Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally, break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hey. Hey. Welcome back.
All right, so we are gonna jump into this topic around new beliefs that will curb and help with the holiday overeating. So whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or Christmas, a lot of holidays, especially towards the end of the year, are all about food.
And it really comes down to how we are thinking about it. And so that's why we're gonna talk specifically about beliefs, because it's your thoughts that impact your emotions that then drive your action. So we're gonna dive into a little bit of both of those, the thoughts and. And the emotions, because that is really what makes it hard to say no. It makes it hard to stop. And sometimes we can even be emotionally eating for positive reasons. Yes. Yay. Look at all the ways that this can show up. And this comes up for me, too. I'm going to share just some of the tips and tricks, some of the things that I do. And so, yeah, the last couple of weeks, I've been fighting a cold and I thought it got better and now it's back or it's a new one. I don't exactly know, but we're just rolling with it. And so this is also a reminder of you work with what you've got, and you can always address and create a new minimum baseline. You can always pivot and shift, meet yourself where you're at, and also what feels good and aligned for you. The other thing that came up is I have two other podcasts that I recorded, and I've just been hesitant to edit or release them. I'm like, I don't love them. I don't think it's about, oh, like, it's not perfect perfect, or I didn't say the perfect thing. I think I'm thinking about it more from a content standpoint of, did I share the message that I wanted to share? Did things come through and get downloaded from my head, into my consciousness, processed and then out my mouth? You know? And so that's kind of how I think of this. And sometimes we're just not going to be happy with where something's at and giving yourself permission to hold off, to pivot again. Sometimes we're pivoting because of illness. Sometimes we're pivoting because of what else? And like, other things that are going on and where we're at in our healing journey and how we are positioning things. But in December, I'm going to do some miniseries, one of them around divorce, one of them around dating. And the core thing with divorce for me is making sure that I am sharing the message that I want, which is one of encouragement and empowerment and not making your spouse or your exact the villain, because that's what I did for a long time. So more on that later. But let's dive into these holiday beliefs, because this is gonna help right now, today, tomorrow, this week, this weekend. Because the other thing, too, is often it's not just about the one day. It's about all the leftovers, right? It's all the leftover food that we're gonna have. So I will also share how I handle holiday things. Anyways, let's just go.
So I'm going to give you new thoughts and then explain where they come from.
So number one is I can eat this anytime this food is available for me to eat any time of year, even if somebody else is making it. I can get the recipe, I can look up recipes. I can eat this food even if it's like a traditional holiday food. Like with Thanksgiving here in the US for example, a lot of times it's turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and maybe green bean casserole. Like, those are the typical ones that I would have with my family.
I can eat that any time of year. In fact, I make that type of dinner in July sometimes because I like it, I enjoy it. So we don't just have to save cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. We can have a cinnamon roll anytime we want. This is where we release the scarcity around food. And this is like the overarching, common theme of what I teach. But we really can apply it to the holidays and see where that comes up. Sometimes it's making specialty cookies or maybe specialty drinks. Sometimes it is just specialty meals or appetizers. And the reality is you can have this any time of year. And when we can let go, when that's the thought of, I can eat this anytime. I now don't have to overeat on it because there's no scarcity around it. I use this often, this exception meal and this example of the loaded cheesy brisket fries at this restaurant in North Carolina. There were several months, two or three months, where every week I wanted that to be my exception meal because it was so good. But I knew, okay, I'm gonna eat when I'm hungry. Stop. When I'm satisfied, I'm gonna eat a vegetable with it. We're gonna take some home, and any leftovers I can enjoy tomorrow, and then next week I can have more. Right? And so I didn't need to overeat when I know that there was more coming. And I could eat this at any time. And I think sometimes with travel, if you're out of town, out of the country, you might be thinking, well, no, Jillian, I'm in Italy. I can't eat this anytime.
But the reality is we can get really good food any time of year. We can have fun specialty food anytime. And this is where we just have to shift also and not make things, and especially events and holidays just about the food. Because these holidays aren't special just because of what we're eating. Yes. That can be like, a fun thing where it's, oh, we make this just on Christmas morning.
But it's really special because of the people that we're with, the memories that we're making. That's what makes a holiday special.
That's what really creates the sticking point in our mind. And when we can take the emphasis off of the food or off of the drinks and we put it onto the people, we now don't need the food to be the highlight. Right. We have to make the highlight of the holiday and the event or the travel. Seeing new things, experiencing new events, having fun with people, new memories, new activities. Right. That's what it has to be. Not just on what we're eating. I also have another thought here that I used, which was, the more that I save, the more I can enjoy tomorrow, or the more I can enjoy the rest of this week. So let's say you make a pumpkin pie and you're like, okay, I really love it. It's so delicious. It's the best pumpkin pie ever. And now I'm gonna have one piece, and it is so good. But I know that the more that I save, the more I get to enjoy throughout the rest of this week. Or maybe you pop that thing in the freezer and you enjoy one piece a week through the rest of the year. Who says we can't enjoy this longer? And I think, again, if we have this mentality of, oh, pie is bad, I shouldn't. I'm ruining my day, or I'm ruining my diet if I'm eating the pie, so therefore, I shouldn't be eating it. Now we have this thought of, I better hurry up and get it out of the house. I better go Big or go home. Just eat it all. I better eat that whole piece. I better eat three pieces. Let's get it out of the house.
Instead of, I can have half a piece today and know that I can have half a piece tomorrow. I do this with cheesecake all the time, especially the big pieces from the Cheesecake Factory. I will eat one piece and I will usually put it over the course of three days. And I'll just eat a couple of bites because I know it's very satisfying, it's very rich, it's very enjoyable. But I don't need a whole entire piece in one day. And I really enjoy having a little bit to eat off of all throughout the week.
But the way that this works is because I have told myself that I'm not ruining the day because I'm eating cheesecake. So it goes back to the moralizing of food and making food good, bad, evil, off limits. This is all what kind of comes at play. And this is why doing this work now around the holidays is so important and it's so helpful. This is such a great time. Because this is not about restricting and saying, no, I can't enjoy the holidays or I can't enjoy this food. It's really about learning how do I do it without saying fuck it and eating my face off. That is the key difference. When we now can go into it with that mentality of now. We feel solid around food, we're relaxed, we're engaged with the people around us where it's not just about what we're eating. The highlight of the event is not the food. Even at Thanksgiving, you can make the highlight who you're with and the experience you're having. And that is such a key shift that we have to make in order to create a healthy relationship with food where we're not binging, we're not overeating, we are not emotionally eating, and we feel really calm and relaxed and confident around it, around all food at all time.
All right? Belief number two. I am not responsible for their emotions. Okay? Really owning this. And especially for people who have been through dysfunctional, toxic relationships who have grown up like this in these dynamics, it is so deeply ingrained. It is such an unconscious pattern that we have around feeling like we don't want to feel guilty because of their emotions, right? If they feel hurt or rejected, we feel like we caused it. And now that makes us feel guilty, we feel bad. Sometimes that comes out with food. And in eating habits, no matter how much you eat or you don't eat, you are not responsible for their emotions or their thoughts about what you're eating or how much you should be eating. And you don't have to eat out of fear that you will make them feel rejected or not good enough.
And this is where it can be a little tricky when you are learning how to own your emotions. But you might still have a family of origin or other people, maybe other extended family members that don't feel that way, where they're like, no, you are responsible for making me feel good. You are responsible for eating so that I feel good about all of the cooking. So sometimes we eat because we want to show our appreciation or our gratitude. Sometimes we eat and this could be we eat when we're not hungry. To start off with, everybody's eating breakfast at 8am and you're just not hungry. But you eat because you are trying to make the host or somebody feel good about what they're doing. And then maybe you also eat what they're making, even if it's not food that you would typically be eating. But it's like, well, I don't want to seem ungrateful. They made this just for me. I don't want them to feel unappreciated, especially with something like a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, something that maybe takes several hours or even several days to prep and put together. So we have this thought of, I need to eat to show my appreciation and my gratitude. Otherwise they're going to feel hurt, they're going to feel rejected, they're going to feel unwanted, they're going to feel something negative. And now it's my fault because I'm not eating. And it is just misplaced responsibility.
And this is again, where we take these concepts in life that we have learned and we look and we see. Not only have they permeated relationships with people, but our relationship with food and then our relationship with people as it relates to food, right? Like, they both intermingle. It's like these three things, these three strands braided together and they are so intertwined. And that's okay. But now we can bring some awareness to it of like, where am I eating? To try to please somebody else, to try to make them happy. And really they get to own their thoughts, they get to own their emotions. And when they're not used to doing that, it's normal that they want to keep that responsibility on you. It's normal that they might even tell you flat out to your face, like, you're the problem. Why are you not doing this? Why are you not going back for seconds, don't you love me? You should be eating more. They might lay it on thick because that is how they have learned to get their needs met. Okay? It's not a healthy way. It functions in the sense that it gets their needs met. It does the job short term, but is not a truly healthy dynamic to be in.
And when you now are being the cycle breaker, when you now see these generational patterns, because for so many of us who are waking up to what was happening in a marriage or a dating relationship, we're now also looking backwards and seeing how things worked with our parents. And you might even be like me, where you're thinking about your parents with their parents, and maybe even back another generation where you're like, holy, this is just the same thing happening over and over again with slight variations, with slight differences, but there's these repeating patterns where it's like, no wonder this feels so hard. No wonder this feels so difficult emotionally to break. And that becomes our work, really, at the end of the day. That's what this is all about. It's not about the food. It's about feeling guilty because you want to say no to what they're eating, or you want to bring a different dish than what you normally bring, or you want to eat different food, or you want to eat at a different time. So some things here that I often suggest is if you are afraid of how somebody is going to respond, and then you preemptively eat or you eat even though you don't want to. This is good to just be aware of, to better understand the pattern and the cycle. Right? We don't need to feel bad about it if it happens or it comes up, but we want to see it clearly. We want to eat eyes wide open, recognizing, noticing, oh, I feel guilty. She looked at me this way and then I felt guilty.
She said this, and then I felt hurt or I felt like a bad person. Noticing what is actually happening and even if nothing else changes this holiday season but the awareness, if you go into it, let's say you still keep eating, you still keep the same patterns and habits, but now you are bringing intention and consciousness to those patterns and better understanding why they are happening and what it's triggering for you and why you are likely to eat, that is huge. Recognizing the emotions that trigger you to eat is huge. That is such amazing growth. And this is sometimes things that don't happen very often.
I look at holiday get togethers and with my family, we are spread out all over the country. A lot of times My mom's overseas and this is the first Christmas we are back in my hometown for Christmas with my mom and all of us girls with extended family, like back when we were kids, because I lived there until I was 10.
We have not had a Christmas like this since I was 16.
It has been a long time. I, like, can't even do the math. It has been 24 years. It has been 24 years, more than half of my life since we have been back, all of us, for a holiday.
And that's okay. There are going to be times when it might be part of the family. And so this can still get triggered. It can still come up. I think about holidays as, yes, sometimes they can be triggering, but. But what a gift, what a gift that these can be triggered because it brings now new awareness to what these patterns are and what is running under the surface that I haven't yet caught. And when we can look at it from that lens, we are no longer afraid going in. We no longer doubt ourselves. And this is one of the biggest pieces of what I do with clients is build your self trust. Self trust in your ability to make decisions, self trust around food and alcohol, self trust around extended family or your family of origin or your intimate close family, maybe it's a spouse or an ex and kids. To be able to trust yourself, trust your intuition, trust when you get inspired, when you have these thoughts. Because I'd say that's a huge piece is for so many clients I've talked to. They have an intuition. They have heard it at times and listened and followed. They've also heard it at times and not followed and not listened. And that's okay. We have to let go of the shame, but truly understand what's coming up because that will help to rebuild your self trust. Trust that you can create a plan, maybe it's even a work list of here are the things that I need to get done and you actually get them done. It's not just this pipe dream of to dos that you think you can accomplish. It's, nope, I'm going to set this one thing and I get it done. That is what we're doing here. And we have to start small. We have to meet ourselves right where we're at, right right now. And then we build and we go from there. But feeling responsible for other people's thoughts or their emotions or how you're supposed to show up the role that you're supposed to play according to them, that's what we need to challenge. And a lot of times, especially if we're going to like extended family, if we're with siblings or parents, this is where it can trigger things from childhood. It's almost like we revert back and we feel like a little kid again. And I felt this way in my marriage sometimes where it's like, why do I feel like I'm 12? I don't know what it was, but there was something about that age where I felt like I was a little 12 year old girl again. Couldn't make decisions, didn't know things, didn't have the right information to make decisions. And a lot of times our self trust gets so eroded in these toxic dynamics.
So if you go back to episodes, I believe it's 140 through 144 of the podcast, talking about the core four wounds of narcissistic abuse. Self doubt is one of them and that is huge. Like all four of those are so incredibly powerful. But that piece really permeates so much more of our lives. It's such an important thing that we look at to address and rebuild. Okay, it was a little bit of a tangent on that one.
Let's keep moving. Belief number three, last but not least, which we also covered is I have a great time because of the people I'm with, not because of what I'm eating or drinking.
And so this is where the positive side of emotional eating can come in, where we can be eating or drinking because we're having so much fun. This is just so fun. It's so nostalgic. I don't want the night to end. Things are going so well. It's amazing, right? And so sometimes we are emotionally eating, not just around the holidays, but year round because of that. So we eat because maybe you got a promotion, right? Maybe there's a celebration.
Maybe you're eating or drinking because somebody orders another round of appetizers or another bottle of wine or. Right. Sometimes somebody is asking us to drink or eat with them. They don't want to drink alone. And so it's oh, have another glass, please. Because it's really, they want to have another glass and they don't want to feel guilty or ashamed if you're not drinking with them. Again, it goes back to that feeling responsible for other people's emotions and knowing that sometimes that's what gets put on us, but that's okay.
So with this enjoying the people, enjoying the atmosphere, like when I think about Christmas, this is part of why I put my Christmas decorations up early, was because I love the Christmas season, that one day comes and goes so fast. But it's about the season. It's about thinking about people and buying gifts and the scents and the smells and the food and the parties and the connection. And even with the party, like, I remember this was two years ago after the big breakup, so the divorce. I dated one guy and then there was this breakup. And that breakup felt so cataclysmic. It was so massive emotionally. And I remember trying not to cry into the charcuterie board that I made. As I'm driving to this holiday party and my mind, I'm like, I don't want to go. I'm not in the right space, not in the right energy. But I also told her I was bringing this damn charcuterie board, so we're going.
But I am literally crying on my way there because I'm still so heartbroken and I feel so sad and so rejected. And at that point too, I also felt a lot of regrets. I felt like I ruined it. I said one wrong thing or I had one wrong conversation and now I have completely ended the relationship single handedly. It was like all on me.
And when I look back at that, I have so much love and compassion. And it's so interesting because I see some things and I see some patterns. Now, of course, two years out, but that night I decided I can be sad, I can be heartbroken, I can still cry every single day if I need to. But I'm no longer going to throw myself under the bus. I'm no longer gonna feel regret, I'm no longer gonna self loathe, I'm no longer gonna sit in shame and tell myself how I'm the problem. And that was a very conscious thought and decision to where in the future when that would come up, when those thoughts would still come up, I had to shut it down. I had to retrain my brain and say, no, I'm not indulging in this. No, I'm not thinking this. Anytime those types of thoughts would come up, I would redirect them.
So I would still cry like it was still another week or two of tears. But it got better and better every single day. Why was I telling this story? Hold on. There was a reason. There was a reason for this story.
Okay, so I think my train of thought here was, it's not just about the food, right? Like I was going to this holiday party that I didn't really want to go to, really wasn't in the mood for it, and yet that night was exactly what I needed. It was what my heart and my soul needed. Needed it, needed to just have a good time, to have fun, to take pictures, to talk with friends, to play silly games. I needed a night like that. That was actually exactly what I needed. Even though I didn't want to go in the moment, even though I really wanted to back out and say, I'm so sorry, I'm really sick, I can't make it, but I'm so glad that I went. The highlight and the impact was not about the food. It wasn't about what I was eating. In fact, aside from the charcuterie board and maybe some meatballs and like probably a veggie tray, I have no idea.
Food was there. Like I can't even remember.
But I remember how I felt. I remember the transformation it had on my emotions and my energy and that was huge. That was pivotal.
And so when we think about this around the holidays and really any time of year, just being really aware of making an event or a party or something about ourselves, another way that this can come up is if it's an open bar and you have a thought like, oh, better get my money's worth, better drink all that I can or it's a buffet, better eat all that I can.
Instead of no, I'm going to eat until I'm satisfied. I'm going to have a set number of drinks and then after I'm good, I don't need to over drink and then feel like crap the next day just to get my money's worth out of something that maybe you didn't even pay for. Like it might even be a company sponsored event.
So really it's starting to question and pull apart the logic that we have in our brain around what's going on and what's happening. As I was talking with several clients about this throughout the last week or two, it's been like, you can sit at the table and have a conversation, you can sit down with people, you can go out with people, you can order something small. Like sometimes I'll order an appetizer instead of a meal. You can sit and have conversation and not be eating right. And it's not about you're too good for them. I think this is what comes up is hearing comments from other people of, oh, you're too good for us, oh you're too good to eat or to eat what we're eating. And this is where we have to recognize that's on them. Those thoughts are coming from them because of their emotions and they feel triggered, they feel not enough. Their shame has been activated. It's not about you, but we can so easily take that on because that's what we're used to and that's okay. This is where we just give ourselves options with cocktails, for example, like, you can order mocktails or make drinks with sparkling water and different syrup. My rule is typically two or three drinks when I go out. No more than three, but sometimes I have gone to four recently, specifically on dates because I'm like, this is so much fun. I don't want the night to end.
I'm having so much fun. I'm having such a great time. I don't want the night to end. Let's go have another drink. And really, it's okay. I can give myself permission to have a mocktail. So I can have up to three drinks and then I need to switch to mocktails. I've also thought about maybe I also drive. And I sent the intention of I'm gonna drive instead of Uber. That way I am really conscious and aware of how much I'm drinking. This is where you get to decide what rules work for you. You get to create the rules that work best. That for me is really helpful because again, it's about the person that I'm with. It's not about the alcohol. And I do like trying new flavors and new cocktails or new wine, doing wine tastings, things like that. I do enjoy that. And so it's still keeping that within certain parameters around, okay, I can still try new mocktails, I can still try alcohol Free options. Really decide what feels best for you. We gotta be able to assess and look backwards and figure out, all right, where did I go wrong? Where could I have done better? What didn't work about last night? What didn't work about last year? How could I do things better next time? And so it's in this evaluation process when we can let go of the shame and we can let go of the judgment. We can truly evaluate and decide, here's what I want to do differently now. Next time, know that it's okay. It's normal that we emotionally eat because we're having so much fun, because of positive reasons and positive emotions. But when we make it about the people and the community, we take the emphasis off of needing to eat or drink a certain thing. The other thing that I just did too, as I'm like thinking about this, especially with the alcohol and the drinks, is rather than doing plain water, I'll do water with lemon or lime, or I'll bring a propel water or sometimes like a Gatorade hydration water, something like that, where it's not just plain water. Because I feel like switching from, like, fun, fancy cocktails or wine to water. I'm like, that's boring, right? So we have to know what are we telling ourselves about switching to something else or to drinking a glass of water? And then how do we fix that? How do we solve that? So maybe it's you drink a Gatorade, give yourself options here. And then when you're planning or you're going to an event, you can bring stuff with you. I keep water in the car, different things like that. Give yourself permission to make this your own. And then I have a bonus here.
The bonus number four is you can make new holiday traditions that don't involve food or drink. So one of my new traditions, or one that I've gotten back into recently, has been doing a run, like a turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning. And they often have them all over the country. I did one with my best friend in Pensacola a couple years ago. I'm doing one this year. I didn't do one in D.C. last year. But just looking at. Okay, even when I'm traveling, I can still choose to decide. Here's what I want to do. This would be really fun and really enjoyable.
Now I am a little upset because it's going to be like 30 degrees tomorrow morning when I'm running, but that's okay. And I really don't run all that much. This is not a race. I'm not racing for time. I did not train for this. I literally signed up last week. Maybe this is what's fun. And so now we can decide, here's what we want to do. In the past, I've traveled when I didn't have my son, so I would travel often with him to go see family for Christmas or Thanksgiving. But then when I'm by myself, I'll also travel. So I'll go meet up with friends or. Last year at Christmas, I did a solo trip to the mountains in Tennessee. Such an amazing trip. Oh, my gosh, I loved it. I had such a great time and it was still a big time of healing and processing for me. There were still some tears and it was all okay. It was all safe. And I didn't need Thanksgiving or Christmas Day to look a certain way or to have certain food, and I wasn't missing out. And I still was able to call and talk with friends and family, and it was just a really amazing experience.
I decided not to travel this year for Thanksgiving. It just felt a little too much not what I wanted to do. I know that I'm still gonna have a great time. And now that I'm, like, fighting this cold yet again, we might be changing course here and pivoting. So now it's more of being able to roll with it, knowing that we can have good intentions, we can have good desires, and we still need to figure out what this is going to look like. We still might need to pivot, we might need to change course, we might need to shift or do things a little bit differently. And that's okay. This is your permission. Do it your own way, create your own rules, and really lean into these beliefs of I can make new holiday traditions.
They don't have to involve food or drink, but you can also make new traditions and new, even new food rules around the holidays. You have a great time because of the people that you're with, not because of what you're eating or drinking. It's the experience, it's the memories that you're making, and it's the emotions that is often what we remember. And there's a quote of, we don't always remember what people say, but we remember how they made us feel. And I think that's really powerful.
You remember how you feel in these moments, and often we attach them to certain situations or sometimes to certain things like food or where you're located. But you can feel this way at any point.
You are not responsible for anyone else's thoughts or emotions. Okay? You did not cause them. You don't need to fix them. And you can eat or drink this anytime.
Even if it's super amazing. You can come back and get it again next week or the week after, or plan another trip there and have it again later. And when I think about all the amazing food and drinks that I've had in my life so far, I know that there's more still to come. There's still more out there that's still amazing and still gonna blow my mind. And I can enjoy it, but also be so mindful that is not the core of my hope and joy and love in life. All right, going to sign off here. I hope you all have a fabulous holiday week. If you are celebrating, I am thankful and grateful for you. I hope you have a wonderful week. And I will be back next week when Holy shenanigans. We are in December and I have so much fun stuff planned for us and for this podcast. So have a fabulous weekend. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: If this episode resonated with you. It's time to break. Break free from destructive cycles around food, alcohol and toxic relationships. Your next step Book your free Break the Cycle call where you'll finally see why your binge eating and relationship patterns are so deeply connected and how to break free from both for good.
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[00:29:17] Speaker B: I'll show you how.
