The Feed My Health Podcast

The Real Reason You Can't Stop at Just Three Squares

• Rosalind Tapper

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Your relationship with food goes far deeper than calories or nutrition labels. When you find yourself reaching for that third cookie or quietly binging after a stressful day, you're not experiencing a willpower problem—you're experiencing an emotional coping mechanism that's become your default response to discomfort.

Food represents the most accessible, socially acceptable form of emotional relief available to us. Unlike other ways of managing feelings, nobody questions when you eat—they only notice when you don't. This default response wasn't something you were born with; it's a learned behavior often established in childhood when sweets or treats were offered as rewards, comfort, or distraction from difficult emotions.

The guilt cycle many women experience—restrict, binge, shame, repeat—doesn't stem from personal failure but from cultural conditioning that equates thinness with worthiness and success. This toxic message creates the perfect storm: deprivation triggers biological and psychological responses that inevitably lead to overconsumption, followed by shame that drives you back to restriction. Breaking free requires understanding that you cannot heal your relationship with food through further restriction or self-criticism.

Real transformation happens when you focus on three critical areas: properly fueling your body with satisfying, blood-sugar stabilizing meals; building strength through resistance training (which naturally shifts your focus from eating less to eating better); and calming your nervous system to prevent the anxiety that drives emotional eating. Most importantly, surround yourself with people who support your journey toward food freedom rather than reinforcing harmful patterns.

Ready to rewrite your relationship with food? Remember, it's never too late to create a new story. The next chapter of your life is one you get to design yourself. Share this episode with someone who might need these insights and join us in building a healthier relationship with our bodies and the food that nourishes them.

If you'd like me and my team to help you improve your daily habits, to lose pounds every week, and keep them off forever...

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Speaker 1:

Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Feed my Health podcast with your host, rosalind Tapper. I help women over 40 who feel lost and stuck in bodies that they do not recognise. I help them to rebuild their self-esteem and their health without deprivation. In today's episode, we are going to be talking all about food, which is probably my favourite subject, my favourite thing to do, my favourite hobby, and I know that if you are a foodie like me, you understand what I'm saying. However, if you've ever found yourself eating when you're not hungry, or saying things like I've been good all day, I deserve this, or spiralling into guilt after another Friday night binge, then this episode is going to be for you.

Speaker 1:

Today we're talking about something really, really, really important, which is your relationship with food. So the real reason women over 40 feel stuck in this cycle of control, restriction and then chaos around food. This is what we're going to dive into. I want to give you some serious aha moments, things you probably haven't heard before, because once you truly get this, it will change everything for you. So let's start with this. It's not the food. The food is not the problem. It's your meaning behind it. The way you eat has very, very little to do with the actual food and everything to do with how you feel. No one is binging because they're lacking willpower. You're not craving the biscuits because you've failed your diet. You're reaching for something, whether that's comfort, connection, a moment to yourself, and food just happens to be the easiest, most accessible tool for that. Food is the most socially acceptable, legal, quick fix escape that we have. You can't take a nap during a meeting, you can't scream into a pillow during dinner with your family, but you can eat, and you can eat in front of them. You can eat in privacy. You can eat and no one ever questions it. In fact, it's usually the opposite if you're not eating, people question it. So if you built the habit of emotionally eating, it's not because there's anything wrong with you. It's because your nervous system has learnt that this is the fastest, easiest way to soothe or avoid any discomfort and that's survival. And it's just what we've learnt.

Speaker 1:

A good example of where you may have learned the power of food for soothing when you were growing up, perhaps, you were given sweets or chocolate or ice cream when you were unwell, when you had been good, when people wanted to shut you up, and so you associate it with reward. I see it actually quite a lot. Now I see not so much anymore, because the reality is I work from home and I'm mostly in my house, but you do see it a lot. If a kid is crying in their pushchair, you'll hear parents say oh, you know, just give me 10 more minutes and in a minute we'll go and get some sweets or we'll go and get an ice cream. And what's happening there is that child is feeling something, some kind of emotion, whether right or wrong, from the parent's eyes, and so what the child is then learning is that when I express my emotion or when I feel this way, I get X food, I get reward or I get soothed by this, and this happens over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

If you're somebody that likes to feed people, you might say oh, you know, my love language is, you know, feeding people. What is that giving you? It's giving you something. It's giving you an emotion that you're lacking ordinarily in your life. And then, on the flip side of that, imagine you're the person that's being fed. You may be brought up in a household where you must finish everything on your plate. You, you know you can't leave anything unless you don't get dessert and you feel guilty for not accepting the overfeeding and then finishing it all. So emotions are massive when it comes to food, and it's what we've learnt. But the great thing is you weren't born with this, you have learnt it, and so it is possible to unlearn it.

Speaker 1:

Here's what a lot of women don't realise the constant guilt that you feel around food. That's not your guilt, that's what's being conditioned into you. So you've been sold this idea that being thin equals success, it equals happiness, it equals control and anything outside of that. Any softness, any hunger, any imperfection makes you imperfect or makes you bad. So, of course, when you overeat, you're going to panic, and so you restrict harder. The next day, you punish yourself with, maybe a detox. You start Googling things, you start saving recipes on Instagram, you enroll for that spinning class that you absolutely hate with your friend. You start skipping meals, you start skipping breakfast, telling yourself you're not a breakfast person, and that just makes the whole cycle a lot worse. You're adding fuel to that fire, but you cannot heal your body by hating it. You can't build a healthy relationship with food by constantly trying to earn it.

Speaker 1:

When I started working with women, I realized just how deep this conditioning goes. They weren't overeating because they were greedy. They weren't overeating because they were overloaded. Sorry, they were overeating because they were overloaded. So they were overloaded with stress, people pleasing, guilt, shame, emotional eating.

Speaker 1:

And the other thing as well is fear of missing out. A lot of us associate food with socials, relaxing, enjoyment. There's alcohol involved, and if you see somebody in your circle, maybe it's your husband, your partner, your kids, and they're eating foods that you deem as comfort or rewarding, but it doesn't align with your goals. You will immediately feel like you're the one missing out and it happens all the time and we quickly forget in that moment that you have a separate goal to the people around you, and what you need as a human being to survive and thrive from a quantity perspective is very different from your husband, who is maybe two foot taller and maybe 40 kilograms heavier. We forget in that moment because we are driven by our emotions.

Speaker 1:

So what's the solution? This is where we need to break the mould and be open to it, because change is never easy. It doesn't matter whether it's change for good or change for bad. Change for good is still just as hard. So you have to be open to understanding that this isn't going to always feel easy. You are going to have to do things that are uncomfortable for you. You are going to have to make decisions that you're not used to making, and there will be blocks in the road or bumps in the road. That would have been a better thing to say. There will be bumps in the road, but understanding that that is part of the process. And a bump in the road is not a failure, it's not a setback. It's actually a learning opportunity.

Speaker 1:

So take this with you in your life, as you, once you've listened to this and you go about your day, any time in your life, and you hit a block or a struggle or what you might consider a failure, reframe it. What can I learn from this? What's my learning opportunity? Or, oh, I've hit a learning opportunity here. So just a little reframe there, very powerful. So I want you to think about fuel. I want you to learn to eat food that actually works with you, with your blood sugar levels, with your cravings, because when you start to fuel yourself properly, you will find that all of that food noise goes away, because you're eating to thrive.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to give you a really good example of something that I did yesterday, and it's just just and me being completely transparent and telling you that not every day is perfect, and nor should it be, because we're human beings, we're not robots. So yesterday I had my normal breakfast, but by about 12 o'clock I went to the fridge and I was looking what I was going to have for my lunch. And I had in my mind what I was going to have, because it was the same thing that I had the day before, which I absolutely love. But on the shelf there was a packet of cheese and onion pasties which my husband had bought for his lunches.

Speaker 1:

Now, typically, I'm very fortunate because what he tends to really love I'm a bit so-so about, and I have this strategy in my life when it comes to food, which is the 7 out of 10 strategy, which many of you may know already because I've shared it many times, but it is a game changer. However, I'd said to him the week before what would you like to put into the Sainsbury's shopping? You know, feel free to put in whatever you want. And I handed him my phone and he started putting things in. Now, typically, I would just do that for him, just because it's just what I do, right. So I just put in the things that I know he enjoys and I'm always really sneaky because I always put in the things that I don't really enjoy that much, so it's not even a thought process in my head to even want to have any of it.

Speaker 1:

But he put in these cheese and onion pasties. Oh my god, they. They are actually something that I would rate higher than a 7 out of 10, like a cold cheese and onion quiche, anything cold and cheese and onion for me. Weirdly, I hate cheese and onion crisps, hate them with a passion. Like you could not force me to eat them unless I was absolutely starving, but cheese and onion pasties, oh I could just.

Speaker 1:

And when you're hungry, when it's lunch time and you're hungry and you see something staring at you and it's just so easy to grab and easy to eat, it's very easy to do it right. But then about 30 yeah we'd probably say 30-60 minutes later I was hungry again. Why? Because that pastry was not a balanced meal, it wasn't fueling me at all. There was nothing there to kind of help me with my blood sugar levels, to stop my cravings, to keep me satisfied, to keep me satiated until my dinner time, and so the whole afternoon was a real, real bind.

Speaker 1:

And so all of this to say that make life easier for yourself, make your surroundings easier for yourself. If you love biscuits, whilst you're learning to kind of rewire this pattern which, remember, I told you, takes time make your life as easy as you possibly can for yourself. Don't have packets of biscuits in your house. If the kids eat snacks, maybe you don't have snacks anymore Just say look, look, guys, we're not going to have snacks anymore. If you want to have treats, if you want to have crisps or whatever and they're of a certain age and they have their own money, they can go out and buy them. But don't bring things into your home that you are going to have to really, really, really, really force yourself to not have, because that's not going to make the rewiring element of it any easier.

Speaker 1:

And the thing that really annoyed me about myself and again, we all do this is that when I took that pasty just right the second before I took it, there was a little voice in my head going no, do it. No, don't do it. No, do it, no, don't do it, no, do it, no, don't do it, no, do it. And I did it Because in that moment I let my emotions scream louder, I let my desire for that thing to scream louder. So it's really, really normal and but actually that was quite unusual for me. But my point point being just set yourself up for more success.

Speaker 1:

If you absolutely love a dairy milk bar and you want to learn how to rewire this pattern, in the meantime, whilst you're working on that, don't buy in 25 bars of dairy milk and claim that they're for your husband, because you know you know for a fact you're not just gonna have three squares of it, like as much as you want to tell yourself. You're gonna have three squares a night. You won't, because that food is designed to keep you coming back for more. That food is designed very much like social media. You'll be there. You're like, no, I'm just gonna spend 10 minutes on social media tonight and there you are half an hour later still scrolling, scrolling mindlessly. So just think about what you're eating. Build those meals around really good quality foods that you absolutely love and adore, and keep you feeling full until your next meal. Stop the snacking. Focus on the meals.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is building strength and muscle so that your body becomes more resilient and burns a lot more calories at rest. So so, so, so important when you start to actually exercise for strength. It's a really weird switch that happens when it comes to food, and I know it seems strange because you think, well, maybe the two things aren't correlated. When I used to exercise to lose weight, all I used to think about was food all of the time. But as soon as I started exercising to build muscle and to retain muscle and to get strong, I suddenly started caring more about what the food was doing for my body in pursuit of that. And it's a real natural shift that I see happen with our clients. But it's so important, so don't disregard that. Similarly, I think it goes hand in hand with if you wake up in the morning and you go and do a strength training session. First thing, you're more likely to make better choices the rest of the day, so it goes hand in hand.

Speaker 1:

And then the third thing and really important and often overlooked is calming the nervous system, so that you're not living in that wired, anxious, overwhelmed state that leads you back to the fridge, to the bottle, to wherever, every single night. So please take that bit seriously. But none of this will work unless you start to rebuild the trust you have between you and food, and that starts with awareness. So I want to give you three quick, powerful reframes that you can use right now to start making progress on your journey. So reframe number one you're not addicted to food. You're addicted to what food gives you, which is relief. So learn to meet the need and not just silence it. Reframe number two you are not bad for wanting more wanting to eat, wanting to rest, wanting to feel good. That's completely human. You just need new ways to meet those needs. And then reframe three is that there's no wagon to fall off. Can we please stop saying I'm off the wagon or I'm being good, or I'm not being good, or any of that stupid phrasing that we tell ourselves that we grew up telling ourselves there's just life.

Speaker 1:

What matters is that you keep showing up, imperfectly but consistently. That's the most important thing. This is how our clients change for good and, like I stressed before before, this doesn't happen overnight. This happens because you are surrounded by people who can help you make this change. You're surrounded by like-minded people that all want the same outcome. It's far easier to change and do hard things when you're in an environment that supports that.

Speaker 1:

If you are in, if your circle of people are all raving drug addicts, it's going to be very difficult for you to get off the drugs. If you have a problem with drugs, if all of your circle of immediate friends are all drinking every single night to socialise, it's going to be very hard for you to cut back on alcohol Not impossible, because we do have to take some self-responsibility for everything that we do but it's going to be very, very hard. So if you can put yourself in an environment with people that all want the same things, that are all going to be the better versions of themselves, you've got a lot more of a chance to succeed. So doing things on your own is a lot of the reason why you're struggling, even though you think you know what you should be doing, even though you keep trying, even though you keep filling your brain with information and searching things and social media and signing up to the books and the clubs and all the rest of it. You have to be immersed in that world in order to help progress with change.

Speaker 1:

Now, if anything that I shared with you today made you feel like I'm speaking directly to you, then I'd love for you to share this episode with a friend, because the chances are you have somebody in your life probably a lot of people in your life that can all relate to what I'm talking about today and it can really help them reframe their mindset and help them to progress and move forward as well. And if you're actually in a situation where you have a friendship circle and they are, all you know, indulging themselves in habits and behaviors that you're trying to step away from, it could be even more powerful to share this with them, because if you're feeling the way you're feeling, they're likely feeling the same way. And even if they aren't even if they aren't, even if they aren't, even if they aren't, even if they aren't yeah, that's right, I always feel like that sounds very strange. I said it in last week's podcast and it still sounded strange. But even if they're not on the same journey as you or even desire to be on the same journey as you, if they're your real friends and they're your true friends, they will want what's best for you.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes it's a lot easier to share an episode and then sort of say this is what I want to work towards than actually using words yourself, so it can just be a nice little foot in the door, but regardless, it really helps to support this podcast and get the message out as well. So I'd be truly grateful. And it's never too late to rewrite your story. I think this is really critical. It doesn't matter whether you're 50s, 60s, 70s. If you want more for yourself, there is more for you to, more for you to have. It's just a case of being open, being willing and excited about what's to come, because the next part of your life is the one that you design. So it's too late. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, I hope it gave you a little bit of insight and, of course, like always, please keep feeding your health, and I'll catch you in the next one.