Nurture Navigator: How Emotional Eating Might Be Holding You Back After 50 [Ep 69]

In this episode of Midlife Mojo, host Lisa DuPree dives into one of the five archetypes from her Weight Loss Archetype Quiz — the Nurture Navigator. This archetype deeply feels emotions, often turning to food for comfort, connection, or calm during stressful or lonely moments. Lisa shares her own story of using sweet treats as a quick stress fix, illustrating how emotional eating can offer short-term relief but lead to long-term frustration.

You’ll learn why emotional eating isn’t a weakness but a learned coping mechanism, and how to turn that nurturing energy inward to build emotional resilience. Lisa shares that simple, powerful tool like mindful eating, journaling, and grounding techniques can help you break free from emotional eating patterns and create lasting results that align with your health goals.

Take the Weight Loss Archetype Quiz at lisadupreecoaching.com/quiz

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Transcript

Hello. Hello, I'm your host Lisa DuPree, and today we're diving into a topic that so many of my clients over 50 can relate to, and that is emotional eating. If you've ever reached for ice cream after a stressful day, found yourself just eating past comfortable fullness when you're out at family gatherings or out with friends, or indulging in late night snacking because you were either.

Kind of feeling a little bit lonely or you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, you are definitely gonna wanna stick around. Today we're talking about one of the five weight loss archetypes from my Weight Loss Archetype quiz , the Nurture Navigator. So Nurture Navigators, they really feel all the feels. I mean, they feel deeply and they are in tune with their emotions and that is a wonderful thing.

That is a strength, but sometimes, sometimes. Emotions can be very strong. They can be very intense, whether it is a positive [00:01:00] emotion or even a negative emotion, and it can be overwhelming as well. And, and when those instances happen, it's tempting to really take that edge off or just avoid that intensity altogether.

And that's often where food steps in. It's a comfort, it's a distraction or it creates that sense of connection and it really is an easy way to find relief or calm. Right. The challenge is that it offers short-term comfort and long-term frustration. And this makes sense though because it's a way to care for yourself in the moment, but it can also get in the way of the results that you really want.

So what does being a Nurture navigator really look like? So think about maybe a time when you've reached for a piece of chocolate or you know, a snack of macaroni and cheese after a tough day, [00:02:00] or when you're out at a holiday dinner and you keep going back for seconds because the food really is comforting and it feels like love and connection.

Or maybe it's ordering your favorite comfort food when you're feeling lonely or turning to your favorite treat after a stressful meeting. So that is definitely where I've been Before when I was working at the university, my team often had admin meetings right after lunch because we were teaching or observing all morning, and then we went back to it late into the afternoon.

And then certain parts of the school year, we were on the go all day. Like we were just go, go, go. And we, we were really being asked to do more and more with less and less, and. Most days I would find myself both wired and drained at the same time. I'd be stressed out. My mind would be racing with all the things that I had to do, and I would [00:03:00] find a few moments of peace and pleasure by going to the cafeteria and getting these big, gooey, sugary rice Krispy treats they made.

And they really, they really hit the spot. Um, for as long as I can remember, my dad has made Rice Krispy treats for the holidays, so it definitely qualifies as a comfort food for me. And so for a few just blissful moments, I could check out and just not think about it, anything, and just enjoy myself for a few minutes.

And so eating those Rice Krispy treats brought immediate in the moment comfort and immediate relief, but invariably, I would feel like crap later in the afternoon after my blood sugar crashed. And then kinda the guilt of eating hundreds and hundreds. of Empty calories. And so that kind of set in. And the kicker is that none of this really helped me relieve any of the stress, and it [00:04:00] actually added to it in some ways, and it didn't align with my health goals, but I was doing it anyway because it gave me that immediate sense of relief and comfort.

This really makes sense because the food nurture navigators gravitate toward, tend to have meaning and are often tied to childhood memories or celebrations. Things that I know that, are pretty common that I hear are like ice cream cookies, specific casseroles, uh, mashed potatoes, pizza, things like that.

Or it could be crunchy things like chips or crackers,. And sometimes, you know, you find yourself eating maybe straight outta the container or eating more than you had anticipated, even though you're kind of feeling full. Because the act of eating those foods feels nurturing.

Uh, here's the tricky part. [00:05:00] Emotional eating really can create a cycle of frustration. You might feel like you have no willpower when it comes to certain foods, or you tell yourself like, food is the only thing that's gonna make me feel better right now. Like, food is the only thing that's gonna make me feel better at all.

Maybe you've tried willpower approaches or strict diets. And all it did was leave you feeling even more misunderstood and more frustrated. You might even spiral into shame after eating, or worry about how you could ever handle stress without turning to food.

So if this sounds familiar, know that it is not a sign of weakness and it's not a lack of discipline. Nurture navigators are often very thoughtful, empathetic, and tuned into the needs of those around them, as well as like really have the capacity for fully experiencing emotions. [00:06:00] And so the key really is learning how to turn that care and that intuitive wisdom that you already have.

Using those same strengths and nurturing your own wellbeing and following through on, on what your body really truly needs. And so that's where coaching comes in. Working with clients, like I don't take away comfort foods because it's, it's really counterproductive in a lot of ways. So it's not about restriction.

So you're not like white knuckling things, relying on willpower. Instead, we really work together to expand your toolkit and your resources so that food becomes just one of the many ways that you nurture yourself and find comfort. Not the main way or the only way. Okay. We start by building emotional resilience, learning to identify those feelings before they turn into the eating and create a comfort toolkit.

And that includes [00:07:00] a lot of different non-food ways to help soothe yourself and also practice mindful eating to honor both emotional and physical satisfaction. And so some of the tools that I use with nurture navigators include journaling prompts to explore the stories behind these favorite comfort foods, or these favorite go-to foods that you find yourself wanting.

Uh, breathing and grounding exercises for intense emotional moments, and then even small experiments where you practice sitting with that discomfort of whatever that intense or amplified emotion is. Without automatically kind of reaching for food for a distraction or to check out. And the magic here is really understanding your emotional patterns and really understanding that they aren't a weakness, it's actually a strength.

So once you bring awareness to these patterns that you have, you can finally start making choices that really feel good and get you closer to [00:08:00] your health and weight goals. So if you can relate to the Nurture Navigator archetype, here are a few things that I want you to take away and remember, emotional eating is a learned way of coping.

So it's a, it's a learned coping mechanism that helps. You deal with emotions that can feel very intense, either, you know, uncomfortable or just like overwhelming, so it's something that so, so many of us learned to do way long ago when we were little and growing up and, and we learned it to soothe and manage these strong emotions.

So this is a learned thing. It's also not a flaw. Right. It's a signal that your emotions are asking for attention, not avoidance. And so when we can be mindful and aware of the emotions in the moment and being okay with that [00:09:00] intensity. And not avoiding it, then there's a lot of power in that. And you don't need to give up your comfort foods to succeed.

Like you just don't need to give them up. Like you can have control in eat, in eating these things. Um, building emotional awareness and resilience though is really the key here. So building that awareness and that resilience between kind of the knowing and the doing. . And then small changes really add up to lasting results.

So those are the, those are the key things to kind of think of. If you are a nurture navigator. And if you haven't already taken the weight loss archetype quiz, I invite you to take that as the next step and start building your own toolkit for emotional resilience. It only takes a few minutes and it'll help you discover your archetype and the strategies that work best for you.

So you can find that at lisadupreecoaching.com/quiz. I'll also have a live link in the show notes where you can just go to the show notes and click that. It'll take you right to the quiz page. And if you want a more personalized approach, schedule a free session with me where we can take a few moments to look more closely at your patterns and create kind of a, a action plan that's practical and compassionate and effective for you.

Thanks for listening to Midlife Mojo. Remember, knowing your patterns is power, and with the right tools, you can finally bridge the gap between knowing what to do and doing it to see the results you want. Until next time, get out there and keep your mojo rising.