In this episode of Muscles by Brussels Radio, Ben and Giacomo dive deep into the psychology of snacking, muscle building, and maintaining mindful nutrition. They explore how to adjust your mindset, navigate fatigue and boredom, and implement practical strategies to improve your relationship with food, regardless of whether you are trying to build muscle or cut body fat.
Highlights from this episode:
- • How the “need to bulk up” mindset can lead to overeating and how to reframe it.
- The impact of fatigue and boredom on snacking habits and how to manage them.
- Why mindful eating and structured meals can curb mindless snacking during fat loss.
- Practical tips for maintaining consistency and overcoming common diet struggles.
Tune in for an honest, relatable chat that goes beyond the highlight reels and into the heart of what it means to connect authentically.
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Related Phrases:
muscle building mindset, mindful eating habits, managing food cravings, fat loss nutrition, bulking without overeating, structured meal planning, managing diet fatigue, snacking while dieting, overcoming boredom eating, mindful muscle gains
Transcript:
[Ben:]
Everyone, welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Ben. And I’m Giacomo.
This is episode 212. All right, Giacomo. Yeah.
We’re going to be talking about the psychology of snacking, which is an exciting episode. But before we get into that, I would love to know what is new with you. I know you were recently on a little ski trip up north.
And other than that, I’d be curious to know what’s been going on since the last time we talked when you were at Run Disney in Florida.
[Giacomo:]
I want to catch up with you too. I went snowboarding, not skiing. Big difference.
[Ben:]
It is a big difference.
[Giacomo:]
Yes. And I always get afraid I’m going to hurt myself and then take myself out of the game if I do something stupid. I’m like, but I got to get to my next workout.
Or I feel guilty because I want to be training. But I’m like, this is stupid. I’m constantly training.
I’m not going to, right? But I went out there with some of my buddies. And I filled up my social cup.
And I had a lot of fun. And I had a blast. I was in Jay, Vermont.
Big mountain. It’s where you get the heaviest snowfall in the Northeast. It was so cold.
It was like, at the top of the mountain, I want to say it was probably, I would think upwards of like negative 20, negative 30 with the windchill.
[Ben:]
Really?
[Giacomo:]
Yeah. So I came back home and I felt like there were palm trees out here, even though it was still in the teens. I was like, this is it.
And then I was quickly reminded of the fact that it is in the teens and it’s kind of cold out here.
[Ben:]
I was having a conversation with a client of mine the other day. And she was talking about how it gets to a certain level of cold. And it’s just really freaking cold.
And if you go between different levels, you can kind of tell like going from, like you said, the teens to the negatives, like you can tell that difference. But then it’s just like you adapt to it. And at a certain point, you’re just like cold is freaking cold.
And it doesn’t matter how cold it is. It’s just how cold is it? It’s really cold.
[Giacomo:]
I want to literally put a whole bunch of batteries on my body that just make all of my clothing warm and just be cloaked up in like a nice warm cocoon of warmth. That’s how I feel like the winter. I have my I got this thing over here that heats up on my desk.
I wear long johns. I got my forget it. I do not like being cold.
And especially as a bodybuilder, you know, we’re leaner, we’re more muscular. So more of our weight is muscle than the average person. And we tend to be in the leaner side, especially during certain periods of time.
And it’s like, it’s just hard to stay warm. You know, lean people problems, I guess, fitness people problems. But how about you?
What have you been up to?
[Ben:]
Been doing much of the same, I would say I have been spending a lot of time with family, with friends trying to take advantage of social opportunities. And kind of in an interesting spot with my own fitness right now, it kind of feels like I’m not necessarily on maintenance mode. I think that’s maybe one of the reasons why it feels like that is because I’ve decided to put a little bit more of my energy pie, so to speak towards other areas.
And so it feels like because I’m not 100% all in on this one area that it’s less than what it has been in the past. But realistically, I know that’s not the case. That’s kind of what you were talking about when you’re like going to do social activities.
I’m training all the time. So of course, taking a little break from that is not doing anything in the grand scheme of things. So it’s just navigating this new pace of life and change of pace, I suppose.
And I have a trip coming up this coming Friday, where I’m going to go visit Sawyer, who’s another one of our vegan proteins family members. And I’ve known Sawyer for three years now coming up on three years of knowing him. So I’m really looking forward to spending some time out there in warm San Diego and Arizona.
I’ll be there for a week getting out of the cold.
[Giacomo:]
Bring that warmth back here. I think the year is starting off to be a pretty interesting one. Also with the travel that we have and things in the vegan fitness world that continue to evolve that we get to be part of, which is a lot of fun.
I love seeing all of the success and the goals that are the successes that our clients have achieved and the goals that they’re going for with with our whole team, it’s and the community. I mean, all of it. It’s a lot of fun.
It’s been a lot of fun seeing the changes this past year and thinking about the meetup that we’ll be having soon as well. It’s in, I can’t keep track of things, but I think it’s in June that we’re meeting up together, is it? Yes.
[Ben:]
We’ll meet in June in Vermont. So that’ll be a really good bonding opportunity for the whole community, I think.
[Giacomo:]
So if you’re out there and you’re listening to this and you want to come hang with us and it’ll be just us, that’s the way to do it. It’ll be in June and we’ll give you more details on that soon. But that’s not what we’re talking about today.
What what are we talking about, Ben?
[Ben:]
Snacking. And specifically, we’re talking about the psychology behind snacking. And I’m sure we’ll weave in some practical information about how people can maybe modify their snacking behaviors if they are going to snack, maybe some more, quote, unquote, productive ways to do that or ways that are more in alignment with their fitness goals.
But I think that focusing on really the mental side of it is undervalued. Just generally, I think with fitness, a lot of what we do as coaches is digging deep underneath the behaviors and the habits to figure out what is the thought that is leading to those behaviors, because action is preceded by thought. We don’t take any action, really, without first thinking about what we want to do and then doing it.
So when we find that we’re doing certain behaviors or doing certain actions that are out of alignment, we have to kind of really take a couple steps back to continue on forward and say, oh, you know, why am I actually snacking here? This is a conversation I have with clients really frequently where if I find that somebody is telling me maybe I am an emotional eater, you know, I eat in response to stress or I eat when I’m bored. A lot of it is kind of picking up on some of these tendencies and behaviors and bringing awareness to them and seeing if we can modify them.
So there’s so many different places we could go with this. I think the first thing that I would like to know from you is when you think about somebody who says, you know, I feel like I’m doing a lot of the things right with fitness and with my nutrition, but snacking is kind of an Achilles heel for me or somewhere where I really struggle. Where do you start with that conversation with somebody?
[Giacomo:]
Well, the first thing I do is I don’t discourage them from snacking because otherwise you just sit in a place where you try to restrict and you’re going to snack anyway and then you feel like crap about snacking. You’re going to wind up probably snacking even more. So the first thing I do is think about how I could work in healthy snacks and encourage that right during a certain time.
Honestly, Ben, I like to give my client a couple of small snacks because the idea of having three squares doesn’t work for most people. It just doesn’t. Some people it does, but most people it doesn’t.
I’ve seen the outliers that it does work for. So they’re going to toe the line between snacking and grazing, right? So my first strategy, a simple tip is rather than when they’re going to toe the line between snacking and grazing in between meals, why don’t we just leave a little wiggle room for some error?
In other words, ideally, you would have one or two solid structured snacks in a day. But what happens if that’s not the case and you’re stressed or you’re tired or you’re bored or whatever? If you have a couple of snacks, ideally, I think you’re more likely, at least that’s my strategy.
You’re more likely to think about what you’re doing and also to scratch that itch of wanting to continue to eat and continue to snack. So I think that’s the very first thing I do is just I stick to the basics. I encourage them to snack.
I set up something in between the three squares. I choose healthy snacks. I show them the more healthy to least healthy snacks, but tell them they could do whatever.
I literally plug them in. Healthier snacks first, less nutrient dense, hyperpalatable stuff last. And it just kind of speaks for itself when they see their prescriptive meal plan.
And then they have the opportunity for a couple of snacks. So I think that’s my number one strategy on paper. But obviously, there’s a much bigger conversation here.
So while we segue into the bigger conversation, why don’t you tell me what you do in terms of mindset and behavior change and recognizing people’s patterns? Any one of the above.
[Ben:]
Before I get into that, can I ask you a couple of follow up questions on what you just talked about? What, for you, are some characteristics or traits? I know you mentioned at the end there hyperpalability.
What a word that is. Hyperpalatability and nutrient density. What are some qualities or characteristics that you would define for healthy snacking?
And how do you kind of come up with this tiered system for people? Do you have snacks that are more focused on satiety and then some snacks that are more focused on protein? Because I noticed, at least for instance, for me and when I’m writing plans for clients, sometimes it is like a picking and choosing with snacks because you don’t have the calories for something.
Snack is usually going to be something that’s lower calorie in that one eating instance compared to a square meal like you mentioned. And sometimes some of the more protein-centered snacks, like protein bars or protein chips or whatever it is, the macros on paper are pretty good. But they might not be the most filling thing in the world.
Whereas you look at your fruits and your vegetables, they’re more carb-heavy and carb-centric, but they tend to be more filling. So there’s kind of this trade-off between, you know, do I get protein at these snacks or do I focus more on kind of like the calorie density there? So do you kind of break that down and differentiate that when you talk about snacking with clients and how do you kind of work out that system?
[Giacomo:]
Well, I like to lean in on the three squares to get a nice amount of protein. And then I also focus on protein for pre-workout, which tends to be the time where people rely on protein powder because it’s convenient. So I don’t focus hard on protein when it comes to snacks.
But that being said, if there is a snack that is enjoyable and satiating, but not the most nutrient-dense thing, but is somewhat hyper-palatable, like a protein bar, for example, or a protein snack like chips or whatever, I will lead with that because I want to encourage good behavior. I want to encourage something that’s higher in protein and lead with that. But I don’t lead with plugging in snacks that are high in protein per se for the average person.
If we’re talking about someone that’s in the middle of a cut or dare I say in the middle of a competition prep, then it’s all about protein. So it matters who you’re working with client-wise. And then I do like to favor, like you said, the nutrient-dense fruits and maybe encourage some vegetables with something else like hummus, for example, or peanut butter or whatever with their fruit, like throwing something in there.
But also, I’m not afraid to plug in things that are just like totally snacky like pretzels or popcorn or whatever. Because when you have someone who is focused on a whole food plant-based diet and eating nutrient-dense and eating healthfully and they’re doing that for the three squares, while in theory, eating nutrient-dense food is going to be satiating and satisfying, it may not scratch an itch and they may get tired and bored of it. I know I do.
And I’m like, I have a grapefruit and an apple sitting on top of my microwave. I know that I should eat that apple and I know that I do want to have that grapefruit that’s quartered over there, but I might not be in the mood for it. And I might go downstairs and grab a bag of popcorn or I might go somewhere else and have a protein bar.
I’m going to try to eat the fruit. I’m going to favor it, but I’m also not going to restrict from the idea of having other kinds of snacks. So what I’ll do is I’ll program in swaps for my clients where if you’re not in the mood for this, not feeling this, you can do these options and they’re just as good.
That’s usually the way I program when I meal plan out for a client.
[Ben:]
I really like that a lot. And you mentioned earlier kind of having a structure, but then allowing for some flexibility. I’m a big fan of that.
I think there are ways to do that even within like meal structures. Like you can say, okay, let’s say you have somebody who, just to throw out a random example, they’re eating 2000 calories a day. And let’s say they have three square meals and maybe you program for them, hey, at each of those meals, and let’s say for simplicity, they were trying to get 120 grams of protein of the day.
So you might say at those three meals, I’d like you to try to aim for a macro composition of 500 calories and 40 grams of protein. And if they’re able to roughly get in that ballpark at those three meals, then that gives them a 500 calorie buffer for the rest of their calories for that day to be spent discretionarily, however they want. So you could maybe program in some snacks and you can say, hey, you have this little buffer, this little room for flexibility.
And because you focus on getting your protein and your veggies in at those three square meals, then you can choose to use those 500 calories however you want. Maybe you have something offered to you in the workplace, whereas previously you would have said no, but you’re able to incorporate that or work that in. Or maybe you just choose to have two small snacks programmed in between those three square meals and you have some options, but you’re able to choose between those options.
And I think it’s nice to feel like you have a structure, but you have the autonomy to be able to choose between those things. And I think that’s big. Like you mentioned, that feeling of restriction often is what leads us to deviating from what we want to do because we feel like I don’t have control over this thing or I have to force myself to do a certain thing.
And that’s almost the opposite of autonomy. Autonomy is feeling like you have the ability to do what you want to do. And when you take away that autonomy, even if not, obviously we could do whatever we want to do.
It’s not like there’s somebody who’s going to arrest us if we have a snack, but it’s almost that self-imposed lack of autonomy. I think that mindset can lead to people feeling like, oh, I can’t stick to this because I have to eat this certain way all the time and I can’t deviate from it at all. So I really like having some structure, but then having flexibility within that structure.
So I think that from an adherence standpoint, that’s something that’s really valuable for snacking in particular, is people feeling like they can still incorporate whatever it is that they want to incorporate, should they be nailing those other variables. And just giving people the ease of mind to know that I think is big. And I’ve seen it where I have some clients who maybe they’re like, oh, well, I followed my meal plan or I followed my macros 80, 90%, but then I snacked a bunch at the end of the night and I didn’t track it.
And I have some people who maybe are more of the type A personality and they’ll get really down on themselves and beat themselves up for that. But then interestingly, I’ll have them track it and they realize, oh, I only went 100 calories over my macro targets. And I’m like, just the fact that you track that means that now you can put into context, I didn’t blow it out of the water.
And maybe if they weren’t tracking that, or if they weren’t paying attention to that, they would have psychologically felt like they screwed themselves over and then they go off the rails and they give up completely. Because these kind of people sometimes have that black or white, all or nothing mentality. And so I think by just drawing awareness to those habits and saying, you can incorporate some of those foods that you want to incorporate, just account for them.
And if you account for them, you’re good. I think that’s one of the really nice parts about the flexible dieting approach for most folks is that it kind of allows you that freedom of mind of knowing, hey, I can incorporate these things. There’s nothing that’s quote unquote off limits and I can make it work.
[Giacomo:]
Yeah, absolutely. And this is where recognizing that flexible dieting can be a tool that will prevent you from messing things up and getting in your own way. This is where it becomes really, really valuable to lean into it because it will teach you how to make better choices, how to change your patterns and how to recognize what you’re doing, basically.
But it’s not enough. It is a good structure. It’s a good foundation.
Like anything else, though, it has its limits. Every system has its limits, right? Because at the end of the day, you are a person who needs to follow your systems and free will and being human.
You’re going to reach points in time where you’re just going to, no matter how hard it is to not follow your systems and no matter how much it makes sense to follow your systems, flexible dieting, you’re going to find ways to not do that, whether you like it or not. And I think that’s where we can get deeper into the psychology of snacking as far as why you snack and where that came from. And because otherwise it could be easy to blame yourself.
Look, I have this flexible dieting thing. It just makes sense. Like, just do it.
Yes, but it doesn’t take you into account. And like anything else, like sometimes just get now I look at all my tasks for the day and often my tasks will keep me on task because I have a task manager. But there are times where I just want to not look at that task manager, not do my tasks because I don’t feel like it.
Right. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to. My point is there’s a there’s a time sometimes I also feel like it’s helpful to understand what your stressors are and understand how your emotions affect you because they’re going to affect how you eat, your hunger is.
And because fitness is a way of life for you, if you listen to this podcast, I assume fitness is a way of life for you or you want it to be right. And because you are that person, you’re going to have to change your relationship with hunger. Right.
And when you change your relationship with hunger, you’re going to have to adapt to the fact that your hunger levels will feel different than they used to because you want to change your body composition. So that’s something in of itself. But there’s the outlier that has nothing to do with fitness, you, your emotions and your stresses and how you choose to manage your stress and how you choose to navigate your emotions and how that affects how you eat.
And I think snacking is is a real important area to pick on here when it comes to how you eat throughout the day, because many people, some people it and it’s it’s out of context here, but some people do. In fact, they wind up overeating on dinner. They take seconds.
But snacking is one of those things where it can just bleed out into the whole day. Right. So what have you found in your experience, Ben, when it comes to how people react to their emotions and how people act on their stresses when it comes to snacking?
What kind of things have you seen and how do you help your clients with that?
[Ben:]
I think before I get into the psychology, I’ll kind of do like a checklist with them just to make sure they’re kind of nailing the big things. So, for instance, if I get somebody who’s like chronically like they skip breakfast or they eat like a really light lunch, these are the folks that I tend to find have a really difficult time with moderating the snacking. And I think oftentimes, you know, those hunger signals that like you mentioned are kind of on heightened alert because they’ve eaten light for those square minutes.
They skip breakfast and they eat a really light lunch. And so as the day goes on, usually stress tends to accumulate. And then when stress tends to accumulate, you combine that with a heightened sense of hunger.
And I think that’s how you get into the snacking situations or snacking decisions. And people just learn to rely on food as kind of this coping mechanism for dealing with what they’re dealing with, because, you know, food is something that brings us pleasure and enjoyment. And so when you substitute that for a way of coping with the stress or you use that as a way of coping with the stress, it’s very easy to develop this dependency or just this habit or this tendency to use food as a mechanism to deal with uncomfortable emotions.
And so once I get kind of the solid things into place, like, okay, are we eating our square meals? We’re getting our fruits, our vegetables, our fiber, our protein, we’re doing all the kind of the, you know, the main stuff, right? Then, and it doesn’t have to be a checklist.
Like, of course, somebody can work on this and also work on the psychology at the same time, like they don’t have to, you know, be like, okay, we have to nail down every single X and O on paper before we can dig into the psychology. It’s a joint thing that happens at the same time. But assuming like we try to work on all those things and they’re still finding that, hey, I’m, you know, I feel like I’m doing all the right things, but I’m still just turning to food during those moments where I’m stressed out.
I think one thing that is, I found to be very beneficial is journaling or just taking what I like to call creating the pause. And creating the pause is really about before you put something in your mouth, like asking yourself a couple of questions and just taking that moment to reflect. And I think writing it down can be really powerful because there’s just something really strong about getting the thought out of your head onto paper.
It’s like, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this, but if you’re trying to fall asleep at night and just there’s a million thoughts swirling around in your head. One tip that I got, it was, I think it was a speaker that came to my high school, like so many years ago, they said, just take out, you know, keep a pen and a paper by your bed. At this point, we have our phones.
And so sometimes that’s the easier thing to do. Whatever creates less resistance for you, I suppose, just get out all those thoughts on paper. You know that you won’t forget them and just kind of having them externalized, I think is really helpful.
So similarly, when you maybe have an instance where you’re feeling really stressed out, you know, you’re about to go turn to food. I have usually people ask themselves a couple of questions. What emotions am I feeling right now?
How am I feeling right now? Kind of in my body? Am I stressed?
Am I sad? Am I upset? Am I angry?
Am I really happy? Whatever it is, what’s my emotional state? What am I about to eat?
How will that make me feel afterwards? And how will I feel about having eaten that after the fact? And so kind of projecting forward what your future self is going to feel like, I think helps us to control the moment.
Because in the moment, we’re only thinking about how do I feel now and not necessarily how I feel later about that thing. And so kind of reminding yourself of your why and your goals can be something that’s powerful here. You can recognize that, yes, I’m feeling really sad or I’m feeling really stressed out right now.
And I’m about to reach for, let’s just say, you know, the bag of chips. And I know that after I reach for this bag of chips and I eat that, I might feel disappointed in myself because I know that I’m making a choice that is not congruent with my goals. And so by kind of projecting that out, you give yourself a second to really pause and reflect and think about maybe incorporate some deep breathing here and just, OK, are there other ways that I can kind of regulate the way that I’m feeling right now that don’t involve food?
So coming up with non-eating related activities that help to manage the stress, just doing something that you enjoy, taking the dog out for a walk. Sometimes I’ll just say, like, go outside for five or 10 minutes, go on a walk and then come back. Usually that’s enough time to create the pause and the separation from you in that eating environment and just give your rational brain some time to really think about if that’s what you want to be doing.
And usually I find that that works pretty well. And then it could be something like calling a friend or a family member, a loved one. It could be reading a book.
It could be going out and getting yourself a new outfit that makes you feel really good. Just something that you can do that does not involve food, that makes you feel good about yourself, that’s a form of self-care. And there’s so many different things that you could do.
And I think making a list of these can be really helpful. You can just literally, like, look at my list, say, which one of these would make me feel good right now and do that. And if you give it some time, let’s say you give it five, 10, 15 minutes and you decide, no, you know, actually, I am actually hungry right now.
Like, it’s not just the stress and it’s not just the emotions, then at least you know that you’ve given yourself time to make kind of a rational decision. And you can more think about more clearly what food choice would best serve me right now. And maybe you decide that for this time, you know, I have maybe it’s the end of the night.
I have 500 calories available. I’m going to just eat that food for enjoyment. And that’s, you know, that’s okay.
Or maybe you decide, actually, you know what, like, I only have 200 calories to work with. I’m a little bit short of my protein. I’m going to have a protein bar and just call it a night.
And, you know, I’m going to be happy with that decision. So I think it just comes down to giving yourself pause in that moment and just giving yourself the space to reflect and think about before you act, is this what I really want to be doing? And is there something that I can do instead that is going to make me feel better?
Not only right now, but in the long term, when I reflect on that decision.
[Giacomo:]
Yeah, well said the stuff in the moment is powerful. Finding non-exercise related activities is incredibly helpful. Finding the snack that’s going to satisfy you the most when you’re going to eat is good.
Giving yourself permission to have a little more than maybe you would at the end of the night for a night and not wallowing guilt is a good idea. Being a little more liberal with your choices instead of having what’s set there for you. Being aware and being in the moment.
However, also, like you said, journaling, putting it down somewhere because you’re going to forget, you’re going to forget. However, if you keep a food journal, and I don’t mean tracking macros and tracking foods that you ate, I mean an actual food journal that tells you why you ate the way that you ate and why you were in the mood to eat and when. If you start keeping that kind of track of what you’re doing, as far as how you’re eating, you’re going to become much more aware of what you’re doing.
For those type A-ers, they’ll either not want to do it because they’ll be like, oh crap, I’m not doing what I should be doing. Or they’ll look at it and they’ll be like, oh my gosh, I have to do all this now. But if you just not judge what you’re writing down and you keep a journal, you’re more likely to look at it and then eventually recognize these kinds of moments that you’re having.
I love where you’re coming from, Ben, and ideally, you’ll be able to react properly in the moment, but sometimes it’s not possible. To be aware after the fact by not just reflecting, but also having concrete information to go off of, having that journal to look back on, now you can start to learn a little more about yourself. I think that really helps people change what they do as well.
And yeah, I think that’s a powerful one too. Common things that I see, so middle of the day is when you’re fighting the day or fighting your hunger or whatever it is, or just not used to it. You could be maybe not wanting to do what you’re doing.
You could be maybe dealing with whatever hardships or challenges you face at the end of day. What I see with clients is the day’s over. They need to decompress.
They’re tired, they’re fatigued, they’re exhausted, or they’re thinking about what they didn’t do during the day that they want to do, whether it’s responsibility, whether it’s having fun, whatever it is. I feel like those are two very, very common times of the day. It’s midday and it’s end of day.
Yes? I mean, do you see clients snacking in the morning?
[Ben:]
I don’t know.
[Giacomo:]
It’s pretty rare, right?
[Ben:]
No one wakes up and is like, I’m going to eat 2,000 calories at my first meal. It’s pretty rare because in a certain sense, when you wake up, it’s like a blank slate. It’s the sign that today is another day for me to forget about what happened yesterday and just go and move on.
And as the day goes on, we kind of forget about those convictions or those things that we wanted to do. And maybe we have a good start to our day. But as things happen throughout the day, maybe that creates a stacking effect of emotions and feelings.
And those feelings then influence our behaviors. And you can see how there’s a knock-on effect there. So I would agree.
I think usually most of the time, it’s if somebody has kind of this snowballing effect of things that happen throughout the day. And then they get to the end of the day and they’re like, I just want to eat my feelings and forget about everything that’s happened today. Or just use food as a way to relax and unwind.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think it’s just kind of bringing awareness to what you said. Like, hey, let me notice these patterns.
Let me see if there’s any kind of strategies that I can implement that helps me still be able to work towards my goals and use this behavior or tendency more productively. There’s definitely ways that you can enjoy snacking and still have it fit with your goals. And it’s just, like you said, continuing to learn.
And if you have moments where after the fact you reflect and you’re not happy with what happened, that’s OK. Like, that happens to all of us. And I think the main thing, like you said, is just starting to kind of recognize or pick up on those patterns.
And then you get better. It’s a skill that you practice of picking them kind of before they happen or pausing in that moment. Like, I had a client who did this, and they recognized over time that, OK, I noticed that when I tend to snack, it’s in the evenings because that is the time that I’m unwinding and my daughter is with me.
And we’re watching this TV show, and I’m watching the TV show that she wants to watch. But I realize it’s creating this little bit of, like, not resentment, but it’s creating this feeling of, like, I really want this to be me time. And I’m here watching the show that my daughter wants to watch.
And this should be my me time. And so using food to kind of distract herself from that. And she brought awareness to that.
And she’s like, you know what? There’s no reason I can’t be, like, reading a book that I enjoy on the couch while we’re still sitting and having that family time together. And that was a big kind of realization for her.
And it’s through the intention and through the reflection that you come to those realizations and find a way to work, you know, to continue to move forward. Something that you mentioned earlier, which I thought was really interesting, was hunger. And the psychology of hunger.
And I think this does tie into snacking. And the ability to sit with hunger and kind of have it be more of a normal emotion. And this is something that I still struggle with to this day, is just, like, being okay with being hungry and accepting it, that it’s going to happen at certain times.
And it’s a normal human emotion, you know, feeling, physiological feeling. And there are times that I might choose to act on that. And there are also times that I might choose not to act on that.
And that’s okay. And for a while, I think hunger was kind of like this, like, danger emotion for me, like this fight or flight. Like, ooh, that’s not good.
I don’t want to feel that. So my immediate response to it is going to be to do something about it as opposed to just sitting with it and kind of understanding it. And understanding that it ebbs and flows, too.
One thing that I realized is that when I’m in a, you know, I had this perception that, okay, I’m in, like, a building phase or a gaining phase. And that means that I shouldn’t be hungry at all. And I realized that that’s just not the case.
Like, in reality, there’s not a huge difference between being in a deficit and being in a surplus. Usually, it’s kind of this, like, range of calorie intake. And it’s okay and normal to feel hungry on a build at points.
And just kind of, like, understanding that, you know, calorie balance isn’t the only thing that dictates hunger. Our circumstances, our environment dictates hunger. Like, you walk by a restaurant and they have some smells coming out of the restaurant.
You might instantly be hungry, whereas you weren’t before. Or maybe you see an advertisement for something on TV and that makes you hungry. So, hunger is this really complex thing.
And it’s not always a sign or a signal that we need to immediately act on. And I think that is something that I try to cultivate with the folks I work on. And with myself as well.
It’s just, like, understanding it’s okay to be a little bit hungry at points. I can sit with that. And I can recognize it and just sometimes say, like, hunger actually can be a good thing.
When I was doing my contest prep, I would tell myself that, like, it’s good to be hungry because I’m losing more body fat. Like, I would trick myself into, like, reframing it as a good thing. Like, hey, the plan is working because I’m feeling hungry.
Now, if it gets to an extreme point where it’s, like, unbearable, then, okay, maybe we start talking about practical strategies to kind of dampen that down. But at a certain point, you do the best that you can with those strategies. And then it just comes down to the psychology of, like, at certain points, you’re going to be a little bit hungry, and that’s okay.
And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
[Giacomo:]
Yeah. The thing that I’ve been journaling on recently that I found very interesting is the kinds of triggers when it comes to wanting to gain more muscle, wanting to be more fit, as opposed to the environmental triggers that lead you to want to eat more than you want to, more than you arguably should, because you’re winding up, and you’re getting to a place where you’re either bulk eating, binging, over snacking, whatever it is, and you’re like, well, how did I get here? Right? Let’s see.
So these are pretty interesting ones. And stuff that I don’t, I got the thoughts in my head. I’m like, wow, okay, well, these make sense.
When you, let’s see, when you are afraid that you’re not bulking hard enough, believe it or not. So you eat more, because you’re like, I have to eat more. I’m not in the calorie surplus.
I won’t bulk enough. I’m not bulking hard enough. But then you get back, and you start to think to yourself, wait a minute.
Logically, I know I’m eating more than I should, and I don’t have to be bulking this much. Why am I doing this to myself? But it’s like one of those things, it’s directly related to your goals, directly related to fitness, and you wind up eating more than you should, and snacking more than you should, because you’re literally afraid that you’re not going to have enough energy to train hard, or you’re not going to have enough of the calorie surplus to put on muscle.
These are things that, do you think about this stuff?
[Ben:]
Yeah, I’ve definitely had these thoughts before, where you kind of convince yourself, or you give yourself this licensing to eat more, because you could justify it so many ways. Oh, I’m going to have a better training session. I need to, you know, I’ve had times where it’s like, maybe I’m 10 or 20 grams short of my protein intake for the day, so that I eat something.
I could just have a protein shake or a protein bar, but of course, it’s like, no, I’m going to eat this big thing that has 20 grams of protein, but it also has a ton of carbs and fats with it. So you just find these ways to kind of convince yourself that it’s okay to eat more. And then also, like you said, sometimes there can be this fear of missing out on making gains or making progress, and you try to, I think most of the time it’s like this, not scarcity mindset, it’s this, like there’s a timer on things, and you have to grow that muscle as quickly as possible.
So if I eat more, then I can grow that muscle quicker, but that’s just not how it works. Like muscle building has a finite timeline. And so most of the time I’ve tried to really steer myself away from focusing on nutrition as what is going to drive my progress, and just trying to think rationally about how are things going in the gym.
If things are going well in the gym, you don’t need to be eating any more than you’re currently eating, because that’s really what’s going to drive the progress. And I think viewing nutrition and food as a calorie surplus, as a way to, like a lever that you can pull. But if your training’s going great, you probably don’t need to use nutrition to necessarily be eating more.
And so I think that’s something that’s kind of helped me reframe or refocus that. But I definitely see that. I think I see probably more with males.
I think males have this, like, I need to get big, I need to bulk up as quickly as possible. Whereas the women that I work with have generally been a little bit more conservative with that, sometimes even so far on the other side of the spectrum, where you really have to kind of like encourage them to just eat up maintenance or be in a small surplus. But if you can kind of stick to that over a period of time, usually people see the rewards of that.
So I think, yeah, it can go both ways, but I’ve definitely seen that.
[Giacomo:]
Yeah, fatigue also is another one. If you’ve had a really hard training session or you’re tired from whatever it is that you’re doing, if you’re super active, I find that clients have a hard time sorting that out as well. I’ve noticed that in myself too, right?
Like, let’s say I got tons of energy, I’m super active outside of the gym, and now I’m super fatigued, which in and of itself feels bad. Then I also am like, am I eating enough? Am I going to eat enough?
Again, to your point, the same thing with the, you wind up eating more than you need to. And we think of things, we don’t think of like how much food we’ve eaten over time or how we’ve eaten over time and we get stuck in the moment. What about on the opposite end when people are dieting down or they’re cutting or they’re looking to lose body fat or what have you, what kind of things do you see people, do you have any sort of trends that you see happen when people are, when your clients or yourself or in general, when you’re dieting down that you struggle with, when you see them struggle with when it comes to snacking?
[Ben:]
I think boredom is a big one. I think in general, when people are bored, sometimes food becomes something that can fill that boredom. Of course, it could apply to somebody who’s at maintenance or a surplus too.
Especially when you’re dieting, when you’re in a deficit, being busy can be so helpful. I noticed that in my prep when I was working. Because I was working at the gym, I would be going around, picking up equipment, talking to people on the phone, greeting patrons as they came in, cleaning.
I just had stuff to keep me busy all the time. Even if I was hungry, I didn’t have time to think about the fact that I was hungry or decide what I was going to eat because I had to do stuff. So it’s this balance between it.
Because if you’re so busy that you’re always stressed out and you can’t make time to actually eat and sit down for a meal and be mindful with that meal, then that also can not be a great thing. But I think staying busy enough to the fact where you don’t have so much time to let your mind wander and fantasize about food like, oh, I could have this or I could have that. Usually, I find that when people are dieting and if they aren’t super busy, they just tend to think about food more.
So I think finding ways to fill your time with things to do that don’t involve food or thinking about food can be really helpful. And then outside of that, in terms of snacking for people who are dieting, I think usually I just try to get them to rely on those square meals a little bit more. Because I have found for folks who are dieting, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all case, but those who tend to eat smaller, more frequent meals, it’s almost like they never are able to get to that fullness point where they’re always a little bit hungry and always a little bit thinking about food, and that’s really hard mentally.
So I think usually for people who are in a fat loss phase, I find that four meals is a really solid sweet spot for most people. Yes, some people maybe three is fine or five is fine, and they like that. Again, context-dependent.
But I think four is a really nice number where maybe it’s four meals and a snack or three meals and a snack or three meals and two snacks. But really focusing on getting them eating those solid square meals so they can get some satiety signals from those meals, and then maybe they can fill in the gaps with a snack or two here or there if they have a long period of time where they’re not going to be eating. Let’s say you eat lunch at noon and you’re not eating dinner again until six.
Having maybe a snack in there at three, maybe that’s their pre-workout meal, and it’s just something light like a piece of fruit and a protein shake or something like that. Just having a little something to break it up there can be beneficial. But I would say those are some of the trends that I noticed with my folks who are trying to lose some body fat.
[Giacomo:]
I think boredom is a real thing, and I feel like it’s probably one of the biggest triggers. Boredom and then exhaustion, those two in general. And when they’re together, oh boy, oh boy, that’s bad.
I know that’s probably the thing that hits me the hardest is when I’m bored because I’m too tired to do whatever I need to do because I’ve been so busy. It’s like, what do I even do with myself right now? I know nothing good is going to come out of it because I got energy to do nothing.
And I want to fill that gap, fill that void, mask what I’m feeling by just eating whatever. And it’s 9.9 times out of 10 does not go well. That’s probably my biggest challenge, I think, when it comes to something that is, well, of course, being hungry on top of it isn’t helpful either.
So I guess that would be the trifecta. Bored, but because you’re unable to do something because you’re exhausted and you’re too busy, and then on top of it all, you’re hungry. It’s like the perfect storm.
You have an answer for that one.
[Ben:]
It probably just goes back to what we were talking about earlier is trying to do the best that you can to bring mindfulness into the equation and really pause for a second before you wander into the kitchen and think about what you want to do before you go into it. So I think the first place to start is always try to implement those practical things that we can do on the nutrition side, nutritional strategies that help with satiety and hunger. And then once we get past that, or while we’re working on that, also working on kind of the psychology behind why we do certain things.
[Giacomo:]
And it takes time to make changes. I think so, too, actually. Is there any parting thoughts that you want to share with our audience before we wrap this one up?
[Ben:]
No, I was just going to say, I feel like we’ve covered it pretty comprehensively, both on what you can implement to try to work your meal structure around to make snacking fit more for you. And then also, once you’ve gotten to that point, how to really think about snacking and how it can be beneficial towards you. And if you’re noticing that it’s not, just bringing awareness to those patterns and behaviors and trying your best to learn from those moments when they do happen, because they will happen to everyone.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Vegan Protein’s Muscles by Brussels radio. If you are working towards your own health and fitness goals and you’d like somebody to guide you on this journey, let’s say maybe you’re having difficulty with snacking, you don’t really know where to go or where to turn, you have to listen to this episode. We work with clients here at Vegan Protein who have those same issues.
It’s often what inspires what we talk about on these podcasts is conversations that we have with our clients and topics that they’d like to see us discuss. So if you’d like to be a part of the community, if you’d like to work with any of the coaches here at Vegan Protein, we have coaching spots available. So you can head over to our website, veganproteins.com and click the contact button, fill out an application and we will get back to you ASAP. If you would like to find us on social media or on YouTube or on all the major podcast platforms, you can find us on Instagram at Vegan Protein’s at Muscles by Brussels. And I can be found at Ben A. Mitchell.
And without further ado, thank you for listening to another episode. I’m Ben. And I’m Giacomo.
And we’ll see you in the next one. Bye everyone.
