04/19/22 | 30:39 | Episode 63

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Audible | Amazon | iHeart

This is the final episode of a four part series of how I lost 30 lbs and kept it off for nearly five years without dieting or using willpower or restriction.

Today’s episode addresses the reason why every diet you’ve ever tried didn’t work for long. You’ll learn:

1. The four reasons we eat, which includes emotional eating

2. What emotional eating is

3. How you know if you are one (hint: almost all of us are, on some level)

4. The first steps to stop emotional eating and self-sabotage

In my 90 days program emotional eating is THE biggest obstacle to permanent, sustainable weight loss for my clients.

It is emotional eating that never gets addressed in traditional diets. Even Noom isn’t there for you at 9:00pm after you finally get the kids to bed and finally have a minute to yourself and all you want is a big ass glass of wine, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, and your current binge show on Netflix.

The SOLUTION is two-fold:

1. Learn to feel our feelings without eating/drinking

2. Create lives we LOVE, unapologetically

Here are four steps toward that two-fold solution:

1. Become aware of your feelings! It's cliche, but SO true. 

2. When you're eating, identify your REASON for eating… is it…

3. Decide if you want to continue

4. This leads to the second part of the solution to emotional eating: we MUST elevate our lives to end the cycle. We need to create lives that are BETTER than food! Create a life that is better than a BROWNIE!

I promise you, when you 

1. Solve for over hunger & over desire

2. Learn how to stop eating your feelings

3. And give yourself permission to create the life you crave

You will have cracked the code on your struggle with food and weight– and you will 100% have food freedom.

I am living proof, my clients are living proof, and my 90 Days to Food Freedom program is where you can join us. 

————

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This is the final episode of a four part series of how I lost 30 lbs and kept it off for nearly five years without dieting or using willpower or restriction.

In part 1 of this series, episode 59,  I shared with you the one, powerful tool that got me started on my permanent, willpower-free weight loss journey nearly five years ago. I learned how to eat only when I was hungry and stop when I was not.

Then, in the following two episodes– 60 and 61– I shared my nothing short of mind-blowing, life changing revelations I had around the concepts of over-hunger and over-desire and how these two problems MUST be solved before we can ever break free from diets while living at our natural weight with minimal effort. 

If you missed those, be sure to go back and check them out because they really do lay out not only the path I took to food freedom, but also the foundation for my 90 Days to Food Freedom program where I take women on their own, willpower-free weight loss journey. If you want to learn more, head over to liapinelli.com and book a call with me.

Today’s episode addresses the reason why every diet you’ve ever tried didn’t work for long. Even if you lose weight on a diet, 95% of us will gain it back and then some, within five years. In fact, there’s research that shows that people who diet are likely to be heavier in the long run than if they’d never dieted at all– how depressing is that?!?! But don’t worry– this can be undone by committing to NOT diet anymore and instead change your eating behaviors and mindset, which is the exact work we do in my 90 Days program.

In this episode I’m going to teach you

1. What emotional eating is

2. How you know if you are one (hint: almost all of us are, on some level)

3. The first steps to stop emotional eating and self-sabotage

The reason diets like WW, Keto, or anything else don’t work in the long run is because they don’t actually address the psychological and emotional aspects of overeating and why we self-sabotage in the first place. 

What I mean by psychological and emotional aspects of eating is best illustrated with a few personal stories:

1. Tired/exhaustion from work = wine + crackers & cheese + pasta + chocolate pb cups

2. Friday Happy Hour = nachos + margies– want to let loose and not feel deprived

3. Brownie is the reward

4. Popcorn + studying

5. 2pm chocolate + coffee break

These are all emotional reasons to eat– usually stemming from a deep sense of stress, exhaustion, overwhelm, obligation, and underlying dissatisfaction.

We eat to soothe, to make it all better– and it does! For a moment… and then it is like a bad dream because when the euphoria of the pb cups wears off we are left worse than when we started.

We pile on the guilt and the shame, knowing our pants will be even tighter tomorrow, and that we will feel even shittier.

So now we are not only overwhelmed, exhausted, and stressed– but we feel like fat shit on top of it! 

And what do we do when we feel like shit– we soothe ourselves AGAIN, and the cycle continues.

In my 90 days program emotional eating is THE biggest obstacle to permanent, sustainable weight loss for my clients.

Women often say to me “I know what I need to do, I’m just not doing it” 

One reason you may not be doing it is because whatever you THINK you need to do is painful and unsustainable, and if that’s the case we need to talk because living at your natural weight when you’re doing it right feels fucking awesome, not painful.

But the BIGGER, more probable reason you’re just not doing it is because of your emotions– your thoughts like “I deserve a brownie.” or “I’ll start tomorrow– right now I just want this.”

I’m going to share with you how to know if you’re an emotional eater.

First of all, it’s important to recognize that there are only four reasons we eat.

1. Physical hunger (go get my free training on this at liapinelli.com)

   1. Physical hunger can be triggered by over hunger which is feeling genuinely hungry often and having trouble feeling satiated until you’re stuffed. Again, this is solved for LIFE in my 90 Days program. 

2. Habit hunger– it’s 12 o’clock! We address this one, too.

3. Pre-planned pleasure events– birthdays! Holidays! Vacations! Etc. 

   1. Example, I’m never hungry for breakfast so I don’t eat it– gasp!! Another myth that you have to eat breakfast! I weigh less now than I ever did in my life and it’s not because I skip breakfast it’s because I only eat when I’m really hungry.-- but I always plan to enjoy Christmas brunch, or easter brunch for example. 

4. Emotional eating, such as my pb cups stories above

It is #4, emotional eating, that never gets addressed in traditional diets. Even Noom isn’t there for you at 9:00pm after you finally get the kids to bed and finally have a minute to yourself and all you want is a big ass glass of wine, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, and your current binge show on Netflix.

I get it. THAT is the real hard part. 

And that is ALWAYS the obstacle.

Because you can google a diet that works, but you can’t google “How to not feel deprived, like for real…” 

This is where I say, the problem isn’t FOOD– it is, and it isn’t. 

The PROBLEM is our dissatisfaction with our lives, our overwhelm, our thoughts and feelings about ourselves as parents, coworkers, friends, our frustration with our kids, spouses, and bosses. Our fears about the state of the world, the safety of our communities, or whether we are going to run out of money… the problem is that we EAT to feel better.

And we screw ourselves every time.

The SOLUTION isn’t to stop feeling… to stop having emotions… that is what makes us human!!

The SOLUTION is two-fold:

1. Learn to feel our feelings without eating/drinking

2. Create lives we LOVE, unapologetically

Here are four steps toward that two-fold solution:

1. Become aware of your feelings! It's cliche, but SO true. 

   1. How do I do that? 

      1. Ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? Throughout your day. Don’t wait until your eating. Wake up and ask, when you hug your kids, ask. When you get to work, ask. 

      2. Feelings wheel can help– keep it on your phone, set a reminder to ask
         

   2. When you're eating, identify your REASON for eating… is it…

      1. Physical (free training)

      2. Habit?

      3. Preplanned pleasure eat?

      4. Nope? Then it’s emotional!

         1. Identify the feeling the same way you’ve been practicing. 

   3. Decide if you want to continue

      1. This can be hard to stop in the middle of the action, but if you keep practicing you will eventually be able to short circuit it ahead of time which is much easier.

      2. Do I like my reason?

      3. What would I feel if I didn’t eat it (this is the feeling you’re avoiding)

   4. This leads to the second part of the solution to emotional eating: we MUST elevate our lives to end the cycle. We need to create lives that are BETTER than food! Create a life that is better than a BROWNIE!

      1. Quit that fucking job

      2. Stop overcommitting to shit you don’t want to do

      3. Book that weekend getaway ALONE!

      4. Say NO! All fucking day.

      5. Lock yourself in the bathroom with ear plugs, a good book, and a day’s worth of bath bombs.

      6. Take the nap!

      7. Dump the loser

      8. Apply for the promotion- hell, start that business you’ve dreamt of!

      9. Ask out that person you’ve been crushing on!

      10. Change careers 

I promise you, when you 

1. Solve for over hunger & over desire

2. Learn how to stop eating your feelings

3. And give yourself permission to create the life you crave

You will have cracked the code on your struggle with food and weight– and you will 100% have food freedom.

I am living proof, my clients are living proof, and my 90 Days to Food Freedom program is where you can join us.