What to do with Halloween candy

Four options to consider along with possible outcomes. 

Option 1: Eat it. 

Option 2: Don't eat it. 

There is NO right or wrong way to be with Halloween candy. I’m not advocating for one way or another. It can be helpful to know how your choices may impact how you feel about yourself and your relationship with food. 

If you've been restricting, believe you have a food or sugar addiction or are worried you'll be out of control around the candy if you just have one piece, then I get how you may not believe it can be this simple. 

So, let's break it down. 

Option 1: Eat it. 

You can eat the Halloween candy while telling yourself you shouldn't be eating it and feel really guilty about it. 

Possible outcomes: 

• You may not enjoy eating the candy. 

• If you’re telling yourself,  “I can eat this today, but I can't eat this tomorrow” you’ll likely eat more today knowing you have to restrict tomorrow. 

• As a result of feeling guilty, you may trigger a restriction response which means you’ll try to limit your food intake and increase your exercise. This will likely set you up for a future binge or drive you to overeat. 

• You may feel like you’re a failure. 

Another way to eat it. 

You can eat the Halloween candy with full permission to eat the candy you like and enjoy it. 

Possible outcomes: 

• Eating mindfully means you'll be noticing the taste of what you're eating. You may even pay attention to how your body feels when you eat it and afterward. 

• This will be interesting information for you to know what candy you like and what you don't like. 

• You’ll enjoy the candy and can practice tuning into your body to know when it’s time for you to stop eating because you’re satisfied and don’t want any more. 

Option 2: Don’t Eat It.  

You may want Halloween candy but choose not to eat it. If you're choosing not to because you're afraid to start eating it, you don't want to eat bad, sugary foods, or you just want to be good, you may feel deprived and like you're missing out. 

Possible outcomes: 

• You may choose to eat other foods to replace the Halloween candy. 

• You may notice you eat a lot of that food and still don't feel satiated or content. 

• You may still want Halloween candy and eventually choose to eat it. (See Option 1). 

Another way to not eat it.

You may choose to not eat Halloween candy because you know you can have candy anytime you'd like. It's not novel or special to you. 

Possible outcomes: 

• You've checked in with your body and you're just not interested in Halloween candy right now. 

• You’ve reaffirmed the trust you have in your body to guide you to eat joyfully. 

• You give yourself full permission to eat Halloween candy anytime for any reason. 

One Reason You Can’t Lose Weight

** Friends, I’m not a weight loss coach. I take a weight-neutral approach in my work, which means I advocate for you to thrive in your life with your body at any size. 

In this post, I am talking about the complexity of weight loss. I’m not advocating for weight loss or sharing with you tips or tricks on how to lose weight. I’m not implying you need to lose weight. **

In my early 30’s I joined a commercial diet plan and lost a good deal of weight in a short time. 

This was right around my birthday, so my husband took me on a shopping spree. I got to “celebrate” my smaller body with cute clothes. 

Everyone noticed, including my step-father who said “Tara, there isn’t going to be much left of you.” 

Thanks to diet culture, we’ve learned to celebrate and acknowledge weight loss and thin bodies. Way to go, they say, keep up the good work. You look so beautiful, they say. 

You know all of this and probably have experienced it first hand.

Yet, the impact of these comments goes deeper than you imagine. 

What we likely hear is, what was wrong with my body before I lost weight? Was I that disgusting before? 

But, we also FEEL the watchful eyes on our bodies. As they notice our body weight, we immediately feel judged. Even if their comments seem kind and encouraging. The comments imply that our thin body is worth more than our bigger body.  

When it felt like all eyes were on me (after weight loss), I was on high alert. I was anticipating the next comment and trying to be prepared. When I wasn’t expecting it, the comment would arrive and I wish I could cover my head, pull my knees to my chest and hide under a blanket. 

Our body knows when it’s being judged. Now I know what was happening to me. My body was in a state of fight and freeze. 

Comments on your body or comments made to you about other bodies likely put you on high alert, make you feel judged, and trigger a shame response. 

A shame response is how your body reacts when it perceives a threat and tries to keep you safe (fight/ flight or freeze). 

As you’ve been living in this dynamic for most of your life, in the back of your mind you may be thinking, I need to lose weight. I want to drop 10 pounds. I want to finally get thinner. 

But, is it safe for you to lose weight? 

No. It’s not. 

A part of you may be saying: 

Don’t see me because I’m not lovable the way I am. 

Don’t see me because I’m not safe when you see me. 

This is why weight loss is so complex. 

Because there is a part of your mind and body that knows that your thinner body will only get more attention. It may be “positive” attention on the surface, but it’s still judgment. 

And that attention doesn’t create safety in your body. It does the opposite. It creates fear. When we feel fear, our nervous system automatically responds. We can’t override it, no matter how hard we try. 

There is a good chance that you’ve been blaming yourself for your weight loss failures. You may be wondering if you just haven't found the right diet yet that will work for you. You’ve been wondering how to find more discipline and motivation to eat the “right” way. 

Besides the fact that 95% of diets only lead to weight gain in the long term, you’ve likely been living with inner conflict around being safely seen in your body. 

Every human wants to be seen, and feel loved, just the way they are. 

Diet culture convinces us that weight loss is the way to feel loved. But the only way to feel loved is to live and feel safe in our bodies.

What Food Cravings Are Trying To Tell You

When you crave a glass of water, do you question it? 

When you crave a hug, do you second guess yourself? 

When you crave a nap, do you dismiss it? 

When you crave an empty bladder, do you ignore it? 

Your body is fantastic at communicating its needs. 

Yet, when it comes to food and how we eat, diet culture and wellness culture have convinced us otherwise. 

Here is what we hear: 

• Sugar is addictive. 

• Inflammatory foods harm our health. 

• Be more disciplined. 

• Avoid cravings by eating "healthier" foods. 

• Drink a glass of water so you feel full. 

• Basically, we're told that cravings are bad. 

Which makes me insane. Ultimately, we've been taught to NOT trust our bodies. Our bodies offer us an incredible amount of information. 

Your body is your wisdom, your source of peace and security. Yet, you've been told that your body is the enemy. You've been told that it must be changed, and it needs to be fixed. 

Trust your cravings. 

And if that feels like a big stretch, start by getting curious around them. They are not wrong or bad. They are offering you information. 

Cravings are letting you know what your body (and soul) needs. 

Why You Can't Stick To A Diet

I know how to diet, but I can’t seem to stick to it. 

Put another way, I know what to do, but I can’t seem to do it. 

Here is what’s going on.

I hear this ALL the time. I even said this to myself back in the day. I added, “what the hell is wrong with me?” 

When I first joined WW in the early 2000s, I ate big batches of veggie soup. I lost my post-pregnancy weight quickly. 

When I tried WW a few years later (after I had my second child), I thought I’d try what worked the first time. So I made veggie soup again. Yet this time, it would stay in the fridge for a week. I’d toss it out. I made batches of soup week after week, with the best of intentions. But I could never bring myself to eat more than a cup or so. 

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to follow the diet again. I knew what to do, but I couldn’t seem to do it. 

Sadly, I spent so much time beating myself up. And you may be doing this too. Here is what’s really going on. 

While dieting, our body is in a state of deprivation. 

But, bodies are NOT designed to be deprived, they are designed to survive (and thrive). 

Which is why, if your body isn’t getting enough calories, it will do everything it can to ensure it will. This is often why folks cycle on diets with periods of restriction followed by overeating. 

Our mind and body are closely linked. 

If we experienced deprivation in the past (aka a diet), our body tells our mind to anticipate danger. The danger is the deprivation. 

For me, veggie soup = deprivation. Which is why I couldn’t eat that food no matter how hard I tried. I was anticipating deprivation. 

My mind and body were working together to ensure my survival. 

See how genius our mind and body are?  

If you’re noticing the same pattern, please know: 

Your body and mind are working perfectly. You’re not doing anything wrong. Diet culture convinces dieters they need more discipline. No amount of discipline can override this mechanism. 

What We're Really Hungry for When We Eat Emotionally

We all just want to feel okay

This post is from my book Hungry: Trust Your Body and Free Your Mind around Food. 

I polled several clients and asked when they first heard the term emotional eating. I discovered that they heard it either from a Weight Watchers leader or, like me, they couldn’t remember. It was just a term they knew that helped them understand why they were overeating.

I saw a chart, maybe a therapist showed me, or I had read it in a weight loss book, that claimed we want to eat crunchy and salty foods when we are angry and warm and sweet foods when we are sad. When I was trying to understand my own episodes of overeating, this chart seemed to help. It linked trail mix to stress, cheese and crackers to anger, and ice cream to sadness. I now had a tool I could use to dissect my overeating behavior and inform me how I was feeling. Accurate or not.

If my emotions were causing my overeating, I now had something else to blame. It wasn’t just the temptation of food, it was how I felt. By far, this was an even bigger and more serious personal attack.

Foods Makes Us Feel Better

When we eat a sugary food, like a pastry or a cookie, our brain releases dopamine. Dopamine is the “feel-good hormone” that can improve our mood, make us feel better, and increase our motivation. We can physically alter how we feel, from sad to happy, with one bite of cake, spoon of ice cream, or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

I shared with you the first binge I had when I was a preteen. As I’ve reflected back on what drove me to eat so much food, I realized it was simple. I wanted to feel better. Over time, as I repeatedly overate, I formed a pattern in my mind. If I didn’t like the way I felt, food, especially salty and sugary treats, could change that. I even found myself eating if I anticipated feeling uncomfortable, like if I knew I had a big project at work due the next morning and needed to stay up late finishing it. The anticipation of stress and overwhelm was enough to drive me to the food pantry.

We’ve been told our emotions are the reason we’ve been overeating and why we choose the foods we do. However, that’s simply not true.

Not Okay to Feel

We live in a culture where it’s not okay to express our emotions. Our culture tells us it’s a sign of weakness if boys cry and a sign of volatility if girls get angry. Growing up, our elders may have showed us how to express how they felt by not expressing emotion at all. Chances are, they said, “I’m fine,” got quiet, or tried to hide how they really felt. Vulnerability around expressing emotions hasn’t been modeled for us, but instead, we’ve been shown how to keep our emotions under control and pretend everything is okay.

And they told us:

“You need to calm down.”

“Stop crying.”

“Go to bed and you’ll feel better.”

“I’ll talk to you when you’ve stopped crying.”

As a result, we also ignore how we feel.

A pivotal time for me on my healing journey was fully feeling my emotions. Instead of pretending I was okay, situations would arise where I was furious, or filled with jealousy or anger — all feelings I thought were inappropriate for me to feel. I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I was petty, reactive, or insecure. But I was, and when I let the feelings come up and fully felt them, it was uncomfortable. I would feel the heat, I would scream, or I would cry. At times, I would feel a sharp pain in my chest.

I never ate while feeling my emotions. Instead, I ate to avoid them.

When we are on the verge of something uncomfortable, eating can soothe us and distract us from feeling.

What Are Emotions?

Emotions are just an energy that wants to move. They’re the most beautiful form of expression we have. They show us how we are living in this world and experiencing it.

Like our two-year-old who demands our attention when we are on the phone, our emotions simply want to be recognized. They want us to look them in the eye and fully be with them. We’ve been brushing them aside or running away from them as fast as we can, but really, our feelings just want us to stop and let them surface.

Blaming Our Circumstances

In our minds, our feelings have been the reason for our overeating. If we weren’t so stressed, we wouldn’t be stress eating. By blaming our feelings for overeating, we have another way of blaming ourselves for our eating behavior. By doing this, we may believe our circumstances are to blame for our overeating. If work wasn’t so stressful, we wouldn’t be stress eating. If we weren’t in the middle of a divorce, we wouldn’t feel so scared. If a loved one didn’t just pass, we wouldn’t be so incredibly sad.

When one of my clients, Jen, heard about emotional eating from her Weight Watchers leader, she felt the relief of understanding why she couldn’t eat just one piece of cake but had four instead. Emotional eating explained her overeating problem, yet it didn’t stop her from overeating. As a single mom to three young children, her life with an overwhelming house during the week and an empty and lonely one every other weekend felt like an emotional roller coaster. Jen didn’t feel safe to fully feel her sadness, and overeating was able to soothe her immediately. But after she binged, Jen felt ashamed and hopeless.

Overeating distracts us when we start feeling uncomfortable and don’t want to feel. However, the aftermath of a binge is even more impactful and painful than the feeling we initially may have been avoiding. Wanting to hide when we overeat erodes our confidence. We feel far worse after a binge than we did before. Why? Because we have an achy belly overfilled with food. We may worry we will gain weight. We tell ourselves we are disgusting and out of control. Because of our definition of emotional eating, the only thing we can blame for this behavior is ourselves and how we feel.

Feelings are our savior. 

They are an energy that wants to move through us. Getting to know them and being with them is simply getting to know ourselves. Feelings are an expression of ourselves. Feeling our feelings takes courage, as doing so sends a deliberate message to ourselves that we are okay. We are okay to be sad, and therefore we will feel sad. We are okay to be angry, and therefore we will be angry. 

Feeling isn’t just about the emotion as much as it is about being okay with ourselves. And being okay with ourselves includes learning to appreciate and respect our bodies.

Food Struggles Aren't About Lack of Willpower

It’s time to stop blaming yourself and understand what’s really happening

Your fridge is filled with healthy foods, yet you snack on salty treats from the pantry. You have all the fixings for a salad, yet you order take-out. You’ve been trying hard to avoid certain foods. Yet, after a few weeks, days, or hours, you decide that one handful won’t hurt. Then one turns into too many.

According to popular diet advice, you’re doing all the right things. You’re meal planning and removing the “bad” foods from your kitchen. Yet, something seems to stop you.

It’s frustrating when you work so hard toward something and you don’t get the results you’re looking for.

Especially when diet culture tells us that diets will work when we work hard enough. Diet companies show us before and after weight loss pictures. We read testimonials from folks that have finally lost weight because they stuck to the plan. They were driven and focused.

If they can do it, why can’t I?

When you feel derailed, again and again, it’s not surprising for you to conclude that you must be missing something. You take your diet failures personally. After all, if Mary Jo from Arkansas can drop 40 pounds, why can’t you? You conclude that you must be lacking willpower.

Weight loss companies play the blame game

If your car doesn’t drive, it’s not because you’re a bad driver. Your car needs repair.

If your doctor prescribed a medication that was supposed to improve your health and it didn’t, you wouldn’t blame yourself. It’s the wrong medication for you.

Yet, when folks regain weight after being on a diet, they don’t blame the diet. They blame themselves.

Weight loss companies profit when dieters continue to try their programs again and again. They purposefully design their marketing material to make you believe their product works by giving you proof.

What they don’t tell us is that their program is only designed for short-term (one year or less) success. They don’t ever tell you that the research is clear. Dieting leads to long-term weight gain.

Consider the study done on participants of the Season 8 Biggest Loser reality TV show. Thirteen of the fourteen contestants regained weight after 6 years. Four of the contestants regained all of their weight loss and now weigh more than they did at the start of the competition.

The blame is subtle because the promises of weight loss are loud and the truth is hidden in the fine print.

Let’s consider the truth

I’m willing to bet you have plenty of willpower. Most of my clients are driven, motivated women that know how to get shit done. They often say to me, “why can’t I just figure this ONE thing out?” They are juggling work, family and personal time. They’re at the top of their class and continue to climb their professional ladder.

When it comes to dieting and weight loss, the adage “the harder you work the luckier you get” does not apply.

You’re not sabotaging or lacking anything. There is something else happening inside of you.

When you are tempted to eat forbidden foods, do you notice a voice that says:

“Come on. You deserve to eat that.”

“Oh no! Don’t eat that. You know you can’t control yourself around that food.”

“You want that, go ahead and eat it.”

Those might sound like unmotivated words. This voice taunts you and coaxes you to eat the foods you’re trying to avoid and to keep eating when there is a part of you that wants to stop.

This voice is your inner food rebel

It ignites a battle within yourself. You may naturally want to argue with this voice or silence it. After all, on the surface, it’s this voice that leads you down an undesirable path. But it’s important to understand where the inner food rebel comes from.

Humans want to make their own choices and decisions. One of the most basic needs humans have is autonomy. We want to have a say in what happens to us and not be controlled or told what to do.

Growing up, I recall saying to myself “You can’t be the boss of me.” I’d literally and figuratively stomp my foot and plant my hands firmly on my hips when anyone or anything tried to tell me what to do or what I couldn’t do. I was hell-bent on not being pushed around.

Where the inner food rebel was created

Yet, that’s exactly what a diet does.

Dieting takes away our autonomy and our own choices around what to eat and when to eat it.

Yes, I know. We are generally the ones that put ourselves on a diet. No one is making us count calories or eliminate sugar.

In many ways, our dieting and weight loss efforts did feel mandatory. We’ve been told our body needs to be slimmer to be more attractive. We see our slimmer friends and want to fit in. In our society, dieting has been considered a worthy sacrifice.

Yet, what’s really happening is we’re sacrificing our free will. Humans are designed to be free, and freedom can’t be sacrificed. This is why your inner food rebel was created.

Inner food rebel reframed

Many of my clients describe the age and tone of their inner food rebel as a young version of themselves. Often because the voice was created during a time when their choices were taken away, as early as 8 or 9 years old.

During this time in our life, we experienced inner conflict. A part of us was so eager to fit in and follow the rules. Another part wanted complete autonomy over what she eats and when she eats it.

The inner food rebel was created to protect your independence and free will. It’s there to assert yourself when it wasn’t safe to do so. The inner food rebel isn’t your enemy. It’s your protector and the part of you that wants to be expressed. It wanted to protect you from losing yourself, from not having a say, and from being trapped into doing what you didn’t want to do.

It’s understandable to confuse your inner food rebel as a lack of willpower.

Get to know your inner food rebel

Your inner food rebel doesn’t need to be silenced for you to make choices that serve you best. That’s the good news. You can work with your inner food rebel to move forward to changing your relationship with food.

Start to tune into this voice. Listen for it with curiosity. There may be an opportunity here to heal some of your past hurts in your relationship with food and your body.

You can co-exist with this voice without making it your enemy or see it as a character defect. Allow your inner food rebel to have her space on the stage and you can still make a different choice around what, when and how much you eat.

It’s not your fault that you’ve been blaming yourself for having a lack of willpower. Your inner food rebel is a complicated mechanism. On one hand, she doesn’t appear to have your best interests in mind. But really, when you understand her better, she’s been advocating for your needs from the very beginning.

3 Reasons You Keep Looking for Your Next Diet

You may feel like a crazy person, but here’s the truth

When people talk to me about their relationship with food, they tell me they’ve tried every diet out there. They list them off to me like state capitols. We’ve all heard of them and visited a few of them ourselves.

Before I began my food freedom journey, I was always looking for a way to lose weight and slim down.

Weight loss ads would catch my eye. My ears would perk up if I heard someone talk about how they just lost weight. I’d enviously study weight loss before and after pictures hoping to learn their secrets.

When I found that new diet, I’d quickly order the book on Amazon. I’d create a membership account and join their online community. I’d start with all of the enthusiasm and eagerness of a college freshman on her first day of school. I’d clean out my pantry and go to the grocery store with the list of “acceptable” foods in hand.

You know what comes next. Eventually. Inevitably. Maybe 3 months, 3 weeks, or just 3 days.

I couldn’t follow my new diet any longer.

Instead of losing weight, I lost hope. I wondered what I did wrong. I wondered why my new diet worked for the person in the before and after picture, but not for me. Did I not give it enough of my time and energy? Was I not disciplined enough? Was there some self-limiting belief that was holding me back?

I could only assume the answer to each of those questions was yes. It wasn’t the diet. It was me.

After a few months, I’d start this cycle all over again with new hope and enthusiasm by looking for a new diet.

Does this craziness around searching for a new diet sound familiar?

If you’re wondering why you keep doing the same thing and hoping for different results, I want to offer you some insight. There are some very valid reasons you’ve been chronically dieting.

1. You’ve been told that you haven’t YET found the right diet for you.

Weight loss companies with big marketing budgets and manipulative marketing messages tell us that their diet works. They’re masterful at sharing research, testimonials, and celebrity endorsements letting us know that their solution will help us lose weight.

Most often they tell you that they have a secret that no one else has. They will tell you that you’re just eating the wrong foods, you shouldn’t be combining certain foods, you need to be eating at the right time of day, eating more or less frequently, or that you’re exercising too much or too little.

This has likely led you to conclude that even though you’ve tried so many different diets, that this one will be different.

The truth is:

Diets aren’t effective for intentional weight loss in the long term. In fact, 95% of dieters will gain all of the weight they’ve lost and more after 3 years. I’m suspecting you know this. If diets were effective, the first diet that you and I tried would have been our last.

2. You’ve been promised a better life when you lose weight.

When we read weight loss success stories and see before and after pictures, we don’t just see a smaller person. We see a happier person that’s in a new relationship, working in a better paying job, and driving a nicer car. Or we see them at the beach in their bathing suit on vacation having the time of their life. We see someone that looks healthy and vibrant with a big smile on their face.

We’ve been told and shown time and time again that thin bodies are beautiful bodies. These messages we get from diet culture can be subtle and not so subtle. You may have been bullied or people may have made cruel comments to you because of the size of your body. I have. You’ve been told (and even believe) that your next diet will make you more attractive. You may be looking to diet to protect you from being on the receiving end of hurtful comments about the size of your body.

The truth is:

Sadly, we live in a fatphobic culture that offers people in thin bodies privilege and discriminates against people in larger bodies. I wish it were different. I want to create a world where our children can know they’re worthy of love and belonging, no matter the size of their body (and their sex, skin color, sexual identity, sexual preference, and ability). We can survive and ultimately thrive in a culture with so much oppression and discrimination. We don’t need to put our life on hold and wait until we’ve lost weight to be happy.

3. You’ve been dieting your whole life and it’s all you know.

The average age a girl in the United States starts to diet is 8 years old. I know. It makes me sick too. When I was growing up in the ’80s, the average age was 12. If you also started dieting in elementary or middle school, those were formative years.

You may have grown up watching your mother (or father) struggle with food and weight loss. When you get together with your family, they may always talk about their latest diets. You’re looking for another diet because it’s just what you do. And it’s what those around you do too. You may even feel like the black sheep if you don’t diet.

The truth is:

Offer yourself a whole lot of compassion. We were born knowing how to nourish ourselves without following the rules of a diet. Yet, that wasn’t modeled for you. You were encouraged to dismiss the sensations in your body. These sensations are still there, they’ve been lying dormant. You can reconnect with your body and let it be the guide in your relationship with food.

Conclusion

We live in a culture that spends a shit-ton of money selling us harmful and destructive solutions. You’ve been told that you’re doing the right thing. The truth is the solution (dieting) is the problem.

If you’ve been beating yourself up for trying one diet after the other, I hope these three reasons give you some relief. It’s not your fault.

How To Feel Emotions

An essential practice when you want to overcome emotional eating

Emotions are like gas. They pass.

I heard this from a yoga teacher forever ago.

It’s so consoling, isn’t it? Knowing that we can feel the swell of anger, sadness, fear and even happiness and that eventually, inevitably, they will pass through us.

Emotions don’t sit and stay stuck.

If you are anything like me, there was a time in my life when I had a hard time feeling feelings. I didn’t know what to do with the heat of my anger or the weight of my sadness.

Quite honestly, my emotions scared the shit out of me. I had a vision of a faucet. Once I turned the handle and emotions started to flow that they would never stop. I was afraid that I’d be overtaken by them. I believed they would leave me curled up in a ball on a cold floor, unable to move.

This was one of the reasons I turned to food for comfort.

I started to eat emotionally when I was 13. I didn’t have the tools or the support to recognize what to do with my discomfort. Over the years, I would even eat emotionally when I anticipated an uncomfortable emotion.

It took me decades to understand what we really going on with my emotional eating patterns. I had many layers to pull back. I knew that dealing with my emotions, whatever that meant, was a pivotal part of my recovery.

The idea that emotions pass gave me a bit of courage.

I never considered that I could feel my feelings and go on living my life. I welcomed the idea that I didn’t need to put my life on hold to process all of my past hurts and traumas.

This was the start of me embracing my humanness. I opened myself to feel in my mind. Yet, understanding something in theory and having an experience of something are two very different things.

Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for the opportunity to be with my emotions to present themselves.

One afternoon, I was scrolling through my social media when I saw a post by a friend that was at an outdoor yoga festival. She was there with a few of my other yogi friends. This was the first I’d heard about the event. My first reaction was to wonder why I hadn’t been invited.

My mind started to run wild. I’d been excluded. I was left behind. I wondered what I had done wrong. I wondered why my friends left me out.

In a few short moments, I made the choice that I was going to be with my hurt. I didn’t know what would come next, but I was ready to find out.

Instead of focusing on my thoughts, I put all of my attention on my body.

I felt a big weight on my chest that moved down to my belly. Tears immediately poured out of my eyes. I let them flow. I allowed the heaves of pain to move through me. My body shook and I could barely breathe.

And then, something amazing happened. As quickly as the emotions came, they left. This intense experience only lasted a few short minutes. I felt what needed to be felt, and then the energy of the emotions disappeared, like a bubble. It popped and dissolved.

My body felt relief, lightness and some fatigue.

This one experience was just the beginning of something big for me.

I was also proud of myself and my body. I partnered with her, I trusted her, I allowed her space to do what she’s designed to do; process emotions.

As I was teaching myself how to be with my feelings, I was also teaching myself how to be in my body. When I was afraid of my feelings, it was my mind that was afraid. My body was saying, “I’m here for this. Come what may. Bring it!” But I wasn’t aware of her capacity to feel yet. I hadn’t yet recognized her power.

When you’re ready to feel your emotions, start with these practices:

1.Know the truth about emotions.

Emotions are energy that are meant to move through your body. Our bodies are designed to process emotions. Emotions aren’t good or bad, they just are.

2. Practice tuning into the sensations of your body.

Sometimes your body knows the emotion before your mind does. Check in with your body regularly throughout the day and notice what signals your body is sharing with you.

3. When an emotion arises, give it space.

When we make room for something, we stop judging. That’s all your emotions want from you. Acceptance.

4. Just be and get curious.

You won’t know how your body will process the variety and intensities of your emotions until you experience it.

I’ve been able to take my practice into my healing of emotional eating. I guide my client’s to do the same. It was okay that I didn’t know how to feel. It’s okay that you may have no idea what to do with your emotions.

But know this. When you let them arrive. And give them space to be. They will likely leave as quickly as they came.

You’ve Tried Everything To Stop Overeating

Except for this one thing that made a huge difference for me

I had a sugar hangover on most Monday mornings. Still filled from eating too much the night before. Still empty and hungry for something I couldn’t name.

My mind would be busy trying to figure out how to stop myself from overeating and losing control around food ever again. I’d tell myself, “If I could just fix this, everything else in my life would be better.”

Yet, a week would pass. A month. And many more. Despite all of my efforts and prayers, I couldn’t stop myself from doing what I kept doing week after week. And I tried everything. More diets. Calorie tracking. Nutritionists. Therapists. Mantras. Journaling.

There came a point when I knew that I had to try something new. I felt somewhat insane doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Here is what I did.

What’s happening now.

Chances are, you’re frustrated when you eat too much because you’re afraid of weight gain. You want to change your body and get healthier. Yet, overeating is painful because it’s getting in your way.

Overeating becomes an obstacle on your path, preventing you from getting to where you want to go.

The obstacle gets bigger and bigger because we create a lot of stories around overeating and what it means to have this problem. The first time you overate, it may have been a pebble. Now, after months or years of this pattern, it’s turned into a massive boulder.

A problem becomes a problem when we make it mean something.

Eating 10 Oreos has become a big deal. It’s personal. It means something about you, your value, and your character.

Consider an “I do this… because I’m…..” statement. For example, “I can’t stop overeating because I’m broken, and there is something wrong with me.” This may be a typical conversation you have in your mind.

Overeating is no longer about having a filled belly; it means something more. It can mean you’re broken, wrong, damaged, and have no willpower.

Overeating becomes a personal attack.

Explore how you’re making overeating a problem in your mind. Consider questions like these:

When you just ate that second bowl of ice cream, what did you say to yourself about yourself?

What does it mean about yourself that you ate more than what your body needs?

What does overeating say about you, your character, your health, and your body?

Stepping around the obstacle.

Overeating isn’t the problem. The problem is how you’re thinking about overeating. Feeling broken is the real problem.

This is why you may feel stuck. Your focus and attention have stayed on the same internal conversation.

You’ve been pouring your energy into trying to fix the problem the same way over and over.

Without the narrative around what it means to overeat, you can look at your patterns with food with fresh eyes. Overeating will no longer be an obstacle that’s in your way.

Examining why you feel damaged and believing weight loss will fix that is the real work. But let’s put that aside for now.

A new approach.

When I stopped focusing on stopping myself from overeating and started focusing on tuning into my body, my binging quietly and unceremoniously slowed down and eventually stopped.

Give yourself permission to let go of the stories and beliefs that have made overeating significant to you.

When these patterns are no longer personal, you’ll change your focus and attention to make the changes you desire in your relationship with food.

Healing My Relationship With Food Helped Release My Addiction to Busyness

Being hooked on the hustle was all about my fear of being alone

I’ve been known to wear hard work and busyness as a badge of honor. In high school, I’d often run from softball practice to a babysitting gig, with just a quick shower and a snack on the run. In college, there was even more to keep me busy. Running on the cross country team, volunteering at the student credit union, and studying hard. There was no limit to what I could pack into my schedule. The more the better. I was in constant motion.

Busy and Hard Work Were the Same Thing

Wikipedia may not define busyness and hard work in the same way, but I did. Could one work hard without being busy? Could one be busy without working hard? Yes and yes. But I didn’t know how to separate the two. And frankly, I didn’t want to.

An Addiction to Busyness

I loved being so busy. Doing so much left me feeling so accomplished. My work ethic was something that set me apart from the crowd. In college, I had this snarky little voice that often looked down at my peers when they were sleeping in on the weekends or they told me about their B on an exam. “Hmmph. I guess you didn’t work hard enough.” I thought.

I was working late one night in the office when Bob poked his head in my office. At the end of the conversation he said “Tara, you’re the Tina Turner of public accounting.” It was a funny comment to hear. According to Bob, working until 9 pm put me on par with one of the greatest superstars of all time. That was just more fuel to toss on my hard work fire. What Bob may have overlooked is that he was in the office, too.

In a world where I didn’t quite know my worth, I reached and strived for the most logical way I could find it; hard work. I could earn my value and everyone around me agreed. Our names get posted in the newspaper when we achieve high honors. We get awarded great jobs because of our grades and extracurricular activities. Promotions don’t just land in our lap. We work for them. Our business revenues don’t increase on their own. Growth and expansion take effort. Lots and lots of effort.

Have you noticed this too? Busyness becomes a lifeline, something that assures our safety when we don’t know where we stand in the world. “I feel good when I accomplish something”, seemingly benign words may sound like common sense.

Yet, who are we when we aren’t working our asses off?

The Price We Pay for the Hustle

Are you running on fumes?

When you hit the proverbial wall at 3 pm, instead of finding yourself laying down on your bed for a nap, do you find yourself in the Dunkin’ drive-through for some cold brew and energy to get you through the second shift of your day?

We hustle to and sometimes through our exhaustion. And, without realizing why we’re hustling, there is a risk that you’ll keep doing it. The only thing that may stop you is when your body collapses, gets sick, or get injured.

I tore my shoulder rotator cuff while snowboarding a few years back. One of my kids cut in front of me and I reached back to stop myself from falling. Any medical doctor would say the cause of my injury was my fall. But it wasn’t. My body was exhausted. I was running three businesses. My three kids were in the thick of elementary school and middle school. My body kept whispering, this is too much. Slow down. Rest. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and they couldn’t take another ounce of busyness.

But I didn’t, couldn’t, and had no idea how to listen to my body back then. All I knew was the hustle. The hustle worked until my body failed. Which may be happening to you. Our body knows what it needs and it knows when it needs rest. Prioritizing hard work at the expense of the care of your body never works in the long run.

Our body’s whispers will turn to assertive demands, which will turn into screams. When we don’t listen to the screams, she’ll take us out. She tried to tell us nicely. She was persistent. But she won’t be silenced. Not when it comes to keeping herself in balance. And that’s exactly who pays the price when we hustle for hustle sake. Our body.

If It’s Going to Be, It’s Gotta Be Me

I have a deep-rooted fear that I’m alone. It’s raw and when I leave it unchecked, it feels so friggin’ real. I can look around at my husband, my kids, my family, and friends, and my logical brain says, what are you talking about? You’re not alone.

The fear of being alone is indifferent to reality. I’ll have a vision of myself in this tiny rowboat in the middle of an ocean. It’s stormy, the waves are high, and the skies are gray.

I’m all by myself, doing life on my own. No one is there to keep me safe. No one is there to protect me. No one is there to send me a fuckin’ lifeline. If I’m going to survive the storm, I need to row. Just me. In my tiny rowboat.

No wonder I needed the hustle to survive the first few decades of my life. My busyness saved me until it broke me.

Slowing Down Is Scary

At first, I needed certain conditions in place to slow down and relax. Slowing down only came after every other responsibility was taken care of. Did I deserve a beach resort vacation? Yes, when I worked twice as hard to make sure to work, projects. and home were all taken care of while I was away.

I hear this from my clients too. At the end of the day, the dishwasher needs to be loaded, the kitchen cleaned, and laundry started, then and only then, can they relax. There is that earning thing again.

Healing My Relationship with Food

While I was working hard and living a self-imposed busy life, I was also taking on a part-time job called weight loss. I was good at being busy with trying to lose weight. My work ethic was ideal for reading books, following programs, tracking calories, running miles, and spending hours in the gym. I was disciplined and trying to lose weight with hard work was another way for me to stay busy.

Something started to shift inside of me when I started to practice yoga and meditation. I started to become aware of my patterns. Instead of living inside of the dysfunction, I could witness it. I started to notice the pain and suffering I was feeling around food. How critical I was of myself and my body, how often I thought about food and what to eat, the rollercoaster ride I took every time I stepped on the scale, and the overeating and bingeing.

Something needed to change and I started with food. It was the most painful thing in my life at the time. I could be busy, but I couldn’t do the aching belly from eating a sleeve of cookies and ½ bag of Hershey Kisses.

Noticing My Body

For the first time in my life, I started to follow my hunger and fullness sensations. While dieting, I dismissed them and tried to ignore them. I started to tune in to my body, which opened the door just enough for me to notice other signals my body was sharing with me.

When I was in the hustle, there was no time or patience for me to notice my body. But now, I was intentionally stopping and inviting these sensations in. It was like my body came back to life and said, “Thanks for listening! I have so much more to share with you.” And the sensations came through, whether I liked it or not. I couldn’t stop listening because I knew it was the healing I wanted and needed.

There was a time in my life when I needed to be busy. It was the only way I knew myself. But this self was fearful, she had something to prove. When she was busy, she didn’t feel alone. Her busyness kept her running from the rowboat.

It’s All About Connection

As I started to get to know my body, I found my safety. It wasn’t in my accomplishments, it was within my own energy and being. I don’t want to paint the wrong picture. I still hustle, until I catch myself. I notice when I push and work hard for no reason. It happens, but not for long. Because my body lets me know when I need rest and when I need to slow down.

I have the healing of my relationship with food to thank. It brought me back to my body, where I can be present to myself and the world around me. When I was fearful of being alone, hard work, busyness, and weight loss were all of those things I did to prove myself. I had to show the world I was worth loving and accepting. Now, I have a way of connecting to my wholeness. And that connection needs no hustle.

How To Let Go of Perfectionism With Food

There was a time in my life when every morning, my first thought was, “I want to have a perfect day with food.” It was part mantra, part prayer.

I was trying to use sheer will to eat the right foods and avoid the wrong ones. I hoped that if I asked God, the universe, or anyone or anything that was listening to my wish, they would help me.

Are you trying to have a perfect day with food?

You don’t need to be on an official diet to be trying to eat perfectly. If you’re trying to lose weight and get healthy, you have a pretty good idea of what foods you should be eating and which ones you shouldn’t.

It’s common to adopt an internal diet voice, which is that little voice that is constantly monitoring what you’re eating and telling you that you’re being good or you’re being bad.

When you’re trying to be perfect, it means that you’re trying to be 100% compliant when following food rules and never break a single one of them.

Yet, let’s look at what happens when you’re trying to be perfect.

The day starts perfectly.

It always does. And then, as the day goes on, life happens. You get an unexpected call from the kid’s school. You have one of those uncomfortable conversations with a family member. You receive an unexpected bill and worry about money.

Or, you drive by your favorite bakery. You go to a networking event that’s serving cookies or muffins and you think, just one won’t hurt.

Life happens. Everyday life with stressors, discomfort, surprises, ups, and downs. And, food, which is just a part of life, happens to be around and available.

The moment you take one bite, your perfect day just disappears. In the blink of an eye, or one small bite.

One bite makes the day wrong.

You’ve already blown it. Like a switch that got flipped, you can’t have a perfect day with food. Who cares? You mine as well eat what you want. So you’ll eat the bad and forbidden foods that you’re not allowing yourself to eat on a perfect day.

After all, tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow, you’ll start again.

But there is something else. You don’t get to just eat what you want without paying a price. You’ll go off the rails, but you won’t do it without feeling guilty and ashamed about what you’re eating.

When you’re not doing it perfectly, you’re feeling bad about yourself.

The embarrassment and shame of eating so badly feels so dark and uncomfortable. You wish you could hide and maybe even disappear. But you can’t.

You may even wonder if something is wrong with you. “Why do I eat like this?” “Why can’t I stop myself from this madness?”

You can only try to hide the disappointment in yourself. And the best way to do that is with redemption.

The only way to feel better is to promise yourself that tomorrow will be different.

A contract is made. You know you can’t do anything about how you ate today, but you can eat perfectly tomorrow. You’ll pay the price, you know you will. The promise of tomorrow is like a glimmer of light that pulls you through.

It even gives you a little lift of optimism. When the sun rises, you’ll get a fresh start. You go to bed with a clear plan on how to be perfect with food and a glimmer of hope in your heart.

The next day starts perfectly. Because it always does.

And the pattern repeats like Groundhog Day.

The destructive cycle of trying to be perfect with food only gives you shame and self-doubt. And, the ironic part is that you’re likely overeating foods that don’t feel great in your body.

Trying to be perfect around food is a lose-lose. You’re working so hard to attain the unattainable.

There is no such thing as perfect eating when you’re trying to eat to someone else’s perfect standards. It’s impossible.

And, because human bodies won’t tolerate food restriction (mentally or physically), it will retaliate and override your desires for perfection. Overeating and binge eating is inevitable.

But more importantly, feeling so much shame and embarrassment is not healthy. You deserve to feel good in your body and have confidence in your food choices.

Perfectionism is getting in the way of true health and vitality.

Start to notice how the destructive cycle of your attempts at perfect eating is impacting your mental and emotional health. Your well-being isn’t worth sacrificing.

Create a new, kinder standard for yourself around food. Nourishing yourself in alignment with your values around your health and how you want to live your life.

When you start to feel that shame and embarrassment, instead of reacting by restricting more, ease up. Be compassionate as you practice forgiveness.

Gently start to give yourself permission to replace perfectionism (and the need to follow external rules) with listening to your body and your inner guidance.

It’s okay to let go of needing to be perfect around food.

It may be scary as you start to let go of perfectionism around food. You may be believing that rigidity is required to keep you in control. I get that.

As you explore this pattern for yourself, and start listening to the signals your body is sharing with you, you’ll discover that you can trust yourself around food. That’s a pattern worth repeating over and over again.

Client Case Study - Julie: Trusting the Process To Feel Balanced Around Food and Love Her Body

A mutual friend shared one of my short courses on social media. Julie (not her real name) signed up right away. After the course, Julie and I worked together in my 3 month One-to-One Coaching program.  After a year, I interviewed her for this client case study.

Julie was struggling with food. She was restricting and overeating and knew it was taking too much of her time and energy. She also didn’t like her body, which really bothered her. She wanted to accept her body, but she didn’t want to gain weight. 

Allowing All Foods

When Julie started to give herself permission to eat what she previously labeled “forbidden” foods, it was really scary.  She had to keep letting go of this fear, so she could eventually trust her instincts. 

She learned to recognize that scared voice that said “you can’t have that” and knew this voice couldn’t be trusted. This took time. 

She called 2020 the year of ice cream. She allowed herself ice cream when she wanted it. She kept allowing herself guilt-free ice cream and enjoyed each bite. 

This process of habituation is an important one and is unique for each person. While allowing yourself foods that you had previously forbidden, those foods eventually lose their novelty. Instead of eating them with guilt, shame, or because you want to treat yourself, these foods become emotionally neutral and you feel indifferent to them. 

Eventually, something changed. Ice cream stopped having power over her.

Julie is now free to have all foods that she likes to have in her home without worrying that she’ll overindulge. She also knows that if she wants to, she can overindulge, and that’s okay. 

Exploring How To Value Herself

Julie and I explored some deeper themes around how she valued herself. She became aware of the beliefs and patterns that made her feel bad about herself and she saw the role that food played. 

She could see that when she didn’t feel good enough, she could identify the external expectations and outside influences that drove her to diet, to begin with.

As she gained awareness that it wasn’t her, it was outside of her, she could take her own power back and value herself on her own terms. 

Specifically, the impact of this transformation came through in her relationship with her body and her dating life. 

Letting Go of the (Unrealistic) Thin Ideal

Julie started to change the dialogue she had in her head about her body. She shared with me how she talks to her body now, which sounds like a beautiful companionship. 

She shared: 

“Maybe this is just who I’m meant to be. If I just accept that my body is what it is, and I’m eating healthy and feeling good, then I don’t have to change it. I may never be that skinny version of me, but my body is changing and it’s still amazing.” 

I’m Happy On My Own

Julie realized that if people were judging her for how she looked, she didn’t want them in her life. She was able to come to a genuine place of liking herself, including being okay with being on her own. She realized that companionship for the sake of being with someone wasn’t going to help her like herself. 

Julie has dropped an old narrative that she’s frumpy and middle-aged and embodies her own vitality and zest for life.

She now knows how to move forward, adjust her direction as needed and be flexible when life throws her unexpected curve balls. 

If I gain weight, I gain weight

Initially, Julie gained weight. And as hard as it was, she was okay with that. She was working through bigger things. 

She shared “If this brings me back to a place of balance, I’m going to trust the process. And it did.” Eventually, the weight that came on, came off.

A few other things that helped Julie was: 

• Reading my book Hungry: Trust Your Body and Free Your Mind around Food. This gave her compassion for her own journey and an appreciation for how long the journey may take. 

• Recognizing that her voice in her head doesn’t matter and that she can let her thoughts go. 

• Getting an understanding of what she was really fearful of and what to do with those fears.

Food Freedom and Body Appreciation

“I opened a sleeve of girl scout cookies, ate a couple, came back because I wanted a couple more. Then, I was satisfied. 

A year or so ago, I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t eat the whole sleeve.”

“I’m in a really good place. It’s taken time. I had to let things go and trust in a process that seems scary. Our sessions allowed me to dig and explore what I may not have on my own. You gave me the tools to continue to do the work that I needed to do in my own time.

Thank you for the work we did together- it was a wonderful experience for me and I would recommend it to anyone.”

As she continues to appreciate her body and her relationship with food doesn’t have power over her, her body weight has adjusted. (Weight loss was not a focus of the work Julie and I did together).  

I’m personally inspired by Julie’s undeniable respect and admiration she has for her own body. She recently had surgery that has left scars on her lower belly.  

She told me, “My body is beautiful. I think my scars are gorgeous.” 

How to Tell if You’re Really Hungry

It’s a beautiful discovery of reconnecting with your body

For many people, recognizing hunger feels complicated.

It’s really common to question your hunger and wonder if you’re just thirsty, bored, anxious, tired, or nauseous.

There is plenty of information out there on recognizing hunger. Yet, there are few important things that you need to keep in mind.

We were born knowing our hunger

Just like breathing, peeing, and knowing when we’re too warm or too cold, hunger is a biological instinct that everybody has. This is why you can’t console a hungry baby with something other than food. And why you can’t feed a baby that isn’t hungry.

A baby doesn’t need to think about hunger. They know when they’re hungry. Period.

Remember when you were a kid and you left food on your plate so you could go outside to play? Your hunger was satisfied so you moved on. There were other things you wanted to do besides eat. Play. Schoolwork. TV. Video games. Time with friends.

But then something changed.

We stopped prioritizing our hunger

A parent may have demanded that you finish all of the food on your plate. Or, they promised dessert if you ate your vegetables, even though you don’t like broccoli. Or, you were told that if you didn’t eat during mealtime, you wouldn’t be able to eat later. It was either 6 pm dinner or no dinner.

You couldn’t override your parent’s rules, so you had to override your body’s cues. Hunger (and the absence of it) became something to negotiate with.

There are dozens and dozens of reasons why our parents and our culture dictate eating times and create food rules for us.

They may be great at dictating for us when to eat and what to eat. But they’re not great at reminding us that our body knows when it’s hungry. And that hunger is something to honor.

If your parents didn’t demand that you cleaned your plate or made certain foods forbidden, consider yourself lucky. You got the message that listening to your hunger was a safe practice. If there was ice cream in the freezer, you could have a bowl whenever you wanted it. And you only ate it when you were hungry for it.

Hunger is the enemy

When you went on your first diet or weight loss plan, you were given food rules to follow. Certain foods became off-limits. You needed to restrict how many calories you could eat each day.

As you’ve pursued weight loss, your hunger becomes highly inconvenient. Like a big boulder on your path to weight loss success, you learned to not attend to or listen to your hunger. Hunger was an obstacle.

You may be very resourceful at ignoring your hunger. Chewing gum, drinking coffee or diet soda, or drinking large amounts of water are some ways you may have tried to avoid the inevitable hunger signals so you can stick to your diet plan.

Hunger will always win

Many of my clients don’t notice hunger until they’re well beyond hungry. They’re starving. They’ve either not recognized the numerous signals their body shared asking for nourishment, or they’ve intentionally neglected them, hoping they’d go away.

Asking your body to not be hungry is asking your body to do the ONE thing it knows to do: stay in balance. It’s quite brilliant at keeping you alive and in a state of homeostasis. This is why you may notice that when you’re well beyond hungry, your mental and emotional state goes out of balance.

You’ll start to think about food a lot. You’ll get cranky and easily agitated. You’ll get anxious and feel overwhelmed.

At some point, your body’s demands will take over and you’ll eat urgently. Many people describe this as a feeling of being out of control because they eat fast and they eat whatever food is available.

Overeating or bingeing, something that diet culture demonizes as a problem, is just your body keeping you safe. If you’ve gone long periods without enough nourishment (because you’ve been dieting), when you do allow yourself to eat, your body will demand food because it’s unsure when food will be available again.

The opportunity

It’s a big step, I know. For all of the reasons I’ve shared, you’ve been taught to not trust your hunger. Your hunger has led to out-of-control eating.

It’s important to remember that your body is still sharing hunger signals with you, you’re just out of practice noticing these signals.

Getting to know your hunger is also a practice of acknowledging your needs. You are human, with a physical body that will make simple demands to operate at its best.

Are you also avoiding your other basic human needs?

You deserve to feel satiated, no matter what sized body you have. You also deserve to be well-rested. You deserve to have a body filled with energy. You deserve to feel loved, safe and secure.

As you permit yourself to honor your need for more nourishment, you’re also opening the door to allowing yourself to receive rest, love, and contentment.

Get to know your hunger

As you reconnect to your physical hunger cues, it’s important to stop looking at the clock. You may be surprised when you’re hungry a few hours after eating breakfast, or that you’re not hungry until 10 am. Your biological hunger doesn’t follow a clock.

Your hunger patterns aren’t static. They change with things like activity level, sleep, weather, travel, and your menstrual cycle.

Just like everybody is unique, each body shares hunger signals uniquely. How I notice my hunger will be different than yours.

The best way to discover your hunger is to be curious about it. Consider yourself a scientist, observe your body in a whole new way and collect a variety of data points before you reach any conclusions.

Your body is masterful at communicating hunger to you. Hunger isn’t just a growling belly, but instead a full-body process. Let’s take a look at some of the signals your body sends to you by noticing what’s happening:

In your head

One of the clearest signals you may first notice is your ability to focus. When you’re hungry, it may be hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Consider the last time you ate. If it’s been more than a few hours, there is a good chance you’re hungry.

When you’re hungry, you may start to think about your next meal or snack.

I was on a snowshoe hike this past winter when I started thinking about a bowl of chili with cheese sprinkled on top. I could see the chili in my mind. I even imagined the smell, the taste, and how the first spoonful felt in my body.

With your mood

You may be very familiar with the term “hangry” when you get impatient, angry, and frustrated at those around you because you’re hungry. Your mood is one way your body is communicating hunger to you. You may notice that you get cranky and agitated.

You may feel tired and low on energy.

Your body

You may get a headache when you’re hungry.

Of course, your hunger can arrive with an emptiness. You can notice this when you don’t feel any weight or presence in your belly, instead, it may feel like a void.

You may also notice your belly rumbling and growling when it’s hungry.

These are just a few common signals of hunger. There are certainly others.

It’s not about doing it right

As you start to discover your hunger signals, give yourself permission to not get it perfect. There is no “right” time to eat. However, there can be a sweet spot of your hunger, when you’re hungry enough that food will taste really good to you and when you’re not so hungry that you need to eat quickly and urgently.

The best way to know if you were hungry is to eat something. Do you feel better than you did before you ate?

Exploring your hunger is a really powerful process in healing your relationship with food. You’re reconnected to your body. The signals are there, it’s a matter of relearning how to honor them.

As you do, you’ll be practicing self-trust and creating a non-negotiable connection with your body.

Your Business Needs a Morning Routine That Works for You

It’s never about doing what you’re supposed to do

Your morning routine is more than just starting your day right — it’s about aligning yourself with your business.

We all know that successful people have a morning routine. Oprah. Brene Brown. Michelle Obama. They meditate. They walk in nature.

This may inspire you to follow suit. I know that thinking. “If I do what they do, maybe I’ll get more of what they have.”

Hal Elrod’s Morning Miracle introduced me to start my day with an intentional daily practice. Before then, I was doing some of the right things. You know those things — meditate, yoga, workout.

I was fairly consistent, sitting on my meditation cushion for the minimal amount of time I thought was acceptable. I got to a yoga class a few times a week. I’d squeeze in a workout. I’d keep a journal on my bedside table, and would connect the pen to paper before I’d fall asleep at night if I wasn’t too exhausted.

These felt like a chore. It took a lot of effort for me to do these things. I felt bad when I conveniently forgot to meditate. Or skipped a workout.

I Started Letting Go…

And then something happened. I gave myself permission to stop doing what I thought I was supposed to do.

I stopped practicing yoga. Which is funny to admit since I’m a yoga teacher. I couldn’t force myself to unroll my mat and do one more Downward-Facing Dog pose.

I stopped working out to just get a sweat in. I’ve run marathons, loved intense, dripping sweat workouts. But my body was achy and tired. Forcing it to move fast and hard wasn’t fun. So I slowed down.

I did keep meditating. But only for 5 minutes. Long gone were the days when I sat for 20, 30, or even 40 minutes (this was a brief period, by the way). 5 minutes was all I could take. So I did do that.

And I did it as guilt-free as I possibly could.

And Realigned With My Business and Me

I was letting myself discover who I was as a human being if I wasn’t an accountant or a yoga teacher.

It’s not surprising that these behind-the-scenes shifts were happening in parallel with the transition of my businesses. I was letting go of my accounting business so I could spend 100% of my time and energy in my intuitive eating and transformational coaching business.

I wasn’t just letting my yoga practice and my accounting business go, I was letting myself discover who I was as a human being if I wasn’t an accountant or a yoga teacher.

When I stopped ‘shoulding’ myself, I was embarking on a process of discovering something new. All of this felt uncomfortable and uncertain. And necessary.

Like a new friend, I was getting to know myself. Something new was emerging inside of me.

I started to align with my business and discovered a morning practice that worked for me.

Here Are Some Ways To Try This Out for Yourself

This process took some time. As a business owner, I invite you to consider a few things I did.

1. I got clear around how I wanted to feel every day. I want to feel energized and connected to my creativity. I want to feel light and present.

2. I understood why feeling this way was so important to me. When I feel grounded, I’m available to my clients in the best way I can be. When I’m energized, I write my best content and create programs that I’m excited about offering.

3. I noticed how each practice made my body feel before, during, and after I did it. I feel so calm after my new yoga routine. I love walking and so does my body.

4. I dedicated myself to my morning routine. I schedule the time in my calendar so that it doesn’t get tossed aside in the busyness of my day.

5. I’m open to changing my routine when it no longer works for me. I know that my needs change over time and I expect my morning routine to change too.

The more personal our business is to us, the more our business needs our presence and energy.

It doesn’t take discipline to follow through with a routine that feels warm and welcoming.

Closing Notes

Create a daily morning practice that includes stillness, reflection, movement, and fresh air, and notice how the more you’re connected with yourself, the more you will thrive in your business.

I encourage you to dive in and enjoy this magical process of letting go and self-discovery!

How To Be More Compassionate With Yourself Around Food

Because the conversations you’re having with yourself matter. A lot.

We have conversations in our minds all of the time, often without noticing them. More often than not, the conversations we have with ourselves today are the same ones we had yesterday.

And the day before.

And the day before that.

When it comes to your relationship with food, these conversations play a critical role. You’re already having a conversation in your mind around food. They may sound like this:
“Today will be different. I’ll eat the right things and not overeat.”
“I’ve got this, today I won’t eat too many carbs.”
“I’m going to the gym today to burn off those calories from yesterday.”

These conversations may sound beneficial on the surface, but if you consider the words more carefully, you’ll notice these words may not be helpful at all.

You’re trying to stay in control. You’re trying to be disciplined. You’re not trusting yourself around certain foods. These conversations are really weapons as you continue to fight yourself around food.

Stop Fighting With Yourself Around Food

Fighting with yourself around food takes a lot of energy. Our desire for weight loss often means we’re restricting and dieting, which creates a cycle of deprivation. Our bodies aren’t designed to tolerate deprivation, which is why you likely overeat and binge. You’re not doing anything wrong, it’s the mechanism of dieting that’s making your body react the way it is.

Conversations that encourage more restriction and compliance aren’t kind and certainly don’t fuel a healthy relationship with food.

What’s the Best Way To Avoid This Endless Fight?

Start with noticing these conversations.

Which may be challenging. The dialogue has been there for so long and shows up on the daily, you’re likely not even distinguishing it as something harmful.

The conversations in my mind had me waking dutifully at 5:30 and into my running shoes. I needed to burn the calories from the day before. Today needed to be different.

While pounding the pavement, I’d often rethink and beat myself up for what I ate the day before.
“Why did I eat that bagel? I shouldn’t have eaten that ice cream last night. I’d finish my run with a plan. More salad. More discipline.” I told myself, “I’ve got this. Today would indeed be different.”

But that never happened. It was always Groundhog Day all over again.

This is why I want to offer you a new conversation to have with yourself.

“I Give Myself Permission To…”

One of my favorite phrases opens up a new way to be around food, with more kindness and compassion — “I give myself permission….”

Instead of forcing yourself into being disciplined and compliant, consider how you can give yourself permission to:

• Listen to your body.

• Recognize your hunger and nourish yourself when your body is eager for food.

• Rest.

• Give yourself a break from work.

• Walk instead of run.

New Possibilities

You may be labeling how you eat in one of two ways; good or bad. Yet, when you start having a gentler conversation with yourself, you’ll start caring for yourself differently. You may notice your own willingness to prioritize simple needs, like rest and adequate nourishment.

Go ahead, give yourself permission. After all, you’re the only one who can.

Healing Your Relationship With Food Starts With Accepting Where You Are

You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, even when you don’t like it

“I just need to get through this.”

“If I could just figure this one problem out, my life will get better.”

“I’ll do things differently tomorrow.”

This is the language of wishing and hoping our life will change. And we all want something different, don’t we?

If you’re like my clients and want to change your relationship with food, you may say things like:

• “I just need to stop overeating.“

• “If I could just figure out why I’m so out of control around food, my life will get better.”

• “I’ll eat better tomorrow.”

Let’s consider Donna. Donna’s freakin’ exhausted by her relationship with food. She binged on tortilla chips last night and hated how her body felt when she went to bed.

Donna woke up this morning with fresh resolve. She promised herself that today would be different. Yet by mid-afternoon, she was so hungry that she couldn’t stop herself from overeating.

Familiar painful patterns get the best of us. We stay in them, hoping and wishing for them to change.

If you can relate, I’d like for you to consider one universal truth:

You are exactly where you’re meant to be.

That includes Donna. As frustrated as she may be.

We fight, we argue, we wish and we hope our problems away. Does that ever help us make a change?

We hate our problems

Our problems don’t feel good. They’re painful. Your overstuffed belly hurts. When you don’t like how your clothes fit, the heaviness of shame makes you want to hide safely under the covers.

It’s not just the problem we hate, we judge ourselves for having these problems. You may not even realize you’re doing this. It may happen so naturally.

Start to notice how you talk to yourself about your relationship with food and your body. Words like “I should!”, “Why this?!”, and “If only!” are typical ways we judge ourselves.

When we are so busy judging and criticizing ourselves for our problems, it’s difficult to move ourselves to a place where we can entertain a new solution. All of our energy is so focused on what’s wrong, we don’t have the capacity or headspace to consider how to move in a new direction.

Recognizing that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be means you can stop fighting with yourself around your problem.

Can you feel the relief in that?

We’re afraid that if we accept our problems then our problems won’t change

Many of us are under the misconception that guilt is a motivator. The thinking goes that If we feel ashamed enough by our actions, then we will be driven to change them.

Is the whipping of a stick ever motivating?

Chances are, no. The carrot, in essence, acceptance, is a true motivator.

When you feel the shift of knowing you’re exactly where you’re meant to be, you’ll offer yourself more compassion.

Guilt is part of an old paradigm. It’s time to let it go. Solving your problems can come from a motivation fueled by kindness.

We can accept our problems and still want them to change

Consider you’re going on a long road trip. When you load your destination into your favorite GPS app, the first thing it does is determine your starting point.

Without acknowledging where you’re starting, how do you know how to go where you want to go?

By accepting what your relationship with food is right now, without judgment, you can acknowledge it fully. How have your current patterns with food benefited you? How have they hurt you?

As you consider ‘your problem’ from all angles, it may not be quite the problem you thought it was. As you accept what’s been painful, you may start to see how many unmet needs these patterns have tried to meet.

By definition, you are where you’re meant to be. Simply because you are. Arguing with this truth is arguing with reality. When we know in our heart of hearts that we are exactly where we are meant to be, we can let our patterns, situations, or circumstances just be.

What opens up for you when you’re no longer blaming yourself for your problems? When you don’t need guilt to motivate you? When you can do two things at once, accept your patterns AND choose to change them?

Let this new energy move through you. Let it move you forward.

Because, at this moment, you’re exactly where you need to be.

A World Where Women Love Their Bodies

Squeezed into a dressing room, my friend Caroline tossed out a simple question to Kelly and me.

Her eyes glued to the full-length mirror, checking out the pair of jeans from all different angles. Front, back, left side, ride side.

“Do these jeans make me look fat?

We quickly responded…

No, of course not!

They look great!!

Definitely buy them!!

Without realizing it, I was being schooled in the language of body shame. In the mall, with my high school friends.

I learned that I was supposed to be self-conscious about how my clothes fit me.

My thinner friends thought they looked fat. What did that say about my athletic body? I drew the conclusion I must have been really fat.

I learned to ask for other people’s opinions of how my clothes fit. More out of courtesy than necessity. Because it never mattered what they said.

I learned to never trust the words they shared. If they thought something looked good on me, they were just being nice. They wouldn’t tell me the truth.

No matter how our clothes fit, body shame, sadly, fits us like a glove. The conversations we have in our minds comparing and criticizing our bodies are just too comfortable and too frequent.

The schooling continued and body shame was something that just became the norm.

This is why I’m holding a very important vision.

I see a world where all women are loving their bodies. And not needing to only love a perfect version of their body.

They are loving their body just as it is- no matter their age, size, shape, ability, sexual orientation or preference. I see a world where all women love their here and now body.

We know our body is our best friend. We know our body is a source of wisdom and valuable information. We trust our body and we let it guide us.

In a world that tells us our body needs to be different, defying these messages takes a revolution. We need to see these messages for what they are; lies that hurt us.

We need to recognize how precious our bodies are, simply because they are here on this planet.

Loving your body is your birthright.

Can you see it for yourself?

You Know You’re Not Hungry, So Why Do You Want to Keep Eating?

You’ve just finished dinner. Your belly is filled. Yet, your mind is filled with thoughts of what else to eat. Crackers, cookies, more dinner, ice cream.

It defies all logic. Your body doesn’t want food, but another part of you, a loud and clear part, does. You’re wondering, how can I be hungry and full at the same time?

I know how confusing and frustrating this internal battle is. You don’t want to eat when you’re not hungry. Your body doesn’t want to eat when you’re not hungry. But you want more food.

What the hell is going on?

Let’s explore just a few reasons this could be happening for you.

Did you miss something?

Eating for pleasure is a birthright. But that may not be your experience. Eating may feel like a chore, something you just need to check off the to-do list.

Or, you may not even take the time or slow down enough to even enjoy the pleasure of eating. Sitting together with loved ones can feel nourishing, no matter what food is on the table.

When you finished your meal, were you able to receive what was offered? Did you feel connected to the tastes, smells and textures of the food you ate? Did you feel connected to the conversations and people you were breaking bread with?

If you didn’t, this isn’t something to feel guilty or ashamed about. If you were like me growing up, we sat around the coffee table in front of the TV for most of our family meals. Mindful eating wasn’t a thing, and my mind was on a few other things besides the food in front of me.

You may want more because you’re craving the contentment from finishing a satisfying meal.

Did you eat what you wanted to eat?

Diet culture tells us what foods are “good” and what foods are “bad”. It’s common to choose to eat things we think we SHOULD be eating instead of eating foods we know we will enjoy eating.

Before I practiced Intuitive Eating, I’d always choose the lowest calorie or “healthiest” food. This is one of the many gifts of Intuitive Eating. I learned to let go of those food labels, ask myself and give myself permission to eat food that I would enjoy eating and would satisfy me.

If you want to eat a grilled cheese sandwich, no amount of baby carrots and hummus will satisfy you. It will only leave you wanting more.

Is there a rebel voice living within you?

“I deserve to eat this.” “Screw this, I can eat what I want.” “I need to eat this now because I can’t eat it tomorrow.”

Our internal voices are powerful. You may be noticing a rebellious voice, one that doesn’t want to be controlled. This voice is our response to someone or something trying to tell us how to eat and what to eat. It’s a reaction to diet trauma.

This voice is trying to maintain your own freedom and autonomy around food choices. It may sound like a young child stomping their feet and saying, you can’t be the boss of me. Or, it may be angry and determined to let the world know that you decide what to do with your body.

This voice is trying to protect you, but it doesn’t serve your desire to listen to the signals your body is sharing.

What is your body asking for?

You may be bone tired and need energy. You may be confronted with a problem at work and just don’t want to deal with it. You may feel overwhelmed by life, a pandemic, vaccines, school at home, on and on.

Food can offer you some temporary energy, distraction, and comfort.

You may also need to feel safe. You may want the weight and certainty of food in your belly so you can feel secure. Sometimes overfilling gives you this physical experience.

It’s okay that you’re seeking food for other reasons than physical hunger. It doesn’t make you a bad, out of control, or crazy person. It just makes you human.

How Intuitive Eaters Choose What to Eat

If you’re practicing Intuitive Eating, or just curious what it would be like to go by yourself to an ice cream shop order whatever you’d like to order, and eat with no guilt, shame or remorse, then read on.

After a long bike ride along the Tampa riverwalk and shore drive, I knew I wanted soft serve ice cream. On the short drive to Mr Penguin, a vision came to mind. Chocolate and vanilla swirl in a cup. With chocolate jimmies. Of course.

As I was enjoying my swirl on the outdoor picnic tables, a mom with her toddler and young baby settled in nearby. I overheard the toddler asking his mother, “why does she get a big one?”. “Because she’s an adult.”, Mom quickly replied.

For a half a beat, I was self-conscious. Should I have ordered a kiddie? Did I deserve to eat medium size? Old conversations, the ones I had with myself when I was dieting and restricting, came flooding back.

And I noticed these thoughts. Without getting caught up in what could have been interpreted as judgement or criticism (by a 3 year old ;)), I pivoted. I felt relaxed as I enjoyed the rest of my ice cream.

Here’s how I reconnected with my Intuitive Eating practice.

Rules Need Not Apply

It all started well before the thought of soft serve even entered my mind on that warm February day. Weeks, months, even years before. I stopped following dieting rules.

Even more importantly, I reconciled within myself that dieting, namely allowing a weight loss program, an “expert”, or protocol, with their rules and lists of what I could eat or couldn’t eat, was harmful to my health.

Harmful to my health?, you may be asking. Am I being a bit dramatic? No. Not even close. I noticed that every time I said I couldn’t have something, I wanted it even more. Every time I told myself I was going to be “good” and eat healthier, I ate cheese, crackers and chocolate for dinner.

I didn’t arrive at this overnight. Not like Kelly Diels did. She shared on my Hungry: Trust Your Body. Free Your Mind podcast how she woke up one morning, realized that dieting and restricting foods was making her complicit with the societal rules that women need to be thin to be desirable.

The moment Kelly connected those dots in her mind was the moment that she decided, when it came to food, she would never betray her body again. Like a switch that got turned off, she stopped dieting on the spot.

If you want to eat ice cream with freedom and ease, you can’t have a rule inside of you that says you can’t, shouldn’t, need to earn it, allow it only because it’s on a cheat day, or saying “fuck it” I’ll eat whatever the hell I want to eat.

To eat intuitively, practice letting go of the external rules and restrictive mindset around food.

Curiosity and Consulting Your Body

With rules, you now consult another source of wisdom: yourself.

Ask yourself a series of questions. These questions aren’t directed at your brain, that holds the ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’. The questions are directed at the whole of you, your body, your mind, your soul.

How hungry am I?

What am I hungry for?

What would I enjoy eating?

What would taste really good?

How do I want to feel after I’ve eaten?

Take the time to play out some scenarios and see how your body reacts to each one.

When I was considering soft serve, I wasn’t hungry for something nutritionally dense, like a full meal. I wanted something cold. I even considered an iced coffee. Conveniently, there was a coffee shop next to the bike shop. But no. Soft serve it was.

Eat with Your Attention

As I sat on the picnic table, I wasn’t on my phone. As with most of my meals now, when I sit to eat, eating is the only thing I’m doing.

I noticed how the ice cream tasted. Which was some of the best soft serve I’ve had (Dairy Queen, take notice!). I enjoyed bite after bite.

You likely know how to eat mindfully. When it comes to intuitive eating, you’re not doing it as a way to stop yourself from eating too much. You’re eating with all of your attention so you can fully enjoy food.

Permission to Eat More

When I ordered a medium, I did it as a reminder that I could have as much ice cream as I wanted. This is my way of reminding myself that I’m not restricting or limiting. I can’t tolerate restriction and I don’t want to trigger my mind to think a diet is coming.

When you eat intuitively, you allow yourself enough food that feels right to you. It’s not the smallest one, a tiny bite or just a square.

In the beginning of your intuitive eating journey, you may need to heal past diet trauma so your body is confident that you’ll give it enough nourishment.

Sweet Satisfaction

There comes a point when the sensation arrives. This is the magic of intuitive eating. That point of satisfaction. When it arrives, it can’t be disputed. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve eaten or how much you have left.

As I was eating my soft serve, I noticed the moment when every part of me was perfectly content. I knew that I could take another bite if I chose to, but why would I? It wouldn’t serve me, support me or give me more pleasure in what I’m eating.

Without rules or someone or something telling me what I should eat or not eat, I know this truth within myself because my body and awareness told me so.