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Episode 254: 4 Signs You're Emotionally Eating | No BS Weightloss
February 11, 2022

Episode 254: 4 Signs You’re Emotionally Eating

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Do you ever find yourself eating when you aren’t hungry simply because you’re bored?

Do you “clean your plate” knowing you should stop eating?

Have you ever suddenly needed something sweet to get you through the afternoon?

Maybe you end a “good day” with a little treat. I mean, come on. You DESERVE a reward for all the bullshit you put up with today.

These are four common symptoms of emotional eating.

And when you want to lose weight, they also leave you feeling frustrated and pissed because they STOP weightloss in its tracks.

Today on the podcast, I’m helping you understand the four most common forms of emotional eating.

You’ll learn…

Why we often eat when we’re bored (and once you know this, you’ll have a solution for what to do and think when boredom strikes).

A simple test to distinguish between hunger and cravings (so you aren’t sitting around confused all the time about whether you should eat).

How to terminate your “Clean Plate Club” membership (and why so many of us feel wasteful or guilty for throwing away food).

What type of reward you deserve for all the hard work you do each day (plus how to make sure your kids don’t learn reward eating, too).

Click here to listen to Episode 254: 4 Signs You’re Emotionally Eating.

This is a good one, so download it, share it, and tag me on your social. I want to know what you think.

Transcript

Corinne:

Today we are going to be talking about four signs to watch out for that you could be emotionally eating. Yep. We’re going to talk about emotional eating one more time on the podcast. I talk about emotional eating all the time, because I know that when it comes to weight, that is what’s slowing us down. It is everything that goes on inside of our head that drives our emotions up and then we think eating is a solve, is a distraction, is the only thing that we have that can help us through you this. Food has become such a coping mechanism or a solution or a reason to celebrate. There’s so much around food that it’s just important that we keep talking about it, we keep tackling it over and over again.

Corinne:

And that the more you hear me talk about it, the more you’re going to see, “Oh, I don’t need to like join up on weight Watchers. I heard they got a new point system. Let me check that out again.” I promise all of you that when you solve a lot of the stuff that’s going on underneath your eating, being able to lose weight gets exponentially easier, but what’s not easy is to not solve anything that’s going on underneath, like the four things we’ll tell you about today, and then try to follow your points. Because I don’t give a damn if Oprah walked in your door at your house and said, “I am going to write your points down for you. And I will write the lists of food that are free for you,” or whatever it is that they’re doing right now.

Corinne:

If two weeks later, you’re feeling sorry for yourself because your boss never gives you a pat on the back, I don’t give a damn how many points you got. And if an avocado is now free to you, you’re not going to be like, “Oh, I don’t care that no one loves me. I don’t care that I don’t get pats on the back. I don’t care that my kids are acting the fool in the Target and I’m embarrassed and ashamed and think I should be a better mother.” Having your points is not going to help you in those moments. You know what’s going to help you either; one, you know how to talk to yourself through the tough or two, Snickers, because that’s what we’ve all been taught. If you’ve had a bad day, let’s go out to eat. You had a good day, let’s go out to eat.

Corinne:

We have to start realizing that there’s things that go on underneath and we need to identify them. And when we identify them, we’re a whole lot smarter. When we know what’s going on underneath, then at least we have a path forward. We’re like, “All right, the solutions are in this direction.” So y’all can quit going to keto and the latest Whole 30, the next 75 Hard, the bootcamp with broccoli, a challenge that’s starting up at your gym. Y’all can quit spending all your money on that shit, because they don’t solve when you’re bored, when you’re stressed, when you’re feeling not good enough, or when everybody else is eating and you just don’t want to miss out on a good time, because you don’t know how to have a good time without a blooming onion stuffed in your mouth. So we’re going to talk about that today. Are you ready, Kathy?

Corinne:

Okay. It comes out of my memory bank of the days when … I used to love Cocoa Pebble .. Honestly, I liked Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles. I liked all the cereal, to be honest. I remember when we were growing up, we were so fucking broke. We were so broke that even cereal seemed like a treat, but my favorite of all time, Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch. Jesus Christ. Oh God, yeah. I could get down on a box right now. Other day I was actually at the store and I was in the cereal aisle, because I was actually looking for some cereal. I was on my period and I was like “Oh, I needs me some cereal.” When I am on my period, y’all, meat and veggies turn me green. I’ve said this a thousand times on the podcast the more dry and carby it is, the better. That’s about all I tolerate. So I was like, “I’m going to get me some cereal.”

Corinne:

And when I was losing weight, I fell in love with Raisin Bran, of all things. And I still love Raisin Bran. I could eat Raisin Bran all day. I was actually looking for Fiber One. That was my other big ass favorite. If you’re old school No BS, if you’ve known me for a long time, Lori C she’ll know what I’m fixing to talk about. I used to make these things called the Fiber One bombs. Were you around when I used to make Fiber One bombs? I don’t think so. Yeah. This was early. So we started No BS, it was called P and P back in the day, back in 2007. And this is like circa 2010, 2011. This is deep cuts. 10 years ago shit. I still would get down on a Fiber One bomb.

Corinne:

But basically you take a little thing of Fiber One and you heat … First, you’ve got to get a bowl. All of you might as well try this. It’s delicious. You get a bowl, you put a little peanut butter in it, but you got to heat the peanut butter up in the microwave. Because it’s got to get runny. Otherwise it’s just a mess. Then you put your cereal in it. You put a little Fiber One in there and you mix it up until the peanut butter hardens again. And then if you want a real treat, over the top you pour some like almond milk or milk or whatever you like and it’s called a Fiber One bomb. I don’t know why we called it that. But when you’re done stirring it up, it’s like a big wad of Fiber One. It is delicious. And I used to eat that as a snack every day.

Corinne:

I’m telling you, it was one of those things that I had somehow discovered. I ate it for breakfast. If I didn’t eat it for breakfast, I planned it as a snack for the day. If I got hungry Fiber One bomb. Anyway, just for all of you that’s … I would eat it now.

Corinne:

Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Right, if you do a Fiber One bomb, literally stick to a half a cup to a cup. not because we’re stickler at the measuring, you just don’t need an ass explosion, but … Right. Before we get into this, I will tell one funny story. Back a lot of you know, that I went through a stint of where I was doing figure competitions. Oh my gosh. I was sitting there thinking about it the other day. Number one, I would never do that again. Number two, I would never advise anybody to do it. It was definitely crazy times. But while I was doing it you had …

Corinne:

Talk about a restrictive diet. It was a very restrictive diet. And one day a week, you could eat what you wanted. And so this one day I decided I was going to have cereal. And the only thing I had was Fiber One. Fiber One, it comes in two bags. Side by side, little twin bags. I ate one whole bag of Fiber One. And I swear to God, I thought Chris was going to divorce me. For two straight days I had so much gas that I could have flown us to Vegas from Nashville on a Southwest jet. He looked at me and he said, “Don’t you ever do that again.” He was like, “I love you, but I will not sleep with you ever again if you ever do that.” [inaudible 00:08:26] to Fiber One days. Those Fiber One bombs are good.

Corinne:

All right, let’s get to our four reasons why we emotionally eat. Number one, you’re eating when you’re not hungry. This is a clear sign that you’ve got emotional eating going on. If you are eating when you’re not hungry, this probably means that you’ve got something else going on. I want to give you a story. The other day I was coaching someone inside the membership and she was talking about she was actually a little stalled on her weight loss. And I was asking her, I was like, “Well, what do you think’s going on?” When anybody has had some success, but then all of a sudden they’re not really losing, I always ask them for their own wisdom first.

Corinne:

Because one of the things that’s important to me inside of No BS is that you don’t get attached at the hip to me, that you don’t get attached to the hip of the No BS weight loss program. If you stay in my program, I want you to stay because you love it because it means a lot to you, you’re having a good fucking time. You’re just like, “I love the learning and stuff.” What I don’t want is like what weight Watchers does, which is, “We’ll make you a lifetime member. But if you ever gain your weight back, you got to pay more money.” That’s a hook.

Corinne:

This is the thing. I don’t want you to be dependent on me. You shouldn’t need me or my program, the rest of your life. If you want to be in it, because it’s a kumbaya and that’s where your motivation and stuff is because you got so many No BS women that you’ve met that you’re like, “Yeah, we’re all in this together. And I want to help other people, blah, blah.” Great. But you shouldn’t need to be there because you didn’t learn how to think for yourself, you didn’t learn how to lose your weight and away that you could go off into the world, graduate, hug me by and say like, “Thank you.” My ultimate dream is that one of these days, that membership fizzles out because I’ve taught every woman in the world how to lose her weight for good. If that ever happens, I promise you I will go to my grave thrilled to death and I will close my shop up.

Corinne:

IF you are eating when you are not hungry something’s going on. So I’m coaching her and I ask her, “So what’s going on? If you had to guess, what do you think has got you stuck right now?” And she said something. She said, “Well, I feel like I’m doing all the things, but I, I do notice that every afternoon I get really bored. And that’s when I’m snacking.” She said, “Sometimes I even feel hungry, but I know what’s really happening is I’m just bored.” And so I asked her, I said, “Well, why are you bored?” And she said, “Well, I got a five year old. And I’m with that five year old, all day long and five year olds don’t stimulate me.” And I just looked at her and I said, “Yeah.” I said, “Are they supposed to be stimulating you?” A five year old with a 38 old woman. And she’s like, “Well, yeah. I should be sitting there, enjoy that I’m with my child and marveling at what he’s doing and wanting to play and stuff like that.”

Corinne:

And I said, “I’ll tell you why you’re eating. It’s because a lot of times when you’re bored, it’s actually a smoke signal that something’s going on underneath it.” And I said, “You’re sitting there thinking, essentially, I should be a better mother in this moment. Rather than admitting, I think I should be a better mother in this moment. You’re telling yourself; well, my five year old’s boring.” It’s like, no fucking shit, Sherlock, every five year old’s boring. They have their moments but when you’re in your thirties and forties … This is why we don’t date. I’m a 47 year old woman. I’m not running out looking for all the five year olds that I can hang out with at the coffee shop. We need to cut ourselves some slack. So you have to start looking at, when it comes to emotional eating, and you notice things like boredom, what’s going on underneath that.

Corinne:

And I said, “Rather than you run in and get a snack, what if you just tell yourself in this moment, yeah. Five year olds are boring they’re not supposed to stimulate a 47 year old woman. Not supposed to stimulate a 38 year old woman. I love my kid. I’m a good mom. Because I’m sitting here on the couch while he’s playing, letting him do his thing. But I don’t have to feel bad and don’t have to sit and think that something else should be going on other here than … It’s probably normal to be bored right now. It’s probably normal to sit and think about things I’d rather be doing.” There’s nothing wrong with that. When you drop judgment and you drop all that, you’re okay with boredom. Or if you’re thinking about things that you’d rather be doing, you’re like, “Yeah. And I’ll plan for that right now is not my season.” You allow yourself acceptance. You allow yourself to just grow as a person. Rather than running from boredom, dig in and figure out what’s really going on.

Corinne:

A lot of people will be bored at work. And the reason why they’re bored is because they don’t want to think about the unfulfilled dreams that they have. They don’t want to sit there and think about “Well, if I want more for myself, what would I have to require of me in this moment? What am I scared of trying?” Some of you just need to be bored. There’s plenty of time … I will just let all of you know, I feel like I have the dream job and there’s some days that I have to do some shit that is like, Well, that’s boring as fuck.” But this is just part of the job.

Corinne:

It’s really understanding, when you notice that you’re wanting to eat out of boredom, like “I’m not hungry.” It’s just asking yourself off a lot of like, “What is really going on here? Am I unfulfilled? And I want to start looking at that, because there might be things I can do about that. Am I judging myself?” Sometimes we feel guilty for things so we just eat so that we don’t have to get to the root of what’s really going on underneath. But that also when you eat, it prevents you from getting to the root of what you’re thinking about yourself, about your life, about your situation and either changing your situation or changing your outlook and changing your perceptions. That’s the first one.

Corinne:

Anything you want to add before we move on to number two? Kathy’s like, “I’m just sitting by taking a few notes.” Ooh. Yeah, you do. You’ve got one that’s like 60 something years old. He still likes to play with his cars too, because he likes the NASCAR.

Corinne:

Disconnect from what? But that’s not the problem. This is the thing that I want the listeners to understand, just so that we make it real clear. Kathy’s problem is not work. First of all, Corinne has only told Kathy, I don’t know, 3000 times, if not once, stop checking Slack, stop working after you’re done there’s nothing going on that needs you. I’m always telling Kathy, it’s like, “If I feel confident that the business will go on without me, I feel pretty sure it will be good without you too.” Borrow some of my confidence and belief, Kathy. The problem is what goes on underneath that. The reason why she feels she needs to check the Slack. There’s something that she thinks that gets in the way of cutting it off.

Corinne:

Yeah. But why not just be bored? Well, answer the question. I want you to actually answer it. Let’s just go, it’s a Wednesday night and I guess you’re sitting on the couch. Okay. We’re sitting on the couch and Ken’s next to us, right? Or next to you. I’m saying us like I’m coming down there. You might not be as bored if I was there with you. Yes. I would entertain you with my stories of blooming onions in Cocoa Pebbles. Yeah. You’re sitting on the couch with Ken and what is he watching usually? Do you like any of that stuff? Okay. But do you get into it and you like it? Okay. When you’re into that, what do you think drags you back to Slack? And it’s not just the thought, “I need to check on things.” Why do you need to check, is the question. Okay. Something might have gone wrong. But why is that even a problem?

Corinne:

Okay. How often over the last month, have you checked, from your couch, in Slack and you found something that is going to be a huge problem? Yeah. One thing you need to do that … This is easy, digestible advice for anybody listening to this. Because for a lot of you, you won’t be checking Slack from insecurity and lack, like Kathy is doing right now. Let me ask you this, if you felt very secure that there wasn’t a single problem that could come up that wouldn’t be handled the next day or felt very secure that if a problem did explode, your team would handle it or felt very secure that if a problem did blow up and Corrine found it first and she blew up at you that it wouldn’t be a big deal. She won’t even remember it in like three days.

Corinne:

But if you felt really secure in all that, would you just be like, “Oh my God, I better check Slack. Oh my God, I better check Slack. Oh my God, I better check Slack.” Right. That’s called insecurity. Just so everybody knows, I’m not just being mean to Kathy right now. That’s where your work comes up is. Teaching yourself that you’re not the linchpin. This is what a lot of you do, though. Your Slack is somebody else’s, “Let me just check Facebook. Let me just disconnect here. Let me just disconnect from this boredom.” Lean in and talk to yourself in those moments. And if you want to be bored …

Corinne:

Sometimes Chris will want to watch something, I’m not uberly excited about it. I just admit like, “I don’t like this. This is not for me.” And I either tell him, I’m just like ballsy enough to say, “Yeah, I don’t want to watch this. Either let’s change the channel or I’m going to go do something else. This doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It doesn’t mean anything about our marriage. It just means your current taste in this 30 to 60 minutes is not my taste for this 30 to 60 minutes. I adore you. That’s why I want you to watch this. I just am going to go watch something else.” You can do that.

Corinne:

But I think that’s just what happens with a lot of people like in marriage. When you start pulling things apart … For Kathy, it’s this I don’t want to admit these things about the way I think about my job. It’s like I’d rather say I’m bored. I’d rather keep like checking to feel secure. I’m trying to make sure things are okay rather than working on being okay with things not being okay. I’m just going to say this, because I know Kathy and I think this will help the audience.

Corinne:

If something’s not okay and it is your fault, it’s never a problem unless you’re going to throw yourself under the bus. You will always, Kathy, keep trying to put out fires and you will always keep overly checking and you will always keep more control than you need to keep if you don’t really learn how to at the end of the day, when shit hits the fan and it’s your fault that it’s okay with you. That you’re still worthy. That you’re still a good person. You still can believe in yourself. Everything that I know you work on when it comes to your self confidence, that all of that is still true in the face of evidence saying the contrary. When that clicks in the urge to check becomes very manageable.

Corinne:

For all of you, when you do this kind of work, when you repair the relationship with yourself, like when we talk about urges, urges to check Slack, urges to go to the pantry, urges to get on Facebook, urges to do whatever. Urges become really easy to say no to when you take all the drama away. Now it’s just the habit. It’s just something you got to break, but you don’t have that undercurrent running with it anymore. But when you’re trying to not check Slack, but still believing something’s going to go wrong and it’s going to be my fault that’s a hard ask every single night. When you’re trying not to eat Oreos every night, when you’re still believing that you didn’t do a good enough job all day long as a mom, as an employee, that you’re behind in life that’s a hard ask at that time at night.

Corinne:

That’s why we are doing this podcast episode, because it’s so important for all of you to understand it’s really hard to break eating habits or any kind of urge for some kind of habit when what’s really wrong is not getting resolved.

Corinne:

Okay. You did tell me yesterday that … This is what’s funny. Sometimes people will write in and be like, “Corinne, when you coach Kathy it seems so painful for her.” And then yesterday, I swear to God… For all of you, you close your email right now and you delete it. She said, “I know we’re podcasting tomorrow. I think I’m going to let you coach me.” Yeah. She asked for it. Every one of you, you need to know she was like begging for it yesterday.

Corinne:

For sure.

Corinne:

(silence).

Corinne:

When you say all the kids, just let everybody know how many we’re really talking about here. Yeah. Oh God. I know. And they’re little y’all. They’re not like nine years old. They’re little. Yeah. Our oldest is eight and we go down from there. And we got little Pat. Is Patrick the one that likes to wag the nacho chips? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I didn’t have time to think about it.

Corinne:

I love how your brain is just like, “Well, if you’re looking at your phone, I should look at mine.”

Corinne:

Or something that’s unfulfilling you. I think that that’s the other one. There’s a lot of, I think, insecurities or judgment about … When you look under boredom, like I should be doing more with my life or, I should be a better mom. I should really be enjoying this age. I think because I just have a sensitive side for the moms, because I spent so much of Logan’s growing up hard on myself. If I ever had a regret in my life, it is the relationship I had with myself while raising that child, because there’s so much I missed out on. I probably missed out on little moments that could have meant more to me because I always thought there should be something better. Not him, but I should be better. And then also, I missed out on so much compassion for myself. Yeah.

Corinne:

We’re at Chick-fil-A and he’s playing. I shouldn’t be sitting around having a Barbara Walter’s moment of soft lighting and being like, “Look at me, the perfect mother.” I should be sitting there thinking like, “This is the tough season of life. I bring him to Chick-fil-A so I can get five minutes of fucking peace.” And that’s okay. But I would sit there to get my moment … The whole goal of taking him to a Chick-fil-A to play was to get some peace, because I knew it would entertain him and he wouldn’t want me entertaining him. But then when I was sitting there actually gifting myself some time, being hard on myself the entire time, never getting my peace.

Corinne:

Yeah. Right. Unless you start thinking, “Well, I’m bored,” and you don’t dig in to figure out, because that gives you some reflection time. It allows you to think about it. But most of us, that’s the reason why it’s number one on our list of emotional eating things is, boredom eating, not eating when you’re … Eating when you’re not hungry, it is a signal that something’s probably else is going on. But if you run to eat to solve for boredom, you don’t solve the real problems. All right. Well, we appreciate you throwing yourself on the coaching sword.

Corinne:

I think it always helps somebody. Yeah. I just don’t want the listeners to think that I just like I’m like … I think they think I’m a puma in the bush, as I always talk about, just waiting for Kathy Hartman to come out the door so I can attack. Yeah. Well, I will tell you this. And for all of you, Corinne’s not a fast enough runner to ever be mistaken as a puma either. All right.

Corinne:

Number two, we’re eating to full. We’re not eating to enough. And a lot of times this is coming from avoiding the feeling of wasteful. There’s a lot of reasons why we would eat to full. It could be to extend your relaxing. If you will go to episode 252, when we talk about the last 20 pounds, I talked a lot in that specific episode about relaxation eating. And if the only time you ever relax is when you’re eating and the rest of the day, you don’t work on stress and you don’t work on worrying about what other people think, and you don’t work on understanding how you think about yourself and leveling that up and stuff, yeah, it would make sense that when you eat, you don’t want that shit to end. It’s like, “Well, it’s the only time I’m relaxing. It’s the only time that I’m not thinking about all my lack and insecurities. Of course, I’m going to keep eating.”

Corinne:

But the other big one that I want to talk about is avoiding feeling wasteful. And this was a big one for me. This is where you continue to overeat versus figuring out how much you truly need and then over time eating less. I think this is a important, because I coach a lot on this, especially when we are opening the membership up. We always have a big challenge right around the time that we’re going to open the membership. I think our next opening … What is opening day on? March the 2nd, I believe so. March 2nd through the 5th of 2022 No BS will be open for anyone to join. Make sure that you’ve marked your calendars, because if you want in, that’s a good time to get in.

Corinne:

One of the things that people talk about it’s, “I don’t know if I want to spend more money on weight loss.” And I’m like, “What if we investigate how much money you’re wasting on overeating?” Let’s not think about that. Let’s look for this. And so a lot of us, what we do, in an effort to not waste food, we continue to overeat every meal, never normalizing the amount of food that we actually need for our body. You’re always buying that extra food. You’re always preparing that food. You’re always serving yourself that extra food. If you don’t, in the short run, leave some food behind when you don’t need it, and God forbid have to throw some of it away. I mean that people act like they can’t just put it in the refrigerator and eat it the next day. But let’s say that you hate leftovers, it is like [inaudible 00:33:39] in your throat.

Corinne:

How do you ever expect to ever know how much food you’re really needing, so that you can cut your grocery bill down? This is the one that always kills me because it’s like, “I’m going to overeat so I’m not wasting food.” I’m like, “Well, okay. That makes a lot of a sense. Now you can keep overserving yourself, Never normalize to the new stuff.” And you are only thinking about the food you’re wasting. You’re not thinking about all the energy and time you waste reading about diets, worrying you’ll never lose weight all the time that you’re wasting with your children, not being in photos, all the time that you’re wasting not going on vacations, all the time that you’re wasting delaying going after jobs, delaying doing things that you’ve always wanted to do, delaying learning how to walk, learning how to run and stuff because you haven’t lost weight yet. And we’re talk about waste. That’s a waste. That’s called wasting your life.

Corinne:

And so for a lot of you when you’re eating to full and it’s because you don’t want to waste, we got to think about this bigger and better. Yeah. For a couple weeks you might have a few meals that you’re throwing away, 50 cents worth of food, $2 worth of food. You might have to sit there and override … For me, I had to tell myself over and over again, “There is plenty of food.” I grew up broke. Very often we didn’t get to eat. We didn’t have groceries. We didn’t know when the next meal was coming. And it made sense to me why as an adult, when there was an abundance of food, when I could afford food …

Corinne:

Up until my thirties, I didn’t have enough. When I was in my twenties, I didn’t make much money. I had to be able to eat on $3 a day to pay my bills, because I didn’t want to have to live with my mama and I didn’t want to have to live with my grandparents. I was already working two jobs, but I wasn’t educated. I had to work two jobs and I had to eat on $3 a day and eat what I could eat. When I got to the point to where the issue was no longer, “Can I afford to eat and stuff,” I had to start reminding myself, “We are safe now. There is plenty.” My primal urge was to protect myself and to keep eating. And I had to remind myself, “We don’t have that problem anymore. And it is okay to let go of that desire. It is okay for this to be uncomfortable right now, but you are safe.”

Corinne:

And I think a lot of us, we also have to calm our nervous system down, when we have had that kind of, what I would just call, experienced some food trauma in our lives. And a lot of us have. Your food trauma manifested in parents demanding you clean your plate. We were actually talking about this the other day inside the membership around eating to enough and how many of us really have struggled with that part of the four basics. Because so many of the women were replying, “When I was a kid, my parents weren’t very nice about not cleaning my plate. There was an ass whooping coming if I didn’t eat what I was served.” One woman said, “I remember night after night sitting for two and three hours at the dinner table until I ate.” Just so much stuff.

Corinne:

And now as an adult, it would make sense, even when you know you have enough and you intellectually get it, there’s a part of you that still remembers all that. And on the inside of your brain, that automatic trigger is happening. This is why it’s important to learn some of the stuff that we teach you inside of our membership about how do you create safety for yourself? How do you change that thinking for yourself? So that as an adult, you can start taking back the reins and like, “We’re okay right now. I know this happened in the past, but it’s okay right now.” Do you want to add anything to that one?

Corinne:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Corinne:

Just for everybody rather than thinking … This thought will automatically come up, like “I’m wasting food when I throw it away.” But what I would love for you to pivot your thinking to, and you know us at No BS, we’re always talking about pivot like a motherfucker. We always tell our members, “Y’all pivot like a motherfucker. You’ve got to pivot them thoughts. Pivot, pivot, pivot.” Pivot to thinking rather than, “I’m wasting food are in this away,” I’m learning how over time to stop wasting my precious time I have on earth. I’m learning over time how to save more money by eating less.

Corinne:

And then I just want to make this one last comment, you had mentioned about so many of us were told, “here’s people starving all over.” We get a guilt trip. People are starving all over the world. Again, another trauma response. You’re never going to want to leave food, if every single time you leave food behind, the only feeling you have is guilty because of these old programming coming in. It may not be like you’re sitting there going, “Well, other people are starving,” but your brain is unconsciously thinking it and remembering it. You may notice in your current self the feeling of guilt and that’s a mismatch. And you are like, “I really don’t think I’m supposed to feel guilty if I’m just not going to finish what I’m eating, because I know that I’ve had enough.”

Corinne:

One thing I was telling people one time, I said, “Y’all, I just doubt that if we all went to like Haiti or somewhere where people legit don’t got some food that there’s some little kid sitting there going I feel satisfied, someone in the United States just ate to full.” There’s no one starving that’s better off with your overeating. You just have to think about, it was a way that people said it to try to coax you to eat. And they were just wrong. It was just something to not think about. If you really are caring about starving children, get out your wallet. Quit overeating, take the money that you save from your overeating and send that money some place where somebody can get a meal. That would be solving the problem. But you are continued eating, not solving any problems. All right. That was my little kids starving high horse. Won’t get off my high horse before I get a callous on my ass.

Corinne:

All right. Number three, cravings that feel urgent and specific. A lot of times, what will happen is when you’re emotionally eating, the way that you notice it’s happening is suddenly you want to eat something. I always like to say the reason why urgent has the word urge in it is because they go together. Urges always feel urgent. It’s like, “I need this. I want this. This will only do.” Here’s how to know if you’re having an urge or if you’re actually hungry, if an apple or a stalk of broccoli won’t solve your problem in the moment, your hunger problem, you ain’t fucking hungry. You got something else going on. You’re just wanting and not willing to sit with wanting to do something and know that it’s not my best interest right now. And all of you can sit it with want.

Corinne:

I always tell people this y’all do a lot of you don’t want to do all the time. You just decide to override it. People act like they can’t override an urge for food. It’s like, “Yeah, you can.” I always think about how many times have I been out in public and I just wanted to punch the shit out of somebody. You’re taking too long in the grocery line or you get cut off on the road, wouldn’t you just love it one time to be … I always wish that I had like a big bullhorn on my car where I could just cuss a motherfucker out. There’s things I want to do all of the time, they’re just not in my best interest. I prefer not to go to jail. I prefer not to have to have Chris come bail me out for my rude ass behavior.

Corinne:

And some of you, it’s just little things like, “I don’t want to take out the trash today, but it’s Tuesday. And if I don’t we going to have a hell a lot of trash sitting around because that’s when they come to haul it away.” And so you go anyway, even if it’s raining, even if there’s snow on the ground. You do it anyway. Your kid throws up. I guarantee you, ain’t nobody been like, “Oh my God, thank God you up. I was so craving, cleaning up vomit today,” said no mother ever. You clean it up so you got the capacity to override and urge to do something else. You have the same with food. But the first thing that has to do is you got to identify, number one, “Am I actually hungry?” And if you don’t have a physical need, then you start looking again.

Corinne:

If broccoli or an apple is not, what’s going to fix it then I probably got something on my mind that I need to be alert to. My urge is a signal to think about what is really going on here. Very often, it is something’s going wrong and you’re making it a big deal in your life. You think the way somebody looked at you today is a signal that you’re going to lose your job or that what they said means that everybody’s talking about you behind the back. A lot of times what we do is we have like …

Corinne:

I love this analogy. Urges are like a fire alarm going off in your head. All right. Everybody’s got fire alarms in their house. And for a lot of us, what happens is, we have a lot of fires in our life all the time. Fake fires. I got to work five minutes late. The fire alarm goes off, “I should get a donut. The traffic was terrible. I got to get that donut.” Exactly. There’s always a fire alarm going on. Some of us, what we have to do is realize that just because our fire alarm is going off, it doesn’t mean there is a fire, but it sounds like an urge for food. I want you to think about your alarm is going off in your life. If you’re noticing urges look to see is there really a fire or am I spinning my wheels stressing out over stuff that I don’t need to stress out about? I’m putting undue pressure on myself. I could talk to myself differently.

Corinne:

My worry is a big fire alarm. If you spend a lot of time worrying what other people think, worrying about things that are out of your control … We got two podcasts you should listen to Worry Bucket and Worry 2.0. Go listen to those, if you’re a chronic worrier. Worry will send the alarm for urges to go off. Because if you don’t either solve the problem you’re worrying about or tell yourself, “None of that’s in my control, I just need to stop worrying, because there’s nothing I can do about it,” then your mind will say, “All right, we need to solve it because she feels like shit. Let’s send up an urge for that Snicker at three o’clock. That’ll fix it.” You just need to think about those urges. When you suddenly feel like you need to eat, what is it trying to tell you? What alarm is going off for you?

Corinne:

Then the last one … Signs that you could be emotionally eating is reward eating. This often starts in our childhood. And what happens is reward eating becomes a learned pattern over time. If you think about when you’re a kid, you get a treat when you get good grades, “We go out to eat at a certain place when y’alls report cards come in. If you do really good in sports, we’re going to go out to eat. We’re going to do this.” So much of when we’re children … This is what’s funny is, our parents will say good job, but they don’t really know how to like sit down and just be proud of us. And they don’t know how to teach us how to be proud. They reward us by taking us to out to eat, because that’s an easy one. Then our brains as a child makes an irrational connection. That food is the reward, instead of being proud of yourself is the reward.

Corinne:

I was thinking about this and I was thinking about, wouldn’t it be great if every child was always taught how to genuinely be proud of themselves? And most of us as parents weren’t taught that. This is one reason why I teach the No BS women all the time, how do you be proud of yourself now? I was literally on a call today, a Q and A and somebody was saying, “I keep trying to tell myself nice things about my successes, but I just never seem to believe them.” No one has ever taught her how to make it land. I talked about it and like, “This is the things you’ve got to do. You can’t stop saying these things.” All that kind of stuff.

Corinne:

But I was sitting there thinking it would be awesome if as parents, if we all decided to teach our kids how to genuinely be proud of themselves. What things that they could say to themselves in the moments when they do a good job. If we were taught how to ask questions, that help you describe what’s right about them. And then when it’s hard, how do you spotlight, like “Do you see what you just overcame? Do you see the struggles you had and how you showed up?” And helping them really understand true pride and how to do it for themselves.

Corinne:

For a lot of you, if you are reward eating, it’s probably because you just weren’t taught that. The vast majority of us never were. Our parents were not taught. This is not a lack in your mama. This is not a lack in your daddy. This is not a lack in your grandparents. This is something that I think we have learned recently that’s super important to do. It’s just time that we all start, as adults, learning how to do it so that we can change it for generations to come. Would love it if we raise a generation of children that didn’t seek food to feel good, to cement that something that they’re proud of.

Corinne:

I remember so many times, even as an adult, when we’ve had big milestones in our business recently and Chris and I want to go … Like, “Let’s go out. Let’s celebrate.” And not that going out and celebrating is bad, but if that’s the only way you know how to make it feel good for yourself that becomes the problem. Because then anytime you don’t feel good about yourself, you’re going to try over accomplish to feel good, not feel good because you don’t know how to talk to yourself and you’re going to go out to eat or you’re going to go to the pantry to compensate for that. All I’m saying is, I don’t care if you want to crack open a bottle of wine or you want to do that kind of stuff. It’s when it becomes a habit and that’s the only way that you can feel good and that’s the only way you experience pride and that’s the only way that you give yourself a reward. That’s emotional eating that becomes a problem.

Corinne:

Do you want to say anything about that or do you just love it as usual?

Corinne:

Yeah. I think it is, too. I think it’s one of those things where a lot of times people will ask me, this is what cracks me up. The people who have the hardest time being proud of themselves, will be like, “Well, if I start being proud of myself, what if I become boastful?” And I do all this other stuff. I’m like, “First of all, why don’t you all give us an opportunity to reign you back in if that’s going to be the problem, because I’ve never seen anyone who has thrown themselves under the bus most of their life,” and then gotten so proud of themselves that they can’t stop talking about it and they make everyone around the feel terrible. Pride is a great thing. Being proud of yourself is a great thing. It doesn’t become a problem …

Corinne:

You’re not truly proud, if you are trying to say to other people, the amazing things about yourself in an effort to belittle them, that’s when it becomes a problem. Yeah. If somebody compliments you like, “Oh my gosh, you look so cute today.” And you saying, “Thank you. I’ve been working very hard.” That’s not a problem. That’s good for you. That’s what creates motivation, momentum. I just think, as women, we’re just not … Men it is socially acceptable for them to be always talking about their greatness, always to be proud and all this other stuff. It’s only us women that sit around and be like, “Oh my gosh. What if I tell somebody something amazing that I did and then their soul is crushed?” Ain’t nobody’s soul getting crushed. Unless you are telling them in an effort to soul crush them, you do not have a problem. Just stop all that shit.

Corinne:

It is just time that we step into being proud. We do so many amazing things. The biggest thing, that I hate for women the most, is that we have so many things to be proud of. We work so hard, we show up so great and everything. We are our own worst enemy. We just sit there and it’s never good enough. I should be doing more. I shouldn’t feel good about this. We are our own worst enemy in this. We’ve got to change that. We just have to change this. All right. Anything else you want to add?

Corinne:

I want to read this. This is a calendar quote. I just want to end on this. This is a little calendar for women executives and stuff, but I just loved it. And I think that this is a great one to end on for this one. When it comes to like pride and stuff, and it says … It’s by Danny Garcia. “I say this to women executive leaders, or any woman who’s moving forward and wants to get success. We cannot be successful and be quiet about it. For women in particular, it is so beneficial to say, “This is what I’ve done. This is what I’ve accomplished.” And to share it with as many people as possible.”

Corinne:

Ladies, if you listen to this podcast, you have to start normalizing that we are amazing, that we deserve to feel amazing and we deserve to talk about our amazement. If we ever want our daughters, our mothers, our sisters, our aunts, and our friends to do the same you have got to step up and be the example. You’ve got to up and be one of the ones making the change if we ever want to see change. And if you are an No BS woman, you know how I feel about this. I rant to y’all every single week about how we are the ones that are going to change the world. We are going to lead the world. We are going to break the chains of diet trauma. We are the ones who are going to start being proud, and we are to be unapologetic about it, because unless we stand up and say these things, no one else is going to know that this is normal and this is what we deserve.

Corinne:

On that note, y’all have an amazing week, Kathy and I will see you next time, Girl, that was almost an hour.

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I'm Corinne Crabtree

Corinne Crabtree, top-rated podcaster, has helped millions of women lose weight by blending common-sense methods with behavior-based psychology.

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