How To Break Patterns Of Emotional Eating

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

We're emotional beings, right? This is something that is natural and it really makes us beautifully human. And of course, it becomes problematic when eating is our only emotional regulation strategy.

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Hi, this is Lauren Fein, one of the producers of the Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. Many of us turn to food to cope with our feelings. Then we beat ourselves up. But what we don't realize is that emotional eating is natural and inborn, and it's not a matter of having too little willpower. The healing process means getting unstuck from negative patterns, reframing our inner dialogue, and acknowledging the different parts of ourselves and what they're each asking for. In today's episode, we feature two conversations from the Doctor's Pharmacy on how to work with a desire to turn to food to soothe. Dr. Hyman speaks with Mark David on flipping the script on emotional eating and with Lisa Lampinelli on doing the emotional work to transform your life and your relationship to eating.

Let's dive in.

Emotional eating, it's natural and it's inborn. If you're a parent, if you've ever been around a tiny infant, you observe that infant, and one moment they're crying or screaming, and the next moment there's mama to give them bottle or breast, and that infant goes from crying and screaming and upset to relaxed and mellow and happy. And it all happens in virtually an instant. So we have ingrained in our DNA, not just from your own memories of this lifetime, but from every human who's come before you, we have this imprint this memory called Feel Bad, Eat Food, Feel Better. And it works. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's normal and natural. You go for a holiday dinner. A holiday is celebrational. That's emotional eating. I don't know, you go out on a date. Date has its own emotional flavor to it. That's emotional eating. And yeah, you know, you come home from a bad day, a bad experience, and you know deep in your cells, if I eat something, especially if it's something I like, I'm going to feel good. Food gives us virtually an instant pleasure chemistry release. If you think about it, what's the opposite of emotional eating? Would it be unemotional eating? We're emotional beings, right? And so I think we really need to get that this is something that it's natural, that it's inborn and it really makes us beautifully human. And of course, it becomes problematic when eating is our only emotional regulation strategy.

Yeah.

And so what do we do with that? How do we sort of deal with the pattern of emotional eating?

Well, you know, here's the thing. When we are constantly going towards emotional eating, It's asking us a question and it's asking us on a certain level, what else? What else can you do? What else can I do to regulate, to manage, to be with my emotions other than food? Because food, it's the infant strategy that we've learned. It's the one that we know. It's ingrained in our DNA. So in order to change a habit, Think of habit as automatic. Emotional eating is this automatic, unconscious habit that does itself. You don't have to wake up. People don't wake up in the morning and say, I really need to try to emotionally eat today. It does itself. So in order to change an unwanted, unconscious, automatic habit, we need to introduce consciousness. Consciousness meaning awareness. Awareness meaning presence, meaning that witness part of me that notices, oh, I'm about to emotionally eat. Huh, what else can I do?

Yeah.

And I'll have people write a list. You know, write, just write an inventory of everything in life that makes you feel good other than food, persons, places, things, thoughts, experiences, exercise, music, watching a goofy video, I don't know. And there's your menu of options. if emotional eating sort of has its grips on you.

Yeah.

I don't know if I learned it from you or not. It was a lecture maybe at Canyon Ranch she gave decades ago. It was like, you know, when you're about to open the fridge, you go, you know, what am I feeling and what do I need? You know, as a barometer, like, what am I feeling? I feel depressed. What do I need? A hug. Oh, you know, I'm angry. What do I need? I need to tell someone what's going on. I don't necessarily need food, right? Like, I think a lot of the times we have these feelings and emotions that we don't act on through a more productive channel, such as actually expressing that emotion, and it gets sublimated into food. And so, you know, I always tell my patients, you know, put a piece of paper on their fridge that says, what am I feeling? What do I need? You know, before you open the fridge or the cabinet and start stuffing your face with ice cream or whatever it is, you know, maybe I'm lonely. I need to call a friend. You know, maybe I'm tired.

I need to nap.

I mean, my biggest emotional eating thing is when I'm tired. You know, if I'm tired, Dr. Justin Mares:.

Yeah.

You know, part of, part of that one for you, that's, that's really a reframing because I'm the same way. I think tired equals bad. I should have limitless energy to do whatever I want when I want to do it. So if I'm feeling tired, yes, what do I have to do? Do I drink? Do I drink caffeine? Do I go for something sweet? And there's that moment of consciousness, oh, wait a second, I've been going at it all day and all week. I am tired. I am part of the human race. So I need to relax and be tired. And so there's that moment of consciousness. There's that moment of awareness that is where the game changes.

So the first bit is basically there's something wrong with you, but it's really not true. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just having some experience that you're managing with food that isn't about some character flaw or lack of willpower, it just points to the fact that you need to think about your life a little bit more carefully and what you actually need in that moment and not automatically fill some amorphous need with food.

Right, because if I think I am emotionally eating means there's something wrong with me. What I'm missing is that food is actually my solution. It's not the problem. People think, oh, I'm emotionally eating, emotional eating equals problem. No, food is your solution. The problem is I have emotions that I feel uncomfortable with. I don't know how to manage. Food is my solution. I feel better. So let's just come up with better solutions. And at the same time, we're reframing, you don't, I don't, we don't have a problem. There's nothing wrong with me because What happens when you think there's something wrong with you is we go into, I'm broken. There's something defective about me. And if I feel broken and defective, there's a part of my consciousness where I'm not gonna feel good about myself and I become susceptible to all kinds of nonsense strategies and approaches and beliefs that are gonna give me some quick fix. So feeling broken often has us going through life not being the real me because I'm broken.

So let's talk about myth two, willpower, and why willpower is not an effective way to deal with emotional eating.

You know, I've never seen anybody be successful with this strategy to overcome emotional eating. It's like telling an alcoholic, well, you're an alcoholic, don't drink alcohol, or a heroin addict, well, just don't take the heroin or a gambler, just don't gamble. It's a more nuanced conversation also think about it. Will power is a noun. It's a thing. It's this sort of mythical substance. Where do you, where do you get it from?

So will power?

I think.

So.

I think emotionally. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a mythical substance. It's like this holy grail that people think, well, if only I had more, then I can just eat what I don't want to eat. I can just refrain from eating food and then I won't be an emotional eater and I'm not going to gain weight. and in fact, I'll lose weight, but really we don't need more willpower, we need more nuance, we need a higher perspective. And what I'm gonna say is instead of looking for more willpower, let's look to how is emotional eating a great teacher for me? So if I'm gonna really embrace this challenge, how is emotional eating asking me to grow? And asking that question assumes that you and I, we grow through challenge. We grow through our relationships, our past hurts, our abuses. You had a difficult upbringing or I have physical ailments or my loved one died or I had crappy parenting. Whatever it is for people, we can grow through those challenges. And then time. So we're here to grow through challenge. I'm gonna suggest that emotional eating is such a challenge. And let's ask a powerful question. So if I'm emotional eating, how is that asking me? And it's gonna be different for each one of us. How is it asking me to grow as a person? You know, for some people that might be asking us to, I should examine my diet. I should examine what I'm eating because certain nutritional strategies will influence my emotional eating. It might ask us to look at how am I doing relationship? Am I having a voice? Am I suppressing myself? Am I expressing myself? Do I have a purpose in life? Do I have pleasure? Do I have connection? Do I have intimacy? Am I being true to myself? If I'm not doing some of those, what will I do? I'm going to feel uncomfortable if I'm not expressing myself, if I'm not being the real me, if I'm not showing up in relationship, or if I'm longing for love but not reaching out for it. So, what do we do? Turn to food. That'll make me feel better. Once again, it's the solution. It's actually not the problem.

So, that's really helpful, Mark. What about the myth three that if I emotionally eat, it means I sabotage myself? Can you kind of unpack that sort of that relation between emotional eating and self-sabotage?

I love when people say that because we're always mystified. Like, people will say, I know what I'm supposed to eat. I know what I'm supposed to do. I just don't do it. And I sabotage myself. So let's get a little more nuanced about that and take a dive in there. Some of the great psychological thinkers, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, they talked about the archetypes. And the archetypes, another word for archetypes are voices or personas, different aspects of us. Normally we think, I'm a person, I'm me. so yeah, I am me and you're you and that's how we distinguish ourselves. But the me that you think you are is actually a crowd. So there's the me that's a father, that's an archetype or a persona. There's the me that's a son. There's the me that's a partner to my fiance. There's the me that's a teacher. So when I'm with students, I'm in a teaching role. When I'm with a client, I'm in a counseling role. When I'm Playing tennis, I'm in a competitor archetype. You can be in the lover archetype, you could be in the scientist or the nerd. There's literally thousands of them. So they're different voices, different personas. So oftentimes what's happening when people say, I know what I'm supposed to eat, I know what I'm supposed to do, I just can't do it. I sabotage myself. What's really happening is there's a voice, an archetype that's stepping in and it's unconsciously driving the show. As an example, a lot of people have in them the rebel archetype. The rebel archetype is the part of you and I that is like Gandhi was a rebel, Martin Luther King was a rebel, Mother Teresa was a rebel. It's going against a lot of the grain. It's going against what society says, finding a better way and having the courage to say no and to resist. But the rebel can also be a rebel without a good cause. The rebel can be a little immature. So a lot of times when the rebel in us takes over, it's as if we're saying nobody tells me what to do, not even me. And the adult in us steps out, the health champion in me steps aside, and the rebel takes over and I'm rebelling against whoever. I'm rebelling against my doctor, my nutritionist, my dietitian, my own inner voice. I'm rebelling against whatever society is telling me to do.

Yeah. How do you handle that?

Well, part of it is starting to notice the different voices that's operating inside you. So it's actually doing a little bit of an inventory on what are the voices that might possibly be stepping in. And once we start to learn about them and notice them, this is another brief example. The child. You know, we often think of the inner child. So we all have a child in us. The child is beautiful. Child in you and me, it's innocent, it's sweet, it's loving, it's open, it's carefree. And the child could also be a brat. And the child also wants immediate gratification. The child wants what it wants when it wants it. And a lot of times people who are gripped with emotional eating, they have been dieting since they've been young or they were bullied for being chubby or they were told by somebody in their environment, my mother, my father, my sister, my friends, whoever it was, my teachers, that your body's not acceptable as it is, you have to go on a diet. And all of a sudden that innocence in us is crushed because we have guilt and shame about our body. And at some point the child in us just wants to scream, I just want to eat whatever I want. I want him to shut up.

Yeah, yeah. I want him to cut me.

And so as we begin, so in answer to your question, how do I deal, how do we work with that? we start to notice when that voice steps in. So you have to be aware because those voices are stepping in beneath our awareness. We're just not present to it. So we feel like we're blindsided. Something's sabotaging me. Well, it's sabotaging you because your witness consciousness or the adult in you or the king and queen in you is just not paying attention. So, oh, I'm on a diet right now because this is what's going to help me feel better. When I don't eat so much sugar, I have my energy, I don't have brain fog, I start to drop weight. And so, okay, I'm going to stick to my low sugar or my no sugar diet. And then all of a sudden, I find myself opening up the refrigerator and like, I just want some ice cream. And it's helpful to know, oh, okay, that's the child in me. What does a child need? Generally, a child needs love and attention. And a child also needs guidelines. You can't let a child run the show. You can't let them run the kitchen. Chances are they'll just eat breakfast cereal all day. So it becomes a conversation with yourself. It becomes a negotiation. What else can I give that child such that I can appease it? And how can I breathe in my adult, my king, my inner queen, to be present and make the choice? So it's a practice.

Yeah, and it's really important to learn the skills to really understand the origins of your thinking around what you're eating because it's often not what you're eating, it's what's eating you. Unless you figure that out, it's really hard to clear up the challenges we face around food and eating things that are going to help regulate our mood, our energy, our well-being, extend our life, all of it. So I think that's super important. Also, I want you to talk about sort of this from a little bit of a different angle because often, you know, our feelings can drive us to eat and eat in ways that are.

Not good for us.

But also eating in certain ways can drive feelings that are problematic for us, right? So it's kind of a bidirectional thing. You know, if you eat the wrong food, you'll feel like crap and then you want to eat more. So I've noticed that, like, the more crap you eat, the more you want to eat it. and it's really interesting to look at the science around that from the point of view of food and food addiction and the biology of food as well as the psychology of eating because they're very related.

Absolutely. Food influences mood. Our mood influences our food, i.e. what food we eat and how we digest and assimilate and calorie burn it. You know, I think at the most basic simple level, and you just mentioned this, if I eat poor quality food, if I eat junk food, I'm driven to eat more. Now, a part of that, a big part of that is poor quality food tends to be low in nutrient density. And head brain and gut brain, the brain in your belly, the enteric nervous system, those two brains are constantly scanning a meal and they're scanning the nutritional profile of the meal. And body wants good nutrition. that's what it wants. And when you feed a body food that is bulky, it seems like there's a lot of caloric value here, but it's lacking in the right micronutrition or macronutrition, brain isn't always smart enough to say, hey, you know, you need more vitamins and minerals, you need more essential fatty acids. The brain just generally will scream hungry. It wants us to look for more food. because we're not getting what we need. We're not meeting a nutritional requirement. That to me is the wisdom of the body. For sure, so many of the junk foods that you and I are exposed to are designed, unfortunately, to addict us to them. They have the right crunch profile. They have the right flavor and sweet and salty profile to capture us. They have the right combination of sweet and fat. There are certain 50-50 combinations of sweet and fat, that'll easily get us hooked. So, and then once we're hooked, you feel bad about yourself because you think you're a willpower weakling. But what's actually happening, it's your biology that's driving you to eat more. But if I think I'm a willpower weakling, I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole of I'm a victim, woe is me, and we get disempowered and then We just feel stuck.

Yeah, it's so true. I mean, I think Kevin Hall did an interesting study where he basically let people eat as much as they wanted or whatever was in front of them. And, they had basically one group got ultra processed food, which is kind of pulverized industrial ingredients that aren't really any bearing any resemblance to real food. And then he let other people eat just nutrient dense whole food as much as they wanted. And, the people who were given the ultra processed food ate 500 calories more a day. because they weren't getting the nutrition they wanted, the nutrient density. It's like looking for love in all the wrong places. And it actually, there is a med, there's medical conditions around this. One of them is called pica, where little kids eat dirt in order to get iron because they're iron deficient. So, I mean, you know, our biology is smarter than we are, and we're going to keep eating and eating. But if we keep eating things that have no nutrient density, we're just going to overeat, and then we're going to. get this vicious cycle and then those foods are addictive and then we gain weight and then we feel worse and we actually drive hormonal patterns that cause us to eat more. And so you've kind of got, you end up with this kind of mishmash of biology and psychology that is a sort of a disaster.

And you have to really elegantly embrace both of both of those pillars. You know, here's another thing. So many people have been taught that, well, in order for you to lose weight, you have to go low fat. And there's a lot of people that still believe that. A lot of people are on low fat weight loss diets. And low fat or low and essential fats, we call them essential for a reason. So your listeners know my body needs this. But a lot of people don't understand that. They don't get that. They're listening to old science, so they're eating low fat. And you show me a person who's eating low fat, who's then becoming fat deficient, and I'll show you a person who will be binge eating and emotional eating and overeating and thinking that there's something wrong with them because they can't control their appetite. No, what's actually happening is you should be on your hands and knees thanking your body because it's brilliant and it's letting you know you have a nutritional deficiency. The challenge also is that a lot of times if we're fat deficient or if we're protein deficient, brain isn't always smart enough to have you crave fat. Sometimes you could be fat deficient and you'll just crave sugar or you'll crave carbs. or a lot of people will be fat deficient and they'll crave poor quality fats. They don't want to go for the fried foods because that's sort of what their body knows and that's what their body wisdom is unfortunately driving them towards. But the point is, it's easy to be low fat, you're driven to emotionally eat and that drivenness is real. You feel it and you feel my God, I gotta eat, I gotta have this because the body is in a little bit of a desperate place. It knows that it needs this nutrient so you can have a functioning brain and a functioning hormonal system. So there's a little bit of an urgency there and that urgency feels like something's wrong with me.

Yeah, it's so true because a lot of people don't realize this but if you are obese, you're very likely to be nutrient deficient. You have excess fat but you have low nutrients in your system. And I see this over and over again. patient at Cleveland Clinic was shocking. You know, I call them functional medicine virgins, you know, 'cause a lot of the patients I see, you know, really tried everything, tried to be healthy, eat well, and this is just someone who came into our program who really had never even heard of a vegetable, basically. And they were fairly educated, but they just didn't understand anything about nutrition and they grew up eating junk food in their family and that's what they ate. And she was, you know, massively overweight or BMI was like 43. and she had diabetes, heart failure, you know, kidneys failing, liver failing, was quite amazing. And when I did her testing, I was so shocked to see like the level of nutritional dysfunction in her system, you know, deficiencies of zinc and B vitamins, magnesium, deficiencies of omega-3 fats. Her omega-6 to 3 fat ratio was 20 to 1, which is just ridiculously dangerous. And you should be like one to one or two to one. I mean, it was horrible.

And I was like, wow, she's so.

Overweight, but she's so malnourished at the same time.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

Fascinating what the body does.

Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark.

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Week'S episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

What was it like inside when you were riding the train of success with the Rockstar and you also were struggling internally with weight and body image issues and food addiction.

Right.

And all these things that, you know, we kind of hide.

Yeah.

How was that? What was your internal journey there?

Well, there's a lot of shame associated with weight. Now, unfortunately, I think people feel like if they can quote unquote control the issue, then they are a lot of shame. So I had shame that I couldn't handle. Like, I go, what is wrong with me? And then I thought, well, if Oprah The most powerful woman in the world still has weight issues. What hope does Pam from accounting have? Like, why should I have such shame about this weight? And I said, let me, instead of having this dark hole inside that's open and I try to fill with food and purses and shoes and concert dates and fame, why don't I start working on what's in there? So I said to myself, a 50. I said, whatever I've been trying to use to fill the hole ain't working. Marriages, all that. Let me take it out of the picture, get this bariatric surgery, but at the same exact time start the emotional work that'll keep the weight off. And I've kept it off for almost seven years now.

And by the way, 50% of the time bariatric surgery fails.

Sure, sure.

Because the surgery fails because people keep figuring ways around. I had a guy who was a doctor, a nephrologist, weighed 400 pounds. He lost almost 200 pounds. after bariatric surgery, and then he figured out he could eat M&Ms all day long, one by one by one, slowly, and he gained back all that 200 pounds.

And you know what's wild? That's why surgery gets that bad reputation. And I say to myself, look, it's a tool. It's never been the fix all. Like I literally could gain all my weight back if I wanted to. Like, I mean, shakes, chips, all that stuff goes down smooth. But what am I really helping? I'm not filling that emotional void. Last night, for instance, I had a feeling of loneliness. Now, I rarely have that because I have, thank God, the best friends, best family, and a great dog. Well, let me tell you something. For some reason, no one's home last night, meaning as I'm trying to call them. And I'm like, oh my God, I have no one. And I go, I'm going to eat. And then I go, well, that's the behavior of somebody who isn't doing the emotional work. So I pulled back and I said, look, you'll eat when you're physically hungry. Do I win that battle all the time? Hell no. Like 20% of the time, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna nail something right now. But you know what? We're all flawed. We all gotta work on this. I'll be working on this till I'm 80 and that's okay, as long as I'm making those little steps.

Yeah.

So when you were overweight and struggling, Were you conscious of the stories you were telling yourself that led to you to keep eating?

That's interesting. I probably was deluding myself into going, you know what? I'm happy with myself this way. Or, oh yeah, I'm fat and proud. And you make fun of yourself as much as you make fun of the audience, which is why my comedy worked, because I loved the audience, but I goofed on both of us. So the fact is, once you start going, I really don't like what I see in the mirror because I got into a lot of people seem to go through this with this surgery. When you look in the mirror and you're overweight, I would go through the look in the mirror, hate what you see, get depressed, eat, look in the mirror again, hate yourself for eating. It just basically is one big cycle of depression. So once I got the surgery, I go, oh, I got to work on that. But yeah, I think I deluded myself into being like, well, this is as good as it gets. Just like with a job, like with me with comedy, I could have stuck with it. I said, hey, 30 years in the business, I'm doing well, you make your money, you're okay, bad marriage, that's okay, he wasn't hitting me, I wasn't hitting him very often. And I was like, you know what? I can stay in this, but do I want my life to have joy? And I think that's what the weight was really showing up as, this lack of joy. So thank goodness I suddenly got brave and decided to tackle them all.

But you didn't slide back, right? You got the surgery, you lost the pounds, which often happens. And then somehow something shifted in you.

That allowed you to stick with it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Was it help? Was it some awakening you had? Oh, yeah. Was it just like white knuckling it?

What happened? Oh, no. I don't white knuckle it. I have a therapist, of course. I have a life coach. I mean, I basically call in all the freaking cavalry. I'm like, how do you handle emotional eating? I've read all the books.

You have all your nights at the Round Table.

Oh yeah, because you know what? I'm worth it. I want to live, dude. I was listening to the radio today and this was a 97 year old Carol Channing dies. Now I'm 57. I say to myself, oh my God, if I take care of myself physically and emotionally, I could live 40 more years and continue to help people and help myself. And I'm like, oh my God. It really helps to know I have life to look forward to. So I think that's what a lot of the emotional work for me is going, I'm looking forward to every day and living a long time versus, I'm in a job that's okay. Like a lot of us, we have a low grade form of dissatisfaction that we put up with. We really shouldn't have to. It's sad to me.

Yeah, and it's true. And you were in your career in a way, Being of service. You were making people laugh, which is something we don't do enough in our world. And it brings people joy and happiness, gives them a dopamine hit. It makes you feel a little better. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's not like you were making pesticides for Monsanto or something.

That's my next career. Well, you know what I think it was too, though? I think it was-- My dad died on a Saturday, so I had to do a shift because comics usually work on Friday, Saturday. So I remember every Saturday I would be a little sad, and I'd have to psyche myself myself up. And I saw this great Ted Talk or YouTube Talk some Comics said about giving laughs instead of getting laughs. Because we as Comics can be very self-centered it's give me, give me, give me. I killed. Oh, yeah, it's all about me. And I started to have to shift it to giving to the audience. And that's when I started getting standing O's again. But then that didn't seem like it was fulfilling enough. And I go, you know what? I'm going to step back from this. I'm going to shift my life. And I felt the only time that I was really making myself happy and them was to do something totally different like I'm doing now with the workshops and the coaching and stuff. It just is the fit that I was looking for.

Okay, so you're in this transition. Your father dies. You're waking up to the fact that you want to shift your life towards more joy, that you were helping your dad through the process of death and being of service, and then that gave you even though he was dying, it gave you a different experience of joy or happiness, which is kind of bizarre. But it actually is actually what happens when you're in service. In fact, being of service, altruism, is hardwired into us and it actually stimulates dopamine in the brain, just like heroin or cocaine or that donut. Wow.

Oh, well good, I'm glad I got the healthy way.

Yeah, and so you had this insight, but insight often doesn't translate into action or behavior.

Right.

What was the sort of moment where you were like, okay, I'm gonna do these things. I'm gonna get divorced. I'm gonna quit my job. I'm gonna get my body under control. I'm gonna do this new career. Like, was it all of a sudden, boom, it happened? Or was it this slow process?

I think it was sort of brewing inside for all those years, you know, that my father was sick, and then afterwards, and I'm the type I was brought up by depression era parents. So I said to myself, I'm not going to do this stupidly. I'm going to make sure I save enough money so that if I never make any more money, it's okay. Even if I live in a tiny studio the rest of my life, I don't care. So I said, look, do it the right way. Have a target date set up for this, which I did. But I think it was the real turning point of actually taking the action was I took this workshop at Kripalu, which is a meditation place and yoga center in the Berkshires from a woman called Maria Sirois. And she's very, very into positive psychology. And she has this three-step plan for resilience. So it's accept reality as it is, take small actions to give you a happier life, and then seal it with gratitude. Because we all forget to seal it with gratitude for what is currently here. So I started doing that. I'm like, okay, what's the reality? Don't love comedy. learn how to be a coach, see if I like the classes, see if it's something I'm good at, follow that. So I had my little plan all set up. Then I was like, okay, what action first? And I'd start doing these steps and then I'd practice gratitude too. And it all sort of converged into where about a year and a half ago I go, oh my God, I totally am ready. But again, the resilience is that, hey, I'm gonna keep coming back and coming back. And that's what makes me keep going. So if I have a coaching session where I think I dropped the ball in this practice session, I mean, if I do a workshop where I don't get through to somebody out of the 30 people, and I, you know, it stops me from beating myself up. So I think that resilience practice is huge. And I think that's what kind of made it all a reality for me.

So if you're, you know, talking to people, maybe there's 100 people, maybe there's a million people listening who are wanting to change their life and struggling in getting inspired from this conversation about how you shift it.

Right.

What would you tell them?

Well, this is a great question because the first thing everybody says is, well, it was easy for you because you have money. First of all, I'm not some kind of baller who's sitting on $38 million. I'm not, you know, one of those people. But we all have the means to do little steps. So it's not easy for me. I started in comedy when I was 30. Mark, I lived with my parents and hid it from everybody because I was like, oh, you know, I want to make it as a comic. So even if you have no money or- In the basement with the Janis Joplin poster. Worse than that, believe me. I looked at my childhood bedroom because I was like, I'm cool as hell. I'm going to be a comic. So with this, I did one of these things where I go, okay, Lisa, you want a quick comedy, you have a few bucks in the bank, but it ain't going to last forever. What's the worst that can happen? See, I'm the type, I ask what the worst is can happen, And then I do it anyway, 'cause the worst ain't that bad. Mark, they all go to, I'm gonna be homeless. 90% of people I talk to, oh, I'm gonna be homeless. When the hell have you ever been homeless? I should call my next book, Hey, at least I can type. The fact is we all have a skill we can use. We all have a gift. We all can work at Starbucks. I mean, they have health insurance for God's sake. So I always say to people, stop thinking everybody else has it easy. Look at your reality. write it down, then figure out little steps. Because don't you find with your patients too, little steps make you feel so much better. So I'm taking little steps.

Little wins, little wins.

If I can do it, anyone can. Because I'm, you know, I am just feeling my way out too.

Okay, so you've gone through all this and you've started, you've got trained in coaching, you were leading workshops.

Yeah, I love that. Oh my God, to be in a group of people, and have them feel like they can work on themselves just makes me so happy. It's so cool.

So how do you use your story to work with them?

That's a great question too. What happened to you? You must have gotten married to a wonderful woman who brought it out of you.

I did. She's texting me as we speak.

I ask all the questions.

If I could attract a male Mia, I would be so happy. I have to settle for a dog. So the thing is, storytelling is a huge part of my workshops, and I'll tell you why. I show I'm vulnerable to tell all the crap I've been through with food. I mean, 'cause you know, we have a lot of shameful food behavior from the past. I tell them, Hey, I'm still working on me. I still had a little binge the other night. I still didn't feel good about myself yesterday when I looked in the mirror. I tell a lot of story throughout the weekend workshop so people know that they could tell theirs too. So what I love, oh my God, I remember the first time 'cause I'm very anal, I like to try out every step of the workshop. with friends and family before, just to make sure it's good, before I sell tickets to the public. I remember the first time I told the story, every person around the room just like emoted and was really open and vulnerable and told their story. And I'm like, wow, that story helps promote openness and vulnerability. And that's, people just want to feel safe. If I tell you my story, you feel safe to tell yours. And if you don't, that's okay. So all I can do is be an open book. That's why I said to you, Hey, ask me anything you want. I'm the most open book in the world because I always tell my publicist, she has the easiest job because I've told her everything. She'll never find naked pictures of me on the internet.

Thank God.

Amazing.

So what are the things that have emerged from people doing your workshops? Have you seen people shift? Yes. Has there been changes?

You know, some are a slow boil. You know, they'll sit there and they'll go, Wow, I feel a little better, but and we'd give them an exit plan, as you know, afterwards to maybe start a Facebook group together to have like sort of a life, a life map for like the next year or whatever. A lot of them, it takes them a long time to get to the actual action, but it's brewing up there just like it did for me. So I have a friend who, she took my workshop and took no action for about six months. Then she emails me that she just went to hypnotist and she's gone down six sizes in three months. And that's, she says it all started when she took the workshop. I didn't tell her to get hypnosis. She had to find that out for herself as a tool. But you can lead them to be more self-accepting, more open to these different messages and modalities. And you go, Hey, this is great. So, so far, I haven't had any complaints. I make them fill out feedback forms. I said, you're not going to hurt my feelings. I'm new at this. So, you know, I just, you know.

Hope that it keeps kind of getting better and better.

Yeah.

You know, you know, there's an amazing sociobiologist, a scientist at Harvard, E.O. Wilson, who's written many books and is, you know, one of the leading scientists in the world. And he, you know, he said, the world is, is really interpreted through story, and that's what creates meaning in life.

Right, right.

And I think that we really all need to have story in order to make sense of our experience. And your story and the stories you tell and the storytelling is really how we understand the world.

That's a good point. I do now that I don't do stand up anymore. I do do these storytelling nights where me and a people, a bunch of people, actors, comics, different people who have weight or food issues in their past or present, and we tell stories and they're really funny, but they also are heartfelt and I just, after those shows, I notice there's a real sort of shift in the question and answer session where it's like people want to go way deeper. They don't want to keep it surfacey anymore. I'm like, oh, so they benefited from story. And also, you know how that, the coaching class I'm taking, you really work on dissolving people's limited thoughts and the stories they tell themselves about themselves. So last night, for instance, with this eating thing, with the loneliness, What was.

The whole narrative going on?

It was wild because really, I mean.

The work is in there for a minute.

The work is dissolving those thoughts. I had a day where I just wanted to talk to my best friend. I have the same best friend for 32 years. I call her up, she's disabled. So I, no, we talk on the phone a lot instead of get together in person. She's not around. And it's almost like a life partner in a way where you're like, why aren't they around?

Yeah, right.

Oh, I have no friends. Like literally that thought comes in, I have no friends. Now, if you logically look in my phone, you're gonna go, oh my God, you have at least five people who are that deeply invested in the friendship as you are. However, the thought is, I have no friends, then it's the feeling is sadness, loneliness, et cetera, then the behavior is could have been eating.

Could have been that sheet cake.

Hell yeah. The M&Ms, one after another. So instead, I take the story, like the tools we learned in coaching, is to really try to dissolve it and say, is that true? Do I have no friends? Well, it certainly feels that way now. Yes, it's true. Is it absolutely true? Like Byron Katie says, no, because we don't know what's absolutely true. Nothing is absolute. And then it's sort of going, how would I act, behave, and feel if I never had that thought? I wouldn't go to the food. I wouldn't be sad. So it's getting distance from the story. So the crap that we tell ourselves, we can self-coach a lot. You know, I'm not trying to talk myself out of getting clients, but let me tell you something. A lot of this self-coaching really helps people because I have to every day go, oh, that thought's coming up and then get some distance from it.

So that's a very interesting thing because most of us thought and behavior have no space in between.

The pause, the big pause has to happen.

We have the thought, we identify the thought, we act based on the thought and that determines our reality. What you're saying is you figured out a way to create a pause between thought and behavior. I'm lonely, I have no friends, I might as well get fat again because nobody cares about me and sitting here by myself and just my dog and life is horrible.

Yeah, well, I think, you know- and.

Then you go down this rabbit hole.

Yeah, so I'm trying to integrate that for me and like Byron Katie's work about that just is, I mean, at first I was like, I read Byron Katie's book years ago.

Back up, who's Byron Katie?

Oh, and what is she teaching? Why is she the authority on something called the Work, this work she created? And Martha Beck, who I'm taking my coaching certification class with, promotes using that as a tool with yourself and with your clients. It's basically deconstructing that story to where you go, It's just not true. And having some distance from it.

So, so it's asking yourself a series of questions about your beliefs and your thoughts.

Yeah.

Like for instance, do you have a limiting belief, Mark? Does a limiting belief ever come up for you? Are you that perfect that you don't?

Yeah, of course.

Okay, what would be something that would weirdly just pop into your mind at a moment of stress?

That's an interesting question.

I think it's interesting because my mother brainwashed me to believe that I have no limits.

Okay, so.

Which is actually the opposite problem, which has allowed me to drive myself into the ground to harm myself in different ways than we're eating, but it's not that different.

Sure.

And I think.

So even if you take that limiting thought that keeps you stuck in this, Byron Katie says what you should do is you go, I have no limits. Is that true?

No, hell no.

Okay, so say you were the- And.

I can only eat like 12 cookies at a time.

Oh, I love that limit. I love that. Now, and she would then say, you know, do you work around that knowing that's not true and how, what you would be like if you didn't think that was true, which probably would be say no more. feel like you don't have to heal the whole world. Yeah, I know. Weird, right?

Like, I turn this podcast over that.

See, I turned down a client today because I don't want to be that person who thinks they have to save the world because I have limited resources. I mean, I'm just learning this. Plus it was like about addiction and I'm like, I don't know anything about that. Call Dr. Drew, you know? So I just go, isn't it funny that this Byron Katie developed this thing that we can get some distance and.

Go, oh, I'm telling myself that story.

So is that true? And what are the next questions she has? Well, you already said no. So you know know it's not true. So you know how to act as a person who knows it's not true. So what would you do differently?

I would say no more.

There you go.

I would feel like I had to work on the challenging thoughts that make me feel like I have to do everything for everybody all the time.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. One of the best ways you can support this podcast is by leaving us a rating and review below. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.

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