world. And so that was a big turning point. And then the other big turning point was contextual behavioral science. A friend of mine actually showed me the study that was standard behavioral approaches to weight loss compared to acceptance- based approaches to weight loss, and the standard behavioral approach was very much in the world of, like, change your thoughts and change your emotions, and then we'll change your, and that worked. In this study, what was more effective, especially for the people that struggled with emotionally the most, was being able to learn to actually, like, be with their emotions and be with their cravings that having to fix them and, like, a certain amount of like normalization and like humanization of these things. That was a really hard thing for me to, like, wrap my head around it first, and then it changed everything. I was really lucky that I had a professor that was a contextual behavioral science researcher. She made an enormous difference for me. All of a sudden, I got it.

Stephanie Mara 09:17

I can feel your passion for just how there's such a different way that we can go about healing our relationship with food, and that it has to start from what I heard in that was like autonomy, which we certainly explore a lot here, of just like, Yeah, we have to like own again, that this is our choice, and no one can make these choices for ourselves, and that we have autonomy over our body and what kind of relationship we want to have with food and what we even eat, and how we interact with ourselves. Also, going along with like in that autonomy being with ourselves, in what's showing up, that we're not wrong, we're not something to be fixed. We're not broken, and that sometimes that means you're gonna have urges and cravings, and impulses and all of these things are completely normal, and then the practice is actually not to try to get rid of them, but to be with them. So I love everything that you're talking about.

Josh Hillis 10:12

I love the way you just tied all that together. That was awesome.

Stephanie Mara 10:15

Well, thank you. Just coming back to because I know right now I've seen you talk a lot about this on social media as well, of just the values-based aspect of relationship with food, and I'm wondering if you could share more about that because we haven't touched on that a lot of just how one's values can actually change your approach to food and even guide your food decisions.

Josh Hillis 10:40

More and more, that's where I'm pulling everything from. And my model basically, like, at the highest level, is values-based choices, and then there are skills-based choices that would be like the skills for like noticing hunger and fullness and pain, with emotions, things like that. And then below that we might have like guidelines, but like values are at the top. So, to be clear, for everyone listening at home, there are a lot of different things that a person could mean when they say values, and I'm using that the word values in a really specific way, borrowed from contextual behavioral science that may be different from some colloquial way. So, what I'm looking for is almost kind of like a character strengths. We're looking at like the character strengths that you want to embody, and using those to make concrete decisions about eating in your life. And so someone might say, like, I'd really like to be wise and connected and present. And so we'd be looking at like, what is the wise, connected present choice on a Tuesday afternoon when you're stressed out and you want to grab the muffin, right? You might go like, Oh, if I was being connected, I might actually, like, check in with myself and take care of myself. But at the same time, if your kids or your spouse just baked muffins, the wise present connected choice would be, like, chill and have these, like, fresh baked muffins with it. So, it provides a certain amount of flexibility, but it isn't unlimited. Like, the issue that I think most people have with moderation is the they don't know what it means. It just feels really amorphous. Whereas, when we nail down some values, people can kind of get their heads around like, Oh, you know what, it is the wise choice to have pizza on pizza night, and you know what? Like, maybe it's not wise to smash the whole pizza because it's I'm gonna treat it like a free day. Like, maybe it would be wise to have some pizza, but, like, stop whatever, you know? Like, all of a sudden it gets really useful. That's where I want people to take values- based. Well, if they want to approach values in the way that I do with my clients, it can be really useful as a way to make choices. And the cool thing is that a lot of those choices will probably line up with their goals. At the same time, it's also really clear like sometimes the wise choice or the connected choice, the present choice, might not be the goal-aligned way.

Stephanie Mara 13:00

What I really hear in that is that it gives freedom to take in the context of the situation, so your values get to be the salient, consistent thing that you can lean on and rely on, and also sometimes check in on, because values can change as you grow and evolve as a human being, and so it's just sometimes even reassessing your values. And did that, does that still resonate with you? But yeah, sometimes it's some of the examples I like to give is like, Okay, at the end of the day, yeah, when you're feeling maybe stressed out and you're wanting to reach for whatever food, if your value is like self-growth, it's like, okay, well, would going towards eating the cookie, the pint of ice cream, the whatever food you've labeled as the bad food that you shouldn't eat that is completely fine to eat, you know? It's just like, Okay, in this moment, would that go towards my value of self-growth? Actually, sitting with myself right now would align me with my value of self-growth. Now, if you are someone who never eats the cookie, always deprives yourself of the cookie, and it's the holidays, and you're like, I haven't eaten this cookie in years because I keep restricting and telling myself I'm never allowed to have the cookie. No, the value of self-growth is to eat the cookie and to say, I'm gonna grow and evolve as a human being by allowing myself to eat this and experiencing what is it like to eat the cookie that I've told myself I'm not allowed to eat for years and years and years? So, it really takes into account the person, the contexts, the situation, and that there's never like it's always yes or it's always no, which I find a lot of people struggle with, coming from diet culture, where there's these very set prescriptive rules of, like, it's always this, or it's always that. Like that, all-or-nothing thinking. You know, I hear more in this is it's like, can we assess the situation and then make the decision off of that?

Josh Hillis 14:58

Yeah, I love everything you just said there. Everything, everything, everything. I love that you brought context into it, because like behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum. Context matters. Not just like the situation, but also like the person, that people can be coming from totally different directions. It all seems absurd the way that diets make like all-time rules about food when different people with different situations. That was all glorious.

Stephanie Mara 15:24

I'm curious: as you have done this values-based work with those that you work with, what have you seen change as someone continues to practice this? Because you said earlier like, this could also ultimately maybe align with their end goals that they want. I'm wondering how you've seen that.

Josh Hillis 15:43

When someone first starts doing this, two things show up. Number one, and we may need to talk through different situations, and we may need to reflect on, like, Oh, I thought that was gonna be values-based, and it turned out not to be. Like, there's some experimenting with it, but like, immediately it opens up the Oh, I can actually do that thing with my family that I love to do, or, Oh, I can have this meal with my friends and not just social stuff. It could be like, your absolutely favorite cookie, but it opens up some new options like that. The other thing it does immediately is that instead of being the kind of person they want to be about eating, being this, like, far away thing, like, maybe next year. Now, all of a sudden, it's a thing that they can practice every single meal or in between meals. If you wanted to make a wise choice at your next meal, you could be wise, like it's today. And then the cool thing is, then they practice. We might have to build skills around so that they're successful. But, like, as they're successful with making these choices based on the kind of person that they've kind of always wanted to be about eating, they start to feel really good about who they are about eating just based on their choices, just based on the things they're doing. You know, maybe they came up with a goal, you know, they're like, Oh, I want to be at the scale weight or whatever. And maybe they get halfway there, or two-thirds the way there, and they're like, actually, I'm fine. What I wanted to get from that I've kind of already got. And the thing is that even getting there was a result of them essentially practicing being the kind of person they want to be about eating more than anything else, and then they just kind of landed wherever they landed, and there wasn't any force. The cool thing about just like landing someplace and feeling good about it is that then it isn't like maintenance; it's like some other thing. It isn't like some new totally thing because all they're doing now is they're just taking these values that they wanted to practice anyway, and they're eating in a way that they feel good about anyway, and they just keep doing that. And that is so different from how it used to be.

Stephanie Mara 17:55

The word it makes me think of is just sustainability. Anything that you are trying to do in your relationship with your food or your body image, if it does not feel sustainable, like, if you couldn't imagine doing this for months, years, decades, period of time, then at some point it's not going to work anymore. Like, at some point, you're gonna have to pivot and change to something else. And so something that I heard in that is like, how do we create something that's really sustainable, that you don't feel like you're working at it, and that you are listening to your body, you're being guided by your values, and that you're just living your life as a person who needs to eat every single day of your life?

Josh Hillis 18:42

Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie Mara 18:45

It sounds so simple in the moment, like describing it like that but having come from this journey as well, and I actually just put out a social media post that said it took me about a decade to heal my relationship with food and to stop being in the binge restrict cycle. And so I get that like, we can describe it as this such simple thing in theory, but in practice, it takes time. You can so listen to this and feel excited and inspired by it. It takes time to practice it over and over and over again. And like this is not a linear path of like, you just get it and then you just keep moving forward.

Josh Hillis 19:23

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because that is so legit. This is a practice. It's like learning to play an instrument; it doesn't happen quickly. I used to do a lot of mentorship, mentoring coaches, and things like that. And sometimes when I would talk about these things, like, I realized pretty early on, that they were getting the impression that this was like a one conversation thing. This is months of practice. The more we can relate it to, like an instrument, learning any kind of skill that's like difficult, but also at some point you start to develop some sort of like, like fluency with like playing guitar. You start off with Louie, Louie, right? Like, three cords. It's a process. In fact, one of the things that I often relate this to, especially like, making these kinds of choices in stressful situations or difficult situations, or, like, against the grain of, like, a really solid habit, I like to relate it to strength training. You go into the gym and you know, all you can lift is 10 pounds, and so you lift 10 pounds. After lifting 10 pounds for a while, you can lift 15 pounds. And after lifting 15 pounds for a while, you can lift 20 after a while, you can lift 25, but life doesn't come at us like that. The five-pound situation, we're like, okay, I can lift 10 cool. And then we'll get like a 25-pound situation. We're like, whoa. I don't know what to do, you know. And then we get like, a 10 pounds, and we're like, Okay, I got it, you know? And then, like, and so we're still looking at that kind of like progressive practice, even though life doesn't always show up like that. And so that's just like another little complication that people that are trying to look at this like, more realistically. Just to keep in mind, the thing about that is that, like, let's say they've been practicing for a while, they're up to like, 15 pounds of, like, skill practice, and they get hit with like a 25-pound situation. That doesn't mean that they'll never be able to handle that. It just means that, like, maybe that's a couple months off.

Stephanie Mara 21:18

Yeah, I love that analogy. It's really great, just because most of the things that we see about learning something is that progressive thing, even with strength training, it's like, yeah, you just progressively learn how to add more weight, or your body gets accustomed to a weight. And so a 10-pound weight now feels like a five-pound weight, because you have gotten stronger. But that's not what this journey is like because you meet different situations, and you are a different person facing those situations every single time, based off of your stress levels and how you slept and where you're personally at, and for women, where they are in their cycle, and you know, so every time a food experience is thrown your way, you are a different person navigating that. And so also to work with, even if there's some kind of internal expectation that this should be progressive, or you should be the same person, or make the same choice every single time you know sometimes feels I like, then there's like shame and personal self-judgment that could come up when you don't see the progression happening. And I often like to add that, like your progress didn't go away, like maybe you just took a different path, or you decided to just stay where you were, but the new path that you've been building like it's still there. You could still take that path whenever you need to, and so just kind of like even updating the expectation of what the healing journey, quote, unquote, should be like.

Josh Hillis 22:48

Yeah, I love your perspective so much. Once again, you brought in, like context, such an important point that there's so many other factors. I love that you brought that up because every week is different, and holding ourselves the same standard when, like, everything crashes together is silly. When you know, like some weeks are super stressful, some some weeks are chill, some weeks really busy, some weeks are more open. Sometimes, you know your kids are sick. Again, it's cool to take a step back and say, like, this isn't happening in a vacuum. What's actually going on here? Yeah, and actually, you could do that, like, zoomed out looking at, like, your whole day. You could zoom out further, looking at your week. You can also, like, zoom in and look at a situation. You go like, Oh, wow, like, I have much stronger cravings right after my boss yells at me than, you know when I'm getting high fives.

Stephanie Mara 23:41

I completely agree with that. Also acknowledging yourself, like I find that, because we live in a culture that's so like, productivity-based of what I can prove that I've done instead of you just named, like, sometimes zooming out, sometimes zooming in, but also noticing, like, even the tiny little moments where you decided to do something different, and how often that gets bypassed because you're like, Oh, but I'm not there yet in like, XYZ places. Or I still chose to eat the food anyway. But wait a second. You just took a moment to pause, to be with yourself, to assess the situation, and even if it ended in the same result, could we acknowledge that it took so much for you to do something different, initially, to pause, to be with yourself, to check in with yourself and, yeah, okay, so you still chose to eat the food, but wow, you just practiced a lot leading up to that.

Josh Hillis 24:39

Yeah, that is so huge because I tell everyone to start with the pause that I don't care what happens afterward. It's a progression. We start with, can I put in the pause regardless of what happens afterwards? And then it's like, what else could we put in that pause? Could we put in maybe some checking about hunger, or could we put in maybe some zooming out, looking at the situation? And then maybe, after we get good at that, maybe we could check but first, if you could just put in a pause, like for a of couple weeks, that's amazing!

Stephanie Mara 25:12

And I know you keep referencing skills, and so I know one of the skills that you teach is, like, this value-based learning what your values are, starting to make food decisions off of that. Are there any other skills that you have felt like are important for someone looking to maybe have a different kind of relationship with food that you have found you've been teaching a lot of people?

Josh Hillis 25:35

Yeah, three major skills would be like noticing when hungry, noticing when full, noticing what situations it's harder to notice fullness in. So, the first one's like distinguishing hunger from stress. So maybe we're looking at things like, Do I feel an empty feeling in my stomach, or do I feel something else? Sometimes it's really obvious. I've had clients that are like, Oh, every time I thought I was hungry, I was actually cold. I had a headache or tight. I don't know what it was, but I noticed my shoulders were up in my ears, and then maybe looking at, like, Am I hungry for like, a balanced meal? Like, is it mealtime? Or am I just, like, kind of fixated on this one specific treat? And then also, just like, with that pause, like, the longer I pause, does it build or fade? And none of those are, like, perfect binary. It's like, look at all three. Just kind of get an idea, you know, what's going on. And there might be some information there. We might even zoom out and situate that in our day and go like, when was my last meal? And when's my next meal? You know, was my last meal balanced? Was it enough? Did I fall into that trap of, like, Oh, when I was dieting, I used to have these really small lunches because I thought I was supposed to, and actually, like, I'm starving? Actually, the flip side, it's like, actually, I had a pretty solid lunch, like it was balanced and it was enough, and it's only been 40 minutes. Like it would be kind of weird for me to be hungry right now. So that would be a skill where we're checking in and we're just getting information. Another skill might be like noticing fullness, that one's often a little more complicated. Sometimes, I'll work that one backward from like, What did that feel like, and when do we get hungry again? But also like looking at how stressed am I today? How much sleep did I get? Do I normally have a hard time noticing fullness when I slept poorly? I do! And so also noticing like, Oh, it's like, there's some situations where it's harder to notice, and maybe I'll just eat kind of the amount that I normally eat and see how that works. You know, like, I'll check in later. Or even something like, like, Hey, you know what? I really want to have pizza. And even though I'm aware that flavor, enjoyment and fullness run on different tracks, like, it's really hard for me to distinguish right now, or maybe it's just gonna always be hard for me to distinguish. And so I'm gonna kind of like, plan, like, what's like, a reasonable amount of pizza, I'm just gonna try that out and see how I feel afterwards. And those would be skills. Sometimes underneath that, we'll put guidelines like pausing 10 minutes before snacking is like a really, like concrete guideline. That's a thing where I can, like, set a watch and know that I did it right, or put my fork down between bites. Like, I can do this thing that's really clear that slows me down. And sometimes slowing down makes it easier to notice. So those are kind of like the three levels of things like value, skills and guidelines.

Stephanie Mara 28:24

I appreciate you sharing all of that, and I love that you started to also bring in context of, like, even when we're learning what hunger and fullness might feel like, that that's going to change based off of our quality of sleep, our stress levels, what's going on in our day and inside our body, and also like knowing that and bringing in compassion. Like, I completely agree with you. I know that if I didn't sleep well the night before, that my hunger cues are going to be all over the place, and I'm probably going to feel hungrier, and so just expecting it, like knowing it, like, Okay, yeah, I didn't sleep well last night. This is probably what's gonna happen today. I find that there's less judgment. I have more connection with myself throughout the day. It's like, of course, I know that I actually need to up my level of self-care on that kind of day, so that my body gets what it needs to already navigate a day that it's kind of at a deficit. And so sometimes just being aware of that hunger shows up or fullness shows up differently when you're sleep deprived or when you're stressed, and knowing what those different cues are is so important.

Josh Hillis 29:34

Yeah, you're not holding yourself to the same standard. You're not putting yourself in a situation where it's gonna be really hard to win. Which kind of seems like it's like the theme of this whole Zoom is like paying attention to the actual situation you're in. Have enough awareness to sort of like customize your practice to the situation you're actually in, I guess is a way of putting it.

Stephanie Mara 29:56

Yeah, really well said. I completely agree with that, and I feel like it's not talked about enough of how could we possibly make the same decision with food every single day when we're not the same person, and we are not living the same life every day? Like I work from home, my day is typically very similar, but me in the day, and what I need every single day, like I really get a strong experience of that because my day is very similar, but I am not the same person in each day, and my nutritional needs or what my body needs emotionally is different from day to day.

Josh Hillis 30:40

Yeah. Same thing; I work from home, and I'm not the same every day. Imagine, like, going into an office and having like, three times as many variables on any given day.

Stephanie Mara 30:50

Yeah. Going a little bit deeper for a second into because I'm really fascinated with how you were just describing, like, the difference between, like, hunger and stress. I'm wondering how you have described that to those that you've worked with, and what you've discovered, and how people, when they start to delineate that for themselves, what they notice the differences in their body.

Josh Hillis 31:12

So, a lot of times, they'll find out that stress feels like, maybe like a tightness in their chest, a feeling in their throat or in their shoulders. For some people, it's like, it's like a tightness in their stomach, but clearly not a hunger. It's like a knottiness. Sometimes, people feel like a little bit hot or a little bit cold. I think those are probably the most common ones people say. But the cool thing is that people can check in and find for themselves, and it's often fairly consistent for people, or, like, consistent-ish. I say that, truth is, it doesn't actually matter if you check in and on Tuesday, you're like, Oh, I feel super tight at my shoulders, and you're like, that's not hunger. And then on Wednesday, you're like, Oh, I feel kind of knot my stomach, and you're like, that's not hunger either. It doesn't have to be the same. In fact, it doesn't even matter if they're checking in, and it changes while they're checking in, right? That's fine, too. But then also, people tend to notice, like, there are certain thoughts, maybe they're like, Oh, like, I noticed my thoughts are kind of worried, or I'm doing, like, planning, but it's like, really, like, cyclical and fast, or they might notice, like, Oh, I'm replaying the situation over and over in my head. They might check in and name some feelings. They're like, when I feel nervous and sad and lonely, like, that's probably not hunger. They might check in with urges, right? Like, it might not be just food. It might be that they're sitting there and they're thinking about it, they're not grabbing the food yet. They're like, I'm gonna sit with this. But also, they need to doom scroll. That might be an indicator also. Or I've had clients say, like, I feel like I just need, like, get up and like, leave my office, like, I felt like I want to run. And you're like, Oh, so, like, that's not hunger. And so it's cool to be able to look at our experience. There's a lot of things that aren't hunger that maybe we've come to associate with food because food kind of worked to modify how we felt in some way that felt useful, and it just became like what we did.

Stephanie Mara 33:21

Thanks for sharing that description. Yeah, something that I explore here; I may describe it more as learning different Nervous System States. It's ultimately bringing in that curiosity of, like, Wow, I have this impulse to do this thing with food, and does this really mean that I'm hungry? And starting to like, you just listed all of the things that you could track in your body, and starting to discover what your hunger cues both in stress and not in stress, because that can change. You could be legitimately hungry and stressed, and that's going to show up differently compared to what you're not. And also learning the cues from your body of, like, you know what, I'm not hungry, but I want food. And what does that feel like? I totally get what you were just describing, of that gnawing sensation like I often like to describe, even like what I call emotional hunger. As you know, it is a gnawing and an emptiness, but you sense that your body doesn't actually physically need food. Like, maybe you ate recently, or you just had a meal, or your body is still satisfied from the last thing that you ate, and you don't really sense that food, isn't it, but you still just feel empty. And so these wires can get crossed, and then it's really confusing, and it's like, Well, I feel empty. Aren't I supposed to respond to emptiness with food? Bringing this full circle of like you started with, like, just be with the experience of emptiness and maybe see where this takes me. Taking that pause first and just getting curious about, like, okay, just because I feel emptiness doesn't mean that the answer is to fill this with food.

Josh Hillis 34:53

Yeah, this is my approach. I might look at, like, Oh, feel some emptiness. Maybe there are three different ways that I could go with this, right? Like, one, like, maybe I need to do something to take care of myself. Two, it's normal as a human to feel empty sometimes. And maybe what there is to do is to just work on being able to be with that, like the humanity of being humans, ups and downs. Or third, maybe I look at like, Hey, it's normal to have this kind of, like, empty, annoying feeling sometimes, and I'm gonna actually, like, accept, like, the humanness of it, and at the same time, I'm gonna do something to take care of myself, because I'm just a human, and humans need some like, basic maintenance sometimes. But it isn't even to, like, fix that. It's just because, like, I'm a human and I need to be taken care of.

Stephanie Mara 35:47

Yeah, totally agree with those pieces. My final question of, I always like to offer everyone like a little baby step because I find that this journey is just filled with lots of little baby steps, and everyone kind of has their own unique baby step that they like to offer. And so I'm curious, for someone who's maybe starting to learn these skills, curious about values, what kind of, off of your work, or where you guide people, what would be a baby step that you would potentially offer someone listening to this?

Josh Hillis 36:17

Normally, my go-to baby step I give would be like, pause 10 minutes before snacking. Like, set a timer and pause. And there's nothing magic about 10 minutes. 100% arbitrary. It's one of those things where, like, when you get really good at it, it could be 10 seconds. Or if it's really hard, it might be 15 minutes. But I feel like you probably talk about pausing a lot anyway.

Stephanie Mara 36:36

Embodiment and checking in is something we do explore a lot, but I don't feel like it could be reiterated enough, honestly, because I find that it's such a simple suggestion that is so hard to practice when you're feeling such intense urges to binge or emotionally eat or restrict or go back on a diet or do any kind of behavior that whoever's listening you're navigating. I don't feel like it can be suggested enough honestly, because the pause is where it all starts.

Josh Hillis 37:07

Yeah, a lot of what we're talking about can feel really amorphous at first. It can be a little bit hard to get your hands around. But for the folks at home, if they're feeling like a little bit of structure would help, then whatever time they pick, 10 minutes, five minutes, whatever. I know my clients really like to be able to go, like, check that off. I really did that. I for sure did that. I will just leave them with that, that, like, if that helps them put some structure, and then, inside of that they can put all the other things that they're working on sometimes that's really useful.

Stephanie Mara 37:42

Yeah, I appreciate you just sharing that suggestion, and I'm so glad that you were able to come on here today and share all of your wisdom and your approach. And how can those who are listening keep in touch with you?

Josh Hillis 37:55

So probably the best way to keep in touch with me is Instagram. So Joshua Hillis like @JoshuaHillis. From there, you can find books, blog, other things, but Instagrams definitely my home base.

Stephanie Mara 38:07

Awesome. Definitely recommend following you. You put out a lot of really great posts. And again, I just appreciate your time here today, and I'll put all of those links in the show notes. And thank you for sharing a different perspective on you know, there are a lot of different, I feel like, lenses into healing our relationship with food, and I felt like you offered some pieces we haven't explored much here today. So appreciate that.

Josh Hillis 38:34

Cool. This is great. This was like, such a cool conversation.

Stephanie Mara 38:37

I'm so glad. Well, to everyone listening, as always, If you have any questions, reach out anytime, and I'll put our contacts in the show notes. And I hope you all have a satiating rest of your day, and talk to you all soon. Bye!

Keep in touch with Josh:

Website: https://joshhillis.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuahillis/

Book: Lean & Strong