So when you looked under the hood, what was driving you? What what did you find out through your mentor? Can you elaborate and go a little deeper on that?

Absolutely.

You know, and it's really the foundation of what I teach people now.

So, you know, emotional eating is the is really the term I use.

because I feel like it covers a lot of aberrant eating behaviors, you know, whether you're an under eater, over eater, binger, purger, you know, restrictor, crazy person, like there's all kinds of weird things we do with food.

So whatever you do with food, it's emotionally driven.

Even if you're eating one Larabar a day, it's like emotionally driven, that need for control.

If you can share maybe more practical things to get to the, you know, the buried emotions where someone might even start, it would be amazing.

okay? That's interesting that they are related to, they connect.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the thing is, when we are like doing the extra project, we're staying up late to bake the brownies for the soccer team.

You know, we're constantly taking on the extra work that needs to be done.

And what happens is we leave no time for ourselves.

We're totally like stretched way too thin.

just opt for that instead, right?

Can you take us back to that version of yourself who was struggling with food?

Absolutely.

I absolutely struggled with food.

I was and my weight, of course.

I think I was an emotional eater as far back as I can remember.

But of course, I didn't call it that.

So I just love food as far as I knew.

Yeah.

What are some tips that we can give folks that are listening to this to help them? Maybe they're thinking, "Yeah, that's me." That you're, you know, maybe for the first time they're hearing this message thinking, "Holy moly, I've been listening to, to all these podcasts like mine, you know, 50 Health and Wellness, and this guy's telling me, well, I should, I should eat less and move more." And b- maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't, right? But now s- somebody's here talking about emotional eating, and all that conventional advice goes out the window until you course correct, until we get to this foundational, these foundational things, right? What are some things that we can do if we decide that we, or we suspect that we have an, um, a problem with emotional eating?

Yeah.

So, you know, I think the awareness is the first thing, obviously, so this is really important.

But I think it's important, first of all, for people to realize that if they've had this problem for a long time, they're probably not gonna be able to overcome it on their own.

So I just wanna sort of venture that if you can't do it on your own that, you know, you should consider getting some support with it, and I, I mention that because so many people, because there's so much shame around this condition, people will think to themselves, "Well, I should be able to control what I put in my mouth.

Like, that's kinda dumb, you know? Like, why, why would I reach out for help for that? Like, I, this is, I'll take care of this myself." You know? But how well has that worked, you know? And we don't think twice about hiring a trainer to get fit.

We know we need accountability in the gym.

Don't be a fat-shamer." But the whole article was kind of based on the premise that the entire fitness industry is engaged in this fat-shaming or anti-fat bias, and it got me to thinking here, how do we talk to, how does somebody like me talk to an obese person in a loving, compassionate, empathetic way to help move them into a healthier lifestyle? It seems to me like you've got a lot of that figured out, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you reach out to people that are overweight, unhealthy, with a message that it's not shameful or s- come off as anti-fat or fat-shaming.