Show Notes

Key Points:

• Sometimes we get convinced that nothing will work as good as food in allowing us to cope with our emotional issues.
• How do we incorporate tools that just don’t work with our lifestyle?
• Eating for emotional comfort just doesn’t make us happy in the long run!
• Ellen Shuman, a therapist who does work specifically with people who struggle with emotional eating, joins us to help answer today’s letter! She tells us about her journey to becoming involved in the eating disorder and emotional eating worlds.
• “The Oprah Effect”
• Ellen’s “Emotional Handrails:” something to attach our mind to in order to tolerate the emotions long enough to figure out what is driving us to emotional eating.
• It’s not about food behavior, it’s about being able to internally emotionally regulate!
• “I’ve learned how to neutralize the things I’m saying to myself that really are distortions, and not really the truth.” – Ellen
• The whole point of eating emotionally is to be mindLESS, which is why mindFULL eating is such a hard goal for people who deal with emotional eating.
• “First we learn how to tolerate our thoughts and feelings and to feel more empowered to manage those so [that] we’re not so scared they’re gonna overwhelm us.” – Ellen
• There are so many tools out there that work better!! It’s about intervening BEFORE the food thought hits.
• Conscious positive behavior replaces conscious negative behavior.
• Ellen’s “To Hell With it Switch:” that moment in which we abandon our promises to “do better” and instead engage in emotional eating to numb out.
• What’s the brain chemistry going on here?? What are the patterns of thinking that trigger our emotional eating?
• Top brain (pre-frontal cortex) vs. bottom brain (primitive brain).
• Use self-compassion and self-care to quiet your negative thoughts (middle-brain self-critical statements) that lead to emotional overeating!
• “I am not my thoughts! Just ’cause I have a food thought doesn’t mean I have to act on it.” – Ellen
• “Don’t believe everything you think.” – Dr. Wayne W Dyer
• Ellen chats about her program, A Weigh Out which focuses on an end to emotional eating and weight obsession, her free phone seminar session, and the Weigh Out free 3-week membership.
• If we work on the underlying issues and learn new tools to support our emotional management, then the food issues begin to resolve themselves.
• Happiness and freedom from food obsession comes from being who we truly are, and working on our emotional coping tools.
• You are WORTH putting in the effort and figuring this out. Stop blaming yourself… you haven’t found the tools yet that work for you!
• RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE!!

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.

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This episode is sponsored by my friends at Green Mountain at Fox Run.

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