Over Eating, Understanding the Real Problem

Enrollment is NOW OPEN for my April Modern Change Coaching Program!  Click HERE for all the details and to save your spot, as space is limited.

Overeating isn’t the real problem — it’s the solution.

We often use food to cope with:

• Stress
• Overwhelm
• People pleasing
• Exhaustion
• Resentment
• Feeling judged or left out

The issue isn’t willpower.
 It’s not knowing how to manage thoughts and emotions.

When you:

• Set better boundaries
• Ask for help
• Stop overloading yourself
• Learn to feel discomfort
• Manage your mind intentionally

Eating better becomes the byproduct.

Question to ask yourself:
If food is the solution… what is the real problem?

Enrollment is NOW OPEN for my April Modern Change Group Program.  If you are loving the podcast, click HERE get all the details of my program.   It is for women who not only want to lose between 10 and 15 pounds by summer, but also want to finally do it permanently and without dieting.  In my program, you will become a woman who is in control of her eating, mindset, and follow-through.

Transcript

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Steve, welcome to modern body, modern life, the podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong and confident, inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desire seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for everything else, your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 121 over eating, understanding the real problem. So many people think that the real problem is the overeating, but that's actually the solution that we are using to solve for the real problem, or the real problem. So I'm going to dive into that. And I'm hoping this is going to be another podcast where it kind of blows your brain open a little bit and you understand yourself at a deeper level, which is always the best place to start. This is an exciting podcast, because I have so many things to tell you before I dive into that meaty part of the podcast. I have so many things to tell you, many, many of you have already downloaded, signed up and downloaded my take control of your evening eating playbook. So there is a link in the show notes. There is a link at modern body, modern life, calm. I created a playbook that I'm so proud of, and it is free to you, and it is going to help you with your evening eating. And I've had, I really am so grateful. I've had so many of you reach out to me telling me how great it is. I've had so many of you reach out to me telling me that you've passed it along to friends, which is wonderful, and that you've already read it through a few times, and it just means so much to me. So I'm so happy to have created something that you feel like is an amazing resource, that was my intention. So I'm so glad for that. There have been a few of you that have messaged me and said you've signed up, but you haven't received it. And I, even though this is kind of a customer service issue, it may be so sad to hear that. So I'm just letting you know if, for some reason, you signed up and you didn't get it. Please shoot me an email. I'm happy to send it to you directly. So on to the next thing I want to talk about for a moment. A moment is, did you know that we're about four months out from summer, that in about four months, it is going to be hot where most of us live, or at the very least, we're going to be in summer vacation mode, whatever that looks like for you. It is going to be summer in about four months. So I am really excited to announce that I am starting another small group coaching program. Enrollment is now open for my April modern change group coaching program, and I'm calling this the Summer Edition, because it's a three month program, and it's going to start April 7, and when it ends at the end of June, it is going to be officially summertime, which is so fun. Here in my hometown, it's getting a little bit warmer, warmer, warmer, and I'm already, like, chomping at the bit for summer. I'm already like, let's cover the pool. Let's, let's, let's get it warm out there. Let's, let's buy new bathing suits. I'm like, getting very, very excited about all of it. So if you have been interested in working with me in my group coaching program. Now is the time enrollment is open, and I know this time of year there's a lot of people who have started January with really great intentions, and maybe you've even made some progress towards your health and weight loss goals, but maybe you have found yourself getting kind of stuck and feeling like you know that there is a deeper level of mindset skill that you don't have. This is a great time to join me in this group for this summer edition. This group is going to help you lose between 10 to 15 pounds permanently. So you're not only going to be losing weight without dieting, you're going to be losing weight in a way that you want to live your life in an eating style that you want to live your life, and you're going to be able to lose the weight in a way that feels lovely and that feels not too restrictive, and that feels like you are understanding yourself at a deeper level. And while you're losing the weight, your whole life is getting better because, and I'm going to talk about this in this podcast today, because you're going to be solving the real problems. The reasons we're eating is not necessarily just because the food is delicious, that is one reason food is good, but it's because we're stressed out in our life. It's because we're frustrated, it's because we're overwhelmed, it's because we're not putting ourselves first. It's because we're people pleasing when we fix all of that through understanding our brain and understanding our emotions and how to manage all of it, then we don't have to eat food to make ourselves feel better. There is a page with all of the information for the April, modern Change Group Summer Edition. There is a link, like always in the show notes. You can head to modern body, modern life.com and there's a link there, and it gives you all the details and. Dates and everything you get and what you can expect from this group coaching experience. And I am accepting 10 women into this group. I had a bunch of women towards the end of the last time I launched a group in January, reach out to me and say, you know, Courtney, I'm interested in joining, and I've heard you say that the group is small. What does that really mean? So I thought, Oh, I'm so glad that they asked me that. I think three or four women asked me that, and I'm really glad, because now I know that that was something on a lot of your mind. So I'm just letting you know this group is going to be capped at 10 women. So this is a small, intimate, safe, lovely, supportive group of 10 women all around the world that are going to be making these changes together. So if you are interested, grab your spot. You can head to modern body, modern life, calm, and you will see it everywhere. So let's dive in. I want you to understand what makes my program, this podcast, and what I teach different than other things out there. I really help you fix the real problem. And again, it's not the food. Even when we know that food tastes delicious, that's not really the heart of the problem. If you really want to lose weight, get healthy, feel better and create new habits, but you find yourself eating in a way that does not align with that. The other things at play are our emotions, are our thoughts and the ability to manage our mind? We're eating in ways that are not working for us. We're either overeating sometimes of healthy foods, you know, you can you can either eat the wrong things, or you can overeat some of the good things. You're just getting too many calories. You're just consuming too much food. And we think that that's the problem, but that isn't the real problem, the eating and the food is actually the solution for the deeper problem of not knowing how to understand and manage your mind and understand and manage your emotions and feel your emotions. When you get good at both of these things, managing your minds, managing your emotions, then you don't need to turn to food for comfort. All week I coach my clients, my group clients, my private clients, and we talk about eating, and we talk about the way we need to think about ourselves in food, and we talk about making plans in our primitive brain. But you know what else we talk about and what? I coach my people on parenting and relationships, either the relationships with our partners that we live with, or relationships with other people, even with strangers. And I coach on frustrations and sadness and grief and losing pets and feeling guilty for someone who isn't doing as well as you're doing, and feeling obligated and saying yes when you mean No, all of these like everyday stressors and everyday frustrations are the reason we're eating one of the things I talked about in my playbook is that there's four main reasons why evenings are hard, harder than the other times during the day, and one of these reasons is distractions, meaning that, like during the day, we're distracted from a lot of things that are bothering us, but then all of a sudden, when our day shuts down and we just have more time just to be with ourselves, whether you have young kids and now they're in bed, or whether you get home from all your being with your friends and social events, all of a sudden we're sitting there, and we have time to get pissed off at the government, and we get time to worry about our finances, and we have time to all of a sudden replay something that happened at lunch with one of your girlfriends that you're starting to either question what you said or get pissed off about what she said. And so when all of a sudden the distractions are not there, we eat to comfort ourselves because we do not know how to manage our emotions, manage our thinking and our emotions. So these everyday stressors are the reason why we're eating. And so that's why this is so important. That's why this work is so important. Because when you fix the reason, the real problem for the eating, then not only do you not have to eat, but then the real problems in your life get better. It's like a two for one. So let's break this down. Let me give you some examples, because you guys have emailed me and told me that you actually really like when I give examples, that oftentimes you can resonate with them. And so let me talk a little bit about how long ago I was. I have a had a jewelry business, and I was building my jewelry business working my butt off. Not only building my jewelry business from my home, but I had young kids that I was a full time stay home mom. They were in school, but I was a full, full time stay home mom to these three boys, and I would work all week at probably 30 to 40 hours all week, just in my business. I would work when my kids slept. I would wake up early in the morning. I would work on weekends, and I also would do my local farmers market on Saturday. Now the the Farmers Market was wonderful. I mean, I made so many friends there. It was so wonderful. And in so many, so many ways, it was energetically fulfilling, because it was just so wonderful being there, especially when the weather was good. It was just so amazing, such a great time in my life. But it was an exhaust. Day most weekends. So the night before, well, so first all week, I had to create product for the market. I had to create enough jewelry, right? The weekend before, I sold a bunch. So I had to create a bunch of jewelry. I always wanted to surprise and delight people, so I was always trying to think up new designs. And then I would pack my car Friday night, and then Saturday morning, I would wake up, usually at four, get a little more organization done, then I would head out there, and I would work there, probably about nine hours. And then I would get home, and I was a few things. I was physically as exhausted, for sure, as you can imagine, that I was physically exhausted, and I was usually really proud of myself, because it was a great day. But I would start telling myself a story. I would start telling myself like, this is too much. I would tell myself I'm exhausted, and there's something there's a difference between actually feeling exhausted and telling yourself you're exhausted. I think a lot of times people tell themselves I'm so tired, I'm so exhausted. They tell themselves that even if they aren't and I know for myself, I used to do this as well. I would like this morning I woke up at 4am I'm not exhausted right now, but I used to, it didn't matter what time I would wake up, usually in the middle of the day, I would start telling myself this story, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. This is not what we want to do. This is a way of telling ourself a story, a way of storytelling that is really disempowering to us, because what we're saying is I can't handle what's going on with me. I can't handle my life. So I'd be telling myself, this is too much. I'm exhausted. But I would also tell myself I have to keep working, because I usually had a really good day. So I sold a lot of jewelry, and I then thought I should immediately start making more jewelry so I can possibly take some time off on Sunday. And for years and years and years, I would every Friday night, I would pack my car myself, and then I would unload my car when I got home by myself. I would insist on doing everything myself. I was I'm a feminist, but I also just felt like I didn't want to bother anybody. But as my kids started getting older and older, older and older, like they were very capable of helping me do these things, my husband often would say, Hey, let me help you unload your car. Let me help you pack up your car. And I'd always be like, No, I got it. No, I got it. Now, truth be told, I always did it better. I mean, you know when you pack your own car for the farmers market. You know where you want things to go. What's going to make it easier for you? But I would never allow the help. Do you ever find yourself doing that like I do it better? So I'm just going to do it myself. It's quite an exhausting way to live. Total. Side note, I start. I remember one time I got home and I was especially tired, and I told my husband, I go. I think I'm just going to go lay down. I'm actually really, really more tired than normal. And when I woke up from my nap, I came out, and I went out to unload my car, and my husband had already done it for me. Didn't even ask me, just did it, and I totally started crying. And he's like, Oh my God, why are you crying? And he's laughing at me. He knows I'm a crier, but he's laughing at me. And I'm like, I'm crying because I'm so grateful to you, but I'm also such a fool. Like, why have I insisted for so many years doing all this on my own? And my husband just goes, Yeah, I don't know. And he just, like, walked back in the house. He's just like, You're a weirdo. I don't know. And this is what we do as women, right? And then we tell ourselves, this is too much, and then, and this is not good. We sometimes resent the people around us, even though, if we actually asked for help, they would be willing to help us, even though sometimes they say, do you want help? We say no, and then we resent them. It's wild. But let me tell you what would happen for such a long time with me and why I was at a weight that I didn't feel like was right in my body. I didn't fit in my clothes. I was very unhappy with it's because of this situation that I had going on, telling myself this is too much, not accepting help, not asking for help being physically exhausted and not supporting myself, telling myself I have to keep working, telling myself I haven't done enough, telling myself I have too much to do. I mean, you're probably exhausted even listening to this. And so what would I do? My friend? What would I do? I would go and I would eat, and I wouldn't think about what I was eating. I just thought, it doesn't matter, I'm going to eat this. And I would just kind of, you know, eat whatever I wanted to with abandon. And then what would I do? I would go take a nap sometimes, and then I would be mad at myself because I ate a bunch of food that I really knew was not in line with my health goals. And so then what I would do, I'd say, Well, fuck it. And then I would eat more. Because I'd be like, Well, I'm just going to start tomorrow, or I'm going to start Monday. So was the problem the eating? Was the problem the food? No, the problem was the story I was telling myself. The problem was the situation I was creating for myself. The problem was the way I was thinking about. My life and my business, and what was expected of me and what I was expecting of other people. That was the problem, and I'll tell you, something beautiful is when I really started cleaning all of this up. That's one of the reasons I was able to lose the weight. Now I could give you like, three or four examples from my life at this time, it wasn't just this. This wasn't why I was carrying extra weight. It was this, plus. It was the fact that I was over working in the evenings, and then I wouldn't allow myself to be bored in order to fix that. It was a whole bunch of other things. It was I was struggling with one of my kids, and I felt like a victim, and I felt like I was I was a good mom, and why was I having to deal with his bullshit? So all of those reasons were why I was eating more than my body needed, and it was why I couldn't lose weight, and when I started cleaning up all of that, that's when I didn't have to comfort myself with food. I didn't need to comfort myself because I wasn't in as much discomfort when I started coming home from the farmers market and going, whew, I'm a little bit sleepy. And I'd walk in and I'd say, Hey, babe, I am a little tired today. And he'd say, want me to unload my car. Yes, I would love that. Oh, my God. Makes me a little emotional, even talking about it. Yes, I would love that. And then he'd say, boys, let's go and then I would say, remember, do it this way. Remember, I like it done this way. Remember, right? So I'm asking for what I want. I don't need to just be a victim to however they wanted to do it. I'd say, remember, this is how mama likes it. And then I would go to bed, I would eat a little something healthy. Then I'd go to bed, and I'd wake up and I wouldn't need to eat my face off, because I wasn't miserable with my life. I wasn't telling myself a story that didn't help me. I wasn't telling myself a victimy story. I want to give you another example that is very common. Of course, I experienced this many times, and I walk my clients through this example and teaching them how to manage their mind and emotions on a weekly basis with them this one, so I know that you're going to resonate with this one. So the prior example, I really talked about basically I was trying to escape negative emotion. I was trying to get out of feeling the distress and uncomfortableness and and frustration and all that, and so I would eat. So that's escaping this example. This next example I'm going to give you, I'm really talking about avoiding negative emotion. Let me just paint the picture, because I know you've been here, you know you're out to dinner, you're happy. Life is good. Maybe you have a cocktail in you, you're with your BFFs or your family, and you're having fun, and you promise yourself you're going to eat healthy. Maybe you've already lost a little weight. You're You're you've declared you're a new woman, all these things, and then at the last minute, you cave. Is the food? The problem is the restaurant. The problem No, the problem is you have a strong connection between food and fun. So many people this is nothing to be shame, shameful about. So many people have a very strong connection between food and fun. And what happens is, when you start thinking about not ordering the food you want, you feel sad. You feel like kicked out of the tribe. And so what am I talking about? Being kicked out of the tribe? You've heard me talk about the primitive brain. You've heard me talk about survival instincts. So when we think about primitive man who had a primitive brain, and survival instinct was how we stayed alive, one of the reasons we stayed alive, if you think about everybody in the cave eating the good food, and then you say, I'm not going to eat the food. You're worried. They're going to say, get out. You know, at a subconscious level, you're worried they're going to say, get out of the cave. You're annoying. You're not like us. We think you're a weirdo. You think you're better than us. We worry that we are going to be kicked out of the cave, which means ultimate death. Now when you're sitting in a restaurant, of course, you're not thinking about primitive man. You're not thinking about your survival. You know you're going to survive, but that survival instinct is still wired into your brain. It's hard wired in there. And so when you're sitting there and everyone is eating what they supposedly look like, they want to be eating, and you had told yourself you're going to eat good, but then all of a sudden the waiter comes up, and you just kind of get the fuck it's and you order whatever. That is a survival instinct, because you don't want someone looking at you going, Oh, look at you ordering healthy or any iteration of that. And I always tell my clients, there's two options for you here at this moment, you can sit there and say, Do people really care that much about what I'm eating? Does it really matter? No, it doesn't. I'm just going to support myself and I'm going to do what I want to do. And what that can do is that can make you feel better emotions. When you change your thinking, you change your emotions, and maybe you feel a little bit more confident. And you order what you want to the other option, and this one is more common, is that you sit there and you say, You know what, I think I'm being judged, and I feel insecure, and I'm going to sit here and I'm going to feel insecure, or, you know what, someone just said something to me, and now I'm feeling guilty, and I'm going to sit here and I'm going to allow the guilt to wash over me and I'm going to order what I want to order anyways. Both of those are not easy. Both of this is both of these are a skill that has to be learned in practice. This is the kind of work we do in my coaching program. So join me, if you're if you're resonating and leaning forward and thinking, Yes, I need this help. It's hard to do. It's simple, but it's hard to do, but it needs to be practiced. The problem is we don't have the skill of being able to feel negative emotions or be able to change the way we're thinking to support ourselves. So when you're out to eat, the problem isn't the food, the problem isn't you. The problem isn't that you don't have willpower. The problem isn't that you always mess things up. The problem is is you're not as skilled as you need to be at managing your mind and feeling your emotions. That's all. There's nothing inherently wrong with you. In fact, you are doing what you are programmed to do. You are wanting to survive, wanting to feel part of the group, wanting to feel happy. It's just in current society right now, we're making it really hard, aren't we, with the amount of food available and with the types of food available. I'm going to give you another example that so many of my clients come to me with. We are overloading our schedules. We are saying yes too often, especially when we want to say no. We are doing too much for everyone else, and we know it. I mean, I this is, this goes back to the first example I told you about me, right? We're doing too much, we're overloading our schedules, and we don't like it. But there is a secret little like, I'm amazing that I'm getting this done happening as well. I'm not going to go into that today, but we know that we're doing too much, and we know we're not taking care of ourselves, and then we're resentful, we're emotionally and physically exhausted, and then we eat. The problem isn't the eating, the problem is the overloading. And the solution you're choosing is eating to make yourself feel better. This was the solution I was choosing, and I'm saying it like this, on purpose. Back then, when I tell you about that me and the farmers market, I was choosing to comfort myself with food, and then I was choosing to tell myself it doesn't really matter. I'm just going to keep on eating. Since I already ate this afternoon when I got home from the market, when you're overloading yourself, I want you to see it as I'm choosing to overload myself. I'm choosing to say yes when I really want to say no, and I am choosing the solution of making myself feel better by eating. I'm trying to distract myself from the fact that I'm not living the way I want to live. And so let me tell you what is available to you. You can start fixing that. You can still be wonderful and giving and doing a lot for other people. I know that that's in you. God knows it's in me. I love taking care of all the people, but we can shift it. So now we're taking care of ourself as well. It's not or it's and let's also and take care of ourselves, and then eating better becomes the bonus. It's almost like again, it's a two for one, you're going to make your life better. You're going to like how you are showing up day to day in your life better, and you're going to get in the best shape of your life. Doesn't that sound amazing? You have an opportunity to fix the overloading, to fix the relationship, to fix the people pleasing, to fix your time management, to fix your dedication to your business or your nonprofit or whatever. So next time you catch yourself thinking something like, I need to stop eating or I just need to eat better, I want you to realize it's deeper than this. When we say to ourselves that it's just the food, oh, we need you to see better. It's almost kind of like, like an analogy I like to think of is it's like laying out all day and burning and then telling ourselves I need to stop burning, when what you need to do is buy and apply and reapply sunscreen. When you get good at having something happen during the day that would normally frustrate you or normally make you sad or resentful, and then you get good at being intentional with what you want to think on purpose you don't have to go home and eat your eat to make yourself feel better when your kids annoy or frustrate you, and you know how to manage your mind around that you don't have to go and eat to make yourself feel better. When you solve the real problems of your life, you change your life, and at the same time, you eat better, and you change your body and the same. Same thing. The opposite happens, too. I find that if you can get yourself really dialing into your your body and eating better and feeling great in your body, that makes your whole life better too. So any program that doesn't have this mental piece to it where you are actually being able to reframe everything in your life in order to not have to comfort, comfort yourself with food, if a program doesn't have that, it's not going to be a sustainable program. This is what makes weight loss sustainable by you becoming the master, not only of your eating, but of your life. So I want to mention one last thing that can happen sometimes, is sometimes you can be using food as a comfort, like as a solution. For a really long time, maybe you're at a job, you just really don't feel fulfilled, and then you feel like, you know what? I only have two more years till I retire, and maybe throughout that job last few years before you retire, you are using food to comfort yourself because you're really frustrated or stressed out at your job. So you might think, beautiful, I'm going to when I retire, this isn't going to be a problem anymore. But sometimes what I've seen that can happen is, even though you take away the stressor, your eating and living has become so habitual. You know, those neuro pathways are so hard wired that it's really hard to just switch over. You don't just all of a sudden start eating healthy, because the stressor is gone. It's almost like you can take the stressor away, but now you still have built the habit around eating the food that way. So this is something for you. If you feel like, God, I really am happy. I don't have that job anymore, I'm I'm out of that toxic relationship anymore or whatever, why am I still eating? It's possibly because you've built the habits, and you need to build some new neural pathways and some new habits in your life. So I want to leave you with a question. Ask yourself, yes, food is delicious, but why am I really eating? What is the real problem? If you buy into this idea that food is actually the solution, which I promise you, it is, then what is the real problem? If, and I would dig deep for this, if you have a hard time coming up with it, I wonder if, for you, if it's gotten to a place where maybe this is just a habit and there's no real problem anymore, and we just need to unravel that habit, and we just need to rewire your brain and have you be willing to feel some negative emotions, think differently and move forward that way. But when you get the opportunity to fix the problems in your life in a mature, emotionally intelligent way, and then, because of that, you don't have to turn to food or drink, it's it's a life changing process. So if you want to do this work with me, I want you to head to modern body, modern life.com, and join me in the summer edition of the modern change program. Can't wait. Have a great Tuesday for information on how we can work together. Head to modern body, modern life.com, to schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs. I.