Are you like me and snack all. the. time when you’re at school?

Coach Chris McMahon joins me to talk through the real reasons why we snack. We dive into emotional eating (hint: it’s almost always emotional eating), the three forms of self-care, and more than a few actually actionable tips to help you curb the habit (if that’s something you want to do)!

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Show Notes

You can find Chris on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and through his own website (with links to his amazing blog and podcast).

Transcript

Emily: Hello everybody. Welcome to yet another episode of Staffroom Stories. Today is a topic that is very close to my heart. I don’t know about you, but I tend to have a bit of a problem when I’m at school where I just continually snack. And it doesn’t seem to be impacted by what I eat for lunch or, how healthy or unhealthy I’m being that day.

But I tend to snack and for me, it’s starting to become a bit of a problem. It’s, it’s a habit that I want to try and break. So I’ve asked chris McMahon to come back onto the show. OG listeners might remember him from last year. He came on to talk about the impact of, toxic diet culture and men’s mental health.

Is that something that we don’t tend to think about particularly when we’re interacting with our male students, perhaps in the health units or the physical education side of things, and particularly when they’re teenagers, we, we don’t tend to think about the impact that diet culture actually has on our boys and young men.

So today, Chris is going to guide me through and all of you through the reasons behind why we snack and some actionable strategies for if you want to take a step back on your snacking habit and you want to maybe reign it in. this isn’t about diet culture. I really want to make that clear. this isn’t about morality of food either.

I don’t believe that there’s good or bad food. Every food has a purpose. But if snacking is something that you would like to not do as much of anymore, then this is a great episode for you and I hope you really enjoy. So let’s dive right in and welcome back Chris McMahon.

Welcome Chris. How are you? Welcome back. I should say

Chris: I, I am good. I am good. You know, my son’s finally down for bed, so I know in Australia it’s morning there, but here it’s in the evening. And this kid’s been skipping his naps lately, so

Emily: Oh, I feel you’re there. Yeah. Because then you miss that time during the day of just a bit of downtime, and then they also get cranky and they’re, it’s like so highly strung and then you are highly strung and it’s, yeah, it’s not a pleasant time

Chris: Oh, yeah, exactly. They, and then they have no idea why they’re so upset. Like they can’t, like, they know they’re upset, but they don’t know why they’re upset. They’re like, I don’t get it. It’s like,

Emily: and you’re like, I’m telling you, it’s because you didn’t sleep

Chris: Yeah. I was like, bud, you didn’t, you didn’t nap. And, you don’t really want to do anything right now, so it’s like you just got all this extra, you know,

Emily: Emotion

Chris: Yeah, exactly.

Emily: I guess that actually kind of does tie into the, the story from the staff room today, which is this universal, I’m gonna say problem, but it may not be a problem for some people, but where you would snack so much during the day that you would end up putting on a heap of weight during the term.

That has just sort of stuck with me through all the years, and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about consciously recently, is the fact that I personally do snack a lot when I’m at school. And I know a lot of my colleagues do as well. And of course it’s never, you know, you don’t, you don’t reach for a banana, you reach for a chocolate bar.

So I know for a lot of, a lot of teachers this can be a bit of a, a sore point. So I’m hoping that you can help guide us through today. Maybe some strategies, some ways to approach it that we can maybe shift away from the snacking habit, if that’s something that people want to.

Chris: Oh yeah. This is such a great topic, Emily, because I think it, I’ll give you an example. Right now, and then we’ll kind of go into it. But the more I work with people, the more I realize it’s usually snacking that’s the thing that trips people up, especially if they are like trying to manage their weight or lose weight because it, it’s usually mindless and they’re not aware of it.

And, and this, so I will give you this example. my son and I went grocery shopping today, and when I take my son grocery shopping, . All he wants is like to hold a piece of fruit. Whatever that piece of fruit is, that’s been like the secret. My wife never understands how I get him to be compliant when we go shopping.

It’s cause I give

Emily: a banana

Chris: fruit and he just wants to hold it. And he did want a banana today, but for some reason there was no bananas at their grocery store. There was no like fruit. Their, their, their whole trucking shipment like got misplaced basically. So my son was like having this meltdown cuz he wanted a banana.

And finally we got him a banana and he inhaled it in like five seconds and then we paid and we got to the car and then he was like, I want a snack. But before even going grocery shopping, he had had a cheese stick. He had an apple and now he had a banana. So he had a lot of things and he had protein in there too.

So he kept asking for a snack in the. and I was like, bud, I, I, you know what? I actually don’t think you’re hungry. Like, that’s what I said to him. And he, he was like, snack, snack, snack. And I looked at him and he had thrown all his books and he had, he had just literally not a toy in front of him. We had been driving in the car for a while and what he was, he was bored and, and he was asking for a snack because that’s something interesting to do.

So I gave him stickers, like I gave him a bunch of stickers and suddenly he stopped asking for a snack. He didn’t ask for anything, and then we got home and we ate lunch, and then he took a nap. Most adults are like my son. Pretty much everyone’s like them, where we confuse hunger verse boredom, verse being tired, verse being sad, or having some other emotion that’s coming up.

And that’s usually what gets to be hard. So the first layer that most people fall into is this category of like, not even being able to recognize they’re not actually hungry. Like, and that’s, that’s like a really big theme amongst parents because usually we’re running around like chicken with their head cut off.

And it’s like we have so much going on that when it’s like we get a moment to relax or unwind, it’s like, why not grab the snack. Why not finish my kids’ leftovers? I should definitely have this chocolate because I’m really stressed right now and like I deserve it. I just parented. One of my clients, she’s a, she’s a teacher and one of her students gave her like a whole tin of cookies and like by the end of the day, she ate the whole tin of cookies.

Right. That, that’s like a common thing. And the thing that when I ask people more about this, the number one thing they’ll say is like, I don’t eat that much, but I can’t lose weight. And I’ll say, well, that’s not, that’s not how the human body works, unfortunately. Uh, if you’re not losing weight or you’re gaining weight, it usually means you’re eating more than you think you are.

So that’s kind of like a, a little bit with like snacking, like a little bit of an introduction to it. It’s like you’re doing it when you’re not thinking. And if you are aware that you’re doing it, chances are it’s because you’re not actually hungry. So that’s, that’s the latter. That’s like my, that’s like the blanket statement we could say about snacking, ways to kind of look at that is the first thing I usually ask people when I start working with them and this is like before we even start working together, this is like a, an onboarding call or An interview to see if we’re like a good fit for each other. And one of the first things I ask them is to tell me everything they ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and snacks in between from the day before. And about 95% of the people are like, ah, ooh, uh, I don’t know. Like, so if you’re struggling to recall any of the meals you ate or the snacks you ate, chances are you’re probably skipping meals. Because something has happened at work or because like your kid is setting the house on fire, you skip some sort of meal, you substitute that meal for like some form of a highly palatable snack that’s just there, whether it be the vending machine and grabbing some sun chips, whether it be eating some candy off a coworker’s desk, whether it be, whether it be just grabbing something from the cafeteria, the and, and it’s very like, usually these things are highly palatable. They’re just things that are easy to overeat or they’re easy to eat, and then because you didn’t eat a full meal, you’re like, M still hungry. Let me go back and get some more.

That’s usually what happens. So my rule is, if you can’t tell me what time you eat your meals, and you can’t tell me what you’re eating, then there’s no business for you to even try to lose weight right now. Really what we focus on and what someone can focus on is working on eating skills, which is what we’re kind of talking about and working on, scheduling meals, like those are the big ones.

And then from that we can start to like look at what are the opportunities where snacking is happening. , what can be done instead? What didn’t happen that maybe made that happen? So yeah, I don’t know. Does that kind of, is that kind of a good, uh, starting

Emily: Yeah.

Chris: when it comes to snacking?

Emily: It’s raising, I think, a lot of awareness in, in my head right now. Especially when you’re at school, oftentimes you don’t have a set lunch break, so you can’t, you know, sit down and eat a meal. So instead you go for those really easy to to consume things, and it’s usually some sort of store bought product, not something you’ve prepared yourself.

I do know some teachers might, you know, take a salad for example, and they can eat that on the run. But if you haven’t or aren’t inclined to prepare that beforehand, you’ve gotta go to the cafeteria and buy whatever’s there. So sometimes, you know, that’s, that’s not necessarily the most healthy option, and it’s not gonna be the most filling option either.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think usually in this case, like there are, yeah, I have clients who like, their mornings are so busy they don’t eat breakfast. Like they can’t eat breakfast or their day is so busy in the afternoon, they can’t eat lunch. So there’s a couple things that someone can do. One, you have to look at convenience things at a certain point, but look at things that are going to prioritize what’s gonna help you stay full. So if it, if, if we’re looking at even like a simple meal, something that is nutrient dense and can keep you full very easily is, and, and it’s not a full meal. So we’re gonna put it in the category of being like a deliberate snack.

So snacks aren’t bad. A deliberate snack though is something when you know your meal is going to be longer than four to six hours apart from your previous. So if we look at our base meal, like what ideally everyone could be eating, and we’ll remove if someone’s vegetarian or vegan from this, we’ll just blank a statement.

Anyone can do this actually, regardless of your eating style, you wanna aim to eat a balanced plate. That plate would have about, you know, 25 or let’s even do it this way. Oh, people can’t see my hands cuz it’s a podcast. But, uh, about 25% of the plate would be protein. About 25% of the plate would be carbohydrate.

About 50% would be some sort of fruit or vegetable. And then like, you’d have like a thumb of fat that, that for visual purposes is like if you ate that, like actually ate. You’re more likely to be full from that versus leaving things out. Like there’s, I didn’t categorize any foods as good or bad here.

You could do this with a sandwich. A sandwich has a carb, a sandwich has protein. You could put a lot of protein on there if you do a couple slices of deli meat, like pretty easily. You can have vegetables on there, you can have spinach, you could have tomatoes, you could have, cucumbers, you could put whatever you want. Onions, you could put all that on your sandwich. You could have cheese, which would be your fat, or you could do mayonnaise, which would be your fat. And there you go. You did, you did it. You did a balance plate in a sandwich. So it’s like, it’s, it’s very possible. It’s just being aware of everything that you’re putting on there.

But if we move past that and we have to look at, all right, I can’t actually do a meal. Then you want something that holds you over and will keep you good. And the thing we really have to prioritize is protein. Protein is so important. If someone’s trying to lose weight, if someone’s trying to maintain weight for a couple of reasons.

One, it helps preserve muscle mass, which is really important. Two, it has the highest cost to digest. So what I mean by this is all food has a thermic effect. The thermic effect of eating basically plays a part in the amount of calories you burn throughout the day. So, hey, here’s bonus points. If you’re eating a protein dense diet and you have fruits and vegetables and fiber in there and carbohydrates, like all of those things are being broken down in your body.

And to do that, your body actually needs to use energy to do it. So because protein takes such a long time for the body to break down, it keeps you fuller longer. Because fiber is not exactly broken down in the body and it’s used more of like nature’s broom to sweep everything out. It takes longer for your body to digest.

It just so happens that protein happens to be lower in calorie usually, and fibers foods happen to be really low in calorie, that you can consume more of the fibrous food and you can consume more of the protein without over consuming, if that makes sense. Like there’s. . Yeah. There’s a natural point where you’re like, I’m full verse, if you ate some combination of carb and fat, which is very highly palatable.

Emily: Like potato chips or something.

Chris: Yeah. Those are designed that you can’t just have one. Right. The lays, uh, what is it? The Pringles,

Emily: Yep.

Chris: can’t just have one. One. Right. Literally, because they’re designed to have you eat multiple, and because they’re convenient, you’re mindless when you’re doing it. You know, verse taking something like, uh, Layes potato chips, right?

And putting it on your plate with your balanced plate, you’re more likely to recognize you’re full and you can still enjoy your chips. So if we add to that convenience thing, that’s another way that you can like curb your snacking, is adding the snack in the beginning to your actual meal. So you make sure you’re eating a meal, you’re less likely to overdo it because you’re gonna recognize you’re getting full.

Emily: So if you’ve got like that candy jar on the desk, take your few out and put it with your sandwich rather than eating your sandwich first and then going to the jar and just stuffing your face.

Chris: Because usually, usually what happens is you do some, some level of this where it’s like, okay, Candy’s really special, so I know that I shouldn’t be eating this, but I also know the holidays are ending soon, so I’ll never get this opportunity again. Let me eat as much of this lint chocolate as I can, because I don’t have it year round, right? So one side of it is this very scarcity mindset around certain types of foods. A very restrictive mindset around certain types of things, when in actuality everything has a place within our nutrition. So there’s no reason that you couldn’t have a piece of chocolate every day.

There’s no reason you couldn’t have two pieces of chocolate every day. What matters is that you have those two pieces of chocolate and you’re aware you’re having those two pieces of chocolate verse, I had an entire tin of chocolate. It’s very

Emily: like more conscious decision to eat it rather than convenient decision.

Chris: And right, so we say like a couple pieces of candy with a sandwich, but if you’re truly eating your sandwich and like paying attention to the fact that you’re eating it probably would be one piece of candy, and you’d be like, I’m satisfied verse, I’m gonna eat a bunch right now. I’m really stressed about these kids in front of me. I’m gonna eat some more of this candy. Right? You’d be able to realize, oh, I’m really stressed right now. Candy’s not gonna fix that. So there’s like this differentiation between the two, right?

So if you’re in that situation where you can’t eat a meal, a deliberate snack is gonna help you. So protein, we do any combination of protein and carb or protein and fat, and that’ll be sure to keep you full for longer. So an example would be for you, because you’re on the go, having something like you could, you could buy this easily, uh, at like in bulk would be like pre-made, like protein shakes in a, in a thing or, or like a protein bar.

Like that’s something you can actually eat. It has the protein, it has the calories in it that can keep you full until your next meal. Now, if you take something like a protein shake and a piece of fruit, you’re doubling up on it. The likelihood of you being full because you have extra fiber from the fruit.

So you can do it that way, or you could do, if you don’t have time to make a sandwich, you could do rolled up deli meat and a piece of fruit: protein, carb. You could do a zero fat cup of Greek yogurt, which has like 15 or 16 grams of protein. And you could do some berries on top, right? you could even do like a piece of fruit and some, some almonds, like a, like a small handful of almonds.

The thing, the thing with nuts and things of that nature. They’re really easy to over consume, especially because we’re like, ah, they’re healthy fats. Yes they are. But, or end, I should say. Um, you could easily eat like two to three handfuls of almonds and have like you know, 800 calories.

It’s just,

Emily: when they’re, when they’re lightly salted,

Chris: Yes. Yes. So it’s like, it’s like we need to just be aware of how much we’re having. That’s why I. A thumb length is about seven to 12 grams of fat. So, you can enjoy it and you can be aware of it. So those are just some options I think that people overlook sometimes.

Emily: Yeah. You mentioned about being stressed and reaching for the chocolate. I think for a lot of us teachers, That’s just the complete reality. You, you’re so stressed from the day you feel like you need to have a snack because the snack is gonna relieve the stress. Is there some truth behind that?

Like, you know, eating chocolate releases dopamine or something. Is there something behind that?

Chris: Yeah, so, so if we actually want to peel it back and look at it, what it is, is years of poor coping mechanisms, right? So, so when you were a kid, like, I could think of an example right now, if I, I mean I could use my son, but we try not to do this with him. But when, I’ll go back to when I was a kid. If I was a kid and I was really upset, you know, when I was out with my family, they would get me an ice cream and I’d be. right? So there’s like this, uh, like I can think back to having that ice cream cone sitting at the local ice cream place where all the kids would go hang out. I can remember after a baseball game, if things went poorly, I would go get an ice cream cone and, and I would sit there with my dad and we would talk about life.

And this is before like my parents split up. And so it’s like there’s all these happy memories with it. So if I’m sad, yeah ice cream’s gonna sound like a great option, right? So we can’t. . You can’t really blame someone for being like, oh, chocolate’s gonna make me feel good. Cuz you’re right. It does make you feel good for a second.

It does, but then once you finish the candy, you’re probably like, gosh, I’m still stressed. Let me eat some more of the candy. So it’s a little bit of a dopamine hit. It’s a little bit,

Emily: but that’s more of like a trained response rather than a biological response.

Chris: yeah, it’s an emotional eating that that’s really what it is. Stress eating, you can call it what it’s emotional eating. And oftentimes it’s because we don’t actually know how to coexist with our feelings. Especially working with kids and being in a school, there’s this level of probably where it’s like, a level of almost like toxic positivity.

Like we have to be happy at all times and we can’t show that we’re actually humans and not perfect. from a teacher’s standpoint. My wife is a teacher, so I, I know that she has that, like she has rough days, but she can’t tell people or show it. So it’s a system that has, you kind of have to ignore that you have these feelings and what everyone really is trying to work toward or get toward is a place of what we can call, and this is what they call it in, I think it’s cognitive behavioral therapy.

It’s this level of radical acceptance. Radical acceptance. That’s what that, that’s what everyone ideally would be working towards. Acceptance. Radical acceptance is the idea, or for lack of a better word, my mom always says it is what it is.

my mom, uh, dealt with cancer. from my like senior year of high school all the way through college. She’s in remission and everything, but she adopted that motto while she was going through all of it. It is what it is. I can’t change that this is happening. It is what it is. And that’s kind of the same idea of our emotions and our feelings.

We can coexist with them. We don’t have to shove them down. What we do have to do is practice riding the wave and looking at other outlets for riding that emotional wave because waves come and go. They don’t stay forever. You may be stressed at school, but you’re not that way 24 7,

Emily: I hope not

Chris: just like someone’s not happy 24 7.

Right? It’s just, it’s, that’s not how it works. even if you are at a level of stress, no matter where you live in the world and everything, even if you are stressed, like at that point . There are other emotions and layers to stress that probably show up. It’s not just one thing. We’re more complicated than that.

So to get to radical acceptance, we have to learn to do other things while feeling those emotions. So when I work with clients, we look at things called if then planning. So if then planning is basically obstacle planning, and there’s been quite a bit of research around obstacle planning. And that is that if someone is given the opportunity to plan around obstacles that have normally come up, they’re more likely to follow through on it and stick with it.

Verse being like, all right, you’re, you’re just gonna throw out all your chocolate. Like that’s not gonna

Emily: That’s never gonna work.

Chris: Right? The outta sight out of mind thing is an old adage that some people, it does work, but the reality is, You live in the world, it’s, it’s gonna show up. And then you cut these things out and you go to like a holiday party and suddenly it’s all there and you’re like, all right, it’s time to go, go hard on all this.

Right?

So if we look at like, if then planning, it’s more along the lines of, if this happens, then I will. So if we look at, like for you, for instance, if you are, if you’re using yourself as an example of grabbing chocolate when you’re stressed, , you would, you would notice at like what time this tends to happen.

what was I doing right before I grabbed the chocolate? What was I feeling right before the chocolate? How did I feel while I ate the chocolate? How did I feel after I ate the chocolate? All of that is important because at no point do I say, okay, you, you are not allowed to emotionally, no. You have full permission to do it, but you can play detective while you’re doing it.

Emily: Should we run through run? Like I can run through an example,

Chris: Sure. Go right ahead.

Emily: At the moment I’m teaching primary school, so the young ones and There might be a class, for example, that makes me really frustrated. So then I’ll come off class and go back to the staff room and I’m just really frustrated.

So I grab a chocolate bar because I feel like that’s gonna make me feel better and maybe make me feel like I’m more in control in some way.

Chris: Hmm.

Emily: and then I eat the chocolate and usually my immediate reaction is, oh, I want more of that. And it’s almost like a distraction from the frustration and the stress.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Emily: but it certainly doesn’t fix it. And then I’ll go on with whatever else I need to do next.

Chris: Okay, cool.

Emily: So how could I do an if then

Chris: yeah, so there’s there. So there’s a lot there if you want to actually look at it. So if you zoom out, the first thing I have people do is, I have them keep something called like a food and feelings log, which is different than like your traditional food log. Um, and I have everyone start here.

I don’t have everyone track calories. This might be the only thing they do when they work with me or they might progress up to where they can do those other things and have a better relationship with those things cuz they do the food and feelings. So first most people skip that and they go right to calories. and it’s, it’s for some, it works for other people.

Emily: That’s like a bandaid on top, isn’t it?

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So we, we start with the food and feelings thing, and I would ask you the questions like, what was, what was happening in that class that frustrated you?

Emily: All right. Let me think of an example. Maybe it’s the, um, the students not participating in the activity the way that I want them to, so they’re getting a bit, disconnected and getting rowdy and losing control a bit.

Chris: Okay. So you feel, you feel as if they’re, they’re not really listening to you, so it feels kind of like it feels, yeah, you’re right. It feels like a lack of control. That’s a pretty normal feeling and it, it probably feels a little bit frustrating too when that happens. Like this lack of control, this lack of being, the being the senior person in the, the room with all these younger kids.

Does that sound about right? Does it make you feel as if you might not know what you’re doing?

Emily: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Like maybe.

Not good enough in the moment.

Chris: Okay. So you’re feeling like levels of like, it’s almost like a little bit of guilt, a little bit of like, there’s so many emotions you can run through there, right? So maybe it isn’t frustrated. Maybe it’s all these other feelings that are there too. Right? So in this case, I would have like a client practice looking at an emotional wheel.

The wheel of emotions. It’s like, it’s like 50, 60 different emotions, like different shade. because if we can get clear on what that emotion is, it’s like, okay, I’ve definitely felt that emotion other times too. Right. That’s not the first time you felt that probably. So if you look at it that way, and it’s not the first time you felt that, then you can look at other times where you felt that.

Did you respond the same way by going and grab grabbing chocolate?

Emily: I don’t know. I guess that would depend on the the location. Like I know for me there’s always chocolate in the staffroom. So that’s an easy thing to do. Whereas if I was at home that might not be there, for example,

Chris: Yeah. So what would you do if you were at home and you felt that way?

Emily: probably walk around the house, go to a different location, you know, if it’s my own kids at home that are frustrating me, I’d walk away.

Chris: Okay. So you just, you just really, you shown a light on something really cool when the chocolate isn’t there or you’re out of that situation, you would walk around, right? So walking around is a great option for folks, not because necessarily like you ignore the fact that you want chocolate, but more because when you’re walking, you’re still existing with the feelings you’re having and letting them pass in a more productive way.

So for you, Emily, like the, the, the realistic thing here for you, because you did that detective work and you did it all in like under, under five minutes, right? Without even writing things down. Right. If you wrote it down, you probably would’ve came to that own conclusion on, on your own. I’ve just been doing this

Emily: Yeah, ,you know how to lead the

Chris: figure it out a little sooner.

But, but if you look at it from that point of view, like if you look at it that way, Would it be possible that one of your if thens would be, if I am feeling frustrated after class is over, I will go for a walk. Like I could walk around the building. I could walk like the cool thing about school, from what I remember when I was in school, there’s so many hallways and things of

Emily: Yeah.

Chris: You could step outside maybe like you could, you could actually go for a walk and it doesn’t have to be a long, when I feel frustrated or defeated, I will go for a five minute walk. That’s very different then, then I will grab chocolate.

Right. So hearing that, like what do you think are other options that you could try if going for a walk is an option, what do you think is another one that you might insert into that situation?

Emily: I think for, for us teachers at school, definitely venting to a colleague is a good one that we do quite often.

think that would have to come with the conscious decision to not grab the chocolate while you’re talking,

Chris: Yeah, so I think that that is another really good one. You know, I’ll have people who will call a friend, text a friend. they’ll message me. You know, the, the idea is whatever you’re doing, you are getting involved in what’s going on right now.

If you’re talking with a, a coworker, chances are they’re gonna respond to you.

So what you do in those moments is you actually listen and engage. You make eye contact, you focus on what they’re saying, verse, I’m gonna just grab something and not, listen to someone else. Right. And maybe you don’t even have to voice what you’re feeling. Maybe it’s literally like you just have a conversation with someone. Because in, in and of itself, you being present with what’s happening, those feelings pass because you’re being present verse swimming around in the thoughts in your head, making

them bigger and bigger and bigger and

Emily: While you’re madly shoving chocolate in your face h

Chris: Yeah. Where verse verse if you’re sitting there talking and you let the feeling dissipate, or you even say out loud, like how you’re feeling about it. Like I feel just like I’m the worst, worst teacher there ever is. Saying it out loud, you’re like, oh, that’s not true. I would’ve been fired a long time ago. , I’ve gotta teach in front of the principal. They’ve never said anything. I’m good. Right? So it’s like if you, if you go down that you suddenly, the, the thing you’re blowing up in your head, you say it out loud and suddenly it’s, it’s a lot smaller

It’s not actually, that’s not actually the thing. And then you can zoom out even further and it’s like, oh, wait a minute, I’m, I’m dealing with kids who are how old, like, their brain is not formed yet to be like a responsive adult. Like they’re just having off days, like, it’s all right. I have days like that, you know?

So, it’s, it’s being able to flip those things, but it starts first by looking at what caused you to feel that way. And it’s not easy to do all the time. It takes practice, so you’re gonna mess it up a bunch, and that’s okay as long as you keep practicing.

Emily: Yeah. Perfect. I guess the other, the other aspect of this that I wanted to quickly touch on is what about that mindless snacking where it’s not necessarily a link to an emotion, but you just, you know, you walk into the room, you see the snack and you just go for it. The obvious answer there would be not have the snack in the room, but you know, if that’s not the reality, how might you be able to combat that?

Chris: Yeah. So the reality of it is you have to actually ask yourself if you’re hungry. So you could say it’s mindless, but actually you’re making a choice, which means it’s not mindless, like you’re making the choice to eat it because maybe you think you’re hungry when in fact you’re bored, when in fact you’re tired, right?

When in fact you could be having so many emotion. So the, the thing you actually wanna know is what hunger is versus what a craving is. So the guideline, the guideline is something that you can actually practice to make this easier is to wait 10 minutes. If you wait 10 to 15 minutes, you’ll have a much easier time determining if you actually want that thing.

And about 50 per, in the beginning, 50% of the time, you’ll say yes. 50% of the time you’ll say no. And as you practice the, the odds shift toward more likely you’ll say no. So hunger is something that is a hollow feeling in the stomach. It increases over time. It’s only gonna get more intense, right? Some folks ignore it and they get all shaky, like it starts in the stomach, it intensifies over time, and it’s for a meal.

It’s not for a snack. It’s not for a treat. So if I said to you, Hey, do you want an apple right now? And you’re like, Ugh, all right. You’re not actually hungry.

Emily: I remember my mum using that on me as a kid. , if you’re hungry, go and have an apple or make a sandwich.

Chris: Yep. I say that to my son now too. He’ll, he’ll want all these snacks and I’ll be like, Hey, we could have the rest of dinner.

Do you want the rest of dinner? He’ll say No, and I’ll be like, all right, you’re not hungry. That’s just the rule of, and he is like two, but it, it is, he knows when he is actually hungry, uh, just like you do. So it the other end of the spectrum is like if I’m like, Hey, do you want. , do you want a piece of cake?

And you’re like, yes. And then it’s like, okay, now we’re not hungry. We’re hungry. If you’re hungry for a meal, which is like a balance plate. So if like tacos and, and like black beans and rice sound like really good, you’re hungry. You should probably eat a meal. And then you can check in and be like, when’s the last time I ate?

Oh, wow. Like nine hours ago. I should definitely eat. like, oh wow. It was about five. It was about five hours ago. Yeah, I’m probably hungry. Oh, wow. It was like two hours ago. I probably didn’t eat enough at my last meal. Let me have seconds of whatever that meal was. Or let me have a deliberate snack. Right? And then Ma, let me make sure I don’t forget X or Y next time.

Right. So that’s some of the thinking you can do there. The other end is a craving. So a craving is a feeling anywhere in your body that is not your stomach. So it could be a, it could be your head’s bothering you. It could be like you feel a little achy, a little shaky somewhere. It could be, it could be a bunch of things.

It could just be you’re tired, right? The other is the feeling comes and goes in waves. So, so hunger only intensifies over time. Cravings do this, it’s a wave and eventually it goes away. Right? We need to give it time though, So, so where hunger increase. , like cravings come and go. About 20 minutes it’ll be gone.

Like that’s really what it is. You just have to wait through it. And unfortunately, we’re not used to sitting with uncomfortable feelings, so it’s usually easier not to sit through it. And the third is you’re hungry for, you’re hungry for a treat. Like you’re like, Hmm, I want a treat. So if you can determine that, that it’s a craving, then you can ask yourself, okay, if I’m not hungry and I’m having a craving, First thing you can tell yourself is cravings are 100% normal.

There is no way, you will never have a craving. It’s normal. We could technically classify as it’s a little bit of hunger, but it’s not actually hunger. So that’s what we’re confused it with. If you never feel a craving, chances are you’re just eating whatever you want, whenever you want, and you’re not losing weight. Because usually that’s, if we stop snacking, usually we lose weight cuz we’re eliminating these surplus of calories that, that we’re taking in. So it’s like, okay, so we’re aware, like if you’re never hungry, chances are you’re not, you’re not losing weight or managing your weight, you’re probably gaining weight.

Sitting at a weight that maybe you’re uncomfortable with that, that’s like part of it. so it’s about really being able to classify like, okay, if I’m not hungry, then what the heck am I actually feeling?

Emily: So it really does circle back to the emotions, doesn’t it?

Chris: yeah. Am I bored right now? Like I entered a room and I’m really bored. Bored eating is like a thing that people do. So get get on. , go do something. Go, go. Look, if you, and if you don’t have, let’s say you’re very lucky and you don’t have anything to do, or you’ve just been on holiday break and your kids are maybe being quiet and you have actually nothing to do in that moment, you could practice some self-care.

Self-care can look like so many different things, and I think it gets overlooked. And like sometimes when you romanticize self-care as just drinking some wine,

Emily: having a bubble bar. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. And that, that, that is one form of self-care, but there are like three forms of self-care. And I think people, people forget about that.

You know, there’s taking care of like hard stuff, like paying bills, paying taxes, setting boundaries, having difficult conversations. You know that those are difficult things. But in the long run, when you get them done, you always feel better. And that’s a form of self-care. There’s another form of self-care where, where it’s doing things that, that requires skill, like effortful skill.

So an example of that would be, working out, right? That requires your attention and your focus, but you feel better after you do it, right?

Emily: Would that also be like crossing things off your to-do list?

Chris: no, because technically sometimes with to-do list, what we do is just put things on it and cross it off so we feel better. but it’s not actually, it’s not actually doing self-care sometimes.

Right? Sometime and, and technically maybe it could fall into the category of getting hard things done, but skill effortful based things could be things like journaling, could be things like, meditating, could be writing fiction, could be writing non-fiction. Could be learning an instrument. It could be singing, it could be, crocheting,

Emily: So something that’s really involved and takes your focus. Yeah.

Chris: focus skill, meditation, a Sudoku, crossword puzzle. things of that nature like. Okay. If I’m bored, well that’s definitely gonna keep me engaged. And also, hey, I feel like this, level of accomplishment from what I’m doing.

So we have that, and then we have the, like, the self-care that’s like the stuff that we, we usually, you know, We usually do. So, so we have like, are taking our baths, our our drinking wine, getting a massage, uh, being intimate with a loved one.

Like there are all those things that are like, oh yeah, that also is self-care. Oh yeah, if I’m bored, maybe I could participate in those things too. It’s like we have so many options, but we usually just settle with, I’ll grab a snack even though I’m not hungry. So, yeah, so that’s like a little bit about like if I was, if you were came into a room and there was the thing there, to do any of the stuff I just talked about.

You have to take like 10 to 15 minutes to really parse through it so that, that, that guideline of between meals waiting 10 to 15 minutes before grabbing a snack is great. And I don’t recommend staring at the snack that you would grab while you’re trying to do this.

Emily: Set a timer, sit there with the chocolate bar in front of you,

Chris: Right, that you’re, like you’re not gonna do it.

John Barardi is the creator of Precision Nutrition and someone that I really like, look up to, and he has a , it’s called John Barardi’s Law of, of snacking, I think. And it’s like if delicious, highly palatable things are around you, chances are you’re going to eat them. Like if you, it’s just, it’s just what it is.

so giving yourself a little bit of space and a little bit of time, you usually end up making the decision that’s closer in alignment with like the values of what’s actually important for you.

Emily: Yeah, and I guess that giving a bit of time, really would work in, in the teacher world because, you know, you might have 10 minutes between classes and if you wait that 10 minutes, oh, I’ve got no time to eat that snack anymore. I’ve just gotta go to class

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many things that you, you can be doing, and, and carving out what those look like for you. Take time and it takes practice. So really what you can do is you can track it like a habit. On my website or even I think, I think maybe you can click on social media. I have a free, habit tracker that people can like, download and just try to try to track their skills.

But basically what it is, is like, okay, if we’re doing the, if then planning, I’ll write out like the three things I’m gonna try, and then I’ll track to see how successful each one is. One might be more successful than the other. Then it’s like, okay, if that’s the one that works for me, I’ll make sure that that’s the thing that’s at top of mind.

And the other two will be there on the back burner in case, in case that one doesn’t work. So you always have like a a fallback plan because what a lot of people do, I, I, I think I put a piece of content out on this maybe today, I think it was today. People have to practice the skill of, of making time, like making time for these things.

It requires effort, but in the long run, if you plan ahead, life just gets a lot easier, especially because you don’t know what’s gonna happen. So if you have a couple things to fall back on, you’re like, in this, you know, this good space where things can actually work.

Emily: and that’s where the habits come in. So it’s not something that you necessarily are consciously thinking about, which is something that I’ve learned from the balance 365 ladies is, you know, you’ve gotta plan for those red zones, those times where everything’s in chaos because you don’t have, maybe the time, you don’t have the conscious space to go, oh, I shouldn’t be doing this right now, but I’m going to anyway. You know, um, everything’s in chaos, so, so planning and taking the time when you’ve got the time that, is that what I’m sort of hearing you saying?

Chris: Yeah, I think the thing that people often think is, I know exactly what I should be doing, but I don’t do it. And it’s usually because you, you go like 30 steps ahead, right? So if I, if I, a younger version of myself would be like, yeah, just don’t buy the things, don’t have them in your house.

Like that’s the easiest thing to do. But it doesn’t actually help you figure out like why those things are so triggering for you. Like why they are so much like, oh, I have to have them all. And it’s usually not the food, it’s usually whatever else is happening under the surface. So that’s why like, it it for my clients, what they do because they do this food and feelings. and for every meal they keep notes of like how they’re feeling. They’re technically doing a check-in with themselves multiple times throughout the day. And then when they start tracking their calories, if that’s something that they feel that they want to do, they still do that. They still like track those check-ins throughout the day.

And then at the end of the week when we do our like big check in, they have so much more information at their fingertips that they can actually formulate their thoughts around. So the first step is to actually write things down and, and, and actually sit on it or think about what’s going on, versus just having it be abstract and be like, I don’t know what to do.

It’s like, no, no, no. We gotta start at the smallest spot. If you know you need to eat more protein to help you stay full longer, that’s really abstract. It’s kind of like with New year resolution setting, it’s like it’s so abstract, right? That’s an objective-based goal. It’s like, okay, if I lose the 10 pounds, I did it.

It’s like, oh wait, how do I actually do that? So you have to set actionable steps, and I like to make it so they take less than five minutes. So if we look at like the having enough protein on hand, or for you, making sure you have like a protein shake, it’s like, This weekend, I need to make a shopping list, and I need to put protein options on the shopping list.

Then I need to go to the grocery store and buy those things. That’s the first step. Versus getting lost in your head and being like, Hm, what’s the best thing? What’s the best stop? Just write

Emily: more protein.

Chris: list. Yeah, right. It’s so, it’s so abstract. It’s like, or it’s like, oh. I know that like this particular brand of protein that’s already made, like it’s already in a bottle.

I don’t even have to think about it. So from this company, I’m gonna go on Amazon today and I’m gonna check out how much it costs. I’m just gonna put it in my cart. And then on Sunday, I will click buy. Like, it’s like it, it’s whatever it is that takes less than like two minutes, you know? And so if it takes less than five minutes, you’re more likely to do it.

And then you’re more likely to follow through and keep going with whatever follows next. And there’s this level of satisfaction because you’ve done that,

Emily: done

Chris: keeps you going. Yeah, it’s, it’s self-efficacy. If you don’t have that sense of self-efficacy, that sense of I can do this, I have accomplished this. You’re not gonna follow through with it. That’s all my coaching is based around getting people to feel like they’re making the decisions, to feel like they are a part of the conversation, to make them feel like it’s okay if they mess it up. Because honestly, you really can’t mess it up. The only way you mess any of this up is if you just give up.

Like, and even then, it’s like if you give up and then you start trying again, okay. You’re not really messing it up. You’re just, you’re just being a little more introspective with it. I mean, I, I think that’s a long-winded way of saying that, you just have to make some time to do some thinking about why you’re making the choices you’re making, and hopefully some of the tips I’ve given is a little more insightful for people as they go through this.

Emily: Yeah, definitely. I think so. Even for me personally, I’m like ticking away in my head. I’m like, okay, let’s do some if then planning, and get some protein snacks and, cause I know for me, protein is a big thing. I don’t tend to eat a lot of, um, and that’s not necessarily a conscious decision, it’s just the type of foods that I prefer tend to be lower in protein.

so that’s, you know, there are some things there that I definitely could change for myself. and then I guess the other thing that we probably should mention is if you really just want the snack, that’s okay too, isn’t it?

Chris: Yes. Uh, you make that decision though, you know, that’s, that’s the, that’s the kind of the thing we’re hitting home here. I said like, the 50% of the time you’ll say yes, and 50% of the time you’ll say no. The 50% of the time you’ll say yes, it’s because you’re like, This is what I want right now verse, I guess I’ll just eat it.

It’s like you’re actually making the choice, which is pretty damn empowering to be like, I am making the choice to have this. You’re more likely to be satisfied with it. You’re more likely to know when you’re getting full versus just mindlessly eating it. Again, I talk a lot about, and the, the woman, the awesome team at Balance 365 talk about this a lot.

I talk about this a lot. Like you have to think about what matters most, and is in alignment with your values. So when my son was younger, he lo, he still loves them. He loves pancakes and he loves pizza, right? And so one night my son, I made him pancakes and we’re eating pancakes. And then my father-in-law came in and he bought pizza.

And my son was so excited. So I ate pancakes and I ate pizza for dinner and I sat there and ate them with my son. Would I do that every day? Was it worth it to enjoy the meal with my son and make this like memory? That’s really funny. Yes. For me, that that is more important in that moment. So if we can look at things that way, we can also be objective.

Because like if being adventurous is a value to you and family is a value to you. it’s like, okay, yeah, there’s sometimes I’m gonna try things that are outside of the box with my family, then it maybe I wouldn’t normally do.

And other times, because your family is important to you, you’re gonna be the responsible one who puts vegetables on their plate because your kids need to see that you eat your vegetables too, and not cover them in like, ranch. Ranch and Butters , right? It’s like, it’s like, no, I’m gonna eat the green thing. I’m gonna eat them on my plate because family’s important for me.

I know if I eat more fiber, I’m more likely to have a longer life, so why not be that example for other people in my life? That’s a value. Right? So it’s like both. Both can exist. Both can exist. It’s just a matter. , again, taking that time, getting introspective with it. I have clients do journal, a lot of journaling prompts to help them kind of figure that stuff out too along the way when they’re ready for it.

Emily: So if we, if we’re snacking in the staff room, just be really conscious and deliberate with it rather than just walk in and grab the chocolate, walk in and sit down and organize yourself and think about, do I actually want the chocolate?

Chris: Yeah. And the other, the other part of it is like, , you can make sure that you are eating breakfast before getting to work and not having it just be a black coffee and not having it be a pastry and a coffee. Right? , I aim to have my clients hit at least half or maybe a little bit more of half of their protein goal for the day by the end of lunch.

So that means at breakfast you’re trying to get ample amount of protein. because what happens to a lot of people is they skimp on it throughout the day, and then at the end of the night they’re ravenous

Emily: So you eat dinner and, and,

Chris: and dessert. And, and, and because, because you didn’t really eat a lot during the, you did eat a lot during the day of snacks and things, but you didn’t eat anything that’s actually gonna keep you full very long.

So that’s the thing with those snacks, they’re usually higher in calorie, but they do not keep you full. So it’s like, what do I, what do I do here? How do I figure this out? And there are tons of ways to sneak in more protein. I know you said that you’re usually lighter on the protein, easy ways to do it at breakfast.

Like do you normally eat breakfast?

Emily: Yeah, I’m a big breakfast eater, but usually it’s like toast or cereal cuz that’s what the kids have. Yeah.

Chris: totally. Without a doubt. I, I know firsthand my son, he, we eat oatmeal together every morning, so I know it’s what they, what they eat. Um, yeah, so I mean, there’s easy ways that you can just add protein. You don’t have to change what you’re doing. One of my favorite things that I do that my, you know, people think is really funny, if I want cereal, first thing I do, I, I do weigh it out, but I’m also diabetic, so it makes it easier for me to know how many carbs I’m having.

That’s really

Emily: a, that’s a need

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. But when you do that, you actually realize how much you’re having and you’re like, oh, okay. The serving size is actually more than enough for me. Cool. Uh, but beyond that, what I’ll do is I will take like my protein powder and I’ll mix it with my milk, and then I pour it over my cereal.

So it’s like I’m having my cereal and I’m getting protein. That’s one easy way to sneak protein in another

Emily: a great.

Chris: You can, yeah. Another way you can do it is like, if you have. Like a half a cup of oatmeal is like only a, I think maybe like 150 calories, but it’s got like six or seven grams of fiber in it.

It has a little bit of protein in it, so it’s very filling and it’s a more filling option than cereal. Cuz cereal like it’s not as filling cuz there’s not, unless you’re having bran cereal. Bran cereal, very filling cuz it has like eight grams of fiber in it.

Emily: Mm.

Chris: That’s like if you do bran cereal mixed with protein powder, you’re gonna be really full for a long time actually.

Yeah, you really will. but if you do oatmeal, you can add things to it that can make it very filling. So like for instance, if you do a half cup of oatmeal with, uh, scoop of protein powder, you’ve added like, you’ve now added like 20, 22 grams of protein to like a simple bowl. You could add Greek yogurt on top of that.

That’s another, uh, if you do zero fat Greek yogurt, that’s like 90 calories, but it’s also like 17 or 18 grams of protein. So it’s like in that short little thing, you’ve have like 40 to 50 grams of protein. and then you can add like fruit on top of that. So you’re getting fiber on top of fiber.

So you’re gonna be full, you’ll be satisfy. it’ll be more, nutrient dense than like a bowl of cereal. But in essence, it’s really fun. My son eats the same oatmeal bowl I eat, minus like the protein powder. There’s chia seeds, there’s flax seeds in it. Like it’s, it’s just an easy way to add extra fiber, to keep you full longer to have energy.

So that’s one. Another easy one is egg whites. A lot of people forget about egg whites. but if you do two eggs, two whole eggs, and then like two egg whites. You’re getting extra protein in there. You’re not, you’re not tripling up on the, on the calories. So it’s, it’s, it’s actually a nice easy way to get a lot of protein in without, without the extra, right?

So they’re easy little things that you can do that people don’t usually, they don’t usually think about that. They’re like, oh, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna eat? Like those, those are easy ways. if you do toast, it’s like, okay, cool. If I’m having like avocado toast, I could easily put an egg on top of that.

There’s protein. I could do that with a protein shake. Wow. There’s a lot of protein. There’s like, there’s like 30 grams of protein right there. Right. You see how there are easy opportunity and then if you have a deliberate snack as a protein-based snack, it’s like, wow, on that like 60 or 70 grams or 80 grams of protein before I even have lunch.

It’s, it’s, it’s a lot easier if we look at it and like, okay, what are the small things I can.

Emily: Yep. So just really look at those really little tiny shifts that you can just add in that are gonna add up over the course of the day.

Chris: exactly. Yeah. You’re not trying to like reinvent the wheel. It’s like what are the smallest things I can do? And people in general, from like a research standpoint, the people who are most successful at, if weight loss is their goal, were most successful at sustaining that. They pretty much eat the same thing all the time.

Like, they don’t, they, they’ll do like new recipes here and there, but they, they have like routine and you have routine right now too. So it’s like, okay, if I just insert different things into my routine over time, okay, this doesn’t feel as weird. It feels okay.

Emily: Yeah, and making those smaller shifts, like if you’re really wanting to cut down on snacking, you’re not gonna overhaul your entire diet in one day and expect that to stick by the end of the week. So you might just be looking at. Slowly changing up your breakfast over time and then maybe swapping out snacks after that?

Or is that sort of the approach you’d take?

Chris: I, I really would actually, I had a client who told me, like in their log, they, they put a sad face cuz they ate like five Tootsie rolls. And my response to them was like, okay, what if next time we aim for four Tootsie rolls? And they were like, what? But that’s like, and I was like, yeah, it’s one lesson you were having.

What’s the difference between five and four? She’s like, well, I don’t really know. I was like, okay, try it. And then it’s like, hey, let’s, let’s aim for three Tootsie Rolls. Same for two. Tootsie. Same for one Tootsie Roll and actually enjoy the Tootsie Roll. Like savor it, like feel the texture on your tongue, like enjoy it, right?

A lot of people think it has to be this all or nothing, and really it’s something that’s better than nothing. It’s like if I have a client who drinks soda all the time and I’m just like, let’s try diet soda. They’re gonna lose a bunch of weight and they’re still gonna get to enjoy their soda. Okay?

They’re having like five a day. Well, let’s try four a day. Let’s try. It’s the same thing applies. because the human body is really cool and it accepts that you’re human and allows you to actually make changes for a really long time. And a lot of people have a lot of misinformation. So they think that those options are like unhealthy or bad things for you.

And they’re not, they’re, they’re literally not. they are designed to make it easier for people to try to lose weight. and they’re not bad options Plus, Like Diet Dr. Pepper is so good and Diet Root Beer is so good. Like they’re

Emily: I’m a a Pepsi Max and a Diet Coke person. That’s what I prefer.

Chris: Yeah. They’re so, I mean, they’re good. I mean, I’ve had, I’ve had, I’ve had Is Pepsi Max the, like zero?

The zero? I think I’ve had that one. I didn’t like it as much. I really like the Dr. Pepper zero. It is so good. It’s, it’s so good. Um, but yeah, so I mean, I mean there are all these things that are just like options and. and you’ll be

Emily: about necessarily dieting or you know, cutting out like you’re never gonna snack again.

It’s just.

Chris: no, I want people to snack. What I want people to do is actually enjoy what they’re eating. Verse using it to fix something. Right? Because even if we look at it from like a, a dieting standpoint, if you want to, we wanna call it that, it’s just snacking a little less. At no point is it saying you can’t snack.

What we’re, what we’re actually looking at is like, okay, if I enjoy my, lint chocolate, and I really, I, I just enjoy it. Having one or two is really good and satisfying. Probably having the whole bag you probably don’t feel great after. So it’s like being able to enjoy things and feel good about those choices is what we’re after.

Being aware of the choices is what we’re after. It just so happens when you’re doing that, you usually tend to consume less because you’re aware. And that’s not bad. That’s not

Emily: It was like a happy consequence,

Chris: Exactly. Exactly.

Emily: Perfect. Well, I think we’ve covered all of my questions. Is there anything else that you might wanna add in or anything that people might need to know or want to know?

Chris: I think, I think for the most part, if, if people did snack less, they would be a little happier cuz they would be doing, they would fill that time with other things, like other things that actually bring them joy or that they can actually experience. Snacks are delicious, but I like to think of them as like, okay, I’m gonna make this, if this, if this is the thing I’m gonna have, like I wanna enjoy.

like, I wanna enjoy my, my, my like mother-in-laws, like love notch. She makes them every, every holiday she makes these, these delicious, they’re like Reg ricotta cookies. They’re so good. I wanna enjoy it. If I’m gonna have it, I don’t wanna feel like I’m, I need to like hide it or, or rush through it. I’d rather have my like cup of espresso and like dip it in there and savor it and maybe I’ll have a second one.

But it’s usually. . All right. I have it. I, I, I have full permission to have it whenever I want. You know, it’s not, and it takes time to get there. It takes time to figure that out. But it, it’s possible for pretty much everyone, regardless of if you’re looking at calories, not looking at calories, not trying to lose weight, losing weight, whatever it is that’s available to anyone, it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Emily: Perfect. Well, thank you so, so, so much for your time again today. jumping back on on the podcast with me. I just feel like even just going through your Instagram every day, I like watch your little stories and stuff. It’s just so much wisdom and so much common sense. It’s very refreshing.

Chris: Oh, well, I appreciate that. I just try to be. You know, in the beginning of my career, I very much tried to be what I thought people needed me to be when it came to like social media and stuff. And now I’m just, I’m just myself. Like, what you see is who I am. There’s nothing, you know, it’s, it’s everything I’m telling folks about is stuff that I do in my life too.

So it’s like, it’s very, it’s very, you know, it’s very achievable things. Nothing is like,

Emily: elitist.

Chris: Yeah. No, no, no.

Emily: Yeah. Perfect. So if people wanna come and find you on social media, your website, that sort of thing, do you wanna give us the details?

Chris: Yeah, sure. You could follow me on Instagram. That’s the one I’m most active on, @coach.chrismcmahon. and yeah, you just gimme a follow or just check out some of my content. my website is www.chris-mcmahon.Com. Pretty simple. Uh, you could actually just Google, you could Google my name.

You could even Google like Chris McMahon. weight loss, and all of these articles I’ve written, like I’ve, I’ve got maybe 30 at this point, will pop up. My podcast will pop up like YouTube videos, if you go to YouTube and type my name in and like an exercise, I have like an exercise library on there of like, maybe like 250 to 300 videos so people could check that out.

Like there’s. I have a TikTok. I don’t really use it, uh, Um, but as, so yeah, I’m, I’m pretty much reachable all on all those platforms. and I’m, I’m pretty friendly, so just drop me a line and I’ll say, Hey,

Emily: Perfect. All right, well thank you so much for your time again today, and hopefully the rest of the week goes well with, with little one dropping his naps.

Chris: I, I hope so.

Emily: Good luck. Maybe some more of those espressos in there.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, exactly.