Why You Can’t Break Those Behavior Patterns that Keep You Stuck

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It's not your motivation or your discipline or your lack thereof. It's behavior patterns that keep you stuck. We could be talking about sugar, binge eating, wine every night, picking a fight, overreacting, staying up too late, or anything in between. Behavior patterns we have recently had have created the person and the status that we have today. They won't get you different results, those behavior patterns that got you here. There's something comforting about habits and patterns we've always had, even when we see the evidence that they are not giving us what they want. So what is it that will break that, disrupt our typical reactions to triggers? We're diving into that today. So whether there is a certain eating pattern that you identify with as good or bad, or a streak of really consistent exercise followed by a complete lack of activity and motivation, whatever it is for you, I think you will find this episode intriguing. And if you don't identify with emotional eating, That is our topic. Please don't go away. The statistics on young girls, I mean extremely young girls, and their disillusion with their body and their despise of their own body and what it will do for them is incredibly shocking. Stay with us. My guest today is Amber Romaniak. She's an emotional eating, digestive, and hormone expert with 11 years experience in helping high-achieving women create a level of body confidence, intuition, and optimal health through powerful mindset healing, self-care, and overcoming self-sabotage. With food. She does this through addressing the key negative thoughts, patterns, and limiting beliefs that keep women stuck in the same behaviors for years and decades that they haven't been able to break. Her podcast, The No Sugar Coating Podcast, has 1.9 million downloads, over 500 episodes, and is listened to in over 88 countries. Amber overcame her own emotional eating after gaining and losing more than 1,000 pounds and spending over $50,000 on binge foods and spending 5 years balancing her hormones, digestion, and thus her expertise. She also dismantled her deep limiting beliefs and behaviors keeping her stuck in the same looping patterns. Now she helps others achieve the biggest healing miracles of body freedom so they can have the confidence and health to create amazing lives. I think you're going to really enjoy this.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman, and it's not just about you but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university a senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

Amber, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me, Debra. I am very excited to be with you.

Okay, so everybody heard all of your expertise in the intro, which is very, very cool. And I want to point out and emphasize one more time The No Sugar Coating podcast is something probably to listen to, especially if this is a whole new concept and you haven't actually ever tried this on as a— maybe the reason why diets never worked for you, why willpower or discipline never worked. You seem to think you're short in those departments for some reason. It may not be that at all, but that might be a good way for you to just kind of let some of this seep in and try it on. But I want to ask you a question that is, I would call the chicken or the egg question. Does emotional eating amplify menopause? And, and I'm going to lump in perimenopause with that, but just call it one word, symptoms. Or do menopause symptoms actually potentially amplify emotional eating?

Yeah, this is such a great question. And I would say in my 11 years of experience coaching thousands of women, and many of them being in their mid-30s to 60s, that most of these women have had the emotional eating, binge eating, food addiction, compulsive eating habits for years or decades. And the accumulation of these habits, I think, is contributing to their menopause and perimenopause symptoms. I'd say 90%, and maybe for 10, it's the opposite, where the menopause symptoms are what are now fueling emotional eating. But I find, because emotional eating stems from such a unworthiness, like people pleasing, fighting with my body and my weight, that a lot of that is birthed from childhood and can be unconsciously us be in these habits through childhood, our teens, our early 20s, and then we start to actually realize what we're doing.

I want to ask something that I don't know that I've asked any of the emotional experts who've ever been here, but is this question— it seems that we're talking about it more in here in the last decade and a half. I've exclusively focused on females. Is it a female problem predominantly, or do men also deal with this?

Yeah, so 90% of the female population struggles with some form of emotional relationship with food and body image issues, and 50% of men. It's an epidemic, especially in first world countries, because we have the quality of the food we do, which has a lot of addictive ingredients. We've got the body image stuff. We're comparing ourselves to photoshopped images. But they find that countries where there are smaller communities and they don't have access to technology and all of the addictive food, they don't have the same issues.

Wow. Yeah, that was pretty powerful. Shocking. My next question is, how do we save our 6-year-old girls from getting to the same place? Yeah, have you cracked that nut yet? Because that would be really good.

I know, right? And this is the thing, is I started to struggle with body image issues at 5 because when I was 5, my first day on the bus, the older boys called me fat and ugly. And I did not know how to brush that comment off, so I became very insecure in my body. I believed them. Wow. And I was unconsciously emotionally eating from then on because I love food. Food was a friend. It was never restricted. And my mom and I shared a very intimate relationship with food because there was a lot of things we couldn't do together because she had multiple sclerosis. And so it was a way for her to compensate. And she had a food addiction, and I didn't know that until I healed and kind of reflected on her habits. So I, I know we, we want to prevent the, the little girls from, from going through this, and I think some of the biggest things we can do are being aware of our own habits and how we're behaving and speaking to ourselves and about food around our kids. I think that is so important. And it's not like you have to be the perfect, never say anything wrong, but like be aware because your kids are paying attention to you and your habits and can start to model them. And I think it's very important that parents stop putting their kids on diets or poking at their stomachs and criticizing their kids. These are stories I hear all the time from my clients of like, I was put on a diet when I was 7. My mom started taking me to Weight Watchers when I was 8 and telling me that I was fat and that there was something wrong with me. My grandfather, every time we'd hang out, he would criticize my weight. These things have a significant impact on you when you're a child because from 0 to 7— now they're saying 0 to 9 or 10— like, your subconscious mind is fully open, and this is where you receive all your programming. Your emotions, your beliefs, your thoughts. In this time, you're taking all this in, and this is when these things are happening. You're far more likely to feel insecure in your body or to think that diets are the way, or, you know, if you've been bullied, like, these are forms of trauma that sit in the body, and we, we use food to cope. Just like, you know, if you grew up as a child poor and maybe you didn't have a lot of food, or a lot of maybe more the junk foods are your favorites, and so when you had the opportunity to have some, you grabbed it all, hid in the closet, and binge ate. And that's what fueled behavior. So it's very much, you know, I want to say yes, we can totally prevent the 6-year-old little girl from going through this, but it— there's so much depending on what's going on in the household. What is the chatter? Are you letting them on social media? Please stop letting your 6-year-old girls use face filters. It's causing body dysmorphia. They're wanting to get surgery.

Oh my gosh.

So there's a lot to sift through, but I think good boundaries is a great place to start with technology and like teaching them about good food in the kitchen. Wow.

Yeah, definitely. So definitely. Gosh, from that, there's so many places I could go. I do want to come back to how emotional eating can amplify perimenopause and menopause symptoms. I mean, we, we know the obvious ones like hot flashes and night sweats and insomnia and weight gain, belly fat specifically. Big gain. So talk a little bit about specifically how does emotional eating amplify problems, those or others?

Yeah, definitely. So I think first off, one of the biggest things is that when we're emotionally eating, binge eating, whatever is going on for you, we are causing a massive inflammatory load in the body. And so the higher inflammation is, the easier it is to inhibit our thyroid function. And I think that's a big thing that women get frustrated with is weight factor, right? And we know we're more vulnerable, and it, it can feel easier to gain weight once we hit perimenopause and go through that phase into menopause. And the old tricks, the old diets, and the things women were using don't work anymore. Or maybe they didn't work before either, but they're just, you know, now it's just not working at all. And so it's so frustrating because that inflammation is suppressing your thyroid function and, and really inhibiting your metabolism. And then of course we can really have a lack of hunger signal, and women think, oh, if I'm not hungry, I shouldn't eat. Yes, we don't eat enough. Within just 4 days, we can suppress our metabolism and start to make it easier to gain weight, right?

Hello, mic drop right there. Could you repeat that, Amber? Because this is really, really important, and this is non-intuitive.

Right.

So instead of, you know, well, I'm not hungry, so of course I shouldn't eat, you know, and this is a dual-edged sword. So, you know, we want to teach you to be listening to your body, listening to the cues and the signals, and not to override them. And yet, from where we come from, well, what I want is I'm looking for, do you have a good appetite? Are you ready for each meal? And are you not craving crazy salt or sugar things between meals. These— if you can say yes, I have a good appetite, no, I don't have crazy cravings, I'm good, then we know we're okay. But otherwise, we've got to treat that as a symptom. Say it again so the people in the back can hear you, because that was so good.

Yeah, so when we have this inflammation suppresses the thyroid, one of the common symptoms of that with— especially with hypothyroid, which many women have, is We don't have a hunger signal, and then we assume we shouldn't eat. And or if we diet after just 4 days of restriction, we start suppressing our metabolism and it starts to make it easier for us to gain weight, let alone all the other stressors. So it's funny, in my— when I was struggling with my food addiction and binge eating, especially into my early 20s, I was trying to use diets, right, and quick fixes to fix it and gain control. And I could not for the life of me figure out every time when I dieted why I would gain the weight back and more. And when I started to heal and actually learn about this, I'm like, oh my gosh, we're literally taught to do the thing that's going to like blow up in our face and cause the opposite result that we want. It's true.

Yeah, it's so true. And that, you know, you said you nailed it earlier when you said, you know, the thing that was used to work doesn't work anymore, but actually it really didn't work. We got away with it.

Yes, exactly.

And it was just not as You know, like, boom, it wasn't as apparent that it's not working. So we could kind of mask that. Okay, it's working. But every time we lost weight, we lost a portion of muscle and fat. And every time we regained the weight because we'd slowed our metabolism by losing that fat and just by overall losing weight, even if you, you gained muscle or maintained muscle, if you've lost weight, we have still slowed our metabolism. And that is just a fact that we have to deal with. We're behind. And if that happened once or twice or 3 times or many, many more, we got behind and behind and behind. And now it's not too late. I want to make sure everybody realizes, stay with us. It's not too late.

Not too late. Yeah. And then the other interesting thing, when we stop eating as much and skipping especially breakfast and meals, is we also start to suppress our ghrelin, which is our hunger hormone that makes us hungry. And then you don't get the stomach growl, you don't know what hunger feels like. And it— again, that assumption of I shouldn't eat. And then, you know, there's that whole blood sugar issues, right? We have a lot of hypoglycemia, low blood sugar.

Yeah, tap into that a little bit. Tap into why is blood sugar regulation so important for healing emotional eating? Because we could talk about blood sugar from the opposite side too. So too low is not good, too high is not good. This is Goldilocks coming at you again in your life, everybody. So speak into that blood sugar.

Yeah, totally. So I find— and I'll tie this into the cortisol piece— so when we're emotionally eating and then we're restricting and then we're punishing with exercise and punishing with food and over-caffeinating because we're exhausted and our cortisol stress hormone goes through the roof and we're skipping meals, our blood sugar starts to go off and our You know, adrenal fatigue's best friend is hypoglycemia, low blood sugar. And so you're going to feel like that blood sugar crash. You feel dizzy, faint, lightheaded. And this actually becomes a huge emotional eating trigger because when you start to feel that bit of faintness or you feel a little shaky and your energy and your mood drops and you get brain fog, it's an uncomfortable feeling. So you start to panic a bit and then you're like, I'm going to— I need to grab the first thing I can find. And often we'll make a poor choice and then that triggers all or nothing and we keep going. And then all these processed sugars eating, all these aspartame-laden foods, all these items that are empty calorie, just continue to cause irregular blood sugar even more. And so what I often find is that women are having all these blood sugar crashes, energy crashes, mood crashes, and then they're chasing the food for a dopamine high and enter a quick energy high and a quick mood boost, but then they crash even more again, again. And then they, and then they get so frustrated. And but the irony of it is like the more irregular our blood sugar, I find that our appetite levels get bigger and we can binge and eat even more in the next, you know, binge or emotional eating episode. And then the next day you wake up and your cravings get bigger and it's harder to deny or go like, I don't need that today. You want it even more. So, and I see blood sugar irregularity all the time. I'm sure you do too. Women are not eating enough protein and fat. They're not eating enough good quality carbohydrates. They're skipping breakfast, they're waiting until 2 PM to eat, surviving off of caffeine and, right, empty calorie foods. And that in itself makes blood sugar so vulnerable, let alone everything else we're talking about.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something, and then I want to ask you, what is your experience with this? I can guess what your answer will be, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. I often find someone will make a comment like this, like, fasting is the only way that I can lose fat. And I keep wondering, I have to be very careful. I don't want to push a button on purpose, but my question is, if you continue to have to do it, it's not really working.

100%, right?

So if it works, you took it off and now we're not dealing with it because it hasn't come back. Yeah, but if it's coming back, it didn't work. And, and I want everybody to understand that the goal really is to look at maybe what's happening with your muscle mass and your fat together, together with your total body, and comes back to inflammation potentially, you know. But speak into emotionally eating plus intermittent fasting.

Yeah, I think that's one of the worst combinations. And I, again, I went through all of this too when I was trying to heal my relationship with food and lose weight. When you restrict There is a time, because you're not actually dealing with your triggers. If you don't know your emotional eating triggers and you don't know how to cope in healthy ways and you feel unworthy— after all, emotional eating of any kind is we're trying to fill a void because we don't feel good enough, we're trying to fill this void with food. And so we eat emotionally to numb, check out, shove down our emotion, whatever the reasons are. So if you don't know what's triggering you and you don't deal with those triggers, you can try to use fasting as a control or a willpower activity, but as soon as your triggers kick up, you are going to be falling back into the emotional or binge eating because you didn't actually deal with the root issue. And what will often happen with the fasting is it will cause— because obviously there's usually hormone issues and all kinds of things going on in the body, so it will trigger quite big surges of increased appetite when there's a lot of restriction, and then the woman will And not maybe just one episode, but maybe it turns into a week or two. And then I find as well, there's the rebellion mentality of like, I restricted, I didn't eat, or I didn't have these things. So like, eff it, now I'm going to eat whatever I want. I've had a bad week. This has happened. Like, I deserve it. And we'll rebel. And so fasting to me just causes more of what we don't want. And same with any restrictive diet, you know, extreme diets. I don't believe in any of that because it just continues to trigger the woman back into binge and emotional eating because we're band-aiding and continuing to avoid actually dealing with the roots. And then it stresses the hormones out more, the blood sugar, and just fuels the opposite of what we want. I, I think truly it's only a small amount of the female population that can actually fast and are doing it in a mindful way. They have a healthy relationship with food, they're doing it for other purposes. But yeah, if, like you said, if it's sustainable weight loss means you get to the roots, you release the weight, I believe weight is a protective mechanism we hang on because we don't feel safe. We actually do the healing, it will come off. Be patient with the timing, but then it's called sustainable because it ideally is not coming back on. Yeah, we have water retention that fluctuates a little bit, but it should not be something you're having to lose and gain the 20, 30, 50, 100 pounds every year, every few months.

Yeah, I so love that. Okay, so I want to ask you a question. So triggers— so you've mentioned You know, the— whatever is triggering you may send you into emotional eating, whether that's you restricting or it's you binging, or it ends up starting one and being another. It's still emotional eating. So is the challenge, Amber, the relationship with food, or is the challenge the relationship with emotions?

Both, because I think now there's so many addictive ingredients in the food and so many ingredients that increase appetite levels and surge such a dopamine high that it is like a drug, right? For some women and some it's like less intensive, or the emotional eating, the cravings and the tie to the food isn't as strong. But I do think below that it starts with the relationship with emotions because you're— we're doing it to numb, to check out, to cope. We do not have to. Yeah, I don't want to deal with this. I want to feel good, right? So it's definitely emotional, but the— all the things they're putting in the food, that the way they impact the brain chemistry and the blood sugar in the body are, are not helping.

Wow. Okay, so how about hormonal issues a woman in perimenopause, menopause is going through that could trigger emotional eating, making it worse?

Yeah, one of the biggest ones I think is low progesterone. And so many women have low progesterone before going into peri or menopause. I was like in postmenopausal at 24 because of my binge eating, yo-yo dieting behaviors. It's all sorted out now, but like at 24, low progesterone— because we need progesterone to help us produce dopamine and serotonin, and those are your mood-boosting neurotransmitters. A lot of women with low progesterone say they don't feel like themselves, their mood is low, they have anxiety. And so they're not only reaching to food to get a bit of a, a mood boost and a pleasure experience, they also usually crave more sugar with low dopamine and serotonin, and their blood sugar is more irregular with the low progesterone. So I find that to be a really big hormone imbalance that is fueling the cravings and the low mood and the desire to go to those foods. I think as well cortisol, as the cortisol changes, or most women have had an adrenal issue underlying and I'm sure you see this all the time too, but like, I think maybe 4 or 5 of my clients in the last 11 years haven't had a cortisol issue. And so, right, like 99% have. And so that just has such a significant impact again on mood. When we're tired and you're exhausted, the 'I don't care' mentality, 'I'm going to eat whatever I want,' kicks in really easily. And fatigue increases our appetite levels. And if you're sleeps in the toilet and you're not sleeping well, that just makes it so much easier for you to be in that I don't care, I'm tired, I just want whatever I want. And then a lot of women are perfectionists and they start having a little something and it triggers this all-or-nothing mentality, which is like, oh, I had a bit, screw it, the day is ruined, I'll try again tomorrow, I'll eat clean next week, I'll diet, whatever the narrative is. And so we can see how a hormone imbalance impacts us physically and emotionally and then behaviorally. And then that can fuel this, you know, loss of control, or, you know, what turns into a bumpy week or month with food. And then we keep wanting to revert back to a diet or, you know, something that's not going to help us get to the root. So I think that's another one. And I do think the thyroid— I do think that that lack of hunger signal, like so many women that I talk to don't get a hunger signal, especially through the first half of the day. So they're not eating, or they're just having coffee or whatever. And of course, we don't know what we don't know, but then they're binging or overeating later in the day. And so I think as well, the frustration around the weight, right? And, and I can't lose weight, or it's hard to lose weight, and then they're restricting and cutting those calories, and that's just innocently suppressing their metabolism even more. I think all of that continues to feel the yo-yo between the dieting and the overdoing it with food. So to me, it's like the low progesterone, the cortisol, obviously too, because cortisol— we crave more refined sugar and refined salt, and it's easier to want to give in to those cravings. It can feel hard to want to fight them, right? So, and, and I'm sure you see this all the time, but most of my clients are dealing with hypothyroid, adrenal fatigue, and low progesterone and low estrogen. Like, it's not just one thing, usually it's multiple. And the more you have layered on top, number one, the more water you're going to retain. And that's going to feel frustrating. And like weight gain, it's going to feel harder to lose weight. And like, it's so hard to tap into your hunger and your appetite. And maybe you're constipated, you're not moving your bowels properly, so your stomach feels puffy. And if you get sensitive about your body and you get critical more easily, like it just— all of this just puts you into a stress response and again gives you the opposite of what you really want.

So good, and I'm glad you mentioned that because I— this just came up and it's a regular thing. So women who are feeling like, well, hey, wait a minute, I'm, I'm doing the weightlifting, I'm following the program, but I feel like I'm retaining water and I'm puffy. Why would that be happening? You know, and with just that simple a question and it being a one-way street where now I'm asked to respond, I don't have enough information, right? I really need to know, you know, what's, what's a typical day of eating? You know, what's, what's a meal look like? Are we eating enough calories, enough protein? Are we drinking enough water, getting some electrolytes in that so we're truly getting the water into your cells? Yeah. And what is happening? Are you constipated, have gas, bloating, diarrhea, all of the above? Where, where are we at? All those questions really end up giving, you know, Amber or I clues to how do we help you, how we do we, how do we help you get the first quick fix so that we can support you. Yeah, but that's, that is a big one. I think just the water retaining, if you're post-menopause or you're perimenopause, it still is a thing for women. I think, I think for a lot of women it feels like till death do us part is going to be here, but it will get better. I'd love to ask, you know, this in terms of, you know, what are the links to, say, exercise and emotional eating?

I—

because this is kind of all borderline, we're, we're talking about dysfunctional eating patterns, and, you know, exercise almost always plays right into that. You mentioned punishing, using exercise as a punishing thing as opposed to a nurturing energizing kind of thing. And I think this comes up frequently.

It really does. And I went through this too. I went through exercise addiction, using exercise as a punishment, and it completely burned me out. And it was a huge cause of my hormone stuff. And so what I find usually ends up happening is we need to— well, we're not aware of the intent behind why am I doing the movement. And so if we're not aware, but then we're like, oh my gosh, I overate, or I ate that thing, now I need to go burn it off, I need to get rid of it because I need control with my weight, I can't I gain weight, right? I need to lose. You're coming from lack, you're coming from need, you're coming from insecurity, and you're coming from unworthiness. And that's where the self-punishment of like, I have to go burn it off, I need to go work out for 2 hours— like, we're ignoring our bodies and our cues, and we're forcing the body into something that is actually going to make her feel unsafe and stressed to the nines. And so that's what I find is women will self-sabotage with food in some way, and then they're going to try and fix it in the gym. And that's punishment and mindless. Same with if we're like, I have to wake up every morning and go and do an of HIIT training, or like we dread the movement that we're doing, but because it burns so many calories and I need to lose or maintain my weight, like, I'm gonna keep doing that. But you hate it. That to me is also like mindless, almost self-punishment. Like, why are you continuing to do movement that you hate instead of movement that you love, right? And so I really see a lot of that. And then I see the issue also coming in with the all-or-nothing, which is You get to the gym, you have like your set workout routine in mind, and then someone's using one of the machines that you were supposed to use first, and the all or nothing gets triggered and you're like, my workout is ruined. I don't— screw it, I'm not even going to bother. And you leave. Or you're like, it's not going to count because I didn't get my elliptical in. Like, I used to be that person. So like, no shame in the game, but like, I would be so rigid and like, if I can't do it like this, then I'm just going to go home. And so there's all of this all-or-nothing rigid thinking that can really come in because there's a perfectionist mentality. And so I think there's so much to like, or the guilt of like, if you don't go dealing with that, the guilt and shame of, I didn't get my workout in today, I didn't go as much this week. Oh my gosh, what if I gain weight? And the lack of trust we have with our bodies, knowing that it's safe to take rest days and it is safe if we take time off or if something comes up. There's a lot around that too, because we're not trusting that we can have that balance.

Yeah, I'm sure there's an all-consuming—

all of it.

Yeah, right. Yeah, so it spirals even further downward. But I love that what you said about trusting our bodies, that, you know, for some of you this may be true, and it would be a shock— a good one, by the way, a good shock— to realize that taking a day off, or even two in a row, can you Could you believe that? I know it's scary if you're not used to doing that, but sometimes that will help alleviate water retaining. It's— your body is inflamed potentially. And I remember back in grad school, so, you know, that was in the day, by the way, when we thought teaching multiple fitness classes a day was actually a good thing and I was to be envied. I mean, if I could go back now and tell and do it over, I certainly would. Because I realized, you know, looking back, I relied on caffeine and sugar quite a bit to get through some days and do that next class. And I mean, that's just not healthy, you know. And, and yet, you know, outwardly you were praised for the way you looked and nobody questioned how you got there. And so now we know so much better. But there was a gal who was, you know, similar situation as me, teaching lots of fitness classes a day because Again, that's just what we did. The mentality wasn't— we didn't— weren't aware of the overtraining so much. And, you know, she was a larger size gal but always kind of wanted to be a smaller, you know, more petite gal. And so we all wondered, what is she doing? She must be just eating tons. I mean, can you imagine? Because she is so extremely active, and yet I think in big part was she was overexercising and her body actually was just crying for, you know, a break, days off, you know, and really rotating it. So particularly for those of you in perimenopause, you know, I think where it's more turbulent with your hormones going up and down, you may just do far better, stay fitter, actually stay or get fitter because you take the rest days.

Yeah.

Post-menopause, things stabilize a little bit more, and we actually may have the opportunity and the need to dial up the volume. And by that, that's not necessarily more days a week, it's just a higher quality volume during your workout. No scrolling, we're just talking make, make every minute count, you know, and also more recovery. So we need that too. But take a look at that just for anybody who's looking at, I work out so hard, you know, it might be— I might be working out too hard might be the question to ask. Amber, before I let you go, I feel like I could talk to you another half an hour, but what question haven't I asked you that I should?

Oh my goodness, how long do we have? I feel like a good question would be around like, what is— what are weight loss blocks? Because I feel like if we can— I'll leave it there. That would be the question.

Okay, let's do that. What are weight loss blocks? And you know, we're at a time of year when everybody is probably thinking about that. How do I become a little bit healthier? And, and if you're here and you already acknowledge or maybe identify as, I do think this might be— it's been emotional eating and I just haven't actually dealt with that yet. And I want my next year to be different because I'm done. I'm tired of this. Yeah. What are the weight loss blocks?

Yeah, so your weight loss blocks are a series of different layers that your body's trying to communicate with you that are out of alignment. We hang on to weight because we don't feel safe. Weight is a protective mechanism. Your body puts on weight and retention, yes, because of inflammation, but it's a weight loss block. The gut issues, the hormone imbalances, the emotional eating, the binge eating, the lack of sleep, the being overbooked, the people pleasing, the perfection, the unworthiness, past traumas, inner child wounding. They become weight loss blocks because they stress your nervous system out and they imprint in your brain. And until we deal with these things and address the roots of them, it's like, imagine each weight loss block is a piece of clothing. And so inflammation put on that shirt. Now you have emotional eating issues put on that shirt, and now you're fasting, right? And, and it's just stressing your metabolism out, and you have hypothyroid and you're in perimenopause and you are the chronic people pleaser who can't say no, but you're at the bottom of your list and these weight loss blocks accumulate. But the beauty of it is when we actually stop focusing on a weight loss journey and instead focus on a healing journey, a holistic healing journey where we address the roots and actually heal. The bonus beautiful part of this is The side effect is the weight loss by doing the healing and learning to listen to your body, your physical, emotional, and energetic body, all of them. That is truly the key. That's how I did it. That's how my clients do it. It's not force and restriction. It is truly about start to get curious. Why is your body hanging on? Why does she not feel safe?

So beautiful. I love that you said that. And, you know, we're talking about at the beginning, you know, leaving social media alone, spending less time there and more time maybe with just yourself. Yeah. But there is a— very recently on social media, I know I saw that, a clip of an interview where I can't remember the celebrity it was, but it was a female midlife celebrity who was being interviewed and said, I just got tired of it and I just stopped. Stopped all the dieting and just started to fuel myself and nourish myself, and the weight fell off. You know, and it probably would have been an impactful quote there if I had known the celebrity, but you know, when we see celebrities who we know struggle with weight their entire lives because they're in front of the camera, and, and we as a community looking at them are very critical, right? You know, so imagine going through life as Oprah, you know, and I know we all look at her and her money and how wonderful it is, but every, every dollar brings probably a little stress to her life. And she has gone up and down all over the place with her weight. And, you know, doing that publicly, you know, it has been really a gift, I think, for all of us to see that, you know, everybody deals with this. You're not alone. Amber, I thank you so much for being here. You really shed some light, I think, on the topic specifically for midlife women, for what is going on and why it's so important to address it now. And for everybody here who's leaving a legacy, as we are, because we've got generations looking at us And when you look at not just for yourself but for your daughter or granddaughters, those younger women in your lives, I mean, this is really an opportunity to open up a conversation as we've opened one up about menopause in this last couple of years. Amber, where can everybody connect with you, follow you, get more information?

Yeah, so you can find me on my website at amberpoob.ca. If you're wondering if you're struggling with emotional eating, I have a free quiz as well as a free emotional eating masterclass that you're welcome to join. If you're to connect, to talk about healing your relationship with food and claiming what I call food and body freedom, you're welcome to book a free consultation. And then I have the podcast, which, which has over 500 episodes now, the No Sugar Coating podcast. So if you loved our chat, you're going to love that. And then I'm on social media, YouTube and Instagram, and it's my name, Amber Romaniek, R-O-M-A-N-I-E-K.

So good. Okay, everybody, show notes for today will be at flipping50.com/podcast. Behavior patterns that keep you stuck.

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