July 20, 2024 • 25 mins
OUTWEIGH: We are so excited to bring you the first official crossover series of the "What’s God Got To Do With It?" and Outweigh podcasts.
If you have been listening to Outweigh, you know that THAT podcast is all about helping women break themselves out of the food and body prison, end the dieting madness, and take control of their health for good, but without all that restriction, obsession, and shame…and without dragging it out for years to address it.
And if you’ve been listening to "What’s God Got To Do With It?", you know that it's all about the fusion of where science meets Faith and where faith meets transformation and miracles.
So this crossover series is a beautiful opportunity to talk about the crossover of where science meets food…& body image… & self image struggles…AND where THAT intersects FAITH (or what’s God got to do with allll of that?)
And that’s exactly what this 6 part series is all about:
Part 1 is an introduction and setting up this massive topic.
Part 2 is all about the big picture of where faith meets science meets food & body image.
Part 3 goes deep into the self image and identity that you need to actually step into the version of you that would have THAT health, that would have THAT relationship with food and her body, who would actually be at peace and feel free….…and of course how that fuses with this faith-brain conversation.
Part 4 dives deeper into What God has to do with (what Leanne calls) your ‘food brain’ and disordered eating patterns, and filling voids in your head, heart, and spirit with food (or whatever your drug of choice is)…and it’s a hole that will never be filled by those things.
Part 5 dives into the complicated relationship that women have with their bodies and their body image (and physical pain – a topic often avoided), and how to heal all of that from a faith-meets-science perspective.... AND invite God into the conversation.
And then wrapping it up in part 6, we get into the strategy side of things. As in, what does it look like to use what you’ve learned about neuroscience and faith and healing your relationship with food and your body image to go create a winning game plan that sets you up to win AND one that your brain just learns so you can go live your life, food can be food, and you can feel comfortable in your skin and free from the chains of restricting or punishing your body.
So let’s dive in! Enjoy Part 1.
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) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know every part of me it's beautiful
and that will always out way if you feel it,
(00:24):
but you are, She'll some love to the food. Why
get there? Take good day and did you and die
out way? I am so excited as this is the
very first official crossover series of What's God Got to
Do with It in the Outweigh podcast, Because if you've
(00:44):
been listening to me on Outwigh, you know that that
podcast is all about helping women break themselves out of
the food and body prison, end the dieting madness, and
take control of their health for good, but without all
that restriction, obsession, and shame, and without dragging it out
for years to address it. And if you've been listening
to me on What's God Got to Do with It,
(01:06):
you know that we are all about the fusion of
where science meets faith and where faith meets transformation and miracles.
So this is a beautiful opportunity to talk about the
crossover of where science meets food and body image and
self image struggles and where that intersects faith or what's
(01:26):
God got to do with all of that. And that's
exactly what this six part series is all about. So
Part one is really just an introduction where we're simply
going to set up this massive topic. Part two is
all about the big picture of where faith meets science
meets food and body image struggles. In Part three, we
(01:48):
go deep into the self image and identity that you
would need to actually step into the version of you
that would have that health, that would have that relationship
with food in her body, and who would actually be
at peace and feel free, and of course how that
fuses with this faith brain conversation. In Part four, we
dive deeper into what God has to do with what
(02:10):
I call your food brain and disordered eating patterns and
filling voids in your head hard in spirit with food
or netflix or wine or whatever your drug of choice is,
and it's a whole that will never be filled by
those things. In Part five, we dive into the complicated
relationship that women have with their bodies and their body
(02:31):
image and physical pain, which is not talked about enough
in my opinion, and how to heal all of that
from a faith meets science perspective and invite God into
the conversation, and then wrapping it up in Part six,
we get into the strategy side of things, as in,
what does it look like to use what you've learned
about neuroscience and faith and healing your relationship with food
(02:55):
in your body image to go create a winning game
plan that sets you up to win and one that
your brain just learns so you can go live your life.
Food can be food, and you can feel comfortable in
your skin and free from the chains of restricting or
punishing your body. So let's dive on in starting with
part one. So in some ways, this whole series should
(03:22):
be easy for me to create, since this is literally
what I do in my day job. I help women
escape from the food in body prison, heal their relationship
with food in their bodies, and make peace with themselves
in the process. But the reason this isn't quite so
simple is because it's such a big conversation and a
lot of women and men, if you're listening, have a
(03:43):
really complicated relationship with food in their bodies and the
stuff that we're going to cover in the next few weeks.
I work with people very intensively for three to four
months at a time to help them really heal this
and put the problem to bed and get off the
put a band aid on it roller coaster, to try
to distill it down into a few podcast episodes. That's
(04:03):
why it feels like a challenge, But I say challenge accepted.
But I'm also going to be super mindful about not
giving you band aids or giving you one and done solutions.
So I want to be really clear about what I
am and what I'm not promising here. And this is
really about inviting you into a conversation where you can
explore this massive topic but from a place of no
(04:26):
fluff and truly addressing the problem from its roots. But
again not by giving you this one and done solution. Okay,
this is literally just the beginning of the conversation, and
I'll start by kind of bottom lining it for you.
And if I were to bottom line how to heal
your food and body struggles through the lens of faith,
I would literally just put it into two categories. And
(04:47):
so the first side of it is, yes, you have
to heal the cycle and the habits and the behaviors,
like that's a given. In other words, you've got to
address the wiring in your brain that's causing you to
eat the way you eat or don't eat, and move
the way that you move or don't move, and just
treat yourself and your body the way that you treat
it or don't treat it, and feel the way that
(05:10):
you feel or don't feel about yourself, which spoiler alert,
is really what we're going to talk about in depth
in the first couple of episodes of this series. But
we're going to do that through the lens of faith
and invite God into that conversation from the get go.
But there's a second category, or a flip side of
this equation. Again, if I was going to bottom line it,
(05:32):
and it's this, It is the identity, all right. In
a way, you have to become a new version of
yourself and you have to radically transform your being. And
I know that might sound so daunting, especially if food
and your body is something that you've been struggling with
for a long time, but trust me, it is imperative.
(05:52):
You can't skip that part because let's just say that
you had all of this strategy and habit and brain
chaine stuff that I just talked about a second ago,
and let's say you have the perfect plan and the
perfect steps to take. Who's to say that you would
actually show up for yourself and use it and stick
with it. And this is what I tell all my
stressless eating clients too. I tell them, like, listen, I
(06:15):
could teach you the system of thinking that I teach
my clients around food and your body. But if you
don't address the self image and body image and the
identity that's causing you to think and act and feel
and behave the way that you are behaving around food,
you will always end up right back where you are.
Because I guarantee that despite what you think, that's not
a food problem or a body problem, right, It's definitely
(06:38):
a brain thing. And it's the things that have gotten
fired and wired in your brain because of your thoughts
and the emotions and the actions that are kind of
like a cascade effect and have simply become habits. And so,
in other words, your habits and behaviors are symptom of
a cause, which aka, your thoughts are the cause that's
(07:00):
happening upstream in your brain. But I would also venture
to say, or at least invite you to try on
the possibility that what if it was also a spiritual thing,
because yes, I think we're starting to get that the
problem is emotional, but I truly believe that the problem
is also spiritual, as in, it's in your soul, and
it's in your spirit. And so let me back up
(07:21):
for a minute so that this all makes sense. Because
if you asked me ten years ago if I ever
thought that I would be talking about God, let alone
be on a podcast talking about God, well I probably
would have thought that you were joking, or that I
was on one of those hidden camera shows. Because this
Bacon Love and jew Even though I was super proud
of my Jewish heritage and my culture, and I lived
(07:43):
in Israel a total of three times and I even
speak mediocre at best, but can totally get by Hebrew,
it was never a God thing to me. And in fact,
I put God in Jesus Christ and any other deity
in the category of the tooth fairy or the Easter money,
or that file in my brain labeled make believe or fantasy.
(08:05):
And I mean absolutely no offense or disrespect to anyone
listening to this, but this is just truly where my
heart and head were posted and kind of how I
grew up, and so God and this concept of faith
in general just wasn't something that I was looking for,
that I was interested in, or that I was even
aware that I was missing. And so Judaism was never
(08:26):
a connection to God for me, and it was never faith.
And in my eyes, it was a culture and simply
part of who I am, a very proud part for sure,
But in my eyes, I wasn't religious or very Jewish
as we used to say as kids, and God wasn't
even a topic in conversations that I remember. And so
bottom line, until a few years ago, I didn't even
(08:48):
know that I didn't have God in my life. It
wasn't even in my consciousness. But what was definitely in
my consciousness was shame, lots and lots of shame. And
so the reason that I was way more intimately involved
with shame than I was with God is because of
this war that I was in with myself and my
(09:08):
body for most of my life. And it makes sense too, right.
I mean, my first weight Watchers meeting was when I
was seven or eight, and from there on out, food
and my body became this very personal and emotional thing,
and more importantly toxic shame became a very integrated character
in the story of my life. And it's also when
(09:29):
I started viewing food and my body and my weight
as something that needed to be measured and weighed and
accounted for and obsessed over or really just fit into
this category of good, bad, right, wrong, healthy, unhealthy, on plan,
off plan, And it really just got worse from there.
And so I carried all of that with me into
my teenage years and all the way into adulthood. And
(09:53):
so there I was, and I was twenty five years old,
and not only was I extremely overwait for my age
by societal stand but I had developed this really addictive
and controlling and shameful relationship with food, and really a
judgmental and self critical and shameful relationship with myself. And
so things like depression and anxiety they just became part
(10:15):
of my life at that point. And you know, you
can just imagine how this impacted my confidence and my
self esteem. And so eventually though I hit my first
enough is enough point, and through a lot of wrong
ways and some of the right ways, I went on
and lost a lot of weight. It was close to
one hundred pounds, and this even inspired me to start
my first business working with women on their own weight
(10:37):
loss journeys. But here's the thing, I learned the same
eat less, move more equation that a lot of the
mainstream teaches to young women who think that losing weight
will magically solve all their problems. Like yeah, I got
that download as well. And so even though yes, I
did technically lose the weight, like yeah, I got there.
(10:58):
I lost one hundred pounds, I got down to my
lowest weight, and I could finally wear you know, tank
tops and sleeveless halter tops any day of the week.
But I never addressed my addiction like pull to food
and sugar, and so I still really felt like I
was this slave to dieting or a slave to exercise,
because I would bounce from one extreme to the other.
(11:19):
I would diet and restrict until I couldn't possibly take
it anymore, and then I would rebound to the opposite
you know, you know, care free abandonment, eating whatever I
could get my hands on, and then of course I
would feel guilty or just go try to out exercise
my overeating. And so not only was I the opposite
of free, but I was also the opposite of happy.
(11:40):
And I mean you would think that after I lost
you about a third of my body weight, I would
feel beautiful and happy and free and all the things
that the magazines I read growing up promised me. But
because I didn't address the self image and body image
and the wiring in my brain that was causing me
to think and act and feel and behave like I
(12:01):
was fat or unworthy, or a failure or destined to
stay this way forever, or whatever other painful words I
was using. Yes, I lost the weight, but I never
transformed my identity, and I just brought all of my
old habits and thinking and behaviors with me. Keep in
mind now, at this point, I still didn't have God
in my life, or at least I didn't know that
(12:23):
I did. And so, by some divine miracle, I eventually
had the insight and the awareness to realize that I
was never going to be able to outdiet and outwork
or outsmart the wiring in my brain and in my
self image. I eventually had the insight and the awareness
(12:44):
to realize that I was never going to be able
to outdiet and outwork or outsmart the wiring in my
brain and in my self image, and so I realized, like, Okay,
you're always going to end up right back in alignment
with the story that you're telling yourself about yourself lean
And yeah, it was super scary at first to take
that leap and ditch all of the band aids and
the quick fixes and all the motivational raw raw that
(13:06):
I'd gotten so used to and finally take a more
scientific approach to my struggles, because it's like, wait a minute,
you mean stop trying to control or hyper obsess over
the one thing that I've always tried to control, even
though ironically, the more I tried to control and perfect myself,
the more out of control and broken I felt. But
it was the devil that I knew versus the devil
(13:28):
that I didn't know, as they say, And so I
finally got to that point where I was ready, and
even though yeah I was ready, I was so scared, right,
But that's what I did. I made a firm commitment
to myself that day that I would never be in
a place of crazy restriction or obsession ever again. And
I decided to examine my habits and my mindset around
(13:50):
food and my body. But that was only one side
of it, right, because yes, I definitely had to heal
my relationship with food in my body. So that's what
I did, and ironically, you know, that's what God had
in store for me to help other women do for
themselves as well, and really what paved the way for
my stressless eeding curriculum that I've been teaching for a
decade and a half. But like I started to say,
(14:13):
that was only one side of it. Okay, there was
another curveball in the mix that took place essentially smack
dab in the middle of the part of the story
I was sharing, which I will promise you I will
share in the Body Image episode of this series. But
first there's something else I should probably mention an address now,
since we're talking about the fusion of where faith meets science,
(14:34):
and it's another very important part of my journey, and
it's that I'm by all definitions, considered a scientist, but
it's not in that, you know, conventional way that most
scientists operate. I'm more of a streets of the hard
knocks kind of scientists. And so the word nerd in
me definitely wants you to know that the etymology or
word origin of the word scientist literally means a person
(14:57):
versed in or devoted to science, and the word origin
of the word science literally means acquired by study, or
assurance or certainty of knowledge, and so by those definitions,
I most definitely identify as a scientist, but for obvious reasons,
it's not the typical kind that you find in a
(15:17):
classroom or a lab. I'm one of those you know,
didn't mean to but had to in order to solve
my own deepest struggles kind of scientists. And so specifically,
I've dedicated my life's work to studying the female brain
and nervous system, and as you'll come to learn, a
kind of semi obsession with studying the part of the
brain that houses the female self image, which I promise
(15:40):
to also share because that connects a lot of dots
and it's really going to bring us full circle to
understand what this has to do with the bacon, love
and jew walking into a church and finding God. And
as you'll hear throughout this series, it has everything to
do with it because once I unlocked that the magic
in the possibility that I was awakened when it comes
to the human body and the nervous system, and because
(16:04):
of the neuroplastic, malleable, pliable nature of this machine of
possibility that we all have access to, and combined with
the lave cause and effect and the lav cause and
effect programming that we can all feed our own brains
in order to transform. But then slap on understanding. You know,
why we do what we do, and why we say
(16:26):
what we say, and why we feel how we feel,
and why we cope with those emotions however we cope
with them. And heck, there is no judgment and full transparency.
I've used everything from food and Netflix to social media
and weed, and so hey, I am not perfect. I'm
not trying to be perfect, and really who wants to
be perfect? That being said, being exposed to all of
(16:49):
the magic and miracles of the nervous system on a
science level. And trust me when I say that this
non believer, you know, Bacon Love and jew was not
using words like magic and miracles fifteen years ago either. Well,
all of that brain stuff that I just described essentially
just primed my mind and my heart and my soul
and spirit for seeing what I couldn't yet see. But again,
(17:10):
and as you can imagine, for any curious you know,
science driven gal that all of a sudden, after thirty years,
decided she wanted to go find God. It made me
extremely skeptical and cynical about the whole faith side of things,
because if there wasn't a research paper about it, or
I couldn't see it with my own human eyes, I
didn't believe it. And so this whole faith thing, which
(17:32):
I now partially define as believing in the possibility of
what you can't see or taste or smell or touch
or measure in a lab, that was definitely a stretch
for me. So that's why I can only imagine that
when you hear me share that, you know, a Bacon
love and Hebrew speaking Jewish scientist wants to talk to
you about where faith meets science and meets food and
(17:55):
body image and all of that, And you know where
I found God and how it completely transformed my life. Like, yeah,
I can I can see how that might sound like
the beginning of a riddle or a knock knock joke,
But as you'll learn through this series, it really completed
the story that I had no idea at the time,
but God really had been writing it inside of me
all along. But we'll get into all of that The
(18:16):
point is this, though, faith is something that I didn't
always have, and like I said, it's something I didn't
know that I didn't have in the first place, or
that really that I could have. But now that I
have it, I can't not share about it. I can't
not share about its impact on my life and the
love and the compassion and the acceptance that my heart
(18:37):
has been opened up to that I never thought was possible.
And I can't not share about the peace that came
over me that was truly beyond understanding. And when it
comes to, you know, the deep dark deposits of residual,
toxic shame that you know, no matter how hard I tried,
I couldn't personal development or rewire my brain or just
(19:00):
strictly self image my way through. And so I can't
not share about the piece and the acceptance that overcame
me instead of that shame that again it was beyond
my understanding. But here's what I also say about it,
And this is where I kind of turn it over
to you, all right, since you do also have a brain,
I'm inviting you to have a conversation about taking radical
(19:25):
ownership and responsibility rather than just letting your brain run
and do its thing and take you down rabbit holes.
Because it's about influencing what you can influence to create
your own peace of mind and happiness and freedom. Okay,
and yeah, taking care of your mental emotional physical health.
It's a brain conversation. It's about taking radical ownership and
(19:48):
responsibility for what you can control, what you can influence,
and what you can transform. But this time around, I'm
also inviting you into the possibility that what if it
was a god conversation? Right? What if this time you
could invite God into the conversation about food and your
body and just ask God to meet you there and
(20:11):
help you and support you unconditionally and really just be
your most supportive friend and trusted advisor in the process.
But I will also say this, and I'm sharing this
from my own experiences of making this so much harder
on myself than it needed to be. It will go
a lot smoother and easier if you shift this idea
(20:31):
of you know, taking care of yourself or healing your
relationship with food in your body and really taking care
of your mental emotional physical health. If you shift this
idea of thinking of all of that as a burden, right,
because it's easy for us to think like, oh, I
have to, I need to, I'm supposed to, and it
feels like a burden, and really shift it to like, Okay,
(20:53):
it's a challenge that I'm taking on, or it's an
assignment from God that I'm choosing to take on, right, like,
really making that flip, because the truth is is that
when everything else in your life or your circumstances feel
totally out of control, your mental, emotional, physical health it
really is the one thing that you can fully influence
and you can focus on and you can choose what
(21:16):
you feed it right both literally and metaphorically, but it's
also something that you can surrender over to God at
the same time and just see what happens when you
do that. And again I'm not here saying just blindly
take my word for it. I'm really saying, try it on,
see how it feels. Like Really, as we're going through
(21:36):
everything step by step, week by week, just really try
it on, see how it feels, keep what resonates, and
ditch the rest. And so that's what we're going to
start diving into this week and over the coming weeks,
really week by week and just go narrower and deeper,
where next week, in part two, it's all about the
big picture of where faith meets science needs food and
body image. Then in part three, we're going to go
(21:58):
deep into the self image, the identity that you need
to actually step into the version of you that would
have that health, that would have that relationship with food
in her body, who would actually be at peace and
feel free, and of course how that fuses with this
faith brain conversation, So really the identity of somebody that
would just have it easily. And then in part four,
(22:20):
we're going to dive deeper into what God has to
do with what I call your food brain and really
those disordered eating patterns and filling voids in your head
and your heart and your spirit with food or netflix
or wine or whatever your drug of choices. I've used
them all, and as you're probably learning, it's a whole
that will never be filled by those things, because it's
(22:40):
not a physical hole. Then in part five, we're going
to dive into the complicated relationship that women have with
their bodies and their body image and really how to
heal that from a faith meet science perspective and invite
God into the conversation and then wrapping it up in
part six, we're going to get into the stress stategy
side of things, as in, you know, what does this
(23:02):
look like to use what you've learned about neuroscience and
faith and healing your relationship with food in your body
image to go create a winning game plan that actually
sets you up to win and one that your brain
just learns so you can go live your life and
food can be food and you can feel comfortable in
your own skin and free from the chains of restricting
(23:24):
or punishing your body. And again, I want to acknowledge
that might feel like a massive stretch or a big
gap from where you are right now, and that's why
we're going to just take it week by week. Okay,
so thank you for joining us for the very first
official crossover series of What's God Got to Do With It?
And Outweigh Podcasts. That's it for today's episode of the
(23:48):
What's God Got to Do With It and the Outweigh
podcast crossover. Thanks for tuning in, And if you want
to learn more about the work that I do or
catch either of the podcasts on a regular basis, there's
a couple of ways you can do that. First, Off.
If you want to learn how to turn off the
part of your brain that's obsessed with food or obsessed
with your weight and rewire your own brain for peace
(24:11):
and freedom, then head on over to Stresslessseeating dot com
and sign up to watch the Stressless Eating sneak preview,
where I've literally peeled the curtain and walked you through
the exact strategy. I teach my clients to heal themselves
from the all or nothing diet mentality for good, but
without restricting themselves, punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever
(24:33):
having to use words like macros, low carb or calorie burn.
It's there for you to access over at Stressless Eating
dot com and if you're listening to this series over
on What's God Got to Do With It? I also
co host the Outweigh podcast with radio personality Amy Brown,
where we help women break themselves out of the food
and body prison, end the dieting madness, and take control
(24:56):
of their health for good, but without all that restriction, obsession,
and and without dragging it out for years to address it.
It's called Outweigh and you can find it wherever podcasts
are streamed, and if you're listening to this crossover series
on Outwigh. Check out my other podcast called What's God
Got to Do With It? Where I talk about all
(25:16):
this self image and body image stuff but from the
perspective of where brain, science, intersex faith. It's called What's
God Got to Do With It? And you can access
it on iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. So
that's it for this episode of the What's God Got
to Do With It? And the Outway podcast crossover series.
I'm your host, Leanne Ellington, and I'm so grateful to
(25:38):
walk alongside you on this beautiful journey. So thank you
so much for listening, and I hope you got whatever
you needed to get from it. Bye for now.
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know every part of me it's beautiful
and that will always out way if you feel it,
(00:24):
but you are, She'll some love to the food. Why
get there? Take good day and did you and die
out way? I am so excited as this is the
very first official crossover series of What's God Got to
Do with It in the Outweigh podcast, Because if you've
(00:44):
been listening to me on Outwigh, you know that that
podcast is all about helping women break themselves out of
the food and body prison, end the dieting madness, and
take control of their health for good, but without all
that restriction, obsession, and shame, and without dragging it out
for years to address it. And if you've been listening
to me on What's God Got to Do with It,
(01:06):
you know that we are all about the fusion of
where science meets faith and where faith meets transformation and miracles.
So this is a beautiful opportunity to talk about the
crossover of where science meets food and body image and
self image struggles and where that intersects faith or what's
(01:26):
God got to do with all of that. And that's
exactly what this six part series is all about. So
Part one is really just an introduction where we're simply
going to set up this massive topic. Part two is
all about the big picture of where faith meets science
meets food and body image struggles. In Part three, we
(01:48):
go deep into the self image and identity that you
would need to actually step into the version of you
that would have that health, that would have that relationship
with food in her body, and who would actually be
at peace and feel free, and of course how that
fuses with this faith brain conversation. In Part four, we
dive deeper into what God has to do with what
(02:10):
I call your food brain and disordered eating patterns and
filling voids in your head hard in spirit with food
or netflix or wine or whatever your drug of choice is,
and it's a whole that will never be filled by
those things. In Part five, we dive into the complicated
relationship that women have with their bodies and their body
(02:31):
image and physical pain, which is not talked about enough
in my opinion, and how to heal all of that
from a faith meets science perspective and invite God into
the conversation, and then wrapping it up in Part six,
we get into the strategy side of things, as in,
what does it look like to use what you've learned
about neuroscience and faith and healing your relationship with food
(02:55):
in your body image to go create a winning game
plan that sets you up to win and one that
your brain just learns so you can go live your life.
Food can be food, and you can feel comfortable in
your skin and free from the chains of restricting or
punishing your body. So let's dive on in starting with
part one. So in some ways, this whole series should
(03:22):
be easy for me to create, since this is literally
what I do in my day job. I help women
escape from the food in body prison, heal their relationship
with food in their bodies, and make peace with themselves
in the process. But the reason this isn't quite so
simple is because it's such a big conversation and a
lot of women and men, if you're listening, have a
(03:43):
really complicated relationship with food in their bodies and the
stuff that we're going to cover in the next few weeks.
I work with people very intensively for three to four
months at a time to help them really heal this
and put the problem to bed and get off the
put a band aid on it roller coaster, to try
to distill it down into a few podcast episodes. That's
(04:03):
why it feels like a challenge, But I say challenge accepted.
But I'm also going to be super mindful about not
giving you band aids or giving you one and done solutions.
So I want to be really clear about what I
am and what I'm not promising here. And this is
really about inviting you into a conversation where you can
explore this massive topic but from a place of no
(04:26):
fluff and truly addressing the problem from its roots. But
again not by giving you this one and done solution. Okay,
this is literally just the beginning of the conversation, and
I'll start by kind of bottom lining it for you.
And if I were to bottom line how to heal
your food and body struggles through the lens of faith,
I would literally just put it into two categories. And
(04:47):
so the first side of it is, yes, you have
to heal the cycle and the habits and the behaviors,
like that's a given. In other words, you've got to
address the wiring in your brain that's causing you to
eat the way you eat or don't eat, and move
the way that you move or don't move, and just
treat yourself and your body the way that you treat
it or don't treat it, and feel the way that
(05:10):
you feel or don't feel about yourself, which spoiler alert,
is really what we're going to talk about in depth
in the first couple of episodes of this series. But
we're going to do that through the lens of faith
and invite God into that conversation from the get go.
But there's a second category, or a flip side of
this equation. Again, if I was going to bottom line it,
(05:32):
and it's this, It is the identity, all right. In
a way, you have to become a new version of
yourself and you have to radically transform your being. And
I know that might sound so daunting, especially if food
and your body is something that you've been struggling with
for a long time, but trust me, it is imperative.
(05:52):
You can't skip that part because let's just say that
you had all of this strategy and habit and brain
chaine stuff that I just talked about a second ago,
and let's say you have the perfect plan and the
perfect steps to take. Who's to say that you would
actually show up for yourself and use it and stick
with it. And this is what I tell all my
stressless eating clients too. I tell them, like, listen, I
(06:15):
could teach you the system of thinking that I teach
my clients around food and your body. But if you
don't address the self image and body image and the
identity that's causing you to think and act and feel
and behave the way that you are behaving around food,
you will always end up right back where you are.
Because I guarantee that despite what you think, that's not
a food problem or a body problem, right, It's definitely
(06:38):
a brain thing. And it's the things that have gotten
fired and wired in your brain because of your thoughts
and the emotions and the actions that are kind of
like a cascade effect and have simply become habits. And so,
in other words, your habits and behaviors are symptom of
a cause, which aka, your thoughts are the cause that's
(07:00):
happening upstream in your brain. But I would also venture
to say, or at least invite you to try on
the possibility that what if it was also a spiritual thing,
because yes, I think we're starting to get that the
problem is emotional, but I truly believe that the problem
is also spiritual, as in, it's in your soul, and
it's in your spirit. And so let me back up
(07:21):
for a minute so that this all makes sense. Because
if you asked me ten years ago if I ever
thought that I would be talking about God, let alone
be on a podcast talking about God, well I probably
would have thought that you were joking, or that I
was on one of those hidden camera shows. Because this
Bacon Love and jew Even though I was super proud
of my Jewish heritage and my culture, and I lived
(07:43):
in Israel a total of three times and I even
speak mediocre at best, but can totally get by Hebrew,
it was never a God thing to me. And in fact,
I put God in Jesus Christ and any other deity
in the category of the tooth fairy or the Easter money,
or that file in my brain labeled make believe or fantasy.
(08:05):
And I mean absolutely no offense or disrespect to anyone
listening to this, but this is just truly where my
heart and head were posted and kind of how I
grew up, and so God and this concept of faith
in general just wasn't something that I was looking for,
that I was interested in, or that I was even
aware that I was missing. And so Judaism was never
(08:26):
a connection to God for me, and it was never faith.
And in my eyes, it was a culture and simply
part of who I am, a very proud part for sure,
But in my eyes, I wasn't religious or very Jewish
as we used to say as kids, and God wasn't
even a topic in conversations that I remember. And so
bottom line, until a few years ago, I didn't even
(08:48):
know that I didn't have God in my life. It
wasn't even in my consciousness. But what was definitely in
my consciousness was shame, lots and lots of shame. And
so the reason that I was way more intimately involved
with shame than I was with God is because of
this war that I was in with myself and my
(09:08):
body for most of my life. And it makes sense too, right.
I mean, my first weight Watchers meeting was when I
was seven or eight, and from there on out, food
and my body became this very personal and emotional thing,
and more importantly toxic shame became a very integrated character
in the story of my life. And it's also when
(09:29):
I started viewing food and my body and my weight
as something that needed to be measured and weighed and
accounted for and obsessed over or really just fit into
this category of good, bad, right, wrong, healthy, unhealthy, on plan,
off plan, And it really just got worse from there.
And so I carried all of that with me into
my teenage years and all the way into adulthood. And
(09:53):
so there I was, and I was twenty five years old,
and not only was I extremely overwait for my age
by societal stand but I had developed this really addictive
and controlling and shameful relationship with food, and really a
judgmental and self critical and shameful relationship with myself. And
so things like depression and anxiety they just became part
(10:15):
of my life at that point. And you know, you
can just imagine how this impacted my confidence and my
self esteem. And so eventually though I hit my first
enough is enough point, and through a lot of wrong
ways and some of the right ways, I went on
and lost a lot of weight. It was close to
one hundred pounds, and this even inspired me to start
my first business working with women on their own weight
(10:37):
loss journeys. But here's the thing, I learned the same
eat less, move more equation that a lot of the
mainstream teaches to young women who think that losing weight
will magically solve all their problems. Like yeah, I got
that download as well. And so even though yes, I
did technically lose the weight, like yeah, I got there.
(10:58):
I lost one hundred pounds, I got down to my
lowest weight, and I could finally wear you know, tank
tops and sleeveless halter tops any day of the week.
But I never addressed my addiction like pull to food
and sugar, and so I still really felt like I
was this slave to dieting or a slave to exercise,
because I would bounce from one extreme to the other.
(11:19):
I would diet and restrict until I couldn't possibly take
it anymore, and then I would rebound to the opposite
you know, you know, care free abandonment, eating whatever I
could get my hands on, and then of course I
would feel guilty or just go try to out exercise
my overeating. And so not only was I the opposite
of free, but I was also the opposite of happy.
(11:40):
And I mean you would think that after I lost
you about a third of my body weight, I would
feel beautiful and happy and free and all the things
that the magazines I read growing up promised me. But
because I didn't address the self image and body image
and the wiring in my brain that was causing me
to think and act and feel and behave like I
(12:01):
was fat or unworthy, or a failure or destined to
stay this way forever, or whatever other painful words I
was using. Yes, I lost the weight, but I never
transformed my identity, and I just brought all of my
old habits and thinking and behaviors with me. Keep in
mind now, at this point, I still didn't have God
in my life, or at least I didn't know that
(12:23):
I did. And so, by some divine miracle, I eventually
had the insight and the awareness to realize that I
was never going to be able to outdiet and outwork
or outsmart the wiring in my brain and in my
self image. I eventually had the insight and the awareness
(12:44):
to realize that I was never going to be able
to outdiet and outwork or outsmart the wiring in my
brain and in my self image, and so I realized, like, Okay,
you're always going to end up right back in alignment
with the story that you're telling yourself about yourself lean
And yeah, it was super scary at first to take
that leap and ditch all of the band aids and
the quick fixes and all the motivational raw raw that
(13:06):
I'd gotten so used to and finally take a more
scientific approach to my struggles, because it's like, wait a minute,
you mean stop trying to control or hyper obsess over
the one thing that I've always tried to control, even
though ironically, the more I tried to control and perfect myself,
the more out of control and broken I felt. But
it was the devil that I knew versus the devil
(13:28):
that I didn't know, as they say, And so I
finally got to that point where I was ready, and
even though yeah I was ready, I was so scared, right,
But that's what I did. I made a firm commitment
to myself that day that I would never be in
a place of crazy restriction or obsession ever again. And
I decided to examine my habits and my mindset around
(13:50):
food and my body. But that was only one side
of it, right, because yes, I definitely had to heal
my relationship with food in my body. So that's what
I did, and ironically, you know, that's what God had
in store for me to help other women do for
themselves as well, and really what paved the way for
my stressless eeding curriculum that I've been teaching for a
decade and a half. But like I started to say,
(14:13):
that was only one side of it. Okay, there was
another curveball in the mix that took place essentially smack
dab in the middle of the part of the story
I was sharing, which I will promise you I will
share in the Body Image episode of this series. But
first there's something else I should probably mention an address now,
since we're talking about the fusion of where faith meets science,
(14:34):
and it's another very important part of my journey, and
it's that I'm by all definitions, considered a scientist, but
it's not in that, you know, conventional way that most
scientists operate. I'm more of a streets of the hard
knocks kind of scientists. And so the word nerd in
me definitely wants you to know that the etymology or
word origin of the word scientist literally means a person
(14:57):
versed in or devoted to science, and the word origin
of the word science literally means acquired by study, or
assurance or certainty of knowledge, and so by those definitions,
I most definitely identify as a scientist, but for obvious reasons,
it's not the typical kind that you find in a
(15:17):
classroom or a lab. I'm one of those you know,
didn't mean to but had to in order to solve
my own deepest struggles kind of scientists. And so specifically,
I've dedicated my life's work to studying the female brain
and nervous system, and as you'll come to learn, a
kind of semi obsession with studying the part of the
brain that houses the female self image, which I promise
(15:40):
to also share because that connects a lot of dots
and it's really going to bring us full circle to
understand what this has to do with the bacon, love
and jew walking into a church and finding God. And
as you'll hear throughout this series, it has everything to
do with it because once I unlocked that the magic
in the possibility that I was awakened when it comes
to the human body and the nervous system, and because
(16:04):
of the neuroplastic, malleable, pliable nature of this machine of
possibility that we all have access to, and combined with
the lave cause and effect and the lav cause and
effect programming that we can all feed our own brains
in order to transform. But then slap on understanding. You know,
why we do what we do, and why we say
(16:26):
what we say, and why we feel how we feel,
and why we cope with those emotions however we cope
with them. And heck, there is no judgment and full transparency.
I've used everything from food and Netflix to social media
and weed, and so hey, I am not perfect. I'm
not trying to be perfect, and really who wants to
be perfect? That being said, being exposed to all of
(16:49):
the magic and miracles of the nervous system on a
science level. And trust me when I say that this
non believer, you know, Bacon Love and jew was not
using words like magic and miracles fifteen years ago either. Well,
all of that brain stuff that I just described essentially
just primed my mind and my heart and my soul
and spirit for seeing what I couldn't yet see. But again,
(17:10):
and as you can imagine, for any curious you know,
science driven gal that all of a sudden, after thirty years,
decided she wanted to go find God. It made me
extremely skeptical and cynical about the whole faith side of things,
because if there wasn't a research paper about it, or
I couldn't see it with my own human eyes, I
didn't believe it. And so this whole faith thing, which
(17:32):
I now partially define as believing in the possibility of
what you can't see or taste or smell or touch
or measure in a lab, that was definitely a stretch
for me. So that's why I can only imagine that
when you hear me share that, you know, a Bacon
love and Hebrew speaking Jewish scientist wants to talk to
you about where faith meets science and meets food and
(17:55):
body image and all of that, And you know where
I found God and how it completely transformed my life. Like, yeah,
I can I can see how that might sound like
the beginning of a riddle or a knock knock joke,
But as you'll learn through this series, it really completed
the story that I had no idea at the time,
but God really had been writing it inside of me
all along. But we'll get into all of that The
(18:16):
point is this, though, faith is something that I didn't
always have, and like I said, it's something I didn't
know that I didn't have in the first place, or
that really that I could have. But now that I
have it, I can't not share about it. I can't
not share about its impact on my life and the
love and the compassion and the acceptance that my heart
(18:37):
has been opened up to that I never thought was possible.
And I can't not share about the peace that came
over me that was truly beyond understanding. And when it
comes to, you know, the deep dark deposits of residual,
toxic shame that you know, no matter how hard I tried,
I couldn't personal development or rewire my brain or just
(19:00):
strictly self image my way through. And so I can't
not share about the piece and the acceptance that overcame
me instead of that shame that again it was beyond
my understanding. But here's what I also say about it,
And this is where I kind of turn it over
to you, all right, since you do also have a brain,
I'm inviting you to have a conversation about taking radical
(19:25):
ownership and responsibility rather than just letting your brain run
and do its thing and take you down rabbit holes.
Because it's about influencing what you can influence to create
your own peace of mind and happiness and freedom. Okay,
and yeah, taking care of your mental emotional physical health.
It's a brain conversation. It's about taking radical ownership and
(19:48):
responsibility for what you can control, what you can influence,
and what you can transform. But this time around, I'm
also inviting you into the possibility that what if it
was a god conversation? Right? What if this time you
could invite God into the conversation about food and your
body and just ask God to meet you there and
(20:11):
help you and support you unconditionally and really just be
your most supportive friend and trusted advisor in the process.
But I will also say this, and I'm sharing this
from my own experiences of making this so much harder
on myself than it needed to be. It will go
a lot smoother and easier if you shift this idea
(20:31):
of you know, taking care of yourself or healing your
relationship with food in your body and really taking care
of your mental emotional physical health. If you shift this
idea of thinking of all of that as a burden, right,
because it's easy for us to think like, oh, I
have to, I need to, I'm supposed to, and it
feels like a burden, and really shift it to like, Okay,
(20:53):
it's a challenge that I'm taking on, or it's an
assignment from God that I'm choosing to take on, right, like,
really making that flip, because the truth is is that
when everything else in your life or your circumstances feel
totally out of control, your mental, emotional, physical health it
really is the one thing that you can fully influence
and you can focus on and you can choose what
(21:16):
you feed it right both literally and metaphorically, but it's
also something that you can surrender over to God at
the same time and just see what happens when you
do that. And again I'm not here saying just blindly
take my word for it. I'm really saying, try it on,
see how it feels. Like Really, as we're going through
(21:36):
everything step by step, week by week, just really try
it on, see how it feels, keep what resonates, and
ditch the rest. And so that's what we're going to
start diving into this week and over the coming weeks,
really week by week and just go narrower and deeper,
where next week, in part two, it's all about the
big picture of where faith meets science needs food and
body image. Then in part three, we're going to go
(21:58):
deep into the self image, the identity that you need
to actually step into the version of you that would
have that health, that would have that relationship with food
in her body, who would actually be at peace and
feel free, and of course how that fuses with this
faith brain conversation, So really the identity of somebody that
would just have it easily. And then in part four,
(22:20):
we're going to dive deeper into what God has to
do with what I call your food brain and really
those disordered eating patterns and filling voids in your head
and your heart and your spirit with food or netflix
or wine or whatever your drug of choices. I've used
them all, and as you're probably learning, it's a whole
that will never be filled by those things, because it's
(22:40):
not a physical hole. Then in part five, we're going
to dive into the complicated relationship that women have with
their bodies and their body image and really how to
heal that from a faith meet science perspective and invite
God into the conversation and then wrapping it up in
part six, we're going to get into the stress stategy
side of things, as in, you know, what does this
(23:02):
look like to use what you've learned about neuroscience and
faith and healing your relationship with food in your body
image to go create a winning game plan that actually
sets you up to win and one that your brain
just learns so you can go live your life and
food can be food and you can feel comfortable in
your own skin and free from the chains of restricting
(23:24):
or punishing your body. And again, I want to acknowledge
that might feel like a massive stretch or a big
gap from where you are right now, and that's why
we're going to just take it week by week. Okay,
so thank you for joining us for the very first
official crossover series of What's God Got to Do With It?
And Outweigh Podcasts. That's it for today's episode of the
(23:48):
What's God Got to Do With It and the Outweigh
podcast crossover. Thanks for tuning in, And if you want
to learn more about the work that I do or
catch either of the podcasts on a regular basis, there's
a couple of ways you can do that. First, Off.
If you want to learn how to turn off the
part of your brain that's obsessed with food or obsessed
with your weight and rewire your own brain for peace
(24:11):
and freedom, then head on over to Stresslessseeating dot com
and sign up to watch the Stressless Eating sneak preview,
where I've literally peeled the curtain and walked you through
the exact strategy. I teach my clients to heal themselves
from the all or nothing diet mentality for good, but
without restricting themselves, punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever
(24:33):
having to use words like macros, low carb or calorie burn.
It's there for you to access over at Stressless Eating
dot com and if you're listening to this series over
on What's God Got to Do With It? I also
co host the Outweigh podcast with radio personality Amy Brown,
where we help women break themselves out of the food
and body prison, end the dieting madness, and take control
(24:56):
of their health for good, but without all that restriction, obsession,
and and without dragging it out for years to address it.
It's called Outweigh and you can find it wherever podcasts
are streamed, and if you're listening to this crossover series
on Outwigh. Check out my other podcast called What's God
Got to Do With It? Where I talk about all
(25:16):
this self image and body image stuff but from the
perspective of where brain, science, intersex faith. It's called What's
God Got to Do With It? And you can access
it on iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. So
that's it for this episode of the What's God Got
to Do With It? And the Outway podcast crossover series.
I'm your host, Leanne Ellington, and I'm so grateful to
(25:38):
walk alongside you on this beautiful journey. So thank you
so much for listening, and I hope you got whatever
you needed to get from it. Bye for now.
4 Things with Amy Brown News
Host
Amy Brown
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