Episode #89: How to Stop Emotional Eating and Heal Your Hunger, with Tricia Nelson

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I'm a board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, Then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. All right. So I am talking about emotional eating today. I have a feeling that a lot of you listening are going to relate to this episode. So how many of you women out there have tried 100 different diets only to regain the weight and feel, you know, you've got like 5 different sizes of clothing in your closet because sometimes you're an 8, sometimes you're a 10, sometimes you're a 6? You know, that It's a really common problem and we tend to focus on the food and the weight when, in fact, there's deeper issues at play. And my guest today is an expert in emotional eating and we are going to talk about all of this. So I'm really excited for this episode because, you know, weight issues are a result of something. That's not the cause. You know, it's not that you haven't found the right diet, necessarily. Sometimes it is, but if it's a yo-yo weight issue and it's a lifelong issue, then it's— then your weight issue is the result of something deeper and we've got to figure out what those root causes are. And, you know, if you come see me as a patient virtually, we will get into all the medical reasons that you have those issues. But here's the thing, a lot of times those medical issues developed Because of even deeper-rooted issues of your personality and your childhood and reasons that you may have a bad relationship with food, an unhealthy relationship with food, and that could be preventing you from being able to manage your medical conditions or get control of your weight because we're not dealing with those root-cause issues. So this is beyond the medical Root cause issues of weight today. This is your relationship with food, and it's really, really telling. I think you're going to be surprised at how much you relate to this conversation I have with Tricia today. You're going to be like, hey, that sounds like me. Oh my goodness. So please share this episode with everyone you know because I think as women— This is a bigger issue than we want to admit. So I just want to sing Tricia's praises really quickly because she's awesome and I just love everything she's doing. And I'm really excited to have this conversation with her today because you need to hear it, okay? So Tricia Nelson, she lost 50 pounds by identifying and healing the underlying causes of her emotional eating. Tricia has spent over 30 years researching The Hidden Causes of Addiction Personality. She's an emotional eating expert and author of the number one bestselling book, Heal Your Hunger: 7 Simple Steps to End Emotional Eating Now. She also certifies health coaches so they can get better results, referrals, and revenue by helping their clients overcome emotional eating. So Tricia is the host of the popular podcast, The Heal Your Hunger Show and is a highly regarded speaker. Tricia's been featured on NBC, CBS, KTLA, Fox, and Discovery Health. So you should check out her podcast, The Heal Your Hunger Show, and you're going to really enjoy this conversation. It might be a little uncomfortable for some of you, actually, but I encourage you to listen Or watch all the way through because you're going to get some golden nuggets. She's going to give you some simple ways to start ending this emotional eating now. And she's going to talk about the personality traits of an emotional eater and people with food addictions. And she has a quiz on helping you figure out, are you anywhere on this spectrum? Do you need to be concerned about doing some deeper work with your relationship with food. So let's dive right in. Here we go. Well, welcome, Tricia, to the Functional Gynecologist Podcast.

Thanks for having me, Tabatha. It's so good to be here.

Yeah, I'm super excited about this conversation. I feel like it's so important and women need to hear this. How long have you been doing this?

I— well, okay, so I was an emotional eater like way back when, when I was a wee little one. So, you know, I mean, I've From way back, as far as I can remember, I was obsessed with food. And I was also, I mean, I love food. I love to eat. I love to cook. I love to serve it to other people, go out to dinner. So I was very food-focused.

Wow.

Which wouldn't have been so bad except that I started gaining weight. And by age 20, I was 50 pounds overweight and I hated being fat. I would, I would have a roll in my tummy that I would scrunch up and imagine cutting it off, like you cut fat off the side of a steak. steak. Or I thought, you know, I imagined contracting a disease where I'd automatically lose weight without having to diet.

Oh my goodness.

I know. Isn't that crazy? And the other crazy thing is I thought, oh, maybe I'll join the Army and I'll be forced to exercise at boot camp because I hated to exercise. So I had some really crazy thoughts, which is really just reflective of how desperate I was because I did diet. I mean, I tried dieting, but I'd be— I was a yo-yo dieter. I was like up 30, down 10, up, you know, 20. And I had like 5 different sizes of pants in my closet because I never knew what size I'd be.

Mm-hmm.

And my skinny jeans, you know, would collect dust as I whiled away years trying to find, you know, the hidden key to overcoming my weight loss struggles. So it was really a slog for me. And it wasn't until I got really hip to the idea of emotional eating Which was a long time ago before it was even a known thing. But when I— when my consciousness was raised to that point and I'm like, oh my God, like, it's not just that I like food because I'm like, I just like food. But then I observe like my behaviors with my friends and we go out to a restaurant and they'd order a sandwich and it would come with fries and they'd eat their sandwich and pick their fries. But I'd eat my fries and pick up my sandwich. And I'd be like— and I'd sit there, I felt like a Martian. I'd be like, How could somebody leave a French fry on their plate? Like, that's the best part. What's up? What's wrong with them? So, so, or, or, you know, they'd have a hot fudge sundae and they'd stop halfway through and they'd be like, oh, I'm full. I can't eat anymore. I'm like, full? What's that have to get— got to do with anything? So, so anyway, I, I started to realize my relationship with food was different than other people's, and it wasn't indeed emotional. Like, I just, I couldn't— something about food and I ate a lot. I snacked a lot. You know, I binged. I was a binge eater. So it was really tough for me. And, and I, you know, because I tried so many things to gain, to lose weight that didn't work for me, I started to feel hopeless. But once I started addressing the emotional eating, everything turned around for me because that was the driving force.

Oh my gosh. Well, I can connect and relate so much because I was addicted to sugar and I lived off of it for so long as an OB-GYN because I was so sleep deprived and stressed to the max.

Yeah.

That was my coping mechanism, was to stay on a sugar high to manage all of that.

Totally.

And looking back, I just, I can't imagine living like that again. I couldn't do it at this point, but That is how I got through. And I remember telling somebody one time, like, how the donuts were talking to me from the break room, and they looked at me like I was crazy. And I was like, you don't have that problem? Like, they don't talk to you until you just give in and eat them? And that's when it clicked for me, like, yeah, I really do have to get rid of this sugar problem. It's an addiction and it's gotta go. And When I took the time to figure out why, you know, like you do with your ladies, then you can actually break up with the sugar and get over that addiction or manage it. So I love everything you're doing. So we need to talk about all of this because—

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I just— women get on these diets, these yo-yo diets, right? Can you talk about Why, why do we just keep trying to diet and find the answer there? What aren't we doing?

You know, it's really crazy. There was a study recently in the British Medical Journal and they followed 22,000 adults on who are on one of 14 popular diets, like the ones we all know. And after one, and what they found is after one year, all the weight that the participants lost was gained back. All of it. So like, and dozens of studies out there show that basically diets have a completely dismal success rate. In fact, the percentage you might have heard or others might have heard is like 95%. It's that dismal.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, and that was my experience too. You know, no matter what diet I tried, I mean, you get psyched at first. You're like, I'm doing it. Like, you know, looking good, feeling good, pants getting looser. But then after 2 weeks or so, it starts to get hard. I hear this over and over, like it gets really hard. And then for me, like I just, I'd have this like spring in my gut that would get tighter and tighter and tighter. And then before I knew it, I was like, I can't take this anymore, you know, and I'd break out and binge. So this was my pattern. This is how I yo-yoed. And what I know now is that, you know, when I lose weight or when I diet, the feelings that, you know, I was burying with food started to come to the surface, and I didn't have the proper tools to deal with them. Because food will bury your stuff. Like, you'll get numbed out and you won't feel. But as soon as you're not burying your feelings, you will feel. And if you don't have new, like, healthier coping tools, uh, for dealing with life's problems and stress, you're going to be like, where's— where is that chocolate? I need that chocolate now. So that's really the deal. That's, in my experience, emotional eating is why diets diets fail is because people think, oh, easy peasy, I'm going to follow this diet, lose the weight, and feel great. But it doesn't work that way because, I mean, you feel great at first, but then you start feeling like, I need my main coping tool. Give it to me now. So that's, that's why, my experience.

Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree more. I think that we are looking for the solution to a problem that isn't the root cause. The weight is not the problem.

It's the result. Exactly.

And so If you focus on the weight, you'll never fix yourself. It's like, you know, just the basis of functional medicine, like what I preach all the time, you know?

Exactly.

Yep. And so I love that you are trying to, like, figure out the root cause and finding tools for women to actually stop the binge eating, stop the yo-yo dieting. You know, I was mentioning to you before, I do a 7-week challenge where I teach women how to eat healthy and incorporate intermittent fasting. But I talk about this kind of stuff because if you don't do the work, it doesn't work. So talk to me a little bit about what women can do, you know, 3 simple things they can do to even start addressing their emotional eating.

Yeah, sure. So I have something I call the PEP test. And PEP is an acronym. And this is a good way for people to start making the connection between their eating and their emotions. So P, the first P in PEP, stands for painkiller. Because here, let me set this up. It's not what food's doing to us. Like, we're pretty aware of what food does to us. It's what food's doing for us that we have to start taking a look at.

Yes.

So P is painkiller. So we use food as a painkiller, you know? And I was drawn to heavy foods like sugar, fat, and starch, my favorite 3 food groups, actually. So I was drawn to those foods because they did anesthetize my feelings. You know, if I'd binge, I'd be feeling no pain, you know, and that's what I was going for because I didn't want to know what was going on inside of me. I just didn't— I don't know, I didn't want to deal with it. So, so that's the problem. The problem is when you binge and you, and, and you get out of control of food, then you have a whole nother set of problems and pain. So, um, so that's the first P in PEP. The E in PEP stands for escape. And so what I would do is, you know, regarding like life, I just wanted to get away from my problems. And I also just had like financial fear. You know, I use food as a form of just checking out, basically escaping things like fear, anxiety, just, you know, stress. Um, and, and I would— it would happen, you know, I'd get my favorite goodies and sit in front of the TV and it would like export me to a faraway place, you know, momentarily.

Mm-hmm.

And then the last P in PEP is punishment, which seems counterintuitive. I know, because we think of, you know, eating as our favorite foods as a reward, but I was hardly rewarding myself with, when I would overindulge and end up feeling sick, you know? And so it's like, what's that about? Well, in my experience, overeaters are overfeelers and we feel guilty about everything. And so, and not only that, but we're super hard on ourselves when we make a mistake, we tend to be perfectionists. And so then we beat ourselves up with food. So, and that is a vicious cycle, right? Because it's like, you're so mad at yourself that you punish yourself again, you're mad at yourself for eating and then you eat more.

Yeah.

So it makes no sense. So So, but that's the PEP. That's the PEP. It's kind of a nice way to start remembering, like, or, you know, at first people are like, I just eat food. What's this emotional eating stuff? But once you can't unhear this information, you know, like me, like once I heard it, I was like, I couldn't stop thinking about it. So, so people can just sort of check in on themselves when they find themselves going to the kitchen time and time again. It's like, are you— is there something painful that you're trying to, you know, bury? Um, are you trying to escape some, something that's overwhelming, or perhaps you're trying to punish yourself for something you've said or done that you feel bad about? So it's kind of a nice way to start making the connection between your eating and your emotions. Um, in my experience, just to kind of first level it. Um, another thing, Tabatha, is that, you know, we think of emotional eating as just being about food and what we eat, but my experience is emotional eaters have a different way of reacting to life.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and this is very much based on how we grew up. So, so many emotional eaters have trauma in their past. I had sexual abuse in my past. Um, a lot of people have alcohol, alcoholism, or some kind of dysfunction in their family. And when we're kids, we don't have a way of dealing with that stuff. Like we don't have tools at the ready and food's right there and it works. You know, I mean, it does the job. But what happens is there are a few other things that we might have that we practice, which are some personality traits. So not just are we eating when we're kids, but we're also— we modulate our behavior in order to get by in these stressful situations. So in my book, I talk about 24 personality traits that make up the, what I call the anatomy of the emotional eater. So emotional eaters are different than your average person, and we have these ways of coping that, again, they work as a kid, but then they kind of work against us as adults. And the number one trait is people pleasing.

Yeah.

So again, if you have trauma as a kid or you have alcoholism, or if you have a raging parent, whatever, you learn how to become a chameleon, you know, and you're always saying yes. And you're always trying to please, and you're always trying to just get by without, you know, some kind of damage. Um, but as, as adults, you know, I'm sure you see it time and time again, it causes sickness. You know, we either bury our feelings and just have a smile plaster on our face all the time, and that will create sickness. But also we're doing too much and we're stressed out because we want validation and we get it by doing, you know, we get it by producing. And so that's a big problem. And the reason why it's very connected to food. And my experience, you know, helping hundreds of women who are all people pleasers is that, you know, we're saying yes to everything. Like, sure, I'll chair the committee, happy to host the party. And of course I'll do your job and mine without extra pay. Like, no problem. But the problem is that nobody's ever as pleased as we plan on them being, right? So we're like, oh, I'm gonna get a big hit from this, but people barely notice. And then we're not only burned out from overdoing But we're kind of pissed off, you know, and resentful. And then that's the perfect prescription for the I-deserve-it binge. And so that's how it's connected, even though it has nothing to do with food.

Wow. I think there's going to be a lot of women listening who are resonating with what you're saying because that just hits home. I mean, you are trying to do it all, be it all, have it all.

Yeah.

And it's not giving you what you need deep inside. And yeah, so you keep trying to fill this void, and food is a super easy way to fill it temporarily, right? Because you do, you get a chemical reaction that makes you mentally feel better. You get those endorphins from the gluten and the sugar and all that garbage. But then you crash, and so you have to keep on that damn cycle. You gotta get going. So totally. Oh my goodness. So what are some other traits that, um, emotional eaters have?

Um, so another one is, again, stemming back to our childhood oftentimes, is caretaking. So, and this is akin to people pleasing as well, but we tend to be in roles that are caretaking roles. I mean, not just motherhood, but also maybe being a therapist or a nurse or something where we're taking on— doctor, you know, we're taking on other people's, you know, the responsibility for people's health or their getting by. And which is not a bad thing, it's an admirable thing.

Admirable thing.

But we tend, because it's stressful, you know, we tend to use food to keep it going, like to be able to fuel ourselves as we're giving. It's like we end up giving and then getting exhausted or our cup, you know, gets empty and we refill with food. So caretaking is very much a typical thing. Having a racing mind. You know, my experience is emotional eaters are not only overeaters, but they're overthinkers.

Mm-hmm.

And so, I mean, my boyfriend will look at me and be like, how did you get All that from that, you know, because I'm like, like, like, I just, you know, somebody didn't call me back. I'm like, also, they hate me and I'm— I suck, you know. And he's like, wait, wait, wait, what? So, so we tend to be overthinkers. Like, we'll, we'll create these stories, you know, and, um, and then worry. So we create a reason to worry when there's no reason at all. There's nothing going on. So So, um, we tend to have that racing mind and that creates a lot of our stress is just the stories we tell ourselves. So that's why meditation is so powerful for emotional eaters, because not only do we need to stop doing for everybody, but we need to stop thinking too, or at least think less, you know? And so practices like meditation, prayer, you know, walking, uh, things that can just help us Slow down.

Yeah.

And chill out are so important because when we're just all wound up, you know, and then we walk in the door at the end of a busy workday, we're eating at the same pace we're spinning, you know? And it's usually not salads that we're, you know, going to town on. It's snacky foods and chips. So, so that's why we have to take a timeout and give ourselves a little, you know, time to unwind from the stress of the day. So these are some of the ways that, you know, that again, it's, it's, it's more how we're living that needs to be addressed. I mean, people aren't stupid. They know pizza, pizza's probably not as healthy a choice as a salad. So it's not like we're ignorant about nutrition. It's our inability to follow through on what we know when we're stressed, when we're doing too much, when we're, you know, burning the candle at both ends, when we're resentful, you know, And overthinking and creating stories in our head. So I always tell people it's more of a living problem than an eating problem.

Oh my gosh, that is so good. I couldn't agree more. Like, I'm just running through all of these scenarios in my head and past, you know, experiences of just eating all while I'm charting, while I'm on the phone with the nurse, while I'm walking to the OB department trying to catch a baby. Like, Whenever I can get it in. And yeah, you can't eat salad like that, but you can eat chips and cookies and all the garbage.

Yeah.

So you're eating without realizing, you're eating too fast so your brain can't even realize that you're full, you're not nourishing your body, you know, you're stressed out, you're pumping out the cortisol. So many things going on. And I remember when I finally gave up sugar Sitting down uninterrupted, not working, not, you know, being on my phone while I ate was a key factor in my success. So I, I mean, you're hitting on so many important points, like just get mindful about what the heck you're doing and putting in your body, number one.

Yes, slow down.

Slow down. And I want you to talk about this self-care more that I've heard you speak on, because this— like you're saying, we have to change how we're living. And what I see in my patients and in my women who follow me is we give to everybody else until there's nothing left.

We—

Yes. We don't even know how to make ourselves a priority because that's not what we do. We take care of everybody else. So yeah, speak to that.

Yeah, so I mean, and people think, you know, that it's bad to take time for ourselves. Women, you know, we kind of put ourselves on a guilt trip about it, you know, like it's selfish, but it's selfless to take care of ourselves. You know, studies show that when we take time for ourselves, we actually increase our capacity to give to others, you know. And not only that, but people end up getting the best Amen.

That is so good. I mean, can you just say that again?

Yeah. So when we slow down, when we have time for self-care, when we say, no, mommy needs some quiet time, you know what, guess what? The kids and the spouse, they, you know, we first have more to give to others when we refill our But we also are a better version of ourselves, and that's what we're giving to them. And don't they deserve that?

Yes, right.

They don't want to—they don't want a busy, bitchy, stressed out, tired, overworked mom, you know. And we don't want to be that person. So like we have, but it doesn't just happen. We have to take time for ourselves. We have to restore, and it's like. It is not selfish. It's a gift to everybody, including ourselves.

Exactly. And I would even take it to the next step, like, what do you want to teach your children? You want to teach them to put themselves first. You don't want to see your daughter, you know, burnt out when she's 30 and not able to even take care of her small children. You know, that's, that's what we're teaching them, and that's how they're gonna end up if we don't change the picture and, you know, set a better example. And I, you know, I see husbands follow suit. You know, when women start making changes and making themselves a priority, like, hey, you know what, we're gonna eat clean, we're gonna change it up, the majority of the time the men are like, okay, I like this. They'll eat what you make, you know.

Yeah.

Unless they're super picky. Um, I find that husbands are on board and they'll support you. They just don't know you Right.

Yeah, we have to— well, then that brings us into another trait of the emotional eater, which is that we tend to stuff our feelings and what we want to say. So we expect our spouses to be mind readers, like they should know what we need without our telling them, but that's really not fair.

Right.

So we have to speak up and we have to say, hey, I have a boundary here. I need this amount of time, or I need to not start until 9, or I need to, you know, take a break. I need the weekend off, or, you know, whatever. We have to communicate that. And emotional eaters, you know, as people pleasers, we're afraid what people think if we set a boundary.

Mm-hmm.

But we have to, people have to know where we stand and they'll, they can work with it. They're not mind readers and they shouldn't be expected to. So we need to speak up and say, this is what I need. We have to tap in and like know what we need and then we have to voice it and people are good with it. They don't care. They just need to know like, what's your boundary? Like, what do you need? And it's our job to express that.

Yeah. I think that is a really hard thing to learn how to do if you've never done it. So—

Yes. And I actually, I actually teach, it's a big part of my program is teaching people how to speak up for themselves. Again, I don't teach nutrition because I leave that to people like you and other people who are better qualified. But I do teach them how to speak up for themselves, how to start identifying their needs. And because people don't know how to do it, they do need to be taught. It's like, you got to start speaking up. But I also support people in doing that because it's so scary for emotional eaters. They're like, I know I'll be rejected. I'll be friendless.

Yeah.

You know, after this, after I say how I really feel. And I always say, say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't say it mean, you know? And it's— it comes out much better that way.

Yeah, yeah. I think that is such an important part. And I see that all the time with my patients, like people who need to give up gluten for medical reasons. They will still eat it because they don't want to make their mother-in-law feel bad, or their friends, you know, or they don't want to like disrupt the party and things like that. I'm like, okay, we need to learn how to set boundaries and say what we need. And I love how you do that. So that is really awesome. Tell my listeners what it looks like to work with you, because I know that there's women who are like, oh my gosh, I need her help.

Yeah. So, I mean, a great place to start is to take the emotional eating quiz, which I have on my website. Um, and the quiz is basically going to tell you whether you're an emotional eater or a food addict or somewhere in between, because it's really a spectrum. I think we all have the tendency to emotionally eat, you know, sort of we're hardwired that way. That's why breastfeeding is such a powerful experience for the mother and the child. So, so we have it in us, but it's a spectrum on how far you go with it. Um, and so when you take the quiz, you get a personalized score. It's a free quiz, takes a couple minutes. It's on my website, which is healyourhunger.com. And then, uh, basically after that, um, you'll— you can, um, you know, sign up for a breakthrough session. So my team does breakthrough sessions that are complimentary to help you determine sort of what level of help that you're looking for. Um, I do have a 90-day program that's really popular and, um, it's done in a group, like in a group, because I find that emotional eaters are so much alike. And when they realize they're not the only ones who've done the strange things they've done with food, it brings so much healing. Um, but there are modules that they go through and they learn about emotional eating and they learn my 7-step, uh, process for overcoming it. And then we just have group calls together which are really fun and powerful. So that's a great— that would be a great way to start. But if, if somebody talks to somebody on my team, you know, they can kind of describe what they're going through and what their situation is first, and then we can determine what the best way to start somebody would be.

Oh my gosh, that is awesome. So it just depends on, yeah, what— where you are on the spectrum and how much support you Do you already have tools or are you just like, I haven't ever even thought about this until today? You know?

Yeah.

I think that's where a lot of women are, is because we are so busy taking care of everybody else and doing all the amazing things in our life, we haven't really stopped to think about why haven't these diets worked? Why do I continue to be frustrated? You know? And so I think the quiz is an awesome place to start. Like, where am I even at in this spectrum? So I love it. Yeah. OK.

Yeah. And, well, I also have a podcast called The Heal Your Hunger Show. So if they're listening, they can just check that out. Just do a search for Heal Your Hunger and they can sort of learn a little bit more about— I'm very personal on my show, so I talk a lot about my own— because I'm still an emotional eater. I mean, I don't generally overeat anymore, but You know, again, it's the emotions about the experiences of life that I really dig into on my show. So that might be really helpful for people as well.

Yeah, I will have all those links in my show notes. I think that's awesome resource. And I heard you on another podcast talking about this, but you were saying how it's the hardest because you always have to eat.

It's not like you can't give it up. Um, yeah. So that's the deal is people are ashamed that they can't control what they put in their mouth. And so they think, oh, I should be able to overcome this myself, but we're talking about the hardest of all habits to overcome because you, you have to eat. You know, you can't just put the plug in the jug like you can with alcohol. And I often say it's like, I mean, what we're up against is akin to taking a growling, growling tiger out of the cage 3 times a day, trying to pet the nice kitty and somehow get it back in the cage and shut the door without getting our asses torn off. You know, like, that's not easy. And so it's going to take a lot of support, you know, a lot of support and coaching, because chances are people— and people say, oh, I know why I eat. Not necessarily. Like, it's not as obvious as you think it is. It's not because your grandmother made really good cookies. I mean, it goes much deeper than that. And so we have to unpack it. And that's, you know, we don't think twice about hiring a trainer to get fit at the gym or a tennis coach if we want to compete, you know? And so, but somehow this eating thing that has all this shame around it, we're going to figure it out on our own, you know? No, it's not going to happen. This is a lifelong habit usually, and we're going to need support. So I just encourage people to stop, you know, shoulding on themselves by saying, I should be able to do it, and reach out for support because, oh my God, I mean, it's like, it's time. It's time. It's time to stop struggling, you know, and doing the yo-yo thing over and over again, like, because you can be free. Like, there is a way, there's a very specific way to overcome it that I teach. And, you know, people will muddle around for years trying to figure it out. And there's just no need for that. You don't have to keep, you know, being frustrated with your weight-loss efforts and having 5 different sizes of pants in your closet.

Yes. Oh my gosh. I think I think so many women are going to relate to this. Thank you so much for being on here. You are just a wealth of knowledge. I think, you know, there's always— there's already a couple of things that they can start to incorporate and think about, but I really want everybody listening to take the quiz. I think that's a great place to start and just connect with you because if you can figure out why you're eating, when you're eating, what you're eating, You're gonna make such headway in like overcoming this issue, right?

Yeah, no question about it. Yeah.

Well, thank you for being so awesome and for creating this out of your pain. I love pain-to-purpose stories. I just think it's so beautiful. And like I said, all the links are in my show notes, so connect with Tricia. Thank you so much, Tricia.

Oh, thank you for the incredible work you do. It's great to be here.

Oh, my pleasure. So hopefully we'll connect again.

Yes, indeed.

Well, I hope you took something away from that episode. I know I did. I just was reminded at how I was addicted to food and I used it as a coping mechanism to get me through my sleep-deprived life, my overstressed life, and how it really was affecting my health. health and leading to medical issues. So once I figured out why I was using the food the way I was, I wasn't eating it to nourish my body, I was using it for, you know, emotional reasons, I was able to get control of that and really change how and what I was eating and change my life behaviors. behaviors to be able to do that. So I just love all of the tools that Tricia teaches you and the way she has it set up in her program. I think it's just— that is the way to be successful. You have to be in a group community setting of people who have gone through it, who know and feel and understand what you're going through. So I just think she's doing awesome. Awesome work. So if you want to check her out, go to healyourhunger.com. Just like me, I want you to give yourself some grace. Be patient with yourself. We're all on this journey together to be the amazing woman that God created us to be, with all of these pitfalls and everything else in our way, and we just have to navigate it. And we should do it together because when you support each other and you come together as women, you just, you can accomplish so much more when you're supported and you're loved and you're in a community. So thank you so much for supporting me. You know, I've gotten so much feedback and telling me, hope you're okay after COVID, and, you know, that you're understanding. And so I I appreciate that so much. I really needed that because it wiped me out for a couple of weeks and really messed up my life. You know, it really interfered with what I was doing professionally, and it was a struggle to take care of my kids. So thank you so much for your support. And I am here to continue to support you. I just, I need to know my boundaries and not schedule such a full day next time. So, okay, go out, have an amazing kick-ass week, and let me know what you want to hear about. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Dr. Tabatha, T-A-B-A-T-H-A, no I's, just A's. Or if you want to work with me one-on-one, I'm licensed in over half the country. Don't hesitate to reach out to me. I I would love to help you on your health journey. So you can email me at info@drtabatha.com. That's info@drtabatha.com. And let's connect, okay? All right, have a great week.

See you soon.