How To (Skillfully) Love Food – In Session with Marc David

Introduction to Podcast

0:01Welcome to the Psychology of Eating podcast, where food and body challenges are the doorway into a happier, healthier life. Now, here's your host, eating psychology expert and founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, Mark David.

0:25Greetings, everybody. I'm Mark David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. We're back in the Psychology of Eating podcast.

Guest Introduction

0:33I'm with Romana today. Welcome, Romana. Hi, Mark. I'm glad we're here. Glad we're doing this. If you're new to the podcast, Romana and I haven't met before, and we're going to do a session together and see if we can make some good things happen. So, Romana, if you could wave your magic wand, if you can get whatever you wanted with food and body, what would that be for you? So, there would be like a mix of a few things. First and foremost, I would love to eat only if I'm hungry.

1:03Second of all, I'm no longer using food to suit me. And yeah. And third of all, I would stop holding myself back from coaching women because there is a part of me that believes I need to be perfect and I have to have this thing behind me so that I can start.

Eating Habits

1:23So, you turn to food sometimes when you don't really want to and it happens anyway. Yeah. How long would you say you've been doing that for? Oh, for a while. For very long, I guess. I thought it was just lightly, but I realized I did it back in, you know, back home when in teenage years. And then, yeah, I had very, very turbulent relationship with food. What age do you think it might have started that you can remember?

1:56I truly don't know. I really tried to bring myself back and it was like, okay, when did it happen? I cannot find really answers, but I know that anytime we had food at home, like we wouldn't really have sweets. My mom would always bake something on the weekend, sometimes not every weekend, but if we had something, like let's say my dad would buy many biscuits, it would be gone, you know, very quickly because it would be either then or never. So, yeah, it was more like that. And then I started dieting when I was 16 and yeah, there was another Holy Coaster.

2:30So, do you think of yourself as dieting these days? No, I no longer diet. I have very good relationship with food, but now I'm hungry. Like I eat very balanced foods and I love food. I'm proper foodie. Like food means so much to me, like before, yeah, or maybe still up till today. I would say that it's one, like my number one thing I am. Yeah. I just love it. So would you say you're happy with where your weight is at right now?

3:01Yes. We've happy with weight. Yes. But there is a part of me that feels I could be further along on my fitness journey if I didn't counter, how would you say? I had to write that word. Sorry. Counterproductive behavior with overeating. Because sometimes I want to go to the gym, but then, you know, I would choose to eat and I would eat more and then I wouldn't go to gym.

Emotional Eating

3:24I would skip it. So do you notice any particular times when you tend to eat against your own best wishes? Like, is there a typical time when that happens? Yeah, it's usually in the afternoon, like maybe, I don't know, four or five. And then later, sometimes in the evenings, like late, late before I go to sleep, like when I'm still not like ready for bed and it's like 11 or something, then I would go for nuts. But I don't do it so often. It's really every now and then.

3:57And in general, do you tend to be a fast eater, a moderate eater, a slow eater? Very fast eater. Very fast. It's gone before I know it. Even if I try, like I really say, okay, today I'm just going to maybe have a prayer. Thanks for all the vitamins coming into my body. And before I know it, it's all gone. And I just notice that, you know, the rush I'm in when I eat and I'm like, okay, we calm down. We are safe.

4:22How old are you, Romana? Not 35. I'm going to be 36 next week. Do you have kids? No. Do you plan on it? Not sure. Not sure. That's something which is on off. But at the moment it's off. Let's see if it changes.

Childhood Eating Experiences

4:37So when you eat against your own wishes, I'll call it emotional eating for lack of a better term right now. What happens afterwards? What do you say to yourself? Now I'm better because I work at this. You know, I really, I stopped beating myself up, which is huge for me, but before I would really beat myself up and I would feel terrible. But now I'm just sitting with the pain and basically saying it's okay. Like I'm trying to be the adult to my inner child that was just kind of naughty and I didn't

5:11give it any joy. So basically I feel like I know all the inside out. I was able to reuse it, maybe 80%, but there are still these 10 to 20% when it's just not, yeah, that it's still in my life and I would love it to be gone. Got it. So, so let me just repeat that back to you just to make sure I got that straight. So you've been able to take this particular challenge with eating too much food, overeating or emotional eating, and you've reduced it by about 80%, but there's this sort of 20%

5:44left that you would just like to get rid of. Yes, I would love it. Okay. I just want to point out that's, that's a pretty big accomplishment. Yeah. That reducing it by 80% is really big.

6:00So many people struggle for so long, even reducing it by 10 or 15% is a lot. Do you, do you even, do you feel a sense of accomplishment with that? Yes, I do. I do. I no longer have this pain in me. I had, I, yeah, it was huge before. So I was beating myself up very badly. Just gone. So typically what time do you eat breakfast? Quite late. Usually 11.

6:31I get hungry. The thing is I get up quite late as well. So if I get up like nine o'clock, I would eat maybe 11, 1130. If I wake up like six, then I would eat maybe by eight. So usually like two to three hours after waking up. What might be a, just a typical breakfast for you? Oh, very, very different. Either I have pancakes with some cottage cheese, chocolate, banana, or I have porridge, or I have like protein bread with some ricotta and some fig jam with nuts.

7:02Yeah. I'm, yeah. I love my breakfast. Oh, good for you. What time would you eat lunch? Uh, lunch, maybe like three hours after. Mm-hmm. So what might be a typical lunch? Give me a few ideas. Oh, uh, maybe a wrap with something, maybe, um, depending what's going on, um, some salad with protein bread. Sometimes I would just, uh, not have lunch. I would have some crackers with protein shakes.

7:32Really, really. I'm more like into dinner, proper big dinner. And lunch is something little bit, you know, or like, it's still, how would you say? Um, so I make sure I have kind of like, uh, carbs, protein in it, but it's not always that I have to cook for it. So it could be even a bread. It could be even a good sandwich. So the point that you, you know, you had mentioned before that if you overeat or emotionally eat, it might happen in the late afternoon, might happen sometime in the evening. So if it happens in the late afternoon, what are you doing that you're emotionally eating?

8:07Like, what are you eating? Is it overeating your lunch or is it adding something else to that? It would be like, I had my lunch and then maybe half an hour later, even though it was big, I would suddenly have, uh, maybe the whole, almost the whole bag of rice crackers, maybe peanut butter on it and like banana, cinnamon and stuff like this. So I still overeat on a kind of unhealthy stuff or it would be nuts or nuts. I usually evening stuff. So I wouldn't really have it in the afternoon, but it, or just bread, like basically the whole

8:37bread, 400 grams. And I'm able to eat almost whole of it. Yes. So, yeah. When you were growing up and you were eating with your family, when you had family meals, what was that experience like for you sitting down with your family? Did you sit down with your family for lunch or for dinner? Yeah, we sit down for lunch, but it was like, we had to eat everything. So it was always like clear your plate. And it wasn't very, very nice. It was kind of stressful. We couldn't really speak. You know, my dad didn't like that we speak. We just, just eat your food.

9:09You know, it was a very pleasant experience. So when you were young, do you remember when eating was a nice experience? Yes. When my mom, it would be sometimes like when we were celebrating something, my mom would just make amazing dinner. And it was really time when we, when there was love in the house. And I really loved those evenings. And dinnertime, same situation when you were, when you were growing up, was it, was it, was

9:45it stressful sitting down at dinner? No, usually we would just help ourselves. So it would be like, we have this toaster and we would just make like a bread with cheese and ketchup, like very easy stuff. Usually bread with something.

Typical Meals

9:59So Romana, let me, let me share with you some thoughts that I'm having so far. About you and where you're at. Please. I think, I really believe that you are doing far, far better than you think you are.

10:18When it comes to food and when it comes to your relationship with it. And when it comes to just how far you've progressed, what I'm hearing from you in our conversation is that you love food. You really appreciate your food. You appreciate good food. You appreciate healthy food. You appreciate the pleasure of food. That's huge when it comes to having a healthy relationship with food.

10:49It's really big because so many people are literally afraid of food. We can be so upset about, oh my God, if I eat this, I'm going to gain weight. And I'm not saying that might not be in the background for you somewhere, but I think the core part of you loves food and loves the experience. And I think what you're dealing with in large part, on the one hand is an old habit. And I think one of the old habits that you're dealing with is that eating is a fast experience.

11:29And eating is not always, it wasn't presented to you as a pleasurable experience, even though you as a person essentially loved food when you were growing up. You as a kid, most kids love food. You know, they don't have a problem with it until we hear you're chubby, you're fat, there's something wrong with you. You need to go on a diet. Most kids don't have a problem with food. Part of it was we absorb from our environment eating speeds.

12:00If our family's eating fast, if our friends, our brothers and sisters, whoever, our culture will tend to eat fast. Now, a big piece of what's going on for you is even though you love food, you don't always get the love you want from it. Meaning, when you're eating, if you're a fast eater, you can't get all the taste and the pleasure that you're actually wanting, that you actually enjoy. And part of it is, I think the old you is wanting to eat and get it done fast because this is how you did it as a child.

12:41You just get it over with fast. So there's just this old programming, this old habit, you just got to get it done fast. And there's a little bit of guilt around it because you can't talk and you can't really enjoy it. And then when you start dieting, when you're young, food becomes a little bit of the enemy. So you want to eat it fast because whenever we're dealing with the enemy, we just want to get it over with quickly. So all I'm saying is you're learning, you're learning how to be in your body when it comes to sitting down with food.

13:19It's almost like, are you in a relationship? Yeah. How long? Nine years. Nine years. Okay. So I'm going to guess that if you're in a nine-year relationship, there's a part of you that you know how to be present with your partner. And your partner knows how to be present with you.

13:43Would you agree with that, that you're both able to listen to each other? Yeah, it was a craft, but now it's where we are. It's amazing. Yes. I wouldn't want it any other way. So it took a little time, but you learn how to be present to each other. Now, what's interesting is human beings go through the same thing oftentimes in our relationship with our own body or in our relationship with food. We're not taught as a young age. You don't learn in school. Okay, Romana, here's how you be present with your body.

14:15Here's how you listen to your body. Here's how you sit down with food. When you sit down with food, wow, this is amazing food. Let's relax. Let's enjoy this. Let's eat this. Okay, now we're going to play a sport. Let's pay attention. Let's be in our body. Let's be present. Okay, now we eat a meal. Let's listen to our body. How does that feel? How's your digestion? Are there any aches and pains? Are there any symptoms? Or does it feel really good?

14:46So, so much of the eating experience is really breathing ourselves into our body. And saying to ourselves and just saying to life, it's okay for me to be an eater. This whole experience is safe. I can relax into this eating experience. There's a part of your brain that completely understands that you can relax into the eating experience. You love food.

15:17You love good food. You appreciate it. So half of your brain knows that, but the other half of your brain also thinks, oh, we got to get this done quickly because this is how I learned and eating is a stressful affair. And, and those two haven't resolved themselves yet completely. Yeah. And what is, it's also a bit of issue for me, or I feel like it's issue. Sometimes I'm so excited about food that honestly, Mark, I can, I've beaten my tongue a couple of times because of how, like, I was like an animal and I would be standing

15:49on the counter. And actually I love to take pictures. So most of my meals, I always take pictures. I am like, it's my art, but then I can't even take the picture because half of the breakfast is already eaten just well. And sometimes I just need to come as, I catch myself on me. Okay. Okay. Put it down as if I just had to, you know, like, I don't take the time to bring it to, if I make it, I'm so happy that my breakfast is here, but usually I can just eat in a kitchen without just standing. And this is what I don't like that. I can't just wait, you know, like literally it's like, yeah, just this urge I can't control.

16:24Like there is a part of me that has hard time controlling it and just be, it's okay. Yes. So there's a hard time. There's a part of you that has a hard time controlling it. Where that's coming from is your excitement. Where that's coming from is your appreciation for life, your hunger for life and your love for life. So I just want to point that out. It's exciting to you. Your body, your mind does not yet fully know how to manage and contain and work with that

17:02excitement. So all I'm saying is you're learning how to do that. There's nothing wrong with you. It's no different than, you know, it's, it's so many men when it comes to sexuality have a similar issue. A man can get so excited and a man can get so turned on that they don't know how to manage their energy. And they have a hard time going slow. They have a hard time moving slow. A lot of times we love food so much that we have a hard time moving slow.

17:39So pleasure is something that we learn how to cultivate. Pleasure, pleasure is, pleasure is an art. Pleasure is something that we have a relationship with that we grow in ourselves. So you can't really know if something is truly pleasurable unless you taste it, unless you experience it. If you go travel somewhere, chances are you look, you drive around, you listen, you see,

18:12you take in the sights. And in order to, I look, I look for the next best restaurant, right, right, right. So, so again, this is, this is a product of your exuberance for life, as opposed to something is wrong with me. So I'm just trying to help you reimagine or redefine what you think is a problem. Because if you're attacking this as a problem, you're going to see yourself as having a

18:46deficiency or something's wrong with me. Whereas you are just learning how to manage your own energy. And part of your energy is I'm really excited to be here. I'm excited to be an eater. I'm excited to have this relationship with food where I love it so much that I just can't contain myself. And yeah. So, so you're learning how to do that. And this is what the learning looks like. So part of it is learning how to slow down.

19:21If you were learning how to drive a car and you get so excited, oh my God, I love driving. This is so great. I just want to push the foot to the metal and I always want to go as fast as you really possible. This is so much fun. Okay. Hey, no, that's not going to work. I mean, it's exciting. And once you develop your skill, then sure, maybe you could drive fast, but you learn by first doing things slowly. You learn by breaking things down. So what I want to say is your practice, your practice is accepting this part of you.

19:59I love food. And it's this part of me that's a lover of food and a lover of pleasure and a lover of sensation that goes overboard sometimes. What a good problem to have. Sometimes it really hurts, Mark. It's really like I can get myself to the point when it's no longer comfortable and all I can do is just to sit down because, you know, it just, I'm just stuffed. Yes. Yeah. I go over the full, over the enough.

20:32Yes. So. But it's rare.

Overeating

20:35It's not so common these days as it was in the past, which was like, yeah, so often. So when you're doing that, you're being an exuberant child. I don't know how old you are. Maybe you're five, maybe you're six, maybe you're seven years old and you're just being free Ramana. I'm just loving life and I'm just, this is just so good. So your practice is invoking the adult in you.

21:06More of the queen in you. More of the witness consciousness in you that when you eat, once again, there's nothing wrong with you. I'm a lover of food and, you know, sometimes I can get excited. Sometimes I get so excited that I get a little bit out of my body. Every time. I'm so excited about every single meal. It's like life just started again. I can't explain it worse. Yes. So the practice is doing whatever you can do.

21:42And it's a practice. It doesn't mean it's going to be perfect. is to create the conditions where you can slow down and experience.

21:55Slow down and experience. So it feels in the moment like it's punishment because I just want to do this. But what it really is, is you becoming present with yourself. So it's learning how to be present with yourself in a place where there's a part of you that can't contain yourself. So it's being present and being present means I breathe being present means I slow down.

22:31Being present means when I'm eating. I take the time to really enjoy and I say to myself, I love this because you do love it. In fact, I love it so much. I want it to last. I love it so much. I want it to take a long time. If you love sex, you wouldn't say, oh, I love this so much, honey. Let's get it over with in 20 seconds. And that's me. I eat quickly. And then I'm like, oh, it's gone. You know, I wish there was more. But I already had a huge portion. Right.

23:01Because I ate it so quickly, shoveling down, then. So that's why you're returning to food after you've eaten, because your brain hasn't gotten the pleasure it actually seeks. We call this the cephalic phase digestive response, the head phase of digestion. We require taste. We require pleasure, aroma, satisfaction. We're different from the creatures. We're different from the animals in that way. We require an experience.

23:33And when we don't get the experience of, ah, that felt so good. I mean, I just had this meal that I love. When we actually don't register all that love and all that sensation, the brain goes, huh, I don't remember eating. Your belly might say, I'm full. Your belly might even say, I'm hurting from so much food. But the brain is saying, I don't remember eating. I didn't get pleasure. I want pleasure. I want satisfaction. I love that so much. I didn't get it. And then your brain is screaming hungry.

24:05And your nervous system is overriding your best intentions because you didn't give your brain what it wanted in the first place. You didn't give your body what it wanted in the first place, which is the experience of pleasure and pleasure best thrives in an environment of slow.

24:29That's where pleasure gets its best experience because then we can feel the pleasure. We can notice the pleasure. We can, we can pick up on the little nuances. So then when you pick up on those nuances, then all of a sudden you start to feel satisfied.

24:51But I'm calling this a practice, meaning you're not going to be perfect at it. And I want to suggest that you let go of, let go of the goal of, well, I've healed myself 80% here. I just need to fix this other 20%. You don't need to fix anything. There's nothing broken here is what I'm saying, Romana. Nothing's broken. You're just learning. There's a difference between learning and broken.

25:21There's a point at which you and I were kids and we couldn't read. And it doesn't mean we were broken. It just means I haven't learned how to read yet. There's a point at which you didn't know how to ride a bicycle. It doesn't mean you're broken. It just means you haven't learned yet. So you are still, so many of us, always learning how to be an eater. We're always learning about our relationship with food. I don't know that that ever stops. You know, maybe till the day we die, we're still gathering information about ourselves. Here's what I like. Here's what I don't like. Here's what works for me. Here's what doesn't. Oh, I wasn't paying attention.

25:53Oh, I can slow down more. So let's look at it as your relationship with food is teaching you right now. You've come so far. This is not a deficiency that you have. There's nothing wrong with you. I really want to hit that on because when you think there's something wrong, that actually short circuits your ability to slow down. Yeah. So there's nothing wrong. Just old habit.

26:24Habit is automatic, repetitive, unconscious behavior. Habits just do themselves. Yeah. Automatic. It's repetitive. You don't have to think, I need to have this overeating habit. I need to have this emotional eating habit. No, it just does itself. So if I have it. May I ask you something? Sorry. I just don't want to lose it because I'm just thinking anytime I eat out of anxiousness or uneasiness, even it could be excitement. Like I'm so excited. Someone wants me to write a review and I'm like, oh my God, I want to do it right.

26:57Or I'm anxious or something is going on. And then if I eat to ground myself, you know, I want to go from sympathetic to parasympathetic, which helps afterwards. But while I eat it, I'm not enjoying it. Yes. You know, I basically enjoy it afterwards. I enjoy the feeling that I'm like, but I don't enjoy while I'm eating. It's because like you said before, when you are in a, when you are not in a calm state, you can't enjoy it. Yes. So you are learning, you're learning how to create that state of calmness, that state

27:30of relaxation, that state of presence when you eat. So you can actually fully experience all the sensations that you love anyways. So it's really learning how to contain our excitement and our energy, meaning create a container for it so we can best manage it so we can have our best experience. So when you slow down, when you eat, it's, it's, it's a speed, but it's more than just a speed.

28:07It's you learning to breathe yourself into your body because there's plenty of times when you're present and you're doing things really fast. So you know how to be present in your life. It's just that certain times with food, you just get really excited. Yeah. Or what you wouldn't bother. How would you say? Wouldn't you bother yourself about what like, it's almost hard for me to have like cashew nuts in the freezer because when we have it every evening, I would go there.

28:40And as long as I have, like if I buy a lot, I don't stop. Usually I maybe eat 100 grams or 200 grams, but I'm literally there next to my freezer. The freezer is peeping like all the time. And I'm just so embraced in the flavor and I cannot stop. And really part of me wants to put them away. But the other part enjoys so much that it just can't stop till I really feel, okay, now I'm full. It's okay. But I just cannot stop because it's, oh, it's got lots of calories. I cannot, it's not enough for me to stop. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

29:11So, you know, this is just, think of it as a part of you. Think of it as a persona in you. Think of it as an archetype in you. We can call it the hedonist. We can call it the pleasure junkie. We can call it, there's a part of you that's the pleasure junkie that loves pleasure. And she just exists. Let's not make her wrong. Let's not try to shut her down.

29:42Let's not attack her. Let's understand that she's there. And sometimes she can get so excited that she does things that we don't want her to do. But so you are learning how to be in relationship with that part of you. So there's the part of you that's clear and that's balanced and does things just so. And there's this part of you that just wants to eat and doesn't care. And doesn't even care what your body's saying. If your body's hurting, you just want to keep going because this is so good.

30:14Exactly. So once again, all I'm saying is this is not a problem. This is you learning how to be in relationship with that part of yourself. This is what makes us human. This is what separates us from the animals. We are learning growing human beings. We expand in consciousness. And in order to expand in consciousness, we often have to look at the places where we go into darkness

30:44or where we go into unwanted challenges or problems or symptoms. So this is an unwanted challenge for you. You don't like this. I want to fix this. Yeah, especially if I want to coach women and help them with the same issue. And it's like, I'm like, but I could do myself so, so much. So even if I can help them to get them to the place where I am, it's amazing. But there is another part. No, you have to have it gone. It can't be present in your life because then you are fraught.

31:14You know, it's like, yeah. So I understand that voice, not how it works.

Perfectionism

31:20The way you help another human being is you be one step ahead of them. That's all. If you're one step ahead of somebody, you can help them. If somebody's blind and you can see in one eye, you can help them. If somebody is 90 years old and can barely walk and you're 85 years old, but you can walk, you can help them. So all you need to do is be one step ahead of another human being to help them. We don't need to be perfect to help somebody.

31:51That's something that we make up in our minds because of the perfectionist in us. It almost becomes an excuse for justifying, I need to be perfect because how could I help somebody if I'm not perfect? I help people all the time. I ain't perfect. You help people all the time. Everybody that you know helps somebody.

32:17Our parents helped us. They weren't perfect. Um, so none of us are perfect. And this is also, I think, a part of our conversation is you more and more letting go of the tyranny. Perfectionism is a tyrant. It's a mean bully. It's a bad dude.

32:43It's not a friendly voice in the head. Um, so when you hear that voice, you have to respond to it very clearly with, no, I am not going to subject myself because when we try to be perfect, always around the corner from perfectionism tends to be self-abuse. You show me a person who's trying to eat perfect or exercise perfect or be perfect. And I'll show you a person who at some point is self-abusing.

33:13They're abusing themselves with food or with negative thinking or negative self-talk. Very true. I was there so I can, I definitely eat three lines. Yeah. So we're, we're very imperfect and here we are, here you are being imperfect. Yeah. There's this part of me that knows exactly what to eat and I can do it 80% of the time I do it well. And okay. There's this other 20% of the time I'm doing something. That's kind of out of my control.

33:45I don't want to do that. Okay. So now we're breaking it down and we're looking at it as a learning opportunity. We're looking at your relationship with your relationship with food is a great teacher for you.

34:02Your relationship with your body. It's a great teacher for you. And that teacher is teaching us throughout our whole life. And it's up to us to respond to it. So I'm always listening for, you know, what's, what's your relationship with food trying to teach you? So when, say again. It taught me so much, like everything. I'm like, so grateful for my eating disorders, you know, like bulimia in the past and everything,

34:32because I wouldn't reconnect to myself to the death that I reconnected. I would be still beating myself up. I wouldn't do the inner work, you know, and I would be very lost today. So, yeah, I'm grateful I had that issue. Yes. And I'm grateful that you're having this challenge now because it's teaching you how to be the queen of pleasure in your own body. How to learn to orchestrate, contain, experience, manage, conduct the experience of you being

35:14in pleasure. It's a bit obsessive as well. But yeah, I just have to slow down and see, okay, I see you would love to be the first person taking the food. Just wait, wait, wait. So I gotta be like first one just to make sure I have enough choice to choose from. And I feel so, part of me feels so bad because it feels so, you know, I just look for myself, but there is like, it's okay, Romy, we can maybe leave one, two person and let's start. I understand you want it to be first one, but you know, it's like, yeah, it's like, feels almost like a selfishness because I want the food so much and I want to be there to choose

35:48from, you know, when all the bowls are full. Yes. And it's like. That's the child in you. Yeah. Yeah. That selfishness is the little girl. So whenever she's showing up, you do just exactly what you did right now, which is you talk to her. We don't need to do this. We can slow down. It's okay. So you are literally looking to be a good mother to the child who's inside of you by loving

36:19her and giving her wisdom and giving her guidelines. So here's how we eat. When we sit down for breakfast, here's how we do it. Play some music. Do create something in your environment that helps you relax. You know, music is the easiest thing I can think of, but whatever you can do in your environment that helps you relax and gives you the reminder to slow down, the more you slow down with each meal

36:55and the more you receive it and learn how to contain that excitement. So that excitement translates into fulfillment.

37:08That takes time to learn how to create, how to take excitement and translate it. So it becomes a sense of fulfillment. Ah, that felt good. As opposed to, oh, I'm so excited. Oh, that felt good. But, oh, that feels terrible. I have both. I experienced they are mixing each other. Sometimes it's like amazing. I don't miss anything. I'm so happy, you know. And sometimes I just like, oh my God, I didn't even enjoy it. And now it's gone. Like, what happened?

37:38Like, where's my pleasure?

37:41So that's you learning. That's you learning simply how to be present. You're learning how to breathe yourself into your body when you eat. Because there's a part of us that can get so excited that we actually are in present. That we actually leave the body. So it might mean when you're eating, where are your feet? Are your feet touching the ground?

38:11Taking a few deep breaths. Am I present in my body or am I just in my head? Oh my God, this food is so good, huh? Because a lot of times that's where we are when we're eating. We're in our head. We're eating with our head. And so maybe I can suggest you think of eating with your body. I read your book, but I didn't really. I couldn't apply it. Yeah. Well, now's the time to start applying it. Now's the time. It's hard to apply because the old habit is telling you otherwise.

38:44That's all. Old habit just says, no, I don't want to listen. I don't want to do that. And the way we change an unconscious repetitive habit is by introducing consciousness. It's by introducing awareness because the habit does itself. You'll continue then to eat unconsciously for the rest of your life unless you invoke or bring in consciousness, bring in awareness, bring in the light and go, oh, wait a second.

39:15This is me. I'm doing this thing that I don't want to do. You start to witness yourself. Oh, I need to remind myself. How do I eat with my whole body? How do I breathe myself into my body? Can I feel myself? Can I feel my arms? Can I feel my leg? Can I feel myself sitting in the chair? Can I feel my feet on the floor?

39:39Can I feel myself being present and grounded? So that's what you're learning how to do is to ground yourself in your body. It's almost as simple as that. Yeah. Yeah. And I use the foods for grounding as well. And I naturally started like grounding activities, but like walking barefoot and breath work instructor, you know, like I did everything because like conscious subconsciously it was drawing me there. But one thing is knowing, so I understand a lot, but then bring it when there is a food that's like, whoo, I tried a few breaths and I was like, okay, just let's do, I want you to try five, but I was like, let's do two, three, because I want to start eating.

40:18Like, yes, yes, yes, yes. It makes sense to the child that it's super excited. And even though, yeah, so. Yeah. So pretend you're holding hands with that child and you're just helping her slow down. You're just helping her calm down. You're just helping her relax and helping her get into her body. So, yeah, a lot of us use food to ground and food does and can ground us. And one of the keys is to ground yourself first as best you can.

40:55So you don't need more and more food to ground you because eventually if I'm in my head and I'm all scattered and I'm just all up here. If I eat enough food, there's going to be so much food in my belly that body wisdom is going to say, okay, there's a lot of food in here. We need to digest. And in order to digest, we have to go into a relaxation response. So your body will naturally relax itself. At some point after we've overeaten, you might feel like you have an upset stomach, but all of a sudden you're a little more tired.

41:27You're not as excited because you force the relaxation response on the body by giving it so much food. And I wanted maybe ask, or you... Yeah, no, go. I just wanted to try to find connection with my nuts. Why always when I feel like snacky, I go for nuts and they don't need to be like, you know, salty nuts. It would be just plain, but they need to be from the freezer because from the freezer they are very crunchy. I love the, you know, the combination of the, you know, sugars, fat and that they're all together.

42:01But it's like, I wonder whether it's because I want to ground myself. That's why I always go for nuts or because back in the family, back in home, we didn't have so much money. So when I wanted to have nuts and it was only for baking, my mom would hide them from me. So I don't eat them because we needed it for baking. So maybe the reason why I'm so obsessed about nuts now, or is it more grounding? Or do I even need to know? Or can I just let go and just enjoy them without knowing why I'm so obsessed about them?

42:31Yes to all of it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Yes, you know, it's part of it is the memory of it was forbidden on a certain level. So now you want to go for it. Kids love to eat the forbidden. As soon as the parents tell us, you can't have this, this is, this is special, or this is no good, or we only eat a small amount of this, then if something's forbidden, we tend to want to break the food rule and we want to go for it.

43:02At the same time, it's a food that you also love. Your body loves it. You enjoy it. So it turns on your senses. You like it. You said to me, I like the crunch. Well, the body, the brain loves texture. And some of us like mushy. Some of us like crunchy. Some of us like whatever textures we like. So everybody's different. So this is, this is you just being specific. It's okay to be specific. People are very specific about foods.

43:33We, I, I, I like my steak like this and I like my vegetable steam just like that. And I don't like this kind of salad dressing, but I love that one. So it's okay to be specific. That's just, that's just part of what makes us interesting. Um, so I wouldn't think that there's anything wrong there whatsoever. It's just your interesting, curious relationship with food. Thank you so much. It helped me a lot because there was like, what, what, what's wrong with me?

44:04Like, why can't I just let go of those nuts? Why can't I just not, you know, because I kind of try not to buy them just to figure it out. If I, when I don't buy them, I'm fine. And then I bought a lot just to test myself. Can I be okay? I just buy because I shouldn't, you know, but I want to be strong enough to have them in the freezer and not eat them. But anytime I buy, it doesn't matter six bags, as long as they are in a freezer, every night they're calling me to go like, come, come eat us. And then once they're gone, I'm fine. Yes. So that's where your relationship is at with it.

44:36You, you could, I mean, you can try to conquer that. You can try to overcome that. And maybe you could, I don't know if it's worth your time and energy, honestly. It's, it's, it's, it's just that it's just, it's our unique relationship with food that makes us just very, very quirky, interesting, beautiful human beings. And it's important to celebrate that.

45:06It's important to celebrate like, yeah, it's not always going to look perfect. There's going to be certain foods that it's in the refrigerator. It's in the freezer. It's just calling me, you know, and certain foods are not going to do that for you. And the foods that don't do that for you might be doing it for somebody else. So there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong. It just makes us who we are.

Celebrating Imperfection

45:30You flip that so much upside down for me. Like, you know, I felt like what a problem I had with food. Like, because that little part that I couldn't let go and I tried very, you know, like really work on it and I still fall into it. But it's really, I'm like telling myself, it's such a small part. Why can't just like be okay with that? But still there was a part of me who wasn't. And now when we talk, it's like, I actually don't have problems. I'm laughing at it because I think, oh my God, I'm so grateful for having such a beautiful relationship with food now. You know, when it wasn't begging time, when I was, you know, doing things like throwing

46:03out or, you know, or being scared of food or counting calories. And, you know, so I would, I would, if someone told me that today I will have such a relationship as I have now, I would be so grateful. And now see my mind is looking for the little things to worry about. Right. So, so now's the time to start celebrating your relationship with food and seeing it for what it is, allowing it to be imperfect. It was not going to be perfect. It's not going to be exactly always what you think it should be.

46:38It is what it is. And we can even appreciate that. We can celebrate it. We can laugh at it. And yeah, sometimes you might emotionally eat. That's okay. You're a human being. Humans emotionally eat. Humans overeat. We all do that. The best eaters that I know, you know, they're going to overeat. They're going to emotionally eat. Sometimes it happens. It's not a big deal. Just like the happiest people I know have times when they're sad.

47:08You can't help it. The happiest people I know have times when things aren't so great and they're going to feel a little depressed or feel a little angry or whatever it is. So it's allowing just the full range of humanity to show up in our life and to show up in our relationship with food without making it wrong or bad. And just saying, okay, well, what is this trying to teach me? So your relationship with, you know, nuts in the freezer is trying to teach you like, this is part of

47:39your quirky relationship with food and it's kind of fun and it's kind of funny and play with it. You can play with it. You know that if you have them in the freezer, you're going to eat them. They're going to call you when you're going to eat them. And especially when I watch you, like, it's so funny that I, you know, like your podcast is on and they were like, okay, I would ask and I bring the nap and everything. I was like, this is not, this is not okay. You know, yeah.

48:08So how are you feeling about this conversation, Romana? Very good. Very good. It's like, as if something fell down of me, you know, like the mat that was still like there thinking, okay, I can't see because that little dirt. Yeah. I feel very like, I, I feel like, what's the problem? Like really, I figured it out. I am fine now. Like I can trust myself. Yes. Ah, that's such an important affirmation. When you say that I can trust myself, part of what that means to me is not that I can

48:43trust myself that I'm going to be perfect. No, it's, I can trust myself that I'm a human being and that even if I do something that's not perfect or that goes against my own wishes, I trust that I'm going to be okay. My body's going to digest it. Yes. I trust I'm going to be okay. I'm not going to die. And it's not going to be the end of me. And I trust that I'm going to stay with myself and stand by myself, not attack myself, not

49:16belittle myself. So I trust that I'm going to be there for me.

49:22That's a big part of self-trust. I have that now. It wasn't like this many years ago or even a few years ago. Well, good for you. You know, you've obviously done so much work on yourself and, and, and I hope you can feel good about that and feel proud about that and just remember that and celebrate it. I will. I will. I will. Thank you so much. Really. Julie from bottom of my heart. Romana, I appreciate you. I appreciate this conversation.

49:52Thanks again. Thank you so much. And thanks everybody for tuning in. Take care, everyone. Hey friends, we're so happy that you've joined us for another episode of the psychology of eating podcast with Mark David. Are you loving these episodes? Then simply subscribe and you'll never miss an episode again. We'd also love it if you'd leave us a review so we can hear more about your own journey with

50:22food and body. And if you're curious about what we offer at the Institute for the psychology of eating, including our internationally acclaimed coach certification training that's rooted in dynamic eating psychology and mind body nutrition, please head on over to our website, psychology of eating.com until next time, take care and remember having the body you want starts with loving the body you have.