Hello love,
When clients come to me and they want to resolve their emotional eating and lose weight, a part of me cringes a little.
Weight loss and emotional eating it is very intertwined. Weight gain is a symptom of emotionally eating. But weight loss can be tricky and is nuanced. So when clients come to me and their goal is to lose weight so they can finally feel good and feel confident when they reach that magical number – I cringe a little inside.
Because no number on the scale will give out that confidence or self worth. You might get it for a short period of time but then everything will come back to you that you wanted to run away from. All your unworthiness, sabotage, etc because the way you look will not fix the deeper issues at play.
BUT
If you come to me and you’re an emotional eater and you desire a healthier body, that will probably look like losing some weight. This is because you’ve probably gained weight that doesn’t fit your body and it not “your healthy”. You know deep down your body would be healthier at a different weight then I am more open to helping you.
Because to really move forward in your emotional eating journey you have to get to a point where you realize that no number on the scale is going to get you “there”, that place where all your problems are solved. If you are open to this idea, that is an amazing place to start.
BUT if your goal and focus is this certain number on the scale then we have a bit of an issue.
Why is this an issue?
I’ll explain why this is an issue and to be transparent I was there too. I was obsessed with the scale and thought if I reached that number I would get that external validation. I would finally be ok. This is a lack mentality and is disempowering.
Looking back I wish I knew this information that I eventually learned over the years. That I was putting my value and worth into something outside of me to tell me I was ok.
Over the years I’ve had to cultivate this from the inside because when we do it from the inside it will show up on the outside. Because we attract what we are.
Let’s dive a little bit deeper into weight.
So when we gain weight, I look at it through a holistic lens. So weight is a symptom. If something is a symptom then there is a root that I want to get to.
Weight is a symptom of emotional eating in many ways. In The Emotional Eating Evolution Program we resolve emotional eating from the root(s) as it is a multilayered issue.
Part of the reason you may have weight gain as an emotional eater is that you use food to soothe yourself from any discomfort or uncomfortable emotions.
Even deeper than that you feel unsafe in your body.
Feel unsafe expressing your emotions.
You may not feel safe expressing your boundaries.
You stuff everything down.
Stress and Weight
Emotions are biochemicals secreted in our body, they interact with our hormones, and that can create stress in our body. Stress triggers emotional eating and also weight issues.
Stress when we have it in any area of our life makes us hold onto weight.
So feeling unsafe in our body makes us hold onto weight
Stress emotionally, mentally, physically makes us hold onto weight
So that’s why I focus on these areas in my program. .
We are not just what we eat, think or feel. We are everything and so we need to look at all these areas in order to move forward.
If you think about diets or those plans sold to you…
These plans usually say you can lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time. When you lose weight in a short amount of time it is not sustainable because you are putting a lot of pressure on your body, manipulating it and sacrificing it for a short period of time to get “the” result that you think will make you feel good. But it’s not sustainable.
It’s a magic bullet that makes you feel good for a second but damages your body.
So, if you have yo-yo dieted for years that messes with your body and metabolism. It stops feeling safe and you have restricted yourself physically, mentally and emotionally.My goal after going through my own emotional eating journey was to feel good in the now. The steps that I found that made me feel good were not to make me release weight because that was not my goal. But I did eventually release what I no longer needed.
My mental, physical and emotional health were my priority.
Where are you imbalanced?
You can see where you might not be balanced by looking at the phases in The Emotional Eating Evolution Program. Each phase was created to rebalance and resolve emotional eating from the root which boils down to some kind of stressor.
True Nourishment + Strategic Digestion
Do you really nourish your body?
Do you eat in an abundant way?
Do you feel satisfied with you meals?
Are you still bingeing daily, weekly, etc.?
Do you feel like you have to count calories, macros, etc?
Can you tell when you are truly hungry vs. emotionally hungry?
How good do you feel after a meal digestive wise?
If it’s hard to answer these questions you are most likely not nourishing yourself optimally. If these areas are not balanced they are creating a level of stress. This can trigger emotional eating and makes us hold onto weight.
Body Acceptance
How do you speak to your body? Are you punishing or kind?
Do you know your body’s rhythms and rituals to feel it’s best?
Do you know how your body’ needs shift in terms of energy, food, movement, sleep etc.?
If you are not honouring these needs then this leads to stress and emotional eating and weight issues.
Emotional Wellness
As emotional eaters when we use food to soothe we are simultaneously storing the emotions coming up in the body. This creates stress in the body which can be felt as contraction. This will impact mood and make us hold onto weight. As we stuff those emotions in the body, we need to create a bigger body to hold them all.
When we feel safe in our body to process and resolve these emotions we release stress which can lead to releasing weight.
In each of the above phases if you are creating a level of stress in these areas you will trigger emotional eating and hold onto weight. This is because you haven’t created an atmosphere that is more regulated and minimizes the stressors. These are the deeper areas that need to be worked through to resolve emotional eating which helps with weight loss.
When you start nourishing your body on all these levels you begin to feel good around food and in your body now. When you get to “that” weight that is your healthy it would have felt good along the way. After so many years of abusing your body with diets, pills, and negativity your body needs time to heal and perhaps release weight. It could be weeks, months or years, it depends on your journey.
My goal for clients is to have sustainable results because when I went on diets my body was thrown in the yo yo cycle. I didn’t understand my body or psychology and was floundering. When I say sustainable I mean setting up clients to resolve their emotional eating and feeling confident in their body and around food now, no matter what beyond the scale, negative thoughts and the boxy we were trying to fit into.
The Emotional Eating Evolution Program is firstly an emotional eating program because as I’ve shared here weight is a symptom.Weight is tricky and we still largely think as a society that if we look a certain way we will feel good. I want to say you can start to feel good now and throughout your journey as you get to the root of this pattern.
Invitation: If this is resonating with you and you are ready to resolve your emotional eating from the root then book in an Emotional Eating Assessment call to see how the program can support you.
To your healthy!
~Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist + Emotional Eating Expert
