Stressless Eating

I am so excited to welcome back Suzanne to the podcast to share her insights and wisdom now that she's been a graduate of Stressless Eating for nearly 2 years.

The growth just keeps on coming, and on this episode of the podcast, Suzanne shares how she not only broke out of the food, body, and self-rejection prison that she felt powerless to escape from, but how it also transformed her journey of calling in a loving relationship (among other things).

As Suzanne shared on her first apearance on the podcast, her Self-Image and Body-Image kept her from putting herself out there to find true love, knowing that if she didn't find it in herself FIRST, she would never be able to fully receive it from another, and she's here to share the full-circle story of how she finally created her road to self-love and how that led to meeting the love of her life.

We talk about this....and so much more.

★Catch Suzanne's first episode here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/case-study-food-freedom-and-self-love-in-months/id1521598815?i=1000480874880

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

Laura Lea Bryant is back on the podcast, and this time it's to talk about Stressless Cooking.

A few years ago, we realized that the same stress and emotion that women experience with food...

It shows up in COOKING too!

To a lot of women, cooking is STRESSFUL!

And that's why Laura Lea and I hunkered down in Asheville for 4 days, determined not to leave until we were able to take the stress and emotion out of cooking... and help women take control of their lives by taking control of their KITCHEN!

And Stressless Cooking was born 🙂

We share some of the mindsets and beliefs to watch out for and how to become a Stressless Cook yourself, so that can remove the stress, emotion, and frustration from cooking and preparing food and take control of your life by taking control of your kitchen.

You can follow Laura Lea here: https://www.instagram.com/lauraleabalanced/

We are in for a treat today as we welcome back Jenna to the podcast to share her insights and wisdom now that she's been a graduate of Stressless Eating for nearly 2 years.

The growth just keeps on coming, and on this episode of the podcast, Jenna shares how she's completely redefined her definition of health and self-care (especially in 'pandemic times'), how slowing down has actually helped accelerate her growth, and a look back at how taking a nervous system approach to health helped her reversed her pre-diabetic diagnosis.

We talk about this....and so much more.

★Catch Jenna's first episode here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/case-study-how-a-full-time-working-mom-ditched-her/id1521598815?i=1000486442063

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

Nowadays where studies show that while less than 1% of American women suffer from anorexia and less than 1.5% of women suffer from bulimia...

Studies also show that 75% of American women suffer with Disordered Eating.

Let me say that again:

3/4 of the women in America suffer from Disordered Eating (and these studies only included Americans, but we also know it's a world wide epidemic).

Now here's the truth:

While pretty much everyone knows what an Eating Disorder is, most have never even heard of this thing called Disordered Eating (I know I sure hadn't!)

And considering that 75% of women suffer from it, I think it's a really important thing to know about -- and even more important that we talk about it

According to The National Eating Disorders Association Disordered Eating entails:

Frequent dieting, anxiety associated with specific foods or meal skipping. Preoccupation with food, weight and body image that negatively impacts quality of life. A feeling of loss of control around food, including compulsive eating habits.

In other words....

The Statistics Don't Lie (Disordered Eating is Spreading Like A Wildfire!)

Disordered Eating is everything that we talk about here on this podcast that I refer to as the diet mentality or the weight loss mentality...but I truly believe that Disordered eating is actually the cause AND effect of the Diet Mentality.

The CAUSE?

★ The mindset that there are "good foods" and "bad foods" ★ The thought-process of "eat less, move more". ★ Constantly focusing on your scale weight, jean size, or a calorie count. ★ Doing ANYTHING to move that scale or drop a few pounds....even if it means sacrificing your health or your happiness. ★ Constantly counting calories, carbs, fat grams, protein. ★ Always thinking about food, controlling yourself around food, or feeling OUT of control around food.

The EFFECT of all of this?

An extremely DISORDERED relationship with food.

And if you're anything like myself and all my clients...

You've been learning that way of thinking for a long time.

You learned it...just like I learned it. So let's un-learn it, shall we?

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

After feeling stuck on the diet roller coaster and living with emotional eating for decades, Jessica thought she was just "one of those people" that would have to live like this forever.

Her life was filled with lots of success and external accomplishments, but deep down she knew this was affecting every area of her life, but she just didn't know how to break the vicious cycle.

And on top of the food and body and shame prison that she felt powerless to escape from, unbeknownst to her at the time we met, she would also be going through an upcoming divorce.

Apprehensive but knowing something had to change, Jessica booked a call with me. She had her fears after years of endless dieting, but feeling out of control of food and her emotions was no longer a way she wanted to live. So she got started in Stressless Eating.

In this interview she shares her journey, her struggles, her shifts, and what enabled HER to finally set herself free.

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

For the first 30 years of my life, my relationship with food had 2 'modes'. On -OR- Off There was no middle ground for me. I was either walking around day-in, day-out as: My Inner Food Police: Micromanaging every morsel of food I ate or thought about eating. Controlling myself, restricting myself, punishing myself, and persuading myself not to eat certain things because they were "bad" or "not healthy". Obsession. Harsh judgments. All that shame, blame, guilt, comparison, and perfectionism... -OR- My Inner Rebel (See also: Inner Glutton!) Carefree abandonment – eating whatever I could get my hands on. Gluttonously over-stuffing myself. Binging on the weekends. Utter lack of care of my body, what I ate, how I moved, and my health in general. But also feeling like I had to "get it all in" over the weekend before I went back into "Police" mode on Monday. And THIS was my life for over 30 years! Bouncing from one extreme to the other: I would diet and restrict until I couldn't possibly take it anymore, and then....I would TOTALLY let myself go. But the day came that I hit my 'enough is enough' point, and I realized that if I didn't change my STRATEGY and change the STORIES around food and my body that were keeping me stuck, this is how it would ALWAYS be! And that scared the crap out of me, and THAT is when I knew I had to set out to change it. Because... ★ I was SICK of all the dieting and restricting and constantly playing 'food police'. ★ I was SICK of all the judging and shaming and EMOTION that came alongside food. ★ I was SICK of hating what I had to DO, who I had to BE, and how I had to FEEL to get the "body I always wanted". It was EXHAUSTING. And I was the OPPOSITE of FREE. So if YOU are still stuck on that on-again, off-again roller coaster with food or your body or your emotions, I'm here to tell you: There IS a better way! And you don't have to live like this! And that's why I break down what's happening deep down in your BRAIN when this happens...and how to stop it in its tracks. ★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

When I look back at my life, I realize that decades of the "Diet Mentality' and all the self-loathing that came alongside it had a cost that I didn't even know to look for — that I didn't even know to try to avoid.

And what made it even harder was: No one was talking about this! No one warned me about the 'dark side' of living your life handcuffed to a diet, and no one warned me about the prison that it leaves you in.

For me it was:

★ A Food Prison that had me chained to the handcuffs of restriction, deprivation, control, and OBSESSING over every morsel of food that touched my lips…or (when I couldn't possibly take it any longer) veering over to the OPPOSITE side: care-free abandonment, eating everything in sight, feeding my sugar addictions, and using food to comfort, distract, or numb myself. (And then of course the cascade of guilt, shame, and self-loathing that would follow suit).

★ A Body Prison where I felt like I was walking around in a body that didn't reflect the woman I really was — like the outsides didn't match the insides — but that I felt powerless to change. A prison of wearing 'fat clothes', covering my body with cardigans, and refusing to wear shorts or tank tops (or god forbid be seen in a bathing suit!) even when it was 95 degrees outside. Not to mention allowing my body to BE the barrier that kept me from doing what I wanted to do, feeling how I wanted to feel, and showing up as the version of myself that I really was…but I just couldn't access her.

★ A Shame Prison where I was outright ashamed that (after decades on this planet) I was STILL struggling with food, still struggling with my body, and still on this up-and-down roller coaster. I felt like a fraud — like if anyone ever "found me out" they would see how crazy or broken I really was. And of course there was the shame that followed me around every single day because of the identity that I had created about my struggles — that I WAS my body, that I WAS my addictions, that I WAS a failure.

And of course… ★ A 'Fat Head' that (no matter how much weight I lost or how 'successful' I became) my Self-Image saw me through goggles seeing me as 'fat', 'unloveable', a 'failure', 'embarrassing', and that I would never be enough — skinny enough, successful enough, enough period.

And all of this left me in a prison of pain, disconnection, and loneliness.

Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spritually.

And in those moments of clarity, that's when I realized:

"Whoa! This is not unique to ME!" Every woman that feels stuck on the diet and weight loss roller coaster is paying their own MAJOR COST too! And in this episode of the Stressless Eating Podcast we get into the in's and out's of how to avoid the price you pay for always being on a diet (and what they don't tell you!)

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

When I met Erin, she felt like she had tried everything under the sun -- and she was so sick of all the black/white, "should"/"shouldn't" rules that were causing her to obsess over food, and eventually cave and binge. And....she was also (at the time) a new mom again -- having a newborn baby ON TOP of raising her 2-year old.

Desperate to change, feeling like she was a prisoner to food (always thinking about dieting OR simply feeling like a failure for not being able to stick with anything long-term), she found me and booked a call to speak with me about getting help, KNOWING that her problems were getting worse going down the road she was going down.

There was so much information out there, and she was so overwhelmed and tired of thinking about it all, but she knew she had to do SOMETHING radically different. She knew that the problem was in her BRAIN. In this episode of the podcast, Erin shares the in's and out's of her struggles, her journey, and the steps she took that finally led her to freedom after feeling out of control for her entire life.

But also...why it was so important to do it NOW -- while her kids were young -- and not use the "I don't have time for myself" excuse any longer.

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

I am so excited to share my interview with Radio Personality and Podcaster Amy Brown!

If you're not familiar with Amy, she's the beloved co-host of The Bobby Bones Show, and she launched her own podcast nearly 2 years ago to shed light on the topics she's passionate and purposeful about.

You've heard me a couple different times on her 4 Things With Amy Brown podcast, and more recently on her newest podcast: Outweigh.

But now the tables have turned, and I had the opportunity to sit down with Amy where she laid it all out there including:

★ HER journey with her own food and body struggles, what it's like

★ What it's like being around celebrities and music superstars WHILE dealing with her own 'stuff'.

★ How she takes a stand for women's healing and has dedicated a ton of time to supporting women heal their struggles with food and her body.

All of that...and so much more!

She is truly a woman on a mission to empower other women, and she's so transparent and raw and honest and real. I loved co-creating magic with this awesome lady!

We recorded this episode live from her home in Nashville, and I couldn't be more excited about how it turned out.

Lauren Buck is back on the podcast for Part 2 of Stressless Parenting, and this episode is powerful! Lauren is an expert on all things relating to parenting and self-care for the modern-day woman and the founder of Fully Present Mom. In this episode we address the traps and beliefs that come up for all women (not just moms!) that keep them trapped in an identity and self-image that doesn't serve them.

​Whether you have kids or not, this is a conversation with timeless truths that will relate to any woman. ​

​★ Listen to Part 1 of Stressless Parenting Here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stressless-parenting-part-1-with-lauren-buck/id1521598815?i=1000530235319

​★ You Can Connect More With Lauren Here:

​https://www.fullypresent.mom/

★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar:

https://www.StresslessEating.com