What Ozempic and Quick Fixes Can’t Fix About Emotional Eating – and What Actually Works | TMOHP Episode 193

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to have a conversation that I think probably just about every smart, capable woman has had with themselves at some point or another. Especially if you are a smart, capable, busy woman who has struggled with overeating or emotional eating, or is just plain feeling exhausted around the topic of food.

The question is simple. It's why bother? Why bother getting to the root of your overeating? Why bother with the feelings, the emotions? Why invest time and money and energy into ending overeating patterns when there are cheaper, faster and easier looking options everywhere you turn?

They're in your face. The ads are nonstop. And you've heard the stories; you've seen the pictures. You might even know someone who's taking a new medication, who's losing weight seemingly really quickly and swearing that they have finally cracked the code. Right? So why bother? Why bother with this? And that's exactly what I want to unpack today. Because the truth is that question, why bother it is the doorway to understanding why real freedom from overeating is worth it.

If you've ever asked yourself, why can't I just fix this already? Or maybe I should just try one of those medications, right? I should just go on medication. You're not alone. It makes perfect sense that you would want relief. And quick results sound amazing when you have been stuck in what feels like the same cycle for years and sometimes decades.

And if you have tried all the plans, all the rules, gone through the cycle of starting over on Mondays and the first of the month and the new year, you've tried all these approaches. You've probably noticed something every single time you start over, a little piece of your confidence and of your trust in yourself takes a hit.

And that's the part that no one talks about. No one talks about the way that endless dieting and those plans that are all designed around trying harder and willpower-based programs, nobody talks about the way that they quietly erode your belief in yourself and your belief that you can trust yourself and the promises that you make around food.

You start to think that maybe you just don't have enough discipline. Or that maybe your brain works differently. Or that you'll always need something outside of yourself to keep yourself on track. That's not true. But it's understandable that you'd believe it. So today I want to talk about what is really happening underneath that cycle. And why a real solution, a real solution we'll talk about what that is, but why a real solution looks and feels completely different.

So let's start with the cost of the easy solutions. And I'm putting easy in air quotes. Because they always come with a cost. Quick fixes, things like diets and cleanses and really super extreme programs, and even medications they can create short term results. But the price tag they don't put on that label is the price of your self-trust.

The quick fixes they teach you to outsource your wisdom. You outsource your confidence. You depend on the plan, the scale, or the medication to tell you how you're doing. And the truth is the minute life gets messy, you know, when you're stressed or traveling or grieving or celebrating that external system, it can't hold you anymore. Because it is honestly not designed for the times when you probably need it the most.

The hard times, the unpredictable times, the times when overeating and emotional eating are the most tempting. So with these plans, these quick fix plans, you usually almost always end up back where you started. But more tired. And because you're smart, then you tell yourself, I should know better. So you tighten up the rules. You promise to be good, to be better, to work harder, and then you start over again.

That self-blame. That and is what happens when it didn't work out. That self-blame, it is a pattern that was built into the system. What gets lost in all of that effort is trust in yourself. You lose trust in yourself. And along with it, you lose confidence and belief in yourself.

You lose the confidence that says, I can listen to myself. I can trust my body. I can trust my hunger. I can make choices that fit my real life. That is what we rebuild when we do the deeper work. The kind of work that I do, the kind of work I talk about on this podcast, and inside Your Missing Peace.

Almost everything you've been taught about overeating is built on the foundation or the idea of control. Control your portions. Control your hunger. Control your appetite. Control your emotions. Control your cravings. But here's the problem, control doesn't last. And control. Being in control, having to stay in control, having to be vigilant around control, it burns you out.

Freedom from overeating isn't about control. The source of freedom is understanding. When you understand the reasons that food has power in your life, when you start understanding your hidden hungers and the stories and the beliefs that keep you stuck, you don't have to fight those urges anymore. You don't have to fight for control. Because when you meet the real need, the craving fades on its own. And you get your power back.

That's the difference between trying to control your overeating and curing it at the root. Addressing the root. One way burns you out and erodes your belief in yourself, and the other really is freeing.

So one thing that is coming up more and more often, and I mean, how could it not be? Because if you're living in the world I'm living in, there is an ad for some product related to this in front of my face on TV at least once every hour or half hour. So let's talk about the question that I hear all the time right now, which is, why don't I just take Ozempic, or I'm thinking about one of those G GLP one medications. Maybe I should just try that.

First of all, there's no judgment here. For some women, these medications play a really important role. Especially when you've got some health concerns or when biology needs a little extra support. GLP one medications have some real promise. But if you are someone who struggled with emotional eating or overeating, there's something important that I want you to understand.

These medications can quiet your appetite. They can make you want less food. But they don't change why food felt necessary or took on the importance that it did for you in the first place. Overeating has never been only a physical problem. Appetite is physical. Overeating is personal. And it gets tangled up with a whole bunch of other things.

Overeating is connected to stress, to pressure, to our sense of reward. It gets connected to exhaustion and loneliness and perfectionism. It gets connected to being the woman who gets things done for everyone else and forgets to put her own needs on her schedule in the process. When you take away appetite without addressing these really fundamental drivers of eating and overeating, that underlying tension of wanting to eat it doesn't go away. It just finds another outlet.

Maybe it won't be related to food. Maybe it will show up as anxiety or irritability or overwork or emotional flatness. Or as some of my clients who have tried GLP ones with varying results have told me I, I didn't want to eat, but I wanted to eat. I wasn't hungry, but that other hunger was still there.

So, yes, a GLP one can make food quieter. And it may be something that is helpful for you. But these medications, they cannot restore the part of you that feels peaceful and confident and empowered and in charge of your own choices. It can't rebuild the trust that you've lost with yourself. It can't teach you how to make promises with yourself that you keep again, and to believe yourself with food.

And that's the piece when you get that back. When you feel in charge, when you have your power, that is the piece that actually changes everything. The women that I work with, they tell me that the transformation they love the most isn't that they stopped overeating. It's that they stopped needing to overeat.

They stopped fighting with food, and they started trusting themselves again. They started making decisions about food that felt right to them from a place of what they knew about themselves. From what they want, from what works for them. Instead of a long, super overwhelming list of, these are things I know I should do. I have to make myself do; I have to be stronger.

That's freedom and that's what we create when we do this kind of work. This is an investment. Doing this work and by this work I'm talking about the kind of work that I talk about on the podcast, the kind of work that the women who work with me do, my programs. The kind of work where you get to the reasons that you're eating and overeating. You get to the reasons that food has so much power and you take your power back.

Doing this kind of work. It's a, it's a kind of investment. Well, it's actually a, a bunch of kinds of investments. And it's an investment that pays off differently. So let's talk about that because talking about the investment, that's another big part of the why bother question.

There is no way around this work asking you to invest. When you decide that you're going to create real peace with food and freedom from overeating, you're going to invest time, you are going to invest your focus and your energy, sometimes your money. You are going to invest your belief. And I know that can feel scary, especially when you have spent so much time and so many cycles on things that didn't last and didn't work.

What's important to know in taking on this why bother question is that the return on this investment is completely different. We're not talking about a $99 quick fix. A 10-day program, right? This is about ending the cycle for good. When you stop fighting food and you start understanding it, you get so much more back than a number on the scale or a new jean size.

You get back your mental energy. The hours that you have spent planning and judging, and negotiating, and restarting, and deciding if it was a good day or a bad day, beating yourself up. You get back the calm that comes from trusting yourself, trusting yourself to eat when you're hungry, to stop, when you're satisfied, to choose what you want to eat off of a menu and feel fine about it instead of going through a list of what you should do or tracking whatever, or you get to walk into your kitchen and feel at peace.

You get to go on vacation without anxiety or without deciding that, oh, I guess we just have to forget our plans because I'm, I'm going to be off for this week and I'm just going to numb out about the whole food issue. You get to focus your brilliance on things that actually matter to you. That's what happens when you create freedom from overeating.

One of my clients told me, she said, it feels like I've put down this big bag of bricks that I didn't even realize I was carrying around. And another client said, I don't think about food all the time anymore. I don't think about it. I didn't even know that was possible. Another client put away her scale and then she forgot where she put it and she thought it was funny. It didn't make her anxious.

That's what this kind of investment creates. It creates freedom and spaciousness in your life. Confidence and peace of mind that no diet or pill or prescription or food plan can deliver for you.

Why bother? Why bother? You know, another place that question comes up is, why bother now? Why now? Maybe now isn't a good time. Why not just wait? Or maybe I need to try something else first. Or maybe I need to go in there one more time and really give it some effort. More effort. Constant effort. Why bother?

Because the truth is waiting costs something too. We don't think about it, but waiting and the status quo, there is a cost to that. We always ask, what if it doesn't work? But we hardly ever ask, our brains, hardly ever ponder, what if I just keep living like this for another year? Every time you tell yourself, maybe later. You strengthen the wiring that keeps you stuck, and you reinforce the belief that food is in charge. Food is in charge of you. Not you in charge of food.

Why bother? Because every time you take one small, compassionate step toward freedom and toward creating peacefulness with food, you start teaching your brain a new story. Every time you take one small, compassionate step, you start building trust and confidence again. You start reclaiming the time and the energy and the joy that are being spent fighting with food. And there's so much of that happening that you're probably just used to. You probably have no idea how much of your time and your energy and joy overeating and battles with emotional eating and changing your eating are claiming.

And the best part is. And this is huge. You do not have to be perfect to start. We get caught up in this perfectionism about, you know, why bother starting now. Because I can't do it perfectly right now. You don't have to be perfect to start. You just have to decide that you're done living this way in this relationship with food. And you have to try on the belief that maybe something better is possible.

It is, but it may not be something you can tell yourself with assurance, right? You may just have to try on the belief that maybe something better is possible. Why bother it is such a powerful question, and we just dismiss all these important reasons that bothering is so important.

So if this conversation stirs something in you. If that sense of, huh, maybe, maybe it is worth bothering. Maybe it doesn't have to be this hard. Is starting to move around inside your mind or inside your body. I want to invite you to take the next step.

In my world, that is usually joining my coaching program called Your Missing Peace. That is my coaching program for women who are ready to create freedom from overeating and emotional eating without the deprivation. Without the perfectionism, and without being at war with their own desires and, and just fighting constantly for more willpower.

There's a six-month version that you can join of the program, and now there's actually a three-month option if you want a smaller container to get started with. And if you're not ready for that level of investment, there are also shorter programs that help you start building these same skills.

Why bother? Because bothering makes a big difference wherever you start. The important thing is to start. Because this is the kind of work that keeps giving back. This is the kind of work that once you start doing it keeps growing. It keeps building strength inside you. It changes how you eat and it also changes how you live and you deserve this kind of freedom.

Thank you for listening to this episode. Thank you for listening to me play with this question, which is really important of why bother. And if this episode spoke to you, I would really love it if you would share it with another woman who is tired of the hamster wheel and quite possibly ready to believe that there's a better way.

Remember, freedom from overeating is not about control. You don't need more control; you don't need more perfectionism. It's about trust and confidence and learning to take care of yourself in ways that actually work. In ways that actually make your life work better. And that is where Your Missing Peace begins.

I'll talk to you soon.