Episode 4: Normal Eaters Do Not Do this ONE thing
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[00:00:00] This episode is about the biggest obstacle to becoming a normal eater. It is the reason why you eat when you're not hungry, and the reason you keep breaking your plan, even when you really wanna follow it. And it's also the reason why even if you have been doing the two steps for a while, you don't consistently follow your plan.
Or if you find yourself saying, I know what to do, I just don't do it. This is episode that will finally explain why. So let's start here. we know that normal eaters don't overeat, right? They listen to their body, they eat when they're hungry, and they stop when they're satisfied about 80% of the time.
As a baseline. They also trust themselves.
And just as a quick recap, that self-trust is something that you create. It's not something that you're born with. You create it by making a doable 24 hour plan and following through, not by following someone else's meal plan, and not by tracking or restricting, you build trust by doing what you say that you're gonna do.
Period. Now, what makes [00:01:00] that kind of normal, eating hard? I'm gonna give you one word, drama. And when I say drama, what I'm really meaning is emotional eating. If you are using food as a distraction from your emotional life. That's emotional eating. If you're overweight or have weight to lose, chances are emotional eating is playing a big role in that.
Now I also wanna just pause here and say not everyone who comes to work with me is trying to lose weight. I've actually had clients with no pounds to lose, but still feel like food has way too much power over them. They're still hammering themselves with thoughts about desserts, treats, and that candy that's in the pantry.
One client of mine used to wrestle with this constant pull towards chocolate. It felt like it was all she could think about by mid-afternoon. That urge was overwhelming. That struggle for her was all consuming just as loud, just as heavy as it is for my clients who are trying to [00:02:00] lose a hundred pounds I love Victor Frankl's analogy in a man's search for meaning
In his book, he says, A person suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it fill that chamber completely and evenly no matter how big the chamber. His point is this emotional suffering fills you entirely
the volume of pain isn't diminished by the scale. So whether it's chocolate at night or decades of weight struggle, if food feels like it's in control, or if you're having an insurmountable amount of thoughts about your weight, the food that's controlling you, that is emotional suffering, that's what we are working on here, ending the emotional struggle around food.
Now, Some of you are picturing emotional eating as some dramatic movie scene. Ice cream at midnight, cookies in the dark, eating outta the pantry when nobody's watching. But that is [00:03:00] not what emotional eating typically looks like. I'll be right back after the short break to dive into what emotional eating really looks like and steps you can take today to stop emotional eating.
Two years later, I joined jcs for Good program two years ago for about four months. Today, after body fat analysis and a weigh in, I'm down 3% body fat and sitting one pound below my goal weight. Wow. Here's the kicker. I've been enjoying my favorite foods, and for me, that's like cake, danish, homemade buttered popcorn, and cold brew with delicious flavored whipped cream.
I have a treat almost every day. No deprivation. No restriction, guilt, no regret. When I was weighing my options I had zero interest in giving up the foods that bring me joy or some quickie, but fleeting weight loss what I did want was to change the way I approached eating altogether. . What is that you ask? I eat when I'm hungry and I stop when I'm satisfied
I hope the scale would [00:04:00] eventually reflect the shift in my software program and it did. Jcs program gave me a handful of undeniably useful tools. But it was having her as my coach that ensured I actually used them and mastered them, and in turn, I rewrote my inner when I'm calling software.
Turns out this humble but transformational upgrade changed everything
so let's break down what emotional eating looks like, because I know that some of you are in denial. Emotional eating is also eating when you're not hungry, wanting a snack because you're bored. Grabbing a slice of pizza on girls' night, even though you made your plan because you didn't wanna be that person eating differently, feeling restless before heading to the park with your kids and thinking, maybe I'll grab a latte side note, I still struggle with that one. Telling yourself just one more bite, even when you're already full. Not stopping. When you're satisfied, talking yourself into finishing the croissant because it won't taste as good. Eating the leftovers tomorrow.
Eating something off [00:05:00] plan just because your coworker brought you a tree and you don't wanna hurt their feelings. Thinking I might get hungry later, so I better just eat now.
Every single one of those is you trying to solve a feeling with food or you anticipating a negative emotion and preparing yourself for that negative emotion by consuming food ahead of time. And I wanna take this even deeper because for a lot of us, emotional eating isn't just something that we picked up on our own.
It was a hundred percent taught to us. It was modeled by our parents in phrases like, you better eat now, it's dinner time. Or you don't wanna be rude or you better have seconds in case you get hungry later. I'll never forget the time I came home crying at 12 years old when something awful happened at school. And God bless my dad's heart, it was his way of comforting me. He said, you know what always makes you feel better? Baking cookies. That was the moment that I learned the idea that food helps, that when you feel sad, you should just distract or soothe it away.
Now here's the perspective I wanna offer [00:06:00] you. All emotions are allowed. Life is always going to be a mixture of 50% positive and 50% negative emotions. There is no future on Earth where you feel a hundred percent positive emotions all the time.
This is not heaven. So as a Christian, as somebody who was raised with beliefs about being good all the time and being happy all the time, I think that that belief really impacted my belief system early on.
And I think because I grew up with the belief that Jesus died on the cross and I should be eternally happy, I somehow turn that into I'm not allowed to feel bad ever, and bless my little rule following heart. I genuinely thought that sadness or anger or frustration meant that I was doing something wrong.
It meant that I was deeply ungrateful for everything that I had, and I immediately. Always looked for ways that I could get back into feeling [00:07:00] happy, fast. And you know, one of the quickest ways that our brain learns how to feel happy fast, it is food.
Because when you eat food, dopamine is released in your brain. And you know what's funny is that regardless of your faith or background, most humans carry this quiet belief that they should never feel bad. That happiness is the goal. That if something feels hard or uncomfortable, it means that something is wrong.
And when you believe that, you end up resisting every negative emotion. You go to food the second something uncomfortable comes up because you think you're not supposed to feel that way.
Now, here's the shift. Life is 50 50. There is no version of earth where you feel positive all the time. Bad things are always going to happen here, hard things. And the sooner that you accept that, the sooner you stop trying to escape every uncomfortable feeling. Even when you reach your goal weight, even when you feel in control with food, even when you identify as a normal eater.
You are still going to feel [00:08:00] grief, loneliness, shame, anger, frustration,
That is the human experience. And when you stop trying to fight it, when you learn how to welcome every emotion instead of fearing it that is when you are finally free. You know, the other day I was scooping ice cream out of the carton for my daughters and I saw a tagline on the bottom that said A carton full of happiness. And I laughed 'cause I was in the middle of creating this podcast and I was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what we've been sold.
Happiness in food. Comfort in food. Now here's the truth. Food. We know this does not fix the feeling. It just dulls it. It quiets the vibration of that emotion. Now, let's talk more about that vibration for a second. I want you to imagine a crystal glass. You ding it. What happens when you ding it? It rings right loud and clear. That's like an emotion, a vibration in your body. But now picture that same glass filled with food. Ding it again. The sound [00:09:00] is duller, right? That's what happens when you use food to buffer food, dulls the emotional vibration, but it does not make it disappear. That emotion will still be there after the food, and the worst part of it is that you don't ever learn that the emotion is 100% completely harmless. I'm gonna repeat that. Emotions are 100% completely harmless.
There is no emotion that can hurt you, harm you, cause you physical pain. It is impossible. Ironically, it is usually what we do, our actions in response to an emotion that cause us pain.
And for you, the action that you do that causes pain and suffering is what happens when you overeat. The net negative result that you get when you buffer is you gain weight. You. Feel physically uncomfortable. And You get further from your [00:10:00] goal of becoming a normal eater. But what's so common for Overeaters is that you get zero awareness because of the shame, regret and disappointment in yourself for overeating.
Your brain is so busy dealing with those uncomfortable negative emotions that the original emotion never gets processed. So what was behind your overeating in the first place? Maybe it was dread or loneliness. Sadness, procrastination, or frustration from the day. But now, instead of dealing with that original emotion, your swimming in, regret about the overeating, and so that cycle continues. This is why you need to learn how to feel a feeling all the way through without solving it with food.
Normal eaters have this skill. They don't panic when an emotion comes up. They recognize negative emotion and they're willing to feel it, to ride it out, to let it vibrate in their body without needing to numb it, fix it, or distract from it. And the best part is that you can learn how to do this. [00:11:00] This is actually what I teach inside of the Accelerator and the Mastermind.
It is not hard to learn.
Yes, it takes intentionality. It takes a little commitment, You know, I had one client recently realize that her entire pattern of nighttime eating actually came from one specific emotion. It was restlessness, and once she named it, sat with it, documented it, and held space for it, she realized that it wasn't as scary as she thought.
She didn't need to eat to get away from it. She could just handle it. And that right there, my friend, is the most empowering shift, not the number on the scale, not the perfect food log, but the moment you prove to yourself, I can feel anything, I can handle anything, and I don't need food to make that feeling go away. My mentor says this, you don't have an overeating problem. You have an under feeling problem.
This skill is the highest form of self-care. This is what it means to be fully empowered, in my opinion, that willingness and [00:12:00] confidence to experience any emotion and have your own back, that you can handle it at the highest level.
Now, let me be really clear. You don't need to master the emotional vocabulary wheel before you start. There are literally hundreds of emotions and most people can only name 10, and that is more than enough.
You can begin right now just by noticing when you don't feel good. That is the start of emotional intelligence. That is the start of emotional tolerance. Then listen carefully because your brain will usually follow up with, I'm hungry. I need something. I'm craving a snack. That is the opening for you to pause.
Name it for what it is. I am feeling sad. I am feeling restless. And then you can remind yourself, this feeling is allowed. This feeling is not a problem. And the best part is reminding yourself you are not broken for feeling it, and you won't break by feeling it. In [00:13:00] fact, it will be the very thing that frees you from the obstacle that stands in your way of where you wanna be in the future, which is normal eating.
Now if you are ready to go deeper to master emotional eating become the woman who can handle any emotion in just 10 weeks, I'm gonna teach you how to stop buffering from your emotions, how to feel those emotions, fully eat like a normal person and create lasting weight loss. This is your next level. So if something inside of you is saying, this is for me.
I need to learn this and get coached on this, that's not a coincidence. That is your next level calling and I would love to walk you there. So if that's you, click the link in the show notes
I will see you in the next episode, sowed.
