The Weight Loss Mistakes That Backfire Every Time (Your New Years Resolution is a TRAP!) with Jackie Kirschen

Here’s a rundown of what we discussed in today’s episode: Why “diet season” fuels unrealistic and harmful weight loss expectations A note on body autonomy and who this episode is (and isn’t) for Jackie Kirschen’s personal journey with sustainable, non-restrictive weight loss Why strict calorie counting often backfires in real life The major inaccuracies in calorie calculators, food labels, and fitness trackers How to create a calorie deficit without obsessively tracking What crash dieting does to metabolism, muscle mass, and NEAT Hunger hormones, food noise, and the psychology of restriction Small, realistic habits that support long-term weight loss Why weight loss is rarely just about food or willpower The role of mindfulness and emotional regulation in eating behaviours How the Hunger Crushing Combo framework supports sustainable weight loss goals References: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12963943/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20058259/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34957939/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16002798/ Check in with today’s amazing guest: Jackie Kirschen Website: eatright4life.com Podcast: Lose Weight Mindfully Instagram: @the.mindful.nutritionist Tiktok: @the.mindful.nutritionist Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with your mental or physical health, please work one-on-one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  You can't change that the pumpkin pie is going to be in front of you when you go into your Thanksgiving dinner or whatever, because it's going to be there. But you can change your thought.

• 0:14Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Happy New Year, friends. It is officially 2026, which, as many of you guys listening surely know, is also the official season of bad diets. Ah, yes. Honestly, I don't think I've had long enough of a vacation to prepare myself for this, but here we are. And to help me tackle the season of diet delusion is fellow dietitian and host of the podcast Lose Weight Mindfully, Jackie Kirschen. Jackie's approach to eating absolutely

• 0:57Abbey Sharp?

  echoes mine, grounded in her own experience using sustainable strategies to achieve her own impressive weight loss. Today, we're going to be breaking down the biggest weight loss mistakes you are probably making, and some actionable, evidence-based alternatives for long-lasting change. Now, before we get into it, I want to quickly note that we will, of course, be talking about weight loss in this episode, including evidence-based tips and gentle strategies. So I just want to clarify that this episode is not for everyone. Not everyone needs to or wants to lose weight. So this is absolutely not a weight loss prescription. Ultimately, you guys know I believe in body autonomy and not censoring science. So my

• 1:42Abbey Sharp?

  goal here is always to communicate the safest strategies that you should ideally then discuss with your healthcare provider. Take what makes sense to you and leave what doesn't, and that also might mean sitting out on this episode. Also, we are T minus one week, or even less, depending on when you're listening to this, to the release of my new book, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method. So now...

• 2:10Abbey Sharp?

  Is your time to please preorder. It is really important that we get those preorders in and those first week orders and it really, really would help me spread more moderate and evidence-based messages about eating well en masse. And if you preorder right now, you will have a chance to win my new theory probiotic protein powder prize pack. So check out the link in the show notes on how to enter today. All right, friends, let's get into it.

• 2:42Abbey Sharp?

  All right, Jackie, thank you so much for coming on. I'm really just such a big fan of your content and totally aligned with your approach of, you know, trying to find those sustainable strategies for weight loss without necessarily strict calorie counting. So thank you so much for joining us.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Thank you for being here. I'm so excited.

• 3:01Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, so for folks listening who, you know, perhaps are on a weight loss journey and they feel like there is no way in hell that they could lose weight without tracking meticulously because that is what they've always done. Can you just like give us a little bit of background on your weight loss journey?

• 3:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I grew up as cute chubby little Jackie and it was something that my relationship with food got tarnished very early. And I feel like a lot of the women probably listening can totally understand. My grandpa at the age of nine called my legs chicken polkas, like a, like a chicken leg. And that's when it kind of like, oh, that's not really cute. So it started to really have me feel uncomfortable with like, well, what's wrong with my legs? What's wrong with me? So growing up, you know, again, I love my parents. They always wanted me to be healthy, but what did they know? Oh, our daughter's gaining weight. We have to put her on a diet. So that is something that before my bat mitzvah, so I

• 4:05Speaker 00

  was 12, I went to Weight Watchers, my first meeting. And I just remember sitting there next to someone in their 50s and I was 12. I don't even think I had my period. And that's when the cycle started. So it was the back in the day when it was Like the slider scale. Oh, God. So it was all the points, right? So I was learning about nutrition, but I was learning about a point system, which our bodies don't go off of a point system, right? So it was really a struggle because it was constantly losing, gaining, losing, gaining. And then when I learned that certain foods that I loved were nine points, I avoided them because it would use up half of my points for the day. So what do you think happened when I went to all of my friends' houses growing up?

• 4:51Speaker 00

  I mean, it was this forbidden food that I just binged on or ate because I wasn't allowed. So it started this very unhealthy relationship with food. So when I was 19, I was diagnosed with prediabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. When my doctor asked me how many alcoholic drinks I was having at the age of 19, I mean, let's be real, I was in college, I was having fun, but not that much fun. And that scared the shit out of me. And that is when my late grandpa died from diabetes. My aunt has had bariatric surgery, been on semaglutide, it's all off. All, you know, there's just complications in my family when it comes to diabetes. And that's when I said to myself, okay, I've got two options. I can either continue doing what I'm doing for the past however many years

• 5:34Speaker 00

  and keep going through the cycle of losing 20, gaining 30, losing 30, gaining 40, or I can actually like start listening to my body and figure out what my body needs. And that's when I decided to work with a coach who helped me. And I lost 65 pounds over my entire sophomore year of college. And that's when I kind of stumbled upon mindful eating. It wasn't that she taught me what it was, but when now I understood what I was doing, I was being mindful, I was making mindful choices, I was making mindful swaps. I was enjoying myself, I was at Emory, I was in Atlanta, I was having fried chicken and waffles and experiencing life, but I wasn't binging on it.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  I wasn't eating at all, cleaning my plate, I wasn't cutting out things the next day. And so that's when I was like, oh, my goodness, like I can lose weight, eating the foods I love and still making healthy choices, but also having Fun in life like hell. Yeah. Sign me up. So here I am 15 years later. You know, that was when I was 20. So that was in 2010 and I've got two babies and people are always like, how'd you lose your weight postpartum? I'm like, the same fucking way, the same exact way. And like, my life looks different. I might not have an hour to go to the gym like I did when I was 20 because now I have a baby and a toddler. But like, again, I can still change my non-negotiables of what mindful looks like for me.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  But I can practice it for the rest of my life. So that's why I eat, sleep, breathe, preach mindful eating to everyone. Because it's a way of living and it's something sustainable.

• 7:12Abbey Sharp?

  I love this. Yeah. Your story I'm sure is so inspiring for so many people. And, and this is exactly the purpose behind, you know, my hunger crushing combo method as well. You know, we add things, we don't restrict because we need to shift that from a state of scarcity mentality to one of abundance. If we don't want to end up binging like you did, you know, in those early days on Weight Watchers.

• 7:46Abbey Sharp?

  But speaking of restriction, I want to kind of like break down some, you know, weight loss mistakes that I, you know, I'm sure you and I both see people making. And I want to start with one that honestly I have gotten, I got a lot of shit for saying before because I didn't even know this was that controversial. But most people, for most people, I would say meticulously tracking calories in versus out. In my experience is a weight loss mistake. You know, if you're going like, you know, point by point or, or, you know, calorie by calorie, you're measuring everything out and you're thinking, okay, this is an exact science. I got a lot of thoughts on this, but from your perspective, why have you tried to distance yourself from like strict calorie counting like this?

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. So a couple of reasons. Personally, I am a type A perfectionist recovering, I say, but not recovered. So I was the perfect storm for setting myself up for an eating disorder, which I strongly with for about six years because once I lost the weight and again I came back for my junior year that's when of course oh my god you look amazing like in my my goal at that time was a thigh gap or a six pack right that's what I wanted when I was 20 years old so that fueled the fire and I was like okay I can eat less and move more and it just kept going and going and going so the reason why I think it is unhealthy is because number one let's be honest the body

• 9:10Speaker 00

  is such an incredible mechanism it'll do anything in its power to protect itself so the more I ate less and moved more the more my body said fuck no you're hungry so when you eat 500 calories and run a 10k that when you walk into your my my room with my roommate and you see her peanut butter go frickin eat the whole jar and like I was I didn't realize I was just destroying and I hate when people are like your metabolism is slow and blah blah blah but like I was literally destroying my metabolism in my body so I think that people who are hardwired the way that I am can get super

• 9:52Speaker 00

  obsessive so when I would include carrots and cucumber and tomatoes because it was nutritious and colorful phytonutrients all the things but my fitness pal said X amount of sugar X amount of calories to the point where I was counting 10 carrots that's all I loved myself so it became obsessive because I was trying to continuously again my head was I needed to be in a deficit and I needed to burn more and the skinnier I got the less efficient I was burning because I was smaller so I had to keep decreasing that calorie deficit and it was just so unstable my lowest was

• 10:33Speaker 00

  97 pounds I lost my period my parents when they picked me up from Emory said I looked like a Holocaust survivor like it was just and I was scared my bones were still in I slept with a pillow between my knees because that's how I could literally I had no fat so I think it's twofold you can get Super unhealthy and get into the scary to me being overweight is unhealthy, but being underweight is even more unhealthy in my opinion. It is. You can get to that, right? That's scarier of having an eating disorder or disordered eating. Or on the other end, I have PCOS. So there was a time in my life when I was like, everyone is doing, I don't know, I always mess up her name. So I won't say the story. The Bikini Body Guide, Kayla, the Aussie girl.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  It's me. I always mess up her name. I don't know how to say her last name either. Good for her. Love her. Love her. So with my body, I would see these testimonials of, you know, she would show her like six pack and all this stuff. So when I'd come home for summer breaks, I'd be like, I want that. That's what that was my vision. So I would eat half of a, oh, sorry, excuse me, a quarter of a Quest protein bar. Cause I knew, again, if it's 200 calories, I would eat 50 calories, a quarter. No joke. I'd cut it up into four. I'd go do the Kayla, it's whatever, 28 minutes, I'd be schwitzing, just sweating. And I was gaining weight. And I was like, what is this? I was like, oh, so finally as a dietitian and learning like that stress on my body with

• 12:03Speaker 00

  PCOS and under feeling and all the, so again, I just always feel like it will backfire. Sure, you'll be in a calorie deficit. Sure, you may see weight loss, but you, if you're not actually nourishing, and this is where I talk about with my clients, your brain needs glucose, your heart needs calories, your liver needs calories. If you are severely under eating, it's gonna backfire and your body is efficient. It will protect itself. So whether it's gonna make you go eat something else because you're starving, or it'll actually have your body be less efficient at burning calories or not gaining muscle, which is metabolically active. So it's so interesting where I believe knowledge is power. I believe you should understand

• 12:46Speaker 00

  how much protein, how much fiber, how many calories. Yeah, I don't want someone eating an entire Costco pumpkin pie. I want them to be aware of how many calories and what nutrition it's giving them. But you don't need to be eating quarter of a Quest protein. Bar or counting 10 carrots. Yes, it's calories in calories out. That's the science, but it's so much more nuanced. There's so many other things that we're learning. Blood sugar ballads, endocrine deficiencies, right? Insulin resistance. So you could be eating the same exact calories, but metabolizing and processing things differently. So you and I, I was actually thinking before I joined this podcast, I was thinking about like, what if Abbey and I ate the same protein oatmeal this morning? I'm five foot. I know you're not five foot. I know you're taller,

• 13:30Speaker 00

  right? Right? There we go. Like, we are gonna use the same calories like differently. And I was just like, that is mind blowing that like my body can appreciate certain foods and portions differently than yours. And that's what makes us unique. That's what makes bio individuality, like, an important topic that we need to be talking about. It's not about points. It's not about macros. And it's not only about calories. It is about individualization.

• 14:00Abbey Sharp?

  Hundred percent. And, you know, and it's not just individualization between people, but also the fact that, you know, in a lot of these cases, all of these kind of calorie calculations and needs and the numbers on the back of, we're not machines. These are widely inaccurate. Like even the best equations that we use to kind of like estimate how many calories you need, and then you plug that into your MyFitnessPal, those aren't shown to be overestimating needs by like 25 to 28%. And then on the other hand of the spectrum, we got those smartwatches and we're like, okay, I burned this many calories today. So now I've earned this many amount of, you know, how many glasses of wine? Those are off by like 30%. So right there, there's hundreds of calories off of your true needs that could potentially, you know, really mess with that

• 14:45Abbey Sharp?

  perfect calorie deficit that you've been like meticulously trying to reach. And then like the calories on packages can be up to 20% off. How you prepare food versus like raw versus cooked, ground, whole, all of these change the absorbable calories. And then also your microbiome, like you said, the individualization, like even if you and I were five seven, and we had the same muscle mass and the same fat mass, like we were twins, maybe My microbiome is different than your microbiome and mine is going to maybe gobble up calories more efficiently than yours. And so this is why, you know, if we put even mental health aside, it doesn't even make that much sense because calories, yeah, calories in versus calories out

• 15:25Abbey Sharp?

  creates a calorie deficit, but it's, it's so much more complicated than that, just based on your unique body, your cells, your microbiome, like all these things influence how many calories you can extract from food.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Totally, absolutely. And I feel like people don't talk about that.

• 15:41Abbey Sharp?

  And, and I want to kind of talk about, you know, kind of building on this, another common mistake, which you alluded to, which is like these crash diets slashing calories too low. You know, I think people just think that less is more, faster is better. I mean, obviously people don't, are impatient. We're all impatient. Can you talk a little bit about like what's happening metabolically or physiologically, or you know, kind of mention the psychological piece, but when someone's restricting too much as you did, what's happening inside the body that that's causing us to fight back?

• 16:10Speaker 00

  When you just think about it, your body is like a car. Cars burn gas most efficiently when it's actually halfway full, when it's not too much and not too little. And this is like in simplest layman's terms that I can say. And that is why I love mindful eating because that is what's satisfaction. It's enough food. It's not too much. It's not too little. It's just enough. So this is why when I have new clients coming in and it's so funny, I look at their food journal and I can see their first week, they're being like super quote unquote, good. I'm like, girl, you are, where's your color? Where's, what is going on here? And so some of them are like, what do you mean? I'm like,

• 16:52Speaker 00

  because they go back to that very restrictive, like I started my diet with Jackie on Monday, like I'm just going to be super. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Adding nutrition, not taking away. Okay, great. You have a bear ball protein bar. Add an apple to it. Like add nutrition to it. Don't just take it away to get in that severe calorie deficit because again, you want your body to be efficient. And so you cannot be Efficient and drive from San Diego to LA on a like no energy, no gas. And that is again, the simplest way, like think of it like a car. You need gas to go, you want good quality gas and you need just enough.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  At plain and simple, right? You don't have to get into the whole like your BMR and go do indirect calometry and like look at like. No, no, no, we don't have to get that crazy, but. And again, like you said, it's so funny, the amount of times I looked at my treadmill and it told me I burned. Or my elliptical with no resistance that told me I burned like eight hundred calories, right? I had no idea how inaccurate, it didn't know I was five foot, it didn't know I was twenty years old, it probably thought I was a. A hundred and sixty pound, middle aged man, right? It's just, you're never gonna get exact and neither is your body. So something that I want to remind people is about your body changes day to day.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Hour to hour has more needs. So it's just giving this example, I'm postpartum. When I was breastfeeding, I needed to eat more because I was creating breast milk for my son. Now, it's interesting how I noticed that I don't need as much. And I find that fascinating because my body already knew I needed more energy. And so the more that I tried to my postpartum weight loss. I knew it was gonna backfire because it would dip my supply, I wouldn't have the energy. So I said, I'm giving myself grace when I stop breastfeeding, that's when I can actually experiment with. Actually eating a little bit less mindfully, right? I wasn't starving myself. And of course, I'm back at my postpart- or my pre-baby weight, whatever you want to call it.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Because I actually gave my body what it needed and it, and it worked with me, not against me. So when you think about metabolism, you, you gotta fuel your body, you can't. Build muscle if you don't give it the building blocks.

• 19:20Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  You cannot get stronger, you cannot get faster, you cannot go further without nutrition.

• 19:28Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, and I think that's one of the big issues. Issues that I see with these crash diets and these slashing calories too low is they of course are going to end up compromising protein intake, which means compromising muscle mass, which does mean overall lower metabolism because our muscle is going to burn like six calories per pound versus two pounds per fat. So when we lose muscle, every single movement we make, just like live in our life, is going to cost our body less energy.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:56Abbey Sharp?

  And plus, there's like so many of these metabolic adaptations that happen in the body because our, we like to maintain a specific little set point weight. We like to be in this comfortable range. And like you mentioned, alluded to with the mindful eating, like when we're actually being more in tune with our body's true needs and not like looking at the elliptical saying, oh, I burned 800 calories. Now I can eat 800 calories, maybe even though I'm not hungry for 800 calories. We're able to find ourselves at that kind of healthy, happy weight without it like taking over our life, so to speak, you know, running everything, it'll just clouding every thought and, you know, moment of our day with these obsessive ideas about, oh, how many calories was that? How many calories did I burn? How do I save calories so I can have a glass of

• 20:39Abbey Sharp?

  wine? You know, the mental gymnastics are exhausting for people.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  It is gymnastics. I mean, when you think about, I was doing some research, there's the average human has over 200 food thoughts a day. Like, can you, and what happens is 199 out of the 200 are actually freaking out about what to eat and that mental stress. And when people throw out stress, insulin resistance, cortisol, inflammation, it's just like, it just, no, it's not any of that. You're just literally overwhelming yourselves. You're, you're again, overloading your nervous system. So when you are not in a comfortable state, like you were saying, then of course, your body is not going to do the things that it needs to do efficiently because it's just trying to survive.

• 21:25Abbey Sharp?

  Hundred percent.

• 21:39Abbey Sharp?

  Can you maybe give us a couple like of your go to small like realistic little habits that people can put into action like literally today to get started?

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, so something that every single client who comes through Mindful Weight Loss Academy, my coaching program, their very first week when I onboard them, every single person needs to create three non-negotiables: one nutrition, one movement, one mindset. You literally cannot move into coaching and start until you do these three things. Because what I've noticed, having been doing this for a long time, is that when you start something new, and I say in air quotes, again, you go back to what are the restrictive? I'm going to be super good. I'm only going to eat chicken. I'm only going to eat broccoli. You know, and that is not sustainable and backfires. So I want people to think individually for their life. What is one nutrition, one movement, one mindset non-negotiable every freaking day

• 22:34Speaker 00

  that I can actually check off the list? Who doesn't like checking something off the list, right? It's amazing, right? It feels so good as a dietitian. It's like highlighter, it's a check, and it feels so satisfying.

• 22:44Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, yeah, type A.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  So this is something, right, that type A, this is something that when you think of like James Clear, when he talks about an atomic habits, it's the small daily actions. So for me, I'm going back in time to when I was 19, starting my journey. My nutrition was actually getting my breakfast ready. Because I used to wake up five minutes before bio lab or whatever and sprint out, grab my coffee and a bagel on a potato, like it just was to think about what I was eating in college was wild. I wasn't thinking. So like now, back in time, for me, that's when my yogurt bowl became my staple. I ate it every day. I've been eating it for the last 15 years. I've maintained my 60 pounds, 65 pounds.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  And people are like, can you eat the same thing? And I'm like, yes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I do yogurt, half a scoop of protein powder to give it a cookies and cream or some sort of flavor to boost the protein, not too much, of course. I do some blueberries and some chopped walnuts with some cinnamon. I literally have that prepped, five of them. It just, it works for me. I don't have to think about it. It's ready to go. To me, I'm starting my day with at least thirty plus grams of protein and I feel satisfied for four plus hours. So I want people to think about, what is that? Is that having ready-made egg bites? Is that getting the Starbucks drive-through? I don't care. It has to be something that has to support

• 24:09Speaker 00

  you making a mindful choice. For me, not skipping breakfast, having something high protein and having ready-made. That's easy, simple. You can Google all of the recipes. I'm sure we both on our pages. It's so simple, but having something where you don't have to think about it and it's nutritious for you and it's ready-made, sign me up. I love that. When it comes to movement, so that is where I didn't want to be in the gym for an hour sweating. I don't enjoy that. So my movement, non-negotiable, is I have to get at least some form of walking, whether it's walking on my walking pad and I'm sending voice notes to clients, doing check-ins, I'm walking with my son in the stroller or my

• 24:52Speaker 00

  daughter's riding her scooter. Every day, that's my non-negotiable. It doesn't need to be 10,000 steps. It doesn't need to be 6,000. For me, at least 10 to 15 minutes of movements, intentional movement. So for you, it could be that. For me, I'm standing because that's what I do. When I record podcasts, I am not sitting. I am standing. That's, I'm fidgeting, all of the things. Like, that's a little bit of my neat, right? Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Like, that is something that, okay, how can I add more movement to my day? 10, 15 minutes, non-negotiable. And it's about the consistency. I do it every frickin' day. I guarantee everyone listening to this podcast, you can walk for 10 minutes, you're on a phone call,

• 25:35Speaker 00

  you're waiting for your kid to get out of gymnastics. You can.

• 25:38Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  You just don't prioritize it. And lastly, mindset. I call it mindset slash self-care. What I noticed is that when I would sit there and, you know, watch a show or be on my computer late at night, it made me so tired the next day. I didn't get good sleep. For me, switching my phone off at nine o'clock, actually being, and I tried the whole do not disturb, and I would always override it. I actually phone off upside down, away from me. I know people do things like out of their room and blah, blah, blah. But good quality sleep, people don't realize your sleep impacts your leptin and your ghrelin, your hunger hormones.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  It affects your metabolism, all of the things. And if you're tired the next day and running off of six cups of coffee, yeah, like, no, you're just not going to have the energy to do anything else. So for me, I really want people to think about, sure, there are hacks, but they're foundation.

• 26:39Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  They're basic. What is something that you can do every day that has to support your nutrition, support your movement, and support your self-care? It could be taking a frickin' bubble blast. Like, I don't care. It could be doing your devotional, or starting your day with your morning coffee and listening to a sermon, or reading five minutes, or writing five minutes. What is actually going to support you? And what can you do consistently? Because when you do that every single day for seven days straight, for four weeks, for however many months, you will be light years ahead than if you try to do it perfectly.

• 27:14Abbey Sharp?

  Love that. And I just want to ask one last question here, because, I mean, we could talk all day, but this, I think, is really important to end with. And that is, you know, I think one of the other big mistakes that I see people on weight loss journeys make is that they think that weight loss just comes down to like, a good diet, or a good plan, or how strong your willpower is. But I think that- It really just ignores like the complexity of eating in response to human emotion, which is totally normal. And I just remember I looked back and when I was doing my internship to become a dietitian and my preceptor said to me, you know, Abbey, it's never just about the food. It's never just about the food. It's often about the why or the how you're eating.

• 27:56Abbey Sharp?

  And the how definitely speaks to the kind of like mindful eating piece, which is, you know, and I'm sure like sometimes your sessions with your clients feel more like, like a therapy session to start than just like doling out a meal plan. Do you want to kind of speak to how important that is? And just like any little simple exercises that people can do to kind of help them get started when they feel that that emotional eating piece is a really big part of their story?

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I tell my clients, if you haven't cried in the four months of being on my program, I have not done my job. Like every time I am on, people are always like, are you sure you're not a therapist? I'm not a licensed therapist. I am a registered dietitian, but it's really an emotional thing that we're talking about. So when it comes to mindless and emotional eating, and look, the best example that I can give is I'm Jewish. We do everything that revolves around food, whether we're sad, happy, whatever. Like we call, it's called a Polish mother, which is my mom. It's like, are you hungry? No. Okay. I'll make you a sandwich. Like that's just how a Jewish mother will be like taking care of you. And so it's something that I grew up with. Everything revolves around food and food is to be enjoyed. So a part of my pillars

• 29:05Speaker 00

  of my program, balance, mindfulness, and lastly, satisfaction. You have to feel satisfied. You have to eat the real thing that actually makes you feel satisfied. So for me, you will never find me eating the low calorie, healthier version of a Reese's. I'm gonna eat the real Reese's because I'd rather eat one of those than have 15 different other things that are gonna quote unquote cure my sweet tooth or whatever. So when it comes to the mindless eating, I like to implement, we call it a speed bump. And what does speed bumps do? Back to my like car analogy, it slows you down. So when I

• 29:45Speaker 00

  Comes to you're going back to that habitual eating because the food is there or oh my god, it's the pumpkin pie and I never get this or whatever it is for you and you're feeling that like, oh my god, this is kind of a bad food, like I shouldn't have this. Oh, I've been good all day. I deserve this. When those feelings are coming up, when you are taking a second to pause, you can decide what your speed bump is. For me, I ask myself questions, or you can use a physical speed bump. But for example, I ask myself and my clients, simple questions. Number one, am I physically or emotionally hungry? Take the emotion out of it. Be honest, right?

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Two, what nutrition is this giving me? Be honest. Three, how is this going to make me feel? Lastly, how is this going to help me reach my goals? I asked myself those questions during my journey, and it could have been, well, I'm emotionally hungry. This is all sugar. I don't really feel good after eating a whole pint of ice cream, and it's not going to help me. So it actually slowed me down to be like, okay, but I still want, but maybe I don't need the whole pint. Oh, maybe I'll put it in a bowl and actually sit down and eat the Ben and Jerry's like, and I ate

• 31:03Speaker 00

  a normal portion and a decent amount of calories versus thousands of surplus. So just slowing down, taking again, a breath. And so what I want people to recognize is when you have those emotions, it's kind of like this gray cloud over you. It's super yucky. It's uncomfortable. It's gonna rain, it's gonna lightning, what's going on? But what happens with the weather? What happens with the cloud? It'll pass. And that's the same thing with emotions. So you can't change that the pumpkin pie is going to be in front of you when you go into your Thanksgiving dinner, or whatever, because it's going to be there. But you can change your thought. And that's where I implement

• 31:44Speaker 00

  those questions, because you can either have an unhelpful thought of, I never get this, I deserve this, I've been good, you know, I'll just start over tomorrow, which are unhelpful thoughts. You can change it to, well, I don't necessarily need all of this, but I kind of want it. I'm gonna honor and I'm gonna have it and I'm gonna move on. And you're always gonna be out in the end. And if you practice mindful eating, you'll balance and be in a calorie deficit that you can maintain or be in maintenance that you can maintain because you're not going to be gorging on these foods because they're number one, not forbidden. And you're making a mindful choice. You're deciding this is a hell yes. So for me, a Reese's is a frickin' hell yes.

• 32:25Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  But also some of these other things, like for example, I remember I was, you know, when you like eat a piece of cake and it's like so rich and you're like, oh, it's like too much. People will go into that all or nothing like, well, I already fucked up. I might as well keep going like, no, stop yourself. Anytime you can stop yourself sooner, whether it's one bites, three bites, or there's one bite left. That is change. That is positive. And the more and more you practice your speed bump and slowing down, the more confidence you're built and the more you will feel in healthy control around food.

• 33:00Abbey Sharp?

  I love that. So many fantastic tips here and absolutely echoes what we talk about. You know, with the, the hunger crushing combo method, it's, it's really about having that, that peanut butter cup, the one that you really love. But you know, knowing that you're probably going to feel better if you pair that peanut butter cup with some, with some edamame or some like nuts or some, you know, yogurt on the side or some fruit or whatever it might be versus having like five or six of them raiding your kids' Halloween haul. So this was really, really helpful. I will of course be leaving links to where everyone can find you in my show notes and of course your coaching program and your podcast, which I'm going to be on as well. So thank you so much for joining us.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 33:39Abbey Sharp?

  I loved this episode so, so much. And I really want to build on what Jackie and I were talking about by bringing it back to my signature framework, the hunger crushing combo. As Jackie and I discussed, you know, strict calorie counting and crash dieting tends to leave a lot to be desired. Mainly that it puts you in a state of scarcity and denial that your body fights tooth and nail. to get itself out of. But of course, as we pointed out, weight loss will always still require a calorie deficit. Hard stop. So then, how can an additive system like the Hunger Crushing Combo

• 34:19Abbey Sharp?

  support weight loss goals without us falling into the traps and mistakes that we discussed today? Well, when you build your meals and snacks around Hunger Crushing compounds, foods that are naturally satiating and nutrient-rich, you start to crowd out those less filling, high-calorie options that leave you rummaging through the pantry soon after. Rather than having that piece of white toast with a sweetened coffee for breakfast and then crashing headfirst into the communal donut box by 10 a.m., you learn that if you were to add a little avocado and some egg to that toast and maybe even serve it with some yolk and fruit, you have the staying power to make more mindful decisions as the day unfolds.

• 35:04Abbey Sharp?

  And this is evidence-based. So, for example, one study found that when people doubled their protein from 15% to 30% of their total calories, they spontaneously and non-restrictively ate approximately 400 fewer calories. Another study found the same thing with fiber, where upping fiber intake from 16 to 28 grams per day resulted in them naturally slashing 300 calories per day, all without having to white-knuckle your way through the day or giving up with a "screw it, diet starts again tomorrow" binge. In the book The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, I give a lot more specific details on how to structure your meals optimally

• 35:48Abbey Sharp?

  if sustainable weight loss is your goal, along with chapters for insulin resistance, diabetes and PCOS, sports and fitness goals, perimenopause and menopause, and feeding a healthy family. Plus, you get loads of cheat sheets, creative combo ideas, and 30 adaptable recipes. We are one week away from the launch and pre-sales and first-week sales mean everything. So it would truly make my whole life My whole career here if you would consider ordering the book. It is such a treasure trove of nutrition science distilled into digestible bites using my signature Science in SaaS. And of course, if you are more of an audiobook person as I am, you can also pre-download

• 36:32Abbey Sharp?

  that as well, and you can listen to my beautiful voice on your commute or your daily walks. But thank you again to Jackie for joining me for this very important conversation. And thank you for all of your support on the show and the book. Signing off with Science in SaaS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.