January 22, 2022 • 25 mins
Lisa and Amy sit down to talk about their ongoing food journeys and how they work through things. They also discuss if it’s healthy or not to “eat your feelings” and how fasting for religious purposes may need to be looked at a bit more closely if you have a history of disordered eating or an eating disorder.
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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, me out well everything
that I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me
it is beautiful and that will always out way if
(00:23):
you feel it. With yours in the air, She'll some
love to the mow at there say good day and
time did you and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweigh fam
Amy and Lisa here and yeah, I think this is
our first time at least Lisa and I recording together
in the new year. So hey, Lisa, it's good to
(00:46):
see a person. I know that some of us, or
at least me, is in like hardcore pandemic lockdown mode.
So this is a really important interaction for me, Amy
and for all of our listeners. If you're out there
feeling alone, I hope at this too kind of makes
you feel less alone during what I think is just
a collective really tough time. Yeah, and Lisa's in New York.
(01:08):
I'm in Nashville, So really a lot of it too,
just depends on where you are in the country or
your stage of life. Lisa as a new mom and
all kinds of exciting things, but I guess weird to
experience during a pandemic. Yeah, it's just really isolating. So
I mean, being able to show up to this community
is one of my favorite things that we get to
that I get to do each week. So it's just
(01:30):
a thank you to you, Amy and to our listeners.
And I hope the feeling that I get when I
see your face over these zooms, Amy, I hope that
our listeners get when they hear our voice, which is
just on those days when you're feeling super alone, whether
pandemic related or food related, or a combination of the both,
you know that you're not. My dog just sparked Houston
shout out. I don't even know if Houston will be
(01:51):
able to edit out the dog bark, so we're just
going to leave it in there, because hey, this is
this is real, real life. And you know, Lisa doesn't
know going to bring this up because it's something that
you mentioned when we were talking before we recorded about
someone that reached out to you and they had implied
that they sort of graduated from outweigh And as we're
(02:12):
talking about this community and thinking about it and who
are we showing up for what is this about? And
it may be that you just found us today out
of desperation because you're searching, you're feeling it. I know
I certainly was there when I was, you know, knee
deep in my eating disorder and my disordered, very disordered behaviors,
(02:35):
and you know, I would Google in search of anything,
just like, give me some hope that I'm not alone
and somebody else is out there. And now we have podcasts,
and you may be searching different topics into your podcast
search and somehow Outweigh popped up. So you might be
brand new, or you might be someone that's been with
us for a year now or longer almost two years?
(02:57):
Am two years? Okay? Well time flies when you're having
fun almost two years, or maybe you just kind of
you know, when we pop up on your phone. You subscribed,
but you don't always listen, but you're here today. It's
like I truly feel that, like we're just here when
people need us. So if maybe you feel like you
don't need it every Saturday, no problem. Maybe not every
(03:20):
episode is for you, But my hope is that we
do have enough content and we'll keep putting it out
there that eventually no matter what you're going through, you
may be able to scroll through and find something that
will give you that that comfort and that hope that
you're not alone and that there is something more out
there for you and you don't have to feel stuck.
(03:42):
This podcast is not a it's not a way to fix.
It's going to take a lot of work, and that
parts not to scare you, but I don't want to
act like we're just trying to come in and be
this little band aid. We really are just here to
talk through things and yeah, give you some stories that
may relate, may not, and then provide you with an
(04:03):
expert from time to time. And Amy, I don't know
if you heard last week's episode where I shared a
personal story of what happened when I went on a
restrictive diet, but it was really eye opening to me,
somebody who hasn't dealt with disordered eating in a really
long time, to be going through life and finding myself
in a situation where if you listen to the episode,
(04:23):
it will make a lot more sense. But as we
go through life and our bodies change and things change,
we might find ourselves having to make dietary modifications for
reasons outside of our body size. That's what happened to
me when it came to breastfeeding my baby and I
went on this short term restrictive diet, and it was
(04:44):
so interesting to realize that even though you could be
free for a really long time, go on a protocol
unrelated to your weight, you might find those same emotions
and feelings and thoughts coming back up. And the question
might be, you know, what, what do these feelings mean?
Does it mean that I'm still disordered? And I bring
(05:06):
that up because, like you said, like people are graduating
and hopefully they're they're moving along with the tools that
we provide in our experts, provide in your stories have
helped them as well. But I don't think the journeys
ever over. We shut the door period. I think as
we go through life and hopefully you're healthy throughout it.
But I mean we know that that as we get older,
complications begin, whether it has to do with diabetes or
(05:29):
kidneys or heart or whatever it is that may require
some dietary modifications for the short term or for the
long term. And being able to show up to those
modifications and big and here prioritize your mental health is
part of life. And figuring out that distinction of how
(05:51):
can I take the very best care of me and
feel my best but not return to that place of
agony where my brain is only think about food, And
how can I call myself out when I get there
to reel it back in so that I can actually
be healthy. So, like you know, we go through life,
we change our roles. We're not just static individuals, and
(06:12):
we might be faced with difficult things as we grow.
So if you're returning to this podcast after a year
of freedom for whatever reason, just know that that too
is normal and we continue to grow together. Yeah, I mean,
I'm I'm growing through this process of or this stage
in my recovery. Even though I was thankful enough to
(06:34):
have the tools a lot of them from Lisa a
couple of years ago to be able to get to
a place of healing, I still have moments where I'm like, oh,
I texted Lisa the other day, like we need to
talk about eating your feelings. Because then I second guests like,
I don't know, this isn't my every day. Of course,
I have to actively choose to not go back to
(06:56):
other behaviors if they start to poke their little heads up.
I don't know, like that whack a mole game. Sometimes
some days are easier than others. But it's like one
thing pops up and you have to like pop it
back down and pops up and you pop it back
down in a way, that's part of building those new
neural pathways. And the more you do it, the easier
it's going to get. But like I said, there's easier
days and there's more difficult days. But in these times
(07:19):
that we're in, or even if we weren't in a
pandemic and we just had the normal everyday type stressors
that come along with relationships and work and family and
disease and illness and being a mom like whatever, being
a child, like, whatever the case may be, you're gonna
have certain things that may cause you to eat more
(07:42):
because of the way that you're feeling. And I used to,
I guess have this weird thing about oh if I
ate because of my feelings, that was bad. So in
a way it caused this weird restriction in my head.
I don't know if I'm saying this right, I'm gonna
say it, and I'm gonna have a Lisa come in
as the expert and put a bow on it. But
it's like I would shame myself for like, oh, I
(08:04):
can't believe I ate that way, but I was feeling
down and I just did it and I went all
in and I ate it all. But it's almost like,
now I give myself permission to eat my feelings if
that's what I need. And I found myself in that
situation recently and I was like, oh, but I had
to do like the whack a mole a few times.
(08:25):
I had to bomp it back down because what I
was doing was not bad. Food was my comfort in
that moment, and that is okay. But it's so that
goes against so much of what we hear, because this
is the part that's gonna be hard for me to say,
just because like I'm not always the best with words,
but society tells us it's okay, Like, oh, yeah, I
(08:45):
eat your feelings, at your feelings. But then so much
of society then is like, but then you should feel
really bad about it and make yourself go to the
gym or figure it out or do something, and oh,
then there's this shame. But it's like, what I want
to discuss here right now is that you can eat
your feelings and you don't have to have any of
the shame. So you have texted me the other day
(09:13):
and you're like, what are your thoughts on eating your feelings?
And at first I was like, totally down with eating
your feelings, But then I remembered that that's only because
a lot of things have been in place for a
long time, one of which is food neutrality, really believing
that you're not good or bad for eating a certain
(09:36):
food or not eating a certain food, and really really
really really breaking that down, working through fat phobia and
an idea that if our bodies change, we are less worthy,
or if a body is bigger, it is scary, you know.
And I'm not to say that I'm perfect there or
anybody is, but as a society were largely fat phobic.
(09:59):
We view bigger bodies as less healthy, We view them
as lazy. There's so much that has been laced into
that that I think is subconsciously weighing in on us.
When we go to have a piece of cake, it's
not just oh, I'm eating a piece of cake, it's
I'm eating a piece of cake. This cake has repercussions.
It's going to change my body, which is going to
change how people view me, which is going to change
(10:20):
how I view myself. Right, It's like it's so loaded
underneath the surface below, I just want to eat this
piece of cake to soupe. So really making peace with
food and your body and your self worth is really
critical to being able to quote unquote eat your feelings.
Now when it comes to emotional eating. I don't know
(10:40):
if any of you attended the emotional Eating action plan
that I gave this year and last year, but there
is a critical distinction between Amy, what you said giving
yourself permission to eat your feelings and just quote unquote
eating your feelings, and when you own your eating, which
is what I call it, when you really understand what
you're doing. When you say, I am eating my feelings
(11:04):
because it's too painful right now, and none of my
other coping tools are available, and this is what I
need for a moment of refuge. That is a choice.
But previously, Amy, it wasn't a choice. It was your
only tool, like you said, your neural pathways, Like it
was your own only neuro pathway. Was I feel pain,
(11:24):
I'm going to turn to food. You hadn't done any
of that existing work before you just thought, I feel crappy.
I need to make me myself feel a little bit
less crappy, and you went for it. You could do
that same exact thing, but with ownership. I feel really crappy.
I need food to help me feel a little bit
less crappy, and I'm going to fully own that experience.
(11:46):
I'm going to allow myself to feel good from food,
and I'm not going to allow guilt to come in
because I know exactly what I'm doing. And I think
there's an unconscious rolling into into eating your feeling things
and a very conscious choice. And when it's conscious, the
relationship to eating your feelings is very different. You are
(12:07):
maximizing the enjoyment. You're able to notice when it no
longer feels good or taste good, and you're able to
then return back to that emotion that you were maybe
not able to deal with because it hurt too much.
I think that food is soothing, and becoming a mom
this year, I have learned how primal it is to
(12:27):
all of us that food is soothing. I mean seeing
my baby cry and knowing the only way to make
her stop crying is to feed her, whether from my
breast or a bottle shows how ingrained it is for
us that food is that very first thing that we
learned provides comfort. It shows us that we're not alone,
even if we're the one providing the food for ourselves. Now,
it is our connection to something greater than our own
(12:50):
selves that I think gets lost along the way. That
was a really long run on sentence, but I think
that um our emotional needs are really complex and food
as a huge part in helping us heal hard things.
But our relationship to food has to really radically transform. First,
I hope that didn't bore you well. I would describe
(13:11):
my experience with using food the other day and it
was like the word that comes to my mind, which
I don't use this word often, but it was glorious
because I was on my couch with my food and
I was watching something I enjoyed, and I was there.
I was present. I have been on my couch with
(13:31):
food watching something for many many years and not been
present and ended up just like, and I share that
not to be like, oh yeah, look at me, Like
if you're still that person who's on the couch checked
out and of feeling up, that is okay too. We're
all on a journey. I don't want to be like,
oh yeah, I had a glorious moment with this, but
I say it as encouragement the cliche if I can
(13:54):
do it, I truly believe that you could do it,
because I was someone that just thought this was before
podcasts are people being very vocal about it on the Internet.
I was just having these experiences before the real internet,
like we used it the way we do. So, I,
and I'm sure many of you can relate to this,
had this lie in my head that I was broken
(14:14):
and I was the only person in the world like
I was just wired differently and I was messed up.
So that's why I'm saying, hopefully by now you know
that's not the case, just because of where we are
in resources and information and people sharing things. But just
in case you feel that way, I want you to
know that it's a lie and that there is a
glorious potential couch food experience waiting for you. What I
(14:39):
love about that, though, is that so many times we're
talking about the same exact thing and the experience is different.
You on your couch watching TV eating, nothing changed. You
were again on your couch watching TV eating, and yet
one experience was filled with guilt, shame, thoughts about what
you were going to do next to compen eight and
(15:00):
the other one was defined as glorious. And I think,
like you said, like eating to soothe, it could really
be that and so many things when it comes to
healing your relationship to exercise, right, Like, you might hate
working out and you might do this very same exact
workout and from a different mindset and it feels good.
And that's a really complex thing to really understand. How
(15:24):
I think your relationship to these things can change, and
therefore your experience to them can change. The self awareness
of that is key. And another thing that I just
thought of when it comes to self awareness is knowing
(15:45):
what is what is right for me now and what
you know what feels right with me. And I am
a Christian, go to church. I love our church so much.
It's nondenominational. I love our pastor. And every year at
the beginning of the year, for the first twenty one days,
they do a fast. And I don't know that I
(16:06):
had really noticed it the several years ago. It wouldn't
have triggered me. I I didn't participate in them anyways,
but I know that in the last two years things
the way things were worded just really stuck out to me,
and I thought, oh, I don't know, I'm just gonna
say something because I want to make sure that there's
(16:26):
so many people, especially living in Nashville, Like we're in
a city that puts a lot of focus on looks
and pressure and success and this is what you need
to be like and you know, and that's put on
by a lot of other people, record labels, entertainment industry, etcetera.
But I know there's a lot of that pressure here
(16:47):
and I just wanted to be aware of people that
might be hearing that. And I know that that could
be an experience, while well intentioned and meant to grow
your faith and spending time doing other things sides eating
to to grow, could be a trigger for someone that
has disordered behaviors or eating disorder past. And so I
(17:09):
had an opportunity to talk to my pastor about it
before he gave this sermon, and about yeah, two weeks ago,
he got up there and it was the coolest thing ever,
Like he went home and did some research and brought
some stats and he was like, Hey, I want to
be sensitive the fact that so many people out there,
everyone is coming from. I'm paraphrasing kind of what he
(17:31):
did in case you go to my church and you're listening.
But he's like, I want to be clear that while
we are doing a food fast and they have a
different plan that they follow where they do like broth
and soup and different things. You know, he brought the
statistics on eating disorders in America, and he's like, I
just want to be sensitive the fact that if you
(17:52):
do any of these tendencies he googled, like things that
might be signed of disordered eating behavior. He's like, if
you're weighing yourself every day, if you think about food constantly,
if you obsess about this or that, or you participate
in a binge restrict cycle. Like he went and had
this whole list, and he said, restricting from food for
(18:14):
twenty one days might not be the best option for you.
So I'm going to provide a list of other things
that you maybe could abstain from, like social media. He
and then he gave this list, and I just thought, oh,
this is so cool. But if I say I wasn't
that person. I had been visiting the church that day
and I was in in a kind of recovery, Like
(18:35):
I would listen to a message like that and then
have be self aware enough to know like, oh, I
guess maybe if I'm gonna put myself not in recovery
yet and be like, oh wow, I weigh myself every day,
or oh I think about food seven um, or oh
I you know have this behavior, then I would think like, oh,
(18:55):
maybe fasting from food is not for me, or maybe
doing this cleans is not for me. And now I'm
rambling about that, but I just wanted to share that
cool story. So shout out Pastor Matt Smallbone because I
was super impressed that I had a tiny five minute
conversation with him about that, and he really wanted to
be considerate of people in the congregation that might be struggling.
(19:18):
I think this could have been a total whole own episode.
No really, because every every religion that I can think
of involves fasting at some point or another, whether it's
a full fast or like you said, broths in this
it's integrated into every religion. In Judaism, we have one
day that you fast for a year. And I certainly
know that he used to bring out a lot of
disordered eating tendencies and me have spoken about it on
(19:39):
other people's podcasts before. Fasting is part of it, and
a lot of the times it can encourage disordered eating
in that same person. But I think, like, if you
can distill what the fast maybe is about and listen,
I'm not a religious leader, I'm not trying to I
hope that I'm not offending anybody. But if you have
a sort of relationship to food and you want to
(20:02):
still partake in your own religion, I encourage you to
do what Amy did. You either go to your pastor rabbi,
you know, whatever your religious leader is, and maybe discuss
what the meaning of that fast is and how you
can bring that to life. And still you know, in
Judaism you do it to repent for twenty four hours,
which I think is a beautiful idea to think about
(20:23):
your wrongdoings. But so much of that got lost for
me and plenty of people. If you're willing to admit
it when it was about just not eating for the
day and making your focus about that. Uh So, I
think that this is a huge conversation to be had
in the religious space. And I say that respectfully with
(20:43):
however you want to do it listener, knowing that your
religion is different in your relation to it shipped to
it may be different and I may not understand different
parts of it. But I think that's an amazing conversation
you had. Amy. Well, I think that there was a
time where I know that I would have used that opportunity,
which would have been a bummer because it's not intended
for that. But of course I would have been like, oh,
(21:06):
this is under the disguise of growth faith. You know,
I had a layer of me that would be like, oh,
and yeah, now I have really an excuse to tell
people why I'm not eating or why I brought my
juice or why I'm only eating broth, and they can't
question me about it because I am doing a fast.
So then I end up But because I have restrictive
(21:28):
binge restrictive behavior, then I end up binging and feel
like a failure, and then it's a whole at all,
it's a big crash and burn. So that's just something
that I wanted to bring up when it comes to
like self awareness, is me now knowing that about myself?
I told my pastor, like, I can't participate in the
food fast as someone that's in recovery. I know I can't.
I just I'm not going to do that. Similarly, I'm
(21:49):
not going to do a three day juice cleans anymore. Now.
Someone who doesn't have a disordered past, they may feel
great after doing that, they continue on with life, they
don't obsess over food. Maybe that is okay for them,
But for me, I used like a detox clans as
a very unhealthy thing. I used it to undo a binge,
(22:11):
or to prepare for a binge, or to do a
quick fix of like this is going to make me
smaller or something. A lot of it was in my
head too, by the way, so fun fact like it's
not that much change in three days at times. But
green juice for me is something that I used to
force myself to have every single day. And then I
would do either three or five day cleanses, and I
(22:32):
just I lived in this and I would promote them
on my podcast. I would encourage other people to do
them on my four Things podcast, and I lived in
this space of like, oh great, now I have to
be anti green juice. I just wanted to clarify too,
since we were talking about cleanses, as I saw a
post sort of clarifying that is that green juice is
not bad. I kind of made it bad because I
(22:55):
put it on a pedestal, and so then once I
bring it back down, I can have green juice if
I want it now. I can't even tell you the
last time I had one. But that's just because me
working through my own stuff, like I don't need it
right now. One day I might. But if I have
the green juice, I will also have food. I'm no
longer going to live use it as a restrictive type tool.
(23:16):
I mean, I think that going back to food neutrality,
which is what we spoke about a few minutes ago,
and we talked about eating to soothe, it's not just
about no longer thinking the oreo is bad, but also
thinking about that the green juice isn't the savior. Not
to say that a green juice can't make you feel
really good and energized, or that is not full of
nutrients and all these things that it is. But that's
(23:37):
the neutrality aspect of it. Not holding on so tightly
to one food to make you, you know, fix all
of your problems, and at the same token, not believing
that one food causes all of your problems, So how
could you make the green juice a little bit less
superior and the oreo We always use that example here,
a little bit less um inferior and making foods a
(23:58):
little bit more at the bay slide, so that you
can reach for the oreo when you want it, but
also reach for the green juice when you want it. Perfect.
I know we talked about a lot of different little
things in there, but um, at the end of the day,
hopefully something was was said that you needed to hear.
And that's what Lisa and I are just trying to do,
(24:19):
be a resource of comfort. I like this combo. It
was fun. Yeah, me too. So if y'all ever have
topics that you would like us to touch on, or
any guest ideas, please send us an email, UM or
any thoughts that you have to share. Hello at Outweigh
podcast dot com is where you can find us to
(24:39):
reach out and that's Hello outwegh podcast dot com and
we always have that in the show notes, right Lisa.
In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram. I'm
at Radio Amy and I'm Lisa over at at Lisa
Hame and that's h a y. I am thank you
by
I won't let my body out, me out well everything
that I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me
it is beautiful and that will always out way if
(00:23):
you feel it. With yours in the air, She'll some
love to the mow at there say good day and
time did you and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweigh fam
Amy and Lisa here and yeah, I think this is
our first time at least Lisa and I recording together
in the new year. So hey, Lisa, it's good to
(00:46):
see a person. I know that some of us, or
at least me, is in like hardcore pandemic lockdown mode.
So this is a really important interaction for me, Amy
and for all of our listeners. If you're out there
feeling alone, I hope at this too kind of makes
you feel less alone during what I think is just
a collective really tough time. Yeah, and Lisa's in New York.
(01:08):
I'm in Nashville, So really a lot of it too,
just depends on where you are in the country or
your stage of life. Lisa as a new mom and
all kinds of exciting things, but I guess weird to
experience during a pandemic. Yeah, it's just really isolating. So
I mean, being able to show up to this community
is one of my favorite things that we get to
that I get to do each week. So it's just
(01:30):
a thank you to you, Amy and to our listeners.
And I hope the feeling that I get when I
see your face over these zooms, Amy, I hope that
our listeners get when they hear our voice, which is
just on those days when you're feeling super alone, whether
pandemic related or food related, or a combination of the both,
you know that you're not. My dog just sparked Houston
shout out. I don't even know if Houston will be
(01:51):
able to edit out the dog bark, so we're just
going to leave it in there, because hey, this is
this is real, real life. And you know, Lisa doesn't
know going to bring this up because it's something that
you mentioned when we were talking before we recorded about
someone that reached out to you and they had implied
that they sort of graduated from outweigh And as we're
(02:12):
talking about this community and thinking about it and who
are we showing up for what is this about? And
it may be that you just found us today out
of desperation because you're searching, you're feeling it. I know
I certainly was there when I was, you know, knee
deep in my eating disorder and my disordered, very disordered behaviors,
(02:35):
and you know, I would Google in search of anything,
just like, give me some hope that I'm not alone
and somebody else is out there. And now we have podcasts,
and you may be searching different topics into your podcast
search and somehow Outweigh popped up. So you might be
brand new, or you might be someone that's been with
us for a year now or longer almost two years?
(02:57):
Am two years? Okay? Well time flies when you're having
fun almost two years, or maybe you just kind of
you know, when we pop up on your phone. You subscribed,
but you don't always listen, but you're here today. It's
like I truly feel that, like we're just here when
people need us. So if maybe you feel like you
don't need it every Saturday, no problem. Maybe not every
(03:20):
episode is for you, But my hope is that we
do have enough content and we'll keep putting it out
there that eventually no matter what you're going through, you
may be able to scroll through and find something that
will give you that that comfort and that hope that
you're not alone and that there is something more out
there for you and you don't have to feel stuck.
(03:42):
This podcast is not a it's not a way to fix.
It's going to take a lot of work, and that
parts not to scare you, but I don't want to
act like we're just trying to come in and be
this little band aid. We really are just here to
talk through things and yeah, give you some stories that
may relate, may not, and then provide you with an
(04:03):
expert from time to time. And Amy, I don't know
if you heard last week's episode where I shared a
personal story of what happened when I went on a
restrictive diet, but it was really eye opening to me,
somebody who hasn't dealt with disordered eating in a really
long time, to be going through life and finding myself
in a situation where if you listen to the episode,
(04:23):
it will make a lot more sense. But as we
go through life and our bodies change and things change,
we might find ourselves having to make dietary modifications for
reasons outside of our body size. That's what happened to
me when it came to breastfeeding my baby and I
went on this short term restrictive diet, and it was
(04:44):
so interesting to realize that even though you could be
free for a really long time, go on a protocol
unrelated to your weight, you might find those same emotions
and feelings and thoughts coming back up. And the question
might be, you know, what, what do these feelings mean?
Does it mean that I'm still disordered? And I bring
(05:06):
that up because, like you said, like people are graduating
and hopefully they're they're moving along with the tools that
we provide in our experts, provide in your stories have
helped them as well. But I don't think the journeys
ever over. We shut the door period. I think as
we go through life and hopefully you're healthy throughout it.
But I mean we know that that as we get older,
complications begin, whether it has to do with diabetes or
(05:29):
kidneys or heart or whatever it is that may require
some dietary modifications for the short term or for the
long term. And being able to show up to those
modifications and big and here prioritize your mental health is
part of life. And figuring out that distinction of how
(05:51):
can I take the very best care of me and
feel my best but not return to that place of
agony where my brain is only think about food, And
how can I call myself out when I get there
to reel it back in so that I can actually
be healthy. So, like you know, we go through life,
we change our roles. We're not just static individuals, and
(06:12):
we might be faced with difficult things as we grow.
So if you're returning to this podcast after a year
of freedom for whatever reason, just know that that too
is normal and we continue to grow together. Yeah, I mean,
I'm I'm growing through this process of or this stage
in my recovery. Even though I was thankful enough to
(06:34):
have the tools a lot of them from Lisa a
couple of years ago to be able to get to
a place of healing, I still have moments where I'm like, oh,
I texted Lisa the other day, like we need to
talk about eating your feelings. Because then I second guests like,
I don't know, this isn't my every day. Of course,
I have to actively choose to not go back to
(06:56):
other behaviors if they start to poke their little heads up.
I don't know, like that whack a mole game. Sometimes
some days are easier than others. But it's like one
thing pops up and you have to like pop it
back down and pops up and you pop it back
down in a way, that's part of building those new
neural pathways. And the more you do it, the easier
it's going to get. But like I said, there's easier
days and there's more difficult days. But in these times
(07:19):
that we're in, or even if we weren't in a
pandemic and we just had the normal everyday type stressors
that come along with relationships and work and family and
disease and illness and being a mom like whatever, being
a child, like, whatever the case may be, you're gonna
have certain things that may cause you to eat more
(07:42):
because of the way that you're feeling. And I used to,
I guess have this weird thing about oh if I
ate because of my feelings, that was bad. So in
a way it caused this weird restriction in my head.
I don't know if I'm saying this right, I'm gonna
say it, and I'm gonna have a Lisa come in
as the expert and put a bow on it. But
it's like I would shame myself for like, oh, I
(08:04):
can't believe I ate that way, but I was feeling
down and I just did it and I went all
in and I ate it all. But it's almost like,
now I give myself permission to eat my feelings if
that's what I need. And I found myself in that
situation recently and I was like, oh, but I had
to do like the whack a mole a few times.
(08:25):
I had to bomp it back down because what I
was doing was not bad. Food was my comfort in
that moment, and that is okay. But it's so that
goes against so much of what we hear, because this
is the part that's gonna be hard for me to say,
just because like I'm not always the best with words,
but society tells us it's okay, Like, oh, yeah, I
(08:45):
eat your feelings, at your feelings. But then so much
of society then is like, but then you should feel
really bad about it and make yourself go to the
gym or figure it out or do something, and oh,
then there's this shame. But it's like, what I want
to discuss here right now is that you can eat
your feelings and you don't have to have any of
the shame. So you have texted me the other day
(09:13):
and you're like, what are your thoughts on eating your feelings?
And at first I was like, totally down with eating
your feelings, But then I remembered that that's only because
a lot of things have been in place for a
long time, one of which is food neutrality, really believing
that you're not good or bad for eating a certain
(09:36):
food or not eating a certain food, and really really
really really breaking that down, working through fat phobia and
an idea that if our bodies change, we are less worthy,
or if a body is bigger, it is scary, you know.
And I'm not to say that I'm perfect there or
anybody is, but as a society were largely fat phobic.
(09:59):
We view bigger bodies as less healthy, We view them
as lazy. There's so much that has been laced into
that that I think is subconsciously weighing in on us.
When we go to have a piece of cake, it's
not just oh, I'm eating a piece of cake, it's
I'm eating a piece of cake. This cake has repercussions.
It's going to change my body, which is going to
change how people view me, which is going to change
(10:20):
how I view myself. Right, It's like it's so loaded
underneath the surface below, I just want to eat this
piece of cake to soupe. So really making peace with
food and your body and your self worth is really
critical to being able to quote unquote eat your feelings.
Now when it comes to emotional eating. I don't know
(10:40):
if any of you attended the emotional Eating action plan
that I gave this year and last year, but there
is a critical distinction between Amy, what you said giving
yourself permission to eat your feelings and just quote unquote
eating your feelings, and when you own your eating, which
is what I call it, when you really understand what
you're doing. When you say, I am eating my feelings
(11:04):
because it's too painful right now, and none of my
other coping tools are available, and this is what I
need for a moment of refuge. That is a choice.
But previously, Amy, it wasn't a choice. It was your
only tool, like you said, your neural pathways, Like it
was your own only neuro pathway. Was I feel pain,
(11:24):
I'm going to turn to food. You hadn't done any
of that existing work before you just thought, I feel crappy.
I need to make me myself feel a little bit
less crappy, and you went for it. You could do
that same exact thing, but with ownership. I feel really crappy.
I need food to help me feel a little bit
less crappy, and I'm going to fully own that experience.
(11:46):
I'm going to allow myself to feel good from food,
and I'm not going to allow guilt to come in
because I know exactly what I'm doing. And I think
there's an unconscious rolling into into eating your feeling things
and a very conscious choice. And when it's conscious, the
relationship to eating your feelings is very different. You are
(12:07):
maximizing the enjoyment. You're able to notice when it no
longer feels good or taste good, and you're able to
then return back to that emotion that you were maybe
not able to deal with because it hurt too much.
I think that food is soothing, and becoming a mom
this year, I have learned how primal it is to
(12:27):
all of us that food is soothing. I mean seeing
my baby cry and knowing the only way to make
her stop crying is to feed her, whether from my
breast or a bottle shows how ingrained it is for
us that food is that very first thing that we
learned provides comfort. It shows us that we're not alone,
even if we're the one providing the food for ourselves. Now,
it is our connection to something greater than our own
(12:50):
selves that I think gets lost along the way. That
was a really long run on sentence, but I think
that um our emotional needs are really complex and food
as a huge part in helping us heal hard things.
But our relationship to food has to really radically transform. First,
I hope that didn't bore you well. I would describe
(13:11):
my experience with using food the other day and it
was like the word that comes to my mind, which
I don't use this word often, but it was glorious
because I was on my couch with my food and
I was watching something I enjoyed, and I was there.
I was present. I have been on my couch with
(13:31):
food watching something for many many years and not been
present and ended up just like, and I share that
not to be like, oh yeah, look at me, Like
if you're still that person who's on the couch checked
out and of feeling up, that is okay too. We're
all on a journey. I don't want to be like,
oh yeah, I had a glorious moment with this, but
I say it as encouragement the cliche if I can
(13:54):
do it, I truly believe that you could do it,
because I was someone that just thought this was before
podcasts are people being very vocal about it on the Internet.
I was just having these experiences before the real internet,
like we used it the way we do. So, I,
and I'm sure many of you can relate to this,
had this lie in my head that I was broken
(14:14):
and I was the only person in the world like
I was just wired differently and I was messed up.
So that's why I'm saying, hopefully by now you know
that's not the case, just because of where we are
in resources and information and people sharing things. But just
in case you feel that way, I want you to
know that it's a lie and that there is a
glorious potential couch food experience waiting for you. What I
(14:39):
love about that, though, is that so many times we're
talking about the same exact thing and the experience is different.
You on your couch watching TV eating, nothing changed. You
were again on your couch watching TV eating, and yet
one experience was filled with guilt, shame, thoughts about what
you were going to do next to compen eight and
(15:00):
the other one was defined as glorious. And I think,
like you said, like eating to soothe, it could really
be that and so many things when it comes to
healing your relationship to exercise, right, Like, you might hate
working out and you might do this very same exact
workout and from a different mindset and it feels good.
And that's a really complex thing to really understand. How
(15:24):
I think your relationship to these things can change, and
therefore your experience to them can change. The self awareness
of that is key. And another thing that I just
thought of when it comes to self awareness is knowing
(15:45):
what is what is right for me now and what
you know what feels right with me. And I am
a Christian, go to church. I love our church so much.
It's nondenominational. I love our pastor. And every year at
the beginning of the year, for the first twenty one days,
they do a fast. And I don't know that I
(16:06):
had really noticed it the several years ago. It wouldn't
have triggered me. I I didn't participate in them anyways,
but I know that in the last two years things
the way things were worded just really stuck out to me,
and I thought, oh, I don't know, I'm just gonna
say something because I want to make sure that there's
(16:26):
so many people, especially living in Nashville, Like we're in
a city that puts a lot of focus on looks
and pressure and success and this is what you need
to be like and you know, and that's put on
by a lot of other people, record labels, entertainment industry, etcetera.
But I know there's a lot of that pressure here
(16:47):
and I just wanted to be aware of people that
might be hearing that. And I know that that could
be an experience, while well intentioned and meant to grow
your faith and spending time doing other things sides eating
to to grow, could be a trigger for someone that
has disordered behaviors or eating disorder past. And so I
(17:09):
had an opportunity to talk to my pastor about it
before he gave this sermon, and about yeah, two weeks ago,
he got up there and it was the coolest thing ever,
Like he went home and did some research and brought
some stats and he was like, Hey, I want to
be sensitive the fact that so many people out there,
everyone is coming from. I'm paraphrasing kind of what he
(17:31):
did in case you go to my church and you're listening.
But he's like, I want to be clear that while
we are doing a food fast and they have a
different plan that they follow where they do like broth
and soup and different things. You know, he brought the
statistics on eating disorders in America, and he's like, I
just want to be sensitive the fact that if you
(17:52):
do any of these tendencies he googled, like things that
might be signed of disordered eating behavior. He's like, if
you're weighing yourself every day, if you think about food constantly,
if you obsess about this or that, or you participate
in a binge restrict cycle. Like he went and had
this whole list, and he said, restricting from food for
(18:14):
twenty one days might not be the best option for you.
So I'm going to provide a list of other things
that you maybe could abstain from, like social media. He
and then he gave this list, and I just thought, oh,
this is so cool. But if I say I wasn't
that person. I had been visiting the church that day
and I was in in a kind of recovery, Like
(18:35):
I would listen to a message like that and then
have be self aware enough to know like, oh, I
guess maybe if I'm gonna put myself not in recovery
yet and be like, oh wow, I weigh myself every day,
or oh I think about food seven um, or oh
I you know have this behavior, then I would think like, oh,
(18:55):
maybe fasting from food is not for me, or maybe
doing this cleans is not for me. And now I'm
rambling about that, but I just wanted to share that
cool story. So shout out Pastor Matt Smallbone because I
was super impressed that I had a tiny five minute
conversation with him about that, and he really wanted to
be considerate of people in the congregation that might be struggling.
(19:18):
I think this could have been a total whole own episode.
No really, because every every religion that I can think
of involves fasting at some point or another, whether it's
a full fast or like you said, broths in this
it's integrated into every religion. In Judaism, we have one
day that you fast for a year. And I certainly
know that he used to bring out a lot of
disordered eating tendencies and me have spoken about it on
(19:39):
other people's podcasts before. Fasting is part of it, and
a lot of the times it can encourage disordered eating
in that same person. But I think, like, if you
can distill what the fast maybe is about and listen,
I'm not a religious leader, I'm not trying to I
hope that I'm not offending anybody. But if you have
a sort of relationship to food and you want to
(20:02):
still partake in your own religion, I encourage you to
do what Amy did. You either go to your pastor rabbi,
you know, whatever your religious leader is, and maybe discuss
what the meaning of that fast is and how you
can bring that to life. And still you know, in
Judaism you do it to repent for twenty four hours,
which I think is a beautiful idea to think about
(20:23):
your wrongdoings. But so much of that got lost for
me and plenty of people. If you're willing to admit
it when it was about just not eating for the
day and making your focus about that. Uh So, I
think that this is a huge conversation to be had
in the religious space. And I say that respectfully with
(20:43):
however you want to do it listener, knowing that your
religion is different in your relation to it shipped to
it may be different and I may not understand different
parts of it. But I think that's an amazing conversation
you had. Amy. Well, I think that there was a
time where I know that I would have used that opportunity,
which would have been a bummer because it's not intended
for that. But of course I would have been like, oh,
(21:06):
this is under the disguise of growth faith. You know,
I had a layer of me that would be like, oh,
and yeah, now I have really an excuse to tell
people why I'm not eating or why I brought my
juice or why I'm only eating broth, and they can't
question me about it because I am doing a fast.
So then I end up But because I have restrictive
(21:28):
binge restrictive behavior, then I end up binging and feel
like a failure, and then it's a whole at all,
it's a big crash and burn. So that's just something
that I wanted to bring up when it comes to
like self awareness, is me now knowing that about myself?
I told my pastor, like, I can't participate in the
food fast as someone that's in recovery. I know I can't.
I just I'm not going to do that. Similarly, I'm
(21:49):
not going to do a three day juice cleans anymore. Now.
Someone who doesn't have a disordered past, they may feel
great after doing that, they continue on with life, they
don't obsess over food. Maybe that is okay for them,
But for me, I used like a detox clans as
a very unhealthy thing. I used it to undo a binge,
(22:11):
or to prepare for a binge, or to do a
quick fix of like this is going to make me
smaller or something. A lot of it was in my
head too, by the way, so fun fact like it's
not that much change in three days at times. But
green juice for me is something that I used to
force myself to have every single day. And then I
would do either three or five day cleanses, and I
(22:32):
just I lived in this and I would promote them
on my podcast. I would encourage other people to do
them on my four Things podcast, and I lived in
this space of like, oh great, now I have to
be anti green juice. I just wanted to clarify too,
since we were talking about cleanses, as I saw a
post sort of clarifying that is that green juice is
not bad. I kind of made it bad because I
(22:55):
put it on a pedestal, and so then once I
bring it back down, I can have green juice if
I want it now. I can't even tell you the
last time I had one. But that's just because me
working through my own stuff, like I don't need it
right now. One day I might. But if I have
the green juice, I will also have food. I'm no
longer going to live use it as a restrictive type tool.
(23:16):
I mean, I think that going back to food neutrality,
which is what we spoke about a few minutes ago,
and we talked about eating to soothe, it's not just
about no longer thinking the oreo is bad, but also
thinking about that the green juice isn't the savior. Not
to say that a green juice can't make you feel
really good and energized, or that is not full of
nutrients and all these things that it is. But that's
(23:37):
the neutrality aspect of it. Not holding on so tightly
to one food to make you, you know, fix all
of your problems, and at the same token, not believing
that one food causes all of your problems, So how
could you make the green juice a little bit less
superior and the oreo We always use that example here,
a little bit less um inferior and making foods a
(23:58):
little bit more at the bay slide, so that you
can reach for the oreo when you want it, but
also reach for the green juice when you want it. Perfect.
I know we talked about a lot of different little
things in there, but um, at the end of the day,
hopefully something was was said that you needed to hear.
And that's what Lisa and I are just trying to do,
(24:19):
be a resource of comfort. I like this combo. It
was fun. Yeah, me too. So if y'all ever have
topics that you would like us to touch on, or
any guest ideas, please send us an email, UM or
any thoughts that you have to share. Hello at Outweigh
podcast dot com is where you can find us to
(24:39):
reach out and that's Hello outwegh podcast dot com and
we always have that in the show notes, right Lisa.
In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram. I'm
at Radio Amy and I'm Lisa over at at Lisa
Hame and that's h a y. I am thank you
by
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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