Emotional Eating: Why You Can’t Stop — and How to Heal

If you struggle with emotional eating, stress eating, or feeling out of control with food — especially in midlife — this episode will open your eyes in a powerful way.

In this deeply honest conversation, I’m joined by Emotional Eating, Digestive, and Hormone Expert Amber Romaniuk, who shares why emotional eating isn’t about willpower, discipline, or “being broken.” Instead, it’s often rooted in unprocessed emotions, chronic stress, hormone imbalances, perfectionism, and patterns of self-abandonment that many high-achieving women carry for years.

Amber opens up about her own journey of gaining and losing over 1,000 pounds, spending years trapped in binge cycles, and ultimately healing her relationship with food, body, and self.

Together, we explore:

✨ Why emotional eating happens 
✨ The hidden connection between hormones, digestion, and cravings
✨ Why dieting often makes the cycle worse
✨ How perfectionism and people-pleasing fuel overeating
✨ Practical steps to rebuild self-trust and body confidence
✨ What true “Body Freedom™” looks like 

Amber Romaniuk is an Emotional Eating, Digestive, and Hormone Expert with over 12 years of experience helping high-achieving women overcome self-sabotage with food and create lasting body confidence, intuition, and optimal health.

Her podcast, The No Sugarcoating Podcast, has over 2 million downloads across more than 90 countries.

If this episode resonated with you and you’re ready for deeper support in reclaiming your health, confidence, and sense of self, explore Linda’s coaching and programs in the show notes.

Find Amber here:

https://amberapproved.ca

Transcript

  📍 Hello and welcome back to Worthy and Abundant, the podcast where we stop surviving and start fully living emotionally, financially, physically and spiritually. I am your host, Linda, brand and empowerment coach, holistic wellness advocate, and someone who deeply understands what it means to rebuild your life from the inside out.

Today we're talking about something so many women so many high achieving women, secretly struggle with emotional eating. Body shame and feeling outta control with food even when everything else in life looks successful. My guest today.

Amber Romanak is an emotional eating, digestive and hormone expert who has helped thousands of women reclaim body confidence, intuition, and true health. Her podcast, the No Sugarcoating podcast, has over 2 million downloads across more than 90 countries, and her personal story is. Incredibly powerful.

After gaining and losing more than a thousand pounds and spending years trapped in binge cycles, Amber uncovered the deeper emotional, hormonal and mindset roots that keep women stuck. Today we're diving into why emotional eating isn't about food, why willpower isn't the solution, and how women can finally create what she calls body freedom.

If you've ever felt frustrated with your body, exhausted by dieting or like you should have this all figured out by now. This conversation is gonna feel like a breath of fresh air. Amber, I'm so grateful you're here. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Linda, for having me. I'm really happy to be with you.

I'm so excited. God always brings me what is needed through this vessel of the podcast. Um, so I personally have had some challenges with emotional eating, but I am aware, and I know self-awareness is always number one. Mm-hmm. But, your story is shocking. Gaining and losing over a thousand pounds. What was really going on emotionally beneath the food? Yeah, a lot was going on. And so I think part of it is understanding, you know, there's so many things that will shape our relationship that we have with ourselves and food as we grow up.

The subconscious mind is fully open between ages zero and seven, and that's where we're literally taking everything in and building and shaping our identity, our perceptions, our beliefs, and. You know, when I was five, my first day taking the bus, the older boys call me fat and ugly. And then the whole bus made fun of me.

And that is an identity I took on for the next 20 years of my life. And that was a very traumatic experience that I stored in my nervous system that I didn't know that I did. And I became very shy. Um, I didn't wanna have friends who were boys. My dad was the only man that I trusted and. You know, food became something that was just like a friend.

It tasted good. I could have it whenever I wanted to. And my mom and I shared a very close knit relationship with food. And I think part of that was due to her multiple sclerosis diagnosis that she had before I was born. And I think she had a food addiction for my whole life. And I think that was one of the ways of.

Trying to cope with that diagnosis and feeling out of control since you're losing control of your body. Um, and so I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and there was always like bakes and sugar and you know, it was just, I didn't understand nutrition. And so you just eat and think either you have good genes or bad genes, good luck or bad luck.

And you're either gonna end up like your mom's side of the family or your dad's side of the family and there's nothing you can do. And so that was kind of the mentality that I adopted. And then in your, in my pre-teens and teens, I start. You know, listening to music and Hollywood and the media and like getting programmed and conditioned body image wise.

And then you start comparing yourself and realize that you're not good enough, even though they're lying to you and they're Photoshopping and editing everything and selling you falsehood, um, to make a lot of money. And then they try and sell you the false solution, which is the diet industry and the weight loss industry.

And once you lose weight, you'll finally be happy. As we know, if anything, even a lie gets conditioned into your subconscious enough, you start to believe it. And so I really was just tacked onto this identity of, oh, I need to lose weight, to be happy, to have success, love all these things. And then in my early twenties, I had my first breakup, lost weight, really quickly reached my quote unquote goal weight and thought it would fix everything and it didn't fix anything.

And I think that's one of the biggest things that we need to understand is. The weight loss is gonna fix your insecurities. It's not going to heal your relationship with food. It's not gonna balance your hormones for you, help you heal people pleasing, or your wounds or your traumas, or the things that have pushed you into unworthiness and insecurity, or a lack mentality or whatever's going on for you.

Because nothing changed. And then it's like this switch flipped. And I was like, well, screw it. I have to restrict so much and exercise so much to attain this. And then I started binge eating pretty much every day, and that's where the spending $50,000 on binge foods and quick fixes in five years came in.

I was a starving student. I didn't have any money. My account was always in the red. I never wanted to look at it, but I always had enough money to go and spend 50 or $60 at the organic store on my binge food. It was a lot of food that I was eating. I could never finish it. Um, but that just became a huge vis cycle and I gained 80 pounds in four months, was the heaviest that I had ever been, and felt so ashamed, embarrassed, and unrecognizable.

And at 21, I didn't wanna go out and be social. I didn't wanna date. I felt so unworthy and so insecure in my body and. Food just kind of took over my life and diets and eating styles and trying to gain control and trying to have willpower, trying to try harder, hiring personal trainers, thinking they would be the invisible motivator and like nothing worked because I was in a cycle of food addiction, binge eating, emotional eating, and I went through bulimia as well for six months and stopped doing that.

Um. But there was just this deep, you know, asphyxiation with food, chasing the number on the scale, trying to control all of that, even though I was out of control. And the loss and gain of a thousand pounds came from thinking I was gaining control for a few months and losing 10, 20, 30, 40 pounds, and then getting caught up in another cycle of binge eating and then gaining all that weight back plus more, and cycling back and forth through that.

And when I hit my low point moment. Where I'd thrown the food in the garbage and I started to learn about binge eating. I'm like, this is what I'm doing. I have a food addiction. This is what's going on. I don't know how to deal with it, but at least I can identify that this is the behavior that I'm in.

Like you said, awareness is incredibly important. Um, but I'd always throw the food in the garbage because it was a motivator to not go and eat it. And that particular evening after the food digested a little bit, you know, I was just laying there in pain, just crying up, so upset. Can't believe this is my life.

What's going on? Why did this happen? And thinking, if I don't figure this out, I'm probably not gonna make 30. Like I just, I'm being so destructive on my body. My thoughts are so destructive on myself, just on all levels. And so that particular night, it's like that, I call it the ego mind, the inner critic.

And the mind is like, well, if this is the last time you're gonna do this, you might as well just go eat the food. And so I went into my kitchen, pulled out the garbage, dug through, ate the cookies, threw them out in the back alley, dumpster, went out and grabbed them out there and ate them. And then I was like.

Who am I actually like, I just ate it in my garbage, in my dumpster. Like this is a serious problem. But we need sometimes, like I needed that low point moment to happen because I was in this comfort zone of suffering, and even though it was a comfort zone, it was causing so much harm and destruction to me in every aspect of my being.

To continue in the behaviors, but the brain, of course, as we know, you know, the amygdala registers comfort as safe. Even if we're doing things that are hurting us and unknown discomfort, right? Things that are out of our comfort zone, it, it recognizes as a threat to our survival. So it was like just so much more familiar to stay where I was, even though I was suffering.

But that garbage can dumpster moment really crushed fear of the unknown, the fear of change, and all the denial that I had that what I was. Doing wasn't a big deal, and it catapulted me into a healing journey that was very multidimensional and very deep, and has shaped me into the person I am today and created everything that I have, including my business and coaching women globally and podcasts and, and just my own personal awareness, which I think is my biggest superpower, my biggest gift, um, because I had none of that before I went on the journey.

Hmm. Incredible. So tell us why, um. Well, so it's not really about the food, right? I mean, I think a very small level, like, because food, a lot of food is being designed to make people addicted and like literally an article just came out yesterday where they're talking about how the CIA literally puts certain ingredients mm-hmm.

Things in food, drink, water, et cetera. Mm-hmm To control our mood, to make us depressed, like all this stuff. So there is a manipulation, okay. That has been going on with food for a long time, where we. Eat for pleasure, you're eating to get a big dopamine high, and we want dopamine to feel pleasure and to numb out.

So I think that there is a component of the addiction where certain ingredients are addictive. Okay? Um, but I do think like 90% of it is like you, you're unworthy. You don't feel good enough. Your nervous system is dysregulated and you don't feel safe in your body. Um, you are. You know, trying to numb out, check out, avoid distract, feeling your emotions because you're afraid to feel and it feels too uncomfortable, right?

You have all kinds of triggers, emotional binge eating triggers that you have no idea. What they are. They could be hormonal, they could be, because you're a sensitive empath. It could be some insecurity with money. It could be chasing the number on the scale. Right? Right. Having difficult conversations, like there's so many triggers, right, that people don't understand, and that is a big part of what keeps us in this cycle.

So those are some of the key pieces. Obviously there's more like blood sugar dysregulation, poor sleep, gut issues, but so much of it is emotional. Mental. Yeah. Like let's physiological some of that psychological, the emotional, um, what is. Like explain like why do so many smart, successful women feel powerless around food?

Like what is, yeah. Yeah. I think a big part of it is because they've tied their worth and success externally to everything out outside of them, and nothing outside of you will. Fill your void and help you feel good enough and define your worth. And so what we have to understand is self-worth and self-love are inside jobs and no amount of money, success, cars, houses, whatever is going to fill that internal void.

I think a lot of women don't love themselves and they're chasing perfection. They're improving mentalities, people pleasing. Um, and all of that stems from that unworthiness, the wounded inner child that we never give any attention to. And then again, we end up like. Wiring worth and familiarity with getting a million things off your to-do list, being a high achiever, but then you're last on your list, you're burnt out, you're dysregulated, you're exhausted.

You're not taking care of yourself. You're not holding any time or space to feel or express emotion or connect with yourself. And then because you're so dispart. Regulated in your cortisol so high, you wonder why you keep chasing food because it feels like a soother and a temporary soother and temporary safety blanket and comfort.

And that's what you start associating with comfort. And what feels unsafe and unfamiliar is self-care is saying no, is setting a boundary, is asking for help is taking time for yourself. And so we literally have to understand that and be willing to rewire the brain and, and our, our prioritization. And yes, everyone's busy, but.

Your health is everything. And if you don't have that, again, you can have all the success in the world. You can be a high achiever, but how good is it if you're constantly beating yourself up and self-loathing and self-sabotaging? So those are really key pieces of why really high achieving, intelligent, amazing women of all walks end up in these behaviors.

And we're not taught how to heal, binge and emotional eating. You're taught, oh, you wanna lose weight, you wanna gain control with food. Go on this diet, follow this meal plan, take Ozempic. Sorry. Those are not the answers. They're not the inward healing journey. They are quick fixes. So we get addicted to quick fixes because again, they're more familiar and safe than doing the deeper work.

'cause when we do the deeper work, we've gotta face stuff. We have to get uncomfortable. It's inevitable and we have to try different things. And a lot of women, when you're exhausted and burned out, like. You don't really feel like you have the capacity to go there, especially if you have hormone imbalances.

Yeah. That was gonna be a couple questions around, how do hormones and gut health influence cravings and mood? And then I would love to hear, what are first steps someone can take to break this binge and restrict cycle? And how long did it take you, when you Yeah, so to just down to that.

From the garbage? Yeah, from the garbage. Yeah. Down to that first. Yeah, go ahead. It took me about two years to stop binge eating and then another few years to balance my hormones and digestion. But I wasn't binge eating at all anymore after that. Um, every woman is different for how long it takes them.

'cause it's how willing are you to show up and do the work? And everyone has a different level of how long they've been in it. Um. Going back to the question of how to hormone and gut health impact emotional binge eating. So hormones is huge and so I've worked with thousands of women, done thousands of hormone tests, and cortisol is the stress hormone.

And I would say 99% of my clients have had high cortisol. When we do the first test, I had really high cortisol too, to put in to perspective. When I stopped binge eating, I was post-menopausal, had no progesterone, um, had cortisol levels like. 10 times what they should have been. My insulin was through the roof.

I was so inflamed. My digestion was an absolute mess. So these behaviors really put my body into such a state of stress. My thyroid was hypothyroid, so I threw all these things off innocently. I did not know that those behaviors, of course, would have such an impact. I was all young. You look young, like you don't look menopausal.

Age well. I'm 38 now. As. 24 when all of that happened. And so I dealt with some very significant hormone issues at that time. Um, and obviously I just believe you go through everything you're gonna help your clients with of course. So it makes it relatable and understandable. Yeah. That was the blessing.

The underlying blessing to your ordeal is that you're now serving all these people and helping so many people. Yeah, but the, but the cortisol is the biggest issue because whether you, it doesn't matter if you're a people pleaser, a perfectionist, a binge eater, an emotional eater, if you are not self prioritizing at all, you are gonna have high cortisol.

And when your cortisol is high, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're having trouble sleeping. Exhaustion and weight gain are the first two signs of high or low cortisol. The thing that comes next is heightened sugar, salt, and refined carbohydrate cravings, and we need, when cortisol's high, it makes us produce more ghrelin, which is your hunger signal and makes you hungry, and then you get more hungry.

Cortisol also dulls your leptin, which is your fullness signal that helps you feel satiated and then you feel like no matter what you eat. You're still hungry, so you're already, as I'm describing this, probably hearing like, wow. Even already like weight gain. Then you get frustrated, insecure with your body.

Then you go on another diet and you try exercise more. That just spikes your cortisol more and will make you gain more weight. Oh, yeah. And then you're, you're eating more and more cravings. It's harder to not give into the cravings that fuels the overeating and the, the binge eating. Cortisol's high starts to inhibit our thyroid function, and thyroid and metabolism are directly connected.

More anxiety, more mood issues, more fatigue, weight gain, constipation, all kinds of things, right? So there's so much to just touch on with hormones. If your progesterone is low, that directly dictates your mood. Progesterone is the calming hormone, and if you don't have enough of it, you don't feel you have capacity to process stress.

Also, with low progesterone comes poor sleep comes increased cravings. You feel disconnected from yourself and others. It's hard to regulate your mood if your progesterone is low. If. Many women are blindly walking around with several of these hormone imbalances and don't know about them because their doctor won't do half the testing, and also because the ranges of normal are way too big and many imbalances are happening in the normal ranges.

So I always think it's incredibly important that women go and work with people who can advocate. Who are well educated, who will do all the testing and spend the time explaining what's going on and why. Um, because hormone imbalances can completely ruin your life if you don't know that, that's why you're feeling the way that you are.

And you can make really irrational choices. Oh, yeah. Um, yeah, and, and you don't have to be in menopause to have a hormone issue. I see many women in their twenties. Thirties, forties, perimenopause starts between 35 and 37, but you don't have to be in perimenopause to have serious hormone issues. Mm-hmm. If you're in the behaviors I'm talking about, you likely have some pretty significant hormone imbalances.

And now with gut, obviously when we're eating copious amounts of sugar. Processed foods. Our gut is more inflamed. The more inflamed the gut, the more it suppresses dopamine and serotonin. These are mood boosting, regulating neurotransmitters, so they drop your mood's lower. More depression, anxiety. Mm. More desire to chase the high chase reward from food, online shopping, buying courses that you don't need.

Sex, alcohol, like mindlessly and so. We need enough of those neurotransmitters to not be in compulsive, impulsive behaviors that also fuel addictive like tendencies. Also, we have gut bacteria, candida, gut flora. People do all kinds of different names, the microbiome, and when you eat a lot of sugar, drink a lot of alcohol, eat a lot of process carbohydrates, a lot of foods with yeast.

Um, you've had stress, you've taken antibiotics, it throws your gut microbiome way off and the bad. Flora takes over that flora will give you brain fog, low energy, bloating, gas, inflammation, make you feel like you're retaining water, hanging onto weight, and it would also amplify your sugar and carb cravings.

You feel more hungry. So again, we see how these imbalances fuel and contribute to these behaviors with self-sabotage with, yeah. So what are some first steps someone can take to get in control? So I think the first step is realizing it's actually not about control, it's about awareness, and it is about replacing control with being mindful and intentional.

Um, so the first step is actually just acknowledging that it's going on for you and that there's nothing wrong with you. You are not alone, and you don't have to feel shame and embarrassment. So can you start forgiving yourself and actually just go like. I don't know what I don't know. I haven't been equipped or taught how to deal with this, so how would I possibly be able to do it myself?

I think the second thing is to remind yourself a diet. A workout plan, a meal plan. An eating style is not gonna fix this. This is not about willpower. This is not about you trying harder to eat more clean. This is so much deeper on an emotional, mental, hormonal level. Yeah, worthiness. So it's just like understanding that like chasing the same things is not going to get you where you want to go.

And then the third thing is starting to ask yourself a really important question. Before you go to food, which is, is this physical hunger? Do I actually need to nourish my body, give my body vitality? Or is this emotional, which is literally everything else? And building that awareness is gonna help you be like, oh.

I think I'm emotionally hungry like 90% of the time or more. And that's what my clients always say. And if it's emotional, then can you get out of where the food is? Take a few minutes for yourself and start going, okay, what's been going on? How am I feeling right now? Like, what is triggering this? Because understanding your triggers is the most important thing.

'cause when you understand your triggers, you can start to deal with them. Yeah. So those would be first steps. And building a self-care practice, because in your self-care practice you can. Start getting grounded. You can process emotions and you can start connecting with yourself and building your worth.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's where I come in with my worth. Like I teach worthiness and um. I agree with you so much. Um, talk about loving and accepting the body, body freedom, body positivity, you know, all of that. Like, because I think so much of what you said around the programming that we have as women about we're gonna feel good when we look this way, and like mm-hmm.

Our value is all attached to how we look and our physical body. And it's, it's like, I was at a doctor appointment yesterday and I was saying, asking her if she thought I was. Needed to lose weight because it was a card anyway. Um, and she was amazing. Um, and honestly, my, my feeling for being in the self-development, self, improvement space for quite a while and, and reading books and having coaches and things is to.

Just eat what I want when I'm hungry and not this deprivation and making all these, restrictions, but more just like loving and thanking my body for what it does and accepting my body and, , forgiving myself for everything and just enjoying food. 'cause I will enjoy food. I know we're supposed

To live and not live to eat? But, I do like food, but at the same time I recognize I have had a relationship. , I watched my mother emotionally and I did have a health coach at one time years ago in Michigan. I'm in Florida now. And she said, write down how you're feeling when you find yourself like eating food, right.

And it was stress. And it was stress, it was nervousness. And I thought that was really an interesting awareness. I could be totally fine, not physically hungry, and then something makes me nervous. There's a coco conflict, whatever, and then I'm reaching for food. So talk on that. Yeah, and I think that's the key is it's not about deprivation, it is about balance with food and that you're eating for optimal health, but that there's also room for mindful indulgence in finding what that balance is for you, depending on your current state of health.

So to me, building self-love and self-worth is truly a key with this. And learning how to talk to your body, learning how to listen to your body, asking your body how she's feeling and what she wants. Forgiving yourself is huge. And I think what we start with is we can start with things like affirmations.

We can start by writing down like the kind of relationship we wanna have with ourselves, how we wanna feel living in our bodies. Why are you grateful for your body now? Like she's literally the reason you exist. Even if you're like, oh, but I can't 'cause I need to lose weight. And ideally we wanna help, build this connection now because it's otherwise, it's superficial and you only love yourself if you lose weight.

And that's not unconditional self-love. And I think part of it is understanding that. Healing and getting to optimal, whether it's losing weight or balancing hormones or whatever it is that you want, you need, your body needs to feel safe. And so the more you can be kind to your body and heal these behaviors and prioritize your needs, the safer your body feels, the more connected you feel to your body, the more in tune you become.

And that is going to help you fully heal and progress and get wherever you wanna go. Yeah. Um, I think. Being aware of negative self-talk and catching it, and then apologizing to yourself as soon as you're able to, and then going into complimenting and positive self-talk is important. You're gonna feel like a fraud at first because it's unfamiliar to your nervous system.

Repetition and time will completely make it feel resonant because you're born worthy and then you got conditioned that you weren't. So of course now we have to recondition you that you are. I think body positivity is important, but I think it's been taken to unhealthy extremes to where, when women are in this place where they're to the point where they're going to die, if they don't do anything about their health, like, and they're just saying, I love myself, but then they're dying because they're binge eating.

I'm sorry. You don't love yourself if you're binge eating. That's a self-hatred, right? We can accept our bodies at any size, but the reality is, is the more weight we hang onto, the more of a health risk that becomes on so many levels. And so it's not about forcing weight loss, it's about getting curious, why is my body hanging on?

Why does she not feel safe? Because weight is a protective mechanism. Yeah. And there's many reasons for that. And dieting more is not the answer. So. I do feel like taking time for yourself, knowing when it's time to rest, right? Not forcing and pushing and punishing with exercise and diets, like learning how to nourish your body and enjoy food.

We're meant to enjoy food. I love food too. However, there's certain things that I choose to not eat like fast food 'cause I don't. Feel it's food. Right? Um, and I don't wanna treat my body like a garbage can. Yeah. But I love cooking and baking and going to fine dining and eating at really nice restaurants.

We're supposed to enjoy it. It's part of our human experience, but we have to get all the food noise out and the fears and insecurities so we can learn to trust that like it's safe to enjoy food and I can enjoy what I want. But it takes time to get to that point. Like, yes, you know, but, but you can, and you can gain the freedom, and that's what body Freedom is all about, is addressing these things on a multidimensional level like we've been talking about, so that you can fully heal this stuff internally.

And, and, and fill this piece of your void so that you're complete. 'cause this is for a lot of women, this is the missing piece that is incomplete for them. And they're so fulfilled once they do this. And they have so many tools and awarenesses and things that they can take forward to navigate life, which I think is just so empowering because they know themselves and they finally feel confident and have their worth.

And once you have that, you're truly unstoppable beyond what you could have imagined. How did you, when uh, how did healing your relationship with food change other areas of your life? Relationship, work, identity. Yeah, it changed everything. So I was very insecure and I was the blame everything on everyone else.

Victim girl. 'cause I didn't know any better. And that's what I was conditioned into. And my ego was very loud and it, I thrived off of drama and all the negativity, right? And I just didn't know that that wast the true me. And so when I healed my relationship with food, it helped me build. My self-worth, it helped me te you know, have healthy ways to cope with stress and negative emotions.

It taught me how to feel through my emotions. Um, it helped me build time for myself. It helped me stop people pleasing and start to set boundaries and say no, and know when, like I've taken on too much and to pull back and honor myself. I discovered I was a sensitive empath, and so like being able to manage my energy and then also not take on other people's stuff was incredibly important in those energetic boundaries.

I attracted the love of my life through healing my relationship with food and learning to love myself, and we mutually love ourselves and respect ourselves, so we mutually have so much of that in our relationship. We don't yell at each other, we don't belittle each other. We don't call our each other names.

We have such a strong foundation because of the work that we each, you know. Unknowingly did before we got together. Um, it built my business. It's helped me heal so many like insecurities around like having clients and not feeling like I have to be at their back and call at two in the morning. Like I have very strong boundaries in my business and a balance in my work life schedule.

I've had to heal a lot of stuff around money and lack in all kinds of things with. That, which is a huge one I feel like, for a lot of people. So it's literally a lot of women. Yeah. Yeah. It's given me so much in my relationship with my intuition and like trust and faith and like you just sit so solid in it and yes, stressors come up and uncomfortable things come up, but you just know you're gonna be able to get through it and there's gonna be some kind of breakthrough on the other side, and to be equipped.

I just think is one of the most empowering things that we can be right now, um, because it really allows us to not give our power away to so many external things that we don't have control over. Yeah. Tell us how, like our body is a messenger and Hmm. Um. How it's like all connected, like you just said, like it affected everything.

So like, how can we learn to trust our body more and trust ourselves? Mm-hmm. Um, and what, what do you wish every woman understood about their body? Yeah. I wish that women would be willing to take the time to actually stop and ask, ask your body, how are you feeling? What do you need right now? Because your body will talk to you so fast.

We think, oh, I'm not smart enough for that. I'm not in tune. I, I don't have the thing that Amber has to be able to do that. Yes you do, you know how easy it is, but you have to pause and get quiet and take a moment. But once you start practicing it's just, it's so empowering. 'cause you're like, oh, I'm gonna ask my body 'cause she's gonna give me some kind of information.

So, um. The body is so wise, she's always trying to teach you. She wants you to achieve mastery with whatever it is that you're, you know, navigating in your life. Your body speaks to you with symptoms, emotions, sensations, all kinds of things. And so when we can understand that. When you get a stomach ache, when you get bloating, you get a headache, you retain more water.

Your body's trying to communicate something to you instead of getting upset and pissed off and frustrated with your body if you actually went. Oh, interesting. I don't like that, but let me just get curious. Okay. Body, like what is this about? Why are you feeling this? Like she will tell you. Right. Like I've had certain symptoms and bodies like, you're being too tolerant.

Stop doing that. I'm like, oh, thank you for the message. I'm gonna shift that. And then the symptom goes away. Mm-hmm. But the more we react to our bodies, the bigger the symptoms get because you're stressing your system out and it's gonna make your symptoms louder. Yeah. Your body tries to get your attention to help you shift and take action and investigate why you're feeling the symptoms you are.

Physical symptoms are the last plan of manifestation. If we haven't addressed something on a mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual level, you get the physical symptom. So if you really wanna heal a physical symptom, we don't just address it physically. We do the emotional, mental, energetic, and spiritual work as well to fully resolve the symptom.

Nothing is permanent. I've helped women with all kinds of chronic conditions, diseases, diagnoses, completely resolve or get so much relief and remission from those symptoms because we address. All the levels, right? Mm-hmm. And when you love yourself, you go into a healing state. When you're fighting with yourself, your cells are breaking down.

Mm-hmm. Right? So true. So the, and we store emotion in the body. That's why when we're suppressing with eating or holding everything in. We suppress and then we cause all these energetic and emotional blockages in the body that inhibit different energy. Meridians inhibit organ function. And so as an example, when I have women gently support their livers, all of a sudden they'll feel anger, frustration, irritation is 'cause we can, we store all of that in the liver.

And when you start to process and clear things out, you feel things as they come up and out, right? Yeah. That's okay. And when you can start to go, it's okay that this is happening. I know why, and I'm gonna support my body through it, you have a completely different experience. Mm-hmm. Um, so to me, like your body is your biggest messenger, your intuition, your gut feeling, like all these things are trying to work with you and help you become the most in tune master.

Um, so I think always remembering your body isn't out to get you. Your body only knows unconditional love. It's the mind that gets conditioned. To go into the negative. And so learning how to manage that negative self-talk and how to manage that ego and that your power truly lives in your heart and and practicing that is really powerful.

So I think that those are some of the key things that help us love our body, embrace our body, become in tune, and really let the body lead. And what does body freedom actually mean in real life? Yeah, so body freedom is truly understanding these levels to bring you to a state of healing so that you can truly have freedom with food, with yourself, with your self-worth.

You're detached from the number on the scale. Your, your body releases weight because she feels safe. Your hormones come into regulation. You have optimal energy, your digestion functions while you have good blood sugar. Um, it's also about emotional freedom to where. You have the confidence and the knowing that even if something uncomfortable or difficult happens, like I have the means and the tools and I believe in myself.

So to me, there's emotional freedom in that because you're not bracing for the next thing. It's like, okay, here I am and, and I've got my back and I love myself and I'm not gonna punish myself with food through this circumstance. Um, and I also think body freedom is self worth, self-love, and really taking ownership and responsibility.

About looking at a picture and not criticizing yourself or, yeah. That's the self-love, wearing a, a bathing suit and, and just, yeah, accepting. What you have, you know? And loving yourself. Yeah. And you're alive. And you know, the doc, what the doctor said to me, and she was probably younger than you, I, I forgot.

I, I mean she was fairly young, but she was a nurse per, or whatever, a physician assistant. Anyway, she said, um, I would never tell a woman from age 40, how did she say it? 45 to 60, I don't know, something like that, which is where I fall, um, that she needed to lose weight, unless, you know. She was like, really?

I don't, I don't remember exactly how she worded it, but it was, it was very well said. And we were talking about food and, you know, all these different things and you know, she was in agreement that it's like you love and accept yourself and you eat what you want when you want, you know, when you're physically hungry and, and not like deprived, but you know, because it's not sustainable, the fasting and all these things that everybody does.

No, it's not, it's. You know, and, um, and I think the weight does fall away when you do. Mm-hmm. What I'm saying, when you just, you're hungry, you eat, you're not like, oh my God, I can't have that. Or like, I ordered a pizza the other day and I am media, and I was like, I'm, I'm taking little actions like, um, noticing.

Like, I didn't give myself, I, I didn't have the brown, the, the vegan protein brownie, um, Valentine's Day for two, you know, and I, I didn't have it, but like, I, I bought it yesterday because I was in the area and they have it. But like, it's, it's just noticing like things that I, and, and I'm not saying it like I deprived myself.

It was more like. Noticing patterns and then recognizing when I'm choosing because mm-hmm. Choosing healthy 80% of the time. That's what, you know, Denise Austin used to say way back in the day, she'd say, you know, she doesn't deprive herself. She's like, she eats well, 80%. Yeah. And he has traits 20% anyway.

Moderation, right? Mm-hmm. And that's what the doctor was also saying. It's like moderation, period. So we were talking about meats and, you know, healthy and, you know, we're all trying to do plant-based and it's just the whole thing anyway. Um. But yeah, I love everything you're saying. Um, I mean, it's so powerful.

It's so interesting. Um. And how long does it truly, the healing truly take? Um, what does that journey look like? I know it's different for everyone. I'm certain, but mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So it's usually one to two years. Some women, it's a bit longer. It really depends on the severity of the imbalances that we're dealing with.

And it, and it also depends on how willing the woman is to show up and start doing the work and self prioritizing and or do we have to spend a year clearing resistance, clearing fear around prioritizing clearing guilt. So. Um, but obviously within a even a few days, weeks, or months of starting to do this healing, so much progression happens.

Energy levels are up, cravings are down or non-existent. Emotional and binge eating triggers are from daily to weekly or only once a month or less. Um, and obviously I help my clients get fully away from these behaviors, so they fully heal them, not a managed state, um, because I believe we can fully heal them.

So. Digestion significantly improves in days or weeks, right? Inflammation goes down, mood significantly improves. I have women who have PMDD to the point where they're almost suicidal, completely resolve that in a month or two because incredible, it's low progesterone, thyroid issues, high cortisol, so it's like.

Same with menopause or perimenopause or posts like there's so much we can do to ensure your hormones are optimal through any phase. So regardless of where you are in your life cycle, you should feel the best that you ever have. And we just need to understand what are the roots of. Why you're not there and take those steps to get you there.

What are the tools, if you will, share a little bit that you, uh, you mentioned affirmations and you talked about mindfulness and different things, but like, are there, do you use EFT or what do you, do you have specific like. That you would share with us today? Like do you use emotional freedom technique, the EFT or tapping or, um, so I teach the FT tapping and create customized tapping scripts for my clients.

We do mind mapping, we do inner child healing. We do a lot of work on the ego mind and how to take your power back and what the differences are. I do a lot of coaching, really coaching my clients to help them explore triggers and I feel like that's one of the most important pieces. Wow. 'cause it helps teach them awareness and awareness is, and understanding why they're triggered and that their triggers are teachers or their weight loss blocks are teachers.

You know, and, and what are they teaching me? That's one of the biggest pieces. And then we also do a lot of different self-care practices, a lot of journal meditation, um, subliminals, um. It really did. Every client's a little different for what we do, just based on what's going on for them. But those are some of the key things that I will teach them on the emotional, energetic end.

We do a lot of talk about boundary setting and there's a lot of exercises and like Yeah. Processes that I'll take clients through. It's very interesting. So, so what, what surprised you most about your own journey, your own healing journey?

I think what surprised me the most was. How attuned I could become and how connected I could become to myself and my body through healing. And that, that truly just makes me feel unstoppable. That's amazing. And, and very humbled. Um, and that we all have it. Literally. We all have it. It's not just certain people.

Everybody has these gifts and abilities. Do you, um. Do you? Oh, what was I gonna say? Oh my God, I just lost it. Mm-hmm. Um, I hate when that happens. Um, you were talking about your gifts, uh oh. Did, were you surprised that worthiness was part of the, like the core wound that was causing some of the. No, no. Yeah.

It's kinda one of the first things that I started to realize, like, because I was constantly saying, I don't like myself, I hate myself criticizing my body. So that was like, but I think what surprised me, which it doesn't surprise me anymore, is that it, it was the thing that took the longest to build through the process.

Mm-hmm. Because when you spend most of your life hating or not liking yourself, like it's gonna take more than a few weeks or months to like reprogram and fill that void and feel connected. But the day that I felt. Worth and self love are the first time. I'll never forget the moment, and it was absolutely amazing.

Tell us, yeah, so I was about a year and a half into my business just had come home from a sold out event that I was hosting. We raised money for a charity and just had a fantastic like breakfast event, and I was 80 pounds heavier than I am now. I had gained all the weight again, post binge eating due to my hormone issues that I had created, and I just sit in the mirror and I was like.

If this is my life and I, my body gave me a second chance after all the hell that I put her through with the binge eating and I was able to heal that. And this is who I am and my weight and everything, like I just absolutely love myself and I feel so worthy and I feel so good. And I just felt this like.

Fluttery like love feeling through my entire like chest and my um, you know, chakras. And I was just like this, I think this is what self-love feels like. I just feel so content and so happy and so accepting. And it's ironic because shortly after that the weight like fell off from, you know, the self-love, the hormones and like the rest that I had to give my body.

But that was just such a beautiful moment to feel it all click. Yeah. And to really like see and experience the work and the repetition all like. Unfold in that moment. It was really amazing. Yeah. And it is amazing. I, I'm learning so much. I've been on the self-love journey for quite a while, but I'm really embracing now, like really, really, like my goal is unconditional love for myself.

Yeah. And my body and every part and full health, mental health, physical health, all things. And, um. So, um, one, I notice when other people like make comments like, oh, I'm five pounds, half. You know, like, I, I just, I'm very aware of like how these other people are talking Yeah. And behaving, and it's kind of sad a little bit, you know?

Mm-hmm. When I hear that. But I know that when I moved to Florida four years ago, I was like. A little bit less than 20 pounds thinner than I am today. But I believed I had to lose weight. Hmm. Yeah. I believed I was, I mean, I was in all the things, lack, scarcity, fear. Yeah. All the things. And, um, and I, you know, had these programs and, you know, even before when I had this relationship in 2017 to 2019, I was.

40 pounds lighter. I was very thin at that time. But anyway, and I almost don't even think it's attractive anyway, but I'm, I'm like accepting and loving myself, and I love that because there's one coach that I follow, Kathleen Cameron, I don't know if you know who she is, but anyway, she fell in love with herself at 300 pounds.

And then she was able to, because she had a belief that, oh, I can't be successful with this much weight. But then she said, well, who says? Who says who? And she, you know. Accepted and learned to love herself, and now the weight has fallen away. But, um, yeah, I think it's just so powerful and so interesting and yeah, women especially, like, there's a book called Take Back Your Brain, um, and it talks about all the programming and you know, the, you know, that we, the patriarchs and you know, all that stuff.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, um, because when you have that mean inner critic, like whose voice is it? Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize every time you start speaking negatively to yourself, you dysregulate your nervous system and you go into high fight or flight cortisol, and your body goes into protection mode.

And if you're constantly being critical, your body is not gonna let go of weight and keep it off because you are your, your body is literally sensing your thoughts and emotions as a threat. Yeah, so I've seen so many women eat clean exercises. Like they're like, Amber, I can't lose weight. And I'm like, how is your self talk?

And then they're like, oh, well. And so we work on that. And then it finally shifts for them because again, like negative thoughts and emotions towards ourselves, break ourselves down. Right. Put us into fight or flight, positive self-talk, building ourselves up. All that kindness and acceptance heals ourselves, helps us to heal and, and it's not about perfection.

Oh my God, I can only be nice to myself. But it's about awareness and then shifting to mostly right, because that's how we heal. Yeah. Yeah. That's very beautiful. No, I love this work. I mean. This is perfect for this show. 'cause you know, we talk a lot about worthiness here and mm-hmm. Self-love. And so how can some women stop punishing their bo you know, we, we just know there's cycles.

Like, oh, I ate the, I mean, I used to be this person we're like, I ate this, now I have to go to the gym. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I think the first thing is reminding yourself, okay, I had that. The sooner I can just be okay with it and decide, do I need to reflect upon did I overdo it? Because if I did, I can look at why I did and understand if it was stress or whatever the trigger was, and learn from that and then forgive myself and move on.

And if I had a mindful amount and that was nice, it's like, well, the sooner I can clear any guilt or shame or, oh, now I have to go. Course correct and just move on. The sooner my system can start digesting and breaking down and eliminate anything that I don't need, and I don't need to go punish myself at the gym, in fact, don't go to the gym if you feel the urge because you overdid it.

Because that is self punishment. And that is not gonna be a mindful movement. It will be a stressor. Right. And instead of it's like, oh, I ate that. Now I'm bloated. Oh my gosh, I feel uncomfortable. My body have a ginger tea. Yeah. Take a digestive enzyme, rub peppermint essential oil on your abdomen, and tell yourself you love yourself.

Bring in gentle self-loving actions. Yeah. Of support your body because it's a shame. There's a shame. Where does shame play a role in all this? Because you know, oh, you, you, yeah. You eat and then you feel bad, so you eat my whatever. There's a cycle, but tell me about the shame. Shame and then what? Shame, anger, shame.

Yeah. So I feel like they're such dense, heavy emotions and they pull our vibration down so much once we're in them and once we're in them, you go into fight or flight and that's part of what makes it so easy to do it and then to feel them and then to go and do more and have more. It really triggers the all or nothing mentality.

And so I think one of the most important things we can do is start to understand that I don't need to feel shame and guilt if I have an indulgence. Um. What do I wanna do with the shaming guilt? How do I wanna clear them? Do I wanna breathe them out? Do I wanna sacred rage them out? Do I wanna tap them out?

Why am I even allowing myself to feel this? And what do I wanna feel instead? That would feel more empowering. Maybe you wanna have some kind of mantra, like I give myself permission to mindfully indulge, and I also know. My boundaries with it and I wanna honor them. Right. So I think also there's inner child work to do.

There's like, yeah. Inherited stuff from our families, so, so we also wanna get curious and go like, where did I inherit this? And what triggers me to feel these emotions? Yeah. And then have ways to clear them out of the body and the subconscious, because it gets to the point where when you love yourself and you heal your relationship with food in your body, you don't feel shame and guilt around what you eat anymore.

Um, if you fully clear it, if you haven't fully cleared it, some of that will come up and that's okay. 'cause it's just there to teach you so that you can learn whatever those lessons are and fully clear it. Because when you do have that balance with food, where you're eating for health, but also allowing for indulgence, you're not gonna gain weight, you're not gonna be a detriment to your health.

You're not gonna cause health issues if you have balance. But it's actually suppressing and hanging onto the guilt and shame that will amplify the health issues because of how it disregulates your nervous system. Hmm. So. Yeah, so being an awareness of that and having tools to move those emotions outta the body, screaming into a pillow, tapping, somatic shaking, walking, dancing, breath, work like those help move those emotions out.

So if you have to do a practice like that after you eat something to help shift it until it's neutralized, then you can definitely do that. Amazing. Okay. I'm gonna ask you a couple last few questions. Yeah. And then we'll find out where they can find you and put your links in the show notes. Um, so what does being truly healthy mean to you now?

Truly healthy means balance. It means allowing myself to be human. It means my health. I ke I make decisions with my health in mind. It's a top priority. Um, but I also enjoy. Um, you know, some mindful indulgence. It's making sure that my nervous system is balanced and my, my, my schedule is balanced. Um, and that I tend to every aspect of my being on a regular basis and fun and play and flow and.

Finding joy outta the smallest things. My husband, so sweet. He brought me home, these most beautiful pink flowers this morning. I can't remember what they were called, but I was just like, these are so cute. And I was smelling them and just enjoying the moment. So I think that those are things that are really vital for me.

Nice. Yeah. And then what are three daily self-practice? Um, self-care practices that can stabilize hormones, digestion, and emotional eating. Yeah. Get outside and get some sunlight or some actual real light outside. Don't wear any sunglasses. It helps re regulate your cortisol and your circadian rhythm, and it doesn't cost anything.

Um, I think that every woman needs a self-care practice and bringing in some form of tapping meditation, breath work, journaling, gentle stretching, something like that is very supportive. Eating slowly and mindfully. I don't care whether you're eating a piece of chocolate or eating a meal. Go slow because digestion starts in the mind, in my opinion, not the mouth.

And being calm before you eat and enjoying the food, expressing gratitude, blessing it, whatever you wanna do is just gonna help you have such a more mindful, intentional experience and you're gonna feel emotionally and physically satiated. And that relieves us of wanting to go and dig and get more outta the cupboard.

Mm. I love that. That's amazing. Yeah. So good. Um, and. Where can listers start if they want to begin their own healing journey or find you. So the website is amber approved.ca. I have a free emotional eating quiz. If you're wondering if you're struggling, and if you wanna connect to explore going on the journey, hormone testing, food and body freedom, you can book a 30 minute complimentary body freedom consultation as well.

The podcast is called The No Sugarcoating Podcast. We have over 600. 50 episodes and I think if you've loved our chat today, you will immerse yourself and learn so much from that show. And then I'm on Instagram and it's my name at Amber Romman. R-O-M-A-N-I-U-K. Amazing. Thank you so much, Amber, for sharing your wisdom, your brilliance, your story, your journey, your vulnerable, everything.

I really appreciate it. And um, I'm gonna put all your links in the show notes and yeah, it's been a beautiful conversation. I know we could continue talking. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me, and I'm celebrating you and all the healing and service you're up to as well because we, it's needed. It's so, yeah.

It's, thank you so much. Yeah.