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January 11, 2025 16 mins

OUTWEIGH: If you’ve ever seen your teenager spiral into stress, overwhelm, and food obsession—and felt utterly helpless—this conversation is a game-changer. In today’s episode, Leanne sits down with Natalie Borrell of Life Success for Teens, who’s spent nearly two decades helping students thrive not just academically, but emotionally and mentally. We’ll delve into why so many teens feel out of control around food when life itself feels out of control, and how teaching executive functioning skills like organization, time management, and boundaries can help them reclaim stability—and reduce the frantic energy fueling their anxiety and body struggles.

Get ready to discover real, practical tools your teen can use without piling on more rules or punishments. From establishing daily routines that create emotional breathing room to learning to say “no” and preserve mental space, Natalie and Leanne are sharing a new lens on supporting teens without the pressure-cooker tactics that so often backfire. If you want to guide your teen toward self-trust and genuine calm—rather than crash dieting or body shame—this episode will open your eyes to a radically different approach.

GUEST: Natalie Borrell // @lifesuccessforteens // lifesuccessforteens.com

HOST: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington

To learn more about re-wiring your brain to heal from the all-or-nothing diet mentality for good....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) head on over to  www.StresslessEating.com

Follow Amy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radioamy/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out me outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am again, stem I failfree,
I know every part of me.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It is beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel it.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
But she'll some love to the why get there? Take
you one day? Ana?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Did you and die out way?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Happy Saturday? Outweigh And this is for you parents. If
you've ever felt helpless watching your teen's battle food obsession
or body dissatisfaction, or that endless cycle of stress, anxiety
and self doubt, then this series is for you. And
so today and for the next few weeks, we are
joined here with Natalie Burrell, founder of Life Success for Teens,

(00:58):
who brings nearly two decades of experience helping teenagers not
just academically, but emotionally and mentally, and so together we're
going to dive into the unique challenges that teenagers face
today and how they're developing brains fuel these struggles, and
how you as a parent can support them without adding
more pressure. And so this isn't about more rules or

(01:21):
diets or tough love. It is about understanding what's really
driving their behavior and giving them the tools to find
their own freedom. So, first of all, welcome Natalie. Thank
you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I'm so excited to be here. Leanne.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I knew from the first moment that I met you
that I just wanted to be your friend and be
around your positive energy. So anytime I get to friend
with you is great.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Ditto to you. Oh well, so grateful to have you here.
Before we dive in, just kind of give us a
big picture overview of who you are and the work
that you're doing with teens now and the impact that
you're making over over in your world.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I'm located in Cleveland, Ohio, and for the last seventeen years,
I've been a school psychologists in a public school setting,
which is where I really figured out that schools don't
always prepare our teenagers for the real world. I mean,
as much as we try and as much as there
are wonderful people in schools, I was in a field
where I worked with a lot of students who had

(02:16):
learning disabilities, ADHD, depression, anxiety, or all of the above,
and there just wasn't the right type of support, the
right amount of support. It became really difficult to get
teenagers what they needed in schools, and so about seven
years ago I started Life Success for Teens, where now
I have a team of coaches who are experts in

(02:37):
building confidence, reducing stress, teaching teenagers how to play the
game of school and be successful. And we work with
teenagers one on one and in group settings to just
help them become the best versions of themselves. And what
it really boils down to is feeling capable that they
can do that and having the confidence that that is possible.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
So it's been a really amazing journey.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's definitely our passion project and something that I love
doing every day.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Amazing, amazing. So that I mean that brings us right
into the topic that we're going to be talking about today.
You know, this concept of anxiety and overwhelm and the
perceived pressures that teenagers are going through, and it's happening
under the surface too, right. They're not necessarily you know,
knowing that it's happening. They are experiencing these crushing expectations,
especially in today's day and age. So you know, when

(03:27):
it comes to anxiety and overwhelm, you know, teens often
feel out of control around food and their bodies when
they feel out of control in life, you know, And
so when it comes to what's going on in their
brain and how to give them that sense of stability
and autonomy in the midst of their anxiety and overwhelmed
and the perceived pressures in in their brain. This is

(03:48):
where we want to pick your brain and talk about
this because you know, again a lot of parents are
sitting on the other side of this, and hey, who knows,
maybe some teens are actually listening to this and it's like, well,
what do I do? How do I help them without
without making it worse? Right? So can you just kind
of speak to a little bit about this idea of
first we're going to talk about how to you know,
help them, but when it comes to that frantic energy

(04:11):
that fuels their anxiety and their overwhelm and again, in
a lot of cases, that lack of control leads leads
to them binging or trying to go on a diet
and control it because they think that's the one thing
that they can control. Can you just kind of speak
to us a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, certainly, you said two really important words that I
want to highlight. The first one was that there's so
much pressure, and sometimes that pressure is beneath the surface,
like you said, And the analogy I often use here
is like if you can imagine a duck swimming across
a body of water, and it looks like smooth sailing
right like on the surface, these teenagers are calm, cool, collected,

(04:48):
they're taking honors, they're taking ap they're doing all the
activities right. But underneath the surface, they're paddling like crazy.
That stress, that pressure, that feeling of overwhelm, that feeling
of am I enough or I'm not as good as
that person next to me?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
That is really stressful.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
So when you said pressure like that really resonated with
me because that is a term that I hear so
often from the parents that I speak with, that the
pressure is very, very real. And then the other word
that you said is control. And I talk with teenagers
a lot about control. The analogy we like to use

(05:27):
there is being in the driver's seat of your own life,
because for teenagers and for many adults, there are so
many things that it feels like are out of our
control and that is very stressful. So, for example, in school,
we can't control you know how many assignments were given
we can't control how many tests we have. We can't
control what that girl said to us in the hallway

(05:50):
that we don't like. Like, you can't control any of
those things. So there is this feeling of when you're
not in control, when you're not in the driver's seat,
that feels very anxiety provoking and it does not feel
good in general. So part of learning how to shift
that narrative of I'm not enough, I'm not in control,

(06:12):
what's the point of even trying, is really building the
belief and the confidence that you can.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah. Absolutely, And we're going to get into the whole
comparisonitis and the self image sight of it in the
third part of the series. But it's so I mean,
it just shows us that even in the absence of
food and body struggles, there is so much pressure and
lack of feeling of control that they're going through independent
of that, and then you throw this in the mix
and it's just, you know, adds fuel to the fire.

(06:39):
So can you share with us a little bit, you know,
what are some coping mechanisms or routines that can help
them create space to process their emotions when they're in
the midst of this pressure and anxiety.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, absolutely, And what are coping skills that they can use,
like in the moment, especially in school, when we don't
need everybody else around us knowing that we're using a
coping skill because nobody looks different, right, nobody wants to
be exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Embarrassed about that.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
So the way that we teach coping skills is that
we have to make sure that we're using coping skills
that are a match for not only the situation that's happening,
but a match for the way that our bodies handle stress.
So one of the steps is to recognize how stress
feels and how stress looks in your body so that
you can know when it's happening. So, for example, you're

(07:26):
about to take a test in school, Does that mean
your heart is racing? Does that mean your chest feels tight?
Do your hands get sweaty? We get a lot of
kids with sweaty palms. You know, is that when the
negative voice in your head starts, what is it that
that stress looks like and feels like in your body? First,
so you can recognize, like, hey, this is happening. I
need to figure out a tool to use or a

(07:47):
person to talk to to get myself back down to baseline.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
So from there, once you know what it looks like,
what it feels like, you recognize it's happening. Now we
need to have I'll call it like a tool of
different strategies to use, okay, And we always teach that
you need to choose these strategies and practice them in
a moment that is not anxiety provoking or stress filled first.

(08:13):
You know, it's kind of like that analogy of practicing
a fire drill before there's actually a fire, so that
you know exactly what to do in your brain can
just kind of go on autopilot when you're under that
stress feeling right, right, So when you're picking a coping
skill that works for you, you need one that matches
the situation. So, for example, you're probably not going to

(08:33):
be able to meditate in the middle of class. If
you're doing like a guided meditation, right, you could probably
do it. Sure, you can't stand up and do yoga
in class, right, But there are breathing exercises you can do.
There are fidgets you can use, there are affirmations that
you can say to yourself. You need to choose a
skill that works for the moment. But also one that

(08:53):
actually works for you. So the way we teach this
is to just give almost like a giant list of
coping skills at first, to say, like, here's fifty five
coping skills. Just go through and like highlight which ones
kind of sound appealing to you, and then we'll go
in more detail and pick ones that they actually want
to try. And that's how we develop an actual toolkit

(09:16):
of things for them to choose from.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
So powerful because it is it has to be about resonance.
We talk about here about the power of neuro associations,
and if you have something that doesn't resonate or you're
like I won't even use that, it's going to actually
work against you and create a negative neuro association in
your brain and then you think, great, I'm another person.
This is one more thing that didn't work for me.
Versus like giving them a bunch of options and saying like, hey,
what resonates with you, what's something that you want to

(09:38):
even explore, because that's going to create those positive neuro
associations right away to get them moving towards what they need,
because oftentimes that's part of the problem, is like I
know what I need, but I can't even get myself
to get there right.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yes, absolutely, Let's talk to.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
The parents directly for a second. These parents that are like, Okay, Natalie,
my team is everything that you're saying, the pressure, the stress,
the expectations, like feel out of control. They have anxiety,
their palms are sweating, and I don't know how to
help them. What are ways that parents can support their
kids in the midst of the anxiety the overwhelm without
adding to it Because a lot of times, you know, unknowingly,

(10:14):
parents can try to do all that they can do,
but they might be actually making it a little bit
worse unbeknownst to them. So can you kind of just
peek show us a little peek behind the curtain for that.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
I mean, something I hear all the time on the
calls with parents is they want to help their teenager
but they don't know how or I really want to,
you know, promote healthy habits. I really want to tell
them that they are so wonderful. Why can't you see
that for yourself? And their team is just not receptive
to hearing it from them, And that is so common,

(10:45):
and I think it just takes another voice sometimes, you know,
whether that voice is you know, a positive podcast that
they like to listen to. Whether that voice is their
guidance counselor at school that they connect with, or their
English teacher that they you know, talk to after class, Yes,
whatever it may be, sometimes there has to be another voice.
So for parents, the first step would be to say

(11:06):
to yourself or to ask yourself, is my teen receptive
to hearing this from me? If the answer is no,
there's two things I would say, keep trying, but not
in a way that feels like you're being overbearing, or
that if you're trying and that it's making it worse,
I might hold off there.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
But keep trying.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
And what I mean by that is like, be consistent
in your approach, be consistent in your positivity, be consistent
in your reminders of how capable and wonderful they are.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
But also if the.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Answer to the question is your teen receptive to hearing
it from you? If it's no, then you need to
find another voice.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Absolutely finding that authority that resonates with them. Because again,
like I mean, when we think about this day and age,
everyone the influencer world is you know, taking over by storm.
So how can you find positive influences that your kids
will actually listen to. And this is where I'm gonna
plug you. Well, we'll have you share your You share
so much amazing content and quality content for parents and

(12:04):
the kids themselves on your Instagram, so we'll have you
shout that out as well. But that being said, it's
like influences influence, and so if you're not able to
give the influence that you can to your teens or
they're not receptive to it, it's like it's about finding
what would infiltrate that bubble.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
For them exactly.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
And I always suggest to parents, like start with who
you know first, like, really take an inventory of who
is in your world, who is in your teen's world
that they will respect.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
And listen to.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
And you don't have to set it up like a
play date, right, Like you don't have to say, yeah,
hey uncle john you know, could you fill in the
plan like could you meet up with Johnny and.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
You know, take him to a baseball game.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
But I think there is something to be said for
looking first in your circle of friends and family to
see who is somebody that your teenager could spend a
little more time with or have more of an influence from.
But also if there is a person in your life already.
I think that's wonderful, but you also have to remember
that that person may not be able to meet with

(13:00):
your team on.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
A regular basis.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I mean, this can't just be like a one stop like,
here's your dose of positivity, You're good to go it.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeahs to be not to do that, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Absolutely. The consistency is huge, especially at that age. And
we're going to be talking about in next week's episode
all about you know, meeting their emotional needs without using
food with like actual the coping mechanism side of things.
But what would you say to a parent just to
kind of get the wheels turning for next week if
they notice that their kid is stressed and overwhelmed and
has that anxiety and they are turning to either you know,

(13:35):
using food to fill that void or the opposite, like
if everything else feels out of control, I'm going to
control my weight, I'm going to control my food whatever
it is. So it's the you know, two sides of
the opposite sides of the same coin. What would you
say to parents, like in the beginning stages when they're
starting to notice that like food or body image stuff
has become the go to coping mechanism.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
I would say, start to take notes, meaning like how
often is this happen? How often are you noticing it?
Like in what ways is it impacting their life? Because
it can be so easy for you to notice it's happening,
but then a week goes by and you think, like, wait,
did that happen last week?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
You really need to start.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Taking actual notes of what's happening so that you have
information to share with a professional if and.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
When you need to get them involved.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, And I think it's one of those things where
parents feel like it's their duty to be the one
to help them, but when they're when we're talking about
stuff like this, it's so sensitive, Like you were saying
a minute ago, like you definitely need an authority outside
of this. I remember not that long ago. I have
a client who I'm working with, who she's an adult
coming through my program, and she's got daughters, very athletic daughter.
One of her daughters very athletic, and she came home
from sports and was just like super hungry and was

(14:44):
like eating a bunch of bread before dinner because she
was just starving. And her husband, who obviously knows that
my client is going through this program but doesn't understand
the eccentricities of it. Was like said to their daughter, like,
you can't eat like that, Like we don't eat bread
like that, and like was just like kind of guiding her.
And when she talked to and I coach my client
through talking to her husband, he didn't even realize that

(15:05):
what he was doing could have had negative repercussions. Right,
So I think just even having the awareness that, like, hey,
not all advice is good advice. Like I know you're
their parent, but like there's some things that are a
little bit kind of tricky or you know, a little
bit delicate and sensitive that we need to just really
make sure that we're not like tiptoeing around it. But
like you said, get the data, get the information so

(15:26):
that you have clear data and facts to share to
somebody else as opposed to your opinion or your perception.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Absolutely, and you need sometimes that the professionalism and the
expertise of somebody else, but also somebody who doesn't have
ten to fifteen years of emotion wrapped up in your teenager,
do you know what I mean, Like somebody who could
just take a bird's eye view or an outside perspective
to say, here's the facts, here's what's happening.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Okay, I know how to help you, or here's the solution.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah for sure, because for parents, it's emotional, it's personal.
You can't separate the two, even it's baby. I think
you can. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, for sure, for sure. Well, well,
this is such a powerful conversation. We're going to be
back next week and we're going to be talking about
your teen's real hunger and how to meet their emotional
needs when food is not the answer. And maybe it's
not food, maybe it's you know, obsessing over Netflix, online

(16:13):
shopping of like scrolling through Instagram. Like we it's the
same part of the brain, that social brain that we
talk about here all the time. We're going to be
getting into that. But in the meantime, where can people
find you stock you learn from you feel free?

Speaker 3 (16:26):
Come stalk me on Instagram. That's where I play mostly
at Life Success for Teens, and then our website is
actually the same thing, Life Success for Teens dot com.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Amazing. Well, we will link all of this in the
show notes. Thank you so much, Natalie, and we will
be back for part two of this series next week. Bye.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Thanks

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