326. Mayo Clinic on Nutrition: The Four Triggers Behind Emotional Eating

You find yourself standing in front of the kitchen counter, not knowing why you’re there. Or you’re out at a work event already thinking about when you’ll be able to get home and be alone with food. You’re not actually hungry, but you feel pulled there anyway. It’s urgent, buzzy, and hard to talk yourself out of, even when some part of you knows this isn’t really about the food.

What we often call emotional eating is usually a message from your nervous system. Food can soothe. It can give you the almost-feeling of being comforted, supported, and cared for. But as Dr. Deborah MacNamara says, “There’s nothing as addictive as something that almost works.” When the deeper need is safety or belonging, managing the behavior without understanding what it’s protecting only keeps you stuck in the same loop.

In this episode of the Truce with Food podcast, I’m sharing my conversation with dietitian Tara Schmidt from Mayo Clinic’s On Nutrition podcast to walk through the first step of my Truce with Food framework and what it reveals about emotional eating. We talk about why food noise can feel so urgent, the patterns that keep people from getting their needs met, what our food memories reveal about belonging, and how to begin breaking the cycle without turning it into another perfectionist project.

4:00 – How Ali’s interview on Tara’s podcast came together, and why I wanted to re-air it on Truce with Food

10:07 – The next best step you can take after listening to this episode

14:03 – What inspired Ali to specialize in helping people heal their relationship with food

17:15 – Four main triggers (and the unmet needs within) behind emotional eating

22:11 – How your physiology and psychology can influence each other due to the tiredness trigger

23:41 – The types of food emotional eaters go to, and the relationship between food noise and emotional eating

30:02 – Three behavioral patterns of comfort eating and how they serve as protection strategies 

35:25 – Those who don’t eat based on their emotions, and why some people mindlessly overeat

37:36 – How to support someone who you think struggles with emotional eating without making them feel uncomfortable

39:28 – How to pause the reflex of emotional eating (and the one time you shouldn’t)

42:37 – How one client went from decades on medication to selling her business and feeling at home in her own body by ending her emotional eating cycle

Mentioned In Mayo Clinic on Nutrition: The Four Triggers Behind Emotional Eating

A Holistic Approach to GLP-1s with Mayo Clinic Dietitian Tara Schmidt

Mayo Clinic on Nutrition Podcast with Tara Schmidt, RDN

Institute for Integrative Nutrition | Dr. Mark Hyman

Dr. Deborah MacNamara | Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for Our Kids (And Everyone Else We Love) by Dr. Deborah MacNamara

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

Transcript

Ali Shapiro: Welcome to Truce With Food, the podcast where we stop fighting food and start addressing the deeper story of what you suspect is going on, but can't put your finger on because the focus on food is a waste of your precious time, resources and life. 

And one of the big things that my clients come to realize is that the tired trigger comes from lack of agency. And so agency is an independent choice. It's, oh, I feel like all of this stuff is happening to me and I just have to say yes, or I just have to do it. And there's no shortage of things that want our attention anymore. And if a lot of what's on our plate feels like, oh, I just have to get through that. I just have to get through that. I just have to get through that. That's exhausting, right? 

Tara Schmidt: I feel like I'm in therapy right now. 

I'm your host, Ali Shapiro, an integrated health expert with a 19-year proven track record of client success. I'm a 33-year and counting cancer survivor and creator of the research-based Truce with Food framework that came out of my own personal experience from recovering from cancer and yo-yo dieting. Because you name it, I had tried it. I also have a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. I'm affectionately called people's last best resort and a coach's coach as people come to me, when they've tried everything and nothing's worked long term. This show is where we quiet the noise, so we can go deep to get you the results you deserve. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personal, individual or medical advice. Now onto the show. 

Hey, it's Allie and it is summer, summer time. So we're mixing up today. The episode you're about to hear isn't a Truce With Food original. It's me actually as a guest on the Mayo Clinic's On Health podcast. Yes, the Mayo Clinic. And I asked if I could bring it over here and play it for you, within the Truce With Food podcast, because it is one of the clearest introductions to my Truce with Food work that I've been a part of recently. And I know we have so many new people who have recently found this podcast. Before I tell you how it all came together, here's why I think it's really worth your time, no matter where you are in your food journey, because you always hear things differently, when you're in a new phase. If you've ever found yourself at the kitchen counter at three in the afternoon, not actually hungry, just kind of pulled there or out at a work event, or somewhere else and thinking about when you're going to be able to be alone with food, this episode gives you a way to understand what's actually going on. 

I walk Tara, the Mayo Clinic's On Health podcast host, through the first step in my Truce with Food framework, which I use in all my programs and with all my clients. I call it Tail, as in what's at the tail end of that phantom hunger, with phantom hunger being you're not hungry yet you're pulled to food. And it's often with this urgent, buzzy, more energy. It comes down to four main feelings. And once you can name the one that's driving your phantom or non-hunger eating, you can start catching yourself before you're sitting there eating in ways you don't want to be eating, thinking, how am I here again? Okay. I'm not going to give away all four here. That's what the episode is for. So really enjoy that. If you're just wondering, where do I start? I know something deeper is going on, but I don't know what it is. Or if you're like, I've figured out some of my triggers, but there's clearly still more, this episode's for you. 

So how did this all come together? 

A while back, I had Tara Schmidt on, she's a dietician for the Mayo Clinic on the Truce with Food podcast, to talk about a holistic approach to GLP-1s and GLPs in general. And we really clicked. I know so many of you emailed me saying like, I love this episode. And we really clicked. My favorite people to have on this show are evidence-based people, so they have some real evidence and they're also curious and open-minded, who they can hold, we know so much and so little and the science is always evolving, okay? So Tara already had a really deep understanding about how food is so emotional and food not being totally about the food. She works with people as a dietitian day in and day out, okay? So most of us who have been in this for a hot minute, more than a hot minute, we're like, something else is going on, right? And she's so compassionate, which goes a long way in really understanding the problem. 

And so in our conversation on my Truce with Food podcast, I had some things that had piqued her interest. So after the show, she said she wanted to talk more about my approach to emotional eating and invited me on to the Mayo Clinic podcast. And I of course said yes. I was like, the Mayo Clinic? Like they're doing some of the most cutting edge stuff in the world. And as someone who's been out here doing my work independently and I often feel like an outsider, both in conventional medicine and the wellness world, both of them, because this food is safety as belonging thread is not looked at, let alone talked about. And so those of you who have been participants in my program, we talk about one of the emotional needs that we have is really being seen and heard and recognized. And I get that so much from my clients, who love my work and who we work together with. And that is amazing. And so many of you who I hear on the podcast, and it feels really like f-ing good to be recognized by someone like the Mayo Clinic. So I was really excited, honored and just so grateful that they were open to this. 

And recording with Tara was so fun and human. That is even more rare than when we recorded this a few months ago. Before, it felt like, at least to me, AI slop has exploded all over the internet. So at one point, she actually forgot which of us was hosting the episode. And then somewhere in the middle, Tara stops and says, I feel like I'm in therapy right now. I needed this so bad. So none of this was planned. It just happened organically, which is what happens, when you start pulling this belonging thread honestly and humanly. And so here's why I wanted to re-air this on my Truce With Food podcast. When I started doing this work, almost 20 years ago, none of it was mainstream. Functional medicine wasn't and definitely not the belonging as food and safety piece. The idea that food is about so much more than willpower and discipline, that your cravings or that unstoppable drive to eat might be information and not sabotage was fringe. Frankly, it's still fringe, but it's less fringe. 

So now you understand why I feel like such an outsider sometimes. When I'd be out and about and people would be like, you know, in America, the first question is like, so what do you do? And I'd try to explain it. You could see that, yes, I'm nodding, but I don't really get it face. So I felt pretty alone out there saying it. So to now sit across from the Mayo Clinic, one of the most trusted names in medicine, and hear them being open to this kind of conversation feels really, really incredible. It feels as if the whole field is catching up to something a lot of us who've struggled with food and our bodies, we've probably felt for a long time. And now the people who need this type of information don't need to have to go digging at the margins to find it anymore. They can hear it from the Mayo Clinic now. This thrills me to no end to think about how many women, especially, can stop wasting so much time fighting food and their bodies and instead get to the real issue, which is taking our needs seriously and taking them seriously enough to get them met. And when that happens, we feel great in our bodies, in our lives, and we can age really well. 

I don't know about you, but I know a culture who could use a bunch of wise women representing themselves in their grounded wisdom right about now. I think that might just solve everything. Anyways, I digress. The other reason I picked this episode is that it's a beginning, an entry point. So much of my work and what we talk about, here, on the podcast, goes really deep. This work is for the intrepid. And I love going deep with you. And Tara has a real gift for keeping things grounded. She asks the questions someone new to this work would really ask and she lets herself be the example. And I love as she's sharing her favorite food memory, you can almost hear the food as belonging puzzle piece snap into place for her, in real time. That that warmth she's describing was really never about the food. There's so many practical moments like this, you're sure to have a few ahas of your own. So if you're newer to my TRUCE FOR FOOD podcast or work, or there's someone in your life you've wanted to share my work with and never knew where to start, this episode is the ideal place to begin. Please send them this podcast, if you know someone who would benefit from my work. I'm so appreciative of those of you who share this show. It really means a lot, especially as an independent creator and small business owner. I can't emphasize that enough. 

And here's the next best step I can give you. If you really liked this episode and you're like, I need to take the next step after that, go to trucewithfood.com and take the assessment I made. It's called “Find Your Food Stage”. It doesn't take long, but it's going to hit, it’s going to hit, as the young kids say and it will be well worth your time. And there's no wrong answers. I see you. A lot of my clients identify as perfectionists. There's no right or wrong. It's just like, where am I really on this journey? And by the end, you'll know which of the four stages you're in with food right now and what's the right work to do at your stage. Because if you're trying to run before you can walk, you will burn out. And most of us try to do that at first until we're exhausted. And then we conclude that we're just too weak or broken or we're the problem, instead of I'm just not doing things in the right order. And I can tell you with what I've already seen in the hundreds of results, hundreds of you have already taken this, more than eight out of 10 people who take it land in stage one or two. 

This isn't a grade or means something is wrong. In fact, the four stages are just the path. Everyone moves through. It's really the process of real sustainable and transformative change. And stage one and stage two are simply where it starts. The good news is, most people think they're at the end of the line, because they're like, I know what to do, but doing it. The good news is, there's two more stages that closes that gap that 99.9% of people don't know about, including practitioners themselves. So stage one and two are where our current cultural conversation takes us. So it makes sense most of you are there, whether you're trying to leave diet culture, you've left it 20 years ago and have done health at every size, body positivity, have struggled with an intuitive eating, whatever it is, those are often kind of those first couple stages, okay? 

Because that's where our cultural conversation is right now. And this is again why I'm so excited to have this conversation on the Mayo Clinic, which is helping push this conversation further and wider. And this is where this episode meets you. Stage four, where food barely takes up room in your head anymore, except, oh, I need to eat and it feels very neutral and you're really feeling great and getting the results you want, that comes later. But most of us try to start here and then think that we're broken. And again, I did this for 18 years, so no judgment. Versus doing the foundational work that will take you where you want to go. I'm not going to describe stage four here. I don't want to lead the witnesses. So rather find out where you are, so you can know what you have to do to get where you want to go. And that assessment is also a doorway into something I'm building right now for exactly where many of you are landing. It is not quite ready, but almost. If you have kids, you know, summer schedules are a thing, but the door is already open and it starts with taking the assessment at trucewithfood.com. 

So we got to get to the episode. I'm cutting myself off, but one more small thing. You will hear Tara call my show insatiable and that was its name before it became Truce with Food. So if you catch that, I don't want it to trip you up. So insatiable was the title for 10 years and we've recently renamed it to Truce with Food. Okay, here's my conversation with Tara Schmidt on the Mayo Clinic on Nutrition podcast. I know you will love Tara as much as I do and get a lot out of this conversation. 

Tara Schmidt: Hey, Ali. 

Ali Shapiro: Oh, my God. Welcome, Tara. I love when we get together. 

Tara Schmidt: Wait, I'm welcoming you. I'm the host. 

Ali Shapiro: I know. 

Tara Schmidt: You just said welcome. I say welcome. Welcome, Ali. 

Ali Shapiro: Thank you, Tara. I'm so happy to be here. 

Tara Schmidt: I know. I love hanging out with you. I love doing podcast episodes with you. This is our jam. It's my favorite. So I am so excited to have you on. And I want to hear a little bit more about you getting into your line of work. So you specialize in helping people really heal their relationship with food, which is so cool. What inspired what you do now? 

Ali Shapiro: I think most of us who get into nutrition, many of us have our own struggles with food in the past. I was 11 and I asked my parents to take me to Weight Watchers, because I had been struggling with my weight. And I know some people were like, your parents let you go. But like my parents, they were teachers. Any idea I had, they were like, sure. So everything was about learning. And so I struggled with my weight. And then two years later, I was actually diagnosed with cancer and I lost a ton of weight from chemotherapy. And because I grew up in the 80s and 90s, I think similar to you, it was a period where we really thought thinness equaled health. So in my 13-year-old brain, it was like, oh my God, to stay healthy, I need to stay thin, even though I was thin, because I was having a near-death experience. But that doesn't compute when the culture is telling you thinness is the key to health. And then I was like all of a sudden I could fit in clothes. You start getting attention from boys and I was like so excited about that. So I really wanted to hold on to this thinness and equating it with kind of keeping myself cancer-free at the time. And I could kind of outrun what I would consider emotional eating. Like I would always joke diet starts tomorrow. But then I went on to college and then I went into my first job with a boss that she and I like really did not get along and I had never struggled with academics or work before. I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome and I had been struggling with depression. So long story short, when I was around 26, I found the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is a holistic nutrition school. Dr. Mark Hyman was one of the teachers and he had introduced functional medicine there. This was 18 years ago before it was pretty big. 

Tara Schmidt: Before he had a podcast. 

Ali Shapiro: But this was when it was more like fringe. And I essentially, I had tried everything Western medicine offered, but it just wasn't working for me personally, everyone's different. But I really connected that a lot of my problems, a lot of my depression, my irritable bowel syndrome and a lot of the acne were from my gut health, from the chemotherapy and the trauma of that. So long story short, it was like this, whoa, food could be medicine. Like, I thought it was just calories. Like, isn't this only about weight? So that's how I got into it. And then I was really able to get a little bit better at eating, getting my blood sugar balanced and learning about gut health. But then I would find periods when I couldn't keep it up. I had since learned like, okay, sugar tends to feed on cancer. But then when I would go for my scans, from the time I scheduled the appointment to the time I got the results to find out that I was free of cancer, I was like binging on sugar for like a month. And I was like, why am I doing this? And so I was like, maybe if the same way that my irritable bowel syndrome and my depression were symptoms for me, maybe my falling off track is a symptom. And so that's led me to realize that food is really about safety and belonging more than willpower and discipline. So that's how I got here. 

Tara Schmidt: And I think your take on emotional eating is just so unique and different from what a lot of like surfacy education that we do. Like you are stressed or you are tired or you are sad and that's all true. But I think you really dig deep with your clients. So tell me about some of the common root emotions that you help people with that are behind emotional eating. There's four main triggers. 

Ali Shapiro: But within each trigger, there are unmet needs. I always tell people what you want to think of as TAIL. What's at the tail end of my food choice, my food noise. And TAIL stands for tired, anxious, inadequate and loneliness. So tired, we'll start there. The trigger is tiredness. It's an emotional state where everything looks worse than it really is, right? But the tired trigger, the need there is rest. And there are a lot of different types of rest. And one of the big things that my clients come to realize is that the tired trigger comes from lack of agency. And so agency is independent choice. It's, oh, I feel like all of this stuff is happening to me and I just have to say yes, or I just have to do it. And there's no shortage of things that want our attention anymore. And if a lot of what's on our plate feels like, I just have to get through that. I just have to get through that. I just have to get through that. That's exhausting, right? 

Tara Schmidt: I feel like I'm in therapy right now. I needed this so bad.  

Ali Shapiro: Oh, did you?

Tara Schmidt: I have a lot of deadlines, literally that are due eight days from now. And I'm like, OK, Tara, you've got to work on saying no. But if I say no to this opportunity, what if it leads to less opportunities in the future? So I should just say yes. And this is bad timing, because I said yes to this one. Oh, my God. OK, keep going. Keep it there. 

Ali Shapiro: But let me ask you, how does your energy feel with that pressure looming? 

Tara Schmidt: It's exhausting. 

Ali Shapiro: Right? 

Tara Schmidt: I'm tired. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, wired but tired in this way, right? 

Tara Schmidt: Oh, I like that. 

Ali Shapiro: So what ends up happening is like we have this need for rest. Agency is what I really identified feeling like, okay, how do I want to approach this instead of I just have to get through the deadline. That's an example of agency. It's like, okay, maybe I need to get up and take a walk and clear my head and I don't feel like I can do it. It feels unsafe to actually get my needs met. And that's where food comes into the picture. 

Tara Schmidt: Okay, so that's the T in the TAIL acronym. So next we have A for anxiety. Break that down for us. 

Ali Shapiro: The anxious trigger is when uncertainty is coming from the outside. So we just came out of COVID and we know from the data that like drinking went up, eating went up. A lot of our vices went up and it was because things were so uncertain. They were unpredictable. Like I had some clients, they had grown up with food insecurity as kids. And then when there wasn't enough food in the grocery stores, it was like, I'm emotionally eating it. So anxiousness is when I think of things outside of our control. 

Tara Schmidt: What about the I? Inadequacy. 

Ali Shapiro: Inadequacy is when it's like the uncertainty is coming from ourselves, the self-doubt. I feel like I'm not enough. How am I going to get this done? Let me go eat and almost eat through while I'm doing it. Like that's your procrastination eating. 

Tara Schmidt: Yes, distraction. 

Ali Shapiro: Distraction. That's when you go out and you're trying to lose weight and you feel like you're failing and you say, if I get the pizza, are people going to think I'm not trying hard enough? Or if you're with your healthy friends, you're like, I have to get the salad even though I don't want it, but I have to look like I'm going with the flow here. 

Tara Schmidt: These are my salad friends. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. That's where the inadequacy comes. 

Tara Schmidt: Got it. So what about the last trigger, loneliness? 

Ali Shapiro: Loneliness. And I think this is really important, because we all know loneliness is this epidemic, right? We had the previous Surgeon General focus on this. This is like, what do they say, like loneliness is the new smoking? 

Tara Schmidt: Or like area of concern. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But loneliness, the technical definition is your social needs aren't getting met. So you can be around other people and feel really alone. People in my groups are like, I haven't told anyone else I'm doing this. My husband doesn't know. I've only told one other friend who gets it. And it's like when we feel like whatever makes us feel really alone in the world, we can't share with other people. And that can be accompanied by shame, it can be accompanied by guilt and sometimes those things can make us feel really alone. Like I have a lot of clients who come to me after getting sober and so food was either their original issue or became an issue, but now that they don't have the alcohol to make them feel like they belong and part of something, they feel even more isolated because they're still learning this new way of being in the world and it can feel very lonely, when you're new to that and drinking has been normalized even though it's unhealthy. So those are some examples but those are the four triggers. 

Tara Schmidt: Tell me more about if there's any kind of biological mechanisms happening here. So you're talking a lot about kind of external, psychological, emotional, or anything internal happening. Higher cortisol is very trendy right now, if that can be a trend. Talking about it, I feel like it's trendy. What about biologically or physiologically? 

Ali Shapiro: I really think of the physiology and psychology as like an infinity loop influencing each other. So I'll give you an example. I talked about tiredness not being just about sleep, but as someone who struggled with insomnia for three years, I can tell you that when we're sleep-deprived, our cessation goes down, but everything feels worse. So you have this physical stuff of like, oh my God, I need to eat more. A lot of people who struggle with the tired trigger come with the, I deserve this eating. Like they're just kind of trying to be productive, trying to go. And it's like, when you're dragging and your satiation isn't what it quite is, you're probably going to eat more. Even if it's, I deserve this eating, you're probably going to need more to feel satiated, because of the lack of sleep. Or if you think of anxiety, right, if your blood sugar is crashing, I have so many clients, again, because we've looked at food mainly through diet culture, it's I'm feeling a reduction in my anxiety when my blood sugar is balanced. And again, that's your biology working. If your blood sugar is crashing, it wants you to be a little bit panicked. So those are some of the physiologic things that I think once they're addressed, they give us even more capacity and strength to tackle the emotional stuff. 

Tara Schmidt: Do you see any connection between the types of food that people crave and that root emotion? 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. When you look at the foods that emotional eaters go for, it tends to be sweet carbs or ice cream, dairy stuff. And when we say comfort foods, we say that like we're beating ourselves up, like I need comfort. We have a primal need to be comforted, to be interdependent with other people. 

Tara Schmidt: Let's talk more about food noise, another trendy term, especially in the world of GLP-1s. Kind of those constant intrusive thoughts about food. You and I talked about this on your podcast. Do you think there's a relationship between food noise and emotional eating? 

Ali Shapiro: So I tend to think things are multifactorial. With food noise and I'm going to borrow some of my clients' language, but they describe it as like urgent. It's not just like, what am I going to eat for dinner? It's like... I cannot wait to get home by myself and go and eat. So it's that urgent, frenetic kind of... And so I think the physical causes of food noise are often your blood sugar is not balanced, like you're not nourished. You may be eating calories, but you're not getting the proper nutrition. You're not getting enough protein, enough fat, enough carbs. And you talked about this on my podcast. I mean, that's how the GLP ones work. They really help with physical satiation. But for a lot of my clients, it's like, no, I know I'm not hungry. And so this is when food is really about wanting the safety of belonging, to have someone to make us feel mothered, held and comforted in what's hard for us. So to give people like a really concrete understanding of what belonging is, I want to ask you, Tara, when I ask you, think of one of your best food memories, like what pops to mind? 

Tara Schmidt: Baking with my grandma is one. 

Ali Shapiro: What would you bake? 

Tara Schmidt: Everything. Bread. Making pie with my mom and my mom learned how to make pies from my grandma. It would probably be like making food, likely sweets or carbohydrates, right? This is not like making a salad. Making food with just happens to be female members of my family. I think my grandma's probably why I'm a dietician. 

Ali Shapiro: And so I was going to say, what was your relationship like with your grandma? 

Tara Schmidt: Oh, lovely. Yeah. My daughter has her middle name. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Oh, my grandma was like my person. I always said she was like my second mom. And my grandma was super into nutrition, like super progressive about it. But what you're describing is like the food was part of it, but it was I was with someone who like was lovely. We had such a strong relationship and influenced my career. That's belonging, right? 

Tara Schmidt: And, like, as a child, they gave me autonomy. Like, here, Tara, like, you can measure the flour. I probably didn't measure it perfectly well, but, like, they let me do that and they taught me, like, the right way to do it, so I didn't mess it up the next time. So not only, like, the memory of the people and the food, but, like, the memory of belonging. Like, you can make food for our family, even though there's probably going to be shells in that bowl. 

Ali Shapiro: Whenever I ask clients that, it's so funny, people always be like, oh my God, the weirdest memories coming up. It always ends up being a grandparent or someone that they said is like, I felt accepted unconditionally. Dr. Deborah McNamara, who's an amazing developmental psychologist, she talks about how nature designed food to be coupled with belonging. And so I always tell my clients, it's really belonging served with a side of food, right? But food is the thing that brings us to rest, that we can like really feel that belonging. I always say we like know but don't remember that food is just automatically this place of rest, of feeling resourced, of feeling loved. And that's why we turn to it. And Dr. Deborah McNamara has talked about how it actually stimulates attachment chemicals. And she says, nothing is addictive as something that almost works. Food soothes but does not satiate our deeper belonging needs. And so we get almost that feeling of someone's in it with us, someone's loving us, but we actually need the caretaking, which could be giving ourselves rest. It could be calling a friend or a sister and like really sharing how we're feeling and them not trying to fix it and just being like, yeah, that's hard. It's really hard to not be sleeping for two years and be like, oh, yeah. Right. Even you being like, oh, my God, I have so many deadlines. 

Tara Schmidt: That's insane to me. Yeah. 

Ali Shapiro: So to your question, I just think that's food and attachment and belonging and what belonging really is. And I don't know if you have any. Do you have any hard food memories? 

Tara Schmidt: Oh, like bad memories? 

Tara Schmidt: Yeah. 

Tara Schmidt: Oh. I wasn't prepared for that. Ali, I am supposed to be asking the questions. 

Ali Shapiro: For teaching purposes. 

Tara Schmidt: Okay. I have negative memories where I remember what I was eating. So the food has nothing to do with the memory or the negativity, but I know what we had for dinner that night or like I know what was on my plate at that time. 

Ali Shapiro: And I love that you can see that it wasn't about the food. It's like that lack of belonging felt at risk. It wasn't about the food, but it was like, was there tension in the house? Or like some of my clients, they were the person in their family that struggled with their weight. And so it was like, my negative food memories are feeling like all alone and trying to diet or being criticized. Or my family was lovely, but I couldn't fit in the clothes that my siblings could. Or I was made fun of at school. I had one client, I remember her telling me, I would walk home from school and I was always afraid of what my dad was going to say about my grades, even though she tended to be an A student. And so she's like, I would always stop at the mini mart on the way home. And that was her buffer of like, I'm not going to get the support at home. I even think of my own, I couldn't name this until like 10 years later, but I felt so alone and having cancer as a teenager. No one could relate to that. I mean, I was one of the only people that I remember in my grade struggling with their weight. So we look at the hard food memories and that absence of safety, that absence of feeling like we could turn to someone or find support is there. So once you see this, you can't unsee it, but you just need someone to name it. 

Tara Schmidt: You named different patterns of comfort eating. There's those that compete, avoid, or accommodate. Do you want to explain those? 

Ali Shapiro: People often think they know their triggers. They'll say it's stress eating. Okay, well, what specifically is stressing you out? So what ends up happening, we'll take your exhaustion example. And feeling tired and then I learn I need some form of rest, whether it's like, what deadlines are movable, maybe I have to ask my husband, I need some time to myself, can you take the kiddos? Whatever it is. But then we don't do that. My clients are like, I hate the fact that this involves having needs. 

Tara Schmidt: I don't have needs. I'm superwoman. I don't need anything. 

Ali Shapiro: Yes, yes. In fact, people who do are needy, not human. They're needy. They're high maintenance. They're a burden, right? And this is what we're afraid of. So what these types of eatings are protection strategies. And like, again, for everyone listening, all of this makes sense. Why we fall off track makes sense. Why we use these strategies makes sense. We've earned them. Those that use the compete strategy, they tend to be the eaters who are just like, I'm just eating to get through this. Like I had a client who's like, I don't get it. Like at the end of every night, it's like me, my husband and my son and we're all just chilling. But then I just get these bowls of cereal and I just want to get through it. And that's how they approach their work. That's how they approach life, when things are hard. I just want to get through it. And we're kind of always thinking like, related to food or weight loss or healing, it's like, okay, I'm ahead by 400 calories. I'm ahead or behind. I got to do more. I got to do more. And so the eating, right, how we eat is like, it's just a mirror of how we're living our lives. And that's because we've been rewarded for being accomplished. So the eating a lot of times is giving the energy to keep going, but it's also just like, how can you slow down when your whole life is like on 90 miles an hour? 

Tara Schmidt: Okay, so that's the compete strategy. What about the avoid strategy? 

Ali Shapiro: Avoid tends to be when we don't want to rock the boat, we don't want to look high maintenance and we're really stuck in perfectionism. So this is why when we are in this avoid mode, it's like, I have work to do, but first I'm going to get something because my expectations for myself are so high. 

Tara Schmidt: Productive procrastination. Have you heard this? 

Ali Shapiro: Yes

Tara Schmidt: Okay, that's me. Productive procrastination. I'm going to reorganize my sock drawer. 

Ali Shapiro: Yes, exactly. 

Tara Schmidt: I don't have to do the work thing I'm afraid of, but I'm going to feel good, because I just reorganized my sock drawer. I wasn't scrolling, I was reorganizing my sock drawer. Look at me.

Ali Shapiro: Or some of my clients have tried intuitive eating and found it really hard because of the emotional component or because processed foods. They'll be like, I try to check in and it's just messy. Not only with, oh, I fell off track, everything's ruined. Rather than being like, what worked here? What do I need to learn? What do I need to improve upon? It's like, it's all so messy. I'm just going to avoid that. So we do that with our eating. We do that with exercise. Like, it doesn't count if I'm not sweaty and burning over 500 calories. A walk doesn't count. Oh, it does. It does. 

Tara Schmidt: It doesn't count if you're not wearing your Apple watch. 

Ali Shapiro: We need an upgrade like, if a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? It's like the Apple Watch doesn't tell you what happened. So that's the avoid eating protection pattern. Right. But again, you can see how it's about the food. It comes out in the food, but it's also not about the food. Like if you were like, oh, my God, was there a typo in that email? I need to check it four times. I need some safety here. I need some support. 

Tara Schmidt: What about the accommodate strategy? 

Ali Shapiro: The accommodate strategy is really about kind of people pleasing. So if the compete is more I think of like hustle culture and avoid is more perfectionism, the accommodate is really about people pleasing. And it could be people pleasing your dietician. They told me to eat like this and I messed up and I'm not going to tell them, which they would be lovely to help you through that. But again, I'm afraid of like risking that connection that we have if I disappoint them. This goes back to am I with my salad friends or am I with my... We don't need healthy friends. Am I with my athletic friends or am I like, why waste time walking? So it's like, I'm going to accommodate whatever the group is doing. Or like, for example, I had one client, she could not figure out. She did the traditional rules. I'm going to look ahead of time at the menu before I go out with my friends, would never follow through. And I was like, well, why would it make sense? What is the tail trigger? And she realized that there was anxiety there and she felt like she had to keep the conversation going. I'm the one to fix this whole evening and accommodate this idea that it should be a good time and it's all on me. My clients tend to be uber responsible. So it's okay. So this is not really about the food, right? And the awesome thing is once you realize other people would jump in, her food became easy and she stopped drinking a lot too. She said, I didn't realize I was eating and drinking for the same reason. So the accommodate pattern is where we're just really trying to fix everything, make people really happy. Everyone else avoids discomfort and then we quietly die inside or get resentful. Eventually we notice it, right? So those are the three strategies that people use to not get their own needs met and then turn to food. And they don't know they're not getting their own needs met or that they even have needs at the time. That's part of the issue. 

Tara Schmidt: Yes. Now let's talk a little bit about the opposite, because there's always someone who's going to say like well that's not me, right? So what about people who essentially do the opposite, like they don't eat based on their emotional state? Do you have clients like that too? 

Ali Shapiro: Yes. I don't work with anyone with active eating disorders, because you need to stabilize that first, but I have people who have come from anorexic backgrounds and all the things. Remember I was talking about how when we go to the bready foods and like the ice cream, we really want that grounded, that sense of comfort that we get from our favorite caretakers. I find when people don't eat, they don't know they want that support. It's almost like I don't trust that any caretaking is going to be there. And I also find that when we want to feel grounded and rooted, it's almost like we do want to feel, we do want to process. When people lose their appetite from stress, it's almost like I can't even go there to feel. It's too much. 

Tara Schmidt: Yeah, so people who are not eating are essentially like using not eating as an avoidance strategy. 

Ali Shapiro: Yes, you got it. 

Tara Schmidt: So sometimes mindless overeating can truly get physically uncomfortable, like your stomach expands, you don't feel well and you know you're physically full, but your brain hasn't allowed you to stop yet. What's happening there? 

Ali Shapiro: I think this speaks to the emotional piece. Intellectually, I know I'm full. I know I'm not hungry. And emotionally, I'm still starving. And so you can override that. And one thing that I find really fascinating, I'm going to bring in Dr. Deborah McNamara's work again here. She has a wonderful book called “Nourished”, but she has this chapter on Maslow. And I don't know if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's like we need our physical needs met. And I think belonging is like third up there. But she said in her book, Maslow didn't have the benefit of neuroscience. And we now know that belonging is even more important than getting your primal needs met, because belonging, when you're a kid, ensures that those primal needs will get met. Belonging is so important. It's what your body is primed for. It’s scanning for that all the time.

Tara Schmidt: If you have someone in your life who you believe struggles with emotional eating, how do we support them without crossing the boundary? How do we silently support someone? Maybe that's it, right? Because I would never want to bring up a topic that made someone feel uncomfortable, or maybe they don't even recognize it yet. Do you have any advice? 

Ali Shapiro: People who are struggling with food usually know they have a problem and there's a ton of shame, right? So if anyone were to approach it, even if it's coming from a helpful place, the tone of it is going to be criticism. Like if you were to say, so are you struggling? They hear, you're struggling, you're wrong. I'm watching you struggle. Oh my God, my worst fears that you were judging me are true. Everyone says, yes, judging you. It's like all that. And so what I think the best thing to do is offer your own experience if you have struggled. Because when you're struggling with food and there is shame, you think you're the only one. And so if someone else were to say, me too, it just softens it. So I think if you want to support someone, it's offering your own experience in like appropriate context of, oh my God, when I sit here, I just want to eat all of them. So you make it about you, not about them. And then when they feel the opening is right, I think that they will do that. 

Tara Schmidt: Absolutely. Oh, I love that answer. I love that. And cravings and urges is huge in this emotional eating space, right? Like we've talked food noise, we've talked like just like that. I don't know. Your body is like pulling you towards something. I don't think it's as easy as like, go drink a glass of water. The thoughtfulness in that was probably came from a good place. But if someone wants to tell someone who's dealing with a food craving to go drink a glass of water, I have something that I think they should go to. 

Ali Shapiro: I know, right? 

Tara Schmidt: So are there strategies or specific activities that you have people do to help them pause the reflex of emotional eating? Even if they do end up eating something, how do we build in that mindfulness before the action? 

Ali Shapiro: Well, I think when it's super urgent, especially if it's a binge, right? Binging to me, the triggers are much more acute and chronic compared to someone who's just like, I deserve this at the end of the night. And it's like, too much chocolate that keeps me up at night. They're very different. But I think in the beginning when it's super urgent, you don't even try to prevent it. You just say it's going to happen. And then after the fact, the self-care is why does this make sense? What was the tail trigger? What did I need? And because in the beginning, again, we could call it your nervous system. It's your emotional immune system. It's just too activated. And then you feel like a failure, because it's like, if I could take a walk, I would have been doing that. Right. And that's like that emotional gap. That's not an intellectual, logical gap. So I think that's really important. When it can go either way though, that's where you can really bring in this TAIL acronym and say, what do I need instead? And then get that need met. In that situation, it took me a while, because I didn't think walking was super helpful. I started to realize it was helpful to bring my cortisol down to sleep. So I knew I had to do it for that. But then in those situations where I was like, okay, but that chocolate may wake you up in the middle of the night. And I was really working on my sleep. I was like, just go for the walk. And it was like, oh, when I'm doing that, I'm realizing I'm also solving some work problems while I do this. I'm also figuring out how to talk to my son about that question. And so what ends up happening, when we do that, when situations can go either way, we end up finding what they call intrinsic motivation for why we want to do that thing. We want to do it. I take walks all the time now. Like, I think walking could cure like everything, right? I'm like, oh my God, how was I missing out on this? And it's like, well, I was told walking didn't count to lose weight, because you're not sweaty, you're not whatever. But I've found all my own reasons for doing that. And yes, it helps me sleep at night. And I focus on needs, because then you can focus on what's accessible. When it could go either way, that's where you start so you can feel success and start to repair that self-trust that so many diets and falling off track. And again, I fell off track for 18 years. So it was like, I don't think this is going to help. I didn't think anything could help. And then you start to prove yourself wrong. So that's my advice.  

Tara Schmidt: I like that. And even if you walk first and then you eat the cookie, that's okay. Like even engaging in both, but you're going to do the walk first and then you can identify. 

Ali Shapiro: I tell people to measure the intensity and duration. So it's not that you didn't do it, but maybe in the past you would have eaten like the whole sleeve of cookies. But this time you were like, oh, doing that wasn't that hard. And I'm picking a walk. There could be so many other things. I could be listening to music. It could be, oh my God, I got to text my friend and tell her exactly what's going on. Or if people are falling off track for weeks, is it like now I'm only falling off track for a day? And so getting out of that perfectionist mindset is like this is an improvement process. This is not I'm good or bad. This is am I getting better? 

Tara Schmidt: Yeah. And to end, I want to hear a success story, because I know you have many personal and from your clients, because using food as a coping mechanism, or habitually emotional eating whatever it is like these can be habits that we have for years. And I think the longer you do a habit the harder it is to break. Do you have any stories about clients who have successfully stopped the cycle of emotional eating that you can share? 

Ali Shapiro: Oh my goodness, a client I'm thinking of right now. She grew up in a home, where one of her parents had a health issue and so the other parent had to kind of be a caretaker and she felt alone a lot in her life. And she was also like hyper responsible. And so sugary cereal, all this stuff was her friend, when she needed that sort of support. And when she came to me, she was in her early 50s and she had a lot of health problems. She was on depression medication, high blood pressure, like all kind of the typical stuff. And we just started with like blood sugar and gut health, right? However, as she started doing this, she got off her meds, pretty much all of them, after 30 years. I mean, this was like, even I was like, I didn't know that was possible. And through the course of our work, she really worked on that inadequacy trigger. And she had run her own business and she wanted to be done with it. And she was doubting like, but shouldn't I still want to do this? Should I not? And we don't start with big decisions, because we don't have the discernment. At first, it was like advocating for, I want to go to this restaurant. So we would start in these smaller situations, because she had so much self-doubt. I remember her coming to the group and being like, a bread basket came and I did not care about it. She's like, who am I? You know what I mean? 

Tara Schmidt: I always care about a bread basket. 

Ali Shapiro: I still want people to enjoy food, but she had ahead of time, thought about what she wanted to get out of the evening with her friend. So she led with what she wanted to share. And so the connection and the belonging were there. And she had realized like, oh, portion control is so easy, when I really feel at home with the company. So fast forward, she did want to lose weight, so she lost I think like 50 or 60 pounds, got off all her meds, sold her business, transitioned into something that she exactly wanted to do. So she's fulfilled, like she's fulfilled emotionally and so the food is super easy. It's repairing self-trust in our own inner knowing, so food can really eat away at it. And I know as someone who struggled with my weight for 18 years. 

Tara Schmidt: I am all sorts of goose bumpy right now. Oh my gosh, I can't. I just want to say thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. Your clients, Ali, are just so lucky to have you in their lives, the work you do. I just feel like it's so unique and so deep and the type of knowledge you have related to food is just so different than what I have even and I'm okay to admit that. It's super cool. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, we need all of it though. We need all of it. It's not either or. 

Tara Schmidt: Thank you for sharing your awesome wisdom with us. 

Ali Shapiro: Thank you so much for having me, Tara.