Too Much on Her Plate with Dr. Melissa McCreery: Emotional Eating Help for Smart, High-Achieving Women

How do you stop eating on autopilot? How do you break patterns of mindless eating (when you’re - quite literally - eating mindlessly)? What’s one skill that you definitely need if you want to stop overeating or numbing out with food? These questions are answered in today’s episode of the Too Much on Her Plate podcast. In this episode: How you may have lost your power to make decisions about your e...

How can you be so smart and successful in multiple areas of your life and be going in circles with overeating and your weight? Why is it that you know how to solve so many problems, but every Monday you’re facing down the same old personal challenges with stress, or overwhelm, overeating, and the scale? It’s not just you. In what’s probably a familiar refrain from me, I’m here to tell you that one...

As a high achiever who solves problems, your ability to jump into action is probably a strength, but it doesn’t serve you as well when you want to stop emotional eating or overeating. In this episode, I’ll explain why this is, how doing and taking action to stop overeating might be keeping you stuck in the same vicious cycle, and I’ll share a tip and a story of how one client stopped going in circ...

If you feel like you keep letting yourself down by overeating; if you don’t have confidence that you’ll follow through on your next plan to change your eating habits; or if you don’t trust yourself to ever make changes with emotional eating or overeating, then this episode is for you. In this episode: The relationship between lost confidence, “flakiness”, and perfectionism How to rebuild self-trus...

In this Q&A episode, I’m answering the question a listener submitted in my free Facebook group: “What if feeling my feelings is too uncomfortable? I know I’m an emotional eater, but I don’t want to feel my feelings, so how do I stop overeating?” In this episode: Myths about being uncomfortable Perfectionism, numbing, overdoing, and overeating - and their link to discomfort Why it’s valuable to...

In this episode, I’m exploring the power and transformation that happens when you slow down to overcome overeating and emotional eating. Your brain and your impatience want change to happen fast, but you might be surprised that slow is not only better but sometimes quicker.  In this episode: The power of reflection Slowing down for better results (and how your brain resists) Learning to be vs. do...

This episode is about why small steps are the answer to breaking emotional eating habits, why they are so hard to take, and why your plan to end overeating cycles should focus on building consistency with do-able steps instead of big, dramatic lifestyle changes or diets (which we know don’t work). I polled my clients about how small steps have had big impacts on their lives and they came through w...

In this episode I’m breaking down specific ways that perfectionism keeps you caught in overeating and emotional patterns and specific ways to break these patterns. In this episode: How perfectionism limits your life Perfectionism kills momentum and motivation Guilt, shame, and perfectionism How perfectionism keeps you from learning what you need to learn to stop overeating 100% goals Habit and Win...

It’s one thing to want to stop overeating or to want to lose weight. It’s another thing to figure out a way to make that happen. In between, it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of starting food plans that aren’t sustainable, or of being frozen by overwhelm because of the distance between your current situation and your goal.  In this episode I want to share with you how to avoid sitting in procras...

You’re someone who’s used to giving your all - and more. It’s led to a great career and a fair amount of success, but it’s also the cause of stress, overwhelm, and overeating. There’s a reason you curl up with a bag of chips at the end of the day - it’s because you left it all out on the field and didn’t get much for yourself. In situations like this, overeating or bingeing or constant snacking ca...

The reality is that you can break patterns of endlessly falling off track and "starting over" each time your eating doesn't go the way you'd hoped. You can also let go of the guilt and shame and the other emotional baggage that's often a part of these overeating cycles. I have a number of "what if" questions for you in today's episode that just might change...

It's summer, and many of us are in a "do-less-and-relax-more" frame of mind.  This week's episode can help. Believe it or not, you can unstick yourself from overeating habits without giving up on your summer vacation vibe. In fact,  too many women are expending too much effort, and are still going in circles with overeating and emotional eating and their weight. In this episode...

In this episode you’ll hear a conversation about what it really looks like to develop a healthier relationship with food without dieting through the Missing Peace program. Wendy, a former participant in the program, discusses what it’s like for her one year after finishing Your Missing Peace. We talk about how she overcame the battle of food’s frustrating influence in her life. Wendy shares how mi...

Freedom from overeating isn’t just a catchy phrase or a diet in disguise. Freedom is the feeling that most women I talk to are craving. Freedom from feeling haunted by cravings. By sugar. By the scale. Freedom from having four sizes of pants in their closet. Freedom from waking up every morning wondering if it’s going to be a “good day” or a “bad day” with food and their weight. Freedom from havin...

This episode was originally published as Episode 44. I’m bringing it back because I get SO many questions about how to plan for eating (and not overeating) on vacation. I’m a huge believer in vacations, but you shouldn’t have to take a vacation from your relationship with food. Unfortunately, many smart, busy women feel like they do. The culprit: diet mentality, and thoughts and beliefs you might...

In this episode, I’m sharing what I discovered about how I handle (and don’t handle) transitions before and after a vacation, the unnecessary drama and stress I have created in the past, and what I’m experimenting with to take my power back from overwhelm and to break automatic habits that often lead to overeating. In this episode: Why transitions are often a major time for overeating, emotions ea...

While there’s no magic “how to lose weight without dieting” formula, there are some easy steps that can help you move away from diet mentality and diet behavior. In this episode of the Too Much on Her Plate podcast, I’m sharing a conversation with a client that helped her make a massive shift that makes overeating less powerful and less of a focus in her life. In this episode: Understanding your w...

Let’s suppose that you know you’re an emotional eater. You’ve learned about emotional eating. You’ve spent time exploring your feelings. You can clearly see and describe the situations and feelings that trigger you to overeat. And all that insight hasn’t changed your eating habits at all. How do you break out of an emotional eating loop when focusing on your feelings hasn’t helped? In this episode...

I propose that we work on cultivating a self-care mindset instead of a long self-care to-do list. In this episode, you’ll also find some self-caring ways to help make true self-care easier and more intuitive. In this episode: Understanding real self-care: the distinction between faux self-care and real self-care. Practical self-care strategies: a range of actionable suggestions to cultivate a self...

In this episode, I’m shining a light on how powerful myths contribute to guilt, self-blame, and a loss of hope in your ability to make lasting changes. I’m also sharing three key points for regaining hope and confidence and creating the changes you desire. In this episode: How diet mentality perpetuates a cycle of self-blame and may have disconnected you from your hope and confidence. Peace with f...

Let’s tackle the challenge of emotional eating head-on. In this episode, I’m offering a specific plan centered around the powerful strategy of curiosity. I’ll explore how understanding the reasons behind emotional eating can empower you to regain control over your eating habits. By fostering curiosity rather than self-blame, you can uncover the underlying needs driving overeating and emotional eat...

This week’s podcast episode is about a breathing technique that you can use to interrupt emotional eating, overeating, and even a binge. What does breathing have to do with ending overeating? A lot. If you’re an emotional eater or a stress eater or someone who overeats on autopilot, you know how frustrating it can be to try to change habits that feel deeply ingrained - even automatic. You’ve likel...

I don’t believe that you can heal your relationship with food or permanently change your eating in positive ways if you don’t address the emotional baggage of shame. So let’s talk about how to break the cycle of guilt, shame, and overeating. You’d have to be superhuman not to have internalized some or all of these beliefs and influences. This episode is about how to break the cycle. In this episod...

You’ve probably been there. You walk in the door and you head to the kitchen. You hit “end meeting” on a work call and you go for a snack. You finish up dinner and all that you want to do in the kitchen and then you circle back for one more little thing before you leave. I’ve talked about transitions before on the podcast. In this episode, I’m sharing why your power to break overeating habits may...

Struggles with food and eating take up a lot of mental space. I frequently hear from women who desperately want to put an end to all the drama, the thinking about what and when to eat, and would give a lot to be able to create mental peace with food. If you want to understand what freedom from overeating really is, it’s important to understand cognitive dissonance and the mental tricks your brain...