The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast

If you celebrated Easter yesterday (and even if you didn't), you probably have some leftover candy in your house.  Which means you also probably have some parts who are very anxious  about this candy.  Or who have already eaten quite a bit of it.  Or who have put it high up on a shelf so that hopefully you'll forget about it. Having a lot of candy in the house can be difficult for some of our part...

Trigger warning: on this episode, we're talking about trauma and how traumatic experiences can impact your relationship with food and your body.  If you're just not up for this topic, take care of yourself and pass it by. Trauma and eating disorders often go hand-in-hand.  Indeed, research has suggested that up to 50% of those diagnosed with eating disorders meet the criteria of PTSD.  So if we're...

Let me ask you a question:  have you ever thought of yourself as a binge eater?  Or maybe you've noticed that you have a part that binges?  This is something that many people engage in at least sometimes, and for some folx it happens daily. But what exactly  is  binge eating?  I find that many of my clients describe themselves as binge eaters, but they actually aren't.  And to me, if you're going...

Are you familiar with the Enneagram?  The "test" that views personality as nine interconnected types?  I wasn't, until about three years ago.  And even then, I took an online test, bought a book, read the chapter that corresponded with my "type," and never looked at it again. But.... I've had parts in the background of my mind who have been curious about it.  And every time I see one of Tammy Soll...

I think many (most) of us have had the experience of feeling out-of-control with food, at least to some degree.  It feels like something or someone else has taken over and you're just along for the ride. In IFS terms, we call that being "blended" with a part.  The part has literally hijacked the system and is running the show.  And Self is  very  hard to access.   One of the things that my clients...

Changing your relationship with food and with your body can be quite the complicated process, can't it?  It seems like we often take two steps forward and four (or more?) steps back.  I think that's because sometimes we go too far too fast, and we experience a backlash from parts. Let me give you an example.  Say you feel out-of-control with food sometimes (or a lot of the time).  You decide to co...

I have a question for you:  are you hungry?  If your answer is yes, how can you tell?  If your answer is no, how you can tell?  And if your answer is, I have no idea, you're in the right place! Not surprisingly, the topic of hunger comes up a lot with my clients.  It's hard to talk about eating and food issues without talking about hunger.  And one of the questions I hear a lot is: Am I hungry?  O...

Quick trigger warning here:  lots of talk today about diets and the scale.  If you're not up for it, no worries--just skip it. It's January, and you know what that means. It's diet season. Ugh....I turned on the tv this morning and saw an ad for a diet program within five seconds.  About one minute later, there was one for a weight loss medication.  Yep.  We'll be completely inundated with ads for...

Here we are, smack-dab in the middle of holiday season. Maybe the holiday you celebrate has passed already, and all you have left is New Years.  Or maybe it hasn't happened yet.  Either way, we're not done yet! I don't have to tell you that the holidays can be a really tough time of year for people who struggle with food.  This time of year can feel like a food minefield that's nearly impossible t...

What comes to mind when I ask you this question: Are you healthy? My guess is, if your answer is "yes," you started running down a list of physical metrics that support your answer.  Like, your recent bloodwork was good, you exercise regularly, you "eat right." I'm also going to guess that if your answer is "no," you also ran down a list of physical metrics that support your answer.  Things like, ...

It's Thanksgiving week here in the US, and that always brings up the topic of gratitude.  Last season at this time, I did an episode called  "Giving Thanks for Two Things We Love to Hate"  (the two things being our body and our emotional eating behaviors), and this season I'm doing something similar.  But this time, I'm just focusing on giving thanks to your body. Since most of us tend to be at le...

On this week's episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Diana Dugan Richards , a Nutrition Therapist with a private practice (Namaste Nutrition) in Watertown, MA.  As a registered, licensed dietitian for 25 years and nutrition therapist since 2011 and from a springboard of yoga and exercise philosophy, Diana offers nutrition counseling in a weight-neutral approach and sets a foundation of curi...

We've talked before about how your relationship with food starts on day one. And I used to think of "day one" as being in utero, or even infancy. But I was wrong about that. Your relationship with food has the possibility of starting three generations ago. Like with your grandmother. Let me explain. I've been reading the book "It Didn't Start with You," by Mark Wolynn, which you may have read. The...

Well, Season Two of the Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast is a wrap!  In this season, we talked a LOT about IFS (Internal Family Systems) and how it can help you truly understand why you use food the way you do (i.e. binge eating, emotional eating, restricting your food, etc.).   As I'm sure you've noticed, I think IFS is the absolute best way to make any type of long-term change in y...

Do you ever feel unmotivated?   I know--that question is almost laughable, isn't it?  Sometimes I feel like  all  I ever am is  un motivated.  I always have a huge list of the things that I "should" be doing, and somehow it seems like the majority of it doesn't get done. And then, of course, I have parts that feel guilty for just sitting on the couch.   But thanks to my guest on this week's podcas...

We've talked a lot over the past year about IFS (Internal Family Systems) and how it can help you to change your relationship with food and your body for the better.   But I know that IFS may still seem a bit "out there," or "woo-woo" for some.  Or it might still seem downright confusing. So luckily, on this week's podcast episode you'll get to hear how it all works, thanks to my guest  Natalie De...

On last week's podcast, we talked about the common fears and concerns our parts tend to have when making any kind of change.  Not surprisingly, when I say "change," I'm specifically referring changing your relationship with food.  Doing things like no longer dieting, trying to stop emotional eating, and/or no longer bingeing. And of course, making the change that I'm hoping we all get to: moving f...

If you're like just about everyone else in the world, you've tried to make some changes to your eating habits and have probably been met with limited success. And one of the biggest reasons for this is that parts of you actually didn't want to make those changes.  Let me explain. When we want to make a change in our behavior--any behavior really--we tend to have parts that want to make that change...

On this week's podcast, we're talking about the legacy burden of diet culture. You might be asking, what is a "legacy burden?"  Excellent question!  According to IFS (Internal Family Systems), we all carry burdens, which are "the negative beliefs, emotions, sensations, or other energies that were absorbed and accumulated from past traumas and other life experiences."  In other words, through diffi...

On this week's podcast episode, we're talking about a difficult subject:  trauma. Unfortunately, trauma impacts most if not all of us.  Obviously in widely varying degrees.   Thankfully, there is currently a wealth of information about the topic of trauma.  We know more and more these days about how it impacts us and how to treat it. And one of the things we're learning more and more about is prev...

Last week, I had an amazing discussion with  Abbie Attwood  about whether or not food is addictive. And we decided that no, it's not. Well, at least not  physically . But it can be  emotionally .  Yes, there's a difference. While food is not a physically addictive substance, it sure can be emotionally addictive. Meaning that there are parts of us that turn to food to protect us from uncomfortable...

Have you ever felt addicted to food?  Like food just calls to you?   Or have you had the experience of being afraid to start eating something, like an M&M or a potato chip, because you'll probably eat the entire bag? Have you gone through the process of completely cutting sugar out of your life because you feel that that's the only way to not feel so controlled by it? These are all very common exp...

We aren't born hating our bodies.  We  learn  to.  The constant, unrelenting messages from our culture ensure that pretty much all of us have an issue with our body.   I wish my stomach was flatter.  I wish my butt was smaller.  I wish my boobs were bigger.  I wish I had washboard abs. It never ends. For some, negative feelings toward their body is a mild distraction from an otherwise ok day.  For...

I'm so excited about this this week's podcast!  In this episode, you'll hear a live coaching call with Kristen where we use IFS (Internal Family Systems) to get to know some of the parts in her eating system.   Kristen graciously agreed to volunteer for this session, and as you'll hear, she had some "aha" moments.   When we began the session, Kristen mentioned a polarization between a "Diet Wrecke...

What do you think of when you hear the word nourishment? Maybe a giant bowl of mixed greens and fresh veggies. Or a brightly colored fruit smoothie. Or even a salmon fillet with a side of asparagus and sweet potato. On this week's podcast, Annie Wagoner, founder of Core Nourishment, encourages us to expand our definition of nourishment. And she really knows what she's talking about. Annie is a cer...