Here is the full text and summary of Tricia Nelson’s talk titled “Emotional Eating: What if Weight Loss Isn’t about the Food?”at TEDxWestMonroe conference. In this talk, Tricia shares a personal story about struggling with emotional eating and finding a solution that doesn’t involve dieting. She discusses three key ways to overcome emotional eating: changing perspective, reducing stress, and seeking support.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
I reached my spoon down into the pint of praline pecan. It’s the perfect last bite. Gooey caramel swirling around creamy vanilla ice cream with two delicious maple pecans that will add just the right amount of crunch. But I can’t enjoy this bite.
You see I’ve not only eaten the entire container of ice cream, but I’ve also devoured a full bag of popcorn, half a package of cookies, and twenty-six Hershey’s Kisses. I feel completely sick, disgusted, I sweep up the remains and I throw them in the trash vowing never to eat that kind of crap again. I collapse on the couch.
After a few hours, the cookies in the trash call to me, Trisha, and I answer. In a trance, I stumble over to the trash can, find the cookies, and polish them off. Once again, my insatiable hunger drives me to new depths of shame. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I stop? I’m such a loser.
At age twenty, I was fifty pounds overweight. I hated my fat. I had a roll of fat on my tummy that I would scrunch up in my hands, and imagine cutting it off, like you cut fat off the side of a steak. I sometimes wished I’d contracted a disease where I’d automatically lose weight without having to diet.
I even considered joining the army so I’d be forced to exercise at boot camp. I hated to exercise. I was a yo-yo dieter, up thirty, down twenty, up ten. And as a result, I had several sizes of pants in my closet because I never knew what size I’d be.
My skinny jeans collected a lot of dust as I whiled away years looking for the hidden solution to overcoming my weight loss problems. I found that solution. I found that key, and it wasn’t through a magic diet.
In fact, dozens of studies show that diets generally have a dismal success rate. A recent study in the British Medical Journal follows 22,000 adults on one of 14 popular diets. They found that within one year, participants regained all the weight they had lost. Yet, if you do a search on Amazon right now for diet books, you’ll get roughly 50,000 results.
This was my experience. No matter what diet I tried, of course, I’d start out strong. I’m doing it! Looking good, feeling good, pants getting looser. But then after a couple weeks, things started to get hard. I mean, really hard.
And at some point, the tension in my gut would become so unbearable that I would just break down and binge, and I’d always put the weight back on again. And then some.
So the million-dollar question is, why did it get so hard? My experience is that when I would diet, all the feelings I had stuffed with excess food would come to the surface, and I didn’t have the tools I needed to deal with them. That’s what kept me stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage.
Eating was how I coped with life. If I wanted to lose weight and keep it off, I had to develop healthier means of coping. This changed everything for me. When I adopted healthy ways of addressing my emotions and stress, my weight stabilized, and my relationship with food became so much more peaceful. I’m excited to share three of these key ways with you.
The first key was a change in my perspective. Instead of focusing on what unhealthy foods were doing to me, I started to address instead what they were doing for me. PEP is an acronym, P-E-P. The first P stands for PAINKILLER . My painkiller of choice, praline pecan ice cream, of course. So after indulging in any form of sugar, fat, and starch, my favorite three food groups, I’d feel nothing.
I was unconsciously using food to anesthetize uncomfortable emotions, but my eating ultimately brought on more pain.
The E stands for ESCAPE, because when life got a little bit too intense, either from family stress, financial fear, or just overall feelings of anxiety, curling up with my favorite foods in front of the TV always took me to a faraway place, at least momentarily.
And the third P in PEP, PUNISHMENT, which seems counterintuitive, I know, because yummy foods seem to be a reward. But I was hardly rewarding myself when I’d overeat and end up feeling sick, yet I did this over and over again.
You see, I was not only an overeater, but I was also an overfeeler. I felt guilty about everything. And I was also super hard on myself when I’d make a mistake. So when cookies start calling my name, I ask myself, what’s really going on? Am I trying to perhaps numb painful emotions? Am I looking to escape from something that’s overwhelming? Or perhaps am I trying to punish myself for something I’ve said or done that I feel bad about? This is an easy way to begin making the connection between my eating and my emotions.
The second key for finding balance is reducing stress. So in my experience, both personally and professionally, overeaters tend to be overdoers. I was always on the go, always putting everyone else’s needs first, never slowing down long enough to catch my breath or eat a healthy meal.
Stress plays a role in elevated cortisol levels, and cortisol increases appetite and causes our bodies to store fat instead of burn it. So for me, an important and crucial piece of the weight loss puzzle was self-care. When I began to integrate self-care practices into my life, I had more emotional balance and I had more energy.
And I no longer craved coffee and chocolate for stamina.
So some of the traits that worked best for me, that I do every day, are meditation and journaling. But you may be thinking, hey lady, I don’t have time for self-care, I’m a busy professional with a job, three kids, and a neurotic dog. Think again.
When we take time for ourselves, we actually increase our capacity to give to others. And we’re also better equipped to handle life’s challenges without turning to food. So another key element of self-care was changing ingrained habits that caused my stress.
So in my work, I’ve observed several traits of emotional eaters that tend to be most common, and I refer to these traits as the anatomy of the emotional eater.
The Achilles heel for most, including myself, is people-pleasing. So I lacked self-esteem, and I chased the attagirls that made me feel worthwhile. And as a people-pleaser, I said yes to everything. Sure, I’ll chair the committee, happy to host the party, and of course I’ll do your job, and mine, and Jerry’s job, no problem.
I don’t know about your experience, but any time that I really knocked myself out to try to please somebody, they were never as pleased as I planned on them being. So I was not only burned out, but I was also kind of resentful. And this was the perfect storm for justifying yet another I-deserve-it binge. Changing this habit by learning how to say no when there’s too much on my plate, so to speak, really helped reduce my stress and my feelings of hunger.
Now, the last key in overcoming my emotional eating, super important: get support from a community of other emotional eaters. Research shows that group support increases weight loss results, and it makes sense, right? I mean, temptations to eat unhealthy foods are everywhere. Think TV commercials, checkout lines at the supermarket, and parties.
So overindulging is a socially acceptable pastime that’s difficult to curb without support. Plus, I got to tell you, there’s nothing more comforting than connecting with those that really know the shame and humiliation of behaviors like digging binge foods out of the garbage.
So you might be thinking, isn’t it silly to need help with something as basic and seemingly easy to control as what I put in my mouth? Not so fast.
The truth is, emotional eating is one of the hardest of the addictive habits to break. Why? Because we have to eat. What we’re up against is really akin to taking a growling tiger out of the cage, trying to pet the nice kitty, and then somehow get it back inside the cage without getting mauled. Not so easy unless you have the right kind of support.
Sarah is a mom, wife, and award-winning producer who is tired of her dependence on sugar. Turns out she was numbing her feelings with more than just food. Things like Nicorette gum, an evening glass of wine, and overworking.
Sarah would often work straight through breakfast and lunch and pay for it with a late-night binge. She never gave herself time to just chill. Sarah was at the end of her rope when she reached out for help. So within weeks of learning new ways of processing her emotions and addressing her feelings and her stress, Sarah was not only off all the stimulants that had kept her propped up, but she was also feeling so much less anxious.
Sarah was coming home to herself. Her daughters noticed a difference and even asked how they could adopt these same practices for themselves. You can develop this same sense of peace. Start by taking the PEP test and really ask yourself what’s going on when you find yourself taking yet another trip to the kitchen. Is it for perhaps a painkiller? An escape? Or are you feeling bad about something and is it a form of punishment?
Next, manage your stress by implementing self-care habits that can help you feel more centered. And also take a look at things like people-pleasing that may be causing you more stress.
And finally, nourish your soul through connection and community with other emotional eaters that can help you stay accountable and stay on track with your goals. These simple steps, while having nothing to do with food, can make a real impact on your food choices and your ability to reach a weight that works best for you. I’ll leave you with this.
I believe we can all enjoy a relationship with food and with ourselves that is both peaceful and self-caring. It starts with looking beyond the food for answers. Thank you.
SUMMARY OF THIS TALK:
Tricia Nelson’s talk, titled “Emotional Eating: What if Weight Loss Isn’t about the Food?” offers valuable insights into the complex relationship between emotions and eating habits. In her deeply personal narrative, she shares her struggles with overeating and her journey to find a sustainable solution. Here are the key takeaway points from her talk:
The Cycle of Overeating: Tricia begins her talk by describing her personal struggle with overeating, binging on unhealthy foods, and feeling a profound sense of shame and self-disgust afterward. This cycle was a constant in her life, and she yearned to break free from it.
The Illusion of Diets: Tricia highlights the futility of traditional diets by referencing numerous studies that demonstrate their low success rates. She emphasizes that despite initial progress, diets often lead to rebound weight gain, leaving individuals trapped in a cycle of dieting and overeating.
Understanding Emotional Eating: Tricia suggests that the key to breaking free from emotional eating is understanding the role of food as a coping mechanism for emotions. She introduces the concept of PEP (Painkiller, Escape, Punishment) as a way to recognize how unhealthy foods serve as a means to numb pain, escape from stress, or punish oneself.
Changing Perspectives: Tricia’s first essential step toward healing was changing her perspective on unhealthy foods. Instead of seeing them as indulgences, she recognized that they were her way of self-medicating emotions. This shift in mindset allowed her to address the root causes of her emotional eating.
Reducing Stress: Stress plays a significant role in emotional eating, leading to increased cortisol levels and weight gain. Tricia advocates for self-care practices such as meditation and journaling to manage stress effectively and create emotional balance.
Overcoming People-Pleasing: Tricia identifies people-pleasing as a common trait among emotional eaters. By learning to say no and setting boundaries, individuals can reduce stress and avoid the need to turn to food as a coping mechanism.
Community Support: Tricia emphasizes the importance of seeking support from a community of individuals who understand the challenges of emotional eating. This support helps individuals resist temptations and provides comfort in knowing they are not alone in their struggles.
The Difficulty of Breaking Emotional Eating: Tricia acknowledges that emotional eating is one of the most challenging addictive habits to overcome because people need to eat. It’s like taming a growling tiger and getting it back into the cage without getting hurt, making support crucial.
A Personal Success Story: Tricia shares the story of Sarah, a woman who sought help for her emotional eating and managed to transform her life by addressing her emotions and stress. This story serves as a testament to the effectiveness of the strategies Tricia discusses.
The Path to a Peaceful Relationship with Food: Tricia’s talk ultimately encourages listeners to look beyond food for answers. She believes that everyone can develop a peaceful and self-caring relationship with food and themselves by addressing the underlying emotional issues and adopting healthier coping mechanisms.
In summary, Tricia Nelson’s talk highlights the critical role emotions play in driving unhealthy eating habits. She offers practical steps to break the cycle of emotional eating, emphasizing the importance of perspective change, stress management, setting boundaries, and seeking support. Her personal journey and the success story of Sarah provide hope and inspiration for those struggling with emotional eating.
