Let's Talk About...GLP-1s and Food Noise
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
Release Date: 04/29/2024
The Power of IFS: Kali and Amanda's Stories
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
It's episode 100 of the Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast--I can't even believe it! And to celebrate, I thought I'd invite two amazing women who I've had the honor of working with come into the show and share their experience with IFS. Kali and Amanda are two former clients who graciously agreed to talk about their struggles with food and their bodies and how IFS and Intuitive Eating have helped them to heal. They have very different histories and backgrounds, different body types, and different experiences, and I have no doubt that you will...
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Let's Talk About...Food Rituals
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that at some point in your life, you've tried to change what you're eating. Perhaps because you started a diet. Or you were trying to "eat healthier." Or maybe you were trying to move toward a more Self-led or Intuitive Eating approach to food (where you're really tuning into your body and feeding your body in ways that work well for it). Regardless of why you were trying to change what you were eating, it probably wasn't all that easy. There may have been foods that you tried to cut out but...
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Let's Talk About...Episode 98: Let's Talk About...Connecting to Your Body’s Hunger and Fullness Cues
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
On the last podcast, we talked about "blocking parts." And by blocking, I meant parts that tend to come up when you’re trying to get to know another part. Like when you’re headed for the kitchen and a part of you says, "I should get to know the part that’s leading me to the kitchen right now" but another part comes up and says, "Nope! I don’t want to get to know that part. I’ll do it next time." I hope that the episode was helpful and that you noticed more of those parts over the past couple of weeks. This week, I thought it would be helpful to focus on another...
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Let's Talk About...Blocking Parts
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
Let me ask you this: have you ever noticed yourself heading for the kitchen to get some food, knowing you aren't hungry, and when you start to check in with the part who's leading you there, you hear something like, "Oh don't do that crazy IFS stuff--just eat the food." Or, "Ugh--who cares why we're heading to food--just eat it!" Or even, "Life is so stressful right now--just eat! We deserve it!" These are parts that I call "blocking parts." They jump in and block us from getting curious about the parts of us that lead us to food. And I think sometimes we...
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Let's Talk About...Emotional Eating
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
Here we are, in the middle of the holiday season, and I thought it might be helpful to go back to the basics of the Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast and talk about, you guessed it, emotional eating. Yep, it's been 94 episodes since we've focused on this topic. Well, that's not exactly true. We've focused on specific aspects of emotional eating, but we haven't discussed it in broad terms like we did in the second episode of this podcast. And I don't know about you, but I know my emotional eating parts have been more active lately. Due to the...
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Unburdened Eating, with Jeanne Catanzaro
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
This week's episode features , who's a bit of an IFS rockstar. Jeanne has been one of the strongest voices in the IFS community in regard to food and body concerns, and I'm so thrilled to have her on the podcast! Just a little about her: Jeanne is a clinical psychologist who has specialized in the treatment of disordered eating and trauma for over twenty-five years. She trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing®, and eye movement-desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) before discovering the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. Jeanne is known for...
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Let's Talk About...Healing Body Shame
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
Well, it's fall here in New England, which means cooler weather, absolutely beautiful trees, and apple cider! (And for those of you who love it, pumpkin spice!) It also means lots and lots of raking is in my future! And it also means sweater weather!!!! Yay!!! So many of my parts love sweater weather. Throwing on a big cable-knit sweater just feels so cozy. And I just love fall colors (especially forest green--I can't tell you how many forest green sweaters I have). But do you know another reason why some of my...
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Understanding Binge Eating Disorder, with Amy Pershing
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
On today's episode, I'm so excited to be joined by Amy Pershing to talk about Binge Eating Disorder (BED). Amy is essentially THE expert on treating BED with IFS, and I'm so thankful that she's sharing her wisdom with us! We've been trying for months to record an episode, and we finally did it! Just a little about her, Amy Pershing, LMSW, ACSW, CCTP-II, is the Founding Director of Bodywise, the first BED-specific treatment program in the United States, and President of the Board of the Center for Eating Disorders in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the founder of...
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Let's Talk About...Creating a Parts Check-in Practice
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
If you're someone who's done your own IFS work, you were likely encouraged to check in with a part that you met during your session on your own regularly throughout the week. And you may have thought, how in the world do I do that? Hopefully, the therapist or coach you're working with helped you with that process. But if they didn't, you're in luck! It's the topic of this week's podcast! While checking in with parts that you meet during session is incredibly important, so is checking in with parts in general. And one of the things that I've been focusing on...
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Let's Talk About...Anxiety (and why our parts eat when we're anxious)
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
On this week's podcast episode we're talking about anxiety, one of the most common things that lead our parts to food. Very often, parts in our system use food to calm our anxious parts. I think this happens for a couple of reasons. First, food can be a great distraction when we're feeling anxious. And second, food actually calms us down. Research has shown that food (especially carbs) elevates serotonin levels, which can decrease depression and anxiety. So if you're someone who tends to eat when you're anxious, there's a reason for that. It...
info_outlineI'll get right to it and be honest. Part of this week's podcast topic--GLP-1 medication--is not something I've really wanted to talk about. These are the medications that we're all hearing about nonstop--the ones that Oprah talked about in her recent special. I haven't wanted to give them much air time, because we hear about them so much everywhere else, and also because I don't really think my opinion on them matters. Although it's true that I have significant concerns about these medications and wish that we could move past weight loss as a goal, I also truly believe in bodily autonomy. If these medications seem right to you, what does it matter what I think of them?
So, I do mention them on this week's podcast, but it's only briefly and it's only to say two things:
- If you're looking into taking them, please do your own independent research. Hopefully, you have a trustworthy physician who's looking out for your best interests. But if you don't, you might have someone who's not giving you all of the information. So please please please research the heck of them.
- If you do take them/are taking them, please listen to what your body is telling you. If you're having any type of negative side effects, please take that seriously. All medications can have serious consequences, so you definitely want to listen to your body.
Moving on...
What I really wanted to focus on this week is food noise. This is a term you've probably heard about because they tend to talk a lot about it when they talk about GLP-1s. And since it seems like people are always talking about GLP-1s, they're also talking a lot about food noise.
Food noise isn't an official term or diagnosis--I don't know who coined it, but someone did and now that's how we refer to the constant internal chatter about food. This might be your experience: constantly thinking about food. That's food noise. It seems as though medication and even bariatric surgery have been found to quiet or at least decrease food noise in some people. But why is that?
No one really knows (one of my many sarcastic parts just rolled her eyes and said "Of course not..."). Sure, it may be due to some physiological change that the medication or surgery causes, such as a change in hormones related to hunger. But I don't think for one second that it's entirely physical. I think it makes total sense that it's at least a little bit psychological. And of course, that relates to parts.
In this episode, we're talking about the psychological factors that might be at play here in the quieting of food noise. I give you four reasons why I think food noise quiets with medications/surgery (spoiler alert: it's not because of the medication or surgery itself), which leads into a discussion on why you don't need medication or surgery to get food noise to soften.
If you're someone who experiences loud levels of food noise, my heart goes out to you. I know that can be at the very least irritating and at times even debilitating. I can absolutely understand wanting to do whatever it takes to make it stop. Hopefully, this week's podcast can shed some light on how to do that without medication/surgery, or in tandem with them.