I have an important question: Do you ever find yourself reaching for that tub of ice cream or bag of chips when you’re feeling stressed? Or what about the night eating (or drinking) that feels like the only time of the day when you can finally just unwind?
You and I both know that it TOTALLY provides temporary relief…
But, we also know the guilt, frustration, and unwanted weight gain that also comes with it.
This was my story for about 3 decades, but I found a way to take control of food, and my life, and end this unhealthy cycle…and I know you can, too!
So, if you’re ready to say goodbye to using food to fix your feelings…
And you’re ready to say hello to a healthier, happier you…
Then watch this week’s video as I’ll discuss the biggest reasons behind overeating and give you practical tips and strategies to help you overcome this destructive habit to get relief TODAY!
Watch to learn:
? My personal journey out of this hell.
? Insight into how to develop a healthy relationship with food.
? How to develop a healthy relationship with your emotions.
I know how challenging it is to break free, but in Hello Body Freedom we hand you the right mindset and tools so you can take control of your life and stop using food as a crutch.
Audra.
Full Episode Transcript:
Hello, hello, welcome.
I’m Audra, I am so excited to be here with you. If you are new into my world, welcome.
I’m the founder of Hello Body Freedom, and if you are showing up live, I would love for you to come in, leave me a comment, let me know where you’re from, let me know that you’re here and if you’re watching the replay in our side of our Hello Body Freedom community Facebook group, hashtag Hello Body Freedom and I’m excited to hear from you and see how you’re doing as well.
Today is a very lovely, juicy topic. We’re going to dive into what overeating is and how do we end overeating? Do we even need to end overeating? And how that’s maybe connected to our weight if we’re holding on to extra weight and it doesn’t feel good for us.
And so, the whole process of what that looks like from a standpoint of loving the journey, very important. So right away, what I will do is just as a, let’s see where the thing is. There it is. That’s the ticket right there.
If you are interested and you are here, maybe you are new into my world, we are running our five-day path to freedom, path to food and body freedom challenge.
And if that is something that you have not been through, you’ve not been through the challenge or maybe you’ve only been through it maybe once or twice and maybe you showed up real hard and strong that first day and then you peed it off, there’s always another opportunity to start again.
In fact, most of our clients found us and went through a challenge and this is how they became a client. And most of them do the client, do the challenges over and over again. So there’s a reason for that because it is very profound, the understanding of, and we’ll talk a little bit about this too.
Like most people when they think, oh, I’m overeating, I guess I’ll just go on a diet. And that’s like one of the worst things that you could possibly do.
So very excited. I wanted just to announce that our path to freedom challenge starts May 5th. It’s a Friday. Friday, May 5th. Very exciting. And if you are watching the replay of this and it maybe that’s gone past, I’m not even sure, go ahead and go to the slink anyways because you will likely be able to register for the next one coming up anyways. So that way you just won’t miss out. All right.
Okay, my friends, super exciting. If you are watching this live and if you’re watching video, you might see that my office, I call my office the yoga room because over on this side, you can’t see it, but I have my altar and I have my yoga mat and I practice and I meditate.
I have my meditation cushion over here, but I usually have this plush couch back here and I’ve got this great floor that I can sit on and play in and I love it. And then I’m sitting at my desk and I’ve got like this beautiful outdoor view. I just love it. It’s my office, but it’s also my yoga room.
But if you can’t tell, we’re missing a lot. It is bare in here and that is because a little kitten, I would say a teenage kitten, found his way into our backyard multiple, multiple nights and it freaked us out at first. It’s this beautiful, gorgeous black cat with orange eyes.
Have you ever seen a cat with orange eyes? It looks just like Halloween. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Anyhow, we were a little freaked out because I’m like, I do not need a stray cat or a feral cat inside of our world, but it turned out this cat is like the sweetest, most loving kitten on the planet.
We were like, oh, could anybody just like leave this kitten? Cause clearly it has been loved on by other humans because he is such a love bug. Anyhow, long story short, we had no, we’d like our heart. Oh, cats. I don’t know I’ve never been a cat person, but lately they’re just in my life.
So, we decided, okay, we’re going to get them to get them to the vet. We’re going to get them checked out. He needed to be neutered and all these other things, just like, you know, vaccines and things like that. And so, then this has become his home and because I didn’t even know if he was potty trained at, you know, you just don’t know when it’s an outdoor cat.
So anyhow, we removed all the carpet, all the furniture, everything until we are 100 percent certain that he fits in with our family. So, if you were watching live, that is the story of what has been going on in our life over the last, I’d say it’s been like about two weeks now. It’s been like a little bit of a whirlwind of kitten crazy.
So, um, and he is nowhere to be found right now. So, I can’t even show you how cutie is, but maybe he’ll pop his face in in a second. All right. So, let’s go ahead and dive into ending overeating and really loving the journey. Okay?
So. this is a very powerful talk. So. let’s first talk about overeating and what that even means. So. let’s say that you just overdid it for a meal, right? I just don’t think that’s that big of a deal.
If we’re really tuned into our body, if we’re really tuned into our hunger cues and enough cues, you know, we might, um, we might feel like we’re overeating, right? But if we’re really tuned into hunger and we’re really tuned into satisfaction, uh, we might notice, even if it feels like we’re overeating.
As long as we’re really tuned into these, uh, these cues that our body gives us in relationship to these cues and relationship to our body in this way, uh, there have been plenty of times where I’m like, I just still feel like I’m hungry and it would seem like way more than I would normally eat, let’s say for a meal.
And I’m like, I’m just going to keep doing it because it’s, it’s delicious and, and it’s satisfying. And I don’t feel that sense of like enough yet. I don’t feel that sense of satisfaction. And the more and more I practice working with my body cues, which I have been doing now, I mean, I think it’s been since 2011.
What is it now? It’s been more, it’s a long ass time, almost 15 years of really just going deep and deep. I just trust myself so much, right? And so, um, in that moment, it’s what my body needed and it didn’t feel icky, like, oh, I overdid it. I feel stuffed. I feel disgusting.
You know what I mean? There’s, uh, it ends up feeling like exactly what’s supposed to happen. And the truth is, is that whenever, like our body has natural ways, right? It will, it will crave less food when it doesn’t need as much. It will, it will want more food whenever it needs it.
And so, whenever we’re able to have and flow with our body, that’s totally normal and totally fine. Right? So, we’re not really talking about that.
Now, let’s say though that like you over eight and you overdid it like for a meal. Oh my gosh, I feel stuffed, right? Your body has natural ways that it will, it will counterbalance your body will is wise the wisdom of the body.
If we don’t get in the way with, uh, you know, emotional eating, mindless eating, stress eating, all these other ways that we eat, your body will like account for it. It’s in some way where like it all ends up working out just fine. Right?
So, that is also not what we were talking about here. We are talking about what it means to be overeating food. Like in a way where if we are expending this much energy in our life, but we are taking in more energy regularly on the average, we are just overeating for what we actually need. So, we’re taking in a lot more calories, a lot more energy.
And then what we end up doing is we need to gaining weight that we’re not trying to gain weight. That’s, that’s another part right there. Or if we are already struggling in a body that doesn’t feel like it’s at our ideal size that are happy, wait, whatever that might be.
And it’s, we just noticed that we continue to eat enough to keep us there at that, at that weight we’re at or, um, or, or we just, or a little bit above that, right? Where we, where we are gaining weight. So that would be considered overeating, that’s what I’m talking about. And there’s so many ways that overeating happens.
Like it’s, it can happen because we’re, we’re hungry for a meal, but then we sit down for a meal and it tastes so good that we just want to keep eating. So, we end up overeating past satisfaction, past enough. This is one of the harder lessons for our clients. This is one of the bigger ones of learning this process as well.
It could be that, um, well, let’s just say this, there’s a, there’s a million reasons and a million ways and why that we overeat. And that’s what I want to talk about. How do we end overeating? How do we get to a place if we are noticing that we are not where we want to be in terms of, um, being at what feels like our ideal size?
Um, if we are over what we are, what we believe our ideal sizes and you are actually in a place of wanting to change that and you were noticing that nothing is budging, either your weight is going up or it’s just stabilizing. Um, and you think that this is your new, new normal, right? So, it is in the overconsumption of calories. It is in the overeating that got us there.
So, what we want to look at is like, how do we end this? How do we change this? How do we, how do we change this trajectory in a meaningful way? And so, uh, the very first. thing I want to talk about is please consider not going on a diet. Please consider not doing keto or counting points or joining Jenny Craig.
And, I know that might sound crazy for a lot of people, especially if you’re new into my world, but a lot, what, what research shows us inconclusively or conclusively rather very conclusively is that 90 to 97% of every person that does these drastic measures in order to lose weight, like cutting out all carbs, like, um, decreasing your calories in a dramatic way, uh, cutting out entire food groups.
Like it is, it’s just, it’s just so not where it’s, it has nothing to do with based on what your actual habits are right now. And whenever you try to change it in a massively drastic way, uh, 90 to 97% of anybody that tries it, it’s not that you won’t lose weight, you definitely can in those, uh, situations, but you will 90 to 97% chance gain the weight back.
And of those 90 to 97, obviously that’s every human that goes on it minus like a, like a 3% of every people, right? It’s, it’s a huge, huge, huge number. And then of those people who gained the weight back, which is like pretty much everybody, uh, like one third to two thirds of those people are actually going to gain more weight.
And, what it ends up doing metabolically to your body, it’s kind of a disaster, right? It’s, it’s a lot of just up and down, up and down. If you’re on these massive weight loss diets, you are losing fat and muscle usually at a 50, 50 ratios. So, it’s 50% fat, 50% muscle. Muscle loss is metabolism lowered.
And now you’ve just done this drastic thing to try to, try to, you know, fix your weight. And maybe you did it for 30 days. Maybe you knocked it out for six months or something, but what ends up happening for 97% of people, you gain the weight back. But gaining muscle is a much more complex metabolic process than just gaining fat, right?
So, you are likely not gaining muscle whenever the weight comes back on. And now you have a lower metabolic rate because you have 50% less muscle based on those pounds and it’s just an absolute shit show. So, if you want to end over eating, the very first thing you should practice doing is never going on a diet.
So, dieting, I will for, for the rest of my life be making this a huge, like it’s a huge proponent of stop eating somebody else’s food plan, just fucking stop. It is killing you. It is, it is, oh, so if you have not been through one of my challenges, we will cover this.
It’s a Hellobodyfreedom.com/5-day-path, five dash day dash path.
We will cover this because I want to like hammer the nail in the effing coffin. So that way you really understand that is definitely not the way it’s definitely way to gain weight. If you want to end over eating and change your weight, we actually have to do the opposite of what you think, which is to not diet. So that’s the first piece. Okay?
The second piece I want to talk about is that for most of us, I would say, I mean, I don’t even know what the number is, but I would say if we are struggling in a body that does not feel like it’s our ideal size, what we are likely doing is using food in a way that is not connected to hunger and satisfaction, and we are eating food and using food in a way that is attempting to fix how we feel. Right?
So, we’re really stressed out and we eat. We’re really anxious and we eat. We’re really sad and we’re eating. We’re just bored. So we eat. Well, that you walk by a bakery and it smells good and you just go, well, I want some of that and you go eat. Right?
So, we eat for a million reasons. It smells good. It tastes good. I’m stressed. I’m lonely. I’m tired. I’m at Costco and they’re giving away all of the samples and I’m going to eat all the samples. I want to try them all. This is fun. Right?
There are so many other reasons that we eat that have nothing to do with connected to the body’s cues, which are hunger, time to eat. Enough time to stop eating. Right? And inside of that process, another way that we can call most of that eating is emotional eating. Right?
And I’m not saying that I’m eating for another reason besides physical hunger and it’s usually like bored as an emotion. Sad as an emotion. Fun. I want to have fun at Costco. That’s an emotion, right?
I mean, there, there are all of these like emotional reasons and I will say that most of us, whenever we start to become a little bit more emotionally regulated, when we learn how to work with and process what our emotions are and what is going on in our body, whether it’s bored, whether it’s happiness, whether it’s loneliness, whether it’s stress, whether it’s exhaustion, right? Because you haven’t got any sleep, right? There are all of these things.
And, whenever we start to untangle these reasons, when we start to really work with not so much like, oh, now I’m feeling, what am I trying to say here? It’s not about white knuckling it. It is really about learning to just work with the emotions and give yourself what you actually need given whatever is coming up in your body. Because if you’re bored, you should go do something to become on board. Right?
And not necessarily, “oh, I’m bored, I guess I’ll eat because that’s a fun way to get on board,” right? It’s not that food doesn’t work. It gives you something to do when you’re bored, right? It’s not that food doesn’t work when you’re lonely and you’re comfort eating, right? It does definitely have that capacity to feel good. Right?
I don’t want to make eating wrong. But at the end of the day, if you are struggling and every single time, you’re lonely, you eat every single time you’re bored, you eat every single time you’re creating strong habit loops of I feel a food. And I go, “I’m sorry, I feel a feeling and then I go eat some food,” right?
So, so this is an untangling that requires emotional processing and emotional regulation like learning how to work with how we are feeling. And this is a very body based, this practice. These are body-based things we’re talking about here because your emotions happen in your body. Your emotions are connected to sensations in your body. There are feelings that you feel that are connected.
For a lot of reasons, you decided don’t feel good for you. It’s too much and your nervous system just learned, oh, well, food will fix that, food will fix that, food will fix that. And so, as we start to untangle this process, as we untangle emotions emotionally processed and emotionally regulate, this usually is a huge component of decreasing the overall amount of food that you’re eating, therefore overeating stops in a beautiful way. So that I think is the best.
So, I said today’s topic was the best way to end overeating. And what we just did today is we went over two. Number one, never, ever, ever go on a diet because dieting creates overeating, binge eating, food preoccupations, just think about it.
The last time you went on a diet, what, let’s say you started your diet on Monday, what did you do all weekend? I know what you did all weekend. I know it, you went shopping and you went out to eat and you ate way more food. You ate all the things that you know, you’re just not gonna be allowed to eat on the diet.
It is preposterous, right? You end up overeating because you’re about to under eat. And then the longer you under eat, you will definitely be overeating on the other side of that
It pendulums your weight, just stop doing that. Please stop doing that.
And then the second piece is what if we actually worked with our emotions? What if we actually learned how to emotionally regulate and emotionally process? And what if we did it in a way that wasn’t scary, right? What if we did it in a way where it actually, you were learning how to give yourself what you need and then that thing that you needed, right?
Instead of going to reach for food when you’re lonely, you actually called your friend, called your therapist, went for a walk, you know, talked to somebody about it, got a hug, played with your pet, like you did these things that actually helped like the actual emotion of loneliness, right? And then you have a level of inner satisfaction, right? We are emotional beings and there are, you know, our emotions are their compass that something is off.
Like, it’s just something’s right or something’s wrong. Something’s, “oh, what do I do here?”, right? Our emotions help navigate so that we can give ourselves what we need, right? But if the only answer is food, if every single time we feel a feeling, food is the answer, food is the answer, this can become a problem.
And it does feel awful because then it feels like, at least for me, it just felt like I have no control. Like it was like food is in charge all the time. I’m happy I eat, I’m sad I’m eat, I stress I eat, I’m tired I eat, all the freaking reasons to eat that have nothing to do with hunger.
And usually let’s just own it when, you know, when you’re bored, when you’re tired, when you’re lonely, when you’re stressed, when you’re anxious, are you really reaching for a head of broccoli? Does that kale salad just hit the spot? Not usually. In those moments, we’re pretty conditioned to go for high fat, high sugar, high salt, high caloric density, low nutritional value food.
And then, that creates a whole like biological processed where all of a sudden, we’re eating a lot of these powerful foods, right? Processed foods, white flours, white sugars, right? All of these things that taste really freaking good, right? And now we have a whole other problem of like, shit man, this tastes so good, I want five more, I want 10 more, well, of course you do.
That food was designed to taste like that, but that food was designed for you to keep eating it so that way you keep buying it, because the people that made that food aren’t really concerned with your health or well-being, they’re just concerned with the fact that you’re buying their food and you’re basically buying their new vacation home, you know what I mean? So that was a little bonus for you.
But, the truth of the matter is, is that we can’t really untangle any of this until we start to or really work with like, like eating food in a way where we’re not overeating it, where it’s still delicious, where it’s still satisfying, where it’s amazing, but it’s eaten in the context of hunger and satisfaction, eaten in the context of an inner attunement, an inner connection to the body, all right?
And when we get there, where we are honoring our body’s cues more than we, well, I shouldn’t say that, not more, we are definitely honoring our emotions, but we are honoring our body’s cues as the main reason to eat, while simultaneously working with our emotions and learning how to give ourselves what we need in an emotional moment, right?
And if it’s an emotional moment and there is no physical hunger, then there’s like food isn’t the answer, food isn’t the answer, right? So, I hope that you enjoyed this and I love, love, love talking about this. We are going to go way deeper inside of the Hello Body Freedom, Path to Freedom, Food and Body Freedom Challenge.
My five-day path to food and body freedom challenge is epic, it is life changing. We literally are talking about all of the reasons why you are self-sabotaging, self-sabotaging your weight loss, self-sabotaging your health goals, weight loss, sabotage, food sabotage, all of the ways that we keep getting in our ways, right? So many of you have tried the diet, you’ve tried the fitness plan and here you are stuck again. The weight is back on again.
And so, for any of you who just feel like diet dropouts, if you feel like you have been up and down on the yo-yo roller coaster over and over again, I promise you, promise you there is a way out. And I like quadruple promise you, the answer is not just “go join the gym and start eating more vegetables and follow this food plan.”
If you start there, I mean, I can’t stop you from starting there, but eventually you’ll get back to where you’ll lose some weight then you’ll gain it back and then maybe you’ll come take my five-day challenge.
If you are sick of yo-yoing back and forth and you are really ready for deeper solutions and better answers than what nutritionists are giving you, than what personal trainers are giving you, even the more profound than what like these hormonal specialists, these nutritionists that are touting, oh, it’s all your hormones.
Girlfriend, I am in my late 40s moving into premenopausal time in my life and I am in my ideal size.
And keep following me because I’m gonna keep doing this shit till I’m in my 50s and I will stay in my ideal size because guess what? Even when my hormones change, I am in right relationship with food.
So, I’m telling you, if you are ready for another way, jump into the five-day path to food and body freedom. It is a five-day challenge. It is completely free. We start May 5th. You can see the link scrolling underneath me if you’re watching the video. If you are listening to this, it is simply hellobodyfreedom.com forward slash. It’s five-day path, but there’s a dash. It’s five dash day dash path.
I’ve gotta change that URL. It’s really annoying. Gotta make it easier. But that is the URL for now. You can get to the right place to register. I will see you guys all on Friday, May 5th, which is a short while away. We’re only, we’re a little less than two weeks away right there. So excited to have you.
I hope that you enjoyed understanding what it takes to end over eating and these two powerful things that if you start to practice them right now, you can go for it.
Now, the last little call to action I’m gonna give you because I really want you guys to be in the challenge. But if you are ready to take care of this right now, if you do not want to wait until May 5th, which might be a little way away, right? What I wanna encourage you to do is like working on untangling emotional eating actually takes help, right?
If you have super strong habit pathways of using food every time, you’re happy or sad or lonely or because you wanted or because it tastes good and all of these ways that have nothing to do with connecting to your body, there is definitely a disconnection that is in the way and getting help there can be very, very powerful.
So, I want to encourage you to get on the phone with me. Go to hellobodyfreedom.com forward slash chat with Audra, chat with Audra, AUDRA, chat with Audra.
Hellobodyfreedom.com/chatwithAudra
We can have a talk. I can really start to diagnose what’s going on. I have been doing this now for two decades, oh, two and a half decades. This is my career. I am not somebody who just went out and got a quick little certification in eating psychology and nutrition, right? This has been my life’s work.
And, I have helped literally thousands upon thousands of women and I can help you. We can knock this puppy out inside of 20 minutes. I can see where you’re getting stuck and I can really show you a path out. And if you’re up for it, I would love for you to book this call with me, all right? And do it fast because the faster you do it, the faster you can get out of this hell with emotional eating.
All right, my friends, thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful rest of the week. Make sure to join the challenge. Make sure to book that call if you do not want to wait for the challenge. Just go ahead and hop in and I will see you. I will see you in a week for another one of these.
And hopefully I will see you in about a week and a half for the five-day path to freedom challenge.
Bye everybody.