E204 - The Zero Willpower Approach

Hey and welcome to the Mindful Balance Podcast, your guide to stop emotional eating and overeating

and transform your relationship with food.

I am Rachel, a nutrition and emotional eating coach, and I'm here to help women like you

navigate through the complex world of eating habits, health, mindset, and emotional well-being.

I hope that each episode here will be a step on your journey towards a healthier you by

shedding light on different aspects of nutrition and emotional eating.

I am here to take out the need for quick fixes by showing you how it can be done differently.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to deepen your understanding, you're in the

right place, and if you're ready, let's dive in.

Hey and welcome back to the podcast.

Before we start, I sometimes like to share a quick life update.

It is March when I am recording this episode, which marks the beginning of a super busy

season.

My daughter is a competitive dancer, so almost every weekend in March and April is about

participating in a different competition.

So our weekends are very busy.

It is also the birthday month of my daughter and my youngest son, so we also take time

to celebrate them.

My second son just got home from college for spring break, so I am super excited to have

him home for the next week.

And my oldest, he lives in New York City, so now as the weather gets a little bit better,

my husband and I are really hoping to spend some time with him there because we really

love the city and all the fun museums and the restaurants.

So that's exciting too.

And I think that overall, I am just a much happier person as the cold weather leaves

and I can spend more time outside and in the sun.

So yeah, that's just what's happening around here.

And now we can get into today's episode.

One of the things that I used to spend lots of time thinking about during my years of

struggles was this, will it ever get easier?

Will I ever be able to figure it out?

Will I be able to eat like just a normal person?

There were times that I remember I would just come to the conclusion that my struggle with

emotional eating was never going to go away.

Of course, there were periods of being good and there were periods of being bad, but I

really came to realization that for the rest of my life, this is going to be my story and

I would always have to just deal with it.

This is especially common for women who consider themselves practical or realistic, high achievers,

people like that, I should say, like me.

We look reality in the face and with really good intentions, we believe that we are being

very honest and this is what is in store for us in the future.

So I want to start today's topic with this.

Right now, you may be telling yourself something similar that you don't know if you can ever

heal your relationship with food and with your body and stop eating so much to the point

where you just hate yourself.

You hate food and you hate everyone who doesn't have this problem.

I will even guess that right now as you listen to this episode, you can't even possibly imagine

how things could be any different for you.

You think that you are broken, that there is no way out, that you cannot change, or

you've been this way for so long that you think that this is just the way you are.

When you are in the thick of it and you have tried so many times to stop turning to food

every time your boss says the wrong thing or your kids frustrate you without any success,

then keeping any level of confidence in yourself can be a challenge.

I get it.

Believing that you can ever be any different than you are right now can be really hard

to believe.

You have struggled for so long and you haven't found a way out.

So it can be assumed that this struggle will last forever.

Anytime I hear a woman talk about herself this way, I have to say, "No, no, that's not

a fact.

Yes, struggle happens.

I know that firsthand, but no one has to live a life that they don't love forever.

There is a way out."

And I want you to pay close attention right now.

The struggle in itself isn't a fact.

I'm going to say it again.

The struggle in itself isn't a fact.

Living in a struggle means that you are not happy with something.

Let's say here is your eating habits and a change takes lots of effort.

It is not easy and there's not enough visible progress.

That's what it means to feel like you are living in a struggle.

You may be in the habit of eating for reasons other than hunger, but you're trying really,

really hard not to do that.

When you perceive your efforts as useless, you criticize yourself and you talk negatively

about how you feel.

So now not only do we struggle with food and we struggle with cravings, but then we add

another layer of battle against ourselves.

This is how so many negative emotions pile on top of the struggle with food, making your

whole emotional eating experience that much worse.

So I want to help you take a step back.

When we talk about emotional eating, we think about eating to feed our feelings, not our

hunger, but if we get more specific, there is never really a problem with eating, let's

say chicken and broccoli, right?

It gets tricky when reaching for that extra piece of cake happens not because we need

it, but because of what's happening in our brains, the thoughts that we have and the

feelings that result from those thoughts.

So how does emotional eating manifest?

Here's a scenario.

I'm going to guess that you will be able to relate to it at some level.

It's late at night, you had dinner, so you are physically no longer hungry, but 30 minutes

pass and you find yourself rummaging through the fridge.

Maybe you had a hard day at work and you just want something to make it go away.

Or maybe you were so busy all day taking care of other people that it is the first time

that you have an opportunity to take care of yourself and food is available and it is

pleasurable.

Maybe you are just tired, but you're not ready to go to sleep yet and you're not ready to

start this entire daily routine again tomorrow, not just yet.

Or maybe it is just out of a habit.

Whatever it looks like for you, we've all been there.

Now, the problem with emotional eating is that it is so complex and so nuanced.

What it may look like for you may be different for someone else, of course, but there is

one thing in common.

It's not just about food.

It's about our thoughts and our emotions.

And like I said, there is often a sense of guilt and shame that tags along, making it

this silent struggle for so many of us.

It is not something that we like to talk about.

It is not something like we like to share.

It is something that so many of us just deal with from the inside.

One of the most common misconceptions about emotional eating is the idea that emotional

eating equals a lack of willpower, which really couldn't be any farther from the truth.

Emotional eating is a natural human response to emotional needs.

And frankly, it is really understandable.

Welcome to being a human being with a functioning human brain.

What does it look like to rely on willpower in order to stop emotional eating?

Think of it as your mind wanting or needing to eat, right?

You have that sense of like, I need this.

You're feeling the urge to eat, but then you're trying really, really hard not to give in.

Your thoughts and feelings are driving you to the pantry, but you are resisting it.

You're resisting taking action by telling yourself that you're not going to do it and

you're going to really try and resist it and talk yourself out of it.

If you don't know how to properly talk yourself out of emotional eating, it can be really

exhausting.

And honestly, it sucks.

It's not something that you want to do at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday after a really long day.

That discomfort becomes really extreme when you try to resist eating.

And if you don't know how to manage the situation properly, it will become unbearable, almost

like life and death kind of feeling.

A lot of women describe it almost what feels like a panic attack, very, very anxiety triggering

situation.

Right now, your mind is programmed in a way that drives you to food when you feel discomfort.

Struggling means that you are keeping the same programming and trying to generate a

different result.

It's like if you are a machine programmed to, let's say, manufacture pasta and you're

trying to make pizza.

That would be quite the struggle because you don't have the right tools and you don't have

the pieces to create what you're trying to create.

In a similar way, your brain is programmed to eat any time you feel an emotion, which

by the way, it doesn't even have to be like a miserable or a negative emotion.

It can even be eating because you feel happy or excited.

You believe that eating is the solution because of your experiences.

The problem is you also don't want to eat, right?

That's when you go back and forth between these two desires.

And so eating ends up being what you are going to do just by default.

Many of my clients describe it exactly like that.

It's like I have two versions of myself inside my brain fighting.

If you did not have a craving to eat, there would be no struggle, right?

You would just not eat.

If you didn't try to stop eating your feelings and have freedom from that habit, there also

wouldn't be any struggle because you would just eat and move on and this would be what

you're doing.

But these two conditions at the same time, cravings and resisting, are causing you pain.

If you want to end your struggle, you need the tools and the pieces of the puzzle that

will create awareness around what's happening in your brain and have a game plan for when

that happens so that you can become someone who feels her feelings without that automation

of eating.

The change isn't just about food.

It literally is about rewiring your brain to respond in a new way when you hear the

voice or the thought that says, "I deserve it," or "I need something yummy right now."

There are many, many women out there who have stopped struggling.

It is possible.

I've seen it happen for my clients and for myself.

Do I overeat sometimes?

Yes, of course.

Absolutely.

Everyone overeats sometimes.

It is part of the human experience and this is something important to keep in mind.

Maybe as I'm saying it, maybe I should call this the 90% approach to emotional eating

freedom.

We go on vacations.

We have holidays.

We even have like a special lunch on a Wednesday at work, but it is not a struggle.

Overeating sometimes is not a struggle because I, for example, I can have a conversation

with myself like an adult and there's no drama, there's no guilt, there's no mental

gymnastics.

With time and practice, it can become easier to say no and respect your own boundaries

as you work on yourself, on your mind, and your thoughts.

You are no longer hijacked every time you get stressed or every time you feel an urge

to eat.

With practice, you get better at these things and you literally rewire your brain to say

no to food without it being such a giant deal.

I only say yes to food or even to more food than I need when it is fully worth it, not

just in the moment, but later or the next day, physically, mentally, or both.

And I will again be completely honest because everyone has moments when we would just rather

escape our thoughts and feelings and do something to numb them away with food, with TV, social

media, shopping, or even cleaning.

There are so many ways to run away from your emotions.

It's called buffering, but you can learn to feel your feelings without that buffering.

That's where the real change is that allows you to be the person that you want to be effortlessly.

Before I leave you with these ideas, I encourage you to really be gentle with yourself.

Emotional eating is a shared experience and it doesn't define you.

It is part of a larger puzzle of who we are as human beings, of who you are as a person,

and it doesn't mean that you are weak or broken in any way.

So please, please take that compassion and then get to work on it.

Okay?

I will see you again next time.

Bye bye.

Take care.

Thank you for listening to the Mindful Balance podcast today.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found inspiration to find your unique balance and

growth.

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ease.

Until next time, take care.

Bye.

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The Mindful Balance is brought to you by Rachel Emma Nutrition.

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