Trusting Yourself with Food Again: How to Break the Overeating Cycle for Good | TMOHP Episode 194

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Let's talk about something that almost every woman who has ever struggled with food and overeating has felt. Whether you say it out loud or not, you have probably had that feeling that I'm not sure if I can trust myself anymore.

Maybe you tell yourself this time is going to be different. Right? But you're not sure if you believe it anymore. Maybe you start out strong, maybe with a plan or a food list or a new intention, and then at some point life happens. Stress hits. The holidays happen. You're tired. Or you just don't care anymore. And before you know it, you're back in those same patterns.

And you start wondering, okay, what's wrong with me? Why can't I stick with anything? Maybe I just can't do this. Here's the thing. What's really happening is not a lack of willpower. It is that over time, going through these cycles with deprivation thinking and diet mentality, you have lost trust with yourself.

When we stop trusting ourselves, we lose connection to ourselves and we lose connection to our own wisdom. Your wisdom, your inner knowing, that tells you what you need. That lets you know when you need something and lets you know how to care for yourself in real life. When that connection is gone, when you've lost your trust with yourself, food starts filling in the gaps. It becomes easier and easier for food to fill in the gaps.

Today I want to talk about how that loss of trust happens. How it keeps overeating in motion. How it can keep you in a cycle of overeating and emotional eating. And how to start rebuilding that trust in yourself in ways that actually work.

So let's start by talking about what happens when you stop trusting yourself. When you don't trust yourself, you start to rely more and more on external authority, external advice for everything. You stop listening to your own hunger. To your energy levels. To your emotions. And instead, you tune into other people's rules and plans and other people's voices.

And as you know, other people's advice and wisdom and voices and knowledge is everywhere. So what that looks like, you might ignore your hunger because it's not time to eat yet. I shouldn't be hungry. Or you might eat when you're not hungry because the plan says it's allowed, it's free time or it's a cheat day.

Or you might reach for food because you don't trust that you could actually take a break or rest or feel your feelings. And so you use food instead. When you stop listening to yourself, food becomes like a Band-Aid. It becomes the thing that kind of sort of gives you the thing you really need. The comfort, the relief, the escape.

It becomes the way that you handle those things because you've stopped giving those things to yourself directly.

 Overeating isn't about weakness. It's a symptom of disconnecting from what you really know. When you disconnect from what you really know, what you really feel, what you really need, you end up having this symptom of overeating. And, and that disconnection from yourself?

It continues to grow the more you keep asking. What are the rules? What am I supposed to do? What should I do? Instead of looking inside, trusting your own inner wisdom and asking, okay, what do I know about what I need? What do I want right now?

We lose trust over time. We don't lose it all at once. And yes, it was there at one point. But over time we lose trust. It's something that gets eroded. One well-intentioned rule that we're following from somebody else at a time. We lose trust through perfectionism. We lose trust by chasing plans that demand superhuman consistency instead of real humanity, real grace.

We lose trust through unrealistic expectations. You know those programs that tell you to ignore your hunger? It's not time to eat yet. Or to avoid entire food groups as if you can live outside of your biology and outside of your body's needs. And we lose trust through self-blame. When you label your needs as flaws and when you tell yourself that you should be stronger, tougher, better, more disciplined.

Each of these experiences, each of these moments teaches your brain that your own signals can't be trusted. You're supposed to be listening outside of yourself. Right? Your own signals can't be trusted. So instead, you start relying on external systems, the diet, the food plan, the tracking app, the good, bad food lists.

You start relying on these external things to tell you what's right. And again, this is something you have been taught. There are all sorts of marketing strategies that teach you can't trust yourself. You need to trust a plan. You need to trust somebody else. You need to outsource your trust.

But here's the thing, those systems they cannot possibly know You. They don't know your life. They don't know your stress. They don't know your schedule or your body. How it works. Your tastes. Your preferences. They don't know what today is like for you. Those systems are rigid. You're not rigid. You're the only one who has lived inside your body your whole entire life. There's a lot of wisdom in there.

But the plans are rigid and when life collides with these rules and systems. It always looks like there was something wrong with you. You failed; you weren't able to do it. You couldn't keep up with the plan. When the truth is, and I know you've heard me say this a lot, it's not that you failed, it's that the rules or the plan failed you.

And that is a really painful, is a painful truth. It's a painful irony. The very systems that you hope will help you build control. Are the ones that quietly teach you how to stop trusting yourself. They take your trust away.

And that loss of trust is what keeps the overeating cycle alive. It's what keeps you hooked into, okay, what do I need to be doing? How can I work harder? Because it's all your fault if things don't work, and the wisdom is all supposed to come from outside of you.

And I know that this idea of self-trust can sound vague and nebulous. Like, what does trust really mean? What is trust? Trust is not about following rules. I can trust myself to follow all the rules., right? Trust is about having a responsive, a respectful, an honest relationship with yourself.

It means listening to yourself instead of dismissing what you hear and knowing you will listen to yourself. It means recognizing your hunger, physical hunger, emotional hunger. Recognizing it and seeing it as information, not a problem or a flaw that you have to somehow eliminate.

Trust means that you allow your needs to be real and valid. You get to be a human being. Trust looks like asking, what do I know about what I need right now? And believing that the answer matters even if you can't give yourself what you need in that moment.

And here is the thing, and it's really a beautiful thing. When you start doing that, when you start listening and responding to yourself, overeating and food and the power of food, these things begin to lose their grip. They begin to lose their power. Because as you build back trust, as you start to see your needs as valid, as you start to ask the questions, what do I know about what I need right now?

Then you're no longer relying on food to do the job that your own inner wisdom, your own awareness, your own self-care were meant to do. And can actually do way more beautifully than heading into the pantry on autopilot and just grabbing the bag of chips.

When you listen, you can respond. And when you can respond, you don't have to soothe or numb with food. You don't need it in the same way anymore. That's what Rebuilding Trust is about. It's about restoring your connection to your own wisdom, your own inner smarts, so that food doesn't have to be that Band-Aid anymore. It doesn't have to fill in the blanks. It doesn't have to be a stop gap because you're not getting what you really need.

So let's talk about how to start rebuilding that trust and why this works. Even if you've broken your trust a hundred times, a thousand times before. Even if you just don't believe you can get this. Here's the thing, you can start rebuilding trust and you don't need to overhaul your life.

You just need small, consistent, not perfect, but consistent experiences that prove to your brain. I can listen. I can be kind to myself. I can make promises to myself that I can keep, that I will keep, I can trust myself again. So let's get concrete about that. Okay? There are four things that you can start practicing to rebuild trust in yourself.

Number one, try listening instead of yelling at yourself. Listen, instead of lecturing to yourself. Before you eat try pausing. You've heard me talk about this before. Try pausing for just a few seconds. Not to judge. I shouldn't be hungry right now. I shouldn't eat that. Is that a good food? Is it bad food?

No. Not to judge. Try pausing just to be curious. What's happening in my body right now? Am I hungry? What am I feeling? What do I know about what's going on inside? Am I stressed, bored, lonely, tired? Yes, this is a tool to rebuild trust and it works because you are reteaching your brain that your internal cues what is going on inside of you. Those things, and those needs matter.

And you're practicing being curious about them paying attention to them instead of trying to control them. And that little pause. Which your brain will say, well, that's not enough. It can't possibly do anything because that's how brains work. But that little pause, it starts to rebuild the, like a bridge between you and your own inner wisdom. It starts to reconnect you to being curious about yourself, to listening to yourself, to paying attention to what you need. So that's the first thing. Listen, instead of lecture.

The second thing that you can do is start playing with using kindness, realistic kindness. Perfectionism breaks your trust. You can never be perfect. You will never get it right. And remember in that model, if you don't get it right, it's your fault. Perfectionism breaks, trust. Compassion, rebuilds it.

So choose a small, doable change and practice it daily, small, doable, keep it small and doable. I'm going to keep saying that because your brain won't want to do that. So it could be just sitting down while you're eating. Putting your food on a plate. Taking a breath before you grab a snack. Not being on your computer or your phone while you're eating. Or taking that pause that I just talked about.

Choose one small, doable change and practice it as daily as you can. You want to make a promise to yourself to do something that you can keep. And this works because it's winnable. Your brain starts to learn that the promises you make are doable. They are safe, they are meaningful, and that success does not require perfection.

Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you strengthen your confidence. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you strengthen your trust. There is no such thing as a promise that is too small to count. Every time you keep a promise, you take another step towards making self-trust feel possible again. Because you know you can count on yourself.

Okay? Third thing to do, feed the right hunger. We've talked about this. We're going to keep talking about this. Most overeating and emotional eating isn't about food. It's about needs that you have, feelings that you have that you're not addressing or acknowledging.

Maybe you're pushing them down or numbing them or telling yourself you shouldn't have them. You've got thoughts and stories about those needs and those feelings. Most overeating isn't about food. When you start to recognize what's really driving your urge to eat, maybe it's stress or exhaustion, not getting enough me time and self-care needing compassion.

You know, there's a quiz on my website that you can take if you want to target your dominant hidden hunger. When you start to recognize what's really driving your urge, and you start to address that directly, even if you can't fix it in the moment. When you start to acknowledge that need, the urge to overeat starts to fade because you're not using food as a Band-Aid anymore.

You're not slapping it on there. You're paying attention to what's really going on. This works because every time you meet a real need without using food, you are showing yourself you're showing your nervous system that you take yourself seriously. And that you can take care of yourself effectively, that you're going to pay attention to the reasons.

You are proving to yourself that food doesn't have to be your only coping tool anymore. And actually you are teaching yourself over time that there are better, more effective coping tools and strategies and way of being in the world that actually feel much better than a binge or eating food that you aren't really hungry for.

The last practice that you can experiment with that will help you rebuild your self-trust is to reflect instead of beating yourself up. Don't punish yourself. Reflect.

When you overeat and you will because you're human. When you overeat, when it doesn't go well, when you eat on autopilot, when you forget what it was you were doing all day long, and you realize at the end of the day that all you've done is all your old patterns with food. Pause afterward and ask, huh, what do I know about what was going on there?

What was I needing today? Or what was happening after that meeting? Why did I come home and just walk into the pantry when I didn't do it yesterday? Ask curious, reflective questions instead of what's wrong with me. Instead of beating yourself up. Reflect this works because when you reflect, you deepen connection. You deepen curiosity.

Judgment, telling yourself it's all your fault, that you were defective, that you didn't try hard enough, that you're lazy, that you don't have enough willpower judgment disconnects you. And it disconnects you from you and your own wisdom. It also disconnects you from your own curiosity.

There's nothing to be curious about because you've been judged and jury, and you've already decided that the problem is you.

 When you reflect, you learn something new about yourself. You learn something new about what doesn't work. Or what does work. Or what could work better. When you judge, you shut that learning down. When you reflect, you create new possibilities, and you start to identify things that can make your next steps more effective. Over time, reflection grows your wisdom and wisdom builds trust.

Trust does get rebuilt. You do have wisdom inside you. You can reconnect with what you know, and it can make a huge difference in your eating. I've seen this transformation so many times. I think about the women I've worked with who came in so firmly entrenched in following the rules. They could quote every diet, every expert, every right way to eat. Right? And they had a lot of questions about how they were supposed to do it.

Our early conversations were so full of worry and angst and anxiety. Am I doing it right? How much time should I be spending? What should I be eating? Am I doing enough? Is this going to work for me? What if I can't stick with this? That's what happens when you have spent years depending on outside rules, and you've been conditioned to depend on outside rules and distrust yourself.

But when you spend years in that cycle, you forget that you and your body, they already know things. They already know a lot. When you are in that outside rule place for a long time, you stop trusting your instincts because you've been trained to believe that someone else always knows better.

And then this is the cool part. As we work together, as the work unfolds, something starts to change. And they start listening, really listening to what works for them. And there's this confidence that starts to come back. And instead of, what should I do, a lot of sentences start with, I think that what I want to do is...

Over time as their trust comes back, as their confidence grows. Women I work with begin creating their own guidelines around what feels good, what feels peaceful, what actually fits into their lives. And also, once they've cleared out all that deprivation thinking what they know in their own wisdom is much more likely to work for them.

The beautiful thing is every woman's approach is different. And the only thing that I know absolutely for sure in all the years I have of doing this work is that there is not one way of approaching food that works for everyone. Your approach is going to be different. But the common thread is confidence and self-trust.

And eventually I have worked with clients who, who then discover their voice. And they start speaking up and they start talking back, and they start including themselves in the conversation. I've had clients tell personal trainers and dieticians and even physicians, uh, we need to talk about this because this approach right now, it's not a good fit for me. Or I'm concerned about this and here's why.

It's not that they reject outside advice, but it goes through the filter of what they know. What they believe, what they feel. And they say these things calmly and clearly from a place of self-trust and wisdom about the body that they have lived inside their whole lives.

I'm not talking about rebelling. I'm talking about what I see in my clients when they honor what they know. And what happens then is they create ways of being with food that they not only enjoy and want to keep, but they also work. And they work in the long run and they fit who they are. This is what rebuilding trust looks like.

It's not about following new rules or finding the right set of rules. It's about remembering that you are the expert on you.

Trust changes so much. When trust comes back, everything feels different. Food and food rules and thoughts about eating, they stop taking up all that space in your brain. You stop second guessing every bite, and stop promising yourself that you'll start over on Monday, and next time you'll get it perfect.

You start making decisions about food, about your eating, about your needs, about your time, and your energy from a calm, grounded place. Not from fear or guilt or impulse. Or sometimes doing it, doing it really quickly and just not thinking about it, because then you will feel guilty. Right? You will feel like it. You're doing something wrong, so you have to go numb.

When trust comes back, everything feels different and life opens up again. You have more energy, you have more creativity, you have more room to enjoy the things that you actually care about. Trust changes your inner conversation. Trust leads to confidence.

Confidence leads to consistency, not perfection. Consistency. And consistency leads to freedom from overeating.

Self-trust is the key to so much of this puzzle. If you're ready to rebuild that kind of relationship with yourself, one that is grounded in connection and compassion and calm, know that that is exactly what we do inside Your Missing Peace. The very first module of that program is all about taking your power back. That's self-trust. That's confidence.

Your Missing Peace is where I help women stop trying to control overeating and instead get to the root and cure it at the root by restoring your confidence, restoring your trust, and learning and adopting new tools that last. So inside the program, there is a six-month track for deep transformation, and now there is a new three-month option if you want to start smaller.

If you want to take the first piece of things and build a foundation and see where that takes you. You can join semester one and if you're not ready for Your Missing Peace, there are now shorter programs available on my website that will help you begin the same process at your own pace, in your own way.

Because rebuilding self-trust and confidence is not about speed. It's about support and kindness and learning how to stay connected to yourself no matter what life is throwing at you. Trust grows one small moment at a time, and the good news about that is that these small moments, they are doable and you don't have to get them perfect.

Every time you choose to listen, instead of ignore yourself to care for yourself, instead of criticize yourself to feed yourself what you're actually hungry for, you start rebuilding that connection with yourself. And that is the path to freedom from overeating, not control, not deprivation, not 10 more rules. Reconnecting.

That's what I have for you today. Thanks for listening.

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And I'll talk to you next time.