The Power of IFS: Kali and Amanda's Stories
The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast
Release Date: 04/08/2025
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_outlineIt'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 resonate with so much of what they share.
In my interview with Kali, we focus on the constant need she felt to change her body due to the pressure from others. She discusses the numerous diets she tried (including the high-protein diet that led her to eat a meat cake for her birthday--yes, you read that correctly), the damage those diets have done, and the fear those programs created. We also discuss the impact of the medical community, food scarcity, and a certain infant part that led her to binge. Kali also shares her journey with IFS--not just in terms of changing her relationship with food and her body, but also in getting to know herself. Indeed, she states, ”IFS has changed my relationship with myself entirely.”
Amanda's experience is different, as she doesn't recall outside pressure to be thin. Regardless, she was never comfortable in her own skin, and her eating disorder was a way to control her world. She discusses the secrecy involved in her eating disorder, the lack of attention by the medical community, and how the wellness industry sent her spiraling even further. We also talk about what was missing in other types of therapy she tried, and how IFS finally got to the heart of her eating patterns. We end with her sharing that she is finally able to truly feel love for herself: ”I’m worth all the work that it takes.”
I'm so thankful to Kali and Amanda for sharing their stories with us, and I know you'll hear yourself in some (or a lot) of what they're saying. Take a listen!
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