How to Lose Your Stress Eating Habit by Uprooting It (Part 2) | TMOHP Episode 169

Welcome back to part two of How to Lose Your Stress Eating Habit.

If you haven't listened to last week's episode, it was the first part of this conversation, and in that episode, I covered why, what you've been taught to do about stress eating doesn't work. Why it won't work. And why it can never be a permanent or a satisfying solution. I shared a framework with you that shows why the traditional model for tackling stress eating should really be titled How to Create a Stress Eating Hamster Wheel.

In that first episode, we got really clear on why during stressful times that old ineffective model is incredibly fated to fail you. And the piece I don't want you to miss, so I'm going to keep coming back to it, is how that old model is actually based on blaming you for not getting it right when it doesn't work.

And how this not only adds more stress and overwhelm and probably more stress eating to your life, it also absolutely keeps you from doing the things that would allow you to successfully stop automatically turning to stress eating during stressful times.

So I want you to check out last week's episode if you missed it. It is episode 1 68.

In this episode, I'm going to talk a lot more about what works. What does work to end patterns of stress eating. I'm going to share the framework that my clients use that becomes a lifelong way of relating to food and allows you to uproot your stress eating habit. So you don't have to manage it or control it or lose control of it for the rest of your life.

And the last thing I want to share with you is how powerful shifting from the old framework in Episode 1 68 to my signature framework can be. Not only for your eating habits, but also for your confidence, your sense of power, and your sense of control and your ability to control your own life.

So I think it's pretty clear that we're going to cover much more fun ground in this episode than we did in the last one. And the last episode is really critical for understanding what I'm going to talk about.

I use the term overeating or stress eating hamster wheel, and I always assume that you know what I mean by that. But just to be sure, I'm talking about the cycle that so many smart women get stuck in where they're going in circles. Trying to change their eating. Trying to stop stress eating or some other kind of overeating. Getting started working really hard and then falling off track for some reason. Feeling discouraged. Maybe overeating because you feel discouraged. And then less hopeful and frustrated, and maybe overeating some more. And then jumping back into the cycle again.

It's time to start over again this time determined to try harder. Because underlying all of this is that the reason that last go round didn't go well is because you didn't do it right or you didn't work hard enough.

As we talked about in episode 1 68, this is a recipe for frustration. For more stress and overwhelm, and also this cycle is incredibly depleting.

Over time. Going through cycles like this drain your confidence in yourself. I talk to so many amazing women who are super smart and super confident, but they don't feel confident in this one area of their life.

And also all those times around the hamster wheel, all the times it didn't work. Coupled with the idea that it is your fault that it didn't work leads way too many amazing women like you to get to a place where you don't trust yourself.

You don't trust yourself with food. You don't trust yourself to keep your promise to yourself with food. The promises that you make about what you will do with food. You don't trust yourself to be effective in changing your eating.

And in case you need reminding, you are an incredibly effective person in the rest of your life, in so many places in your life.

This overeating hamster wheel, this stress eating hamster wheel, it is not a recipe for ending stress eating. Blaming yourself, forcing yourself to work harder, forcing yourself to start over is not a recipe for ending stress eating.

In fact, as we talked about, it actually makes the whole stress eating cycle worse. So what does it take to get off the stress eating hamster wheel?

I'm going to ask you one of the same questions I asked in the last episode. When you are primed to stress eat. When life has thrown you the circumstances that create a stress eating evening for you, what do you know about what you are needing and wanting and feeling at that time?

This is important. One of the reasons that smart people resort to stress eating is because they throw up their hands to a question like this and think things along the lines of, I can't have that. I can't have what I need. I can't fix this situation. I can't have what I want. There's nothing I can do in this situation. That is why I'm eating.

Yep, I get it. It's true. So much of the time is true and I still want you to answer the question. Do not worry about solving the problem. What is it that you know about what you're needing and wanting and feeling in those moments when you are stress eating or primed to stress eat?

Starting to pay more attention to what you need and want and feel is key to breaking up with stress, eating, even if what you want or need isn't possible right now.

So just like the framework I shared last week, there are three key components to create lasting freedom from stress eating. And we're going to draw another Venn diagram. This approach is a completely different approach from a very different perspective. And we're going to use that Venn diagram to describe this model and compare it to the model that I talked about last week.

Remember a Venn diagram is, it's those three overlapping circles that are arranged in a triangle. They all overlap and they come together and overlap in the middle. You can draw these out as we go along or also know that I'm sharing the diagrams and both of the frameworks in the show notes on my website at TooMuchOnHerPlate.com.

So if you want to create a stress eating hamster wheel, I know you don't, but let's just do this for comparison's sake. The first circle in your model, an underlying tenant, is control your stress eating. Doesn't that stress you out just to hear it? So the first circle is- control your stress eating. We hear this all the time in all the talk about discipline and overhauling your eating.

Freedom from stress eating isn't about control. Think about it. Having to be in control and feeling free or having freedom. Those are two very different things. So in one framework, you have control your stress eating. The freedom from stress eating framework that I teach, it begins with the goal of curing that first circle in this model I'm talking about today, we label it cure your stress eating.

When you cure something, it's gone. I used to bite my nails as a child. I don't do that anymore. I just don't. The habit is cured. It has been cured for years, decades. I don't wake up every morning worrying about whether I can be a good person with my fingernails today. Biting my fingernails or not biting my nails takes up zero mental energy in my life.

This is what happens when you cure a habit. This is what curing a stress eating habit or losing an emotional eating habit means. This is what this framework creates the possibility for. This is the kind of work that I do in my programs. This is what we're talking about on this podcast.

You begin with the premise that you deserve to cure your stress eating. And that it's possible to cure your stress eating. And you don't settle for self-control. Self-control honestly never lasts. And also it is least reliable during the times that stress eating is the biggest issue. Those are the times when you have the least amount of self-control.

So if we fill in the circles in both frameworks, you now see a pretty big difference. Cure versus control. Which one would you rather have? And since we're talking about stress eating, which result sounds less stressful?

The second circle in the stress eating hamster wheel was don't eat if you don't need food, or deny your hunger. I think we've all heard the unhelpful advice to recognize that you're stress eating and that you don't really need food and just don't do it. It is completely useless advice. I teach my clients, and I'm teaching you now a very different approach to stress eating.

Satisfaction, satisfy your hunger. And of course, that doesn't mean eat everything in sight. There is a reason you're stress eating. There is a reason you eat beyond fullness. There's a reason you're reaching for something to eat on autopilot. What do you know about what you're needing or wanting or feeling or wanting to feel? That question again.

You may not know the answer, but learning how to answer these questions, learning how to keep asking these questions. There are great tools and resources to help with this. This is the key to creating freedom from stress eating. This is the key to creating satisfaction.

Your hungers, including your non-food hungers, deserve to be fed and satisfied. Maybe you're exhausted or you're hungry for recognition, or you need a break. Or maybe you're in an incredibly difficult situation that you can do nothing about, but satisfying your hunger starts with acknowledging how you're feeling. Instead of the motivational tough talk about just not eating.

So many women get caught in a stress eating hamster wheel because fixing the stress seems impossible. It might be. But in an impossible situation, the hunger that you can address is to look yourself in the eye and recognize that this is hard, or I'm stressed, or I don't know what to do, or I feel powerless, or the world is scaring me right now, or whatever it is.

And then giving yourself the kindness and the compassion that you would give to anyone else in an impossible situation. You won't always be able to completely satisfy your non-food hungers. And acknowledging them and acknowledging their power instead of focusing on denying your hunger or depriving yourself is going to take you in a very different direction with your stress eating.

There's one more area that is fundamentally different when you compare what it takes to create freedom from stress eating to staying on a stress eating hamster wheel. It has everything to do with creating that experience of freedom. That feeling of freedom, that lifestyle of freedom. And it always surprises me how little it gets talked about and how unique my approach is in putting this in the forefront of what members in my program pay attention to because it is so fundamental.

Think about how you feel when it comes to tackling stress, eating, what kind of things contribute to you feeling free? Instead of feeling controlled by food or controlled by a habit.

That old stress eating hamster wheel model is control focused. And so it naturally has a focus on staying vigilant and in control. There is an aspect of needing to get everything right. And if you don't get everything right, you're failing.

You're either on track with your eating or you've blown it. It's a good day or a bad day. Which leads to that other familiar cycle of endlessly starting over and over and over.

The freedom from stress eating model is cure focused. Cure your habit, lose your need to stress eat, so then you don't have to control it. So you don't have to stay vigilant. The dark side to vigilance and to needing to get everything right is the worry that accompanies it. That it won't last, that you won't be able to last.

As a client, said to me recently, she said, I was always wondering how long I could do it until it all fell apart. Talk about stressful, talk about the opposite of freedom. A freedom from stress eating model isn't all or nothing. You do not have to be perfect. And by the way, you can't be.

In a freedom from stress eating model you progressively grow stronger. You progressively get better at being able to take care of yourself and your hungers in ways that aren't stress eating.

And as you get better and better at addressing the reason that you want to stress, eat from the root, the urges and the automatic reactions to stress eat, fade away. You're taking care of them. And as a result of being cure versus control focused and satisfaction versus deprivation focused, you grow more confident in this area of your life.

You begin to believe again, or maybe even believe for the first time in your ability to be effective with changing your eating habits. With not stress eating. With accomplishing the goals you have for your eating. You learn how to trust yourself with food and eating again, and how to make promises that you will actually keep.

Promises that you want to keep. Instead of the unrealistic deprivation-based food plans that you promised to follow. Because you were told you were supposed to. And you couldn't follow through on, and then you were taught to blame yourself because you couldn't do it.

So the third circle in my Freedom from Stress eating diagram is confidence and consistency. Confidence and consistency instead of vigilance, falling off track and endlessly starting over.

Two models, cure versus control, satisfaction versus deprivation and denial, confidence and consistency versus vigilance, and having to get things just right.

It's pretty clear to me and to the women I work with. Which one feels like freedom. And which one feels like a perpetual sentence.

Stress eating is a habit that you can walk away from. You can learn how to do this. To do it you probably need to switch frameworks. Well, if you're in the old framework, you definitely need to switch frameworks.

If you want some help with that, this is exactly what I'm talking about each week on the podcast, and it is the step-by-step path that I lead you through and coach you through inside my coaching program, which is called Your Missing Peace.

Again, the frameworks that I've described and the resources that I've mentioned are in the show notes. You can see the actual frameworks at TooMuchOnHerPlate.com, and you can cure your stress eating habit. You can lose your stress eating habit.

I'll talk to you soon.