Permission to Heal Episode #84 - A Conversation with Roni Davis about Redefining Healthy Eating and Living

Roni Davis is a purpose-led, heart-centered solopreneur. Roni is a published author, award-winning coach, speaker, and hosts the BEING MORE Podcast. She is also the founder of E-CET—Embodied Cognitive Eating Training, a unique process that utilizes a combination of proven effective modalities to help women break unhealthy eating habits, end weight & food obsessions, and redefine healthy eating and living through wholehearted being.

 Honestly, her biggest goal with everything I do is to share what I've learned and help women start thinking about healthy eating and living differently than we've been taught.

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Transcript

PTH 84 Roni Davis Episode 

[00:00:00] We are taught to live at war with our body as though it's the enemy and we always have to be trying to fix it and defeat the enemy and achieve success with our health. Achieve our health goals. No, no it's our body is our all. It is the best ally we will ever have going through life. 

[00:00:21] And so our job isn't to fight it and resist it and control it and hate it. It's to accept it and to love it and to trust it and to actually live in it. 

Hello, and welcome to permission to heal. I am so thrilled that you are here. Today, we have a conversation with a woman who has become a friend of mine, Ronnie Davis. She and I met through social media. we love what each other has to say. We had a lovely conversation through zoom just to get to know each other to talk about the episode swaps we were doing. 

[00:00:28] I was on her podcast Being More which is relaunching in September. And here she is on permission to heal. Roni is a purpose led heart centered solo entrepreneur. she is a published author and award-winning coach and speaker and hosts the podcast being more. She is also the founder of the E C E T embodied, cognitive eating training, a unique process that utilizes a combination of proven and effective modalities to help women break, unhealthy eating habits, end weight and food obsessions and redefine, healthy eating and living through wholehearted being. This is honestly her biggest goal with everything she is passionate and has lived this and has walking the talk herself. She was in the diet and wellness and physical fitness industry. 

[00:01:25] She was a competitive. Fitness athlete and was miserably unhealthy and physically and mentally. And she has done the hard work, the research and the inner work to create a more healthy, holy embodied. Way of viewing herself physically, emotionally, spiritually, the whole thing. And she's just in the few conversations I've had with her at this point, she's helped me tremendously along this road, myself. 

[00:01:58] So this is a bit of a longish episode, but I swear to you, it is chalk full of everything. You need to start walking this path to wholehearted wellness, body love. Body comfort, body acceptance everything, all, all the things. So her, her website is cognitive eating academy.com. You can join her five day, September challenge, which she talks about in the podcast, all of the links to every way you can connect with Ronnie in the show notes. 

[00:02:30] So scroll down and I am as always really floored, thrilled. Beyond happy beyond grateful that you are here listening and that you tune in every Wednesday and the way the podcast is growing. You're obviously sharing this with your friends and coming back each week. And I do this as a labor of love for me. I absolutely adore the whole process of this. And I'm really grateful that you're all here. Remember you only need your own permission to begin. And baby steps are still steps. Take one today.
 
[00:00:00] All right, let's start this. I don't wanna like eat up your time. I feel, I feel bad. Okay. You ready? Yeah. All right. Intros I do after, so we're just gonna start talking and see how it goes. Okay. Okay. You ready? Yeah. Okay. Can you hear the fan that's next to me? No. Okay. Excellent. All right. Hopefully it doesn't. 

[00:00:28] Hi, Ronnie. How are you this afternoon? I'm amazing. Mercy. It's so awesome to see you. So great. So great. We had a, a conversation like this through zoom before I was on your podcast. Mm-hmm and so. Now, so we did that and then we did your podcast and, and then now you're here and I feel like we've become friends. 

[00:00:48] I love it. It's awesome. I know. It's amazing. And, and from the conversations we've had so far, I love you. . Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So Ronnie, you know, I was thinking about you last night when I was sitting up at one o'clock in the morning doing graduate, work on my computer, and I was snacking without really being hungry. And as I was putting the little popcorns chips into my mouth, I was thinking, I'm gonna talk to Ronnie tomorrow, and I'm gonna talk about this very thing. what would she say? Why the hell am I eating these damn chips? I don't really want them, except that I wanted the crunch. Obviously I could have had a healthier choice anyway. 

[00:01:26] Why don't you take a second, introduce yourself, tell our listing audience who you are and why you're so. No pressure. Well, you're so fabulous. Well, I'm fabulous because I'm me. yay. we're just having too much fun. We really are. That's okay. Yeah, so I'm Ronnie. I spent eight years as a personal trainer and nutrition and wellness coach before quitting at the height of my success. 

[00:01:55] when I started hating that world. Now I help women figure out why they eat the way they eat in order to teach them how to build healthier patterns with. Food and basically the way they treat their bodies. Um, while I was also a trainer and wellness, nutrition, and wellness coach, I also happened to be spend most of that time as a raging bulimic and a binge eater as well. 

[00:02:22] So I, I certainly have my fair share of experience with overeating potato chips. I was a pro back in the day. Um, and I was also a champion figure athlete. So I know the, oh, the weight, the weight and, and body, body transformation world pretty well too. Yeah. That's a lot of pressure. I'm also a podcast host. 

[00:02:45] I have my own podcast, as you mentioned being more. And so I do that and yeah, all kinds of stuff. That's awesome. That's awesome. So it's, it's the psychology of, of why we eat or why the psychology of our relationship with food as well as, um, Sort of the stigma surrounding weight and body issues and yeah, well, what I, what I learned was that, you know, we're, we're, we are really programmed to believe that this whole healthy eating and living thing is determined by what we eat and, and in order to achieve healthy eating or, or being healthy, we have to control what we're eating. 

[00:03:28] Right. Sure. And micromanage every more and all of those things. But what I learned was that it's not about what we eat, it's about why we are eating. And I was miserable doing that when I was going through my divorce. Like what, 15 years ago, at this point I felt like the only thing in my world that I can control was what I was eating and how I was moving. 

[00:03:50] Mm-hmm . And so I had myself on a very strict, like 1400 calories a day. Plan. And it didn't really matter to me what the calories were as long as there were only 1400 of them. Yeah. And then I would using one of those apps on my phone calculate the exact duration and intensity of all the exercise and how many calories I supposedly burned. 

[00:04:12] And it was always this, you must burn more than you consume every single day and, and radically. So, yeah. And so within six months I lost 60 pounds. Mm-hmm , which didn't seem fast then, but was fast. It was fast. Yes. And I presume it all went back on and probably even a little more, it took 10 years or more to come back on completely. 

[00:04:40] But yeah, it all came back on. Yeah. And, and that's what happens. And I haven't had the desire to exercise like that, that like mania of exercising mm-hmm cause also in that was woven a tiny little stint with Blea mm-hmm . I caught myself before it, like, I'd only made myself throw up about six times and then I stopped myself. 

[00:05:01] I had an out of body experience in the downstairs guest bathroom in the old house. And I'm like, would I want my children to know what I was doing? And that seems to be my exit point. Like the mommy thing is much stronger than the Marcy thing for, so yeah, I didn't have, I didn't have that exit point I, I did not have that. 

[00:05:21] I remember I at, at the worst of my bulimia, I, I was hospitalized for a week. Um, but also for me, I, I remember being on the, the floor of the bathroom, sitting in front of the toilet with this spoon down my throat, trying to make myself throw up sobbing hysterically and hating myself so bad because I couldn't make myself throw up. 

[00:05:45] And I remember the thought that went through my head at the time was you're such a screw up. You can't even do bulimia, right? Well, alright. That's mm-hmm and I went and, and I, I remember I was seeing a therapist at the time and I, I remember going to therapy the next week and telling him about that. And, and as I was telling him, I was laughing. 

[00:06:05] I mean, I was sobbing hysterically. Sure. But I was also laughing because when you're hearing yourself say these things, you you're aware that you like, it sounds insane. Yeah. And yet that's where I was. I, I hated myself so much that yeah. My compensatory behaviors were overexercise and starvation. Um, and what happened with me was those things both sucked pretty bad. 

[00:06:32] Yeah. I didn't like starving and I didn't like over exercising. No. So the bulimia only lasted for, you know, maybe like a year or two. And I transitioned from bulimia. Or I wasn't really doing the, um, you froze for a second. The, the, yeah, uh, sorry. I, I, I just said the bulimia for me only lasted about a year or so. 

[00:06:52] And then I transitioned into binge eating because I, I just let go of the compensatory behaviors. And so I just ended up continuing to be a binge eater, but you know, the whole time I was a binge eater, like the worst of my binging, I was at the leanest that I have ever been. You know, I, I was, I was at the height of, you know, my career in the fitness industry. 

[00:07:14] I was an, a champion figure athlete, you know, competing and winning. I was, um, Canadian trainer of the year. I, I was, you know, I was, wow. I was successful in the fitness world. I was fit. I was lean. I was strong. I was everything that everybody says is the picture of health, but you were M. But I was miserable and I was engaging. 

[00:07:36] I mean, I was engaging in behaviors that everybody as associates with being healthy behaviors, but nothing about what I was doing was healthy. Right. Nothing about the way I was treating my body was healthy, nothing about the choices that I were making were healthy because of why I was making them. So does the diet industry know that what they're telling us, what they're feeding us part in the metaphor, um, is unhealthy or wrong and they're doing it just to make money or do they really think, I mean, this is an overgeneralization mm-hmm or do they really think that what they're doing is healthy and good advice. 

[00:08:13] So. Yeah. And that's a great question because in the anti diet world, there's a lot of, um, really like ragging on the diet industry and, and, and, you know, people who sell diets and stuff as being just for profit and, and, and admittedly, I do that myself too, because yes, absolutely. The industry knows like weight Watchers said, I, I think in like the eighties or nineties, or I don't remember what year it was, but the weight watcher CEO said, when people come to us, they give us credit for their success and they blame themselves for their failure. 

[00:08:46] Right. And their entire business model is built upon creating lifelong customers because they know people feel like crap. So they keep going there for the answer. Yeah. They create a problem. They, they, they create a problem. They tell you that this is the problem. And then they give you a solution, a solution air quotes and big air quotes. 

[00:09:08] Yeah. The biggest air quotes. Yeah. They sell you a solution that they know are, is gonna keep you stuck as a lifelong dependent customer, going back to them because they've programmed you to give them credit for your success and to blame yourself for their failure. Mm-hmm now having said that the individuals that are selling those things, most of those people do not know, like when I was a personal trainer and I was selling weight loss and I was selling healthy, eating, like the traditional way. 

[00:09:39] I did not know I genuinely got into it because I wanted to help women feel their best and live their best lives and be healthy and all of those things. And I genuinely thought that. Do it do it, right? Yes. That's what you learn when you're in that world. And so for the most part, I do think general, again, generally speaking, there are a lot of Charlestons in that world that jump into that world just because it's popular and easy to make money. 

[00:10:06] There are a lot of them, but I also believe that for, for the most part, the individuals in that world really do believe they're doing the best for their clients and are, are trying right. Um, you know, to do the best they can for them as, as I did. Um, and it wasn't until, you know, I, I started learning everything that I was learning that I started going, like, I can't do this anymore. 

[00:10:29] This is, I, I can't do this anymore. Um, yeah, it's too much. Yeah. It, I felt like I really started to feel like I had been talked to selli. 

[00:10:42] I, I, I feel that, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like every client that almost every client that I worked with over the years would come to me and they would start. And they would say, um, you know, I, I lost this much on this diet and I lost that much on that diet. And it was, it worked so great for me and I felt amazing and I looked so great, but I'm so stupid. 

[00:11:04] I always gained it back. No, it's not their fault. These things are unsustainable. Well you exactly. But in the beginning on a, on a regimented plan for a couple of weeks and absolutely lose weight, but it's unsustainable. Not only is it unsustainable, there are very real biological reasons why the weight doesn't stay off for even above and beyond the reason why the, the reason, the fact that it's unsustainable, there are reasons why the weight doesn't stay off and it's built into the survival of our species. 

[00:11:35] Right? Sure. Um, and so it it's, it it's selling a lie. When I, when I started recognizing that. This was a pattern that I was seeing in every single woman, pretty much that I worked with almost every single woman. And I started recognizing that while not everybody went to the same extremes that I did, almost everybody was struggling with a lot of the same issues that I was 

[00:12:03] And I started recognizing why. Yeah. Like this is a lie. I can't, I can't keep selling this. I can't keep selling weight loss. It's unethical. And I can't keep selling healthy, eating this way. It's unethical because people cannot stick to it. Nobody can stick to it. And then they feel worse and worse about themselves. 

[00:12:21] And then they feel worse and worse about themselves. And I was beginning to understand why they can't stick to it and, and. And so while I was doing that, I was also in the middle of my own healing too. Right. Sure. And so it kind of the two kind of overlapped. And so as I was healing myself and learning all of this stuff about my own healing, it, it helped me transition and out of that world. 

[00:12:45] And, um, yeah. So what did your own healing journey from this look like? Ooh, um, well, you know, it was tough in the beginning. Um, I remember I went to my doctor and I was in the middle of my first competition prep and I was binging out of control. And I was very aware that the binging that I, I had to be on stage. 

[00:13:10] And the reason that I decided to compete was because I couldn't stop binging. So in my I'd like to force you in yes. In my infinite wisdom, I decided that I had more pressure. This is, I thought this make stop binging. I have to get on stage in five inch heels in a tiny little competition suit. So, um, spoil or alert, it did not help me stop binging. 

[00:13:37] In fact, it made it worse. And I ended up in the middle of my prep in the doctor's office saying, you know, um, I can't stop Bing I'm binging outta control. I need help thinking the doctor's gonna wave a magic wand and, and tell me what to do to stop binging. So he sent me to a psychiatrist or a therapist that specialized in eating disorders. 

[00:13:57] And the first thing he said to me was you have to stop dieting. Dieting is a big part of what's causing the Bing. I was incredibly put out. Like I remember like I was, first of all, you don't understand, sir, 

[00:14:16] you've got this all wrong. I'm here so that you can make me stop binging so I can go win a competition. This is not about me not doing this. Second of all, sir, I'm not dieting. I'm eating healthy, balanced meals. I'm just eating for my goals. You know, all the things that were programmed to say I'm not dieting. 

[00:14:38] And so I was incredibly annoyed that one, this guy doesn't know me. I'm not a quitter. I'm not quitting this prep. And two, why is he trying to convince me that it's I should be eating unhealthy. Like he's supposed to be, he's supposed to be telling me how to stick to this thing. Mm-hmm , you know, not telling me to get off and eat unhealthy. 

[00:14:56] That's what I thought at the time. And I continued with that, um, therapy for about a year. Incidentally, the hospitalization was right after my first prep within like immediately after that first prep, because again of the restrictive diet mm-hmm , that was a diet, um, because of the restrictive diet, the rebound from that for a bulimic was brutal. 

[00:15:23] I put on 11 pounds overnight because I ate all night after that competition. And then I did not stop eating for a month and he put me in the hospital for a week cuz it was a train wreck. Wow. And then after that, um, You know, basically my body, my body was probably so starved because oh, my body was just my poor body. 

[00:15:44] The crap I've done to it over the years. Like, it's, it's just, I'm so grateful that it's been so good to me. Now. I can say that back then. Of course I hated. And it was the enemy. Sure. Um, but so I, you know, I continued therapy, but every time I was, I could only see the therapist. PS. I could only see the therapist once a month because I was at a healthy weight mm-hmm and they only had so much time and they prioritized the anorexic that were thinner that were leaner. 

[00:16:14] Now this is eating disorder, recovery. What they're doing, right. They're prioritizing the skinnier people. Well, cuz their lives are more fragile. I guess. I intellectually, I understand that. But when you're in recovery for an eating disorder that was caused at least in part by the fact that you wanna be thinner, that is horrific. 

[00:16:35] Yeah, absolutely. It is horrific. Absolutely. I wasn't even thinking of it that way, but that's true. So it horrible. And you're getting more attention than obviously it's reinforcing the need to be thinner. Yep. And, and when you're at a healthy weight or, or heaven forbid you're a binge eater or a bulimic in a larger body, you mean the, the chances of getting help for that? 

[00:16:57] It's so hard. So I could only see 'em once a month, every month I would go in and I would, I mean, I was living in hell. Like I can't even express to you what it's like to live with an eating disorder or, you know, disordered eating to that level. It was like living. I described it as like living with a monster in my head. 

[00:17:15] Yeah. Like I, I knew what I should be doing. No matter what I did. I couldn't keep it up. I couldn't stick to it. I and the, like the, the abusive thoughts, all, like, it was just, it was the nightmare and I would sob hysterically. And I would tell him about all the binges that I would I'd had in the past months, since I had seen him last. 

[00:17:37] And he would tell me to take a walk or take a bath. The next time I felt like I wanted to binge, and I would wanna punch him in the face for being useless. And I would leave feeling more hopeless and having the, some of the worst binges of my life. And the whole time I would say to him, I like, why am I like this? 

[00:17:55] Right. Like, I need, like, you like help me figure if I just could figure out why I'm like this, then I would feel like I had some hope for change. Right. Right. The why helps you understand so that you can get some control over. Well, well, not only that, but understanding the why I felt like would give me some direction in terms of what to do to shift it. 

[00:18:17] Sure. Like if I know what the cause is, then I can address the cause. But right now, all I'm doing is coming in sobbing and then leaving. And you're not giving me anything mm-hmm and he never gave me any answers in terms of why. Um, so eventually I just left therapy. I, I couldn't, it was like, it was not helping. 

[00:18:34] It was making me feel worse. Well, that particular therapy didn't give up. Wasn't helping you. Yeah. Yeah. And, oh, I mean, he, he also sent me to psychiatrists for medication and one of the psychiatrists, I remember that I went to, again for an eating disorder, told me that I just made too big a deal about food and I needed to stop doing that. 

[00:18:52] I mean, the, like the, the it's like snap outta it. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I was like, gee, why didn't not think of that? if it, that idiot, I wouldn't need to. It was insane. Insane. I would've solve this on my own age ago. exactly. I couldn't. So anyway, um, eventually I just kind of was like, I, I, I have to figure this out and that that's not helping. 

[00:19:14] And so I just read, I read everything that I could get my hands on and I remember picking up, um, Louise Hayes book. You can heal your life mm-hmm and there was one part in her book where she was listing out all of the, the ways that self-loathing expresses itself in our lives. and, and I'm reading this list and it was like a checklist, like check. 

[00:19:38] Yep, yep, yep. Yup. That's me every single one of 'em mm-hmm and I, I, and finally it was like a light bulb went off and I thought, I hate myself. I'm punishing myself because I hate myself. And with that realization. um, you know, it was, it was one of those things where I just was like, okay, if all of this is happening because I hate myself then seems to me, the solution would be to learn to love myself. 

[00:20:10] Um, and so then I had to go about figuring out how to do that. And, and I had to, and I, you know, there was also, it wasn't just the hating myself element that was causing it. It was also the restriction that was causing it. Mm-hmm right. And it was also emotional eating that was causing it because I didn't have any tools. 

[00:20:27] The therapist once told me that I didn't cope with distress very well. And I I'm sitting there like ugly crying, snot pouring out my face again. I'm like really captain obvious, you think so? Like, I'm here. Cause I'm well adjusted or something like what? Sorry, I'm laughing. That's so funny, captain obvious, you think this is new information to me, give me some tools. 

[00:20:47] Right, right. But so yeah, it was, the restriction was causing it. The self-loathing was causing it self punishment and emotion leading was causing it. I, I had no tools for coping with all of the pain and the distress and everything that I was feeling and going through. Um, and so once I realized all of those things, I had a plan. 

[00:21:07] I had this, okay. This is what I do. This is how I start to shift. This is how I start learning to get myself out of this. Um, that's huge. And I recognized as well that I could not, and this was a really, really big part of it. I recognized that I couldn't change any of those things. I was never going to be able to heal in the same environment that made me sick. 

[00:21:32] As long as I stayed in that world. I was never, as long as I stayed focused on what my body looked like, mm-hmm and needing to change my body and needing to look perfect and feel like I was being perfect. And as long as I was obsessed over eating perfect and doing all of the things I thought I was supposed to be doing, I was never going to be able to heal any of it, because that was just fueling all of the reasons I was stuck in it in the first place. 

[00:22:01] So with that, knowing it, I just kind of, it was like, I, okay, I have to eat whatever I want. Yeah. No matter what I have to allow myself to eat whatever I want. I gave myself permission to binge. And I talk about this a lot. You know, that's one of the reasons I love the title of your podcast, permission to heal because for me, permission to heal meant giving myself permission to binge. 

[00:22:27] and I learned to heal binge eating, not by taking a bath or taking a walk or trying to distract myself from binging. I learned to heal it by allowing myself, giving myself permission to binge and then learning to understand what was driving each binge and figuring out what that was trying to tell me about what I needed and then learning how to give myself that instead. 

[00:22:54] So, so basically I, I rewired that driving force in my brain that was causing the binging in the first place. That's huge. And I, I had to, I had to stop forcing myself, like fighting with my body and fighting with food in order to do that. I had to pull myself out of that world. Well, yeah, you can't make food, the enemy, cuz that's what I started to see. 

[00:23:13] I started to see good food and bad food, um, that all food, regardless of, you know, it's, it's inherent goodness or badness was evil. Yeah. And, and we need food to survive. Yep. You know exactly. So it's not food is always good. Exactly. All food is always, and also I would also offer that EV like there's never a bad food and there's never a bad reason to eat every choice that we make with food. 

[00:23:41] And otherwise is serving a purpose of some sort in the moment, which means it's a good choice. Now, does that necessarily mean that it's the best choice that we could make to support our wellbeing? Like our overall wellbeing long term? Absolutely not. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best in that case. 

[00:23:59] No, but if I want, but in the moment. Right. If I want the ice cream, I let myself have the ice cream, but what I'm starting to do, and, you know, baby steps are still steps. What I'm starting to do is not eat the whole pint at a time, but to take some spoons full out of it and put that in a cup and take that into another room and eat that. 

[00:24:22] And 99% of the time, I'm satisfied. I get the taste, I get the texture, I get the sugar, I get the sweet and I don't get the stomach ache. And I don't get like overeating, you know, fullness or whatever. And, and that's enough. Yeah. Um, versus what I was doing in the middle of lockdown, in the pandemic, which would be eating mm-hmm whole thing. 

[00:24:42] And then going back for more, even though I was literally sick to my stomach any while I was doing it well, that's, that's an, that would be an example of, you know, sort of soothing with food. Oh, absolutely. And that's what I was doing. and also I would, I would also argue that it's in some ways, self punishing with food as well, because if we're about to eat something that we know is gonna make us sick. 

[00:25:05] Yeah. Why do we do it? We're purposefully, we're purposefully punishing ourselves. Right. In some way, like there's, there's, you don't treat somebody that you value that way. Right. And that's one of the things I recognized. And so like, my son's allergic to seafood. Yeah. And it's causes anaphylaxis. And if left untreated will cause death, you know, mm-hmm, , I mean, it's just plain and simple. 

[00:25:25] So I'm listening to what you're saying. And I'm like, I wouldn't purposely feed him shrimp knowing that. Exactly. So why would I purposely feed myself something that I knew was gonna make me feel ill? You know, there, there are three, a little more than three years ago. Three years ago I had a hysterectomy. 

[00:25:41] And then right after that, I went to go see a dietician because I felt like everything that I was doing. Was making my, this new body with hormones coming from a different place. And, you know, like medical menopause from the sec, you know, from the outset. And so we did, um, a blood test series of blood tests, like a, it was called leap or something. 

[00:26:04] I don't exactly remember what it was called, but they basically tested my blood for more than 200 different types of food to determine inflammatory response, which basically boils down to what things can I eat. Yeah. That my body likes and what are the things that I might eat that my body really has a negative reaction to mm-hmm 

[00:26:24] And so I have a list of the things that my body doesn't like. Yeah. I and when I was asking the dietician, okay. So I'm only going to eat off of the list of all the foods that had the green bars next to them and avoid the ones that had yellow and red bars next to them. And that wasn't good or bad food. 

[00:26:42] That was what Marcy's particular body does not like, because it causes an inflammatory response, which then causes all these gastrointestinal whatever issues mm-hmm . Yep. Right. So I said, so how much of these things should I eat or not eat? Like, should I be counting calories? Should I be counting portion size? 

[00:26:59] And she says, no, you can eat. Yeah. And you should eat whatever, how much of whatever you want off of all the foods with the green bars next to them. And, and I was confused and she's like, it's difficult enough to just stick to that list. Yeah. When you're used to eating all those other things. But you know what, when I stuck to that list, the gastrointestinal issues were gone. 

[00:27:23] The breakouts were gone, the sleeplessness was gone. My body felt better. I didn't my weight didn't change. Yeah. But I, but all of those other issues were gone and then she gave me an intuitive eating book. Mm. Which I still haven't read. interestingly intuitive eating is built into my E C E T process, but I take it, so tell us about that. 

[00:27:47] Cause that, okay. Okay. So the next step. So just before, just before I, I do, I, I wanted to touch on that a little bit with the, you know, you talked about the list with the ones that, that your body responds to and the ones that your body, you know, doesn't like, um, I, I would even offer, even in that case, The best approach is looking at it from the perspective of I can't eat anything I want on all of these lists any time I want as much as I want. 

[00:28:14] Well, that's true. And the reason that that's important is because it helps to eliminate the overeating that comes from restriction. As soon as you look at the list that your body doesn't agree with and think I can't eat that, you're gonna be craving that crap. right. Not necessarily. I've learned over the years, that onions, I don't, I used to love them and be, I think because of the vehemently negative response I get from my body, I know longer like them, this is where I'm going with it. 

[00:28:45] Right. You can eat onions. You can't eat anything on that list? Sure. I sure. Most people for the most part, because of the way that our brains are wired, as soon as you something is off limits, our brain starts obsessing over wanting to have it. Okay. Just how our brains work. And so you can eat anything on that list, but how are you going to feel if you do mm-hmm and do you want to feel that way? 

[00:29:14] Why or why not. Exactly. No, exactly. That's the point. You can so permission to eat it, but how is my body going to respond? And I would even offer that if you, you know, paid enough, paid close enough attention, your body's gonna tell you which foods give, give off that if inflammatory response, without even needing the list. 

[00:29:34] Although the list is probably a faster, faster room to get there, you know, getting actual tests is probably a faster route, whatever. Yeah. But your body will tell you like every single one of us has had an experience where they've eaten something and immediately known. Oh, I wish I hadn't eaten that. 

[00:29:49] right. Like our bodies tell us the problem is we are so conditioned to put our, to put more trust in other people. for what our bodies need than we do our own bodies that we look for everybody else to tell us what we should eat, how much we should eat when we should eat, how we should eat. And we are when we're living in that place. 

[00:30:11] First of all, it's, it's usually fueled largely by fear mm-hmm , which keeps us disconnected from our own bodies. And when we're disconnected from our own bodies, we're not living in them. We're not present in them. We are just living on fear and autopilot, and we have no idea what our bodies actually want or need. 

[00:30:30] We're just trying to follow the rules and do what we think we're supposed to be doing. And so in my process, my process is really about effing the rules. Mm-hmm. Everything is, is good and okay. And fine, and whatever, whatever you wanna eat, as much as you wanna eat, you can eat, but let's get some tools to figure out what's causing you to eat things that aren't helping to support your overall wellbeing what's causing it. 

[00:30:58] Why are you making the choices you're making? And, and as I said, there are three main reasons that we typically get stuck in, in unhealthy patterns with food. The first one is restriction. Like everything we're taught that it takes to eat healthy. Right? Sure. The second one is self punishment when we judge and shame and blame ourselves for being bad for anything really, but also for eating bad things. 

[00:31:19] Right. Right. And then the third one is just emotional, eating, eating for reasons other than physical hunger. Um, and so, you know, we really get at the root of all of those, um, in, in my process and, and in my view, You know, I'm working really hard. I'm really passionate about redefining the way we're thinking about healthy eating and living and, and the choices that we make for our bodies. 

[00:31:44] And because I, I, I don't think that it's beneficial for us to approach it from the perspective that we have been, you know, that is, this is what you should be eating and shouldn't be eating, and this is how you should be moving and how much you should be moving. And, and like, these are all the things that you should be doing for your health, right? 

[00:32:01] And, and, you know, we're really programmed to chase health, to set health goals and to, to, to reach health goals as though health is an achievement or an accomplishment, right. But it's not, right. It's not an achievement. It's not an accomplishment. And it's not even something that we can entirely control with our choices. 

[00:32:20] Our choices are only a small fraction of what, what makes up, what ends up making us healthier, unhealthy a, I mean, some of it comes down to DNA and genetics, DNA genetics, also zip code. Where you live, right? Your socio socioeconomical status can have an that's true, too huge impact. Like so many things impact our health fear living in fear. 

[00:32:44] Mm-hmm, like the, the amount of fear that I lived in over food. I was scared of cookies for Christ's sake, for so many, like for most of my life because of healthy eating plans. So lemme interrupt. That's not healthy. No, it's not. Let me interrupt with one question though. So the fear increases the cortisol level in your brain because it increases strength and cortisol helps you hold on to calories in fat. 

[00:33:07] Mm. Right. Well, but, but, but, but I would also argue that it's not even about holding onto calories in fat. It's about the unhealthy impacts that living with fear has on you. It's not healthy. Well, that's true. Absolutely. And that's, that's the perspective I would take, but yes, absolutely. It would also increase cortisol and, and, and potentially hold onto fat. 

[00:33:27] So that's ultimately what got me from stopping what got me to stop. The over exercise thing, because I, I have this thing, this self diagnosis thing that I call self-induced, um, exercise-induced anxiety mm-hmm um, and I've talked about it with my therapist and there isn't a, a DSM code for that, but based on there be there should be because I, you know, I get on the treadmill and, and, and I'm doing what the, the, the, the fitness coaches tell me that I should be doing, you know, high interval training or whatever the hell that's called. 

[00:33:58] And, and, and I'm on the treadmill crying. And the people next to me are like, are you okay? Do you need 9 1, 1, like what's wrong? And I'm gasping for air and I'm asthma, so that doesn't help. Mm-hmm and then I'm crying hysterically. And, and, and, and at the same time, I'm yelling at myself, why are you crying? 

[00:34:14] You're doing what you're supposed to. And I'm like, wait, this has to stop this. Isn't healthy. This isn't what I should be doing. This isn't getting me anywhere. And then I heard somewhere, one of these diet gurus somewhere was saying that. What that panic and that craziness does is increase the cortisol level in your brain, which then disrupts the whole, you know, metabolism thing anyway. 

[00:34:42] So, so I just stopped so, so yeah. And so a couple of things, um, you know, just touching on the fear first, a a, a few client examples. So I had one client that came to me one time and she said, and specifically fear food. I wanna go back to the exercise in a second, but sure, sure, sure. She, she came to me and she said, you know, um, I, I have to eat we're so restricted because I'm allergic to everything. 

[00:35:07] Like everything I'm I'm I really have a lot of food allergies and everything makes me sick. And so in working with her for a while and, and helping her to dig into some of her patterns and, and thoughts and beliefs around food, what we realized was that it actually wasn't food allergies, at least not all of it, some of it, some of it legitimately was, but a lot of it. 

[00:35:26] Was anxiety around food that was making her physically, she was, we are so conditioned to believe that this food is bad, that when she eat, she'd get physically sick and it was purely fear. Like, that's what I mean when I say food fear is not, it's not healthy to live that way. No. Another client, um, came to me on depression and anxiety medication. 

[00:35:49] And she had told her doctor that, um, you know, she had lost some weight herself before working with me and she. Predictably as, as happens, when we lose weight, it doesn't really solve the problem. It just starts the new problem of trying to keep the weight off. And in her process of trying to keep the weight off, she started panicking and, and getting all, you know, all kinds of fear over the weight, coming back on, cuz she was seeing it inch back up again and she couldn't, she couldn't control it. 

[00:36:14] And so that's that started creating all kinds of fear and everything in her. And she ended up on depression and anxiety meds. By the time she came to me telling her therapist that she didn't wanna live anymore. If she could, if or telling her doctor rather that she didn't wanna live anymore. If she had to keep living like that, like, this is what I mean, it's not yeah. 

[00:36:29] Like it, it looks like it's promoting healthy behaviors, but it's not promoting healthy lives. No. And, and just coming back to the exercise, you know, beyond even just anxiety around the exercise, um, in the same way that our, our relationships with food get messed up, our relationships with exercise, get incredibly. 

[00:36:49] We are taught to treat exercise as punishment. It's something that we have to endure. It's something that we have to make ourselves do to fix the problem of our bodies, right? Everywhere you look, there's everybody advertising and exercise to fix this part of your body and an exercise to fix that part of your body and exercise becomes treated as punishment and something that we feel like we have to make ourselves do to quote, fix our bodies. 

[00:37:15] And, and so many people that I've worked with over the years have come to me in that place where they cannot stand the thought of exercising because their relationship with exercise is so messed up that yeah, they, they hate it. And it's such a shame because movement. Even just a couple of minutes of stretching a day can be so healing. 

[00:37:39] And it has so many wonderful benefits for us. But for so many people, there's become such a negative, um, relationship there because of the health and wellness industry. Um, it, it, you can't, it it's really tough to Parson. Then you've gotta spend all that time working to heal the relationship you have with exercise, the fear that you have around it, the fear that you have around food from all of the rules and all of the healthy eating guidelines and advice. 

[00:38:05] It's, it's so unhealthy. Um, so, so unhealthy. So what we do is you don't ever have to exercise another day in your life. If you don't want to don't exercise again, if you don't want to binge all day, every day, all day, every day, binge on your body, weight and chocolate, if you want to. Now, whenever I say that everybody says to me, oh, that sounds horrible. 

[00:38:31] I don't wanna do that. I can't imagine doing that. And to that, I say exactly, that's my point. right. That's my point. You don't wanna do that, right? No. If binging is happening, it's because there's a part of your BA brain that's programmed to cause it, as soon as you allow it, you start to rewire that part of your brain. 

[00:38:53] Now, again, there are other reasons that it happens, but that's one way that, that, that we start to shift. That's one of the first foundations in my process, as a matter of fact, permission to eat what we want. Um, and in terms of reimagining the way that we are approaching healthy, eating and living in my view, the, the only real path there or the new path is, uh, what I'm calling wholehearted. 

[00:39:18] And what that means is learning to approach the way that we treat our bodies and the way that we show up in the world for ourselves and our lives and the people around us learning to approach those things from a place of self love and, you know, being grounded, firmly in the knowledge of our own worthiness exactly. 

[00:39:36] As we are because, and sister, we treat ourselves the way we believe we deserve to be treated. So if we want to treat ourselves better, we have to start valuing, loving, and valuing and respecting ourselves more so that we naturally start treating ourselves better. So that's the whole hearted aspect of it. 

[00:39:55] And then the being, we combine that with being, being present in the moment and in our bodies being connected to our bodies when we're in them, so that we are aware of their communication and what they're telling us, we need. Yeah. That's hard so that we can learn to, that's hard for me. Yes. It's the hard part for most people, because we spend so much of our lives learning to disconnect and reject and fight and ignore them. 

[00:40:25] Right. I feel like everything I do that makes me feel powerful and strong and worthy and beautiful and intelligent happens from the neck up. Yeah. And so you walk around like a floating head, just rejecting everything. Right. So many years I envisioned my body as just transportation for my brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

[00:40:42] Yeah. I hear that. So often we're just walking around like floating heads, completely disconnected from the neck, neck down. And so how can we ever learn to trust our bodies if we're not connected to them and hearing what they're telling us they need and how can we ever truly to me. Yeah. And how can we ever truly learn to trust ourselves with anything in life? 

[00:41:07] If we don't trust ourselves enough to make this most basic of human decisions for ourselves. That is what we eat. And so being present, being connected in our bodies, being curious about our, what our thoughts are saying to us about our emotions, about our beliefs, about our habits and our patterns and how those things are driving, the choices that we make and, and why we we're making the choices that we're making. 

[00:41:31] And then being intentional, intentionally choosing for ourselves and our bodies and intentionally living from a place of love and trust and kindness and compassion. Because if you're doing that, if you are living from a place where you are valuing and loving yourself enough, as you are so that you wanna treat yourself well, are present connected, curious, and intentional. 

[00:42:01] You have all the power in the world to then also change your patterns and your. That contribute to unhealthy behaviors. And so you're coming at it from both ends. Yeah. You're coming at it from the perspective of wanting to treat myself better. And then also changing the patterns that I'm stuck in that are causing unhealthy behaviors while also being present in the moment so that I know what I actually need. 

[00:42:23] And I'm valuing myself enough to give myself that right now. Right. When we do that, when we have those pieces together. Yeah. Healthy eating and lifestyles and choices are the natural outcome. They're not a goal to chase. They're the result they happen on their own. Yeah. Makes sense. It's not easy work. no, not a quick and easy fix predictably. 

[00:42:51] no, I mean, nothing worthwhile is, I mean, you could use exactly SHA you know exactly. And, but, you know, it's funny because when I was bulimic and I, I was starting this process of trying to heal my own world. I used to think that the best I could ever hope for was getting to a place where I could manage my disease, as I thought it was at the time. 

[00:43:14] Right? Like, I'll just get better at learning strategies for managing this and learning to, you know, like, I used to think of it like being an alcoholic or something, right. Like I have to learn how to, to live with this in my life. Right. I don't, it's gone. It does those things don't live in me anymore because I changed who I was being. 

[00:43:32] I changed how I show up for myself and in the world, I changed me. I changed my inner world and that doesn't exist in me anymore. And it's remarkable because you know, the things that, some of the things that have changed, uh, it's not just my eating habits. Um, I stopped tanning. I used to go bake in the sun every summer because I wanted to have a tan to look good. 

[00:43:54] Now I can't even imagine doing that to my body anymore. Cuz it's so bad for me. I don't do that anymore. I stopped drinking. I hate how it makes me feel. I want no part of any of it. So I stop drinking. Right. Wow. Um, I've learned to love water and crave salads. I used to hate those things like who am I right now? 

[00:44:15] I've become a morning person. Like I'm naturally just awake every morning when the sun comes up and outside walk the dog in the woods when the sun comes up. I mean, it's like, it's almost like who am I? I don't even know who I am, but in the most beautiful ways, because I changed who I was being. Wow. And, and a lot of that, I think for me, like I'm imagining what that would look like in my life and, and what I, I, I think that we as women. 

[00:44:48] Are not only trying to unravel our own needs and our own inner worlds. And, but we're also unraveling the way society plays into the shaping of who we had become or have become. Yep. You know, the whole, you know, patriarchal look about, you know, women's historically mm-hmm, being how they looked and how pretty they were or how petite they were or whatever. 

[00:45:14] And yep. And the expectations like we were talking before we started recording about ages ageism. Mm. You know, like we all are not always going to be young and fit and pretty the way we may have been naturally at some earlier age than we are now. Mm. You know, and, and for me, part of this is learning to accept embrace. 

[00:45:43] Mm-hmm feel proud of feel loved towards. The change in the aging body, you know, like I love it. My relationship with food could be better. Yes. My relationship to movement and exercise could be better, but it's improving mm-hmm , but I'm really wrestling doggedly, like a dog fight wrestling with learning how to be comfortable with the 54 year old curvy, softer body than I've ever had in, in cuz what I keep imagining was how healthy and fit and fabulous I was at 35 mm-hmm and that shit ain't happening again. 

[00:46:25] that was 20 years ago. Yeah. So, and it's, I love that you brought that up because this is something that I've really been, um, noticing in myself. The, so, so first of all, coming out of the fitness world for me was interesting because there's a lot of pressure when you're in the position, I was to maintain a certain body. 

[00:46:45] Right. And so coming out of that for me was, was something like, but I remember, um, the first one, I remember one day I was standing in the mirror getting dressed. It was probably a year or so after I had really come out of that world. And I noticed that my butt was starting to go flat again, like when I was training in that world, my entire life revolved around how round I could get my ass. 

[00:47:06] And so I'm standing in the not kidding. I wish I was kidding. I'm not kidding. I, I, I'm embarrassed to say it, but it's just, she likes big butts and she cannot . I did, that was on my playlist as motivation. It was so bad. So I'm standing in the mirror and I, I. Noticed that my butt was go getting flat again. 

[00:47:26] And I was noticing some cellulite on the backs of my thighs. And I heard myself say, nah, I'm almost 45. What are you gonna do? And I went said that , it was just, it, it surprised me because I, I had never been able to do that before. And now, um, just in the past several months, I've noticed my stomach, my, most of my clothes everything's fitting normal. 

[00:47:54] I'm, I've maintaining, I've been maintaining the same weight for probably two years. Now. I put on a few pounds when I come outta that world, but I've, I've been maintaining for probably the past few years. Like nothing is changing except my belly, my belly has kind of just blown up randomly. I'm assuming menopause related. 

[00:48:11] I don't know. Yeah. It's but every time I'm a shift in estro. Yeah. So I'm I'm so every time I'm in the mirror and I see this round belly that before I would've hated myself for, I see it. And I kind of give it a little rub and oh yeah, I'm kinda getting big. That's all right. What are you gonna do? You know, and I, I Marvel at what that like the, the level of peace and ex, like, I can't even express what that feels like to be in that place. 

[00:48:36] Like, I love my body more now with it's cellulite and it's flat ass and it's belly rolls and it's wrinkles and everything else than I ever did walking off that stage with trophies, you know, I, I competed how'd you do that? Well, you know, I competed because I thought that, that I thought that first, I thought losing weight was the key to having a, a Bo a healthy body image. 

[00:49:02] I thought, when I lose the weight, then I love my body, but it didn't work. And so I had to keep going. And so that's why I started competing. Right. And so I finally won I'm stand, I'm walking off stage with that big smile. But underneath it was self was still that self body loathing, the, the trophies, the winning, having other people tell me that I was good enough was supposed to fix that. 

[00:49:23] And it didn't no cause the only truth is what you feel inside. Exactly. But it took getting myself to that place for me to figure it out. So when I figured that out and I started recognizing how much of my life was dependent upon external grad validation and, and what other people thought of me. I started recognizing that I need to find a place within myself where it does not matter what my, what I look like, what I weigh, what I eat, what I make, nothing outside of me can matter. 

[00:49:55] I have to find a place within me where I can love myself as. Whether I'm, you know, have a 22 inch waist and I'm wearing a slinky dress with, you know, Lila extensions, or if I'm on the couch in food covered pet pet hair, covered rags with, you know, hair on comb for two days. Like I had to get to that place. 

[00:50:17] Right. And how I started to get there was recognizing that transforming my body into something that looked better, wasn't working. That's not the answer transforming the way I felt about me as a person was a big part of the answer because the body that we have, the image that we see in the mirror is really the real life reflection of, of who we are. 

[00:50:42] And so when we don't value who we are, we can't learn to love the image that was looking back at us because that becomes, that becomes the image of who we are, if that makes sense, right? Like that's what we associate with who we are. So I had to learn to love myself. First and foremost that took and, and value myself and changed the way that I felt about myself. 

[00:51:04] And so that took time. But while I was doing that, every time I would stand in the mirror and I would notice those horribly abusive thoughts going through my head about my body. And again, I had abs and I would stand in the mirror, criticizing every inch. I would still find a way to criticize. And so what I started doing was I started focusing instead when I would notice the voice of criticism. 

[00:51:32] Sure. I started focusing instead on the things I was grateful for that's thing to do. Right. And so, okay, sure. You know, that doesn't look the way I wish it looked, but at least my legs. At least I can see, at least I walk, you can see, you don't have diabetes, you don't have a condition. Your blood pressure is good. 

[00:51:57] Right? Exactly. So I would reframe everything, like all of that, all of the negative thoughts into something, I would find something to be grateful for. Well, my hair is thick, you know, most people would kill to have this thick hair. Um, and so that's what I would practice while I was learning to love myself. 

[00:52:13] So it was kind of like this, it was twofold approach that I took to it. Right. Um, and the other thing that I, I really worked hard on doing was detaching what my body looked like. From how I felt about it. I had to learn to detach that condition. We are taught to treat the way we feel about ourselves and our bodies. 

[00:52:37] Conditionally. I can only love it if it looks a certain way. And if it doesn't look a certain way, I can't love or accept it. That's what we're taught. That's what I learned. It was conditional. Yes, absolutely. I had to take the conditions off. I had to learn to get those conditions off and I had to learn that it didn't matter what my body looked like, that I was allowed to decide right now to love it as it is. 

[00:53:04] Mm-hmm to respect it as it is to value it exactly as it is, no matter what it looks like, unconditional. Oh my God. That's huge. Right. Wow. Right. Yeah. Unconditionally. Wow. And, you know, for a lot of women, I think it's so hard for us to learn, to accept our bodies because we're so conditioned to believe that the only way that we'll ever have any hope of changing them is if we hate them enough, right. 

[00:53:40] We feel like we have to hate and berate ourselves and constantly judge and shame ourselves so that we'll have motivation to change them, to fix the problem of our bodies so that we can get healthy. That's a much gentle or fixed to say, I love you enough. Well, it's not even that it's to say, take care of you. 

[00:53:57] Well, it's not even that it's gentle or it's effective. Like sure. I transformed. I transformed the hell outta my body when I hated it. Sure. It transformed, but was I healthy? Absolutely not right. I was constantly injured. I was bulimic. I was depressed. I was anxious. I was binge eating and my body ached and it was injured all the time. 

[00:54:18] I was not doing anything for it. That was good. Like was, I was not healthy. It was, I was not treating it. Well, yes. I was engaging in behaviors that people think are healthy, but I was not doing anything. I was not treating my body. Well, no acceptance body acceptance, as it is unconditionally and body trust allows us to respect our bodies enough, to want to treat them well, no matter what they look like, they are worthy of our love and our acceptance and our respect. 

[00:54:51] And so acceptance and getting to that place of acceptance is the only way, the only effective way we will ever actually change the way that we treat them and the choices we make for them. Yeah. We may change what they look like externally, temporarily. If we hate them, but we're not gonna change the way that we treat them in any way. 

[00:55:11] That really will last as long as we're coming to them, coming at them from a place of hate and, and, you know, conditionally looking at them like that. Wow. You just had a mouthful. Wow. I have a big mouth. no, you've got the truth. It, it just resonates so deeply. Yeah. When I, when I think about that, you know, like, it, it, it, it goes along with, you know, that idea that you wouldn't say negative hateful things or behave in a negative, hateful way with people that, with other people who you love. 

[00:55:48] Yeah. So why would you turn that on yourself and your body and your body? Yeah. And, and when it comes to our bodies, we are taught, we're basically taught to, we're taught to, we're taught to be ashamed of our bodies. If we put on weight, we are taught to fight with our bodies. If we put on weight, every message we hear around healthy eating and living revolves around resist temptation, fight, the urges control control control. 

[00:56:11] Right. And I heard, I heard this from my mom. Yeah. Overweight her whole life in battling and had such self-loathing because of her body. She wouldn't wear certain clothes cuz she didn't like the way it looked on her arms or she didn't like skirts cuz it made her hips look too, you know, whatever it was. I heard this all the time. 

[00:56:28] Negative, negative, negative from my grandmother. From my grandmother, I would get negative, uh, um, lots of mixed messages, you know, she'd say, you know, don't eat that, you know, did you exercise today? You shouldn't have cookies. You know, all this stuff that you shouldn't do. And then five seconds later being the Jewish grandmother that she was here, you haven't eaten since you've been here, eat, eat this. 

[00:56:51] Yeah. Put it on your plate. You should eat it. Don't, you know, there's children starving in Africa. , you know, all this shit. And I'm like, well, you gave me more than I could eat anyway. Yeah. Like I, I wrote a piece called, um, why is it so hard to trust ourselves with food? Right? That's one of the reasons why, so, because of so many of the messages that we get, not just from, you know, health and wellness culture, but also from our parents and the people around us growing up, um, you know, they really contribute to it. 

[00:57:18] For me. It started in my early teens. Somebody that loved me, like an adult in my life gave me the Atkins book, cuz she wanted me to learn to eat healthy. She thought she was doing what was good for me. But from the minute that I read that book on. I was scared of carbs. It, it destroyed like there was life, my life before that book. 

[00:57:37] And there was my life after that book and I was scared of carbs ever after that book, like it, it permanently will not permanently cuz I, I ended up being able to fix it, but it took me years to fix it. It, it sent me on decades, long war with food in my body. Exactly. And then it took me years to fix, but that's the thing, right? 

[00:57:55] We are taught to live at war with our body as though it's the enemy mm-hmm and we always have to be trying to fix it and defeat the enemy and, and defeat the enemy and achieve success with our health. Achieve our health goals. No, no it's our body is our all. It is the best ally we will ever have going through life. 

[00:58:20] And so our job isn't to fight it and resist it and control it and hate it. It's to accept it and to love it and to trust it and to actually live in it. Yes. To get out of our head and all of the things that our heads are saying we should be doing and get into our bodies and just listen to their communication and then honor that beautiful. 

[00:58:44] And holy cow, the peace. I want some of that oh, it's be, it is beautiful or, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so tell us about your seven, your five day challenge you have coming up in September. I wanna know about that. Oh yes. I'm, I'm excited about this. I, I haven't parsed out all of the details yet, but my plan for this is I'm going to take a group of people through, uh, and it's primarily women that I work with. 

[00:59:11] So a group of women through five days where we're going to explore all of this. So the first day we're going to just sort of go over the process of beginning to connect a little bit with our bodies and being present and, and starting to understand, you know, a little bit of how our thoughts are driving our emotions and our choices and those kinds of things. 

[00:59:29] And the next day, we're gonna dive a little bit more into this concept of wholehearted being and what that means and how to. How to approach the way we eat. And then the next three days we're going to explore, I'm gonna help them begin to understand is if restriction is one of the things that's driving, why they eat the way they eat the next day, we're gonna look at self punishment. 

[00:59:51] Is this one of the things that's driving, why you eat the way you eat. And then the next day we're gonna look at emotion leading. So we're gonna go through all three of those things that I talked about that contribute to those unhealthy patterns, and I'm gonna help show them how to figure out what's actually causing some of it. 

[01:00:07] You know, how to identify each and then some strategies to kind of help shift it, um, you know, to, to help shift shift each a little bit. Um, sounds great. How do people sign up for that? Well, right now there's a wait list on my website. Um, I'm a, I'm in the process of, um, Taking a group of beta testers through it, hopefully next week, first, I always like to take beta people through before I actually launch something live to get feedback and make sure everything's going well. 

[01:00:35] So I'm hoping to do that next week. They can, um, sign up for my mailing list on my website. So the best probably get no it's, uh, cognitive eating academy.com. Ah, oh yeah. Okay. I have that. Yeah. Cognitive it'll be on the show notes down below. So yeah, if they go there the best way to, to get started on the, the hunger challenge, um, is to go to my website, cognitive eating academy.com and they can sign up for my, my, um, mailing list in there's two ways to do that. 

[01:01:06] They can get the piece framework that I have on there for free. If they sign up for that, they'll be on my mailing list. Or also there's a, a, a free three day, uh, why we eat video series. Where I talk more about all of these things that, that we've talked about today. And so if they sign up for that, then they'll have a little bit of a foundation already in place in terms of understanding some of these things that I was talking about, which will be helpful going into the, the hunger challenge as well. 

[01:01:33] Um, so if they go there and sign up for those things, they'll be notified as soon as it launches live. Um, yeah, I'm excited about it. I think it's gonna be really great. That's wonderful. Wow. You've certainly give us a lot to, to, to chew on . I hope so. I, I always say I, I, I, I want my, my mistakes and my, my pain to have a PO a purpose, as they say. 

[01:01:55] Right. I say that all the time as well. Yeah. So before we end, should we do the seven quick questions? You ready? Sure. Um, so what six words would you use to describe yourself? Oh, I probably should have had this up on my screen cuz I wasn't really, I wasn't super sure. And so I asked my friend. Oh, I don't even have to figure it out for myself. 

[01:02:17] Um, persistent for sure. Yes, I am persistent. Um, I am authentic. Yes. Uh I'm. I'm about what you see is what you get. And I say that in, in confidence, cuz it took me years to figure out how to be that way. You know, I always say the whole time I was a trainer, I was just playing a role. And so it took me years to figure out. 

[01:02:42] And so I'm, I'm authentic. What you see is what you get now. Um, I'm also incredibly empathetic. Yes. I really feel what others feel sometimes too much and that's something else I'm working on. I also like to think that I've got a passion for. Which I know is, is more than one word, but that's fine. 

[01:03:04] I'm just, I'm a crave knowledge curious. I just, yeah. Curious. Yes. Um, how many is that? I don't know. counting. That's that's enough's, what's your favorite way to spend a day? This is gonna sound really lame. I, I know it's gonna sound lame, but, but working like my, my favorite way to spend a day is, is working with clients or creating content that I know is gonna help somebody. 

[01:03:31] It's one of my favorite things outside of that you're living in your values, you know, that that's your passion. So that makes sense to me. Yeah, it, it really is. Um, outside of that, I would say anything just outside of nature with my dog is, is some of my favorite time. Yeah. What kind of dog? He's a Pekinese Chihuahua mix and he is adorable. 

[01:03:53] Oh, sounds cute. And he also owns my house well, of course you just pay the mortgage. He, he owns for sure. Um, what's your favorite childhood memory? I don't have a lot cause I had a rough childhood, but when I was growing up, we had horses, we had Arabian growing up. Wow. And one of them in particular was a really stubborn hotheaded mayor who wouldn't let anybody ride her. 

[01:04:18] But me and some of my favorite memories, I used to go into the barn into her stall, especially during times when it was extra tough at ho in, in, in the house. And I used to go into her stall and I would just sit in her stall on the hay piles with her and she would come over to me and she would put her head on my chest. 

[01:04:39] Oh. And just snooze. And the, like, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. She, I, I credit her for getting me through childhood. She's some of my favorite memories, your emotional support horse. She was . That's awesome. My daughter has an emotional support cat. I love it. they, they take care of each other, I think. 

[01:04:59] And, and they're easier to keep than horses. definitely, definitely. Alright, so what's your favorite meal? Let's get into this one. So it's interesting because this was tough for me. I don't have one anymore. Like once the, the rules and all of the, the issues that I had around food came off food is just really have one anymore. 

[01:05:17] Um, if I had to pick something, I would say black, I love blackberries. Really? I know it's weird and random. Yes. And also if, if I had to pick like a specific meal, I would say Liberty grill pizza in Hingham, mass. Okay. There you go. And if you're ever in mass, you have to go there. well, both my kids now live in Massachusetts, so absolutely. 

[01:05:44] So you, you have to have some Liberty grill pizza in hang. Yeah. It's so good. Where is hang? Is that when relation to Boston? Hang is near, is near hall. It's it's, uh, little south of Boston near hall, near Anket beach area. Okay. I'll look for it. Yeah. Um, what advice, what one piece of advice would you like to give your younger self? 

[01:06:06] Only one is one pod. There was just basically been about that, but yeah, there's so much, so much. I think the biggest one though, that would pretty much encompass everything is your thoughts are lying to you. Mm-hmm stop listening to them and start creating better ones. I think that would probably be, they're just, they're lying to you. 

[01:06:28] Just stop. Listen. um, I think that would probably solve a lot of issues that I had in my younger years. Just that alone. It would encompass so many different aspects of my life. Your thoughts that are regurgitations of yeah. Mo yeah. Most, yeah. Most of your thought, those kinds of things. That's what I meant. 

[01:06:45] The thoughts that, that come in from your inner, knowing that you really know deep down, those are the ones we keep. I didn't have any of those at that age. I, I didn't have any, no, it was bad. It was rough. It was really bad. And so that's what I meant, but I didn't have any of those at that age. So yeah. Like those, those thoughts that just are ruminating, that are telling you all of the horrible things about you, those are lying. 

[01:07:06] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what is one thing you would most like to change about the world? This was another one where like everything. Hello? I think, um, I think capitalism, I think I, I think profits over people. I think if we stop prioritizing money over people. and started investing in people. I think that that one thing alone would shift everything so many. 

[01:07:34] Yeah. Like it would just, it would encompass so many different things. And I, and again, I, I think it would solve a lot of the weight and the food problems because capitalism really drives a lot of them. It's profitable for us to be dependent upon other people just distorting advertising. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. 

[01:07:51] And so I think that would be it. Yeah. I think because I think that would, I mean, ideally I wanna change the way the world views healthy eating and living. But if I, if I have to go like broader, I think just the, the profit, the profits thing, because it would, yeah, because it would solve pretty much everything. 

[01:08:06] Yeah. Okay. This one is completely frivolous and I love it. Um, what TV shows do you binge or movies do you love? So I don't, there's not a lot that I'm, I'm really into and there are no, I don't think any current ones that I'm super into, um, And I've got really weird taste in, in shows. Okay. But one of my favorites that I've, I've watched the entire 15 season series about 30 times. 

[01:08:36] Wow. Is supernatural. Oh my husband's one of my husband's favorites. Yeah. It's, it's weird. And it's random for a middle-aged mom. 

[01:08:47] I, I love that show so much. Um, I don't know why, but I Al and it's one of those shows that I, I can watch over and over and over. And I, I often just have it on, in the background cause I've seen it so many times that I can work when it's on. And I don't feel like I need to pay attention cuz I know it's gonna happen anyway. 

[01:09:04] Exactly. That's how I feel about Gilmore girls, which is one of my obsessions. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't at any moment I could hear a snippet of the dialogue and know exactly what's going on. So I don't have, yeah, I know what episode it is. I know what's gonna happen. I know what he's gonna say next. I know what they're gonna say. 

[01:09:18] Yeah, yeah. That that's it for me. Yeah. I've actually never seen Gilmore girl. I told you, Sam from supernatural was on that. I do know that from Gilmore girls. And so he plays in super natural and his brother is Dean. Right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I love Dean by the way. I, I, maybe that's why that's, I think that's why I got into supernatural in the first place, because I just adore Jens ands with every fiber of my being. 

[01:09:46] I obsessed with him. Um, and so maybe that's why I grew to love it so much. It there's something about the dry humor. I just, yeah, yeahs a few episodes. It's a good show. And he, he's not hard on the eyes either. Let's be real, Eric. No, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah, well, Ronnie, this was wonderful as always, you know, I, I feel like we could talk for hours and hours, but, uh, we have 

[01:10:09] Oh, well, yeah, I guess that's true. Look at the time. well, you know, listeners, if you made it all the way to the end, thank you for, we love you and we love you, and we're grateful for you being here every week. And, and I absolutely know that you have gotten valuable info about from this podcast. Cause Ron is just fabulous. 

[01:10:32] Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So were you, I've had such a great time. Great.