Trusting Ourselves with Food & Pleasure – In Session with Marc David

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.

0:25Welcome everybody. I'm Mark David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. We're in the Psychology of Eating podcast. I'm with Jill today. Welcome, Jill. Hi, thank you. Thanks for being here. So for those of you new to the podcast, the idea is Jill and I are meeting for the first time and we're going to do a session together and see if we can make some good things happen. So Jill, if you could wave your magic wand, if you can get whatever you wanted with food and body, what would that be for you? Hmm, I would be just in my intuitive rhythm of eating when my body and soul is hungry and

1:10stopping when it's enough and moving on with my day. Um, and I think it would be reflected in so many ways in my life, but physically in terms of my body, I'd love to just, uh, to experience my body more as a playground rather than a battle zone and to, to have fun with, with it, with, with being in it and to have fun with the journey of

1:45tweaking things to alter the appearance. And so there would be less fat, more muscle too.

1:55How much fat would you lose or how much weight would you lose? You know, I'm not sure because I would be fine if I stayed where I'm at, if I had significantly less fat and significantly more muscle. But I guess I'm looking at like a 10 to 20 pound idea of like that there've been times in my life where I liked how I looked at 10 or 20 pounds less, more, more 10 to 15. So these days, what does it look like when you're not in the sweet spot that you'd like to be in with

2:33food and you're not in that natural flow describe what shows up for you that doesn't feel so good. Yeah. Like a lot of angst and, um, like desire and fixation on, um, this idea that I want more that I don't have enough and, um, and then sort of, uh, shut down, like a rumination around feeling kind of, uh, trapped

3:07and, and pissed at my body. Pissed at your body. Cause it's not doing what you want it to do. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, it pissed at me for, for putting my body in a state where I'm not comfortable in it. Yeah. Those are the, those are the bad days. Okay. So, and, and then what does that look like in terms of food? Give me some more details about on a day-to-day basis, like what's going through your mind and

3:41relationship with food, with your meals. Right. So like in this very moment, I am eating kind of a specific, like I have, my meals are kind of planned out. So if I'm training at the gym, I'm eating a certain set of meals and it is that every time I train. And when I'm not training, I eat another set. Um, but then I have this free meal once a month, uh, once a week. So I guess within that framework that I'm currently in, it'll be like, you know, I'm finished eating

4:16and I feel this frustration and I start feeling this, um, this trigger to like, go look for more, which is not in part of the plan. Um, and it feels almost like there's a temptress and I'm, and, and I'm being tortured. Mm-hmm. So the torture is correct me if I'm wrong. You kind of want to stop where you are and hold your cards and not eating, not eat anymore. But there's this other part of you that wants more.

4:47Yeah. Yeah. Wants some chocolate, wants some, yeah, some decadence, wants extra. Yeah. How old are you, Joe? 44. When was the first time you remember, I want to change my body. I want this thing to look different. I mean, I remember being really little, uh, and being in a swimsuit and saying I'm fat and I wasn't, but I remember saying, I don't want to go out with the kids. I'm, you know, in my swimsuit, I'm fat.

5:19So it's been a while. So do you remember when you first started sort of dieting or trying to manipulate the food on your plate? So you could look different. Yeah. Uh, when I was in sixth grade, my dad and I started going to the gym together and he had high cholesterol. So I would like bake things with no egg yolks. And this was like this way that I would care for him. And then we would wake up in the morning and he would drink a slim fast shake. I would drink a slim fast shake and I got thin and muscular, but it wasn't, I was just doing

5:53it to bond with dad. It wasn't like I had, I don't think any body issues at the time, but a few years later, I started to get a little fluffier and battle. And then it's, and that was when it, it turned darker. Are you in a relationship these days? Yeah. I'm married. How long? Well, we've been together like eight years, but we got married last year. Kids? No. Uh-huh. How does your partner feel about your body? He loves it.

6:24And he wishes, I think he probably wishes that there were, that, that, that I loved it more because then he would have more access to loving it and we could love it together. Mm-hmm. Isn't it strange how life works like that sometimes?

6:41Yeah. Well, the good news is you have a partner that loves you the way you are. Yeah. Right? Quite good news. Nice to get that reflection coming back your way in my opinion. So are you working with a trainer? Yeah, so I'm working with like a coach that has me, um, on a training protocol and on this food protocol. And right now we're in this phase of just, um, repairing and letting my body rest from

7:14all the years of stressful dieting. Um, but I think down the line, there will be a deficit at some point, which I feel is looming and I'm nervous. What do you mean down the line is going to be a deficit? Explain what that means to you. So right now we're in a phase where we're in repair and we're eating sort of maintenance calories, but you know, my goals are to slim and to be able to reveal some of this muscle that I'm working out so hard for. So I know that a few phases down the line, there will be a pullback on the food to put

7:52me into a deficit where then perhaps fat loss might happen. I'm in anticipation of it. All things being equal, let's say you had the perfect body, you exactly what you wanted. And no matter what you ate, you always stayed at the perfect weight. How do you feel about food?

8:17Do you like food? Oh, I love food. Yeah. Yeah. I don't love anything more than food. Yeah. I'm glad you said that. Yeah. I really love food. Yeah. I love it more than anything. I, and I think I have this idea that that's part of the problem.

8:39Yeah. Actually, I think it's probably part of the solution, believe it or not. And what I mean is the, the war, the battle, the craziness that you experience to me sounds like you are very clear on the one hand, I love food. You're very clear about that is nothing. I love more. I love food. So you're super clear about that.

9:10And you're also very clear. I want my body to look different and my body can't look different if I'm in love with food. Cause then I'm going to want to be lovers with this thing that's going to make me not love myself. Yeah. So that is a massive paradox. That is a massive conundrum. Yeah. So you're kind of sleeping with the enemy. So to speak, you're in love with like the wrong guy. Um, so it seems. Yeah.

9:41Yeah. What I think, and this is in the big picture and we'll, we'll figure out some of the specifics, but I think ultimately there's a place where it's going to really be helpful for you to be able to fully embrace that you love food and really own that part of you because right now you're fighting it. And if you're fighting your love for something, it's, it's, I don't know.

10:15It's like, if you started saying, well, I, I, you know, I love my husband, but I need to not love him for some reason. Then you have to fight this feeling of love where you love your parents, but you have to fight that feeling. No, it would be insane. You couldn't do that. You love what you love. You love who you love. Love is love. We can't stop what we love. So I think step one in your journey is really making peace with how much you love food and owning that because that love is, that love is a lot.

10:51And what I mean by that is you love a certain kind of pleasure. You love pleasure. You love pleasure from food. If I love pleasure from food, but I'm not allowing myself pleasure from food, because if I allow myself pleasure from food, I'm going to want to eat it more. I'm going to overeat it. And then I'm going to mess up all my goals. So I have to kind of pretend that I don't love this. And I have to have a relationship with food where I'm really not getting pleasure from it.

11:22I mean, maybe you get pleasure from food sometimes when you eat, but I'm going to guess it's sort of a guilty pleasure. If it's really controlled, I'm able to enjoy it. Yeah. But it still feels like with this analogy, there's like a lover that I have some access to, but I have to withhold myself from a lot of the time. Yes. But also I think some of that comes from like this not enough idea. Like, I don't know that I, do I really need more and more and more of this one pleasure?

11:58Maybe, maybe not.

12:01But at the very least, what you need to do is own who you are. Step number one, you got to own who you are. What you are is you're a person, you're a woman who loves food and you're super clear about that. Yes. And whenever you own that, you get real happy, by the way. I'm over here, me talking to you, you get real happy. You light up because you're owning it. And as soon as you try to unown it so you can diet and lose weight, then you're not happy.

12:35Yeah. So before we solve the problem, the seeming problem, before we solve the paradox, well, how could I love something that's so bad for me? Bad meaning if I'm going to eat it, I'm going to gain weight. I'm going to love it too much. And if I really let my love truly explode and expand and be what it is, I'm just going to keep eating and eating and eating. That's the fear. So that's the bottom line fear. If I truly be the lover that I am, it's going to be too much and it's going to result in this horrific outcome.

13:10Yes. Okay. So that is a case. I'm going to just get right to the punchline here. To me, the road ahead of you is called Jill learning how to trust pleasure as experienced through Jill.

13:36This is what gives you pleasure. This is you. This is your body. This is your life. And, oh my God, I can't, no, we have to drop into the body and own the fact that you love food. Just own it and own the fact that food brings you pleasure.

13:58In a pure way. Just like a kid would. Just like in the moments that you've owned it with me. When you own it, you're actually in your power. When you owned it several times in this conversation, you didn't have to run to the refrigerator and prove your love.

14:17I think there's a strange way that when we hold back, I'm holding back my love. I'm trying to hold back my pleasure. But because it's in there, you're going to want to explode. And I'm holding back. I'm pulling back. I'm pulling back. It's almost like a rubber band. And all of a sudden, boom. Yeah. So a lot of times when you just want to eat something. Or you just feel like, oh God, I don't have enough. This isn't enough. I'm on this diet, but this is not enough.

14:47What's driving, I think, the not enoughness. I don't have enough. Is that you're not letting yourself feel enough. When you start to let yourself feel enough, like, oh, this food really tastes good. I love this. It's okay that I love this. I trust myself. I trust that I'm not going to sit on the couch and eat food all day because I'm such a lover. Like, you're such a lover.

15:20Just own it. And you're not going to be eating cake and ice cream all day.

15:26That's called trusting yourself. Like, I trust myself that I can learn how to manage my pleasure. There's probably other things in your life that you love that you just manage very well. Yeah.

15:47Yeah. Trust is a big piece that I'm working with right now. Trusting the universe. Trusting an enoughness. Trusting that I'm enough. Trusting that there's enough business for me. Trusting that there's enough food. Yes. And trusting that your desire and your love and your pleasure and your relationship with desire and pleasure, especially as it relates to food, trusting that that's ultimately okay

16:20and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It's a beautiful thing. It makes you interesting. It makes you, you. You're a lover.

16:30You're trying not to be a lover. Well, in the past, I couldn't trust it because I would go crazy. Yeah. Okay. So we learn. So pleasure, we cultivate pleasure. We learn how to take this experience called pleasure. Oh, my God. That's so good. But when you're three years old and you have ice cream, I'm like, oh, man, this is like the best thing ever. Mommy and daddy, let's have this like at every meal and every snack.

17:01Yeah. Why wouldn't we? It's so good. Okay. So then you got these big adults who kind of understand we're not going to be eating ice cream all day, every meal, all the time, because, you know, it's not going to be good for you. So when it comes to pleasure, the voice of wisdom is invoked. At first, hopefully, with the big people in our lives, with the parents helping guide us. Yeah, these drugs are good. This alcohol is good. But you know something? That's a pleasure. You might want to really learn how to moderate.

17:33So it doesn't trap you or it doesn't addict you. Yeah, sex is pleasurable. But does that mean that you jump in bed with every guy or girl just because it's so pleasurable? No, I got to really determine, do I want to be with this person, that person? What's right for me? Even though the urge might be there. So all I'm saying is we learn how to regulate pleasure in our body. So you're learning. You've told me in the past, yeah, I wasn't so good at that.

18:05Okay, great. You're 44, a smart woman, you're wise, you have a lot of experience, and like everybody else, there's certain places in life, you're a learner. Yeah. You're learning how to, in my opinion, be with this thing called I love food, I love pleasure with food. You're learning how to manage that. Step number uno is to embrace it and accept it and own it. And I'll try to hide it.

18:35And not make it wrong is a beautiful thing. Yeah, I think that I, that isn't as difficult for me as trusting that I can moderate it. That, you know, that's, that's a big one to, to trust that, you know, maybe I haven't moderated it in the past, but, but I have more skills now. And I could be more present with it. I don't have to, because I think that fear was driving me to just eat past it.

19:10Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um, is your mom still alive? Yeah. How's your relationship with her? We are, I'm working on it. It was pretty broken for a long time. And I've just sort of come to a place in the last couple of years of like deep forgiveness and really seeing her for who she really is and just, uh, kind of falling in love with her again. And so there's a, we're in, we're in a repair process.

19:41How's her relationship with food and her body? Yeah. You know, I think it's also tricky, but she's not much of a communicator so we can see it, but we don't hear it so much. Um, yeah, she's, she's been dieting on and off her whole life and, uh, also is a lover of food, um, and hasn't been able to moderate it at times in the past. What was your, in terms of your relationship with your mother in the past, where was the

20:20trust quotient? Where was the trust equation with our life? Did you trust her? Was she a trustable mother for you? No, I trusted that all my needs. Would always be met all of my physical needs, but my emotional needs would not. And she didn't trust me because I was like a bad kid. Like I, you know, I was a classic bad kid. Yeah. Yeah, I was. Yeah. So you trusted that, you know, my mom's going to take care of my physical needs, but I can't

20:55trust that my emotional needs are taken care of. And coming back at you from your mother was, I don't trust this kid. She's a bad kid. So there's a lot of mistrust in the system, which makes sense to me that you're in a place right now where you're learning trust in your life about everything, trust in the universe, trust in God, trust in your body, trust in life, trust in the flow of things coming your

21:25way, trusting, you know what, you know what it is. I think a lot of times we think, well, how can I trust my body if it gains weight or how could I trust my body if it has all these desires? It's not about trusting my body will have this perfect shape. It's not about that. It's about trusting yourself.

21:54I think that you will stand by yourself no matter what. Yes. Trusting that Jill will not abandon Jill because I eat too much. I have dessert. I shouldn't have it. So if you abandon you, if you attack you, if you belittle you, you're not trustworthy. You're not standing by yourself. You can't trust yourself. So it's not trusting that you're going to be perfect. It's not trusting you have the perfect body, the perfect relationship with food.

22:24It's trusting that no matter what, you have your back. Yeah. And that's really new for me. Like I have a lifetime of turning my back on myself and in the last, I'd say, you know, five, six years I've been doing a deep repair process with myself. And so what would happen in there is that there would, whenever there was alone time, it would be a battle between me and the refrigerator because I couldn't tolerate time with myself. I didn't know what it was. It just seemed like it was this vacuum of, of life.

22:57And now I'm finding, you know, through my meditation practice, through my, through my personal growth journey, uh, that the nectar of life is here with me. Um, and, but there are these old neural patterns of the refrigerator, right? Yeah. How do I indulge in the moment? How do I partake or, or consume the moment, uh, without needing to be in the refrigerator?

23:28Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's such a powerful journey to be on. So you're learning how to regulate your own emotional self. You're learning how to be in your body, in the world, in a way that works for you. Right. So it's like, okay, here's me. Here's Jill. I got a lot of feelings, got a lot of emotions. I got a whole past. I got a present I'm dealing with. And how do I breathe into that and not have to lean on this or that, or go to food to soothe?

24:07Right. Now, here's the thing. The reason you go to food to soothe is because that makes perfect sense. That's what every, every creature does. That's what every human being does. Nothing's wrong with you for doing that. Every crying, screaming little infant who's upset and yelling and emotional, and you give them the bottle of the breast and boom, they're relaxed. So we all have the very powerful and clear genetic evolutionary memory of feel bad, eat food, feel better. So there's nothing wrong with turning to food to feel good, by the way.

24:41There's nothing wrong with that. It can become problematic when that's my only way of regulating my emotions and I overdo it. And then, oh my God, this doesn't feel good. I feel sick. I feel queasy. It's too much. I'm gaining weight. Okay. Then we start to see how do I manage myself.

25:01So really, all I'm trying to say is you're, you're on a journey. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing broken here. Yeah. In fact, I'm very inspired by your story and inspired by your journey. You're, you're so, you're so on it. You're so working on yourself and you're on a journey where you're becoming a better and better version of Jill. I really hear your commitment to that. And that's a beautiful thing, you know, repairing our relationship with a parent when it needs

25:37repairing is powerful work to do while our parent is still alive. Not easy. So to me, you're doing it. You're absolutely doing it. You don't have a food problem. Food is a symptom. Turning to food is just a symptom of the challenge, the growth challenge called I'm learning how to be me and regulate my experience.

26:12So part of the process is owning the places where it's healthy to own. And again, I want to get back to your, you're a lover of food. When you own that you're in your power.

26:31You can come to food. You can come to any meal. You can come to any snack. Every time. I would love for you to put a big sign on your refrigerator. I love food. Maybe I love food.

26:47I love food. So every time you look at me, yeah, I do love food. Doesn't mean I have to eat it or maybe I will. But you know something, I'm not going to suppress that beautiful truth because not only do you love food, you love love. You love pleasure, period. You want to experience your body loving your own body. You want to be with your partner and be in a flow of love.

27:22So that's what I hear as a bottom line. Your love of food is really just like a metaphor. It's a reflection of how you love life. I love life really big. And there's a part of me that wants to just like overindulge in life. I like, I just want some freedom to just like eat the whole house, the whole country. Yes. Great.

27:53Great. What that says is that you're owning your appetite. I got a big appetite for life. Big appetite. So this is a good problem. I would rather you do that than have the tiniest appetite for life and want to starve yourself out of existence and into death.

28:12And to press yourself into oblivion. No, you have a big appetite for life. That's a great place to start from. That's a good problem to have. Got a big appetite for life. Okay. Got to learn how to manage that big. Thank you for being alive. Thank you for being a person who loves life. Yeah. There should be more of that. But there's this trust piece around, can I trust that it's enough? Right? Because it's like, do I need to eat the whole, do I need to eat the cosmos?

28:43Right? Or can I just trust? Like I, when I look in the mirror, I see somebody who doesn't trust that there's enough. And so she's storing, she's storing, she's gobbling more. She's taking more, like she's holding on to, she's carrying around this fear of not enough. I'm not enough. It's not enough. It's like, I'm trying to step into trust. Yeah. So that's what you're doing. That's what you're doing. You're not trying to control your eating.

29:15You're not trying to have more willpower to resist food. No, those are not answers. Those are not solutions. Those are not good tools or techniques. You're learning how to trust. Because then when you can trust in life, when you can trust in yourself, when you can trust that you're enough, trust, think about what it does. If I'm in a moment of trust, I relax. And when I'm relaxed, guess what?

29:46I don't need to binge.

29:48I'm relaxed. I don't need to grab. When I'm relaxed, I don't need to devour. When I'm relaxed, I'm relaxed. I might eat. I might not eat. I might indulge in my appetite or not. That's up to me. But trusting is another way of saying deeply relaxing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're creating, by trusting, we're literally creating a physiology.

30:19We're literally creating parasympathetic nervousness and dominance, relaxation response, a classic physiologic state where you digest very well. You calorie burn most efficiently. And your appetite is most naturally regulated when you're relaxed. Mm-hmm. I want that. Yeah. So you're on the right track. Yeah. You're doing the right work, which is learning how to trust all of it.

30:54Learning how to trust that, in a sense, that your journey is good. Your journey is yours. Like, when you tell me your story, the little bits that I've heard so far, I mean, I've heard a really beautiful, powerful story. It's like, yeah, it wasn't easy at the beginning, and here was me, you know? Maybe I was a bad kid, but look at me now. Yeah. So your journey is good with a capital G.

31:26Where you're at right now is sweet. It's beautiful. It's lovely. Nothing wrong with it. Yeah. Ain't perfect, but who is? Nobody.

31:40And you're in a sweet and tender place in your life. Yeah, absolutely. So from that place, I'm curious. As to really what serves you, and I don't know. I don't have an idea right now, but I'm asking myself the question. I'm asking it out loud. Then I'm curious about what would really support you in your journey right now, your journey

32:13of learning how to trust it all. What would really support you when it comes to your diet and when it comes to your workout workout and your personal training that you're doing, because if all of that, my diet, my exercise, the personal training, if that's being driven by, I'm not good enough. If I get to this goal, then I'm good enough.

32:45If I don't get to this goal, I'm not good enough. And if I weigh myself and I gain half a pound, that's bad. If I lost half a pound, that's good. And so I'm just, I'm just wondering, and it's fine. It's, it's beautiful to have your preference when it comes to weight in your body. Like it's fine to have your preference. We all have our preferences, what we drink, what we eat, what we wear, who we hang out with. It's what makes us uniquely us.

33:16We have our preferences. So the way you want your body to look, I would consider that a preference. It might be a strong preference. That's fine. So preferences are completely cool. They're wonderful. We get into a little trouble when we make that preference a God, when we make it a taskmaster, when we make it an all or nothing. If I don't get this preference, I'm screwed. If I don't get this preference, this exact weight, this shape, I'm unlovable.

33:48Yeah, I think this is the first time in my life where it's shifting a little bit into, I want to have fun with this process and I'm starting to have some fun with it. It's, I don't feel like I'm in a complete state of terror where like food owns me and I'm, you know, at its mercy. I feel like I am, I'm, I have agency and I'm, I'm walking on this, on this road and there's still a long road ahead.

34:20Right. So, yeah.

34:26What am I trying to say? I think finding the fun in it because it's never going to end. I'm not going to get to some goal, like, like I'm, I'm athletic. I work out. I like working out. I, it makes me feel good. I like, uh, experimenting with my food and, and, uh, pulling strings to see what happens when I pull them, you know, what the, what the effect is. So I want to step more into that framing.

34:59Bingo. I love this for you. That is, I think it's such a great awareness because really what we're saying is this is part of who you are. You're a creature of love and pleasure amongst other things and love and pleasure is fun.

35:20So if you're having fun, then that's a really good sign that you're on the right track with how you're doing things. So if you're going about your exercise and you're dieting and it's not fun, then it's not working. Yeah. It doesn't mean it might not be a little challenging sometimes, or there might not be difficult moments. Cause anytime we're having fun, there could be a difficult moment. It happens. But overall the overarching experiences. This is, I'm in my body working out.

35:53This is cool. This feels good. Yeah.

35:58If you want to change your body.

36:02This is a secret. This is a secret. More people should know this. If you want to change your body, you have to be in it. Yeah. You literally got to be in it. What happens is a lot of us go up here into the head. Okay. I'm in my head and I'm worrying about food. I'm thinking about food. I'm thinking about my body. I'm thinking about God, if only my body looked different, I would be, I'd be having so much fun. I'd be having so much pleasure. I would be like living a good life. If I just had the body that I want, but I don't have the body that I want.

36:32Therefore I can't have fun. And, and then we're living in our head. We're not actually in our body. And if I'm not in my body, I can't really shapeshift it. Totally. Yeah. I was, it's crazy today. I was on the elliptical trainer and I realized I just had this moment of where is my body? I'm, you know, I was listening to a podcast or something and I was like, I'm grinding away and I'm living up here. And I instantly dropped down and was able to kind of bring my life force into my feet,

37:07into my legs and notice like, oh, this is uncomfortable. Like I'm pushing. There's some, there's some discomfort and maybe that's why I'm dissociating from it. Or maybe it's just a habit, but it was nice to kind of come in and visit it and welcome the strain, you know, to be like, this isn't pain, unwanted pain. And, you know, this is exertion. It's what I like. Yeah. This is brilliant. I really think this is brilliant because you have a clear distinction of what it's like

37:41that I'm doing this exercise, but I could actually be in my head doing the exercise or I could be in my body doing the exercise. And it's two completely different experiences. And I believe it's two completely different outcomes. Now apply that to food. Yeah. Apply that to eating. Every time you eat, drop into your body. Yeah. Like, okay, they'll talk, they'll talk, you talk, but no, drop into your body, drop into

38:15all your cells, drop into your feet, drop into your belly, just inhabit all of your body and then think about food and then eat food. Yeah. I love that as sort of a meditation to, to, to keep coming back into the body while eating like what's there. Yeah. Yeah. Because when you're in your body, you are definitionally here. You're here. You're in your power.

38:45Right. It's very, very, very hard. You can do it, but it's very hard to be in our power if we're not in our body. Right. Now, granted, there are some really old people have a hard time being in their body, but for a lifetime, they've done it and they're in their wisdom now. And they're occupying their soul. But for where you're at right now, it's your learning, maybe for the first time, maybe for the first time, how to be in your body.

39:17And that's a beautiful thing because we're not taught that in school. Nobody says, okay, here's how you be in your body. Yeah. They throw you into gym class, but you can, you can do sports your whole life and never really learn how to be in your body. Yeah, I did. So you're learning how to be in your body. You're learning how to call yourself into your body because that's how you do it. You literally call yourself in. It's like, oh, yeah, whoa. Get in my body. Breathe. Bring awareness into my body.

39:48Drop it down from my head, which oftentimes means letting go of the mind chatter. I love that you say that because it is, it's intentional. It's not just like, oh, I'm just always in my body. It's like we have choice. Yes. To invite it. Yeah. So when you're in your body, you will be in your power and you will have more facility with your body. You will have more authority in relationship with your body. You will be able to dance more with your body because you're in it.

40:21You'll be able to flow more with your body because you're in it. Body's an animal. Like in a beautiful way. Body is a natural animal. And we live a very unnatural lives. Yeah. It's just hard. We're human beings and we're different from the animals. We're not quite animals and we're not quite the gods. We're sort of halfway in between. But we have a very animal nature, a natural expression.

40:52And the more we own that and get in contact with it, the more wisdom speaks through us, the more body wisdom speaks through us. So you have a natural appetite. You have a natural hunger. And when there's no mind chatter, your body would just eat when it's hungry. It would enjoy the food. You would love it. You would say, oh, this is so good.

41:24I love this. I love this. Ah, complete. And then you'd be on to the next thing because it's not, oh, my God, I shouldn't eat this. We'll lose weight. So when we let go of the conversation and we experience sensation, so sensation without the conversation, that helps us be in our body. And it'll help you learn to trust yourself around food.

41:57Yeah. I'll tell you one place where it's challenging is when I eat out at restaurants. It's like the stimulation of the environment, it makes it so hard for me to be present and be embodied. So I just sit there with the food in front of me and it's like it's I just feel torn in a thousand directions. Like, like I start eating to the beat of the music and I'm breathing shallow and it's like I have to keep putting my fork down.

42:31It's insanity. And I love it. It's fun. I want to be able to have fun and be embodied.

42:38So that's a great practice. So there's an opportunity if you're going to go to a restaurant. You know this about yourself. You know that you're sensitive to your environment. You know that you're sensitive to stimulation.

42:54You also know that you want to inhabit your body and be in your body because that's where your power is. A person, in your case, a woman who is inhabiting her body, definitionally is in her power.

43:10As you inhabit your body, definitionally, you are in your power because you're experiencing your pleasure. Pleasure is a power. Oh, that food tastes so good. I love it. Oh, man, I took a walk. It was so great. I love it. Oh, I just had sex with my partner. That was so great. I love it. That's our power. Pleasure is a power. Being in your body is a power. So you get to practice when you go to a restaurant. How in the universe do I be in my power in this moment?

43:42What do I have to do?

43:45Do I have to sit there and close my eyes and take some deep breaths?

43:51Maybe you just have to really call yourself into your body. Maybe you have to plant your feet on the floor and just really get connected. And I think that's always going to be the reference point for you. It's just meditating yourself into your body. Nobody's going to care if you close your eyes for a minute at a table. Chances are. And if they do care, whatever. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah. So you're just you're just getting into your body, like own it, like own your moment.

44:23Like I need to get into my body.

44:27And you might even have guidelines for yourself when you go to a restaurant. That's fine. You know, I want to have certain guidelines. Guideline number one, I want to leave the restaurant. And be able to say to myself, that was a good experience.

44:46So let's reverse engineer that for a second. What would help you go to a restaurant, leave the restaurant saying that was a good experience? What needed to happen? I need to stay. I need to stay present. And staying present means not getting caught up in the sort of the pace of the music and the conversation and the noise and the stimulation, but staying at my pace and being really mindful when I'm eating.

45:21Like I want to taste the food and I don't want to rush it or rush past it. And I want to leave not stuffed, but fully satisfied. Yeah, that would be the big, the big one that I somehow was able to stay at my pace and feel like I engaged with the food rather than mowing over, mowing past it. There it is.

45:51That's brilliant. Yeah, that's, that's your guideline. So what I hear is that you need to tap into your pace. So in general, are you a fast eater, moderate eater, slow eater? Fast. And I'm really trying to slow down. So like right now I'm, everything is quiet in the house when I eat and I put my hands in prayer, but it is, I am, I'm really working on it. It's, it's, it's, uh, I'm not successful a lot of the time, but I am trying.

46:24So keep on doing that. That's your lifelong practice, which you'll, it's not going to take a lifetime. Eating slow is not a speed in particular. So I want you to think, yeah, it's a speed, but it's, it's way more interesting than just a speed. Eating slow means I am present. I'm aware. I'm receiving pleasure. I'm doing the thing that I'm doing. And I'm relaxed while I'm doing it.

46:56Definitionally, when a human being eats fast, your body will go into a stress response. Or you will eat fast because you are in a stress response. Yeah. Yeah. And if I'm in a stress response, the cortisol that I'm producing, the main stress hormone, blunts our pleasure receptors. So when we are stressed, the chemistry of stress causes us to have less receptivity to the chemistry of pleasure, which then means I kind of need to eat more of the chocolate cake and more of the bread and more, more of all that stuff.

47:36So I can feel the pleasure that I would normally feel had I been relaxed. So really what you're learning how to do is relax with food, which means really trusting the eating experience, trusting that, okay, I can do this. Yeah. This is okay. So you're literally learning how to create a relaxation response, create trust, create connection with the thing that's normally kind of freaking you out a little bit.

48:18Oh my God, I love food, but I shouldn't love food, but I do love food, but this is terrible. And the net result is a stressful internal conversation. Right. And eating past the food. Right. So, which is why I want you to own your love for food. Just own it. I love food. Now, if I love something, if I love sex, I don't say to my partner, honey, I love sex so much. Let's do it in 20 seconds. It's so good. It's like, no, you want pleasure to last. Yeah.

48:48So that's the voice of wisdom speaking when it comes to pleasure. In order for you to fully embody your pleasure, you need to experience it. In order to experience it, pleasure wants slow.

49:06Yeah, there's certain things you could do really fast, go down a roller coaster. Yeah, that's its own kind of pleasure. But most of the human pleasure we experience, it needs spaciousness. It needs us to slow down. And it needs us to be relaxed to experience the very sensations that we're wanting.

49:29So the more you actually relax into pleasure, the more you own your pleasure, which means relaxing into it, the more you can experience pleasure.

49:39And the less you'll have to grab after it because you missed it in the first place. Because you're like, oh, my God, you follow? It's so crazy. Yeah, it's crazy to, you know, just to notice that, like I started noticing a couple months ago, I'm eating to get it over with. And then all I long for all day is to get to eat again. What is that about?

50:04So that's just an old habit. That's an old habit. It's the two sides of you talking. There's the side of you that's the lover of food that says, I can't wait to eat. And there's the side of you that's been conditioned from the world to believe that food is your enemy because food makes you fat. And if you're fat, that makes you unlovable. And if I like it too much, I'll eat too much. And yeah, yeah. So that's why you're like, oh, my God, I got to get this over with.

50:34Why? Because if food is the enemy, the food is a crime. In order to deal with a crime, if you're going to commit a crime, you want to do it fast. Yeah. You don't want to rob a bank. You don't want to, like, take three hours to do it. No, you got to go in and out. You do the crime quickly. If you're going to deal with an enemy, you want to dispense with them quickly.

50:55So because part of your brain sees food as the enemy or food as a crime, you want to do it fast. Because if I do it fast, it kind of means it didn't happen.

51:05And it didn't really go down. But then I really love this. So I want it. So we want to break that pattern. The way you break that pattern, once again, is you start to own your love for food. Own it. Put it on your refrigerator. I love food. Say it to yourself every day and every night. I love food. Just own it. And this makes me a lover. I'm a lover. Nothing wrong with that.

51:35I love all kinds of things. And I happen to love food just about at the top of my list. Anybody got a problem with that? Only me. Yeah. Yeah. And you ought not have a problem about that. It makes you interesting. And it makes you you. And once you own that, you don't have to fight it. Then you can be in relationship with it. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it's all about. Just being in relationship. Right. And if you want to be in relationship with your partner, you're not looking to squash your love.

52:11Yeah. You're looking to explore it. Like, oh, what does this love mean for us? What do we like to do together? How do we express our love? How does this feel? How does that feel? So, you play.

52:28Luxuriate. Yes. Yeah. And you trust that even, you know, even if you overeat, guess what? You've done that before. It hasn't killed you. You're still here. You don't weigh 600 pounds. You're okay. You trust that I will stand by myself. And I will be okay. Yeah. It's okay to overdo it. It's okay. You will survive. Right. Yeah. I would just like it to be less times, you know, I'd like to be more in integrity with

53:02my values of slowness and experiencing the nectar of life here and now. So, that's a practice. Think of it as a practice, not a perfect. It's a practice. The more you and I practice that, the better we've become.

53:18Yeah. Yeah. I'm in it.

53:23For sure. I think you're in a great place. I really do. I think it's a really good time to just bless your journey. Yeah. Just bless it. Like, this is okay. I'm in a good place. I'm not exactly where I want to be, but damn, it's not a bad place. I'm so poised to start to have what I want.

53:54Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Truly. Thank you for that reflection, that blessing. Yeah.

54:03Yeah. How's this conversation been for you? Great. Yeah. I mean, it's just really validating and nourishing just to kind of, you know, spread it out and help me, I think, commit more to what the work is, what the practice is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To just stay with myself. That's, that's huge. Stay with yourself, breathe yourself into your body.

54:38Every time you eat, every time you approach the refrigerator, just breathe yourself into your body and look at that sign that says, I love food because that's going to interfere with, but no, I have food's the enemy, but I'm really hungry, but I love food, but it's the enemy. It's like, no, I love food. And, and, and that's beautiful. Your love is not dangerous. Your love is not wrong.

55:10Your love is not a weakness. It's a strength and it's a power.

55:14And you just have to allow that. So have to allow that love to come through and let it inform you, let it teach you. Right. As opposed to try to squash it. So you can have this body that you want, which will then make you lovable. Right. Yeah. If you want to get to a place where the destination is, I love myself. Right. Because if I want this ideal body, if I want to reach my goal or my preference with my

55:45body, I'm wanting to get to that preference because it means I'm going to love myself. Maybe, maybe more. That's fine.

55:54So the end, the end goal is I'm going to love myself. The journey has to have love in it. Yeah. If the journey has unlove in it, then how could it possibly have a destination of love? Yeah, no way. I've gone down that path. It doesn't work. Oh, yeah. It's very painful. Well, I think this has been a great conversation. I'm just so impressed with you and where you're at and where you are in your journey. And I know it's not perfect for you, but I think you have all the tools.

56:29I know you do. You have all the tools. You have the right awareness. And just time to really own your power and own the strides that you've made and just see, see all the goodness that you have and see the victories that you've had. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely taking inventory. Very grateful. And so grateful to have gotten to, to have this chat with you. Truly.

57:00You know, thank you for being my teacher. Thanks so much. I'm honored. Wonderful conversation. I so appreciate you. And I appreciate everybody for tuning in. Take care, everyone.

57:13Hey, 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 food 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

57:48eating psychology and mind body nutrition, please head on over to our website, psychologyofeating.com. Until next time, take care. And remember, having the body you want starts with loving the body you have.