Speaker 1: I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2: I'm learning love who.
Speaker 1: I am, I get I'm strong, I feel free, I
Speaker 1: know everybody of me.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 1: But you are, She'll some love to the food. Why
Speaker 1: get there? Say go one day and did you and
Speaker 1: die out way?
Speaker 3: Happy Saturday out waigh, welcome back. It is Leanne here
Speaker 3: and I'm so happy that you're here with me today.
Speaker 3: And before we dive in, I just want to say
Speaker 3: that if you're tuning in, it is for a reason,
Speaker 3: and maybe you've been battling with food in your body
Speaker 3: for a while now, and if so, I just want
Speaker 3: to send you a massive virtual hug and let you
Speaker 3: know that you are not alone. Because today we're going
Speaker 3: to have a really honest chat about something I've personally
Speaker 3: struggled with and something I hear from women all the time,
Speaker 3: and it's when food struggles become our dirty little secret.
Speaker 3: And this is one of those topics that usually carries
Speaker 3: a lot of shame with it, So I want to
Speaker 3: help you start releasing some of that shame today because
Speaker 3: you're not crazy, and you're definitely not alone in this.
Speaker 3: And if you've been hiding your food struggles and feeling
Speaker 3: like no one really gets it or would understand, then
Speaker 3: this episode.
Speaker 2: Is for you.
Speaker 3: You See, I used to feel like I was in
Speaker 3: a food and body prison all the time. And what
Speaker 3: made it worse is that no one really knew the
Speaker 3: depth of my struggle. And sure people saw me trying
Speaker 3: different diets or hitting the gym obsessively, but they had
Speaker 3: no idea what was going on behind the scenes. Because
Speaker 3: I got really good at smiling and faking it and
Speaker 3: pretending like I had it all together. I mean, you
Speaker 3: might relate to that, But every single day, whenever I
Speaker 3: was around anyone else, I wasn't even present, because inside
Speaker 3: I was obsessing over how many calories were in my
Speaker 3: lunch or whether I'd burned enough at the gym that
Speaker 3: morning to you know, air quotes earn a treat later.
Speaker 3: And I remember nights when I'd come home feeling so
Speaker 3: drained and frustrated that I'd find myself standing in the
Speaker 3: kitchen scooping peanut butter straight out of the jar. And
Speaker 3: with every scoop, I'd swear to myself like this is
Speaker 3: the last one. I'll be better tomorrow, but tomorrow never came,
Speaker 3: and I'd be right back in the same cycle. And
Speaker 3: the worst part was that no one knew because I
Speaker 3: put on this happy face and I tried to be,
Speaker 3: you know, the perfect woman and the perfect friend and
Speaker 3: the perfect daughter, and I didn't want anyone to see
Speaker 3: what was really going on inside my head and heart.
Speaker 3: And what I want you to know is that I've
Speaker 3: heard so many stories just like this from the women
Speaker 3: I work with. And I hear stories from women who
Speaker 3: are successful and strong and seem to have it all together,
Speaker 3: but they're hiding this big, deep struggle that makes them
Speaker 3: feel like they're out of control, and they're standing in
Speaker 3: the pantry at midnight feeling crazy and helpless because they
Speaker 3: can't stop eating those cookies or that leftover pizza.
Speaker 2: And then they wake up the next morning.
Speaker 3: With all of that shame hanging over them, wondering why
Speaker 3: can't I just get it together, Like why can't I
Speaker 3: stick to the play and or the program like everyone else.
Speaker 3: A one client of mine, Sarah, came to me because
Speaker 3: she felt like she was living a double life into
Speaker 3: the outside world. She was this superwoman you know, managing
Speaker 3: a big team at work and raising two kids and
Speaker 3: being a devoted wife. But in reality, she was stuck
Speaker 3: in this cycle of binging on junk food late at
Speaker 3: night and feeling guilty and ashamed, and then spending the
Speaker 3: next day trying to, you know, air quotes make up
Speaker 3: for it by restricting her food and hitting the gym
Speaker 3: really hard. And she felt like a fraud. And she
Speaker 3: told me, Leanne, if anyone at work knew what I
Speaker 3: was doing at home, they'd think I was a complete
Speaker 3: mess and they'd lose all respect for me. And that's
Speaker 3: how shame works, right, It isolates us and it makes
Speaker 3: us feel like we're broken our week. But Sarah wasn't
Speaker 3: broken her week. She was just trapped in a really
Speaker 3: vicious cycle that made.
Speaker 2: Her feel that way.
Speaker 3: Another one of my clients, Jen, was afraid to go
Speaker 3: to work events because she had gained weight and she
Speaker 3: was terear that her colleagues would notice. And she was
Speaker 3: avoiding leadership roles at work, and not because she wasn't capable,
Speaker 3: but because she didn't want to be in the spotlight,
Speaker 3: because she felt like her body was the enemy, like
Speaker 3: it was keeping her from showing up as her fal self.
Speaker 3: This is what she was experiencing before she came to
Speaker 3: work with me and my client. Julie told me about
Speaker 3: something that I had never heard about before. She told
Speaker 3: me about these diet bets. Okay, there are these bets
Speaker 3: that some of her friends and coworkers did every January
Speaker 3: where they'd throw in twenty dollars and whoever lost the
Speaker 3: most weight would get the money pot. Right, But Julie
Speaker 3: avoided it every year, and not because she didn't want
Speaker 3: to be healthy, but because she the thought of being
Speaker 3: weighed in front of her friends made her feel so exposed,
Speaker 3: and she knew that if she didn't lose weight, it
Speaker 3: would just add to her shame. But she was also
Speaker 3: terrified of what her friends would think if she didn't
Speaker 3: join in. And I totally get that, right. She felt
Speaker 3: like she was being judged no matter what she did,
Speaker 3: Like if she participated, she'd be judged, if she sat out,
Speaker 3: she'd be judged.
Speaker 2: And so I'm not saying these diet.
Speaker 3: Bets her something I want anyone to partake in, by
Speaker 3: the way, right, I never even heard of these things,
Speaker 3: But the fact that abstaining it, abstaining from doing it also.
Speaker 2: Left her trapped in a shame prison.
Speaker 3: Speaks volumes to what was going on inside her heart, right,
Speaker 3: Because in an ideal world, she could have just said, no,
Speaker 3: that's not for me. I'm going to just like sit
Speaker 3: this one out. But that was torturing her as well.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing I really really want you to get.
Speaker 3: It's not about the food or the weight. It's not
Speaker 3: about willpower or motivation. It's about the shame prison that
Speaker 3: we've built around ourselves, and the prison that keeps us
Speaker 3: stuck in this battle with our bodies. And if we
Speaker 3: don't address that shame, we'll keep going in circles, hopping
Speaker 3: from diet to diet, thinking that the next one will
Speaker 3: be the solution. So what is the solution, Like, what's
Speaker 3: the alternative to that? Well, I promise you this. It's
Speaker 3: not another diet or a food plan, and it's not
Speaker 3: another gym routine. It's about rewiring your brain and healing
Speaker 3: your self image. And it's about changing the story that
Speaker 3: you tell yourself about who you are.
Speaker 2: And what you're capable of.
Speaker 3: And so when my client Jen, who was afraid of
Speaker 3: work events, the one I just told you about, when
Speaker 3: she learned how to separate.
Speaker 2: Her worth from her weight.
Speaker 3: She began to see herself as the powerful, capable woman
Speaker 3: that she truly was.
Speaker 2: And the food stuff.
Speaker 3: After she started there, it started to fall away on
Speaker 3: its own, because it wasn't that she suddenly had more
Speaker 3: willpower or that she found the perfect diet. It's that
Speaker 3: she no longer needed food to comfort or numb her
Speaker 3: because she was no longer living in that shame prison.
Speaker 3: It's all of it, right, It's the shame prison. It's
Speaker 3: healing your relationship with food so that you're no longer
Speaker 3: using food as that numbing agent. It's all these multiple
Speaker 3: things together. Another client of mine hadn't taken a full
Speaker 3: body photo in years, and so every time somebody pulled
Speaker 3: out a camera, she'd hide in the back or volunteer
Speaker 3: to be the photographer. And so she missed out on
Speaker 3: so many family photos because she couldn't stand to see
Speaker 3: herself in the photos. But it wasn't the photos that
Speaker 3: were the problem. It was the story that she'd been
Speaker 3: telling herself every time she looked in the mirror and
Speaker 3: she saw somebody that was, you know, too big or
Speaker 3: too weak, or too out of control, and she hated
Speaker 3: her reflection because it represented every one of her perceived failures.
Speaker 2: And so when we.
Speaker 3: Worked together, she started changing her internal narrative, and she
Speaker 3: began to see herself differently, and she began to accept
Speaker 3: and even appreciate the woman looking back at her. But
Speaker 3: first and foremost, she had to draw that line in
Speaker 3: the sand and say, no, I'm so done missing out
Speaker 3: on my life because of this story that I'm telling myself,
Speaker 3: and I'm so sick of letting my body dictate what
Speaker 3: I do or don't do. And if I keep this up,
Speaker 3: I'm literally not going to have any photos with my
Speaker 3: children in them, right, Like, she had to make that
Speaker 3: kind of like line in the sand declaration before we
Speaker 3: could even go to work. And once all of these
Speaker 3: shifts happened, she didn't feel the need to hide anymore,
Speaker 3: not just in photos, like hide in her life in general.
Speaker 3: But first she had to get to that point where
Speaker 3: again she drew that life in the sand and she
Speaker 3: was like, no, I'm no longer willing to miss out
Speaker 3: on my life.
Speaker 2: And those photos weren't.
Speaker 3: Really the thing, right, they just represented every single thing
Speaker 3: that she was missing out on and saying no to
Speaker 3: when she really wanted to say yes. And again, it
Speaker 3: was about taking back the power to choose so that
Speaker 3: she was in the driver's seat of her life. I
Speaker 3: really want you to get that, Okay, So, if any
Speaker 3: of this is resonating with you, I want to invite
Speaker 3: you to take a good, hard look at where you
Speaker 3: are right now. And I mean this with so much
Speaker 3: love right when I say take a look at it,
Speaker 3: but I mean like a loving look without the shame, right.
Speaker 3: And so are you holding on to this struggle like
Speaker 3: it's your dirty little secret?
Speaker 2: And are you.
Speaker 3: Feeling like if people knew the full extent of what
Speaker 3: you're dealing with, they would think less of you? And
Speaker 3: if so, I want you to know, first of all,
Speaker 3: it's okay to feel that way, right, but you do
Speaker 3: not have to stay there. And so the first step
Speaker 3: to healing is really just acknowledging the struggle without judgment,
Speaker 3: because so many of us we know we have a struggle,
Speaker 3: but we judge it, we shame it, we blame it. Right,
Speaker 3: So the first is just acknowledging like, hey, this is
Speaker 3: a really big problem, but I'm not going to add
Speaker 3: shame on top of the problem, right, and recognizing that
Speaker 3: this isn't a food problem or a body problem. It's
Speaker 3: about healing the relationship that you have with yourself, and
Speaker 3: it's about breaking out of that prison of control and
Speaker 3: giving yourself the freedom to just be.
Speaker 2: And again, if you are.
Speaker 3: At that place where you're like, oh my gosh, my
Speaker 3: food and my body struggles, they feel so out of control.
Speaker 2: It's gotten to that point where like, again, if anybody ever.
Speaker 3: Felt found out, I would just die. Right, That's where
Speaker 3: I want you to know, like, you are so not alone.
Speaker 3: And I know people hear that and they think like, yeah, right, Lene,
Speaker 3: I know you're saying that, but I really don't feel
Speaker 3: like I know anybody else that struggles like this. And
Speaker 3: that's because of the secrecy and the shame that comes
Speaker 3: alongside this problem.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And it's not a coincidence that so many of the
Speaker 3: women that come to work with me they are high achieving,
Speaker 3: very intelligent, very successful, very driven women, because this also
Speaker 3: is not an intelligence problem. It's not that you're lacking
Speaker 3: the smarts, right, It's not that you're lacking the education
Speaker 3: or the intelligence.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: In fact, there more highly intelligent you are, the more
Speaker 3: common these struggles are. Because we think we can logic
Speaker 3: and reason our way through these things. Right, But again,
Speaker 3: you'll never be able to logic and reason your way
Speaker 3: through an emotional struggle, and you'll never be able to
Speaker 3: logic and reason and like information your way through something
Speaker 3: that's deeply ingrained in your brain and in your nervous system.
Speaker 3: And again that's where I also want to invite you
Speaker 3: to just ditch the shame because you just learned a
Speaker 3: way of thinking and a way of living and certain
Speaker 3: patterns and habits and behaviors around food and doesn't take
Speaker 3: away from the amazingness that you are. But I know
Speaker 3: it feels very isolating when you feel like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: anybody ever found out, they're going to judge me. And
Speaker 3: so again I want to acknowledge like it is a
Speaker 3: okay to be where you are and feel how you're feeling,
Speaker 3: but you don't have to stay there. And the first
Speaker 3: step is just acknowledging like, hey, this is a really
Speaker 3: big problem and I don't have to be ashamed of it,
Speaker 3: but I.
Speaker 2: Also can't get through it on my own.
Speaker 3: I need that help, but I need that support, right,
Speaker 3: because it's about healing the relationship that you have with yourself,
Speaker 3: and it's about breaking out of that prison of control
Speaker 3: and giving yourself the freedom to just be where you
Speaker 3: are words in all right, So that.
Speaker 2: Is really what I wanted to share with you today, ladies.
Speaker 3: And I hope that you got something, whatever you needed
Speaker 3: to get today out of this episode, even if it's
Speaker 3: just a reminder that you're not crazy, and you're definitely
Speaker 3: not alone, and you are definitely not a self sabotager,
Speaker 3: and you're not destined to stay this way forever. And
Speaker 3: there's nothing dirty about this secret, right, There's nothing dirty
Speaker 3: about you. There's nothing that is a shameful thing about you.
Speaker 3: Because you're struggling the way that you are. I wish
Speaker 3: somebody had told me that years ago. Okay, And if
Speaker 3: you want to learn more about how I teach my
Speaker 3: clients to turn off the part of their brain that's
Speaker 3: obsessed with food or obsessed with their weight and rewire
Speaker 3: their own brain for peace and freedom, then head on
Speaker 3: over to Stressless Eating dot com and sign up to
Speaker 3: watch the Stressless Eating sneak preview, where I've literally peeled
Speaker 3: back the curtain and walked you through the exact strategy
Speaker 3: I teach my clients to heal themselves from the all
Speaker 3: or nothing diet mentality for good but without restricting themselves,
Speaker 3: punishing their bodies, and definitely without using words like macros
Speaker 3: and low carb or calorie burn. So it's over there
Speaker 3: for you to access over at stressless Eating dot com
Speaker 3: and if you like, out Weigh. I actually have another
Speaker 3: podcast here on iHeart where I talk about all of
Speaker 3: this self image and body image stuff, but from the
Speaker 3: perspective of where brain science intersects faith.
Speaker 2: It's called What's God Got to Do With It?
Speaker 3: And you can access it here on iHeart or wherever
Speaker 3: you get your podcasts. So that's it for today. I'm
Speaker 3: Leanne Ellington signing out and I will talk to you soon. Bye.