53. Choosing Foods Using Good, Better, Best

In this episode of Weight Loss Made Simple, Dr. Stacy Heimburger explores the powerful framework of categorizing foods as "good," "better," and "best." Discover how this approach can simplify your dieting journey, reduce the guilt associated with food choices, and empower you to make mindful decisions that align with your weight loss and wellness goals.

Join Dr. Heimburger as she shares practical tips for evaluating your food options, realistic meal planning strategies, and insights on overcoming common challenges. Learn to navigate everyday situations with confidence, whether you're dining out or preparing meals at home.

Tune in to find out how to take control of your eating habits and transform your relationship with food—one bite at a time!

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.

Transcript

Hey everybody! Welcome back to the podcast. I’m Dr. Stacy Heimburger. I’m your host for today, and I want to talk about categorizing foods as a good, better, best situation. So, if you listened to last week, I talked about how when we label foods as good or bad, that sometimes can trigger more overeating. Those bad foods become a little bit more enticing because we’ve made them naughty and forbidden. So, they call to us a little extra. We start to create an over-desire for the “bad” foods because they’re forbidden.

So how can we categorize our food, then? Because our brains categorize—let’s be honest. I want to talk about doing a better situation. I talked a little bit last week also about making a realistic protocol, so let me walk through what this would look like, and then we can sort of tease it out.

If I sit down and make a 24-hour protocol—my 24-hour plan for the day of what I’m gonna eat—my brain, because it likes to do things perfectly, has a tendency to make a pretty strict plan with foods that I think are amazingly healthy. So, it might look like an egg omelet with veggies and extra egg whites so that I eat my protein. That’s breakfast. Coffee with nothing—just coffee. Lunch might be a salad with salmon and a decaf, unsweet iced tea. No snack. Dinner will be a protein with grilled veggies, no alcohol, and no dessert.

OK, that’s great. It might be hard to stick to. I can probably rock that, no problem—the food protocol. So that’s my best self having my best day with no problems; that’s my best protocol. But there might be a day I wake up, and I’m not feeling my best, and that protocol is not gonna fit. If I try and stick to my protocol, I’m not gonna be able to stick to it. When I don’t stick to it, I’m gonna feel bad. I’m gonna feel guilty. I’m gonna start the negative self-talk. The shame spiral will begin.

So what I can do is look at that and take each one of those foods and try and see what would be good enough. What would be better? Then I’ve already done the best, right? So I’m kind of working backwards. The best would be an egg white omelet with lots of veggies and plain black coffee. That might be a frozen breakfast sandwich. I actually get that like egg and a pita for my seven-year-old, so I have one of JT’s breakfast sandwiches, and I’ll throw some protein shake in my coffee, and that’s good enough. So that’s good.

OK, better might be two hard-boiled eggs, some extra protein shake in my coffee, and out the door. And then best is my omelet. OK, so by setting your mindset around this better and best, we can see there are really lots of options that fit into the protocol. My perfectionist side out there—I know we want to make the protocol. I know we do. I do it to myself all the time. But we need to meet ourselves where we are in our journey. Like if we’re starting or near the end, where we are that day—if we got bad sleep from prior episodes or cortisol is gonna be up, our hunger hormones are gonna be a little out of whack, we’re gonna be craving sugary foods.

So it might just be, I get my protein in this morning. I’m craving sugary food. OK, so what would be good? Even better, I’m gonna get some protein shake, and I’ll put it in my coffee as creamer. Get extra protein, got a little bit of sweetness to my coffee. OK, good enough.

That lunch that I planned—the salad with salmon—what if I walk out the door and I forgot it? What if I was gonna get—like what if the plan was someone was gonna bring that in from outside for lunch to the hospital? And then what? I can just reach into my drawer. What do I keep in my drawer at work? I can tell you right now I have a tuna packet, and I have one of those sipping soup broth. There’s fuel in there that fits my protocol. Those are my safety net. Just grab something.

I’m sitting here thinking about that broth. I could get a Chick-fil-A salad or a Chick-fil-A wrap—that’s good enough. So every time we talk about food, I just want to take some of the power away from it. So this first part of the podcast, I’m talking about if we’re setting a protocol for ourselves, and it’s not realistic, I want you to look at it. I’m guessing it’s not realistic because we’re trying to be the best.

What I’m saying is let’s just dial it back a little bit. I don’t want you to just say forget my protocol, forget being mindful, which is what we have a tendency to do. What’s good enough? We might need to plan that ahead of time. Right now, with a lot of people, protocols come up, and there are people that are like, “You know, I have migraines, and when I wake up with a migraine, my normal protocol is just not gonna work.” They have a migraine protocol, right?

If you know every month when you’re about to get your period, you crave salty foods and your normal protocol doesn’t really meet that, let’s make a protocol for that. Is this realistic? If it’s not, can I just do good enough? Can I change some of my perfect, some of my best down to better, or do I need to go all the way to good enough?

Now I want to tell you how to do this the opposite way, right? That’s kind of a plus or type effort and working backwards. Let’s talk about doing it the other way. Let’s say I’m going out with friends. We’re going to get a burger. OK, we’re going for burgers at the best burger place. Eating burgers comes—that’s good. There’s nothing wrong or bad or forbidden about the burger. The burger is good enough.

I might take it off the bun, or I might not have the fries. I’m gonna have extra lettuce and make it a wrap, or I’m gonna do a burger bowl and ask for extra lettuce to turn it into a burger salad. No food is forbidden. We’re gonna start with whatever food is good enough and then look like, can I just up-level a little bit? Can I make it a little bit better? Nachos maybe—extra protein on the side? Can I get extra veggies? Can I get a salad and just eat some nachos and eat the salad with the nachos?

Nachos are good; maybe cutting back on the nacho portion and adding a salad is best, or maybe that’s better. All things considered, nachos and putting it on a salad—as long as we’re telling ourselves the food is not forbidden, it kind of opens up space to see if we can make it a little bit better.

If I go into my nacho situation thinking this is not— I shouldn’t be having these, not only will I eat them, but I’m probably gonna eat more than I need. I get that scarcity mentality: I’m never gonna be able to have this again; I should eat it all right now. The nachos are good. A little bit better, a little bit better than that position—take it all the way to the best, which is all the things—the nachos on a salad.

So we can do both ways. We set a protocol starting at A+, and we look at that, and we’re like, “Yep, not happening today. I didn’t sleep; I feel gross. I’m getting cold.” That’s my feeling. OK, let’s work backwards. Can I just grab something that’s kind of similar? Did I pre-make myself a protocol so I’m ready for the situation?

Is it something I know happens a lot for us? Right now, it would be like getting woken up by the kids. All the time is not a surprise, so can I have a protocol that’s ready for that situation? Can I just work backwards—good enough for today?

Then the opposite way—if I’m going to have one of the foods that I want to enjoy, can I not call it bad? Can I just call it good? This is good enough. It’s good. Can I do a little better? Can I just do a little bit better so we can just stick to my protocol or revised protocol? Can I just stick to a revised protocol? Can I revise this so that it makes sense, and can I just make this a little bit better?

It’s just food. That burger’s not in charge of me in the same way that that salad and egg omelet are not in charge of me to decide in a mindful place. I feel amazing when I eat eggs in the morning. I’ve got lots of options. So if I wake up late and I can’t make my egg white omelet—which always happens, and I never make an egg omelet, full disclosure—I get the already boiled hard-boiled eggs. I put them in a Tupperware, and I take them with me on the road. OK, to make an egg omelet—protein, right? Just get something that’s still in my protocol without jumping off the deep end and thinking I failed and starting the shame spiral.

On the flipside, can I just have the nachos a little bit leveled up? Can I level up a little bit? Can I be compassionate enough that I need straight nachos? They are that I at least don’t start the spiral. Can I acknowledge they’re not forbidden? They’re not bad. I’m not bad for eating them. They’re just food until I’m done eating them.

No shame spiral, and move on to the next meal and try. If I add a good meal with nachos, can I eat a better meal the next time or a meal at my next meal? This is all food.

OK, we want to level up or level down where we need to so that perfect protocol might not always work. Instead of just ditching it and being like, “Forget it; I’m gonna eat whatever I want,” can we just go down the scale from best to better to good and work on that scale of doing what we say we’re gonna do?

On the flipside, if we’re starting with a good food—that’s baseline nachos, baseline burger and fries—can we level up a little bit? Can we do just a little bit better than that? If not, that’s OK. But we need to check in and be mindful, and we can level up. So good health—just a little bit—it’s all about being back in control.

You get to decide what food you eat. The food does not control you, and we get one step closer to ourselves. If you think this was helpful, please share it with a friend. I would love you to rate and review the podcast, and I will talk to you next week. Bye!