End Overeating by Confronting Hidden Hungers and Unlocking Food Freedom
Welcome to the Satiated Podcast where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor. If there was anything I really wanted you to know walking away from listening to any of these podcasts is that you’re the only one who lives in your body. You’re the only one who knows how it feels and what emotionally and physically satiates it. You’re the only one who gets to decide what way of eating works for you. True food freedom is taking back your autonomy with food. You’re the only one who will know what resonates with your body. I've been curious about the term food freedom lately and what that even means. What I feel like social media interprets food freedom as is to be able to eat any food and know that your worth is not connected to what you eat. And while I agree with this 100%, I find the missing piece that is under-discussed is that food freedom is about you feeling empowered to make your own food decisions. This means that sometimes you say no to certain foods or drinks because they don't make you feel the way you want to feel. Saying no does not correlate to a lack of freedom. Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. This means that true food freedom is you choosing what is best for you with food not based on anyone else's opinions, perspectives, or suggestions. Today, I dive into this more with Dr. Melissa McCreery who is a psychologist, emotional eating expert, author, host of the Too Much on Her Plate podcast, and the creator of Your Missing Peace, a program that supports smart, busy women in creating freedom from overeating and peace with food. She has helped thousands break cycles with overwhelm, overload, and overeating without feeling deprived, and without depending on ridiculous amounts of willpower. Dr. McCreery’s approach to helping working mothers, busy professionals, and stressed-out business owners emphasizes leveraging your unique strengths, ditching diet mentality, and using the power of psychology. Her perspective has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN Health, Good Housekeeping, Working Mother, Fitness, Women’s Health, Real Simple, and Self. We chat about what food freedom is, what hidden hungers are, overeating as a habit you can outgrow, and the importance of pausing and slowing down to alter your ability to show up with food differently, and the phases of food healing. If you missed my announcement on my social media channels, I have put my Somatic Eating® Intensive on sale for 30% off for Mother's Day, coupon code DESERVE30, until midnight on Tuesday, May 14th. You will learn the beginning steps to somatically interpret what your food behaviors are trying to tell you. Click HERE or go to stephaniemara.com/learn to dive into this self-paced class. Now, welcome Melissa! Well, I am really excited to have you here today and to dive into all things emotional eating, and I would first just love to get started with how you got into this work and how it found you and the path that you've been on.
Melissa McCreery 04:25
How it found me. I love that. Well, so professionally my background is as you said, I'm a clinical psychologist and I've spent a lot of years now my entire career focusing on food and women and weight and eating and every single way you could tangle those up and untangle those for a long time. I was in private practice as a psychologist doing traditional therapy and then I think what happened is, well I know what happened is that I get I got fed up. I sat across from one too many amazing women, women who were doing fantastic things in their professional lives, supermoms who I always say, you know, we are women who have perfected the art of being in three places at once we can do everything. And yet when it came to food and weight and eating, they were settling. And I just heard one too many women say, I know this is something I will always struggle with, I know this is always going to be a challenge for me, I know, I'm always going to have to work really hard to stay on top of this, you know, and I was hearing that from my clients as they started to work with me, that is not what I was doing in the work that I was doing because I know that's not true. But it was also hearing that from professionals that is the model that was out there and is still out there that eating is something you have to control, that you need a lot of discipline, it's not fun, it's not joyful. And if you have a struggle with overeating, or with your weight, it's not something that could ever just go away, that you could dissolve. And I know that's not true. I know that from my own life. I know that from the results my clients are seeing. And it became really important to me to teach people how to create real freedom, because life is short. And this stuff takes up way too much energy in way too many women's brains.
Stephanie Mara 06:15
I was nodding along so much as you're talking through what you were hitting upon in your private practice, because I've seen that a lot as well of just this experience of nothing is ever going to change and like this hopelessness because maybe you've been there for so long, that you don't even know what the way out is anymore. And so I'm curious, you said that you got tired of private practice. So where did you go next, to maybe help in a bigger way?
Melissa McCreery 06:48
Well, you know, I went online, I moved from a model of doing traditional therapy to doing coaching, I created a series of programs that ended up being what is now the one program I offer to help people, see this is the thing. Traditional weight loss culture, diet mentality teaches you how to think that you are getting really good at running on a hamster wheel, how to perfect the art of always staying in control and working harder and having more discipline, and then failing and then starting over. And, and you know, you've got to see that that is a pattern and you got to see that it that is never going to get you anywhere, which a lot of people have started to see, right. We all know that we can all pay lip service to the idea that diets don't work. I hear from a lot of women who say I know diets don't work. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to eat? Right? And so I moved into creating ways to do what women were telling me over and over again that they wanted, which was, you know, how do I find freedom? I want to be done with this. I'm so sick and tired of the space this is taking up in my brain, like I just want to be done with it. I know I'm going to eat for the rest of my life. Can't I enjoy that and move on?
Stephanie Mara 08:00
Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up the word freedom because I feel like it's become this like buzzword food freedom. And I'm wondering how you have personally defined that, like, what is freedom with food?
Melissa McCreery 08:13
Well, I started using that word, I talk a lot about peace with food. And I started using the word freedom because that's when people started telling me like what do you really want? What is the feeling you want to have? It was freedom. I think it can be really confusing. So I'm glad you asked that question. Freedom for me is when you take your power back from food, when the power of cravings and urges to binge and feeling like you have to sit on your hands to not do something or you know, when that goes away when that dissolves. And when you feel like you're the boss of you, you're the boss of your relationship with food, not as a like a bootcamp instructor, but where you get to decide what works for you. I think that also means freedom from a bunch of rules and information that has probably filled up your brain. Most women I work with could write books, multiple books on how to eat and what they think they should be doing and what they should be tracking and what they should be giving up and what they should never buy at the grocery store, you know, so detoxing, all of that stuff. And feeling free to trust yourself, feeling free to make promises to yourself and not just that promises that you will keep but promises that you actually want to keep instead of a long list of shoulds and rules. Freedom is just such a big expansive concept. We could talk for hours about freedom I have a feeling.
Stephanie Mara 09:35
I completely agree with that. You have this blanket statement of like finding food freedom, but it is such an individualized experience of what does freedom mean inside of your body? And how do you experience that like even like you just mentioned, of creating guidelines for yourself that you feel excited about following and that don't just feel like another dieting rule or "shoulding" yourself about, oh, I should do this, because this will lead me to food freedom. Like I see that a lot currently, with those that I work with around, you know, they think they should be able to eat a certain food, but they don't like the way that food even feels in their body. And so, you know, just taking back that sense of autonomy.
Melissa McCreery 10:23
I like the phrase freedom from overeating, which is what I use more than I like food freedom, because partly for what you just said, I think it gets really confusing. I also think we have a lot of stories that we have adopted in our brain about what freedom is, and sometimes it isn't. So I work with a lot of women who feel like, okay, if I'm going to tackle emotional eating, if I'm going to stop overeating, I'm going to have to lose my freedom, I'm going to have to lose my food freedom, because right now I have this story in my head that eating whatever I want, whenever I want as much as I want. That's my freedom. That's my ultimate reward right at the end of the day. And who would want to give that up? So if that is the tape that's running in your brain, we have to look at that and find out okay, is that really true? And if it is really true, is it always true? And how often is it true? Or is there something that feels even bigger and more freeing than that? And I think when people land on that, that is another level of freedom too, right?
Stephanie Mara 11:21
You get to make your own choice.
Melissa McCreery 11:23
Yeah. When you can get to a place where you want to not do something instead of feeling like you have to not do something. The whole game changes.
Stephanie Mara 11:31
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. And I'm really curious, what have you found supports someone in getting there to that place of listening to themselves around what they want instead of what they think they should do?
Melissa McCreery 11:45
Well, I think the first thing is realizing you're on a hamster wheel. And running faster is never going to get you off of it, which is what diet mentality teaches us that right? Here's this plan, it's so simple, eat less, move more, or eat only this and move more and, and if you're not doing it, it's your fault. And if it's not working for you, it's your fault. And so you should just work harder, which is really run faster on the hamster wheel. And the problem with that whole paradigm is that it misses the point, which I'm, I'm sure you talk about this all the time. But there is a reason that we eat, there is always a reason that we eat and if you are overeating, or if you are binging at night, or if you can't stop eating sugar, there's a reason for that too. And if you don't respect the reason, and respect yourself, like like, it's not that you're lazy, it's not that you don't have enough willpower. It's not that you don't care. There's a reason. And the first piece is giving yourself the grace and the compassion and starting to get curious about what is going on. Why does food have the power? Why does this feel so freeing for me if you are somebody who's telling yourself who really believes that the most freedom you have, that the best moment of your day is when you get to collapse into your chair at the end of the night and lose yourself in a bowl of ice cream? What is the ice cream doing for you? Why are you craving that feeling? I talk a lot about hidden hungers. What are you really hungry for that you're not getting that food is helping you not think about or that food is temporarily replacing or distracting you from when you start to play in that sandbox. Everything changes. It's so empowering to start to take care of what you really need.
Stephanie Mara 13:29
Yeah, I'm completely on the same page with you. Coming back to that ice cream example of if you just keep focusing on the ice cream, I don't have any control over my ice cream eating in the evenings that can be protective of exploring, well, why the ice cream? Why that food? Why at that time? And what is it doing inside of you that maybe you need that ice cream to facilitate that experience? Because you don't know yet how to experience that inside of your body in a different way.
Melissa McCreery 14:04
And I think also sometimes people will say to me, you know, I know I'm stress eating, I know I am stressed eating, but there is nothing I can do about this horrible job or this horrible schedule or there's nothing I can do about the stress. So what am I supposed to do? It's my only option on top of figuring out okay, what can you do about the reason what can you do about the stress? Or what can you do about your exhaustion there's this layer of how can you be kind to yourself when you have this thing, because sometimes we can't do anything about the stress or the really difficult emotions or whatever's going on in the moment. And so many of us have been taught that the answer to that is to just say well, so just don't feel it. You know, just don't just don't let that bother you or that awful weight loss advice which is recognize stress eating and then you know, just don't do it. What is that? Right?
Stephanie Mara 14:58
You can just stop. You can just stop whenever you want.
Melissa McCreery 15:01
Just like no. No stress eating. And instead when you start to put in compassion, like, like, Okay, so maybe you've had this miserable day, and maybe the only bright spot in your day really is this bowl of ice cream and this teeny tiny window of time that you have to yourself, you can beat yourself up and say, I'm a horrible person and I can't even believe I'm eating this ice cream now and all that stuff that probably everybody's listening knows so well. Or you could try to give yourself some compassion. Yeah, it's been an awful day. Today really sucked. I am tired. I'm exhausted. I feel like nobody acknowledged what I put into it. What does kindness really look like? You know, in addition to or instead of a bowl of ice cream?
Stephanie Mara 15:44
Yeah. And I love your term hidden hungers. That's such a fantastic term of just really getting curious about what is it that you're actually hungry for? Is it the ice cream? Or is it something else that the ice cream is facilitating for you, or even keeping you away from because it feels so painful that you're not experiencing the peace or joy or connection or love that you're wanting to have in that moment.
Melissa McCreery 16:10
Yeah. And if you think about it, a food plan doesn't do anything about hidden hungers, and hidden hungers are really basic. They're things that if you are overload, overwhelm, stress, exhaustion, being too busy, having tough stuff going on in your life, all of these things lead to some of the primary hidden hungers that busy women face all the time, and we face them so often that we just overlook them. And then that's a great example where you can either get mad at yourself because I'm eating because I'm so tired. Or how could you start to apply some compassion? Or how can you start to address those things? Again, you take your power back, food has less power when you do those things. And I think this is another layer of freedom, when you start to address the reasons that you are wanting food that you're not hungry for. And I mean, physically hungry for your life is getting better. I mean, that is freedom.
Stephanie Mara 17:06
Yeah, yeah. I'm wondering, in your experience, have you seen individuals once they start tapping into these hidden hungers, you know, like, you're talking about that compassion, like start to bring in more compassion, even if they're continuing to do their food behavior. There's like a different experience in it, when you start to understand that it doesn't have to do with like willpower, weakness, like some of the things that you're pointing to.
Melissa McCreery 17:32
Absolutely. Blame is like this dead end. Blame is like you have backed yourself into a corner. Because once you decide that, oh, I just ate all this ice cream, because it's my fault, because I'm lazy, because I didn't have enough willpower, whatever it is you tell yourself, you've already decided. So there's no room for curiosity. There's no room to say, what just happened here? Or why was today so much harder than yesterday, or those other questions that you were talking about a couple of minutes ago, you know, and if there is no room for curiosity, there's no room for learning. There's no room for growth, and there really is no room for change. You're just stuck in this in this dead end.
Stephanie Mara 18:12
Yeah, that's such a fantastic point. You know, I often like to bring in just the experience of can we see that every time you eat is an opportunity to learn something about yourself. It doesn't always have to be the overeating or the emotional eating experience. It could be even the most pleasurable like joyous or calming eating experience, where you're just eating, and you can still learn something about yourself of like, how you're digesting that food, or what foods resonate with you.
Melissa McCreery 18:40
To that point and to the point you made earlier, I think that diet mentality has done so much damage, but this whole idea that you stop overeating by obsessing more about what you eat is so broken. And so to your question about what happens when people start applying more compassion, or you start addressing your hidden hungers, what I see over and over and over again, inside your missing piece was, which is my my program, women who join will work together for six months with coaching and training and all these different things. And what happens is, you'll come in to the program thinking, Okay, I'm here to work really hard on my eating, I'm gonna stop binging or I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose some weight, or whatever the thing is, this is my focus. And then the training kind of throws people for a loop because the videos and the visualizations all of a sudden, they're over here learning about trusting themselves and you know, identifying what really motivates them and realizing how hard they are on themselves and how perfectionism is just making everything more difficult and then there's this wonderful magic that happens because it starts to feel good to do this stuff right? To take better care of yourself to be kinder to yourself to take more time for yourself to not be so exhausted, all these things feel really good. And then there's a little bit of guilt like but shouldn't we be doing a food plan? And then all of a sudden for, at different times for different people, it's like you look up and you realize I'm not binging anymore, or man, it's been a week and that chocolate has been sitting in my desk drawer, and I didn't even think about it. Or I threw away those chips. I had a couple handfuls and I thought they aren't that good. Those things start happening without all this efforting and obsessing. Right? How can I not eat the chips? How can I not binge today? Instead, what happens is you start to rebalance where you're getting what you need, and the food doesn't call to you in the same way. Right? And I know you've seen that happen.
Stephanie Mara 20:36
Absolutely. Yes, I'm like, seriously nodding my head here. And, you know, I know, individuals have heard me talk about here on how binge eating isn't something that you just like decide one day, you're just gonna stop doing. It's kind of like as you build more safety inside of your body and attend to some of the things that you were just talking about, learning to trust yourself, setting boundaries, learning like how you speak to yourself internally, connecting with the different parts of you that binge eating, just becomes less and less of the main coping mechanism that you need to lean on anymore. And you're just building up more resources, that it's not like this magic thing that just, you know, suddenly disappears. It's kind of this like, slow disappearance, that you look back and you're like, oh, wait a second. I just had a really stressful day. And I didn't reach for the ice cream.
Melissa McCreery 21:28
Yes. The example that I use, because I think it's, that just sounds like crazy talk to somebody who is stuck in the middle of this cycle, right? It's like, right, that will never happen to me. And so the thing that I think about is that when I was little I used to bite my nails. I bit my nails really badly, had these little awful, they were just red and they were painful. And I was so embarrassed of them. And I really wanted to stop. I tried all the things. My mother was trying to help me and I wanted her help. And you know, like I had little charts and I had little rewards and none of that stuff worked. And she bought me that crap to put on your fingers that tastes really awful. And I just worked my way through them. And the thing I didn't realize until I told the story one time is that biting your nails is kind of like trying to change your eating. You can be really on top of it for a week, and then turn it into you know, it feels like oh, I just blew it. I just ruined it. Right. It's that same kind of feeling. Anyway, one day, I looked down at my fingers and realized I did not bite my nails anymore. It was not the efforting, it was not the charts. It was not the magic pepper sauce that I put on my nails. You know, when I look back, I realized that I outgrew the habit. You can think of habits that you've outgrown in your life. You can outgrow over eating. That message is just needs to be so much more out there than it is because you're not going to outgrow it with discipline and tracking and hyper vigilance. Right.
Stephanie Mara 22:59
It's like what you said earlier, like another food plan, another diet isn't going to get your overeating or emotional eating, like quote unquote, under control. It's bringing in that curiosity of why is this something that I needed to begin with? And can we address the root of why your food behavior came in to actually support you and protect you. And then if you don't need the support, or protection from over eating, or emotional eating anyway, then the pattern gets to dissipate.
Melissa McCreery 23:28
Yeah, it gets to dissolve, it just can go away. That is so much easier than setting yourself up with this idea that you're gonna be strict with yourself for the rest of your life, which also doesn't work. But who wants that?
Stephanie Mara 23:43
Yeah. So what do you find is like an initial baby step that someone can take, because there are like a million different paths that someone can go down when they start addressing maybe some of the over eating or emotional eating that they're engaging in. And what I often find because, you know, I throw out the term binge eating, and all of these things are different styles of eating, they have different characteristics to them. And so you know, what I often find is someone who's navigating binge eating, it might dissipate into emotional eating, that might slowly dissolve into overeating, and then that might decrease with time. So I'm wondering if let's say someone is at the point of more of the emotional eating, over eating space, what do you find is a baby step they can take to start to be in relationship with that pattern differently.
Melissa McCreery 24:27
I think that is a great question. And I think there's a piece that comes a little bit before that, which is you got to give yourself permission to take baby steps. I do a lot of work with thoughts. Well, I'm a psychologist. Your brain and how your brain works, your brain is, you are wired so that your brain is always going to be telling you you are not doing enough. And diet mentality has reinforced that so you are always going to think I should be doing more or I need to be doing something more dramatic that leads to overwhelm, which leads to overeating. Even talking about hidden hungers can overwhelm a lot of people because oh my gosh, I have them all, I have, I'm exhausted and I have stress and I am too busy. And yeah, you do, you probably have a lot of them if you have one of them because they compound each other, and they build on each other. So there are a couple of different things in terms of simple steps. One of them is I've created a quiz, where you can you can go to my website toomuchonherplate.com. You can take the free hidden hungers quiz, it is not going to tell you ding, ding, ding, you have all of them, it is going to tell you your primary one, and it is going to give you a doable step to take. That's the first thing and a little step, all you got to do is break the cycle, a little step on one hidden hunger will start to impact all of your hidden hungers. So I'm just saying that to soothe your brain, because your brain is already saying I have so much work to do. And this is overwhelming. That's the first piece and the action step that you can take today that is absolutely doable, is just take a stop, take a pause, put your hand on your heart. Research tells us that just feeling our heartbeat is soothing and relaxing. And you're smiling because you probably give this advice all the time.
Stephanie Mara 24:41
Like I actually just heard Kristin Neff, who, you know, has done all the research on self compassion. I actually just heard her speak about that about placing our hand on our heart, how powerful that can be.
Melissa McCreery 26:28
Just put your hand on your heart, and you take a deep breath. And then here's the language that I use, and it's precise for a reason. But just put your head on your heart, take a deep breath and ask yourself what you know about what you're feeling. What do I know about what I'm feeling? What do I know about what I'm needing? What do I know about what I'm wanting? Don't ask yourself, what am I feeling? What do I need? What do I want? Because your brain again, you're wired to tell you all the things that you don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I'm feeling. Okay. But what do you know, if you are somebody who never asked yourself what you're feeling, you might not know. Oh, I'm feeling embarrassment with a tinge of anxiety. You may not know. But what do you know? I know that my neck is all crunched up. Right? I know that my stomach hurts. I know that this question is making me uncomfortable, right? What do you know about what you're feeling? What do you know about what you're needing? What do you know about what you're wanting? Starting to ask those questions even if you have no clue what the answers are, that's going to start wiring your brain to think about these things, to focus on these things. And that is how you start to move out of that self control model and into getting curious about what it is that you need and where food might be getting its power.
Stephanie Mara 27:46
I love that. And just the shift in attention, that there's so much that we do know. You know, if I'm even asking the question, because we talk so much about somatic work here around like asking yourself how you feel. You might not know that at first. But that doesn't mean that you don't know anything. Like you can pick up on just doing a simple body scan of like, what do I notice? What can I pick up? Even if it's as simple as like, my fingers are cold. That is you still feeling what is present in your body.
Melissa McCreery 28:14
Yeah. I always say this, you're the only one who has lived inside your body your whole entire life, you are the only one. And we have learned to accept all this being told what to do by people who have never lived inside your body. The one thing I know from the decades that I have been doing this work is that there is no one way of eating that works for everyone. There is no magic food, there is no magic food plan. And I guess there are two things I know. The best advice in the world might not fit you. And every piece of wisdom that you're getting from other people needs to be run through your own filter, because you know you the best. And we've forgotten that, especially when it comes to our relationship with food. We've forgotten that we are the CEO of this whole operation here. And that's what makes it work. And again, there's so much here that's about feeling powerful and confident. It's time to take that back.
Stephanie Mara 29:10
Yeah, I completely agree with you that someone has often felt like they've been pushed out of the CEO role of their body and their life and for probably many different reasons, trauma, diet culture, all sorts of things that have made you feel like you can't even be the autonomous authority over your body. And I'm wondering what you have found starts to guide someone back into that CEO role of only they will know what is best for their body.
Melissa McCreery 29:43
I do think to go back to simple starting with that pause. You're the only one who can answer those questions. You know, what do you know about what you're feeling? What do you know about what you're needing? What do you know about what you're wanting? It's such a simple and yet difficult to do exercise. It is so powerful. It is so powerful. I also think community is really important. We are surrounded by a community of diet culture, and of messages that disempower us. I mean, look at, there's billions of dollars being made, convincing all of us that we don't know enough, and that we need to listen to this plan. And we need to invest in that plan, or we need to do this thing, right. And so having the support of a community that reminds you that you are smart, and that you can trust yourself, and that it's okay if you make a mistake. Self trust does not require perfection. Often self trust is knwoing you can get back up when you fall down.
Stephanie Mara 30:39
I completely agree about how powerful and how difficult it is to take that pause. In the moment when you're spinning in your head, when you feel really dysregulated to take a pause and actually come into deeper connection with the running thoughts in your head can feel so overwhelming. And yet, it's exactly what's needed to come into deeper connection, so that you can kind of shift into a different part of your brain where you can do more rational logical reasoning and thinking of like, Oh, what is this wanting to eat like an entire pizza all on my own in the middle of the day? You know, if that's the thought that's like running through your head, that to actually come closer to it will bring you back into clarity around what is it that like you were referencing what is it that I actually need here? Is it eating an entire pizza? Or is there something that the urge to eat an entire pizza is trying to tell me?
Melissa McCreery 31:38
Yeah, and we're trying to protect ourselves. So that's, that's what the eating is doing. That's what the not pausing is doing. And so slowing down, slowing down, slowing down, which is part of what pausing does, which is part of what breathing does, which is part of what if you can slow down your eating, you get to decide a bite at a time, if you want to. And also, sometimes we jump into doing okay, I need to feel the feeling, I need to get I need to come face to face with this hidden hunger, I need to....we can slow that down too. Right? You can start with compassion. I am scared to do this. Remember, you're eating for a reason. I'm scared to feel my feelings. I don't want to know how stressed out I am. Okay, so what does kindness, what does compassion in that moment look like? Compassion always comes first If something feels too hard, and this is this is a really difficult one for high achievers, I work a lot with women who have big expectations of themselves, but if something feels too hard, slow down. Ask yourself what kindness would look like for somebody that you love, somebody else that you love. How can you do that for yourself? And then make it smaller whatever it is you are asking your brain is saying that you should do, A, Do you have to do it? And B, can you make it smaller?
Stephanie Mara 32:56
I love that and completely agree, we have to take the step that feels most tolerable. And it might feel like oh, pausing like I should be able to do that. That sounds so simple. But that might not actually be the first baby step. It might first be sitting with the resistance of not wanting to pause. Just like being in that experience of I don't want to pause right now that might feel like the next manageable baby step for yourself.
Melissa McCreery 33:26
Exactly. And then the question is, so what do I know about why I don't want to? I'm scared, I don't think I'll do a good job. This is where you'll start to see the perfectionism start to show up or that you'll start to realize how hard your brain is on yourself. I won't do it right. I won't know the answers I won't. All of that is really normal. But you're only going to start to learn that stuff if you can be kind and compassionate to yourself. Because this is different work. This is a, remember, you know how to be on the hamster wheel. You know you may not like it, but you know how to run faster, you know how to start another diet, you know how to beat yourself up, you know how to blow it and then start to eat all the brownies and then start over again. You know how to do that. So when you start to do something new, it is going to feel awkward. I often say inside my program, if I'm not asking you questions you don't know the answer to this wouldn't be different. But you're probably not somebody who's used to not knowing the answers. And so grace and kindness and compassion always come first.
Stephanie Mara 34:27
Yeah, I really appreciate these reminders, especially if you have that inner voice that's been cultivated that you always have to know the answer. You always have to do everything perfect. And this reminder that when you're trying to heal your relationship with food, there are a lot of things that you are not going to know. And so it might even feel daunting to step into that space because if there's a part of you that says, but you should know the way forward before you even take the first step, it's hard to even get started on the journey.
Melissa McCreery 34:57
Yeah, yeah, inside my program, there's an actual training on how to do a crappy job. Like how to do a really crappy job at the program. Because guess what, everybody who's listening, think about how many times have you started something, and then you felt like you weren't doing a good enough job. And so you quit, or you procrastinate, or that you tell yourself, you have to start over because it's ruined, and you need to print out a new workbook and you need to whatever, I am all about, let's just keep moving. Consistency over, perfectionism is never going to get you anywhere. Do a crappy job, and just keep learning from what you do and what works and what doesn't work.
Stephanie Mara 35:35
Yeah. And that you don't have to have all the answers or be confident at the beginning.
Melissa McCreery 35:42
Yeah, you won't. Yeah, you absolutely won't. If you knew all this stuff. You'd have solved this by now.
Stephanie Mara 35:48
Yeah, well, I so appreciate the wisdom that you are sharing here. And just these first initial baby steps that you're talking about around slowing down around taking this pause. What have you found, although the journey looks unique to each and every person, but as we're talking about normalizing the path of what it can look like, what have you seen maybe some stages or phases that you've seen someone move through as overeating becomes in the, you know, rear view mirror a little bit more?
Melissa McCreery 36:16
That is such a great question. I think in terms of stages, they're almost always reversed from what people expect, based on diet culture. If you came to work with me, and we started with, Okay, here's a reasonable way of eating. And this is what we're going to do. Now, most people have so much training in how to turn any kind of food plan into a secret diet, that's what I call it, that it won't work for you, if there was a way to, I don't know, hook you up to a monitor and then say, here is the food plan that will lead you to everything you need. It won't work for you, if your brain is still operating in deprivation mode and self blame mode, and I need to be miserable, and I don't have enough willpower. It won't work. And so the very first phase for everybody is the first layer of taking your power back. And what we talked about at the beginning, remembering that you are a wise person. We do like a mental detox, how do you clear out all the crap that you don't even know you're carrying around in your brain around shoulds, and rules and all that kind of stuff and starting to, again, build in promises that you're making to yourself that you're keeping, so you can build your trust back in yourself. And it's only after you've got some tools to feel like you're in the driver's seat, that it's time to play with food, and you can play with food. And that's, you know, that's always people's first question like, okay, so how do I eat? How am I supposed to eat? Well, you have to get to a place where you are making the decisions instead of wondering how you're supposed to eat. What are the rules, you get to make the rules and so you know, then unlearning all the stuff you've learned about foods so that you can decide what works for you and what doesn't work for you and what you want to play around with. And experiment with that is really fun to watch people experience, you know, and to help people through and those that moment when people realize that they're not saying, Well, I can't eat that, and I can't have that. And I know I need to do that. And instead they're saying, you know, what I decided I'd like to do, I have found that I feel really good if I eat such and such. And you know what this other thing gives me indigestion I never realized before, that's such a different place of it's such a different energy. That's such a different place in terms of power. And when you do that, and then I think the the third piece, which doesn't always go in order, but is really taking back your power with your time and your energy, being your CEO in that area to all of those things work together.
Stephanie Mara 38:54
I love all of those pieces, you know, especially just the last piece that you mentioned, especially when worries about food and body have taken up so much of your time and energy. Sometimes it can feel a little bit confusing at first as to what you want to fill all that time with now that isn't filled by worries or concerns about your food or your body image anymore.
Melissa McCreery 39:17
Yeah, sometimes people have a picture. Like this is what I think my life will look like or this is what I want. And some people don't have a clue which is really normal. I can't even picture I can't even quite believe it's possible. So again, to go back to that pausing thing. Okay, so what do you know about what it would feel like? What would it feel like? What would you what do you how do you want to feel inside your body? How do you want to feel inside your body? When you walk into a restaurant with an all you can eat buffet, how do you want to feel inside your body during the holidays when the eating challenges happen? Like we can start to play with that. And I think that piece the other piece that I didn't mention is that this is all about creating something that you want. Not one thing that you're going to stick with forever, but a path that you want to be on forever, because you're going to have a relationship with food for the rest of your life. And so really creating something that is, it's not an eight week plan or a six month plan. It's like, okay, this is this is a style of being with food that I enjoy so much. I don't have, I can see myself being on it forever without having to work at it forever. That's forever freedom. That's what I call it.
Stephanie Mara 40:25
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that, that it's, we have to get out of this kind of the diet mentality of I'll be happy when to food freedom, when, like all of these stipulations and expectations that we set up, have, oh, if these things are in place first. But if this is an ongoing forever journey for the rest of your life, that means that your body is going to change, your food needs are going to change, what you want is going to change, what you're going to say yes to or no to, is constantly going to change. And things that I often teach is it's learning more how to be with yourself, and tune into what is going to meet you in that moment in that second. And so that you just get to learn how to ebb and flow with your shifting and changing body. And there won't ever be the right decision.
Melissa McCreery 41:19
Exactly, exactly. But I'm so glad you said that, you know, and the other thing is, it's such a lie this when thing, like however you get to your goal is going to be the way staying at your goal feels. And I've talked to so many women who are like, well, I'm going to have this strict plan. And here's what I'm going to do. And I know it works, because I've done it before. But you know, now I'm going to really stick with it this time, this time, I'm going to do it and it's going to last. Okay, so then I'll say, well, so then then when you get to this magic place, how are you going to eat? And there's this like, I don't know, somehow I'll know. No, you won't. You'll know how to be strict with yourself, you'll know how to be angry with yourself, you'll know how to have good days and bad days and wake up every morning wondering what the number on the scale is going to be you will you will have created that kind of relationship with food. And that's, that's not what most women want.
Stephanie Mara 42:13
Yeah, so well, said. I am so glad that we got into this conversation today. And it is such a journey. And you know, to build the kind of like food freedom that we're talking about today. It is kind of meeting yourself in the moment. And also getting curious about when you feel the expectations or the stipulations and to get curious about those two. So like we were talking about those baby steps. Sometimes it's just becoming aware of the expectation and the stipulations of the journey that you're on. So you can kind of bring them to the forefront and look at them and be like, oh, where's this coming from?
Melissa McCreery 42:49
And those baby steps, man, just be warned, they are not baby, those baby steps can take you. Like I've heard from so many women. It's the small things. I couldn't believe it. I thought you're gonna make me do these big dramatic things. And these, it's the little things right? It doesn't have to be as hard as your brain is telling you it has to be.
Stephanie Mara 43:08
Yeah, well, I'm wondering how individuals can keep in touch with you and this amazing, important work that you're doing in the world around relationship with food.
Melissa McCreery 43:18
Oh, thanks for asking. I am pretty easy to find too much on her plate too much on her plate is the name of my podcast, too much on her plate.com is the website where you can go and you can actually download a roadmap there for where to get started with the podcasts because people are always saying what are the what are the episodes that I should listen to too much on our plate is my handle on Instagram and Facebook. And the website is also where you can take that free quiz. .
Stephanie Mara 43:45
Awesome. And as always, I will put all of these links in the show notes and just thank you for being here. And I can really feel your passion for this work, and how much wisdom and expertise and insight you've cultivated over the years. So just thank you so much for sharing that here today.
Melissa McCreery 44:01
Oh, thank you for this conversation. Stephanie. This has been really a joy.
Stephanie Mara 44:05
Awesome. Well, I hope that everyone listening has a wonderful satiating rest of your day and I look forward to connecting with you all again soon. Bye!
Keep in touch with Melissa here:
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