#96 Tricks to eat less food, weight training versus cardio, and how to eat what you want and still lose weight. With Heather Moser!

Hey gang! We have another thin eater interview for you this week. Chantel interviewed her friend, Heather Moser, and she gave some great tips and tricks for eating less and losing weight! Enjoy!

Audio Version: https://chantelray.podbean.com/e/wa96/ 

Video Version: https://youtu.be/HOhsfK_dGKg

 

Chantel:            Hey guys. Welcome to this week’s episode. I’m so excited. I have a friend that I met. Her name is Heather Moser, and we’re doing a thin eater interview. I met her at the Longboat Key Club in Sarasota, Florida. I was down there for a wedding. I saw her and let me just tell you, if you’re listening on the podcast, you definitely want to go check this video on YouTube because she’s absolutely, drop dead gorgeous. You can’t really see her body, but she has the perfect body.

Chantel:            I was there with my husband and I got to tell you, I literally spotted her and her sister and they both are just … When I tell you their body is a 10, they are a perfect 10. I spotted them, and my husband always jokes me. I said, “Oh my gosh. Look at those two girls over there. Look how beautiful they are and how perfect their bodies are.” I was like, “Okay, I’m leaving. I’m going for an interview.” I literally interviewed her for an hour and a half. My husband was like, “This is what I’m talking about. Every time we go on vacation, you’ll spot the most gorgeous girl that there is and then you go interview them for an hour and a half.” And that’s exactly what happened. So Heather, welcome to the show.

Heather:           Thank you. Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Chantel:            I am going to just ask you the same questions that I ask everyone and I asked you that day that I met you. But I want to kind of talk to me about, first of all, have you always been thin and always had a great body? Describe your eating and your journey of being thin.

Heather:           Okay. So no, I have not always been thin. When I was in high school I was an average weight. My family loved to work out. My dad used to play for the NFL. My mom was into fitness. I really was not into fitness or dieting. My mom got me a trainer my senior year of high school and it really changed my life. I started to love to work out and became a healthy eater and really I was at a good place. And then as time went on, I became a little obsessed with what I ate. It just consumed every thought. It was like everything I put into my mouth, I was counting calories all day. Then I thought about what’s my next meal. The only thing I was looking forward to was my next meal.

Heather:           At one point, I was actually a little too thin. I think I got an eating disorder from it. And then once I had children, I balanced myself out and now I feel like I’m at a great place where I eat healthy and I have healthy habits, but I’m not constantly thinking about food. I have other things in my life that I’m focused on. I want to look good, but I have more important things that I worry about now, not just the way I look and did I lose five pounds or gain a pound here and there.

Chantel:            Awesome. Describe your portion sizes. What do you do to keep your portion sizes down?

Heather:           I have an unusual trick that I use to keep my portion sizes down. I always grab my children’s bowls and their cups and their plates. I try to eat off of that. So in the morning, if I have a bowl of granola, instead of getting an adult-sized bowl of granola, I take a child’s bowl of granola. I eat that and surprisingly, I’m full. But if I were to fill the adult bowl of granola, I would also eat the whole thing and be absolutely stuffed. So a little trick for me is if I have a smaller bowl or a smaller dish, I use that. I fill it up and I feel like I ate a full plate, only my plate is probably half the size of maybe somebody else’s plate.

Chantel:            If you were at a restaurant, let’s say you were ordering something, would you … If you were going to eat a sandwich, would you eat the whole sandwich? Would you eat part of it? Describe how that looks like for you.

Heather:           I probably never eat a whole sandwich. I will do one of two things. I’ll eat half of a full sandwich or I will, if it has a large bun, I’ll maybe take off the top bun or if there’s a lot of meat on the sandwich, I actually do like deli sandwiches with lunch meat. But if you go and they stack it up two inches thick, I take half of it off. I always cut down my sandwiches. I never eat a full sandwich.

Chantel:            What is your absolute favorite food that you would say, “This is my favorite savory food and this is my favorite sweet food”? How do you control yourself? If you love that food so much, what do you do to control how much you’re eating?

Heather:           My favorite food if I were to order for dinner would be sushi. One way I eat sushi without overeating, because I absolutely love it, is I definitely use chopsticks, which I’m horrible at using. So I have to slow down the bites that I take and obviously smaller portions. I try to take my time when I eat. The first step, especially being out at a restaurant is I don’t over order. If you over order, you’re more likely to eat more. So I try to just get one roll and eat that slowly with chopsticks.

Heather:           Now, as far as a savory dessert, I love peanut butter pie. It has a chocolate, Rice Krispie Treat crust with a peanut butter whipped icing on top. I usually make this for myself on my birthday every year. I really take my time and enjoy it. I take just a little bit of the icing off to start out with and I slowly eat it. I just honestly savor every single bite of it. Don’t get me wrong, usually that pan is gone by the end of the night. But I am so sick off of it, I don’t want it until the next year.

Chantel:            That’s funny. Would you say that you … When you eat, do you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Or do you eat just two meals a day? Do you eat three meals a day? What’s your routine look like?

Heather:           I definitely eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I usually have the same thing for breakfast and for lunch. For breakfast I have two eggs over easy with a veggie sausage. I chop it up into little pieces so I’m always taking small bites. I have about three black coffees every morning. And then usually for lunch I eat lunch around 1:00 or 2:00. I’ll have just turkey and cheese with mustard in a pita. If I’m still hungry after I eat that, I’ll try to have an apple. I try to stay away from the chips. Then for dinner I do cook, so I watch what I put in my dinners. But I eat a full dinner, and then usually a cup of tea before bed is what I have.

Heather:           But I don’t eat … I eat everything I want, just not as much as I want.

Chantel:            Good. I like that. You eat everything that you want, just not as much as you want. That’s really powerful. I love that line. Now, as far as one of the things that we talked about is you try not to, you told me when we met, that you try not to let yourself get too hungry. Sometimes you might have a drink that will have you not be as hungry or a little snack in your purse. Talk to me about those drinks or snacks to keep you so that you’re not ravenously hungry.

Heather:           Sure. I always have snacks on me. In my car, I’ll keep dried fruit or a bar, a granola bar. And then just as I’m leaving the house or running back and forth and cleaning, if I feel like I start to get shaky, I start to get a little bit weak and I’m hungry, to me that’s a huge signal, “Okay, you’re going to completely overeat if you don’t grab something soon.” So I always have bags of grapes or carrots, something ready to just grab that I walk around with and eat so I’m not hungry. I never let myself get too hungry.

Chantel:            Too hungry.

Heather:           Because then it’s done, you eat everything you see.

Chantel:            What about the drinks that you talked about? You talked about having a water with lemon or water with lime, those drinks that you have just to kind of take that edge off, talk about that.

Heather:           Sure. During the day, I am always sipping on a lime Pellegrino or a regular Pellegrino with a lime squeezed into it. That’s very fulfilling for me. It makes me feel like I’m not just having water and that I am sipping on something during the day. The carbonation is very filling surprisingly. But that’s a trick I have. I really don’t waste my calories with juices and soda. I mean, I can’t even remember the last time I had a soda or pop. But I try to always have some sort of Pellegrino in my hand. For me, that’s huge.

Chantel:            Remember when we were there, I bought you one of my favorite drinks that I make. It’s a Pellegrino with lime, a little bit of cucumber, and they mull it with that fresh mint. Wasn’t that delicious?

Heather:           That was the most refreshing drink. I’ve tried to create it about three times and it’s not as good as the one that you gave me. That could be dessert after dinner.

Chantel:            I know. It’s so good. All it is is just Pellegrino or any kind of soda water, not tonic water because tonic has sugar in it, but just any kind of carbonated plain soda water with nothing added in it. And then you just take cucumbers. The key is you have to take it and put it in some kind of thing where you can crush the cucumber, crush the mint, and crush the lime so all of those flavors really mull together. But that’s how I pretend like I’m drinking with everyone. Because everyone’s like, “Oh.” It’s basically like a mojito with none of the sugar and none of the alcohol. It’s delicious. It’s like a cucumber mojito. It’s so good. It’s so yummy.

Chantel:            Let’s talk about your workout. I know that you had talked to me about the fact that you really focus on your weight training and how that’s shaped your body. I’d love for you to, if you’re willing to, send us a couple pictures so I can post on the Internet of you in your bathing suit. Because you just literally, I mean when I tell you guys I wish you guys could all see her in her bathing suit, she really has the perfect body. If I could literally snap my fingers and go, “Whose body do I want to have?” Heather’s would be it. I mean, she’s just gorgeous.

Heather:           Thank you. Thank you so much. I do. I love to weight train. I found that weight training versus cardio really helps me to keep my weight down. It lets me eat more. It makes my metabolism faster. So I do a lot of light weight, high rep, a lot of toning exercises. I try to work out six days a week for an hour. When I’m working out in that hour, I push myself a little bit harder every day. I truly do. As far as that goes, sometimes I get bored with my workout and I try to always add in new things. For example, my daughter started playing tennis this winter and they have a gym there. So on top of my regular workout, while she’s playing tennis, I add in a workout.

Heather:           This summer as well when we’ve been at our country club during golf and tennis and whatnot that our kids have, I have been surrounding myself with friends who like to work out as well. So we bring our tennis shoes and we walk while they’re doing their activity. I also have been trying to add in an extra walk here and there with just my neighbors. There’s a group of us that say, “Hey, we’re exhausted tonight, but when we all get home, rain or shine, let’s force each other to walk.” Or we’ll meet at my house and I will help train them and work them out. It’s a really good system for when you’re busy and tired, to keep your workout in your day.

Chantel:            One of the things you talked to me about is that you really try to stop eating when you’re satisfied and not when you’re stuffed. Talk to me about that for just a second of how you know when you are getting to that place that you are satisfied.

Heather:           Okay. I would say I start out with I’m not going to begin my meal where I’m starving. That is the biggest thing, because then you can’t help control how much you overeat at that point. You’re letting yourself get out of control when you get too hungry, in my mind.

Chantel:            That’s why you said you have those snacks with you. You have those snacks in your purse. You had told me you have nuts or dried fruit. I remember you said jokingly you said, “If you look in my purse right now you’re always going to find nuts or dried fruit.” Is that right?

Heather:           My son has a nut allergy, so I try to make sure I have small packages for my daughter and I. But really, it’s great. It’s protein and it’s filling. I do. I true to have snacks on me all the time because, for me, if I let myself get too hungry I just cannot stop eating.

Chantel:            You can’t make wise decisions any more.

Heather:           Right. I don’t make wise decisions and I eat too quickly. So what I try to do is just make the conscious effort when I sit down to eat, even though I’m talking to my friend or whatever conversation I’m involved in, I am always thinking about what I am eating when I sit down. I am saying, “Hey, slow down a little bit.” I always leave something on my plate. My goal is to not eat everything on my plate, to leave a little bit there. That kind of keeps me in control as well and just slowly eating. If I’m drinking alcohol, I tend to eat a little bit more, especially after if a waitress hasn’t taken away the appetizers or whatnot, I’ll pick, if I’m drinking.

Heather:           So a trick I have is when I have a glass of wine, I will have a glass of water in between each glass of wine. With that being said, I can only drink two glasses of wine. So I have a glass of water, wine, water, wine. That helps.

Chantel:            Do you ever pray about, “God, help me not to overeat,” or, “Help me to not use food as a tool,” if you’re angry or you’re upset or anything like that? Do you ever pray that you wouldn’t be using food as a tool for anything other than hunger?

Heather:           My prayer is usually for God to help me keep my focus in check, so that I’m not just focused in on things that don’t have any value to them. If I get too focused in on the way I look, for example, and I’m thinking about, “What am I going to wear? Did I get all my makeup? Did I get my workout in? What am I eating?” It’s basically what you’re saying, I haven’t had the specific prayer for God to help me with my food, but I definitely try to pray to not be so focused in on those sort of superficial values.

Chantel:            Good.

Heather:           I do think that helps.

Chantel:            Tell me how you know when your body is full. What are some of the cues that you start feeling where you’re like, “I’m starting to get full, I need to start pushing this food away”?

Heather:           I feel like I’m very in touch with my body and I can just tell that as I’m eating, usually as half my plate starts to empty out I’m just I feel full. My stomach just feels like it’s just my pants are getting a little tighter. I’m just getting a little full, so that’s when I push my plate away. I mean, I don’t like the way I feel when I’m stuffed. I don’t think anybody really likes the way that they feel when they’re stuffed. I just try to get up and start moving or go to a different location. I think sitting at a table for a long period of time, you end up overeating. I mean, everybody does because you’re sitting there and you have nothing else to do but eat.

Chantel:            So kind of moving locations. Any other tips if you’re at a restaurant and you go, “I’m there. I’ve got my food right there.” What are things that help you slow yourself down? Because one of the things I’ve heard you say over and over is that you eat very slow. First of all, how long does it take you to eat? If you had to estimate the time that you have a plate of food in front of you, how long does it take you to eat?

Heather:           I would say about 15 to 20 minutes is how long it takes me to eat. I try to not just focus in on inhaling my food. So what I’ll do is if I’m at my house, I’m cleaning as I’m walking around eating a sandwich. I’ll try to do … I’ll take a couple bites of my sandwich, then make a bed. And then take a couple more bites of my sandwich. It’s funny because I find that I don’t even need the whole sandwich. I’m full. If you slow down what you eat and you think about that, you’re not going to be hungry. Your stomach, your food starts to digest and you’re not as hungry. But if you eat that sandwich quickly, you don’t even give yourself a chance to be full.

Heather:           When I’m at home, I try to slowly eat and do other things as I’m eating. Now when I’m at a restaurant, what I do is I usually try to put my fork down and take a break as someone’s talking or as I’m talking, to slow myself down. So instead of eating while someone’s talking and just keep shoveling it in, I try really hard to just slow down, maybe put my fork down and just sit and listen, have a sip of my drink, and then go back to eating. I take breaks. I just take a few breaks. I’m always the last one to get my plate taken away.

Chantel:            That is so good. That’s so good. I hear that over and over again with people just saying, “The slower I eat, the less I eat because my body has signaled that I’m full.” I hear that over and over. Any other tips that you could share with listeners that you say, “This was just a tip for me that said, hey, this helps me slow down. It helps me eat less. It helps me not to be obsessive-compulsive.” Any other tips that you can think of that you could share with listeners?

Heather:           Well, I think as far as slowing down and not overeating is to just have a goal in mind. Everybody has a weight that they’re happy at, that they feel good and they go and they get dressed. They feel like they look good. They don’t feel like they wish that they were a pound or two thinner. I would say take it week by week. I have a girlfriend right now who really, she wants to lose five pounds. She gets overwhelmed with thinking that … She loves to eat. So she gets overwhelmed with thinking that she has to deprive herself all week. I say take a week at a time and say every day this week, “I’m going to be prepared with my snacks. I’m going to get enough sleep.” Because we all overeat when we don’t get enough sleep. “And I’m going to make these conscious efforts to have a glass of water before I sit down for a meal and to really slow down my eating.” Just constantly be thinking about it.

Chantel:            Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Heather. You are just such a delight. I feel like we became fast friends. The second that I met you I’m like, “I’m totally in love with this girl. She’s like my best friend immediately.”

Heather:           I feel the same way.

Chantel:            Well, if you have a question that you want answered, go to questions@chantelrayway.com. We’ll see you next it. Bye bye.