The Mind-Body Connection and Food (feat. Lisa Schlosberg)

Curious about how your mindset shapes your eating habits and affects your body’s response to food? Could healing past trauma be the missing piece in your wellness journey? 

Today, Jenn Trepeck and Lisa Schlosberg, founder of Out of the Cave, LLC, explore the mind-body connection and its impact on emotional eating. Together, they explore how healing trauma can reshape our relationships with food, how our animal brain interprets social context as either safety or danger, and offer tools such as breathwork and the feelings wheel to build emotional awareness and combat chronic stress for sustainable, holistic health.

The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast, hosted by Jenn Trepeck, explores real-life wellness and weight loss, debunking myths, misinformation, and flawed science surrounding our understanding of nutrition and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store.

IN THIS EPISODE: 

• (00:00) Lisa Schlosberg introduces the concept of humans as spiritual beings, emphasizing the mind-body connection 
• (05:59) Lisa’s weight loss journey, emotional eating and revealing the importance of holistic health
• (10:50) The Adverse Childhood Experiences study connects childhood trauma to physical health issues like obesity and addiction
• (13:11) Discussion of the mind-body connection and how the feelings wheel can be tied to weight loss
• (18:35) Eating releases dopamine and serotonin, reinforcing emotional eating in times of stress
• (22:16) Reiterating humans as spiritual beings with an animal brain in a social context
• (29:02) The animal brain perceives discomfort as danger, triggering physiological reactions like chronic stress 
• (31:40) Lisa suggests using breath work to manage emotional awareness and reduce stress eating
• (35:54) Discussion of energy, the mind-body connection and advocating for self-love and mindfulness
• (39:05) Addressing social media influence and doom scrolling, idealized images create chronic stress, driving emotional eating
• (42:34) Lisa concludes with a call for self-compassion, offering hope for trauma healing

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The mind-body connection is central to understanding emotional eating, as Lisa Schlosberg explains how unprocessed trauma and stress can manifest as disordered eating patterns, impacting weight loss and holistic health.
• Self-compassion and emotional awareness are vital for healing, with tools like the feelings wheel helping individuals identify emotions associated with food and body image, thereby fostering healthier coping mechanisms.
• Chronic stress from social media and societal pressures can trigger stress eating. Still, mindfulness practices, such as breathwork, can help shift the nervous system toward a state of safety, supporting mental health and balanced eating habits.

QUOTES:        

(05:59) “It wasn't until I spoke to my mom's friend, who is a nutritionist, she explained to me that I was undereating and over-exercising.” Lisa Schlosberg 

(08:45) “Food was my drug of choice growing up. And what was happening without using food and eating to stuff down all the feelings or dieting and over exercising to distract from all of the feelings, I was an emotional disaster. And that was very confusing and really tricky to navigate.” Lisa Schlosberg

(13:12) “I started applying everything that I was learning in my own research about how diets don't work. You can't just restrict food and think that that's gonna be a sustainable way of living. I started focusing on my health holistically instead of just my weight. I started seeing myself as a complex, multidimensional, emotional human being rather than just a body,...