Somewhere along the way you fell victim to a “trigger.”

You stepped onto your bathroom scale and did a double-take when you saw the numbers had moved up. After all, you thought you were doing everything right! You made changes in your lifestyle, right-sized your eating, started exercising regularly, and even asked for help from your support system when you needed it. Yet, you gained weight, and you have no idea why. Here’s one possibility: Somewhere along the way you fell victim to a “trigger.”

At Vital Body, we understand that triggers can derail progress toward your weight loss and healthy eating goals. That’s why our Protocol works to balance macronutrients to help your body feel satisfied, with the goal of reducing the chance that you’ll be “triggered” in the first place. But let’s take a look at triggers, and what you can do to cope with them.

What is a trigger?

A trigger is any kind of stimulus that we can have a reaction to. It can be sights, smells, sounds, locations, stressful situations, even people that break down our resistance and cause us to eat things that sabotage our weight loss efforts.

It shouldn’t surprise us that we’re feeling triggered right now. After all, we’re facing one of the most stressful situations of our lives as we continue to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and all the personal and societal upheaval it’s causing. Maybe we’re working at home where food is within easy reach at all times, or we’re tired of cooking for ourselves and are tempted to order take-out or delivery.

How do you spot a trigger?

Because triggers are specific for each individual, they can be difficult to recognize, but here are some examples of things that can trigger someone into overeating and gaining weight.

• Our surroundings – The enticing smell of cookies can lure us into a bakery, or even into our own kitchen if a family member is baking, and, usually, when we walk out, those cookies leave with us.
• Vacation – often times our mental state changes significantly when we go on vacation. It is important to relax but to not also ditch all your habits. It can be difficult to get back on track.
• Distracted eating – Sometimes we’re triggered simply because we’re not paying attention to what we’re eating. For example, we check emails while snacking on some crackers. When we’re finished, so are the crackers.
• Family Gatherings – holidays, birthdays and special events can be triggers. We can feel on top of the world and yet one comment from your mom and you are eating all sorts of foods. Yes emotional eating is real! We all do it. Having a plan and thinking ahead before you encounter being blind sided is important. It’s why having a personal coach is so valuable. At Vital Body your coach will be thinking ahead with you, asking you questions and guiding you to success.

Think about what might trigger you—and read on to see how you can keep from falling victim.

What can you do to avoid falling victim to a trigger?

We are surrounded by opportunities to eat. Not only are they where you’d expect—like fast food restaurants—but also vending machines, gas station mini-marts with their displays of candy and coolers of soft drinks, or that box of donuts a family member brought home. As we begin to leave the shelter of our homes, we’ll once more be facing these kinds of triggers.

Arm yourself with both knowledge and support to combat these triggers. In addition, following the Ideal Protein Protocol will help you reset your metabolism and balance your blood sugar to help reduce the cravings a trigger may cause.

The most important thing is to become more aware of what causes our triggers and to change our behaviour so that we aren’t vulnerable to temptations. For those triggers that are unavoidable or particularly tempting, the key is to have a game plan in place to deal with them. For example, if the smell of baked goods are tempting you, enjoy an Ideal Protein sweet snack. You can also try techniques such as visualization (picturing yourself achieving your weight loss objective) and thought-stopping (thinking something positive, like how proud you were when you started losing weight) to help keep triggers at bay until the urge to overeat passes.

COACH TIP

I started coaching in 2011 and I must admit at first I thought like many others that it was a matter of will power and control and strength. I thought there was something wrong with me that I could not resist certain foods. Experience and amazing science and studies have shown us that it’s more about skill power than will power. That is good news!

However, bad habits do creep back in and all your hard work can be washed away in a matter of months. That is why having on going coaching is key and learning your early warning signs that are unique to you is critical. It’s not about being perfect forever, but rather, learning about yourself. If you can catch that your old habits are creeping back in that is great news. Then with your coach you can look at what is really going on. Weight loss is much more than just what to eat. Having a solid nourishing base, knowing clearly what you can eat to maintain (unique macro code) and building a foundation of self care (sleep, meal prep, meditation, movement to name a few) is what is going to give you real vitality.

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Working with an expert coach for guidance on challenges as they come up is the heart of our program. The protocol uses food as medicine to empower you to lose weight and live at your best and healthiest for the rest of your life. In addition to individually-tailored support from your coach, you’ll gain access to a wide variety of delicious Ideal Protein food and an extensive list of all the other fresh, lean, healthy meals and snacks you need to reset your metabolism, health, and life.