Episode 139 The Diary of an Emotional Eater: Emotional Eating isn't bad, nor are you! What's the food asking you to pay attention to?
Sep 13, 2019
My name is Tammy Marshall and I’m the creator of The UnEmotional Eater Protocol. I really wanted to talk about Emotional Eating. The reason you can identify it as that is because when you’re experiencing any kind of uncomfortable emotion you eat. It’s not because you’re a bad person. It’s not because you’re doing it wrong. It’s just because somewhere along the way this cause and effect happens, and it becomes a habit.
This is why I do what I do. I kept trying to just go on a diet, “so just tell me what to eat”. But none of that stuff deals with why I eat or why you eat. It’s because of these uncomfortable emotions that we don’t know what to do with.
Really what I do is I teach people how to manage their emotions. I have a very concrete system that is not there to just “feel your feelings” but a process, a mindset change, a belief change, a complete paradigm of looking at everything about:
● How you feel
● What is showing up in your world
● A complete change of how you do things
We are about 5 weeks into this 6-week program and so we’re starting to hit stride. It takes some time because it’s so radically different, this isn’t your grandma’s therapy. It truly is a mindset shift of how you think, and what believe about the world. I call it ‘Belief Bug Fixes & Mindsets’ because truly if we are a computer, I realize there are programming issues. It is a programming change in the mind in order to just show up in the world differently and to do things differently.
Last night in class one of the ladies shared a victory. It was something that normally would’ve sent her into a tizzy-fit, just blasting everybody in the family and being all upset. Of course, if you get that upset and your habit is to eat then of course that is what you are going to do.
She said “I can’t believe that in such a short amount of time, I didn’t even have to do the process, I just responded completely differently.” this is real. It’s not made up. When you start doing this work your whole body system just starts showing up differently. But of course, I’m the unemotional eater so I asked the question. I asked, “Did you eat anything?” She was like, yeah. Of course, that shame it hits just like that, we both know it. If you have beat yourself up for eating.
Really it comes out of the diet industry because we’re trying to control, control, control, control. Then the emotions become too much, we eat and then we feel like we are failures when we haven’t even addressed the right problem. I’m just telling you until you deal with the emotions you can’t even think about changing how you eat. She was like “yeah, you know I ate some candy-corn or something” so I asked “did you eat a little or a lot?” She was like “well I didn’t eat the entire bag” and I was like “well in my world that is progress.”
I said if you were eating even though you responded differently to this situation there is something else going on. Then it hit her because what she realized what she was eating had nothing to do with the situation that she was sharing, there was another situation going on.
Most people think that when they show up with me, they are supposed to be restricting and controlling their food. No, no, no, that is not how I play.
This is why I do what I do. I kept trying to just go on a diet, “so just tell me what to eat”. But none of that stuff deals with why I eat or why you eat. It’s because of these uncomfortable emotions that we don’t know what to do with.
Really what I do is I teach people how to manage their emotions. I have a very concrete system that is not there to just “feel your feelings” but a process, a mindset change, a belief change, a complete paradigm of looking at everything about:
● How you feel
● What is showing up in your world
● A complete change of how you do things
We are about 5 weeks into this 6-week program and so we’re starting to hit stride. It takes some time because it’s so radically different, this isn’t your grandma’s therapy. It truly is a mindset shift of how you think, and what believe about the world. I call it ‘Belief Bug Fixes & Mindsets’ because truly if we are a computer, I realize there are programming issues. It is a programming change in the mind in order to just show up in the world differently and to do things differently.
Last night in class one of the ladies shared a victory. It was something that normally would’ve sent her into a tizzy-fit, just blasting everybody in the family and being all upset. Of course, if you get that upset and your habit is to eat then of course that is what you are going to do.
She said “I can’t believe that in such a short amount of time, I didn’t even have to do the process, I just responded completely differently.” this is real. It’s not made up. When you start doing this work your whole body system just starts showing up differently. But of course, I’m the unemotional eater so I asked the question. I asked, “Did you eat anything?” She was like, yeah. Of course, that shame it hits just like that, we both know it. If you have beat yourself up for eating.
Really it comes out of the diet industry because we’re trying to control, control, control, control. Then the emotions become too much, we eat and then we feel like we are failures when we haven’t even addressed the right problem. I’m just telling you until you deal with the emotions you can’t even think about changing how you eat. She was like “yeah, you know I ate some candy-corn or something” so I asked “did you eat a little or a lot?” She was like “well I didn’t eat the entire bag” and I was like “well in my world that is progress.”
I said if you were eating even though you responded differently to this situation there is something else going on. Then it hit her because what she realized what she was eating had nothing to do with the situation that she was sharing, there was another situation going on.
Most people think that when they show up with me, they are supposed to be restricting and controlling their food. No, no, no, that is not how I play.
• When you’re eating foods mindlessly
• Find yourself bored in the refrigerator
• Or randomly find yourself at a fast-food line
• Or eating large quantities
I call those ‘Flags on the Play.’
We have a caution flag, a red flag and there is a warning sign going on that is asking you to move into your heart. What is going on is inside you, it has nothing to do with the food. The food is just the external alarm system that you’re feeling off balance on the inside of you. I didn’t shame myself and I don’t shame other people, if you’re wanting to eat then go inside your heart and figure out what is really going on because it’s not food.
I’m telling you once I got completely balanced, I just want normal nutritious feed my body food. If I find that I’m wanting something else wanting something extra, I’m standing in the refrigerator just gazing randomly then I come back and check my heart. There is no shame in that. It’s just a flag, just a warning sign, it’s a “hey, there is something going on” and that is it.
If you stop giving it so much power, then it chills out. Also, because we’ve put so much belief around eating like back to “I’m a bad person. I’m never going to get it. I’m such a failure” we just attack ourselves because we show up with food. Realize it’s just been our way of doing things. All I do is invite people into a new way of doing things.
Food has just taken on so many bad things in our country for lots of reasons. I want to blame the diet industry; I want to blame the food industry for making all these chemical like substances in the name of the grocery stores keeping things on the shelves longer. I want to blame media. Women have been photoshopped to death until we were trying to live up to some ridiculous image.
I would tell you, enjoy food. Notice when you are eating foods that aren’t real food. Notice when you are eating foods that aren’t mealtime foods. It’s random, boredom, emotions, grief, sadness, anger, and even sometimes when we are happy. We go back to if we get hungry, angry, lonely, or tired like those are times when you get a flag on the play. I just had to share that I get so frustrated when people are embarrassed to tell me that they ate something when those are just flags on the trail.
I always said I’m somewhere between a cutting-horse and a coon dog when it comes to helping people deal with their emotional eating issues. I follow trail markers as to what is going on in the inside and where we need to go to work.
It’s Friday and we are going to play football again in Tennessee, in Knoxville. Let’s hope that it turns out to be a much better game than the last 2 have been. Just remember that you’re loved. It’s a big crazy world out there, I was going to tell you to go love on other people an act of kindness, smile, open a door, buy someone’s coffee, put someone’s shopping cart back, and let them in traffic; holy buckets that’s the one I have to work on.
I’m also going to tell you to love on you, just that little example from last night is another thing about how we criticize and beat ourselves up so harshly. We are so harsh on ourselves. I just ask you to be kind, be nice.
I took the posture of curiosity with food. Instead of judging myself, beating myself up, which is what I teach my clients, it just takes some unlearning and a little while to decondition yourself.
It really is about being curious about “Why is this going on?” If I’m craving something that is not really nutritious for my body asking, “What is up with that?” Just being curious without judgement.
Alright I’ve said too much. Love you ‘all. Have a great weekend. Talk to you soon. Blessings!
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