227. What Did You Learn About Food Growing Up?

[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. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Y' all ready? [00:00:19] Speaker A: Let's go. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Hey. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Hey. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Welcome back. And welcome to a new month on the podcast where we are going to be diving more into the topic of relationships. As I started thinking about my divorce story and sharing that one of the really essential pieces was I have to tell you about how I grew up. We have to actually set the stage, because divorce didn't happen in a vacuum, and I didn't stay in that dysfunctional relationship out of nowhere. It was because I learned how to survive a dysfunctional childhood. I learned how to survive that type of person when I was growing up with them and calling him dad. This was one of the common threads that I've noticed is that not only would people come to me for weight loss and emotional eating, and then they would also have somebody extremely antagonistic or narcissistic in their life. Usually it was multiple people, but there's usually at least one. And then we have to trace that back to childhood. And not only was there a dysfunctional childhood that they grew up with the parent, but there's also a dysfunctional relationship with food and sometimes with alcohol. As we explore more of these pieces, this is why we have to bring it all together. And this is why other diets miss the boat. This is why just a new eating protocol, a new form of exercise, just being more consistent. Your habits alone are not going to solve your problems. They're not going to solve your emotional eating or your binge eating. They're not going to heal you from relationship trauma. They're not going to create the body that you truly crave to where you can keep it. Habits alone are not enough. It's fascinating because that is what the diet and fitness industry banks on. That is the lie that they sell you is that if you try hard enough, you can be successful. If you try hard enough, you can look like this cover model. And what does that sound like? Does it remind you a little bit of that person in your life who was like, if you try hard enough, you'll earn my love. You'll earn your keep. You'll earn my presence in your life. You'll earn praise and validation. We've got to wake up and recognize the typical diet and fitness industry is a very dysfunctional place to be. So let's now look at this eyes wide open. Because there is nothing wrong with wanting to make better food choices. There's nothing wrong with wanting to level up, to make healthier choices, to feel more in control of our cravings and our urges. There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve our consistency, to build better habits. That is not a problem in and of itself. But we have to really look at how trauma has impacted our body. We need to look at our internal metabolic health, our immune system, gut health. We need to look at our hormonal balance. And these are important factors. So often we think I should be able to lose weight with just diet and exercise, and that is false. It is maybe 1% of the population that can do that. I bet there are some people out there, but they are the exception, not the rule. But they get touted around as being the poster child for a particular company, the poster child of this diet, the poster child of this gym. And we love success stories. But I know that everybody listening also values their mental and emotional health as well. It is not just about the physical weight that we carry. It is the mental and emotional weight that we carry, not just from the diet rollercoaster, but from growing up in a dysfunctional home, from being married to a dysfunctional person for years or possibly decades. That is the mental and emotional weight that we carry. And for a long time, I saw it so much through the lens of weight and body image. And I saw the mental weight that I carried around food and my worthiness being attached to my size or my shape or how I looked in certain clothes. But I didn't fully recognize until a couple years ago how much my worth and value was tied to somebody else's approval, to somebody else's place in my life. I didn't recognize all of the ways in which I was outsourcing my worth and my value. So to bring it back to what we're actually talking about, I'm setting the stage for what we're going to do the rest of this month and maybe even the rest of this year. Because we really need to be able to explore our childhood and really understand where these beliefs and these thoughts came from. Because when we can become aware of what happened, when we understand why or where things came up, now we can make better conscious choices in the moment. And then this will help us now as we look to the future of where do you want to go? And now, bridging that gap. But there are multiple pieces that we want to bring together, and I don't want to underestimate or undervalue the impact that a dysfunctional home has on you. Now as an adult, let's talk about food today. I feel like this is a nice little segue into talking about our childhood drama in the past and how that often leads to then adult relationship dysfunction. So what did you learn about food growing up? This podcast actually was sparked by an email that I sent last week. But what I've recognized is that so many of our beliefs about food as adults actually stem from when we're really young little kids, 5, 6, 7 years old. Because our brains are just soaking up everything like a sponge. And we really don't get to that rebellious stage where we're doing things our own way until we get to that 16 year old timeframe. But we still carry with us the weight of how it should be, what you should be doing the right way. And when you grow up in dysfunction, I don't want to say that you are automatically designated to have certain traits, but I don't know a single person who has grown up in dysfunction that did not also struggle with hypervigilance, people pleasing, perfectionism, low self worth or self esteem, at least at some points in their life. I was sharing too how my emotional eating and binge eating habit had seasonality to it. Some seasons were really low. I really wasn't eating that much. I felt really in control of myself and my food choices. But sometimes I felt completely out of control. And so even though it was 14 years, it wasn't. Every single day of those 14 years there was an ebb and a flow to it. Just like there can be an ebb and a flow to our perfectionism or people pleasing or confidence or self worth. Sometimes we feel like it's at a good level, other times it might feel like it's really low. And this is often what drives us to seek coping mechanisms because it's like that's really what it all goes back to. As I was thinking about this driving force of emotional eating, emotional drinking, a lot of it, it really all stems back to childhood trauma, why you get into that toxic relationship. It's childhood trauma and I don't think it needs to be the only thing. But I do think there is room to be talking about that more. I'm going to go first. I'm going to share things that I did not put together until now, things that might feel embarrassing. And the goal is not to make the other person look bad. The goal is not to just point the finger and throw somebody under the bus. The goal is to look at this happened and here's what I made that mean, here's how I interpreted it, here's what I learned, here's what I picked up. And we need to be able to recognize it becomes now what am I going to do about it? That's how we find growth and healing. We need to be able to put responsibility where there was poor conduct. But we also need to recognize once we see that and notice that like for me as a grown woman now, I do not get to just blame my childhood trauma for how I'm behaving now. That is mine to own, to figure out and to fix. So this is not here for us to play a victim, but we do need to call a spade a spade. And that is where some people have issues is when I was used to sweeping things under the rug and now I'm actually calling it out. So anyways, let's bring this back to food though. I'm like planting lots of seeds for what's coming up the rest of the month, but let's get back to food. So for the women, I think you likely learn things based on your mom and her thoughts about food, her weight, her dieting habits. You, you learned based on what food was available or restricted. Just like men also learn they have body image things that are put on them. There is a certain expectation about how tall a man is, how muscular he is, right. And so it's just a little bit different. It's like almost the inverse of a woman. Like a woman for a long time it was like the goal and the strive was to be skinny. That was the ultimate compliment. That's how you wanted to look, that's who you wanted to be. You wanted to be the skinny girl. Because the skinny girl always seemed to be praised and to be popular and to be the most liked. As she got the most attention, it always seemed to revolve around her size, shape, weight. But if you called a man skinny, that would be an insult. He wanted to be jacked and buff. But there are certain expectations that men have of their body too, and their composition and how they carry their weight, things like that. And so this is not just a female only thing. It definitely impacts both sides of the coin. But this is often where we can learn how we are loved or accepted or what makes us good or worthy. And so much of that can really stem from just what we observed. Even if somebody didn't tell you directly to your face, it's like what we observed or it's the indirect telling of certain foods being restricted, certain foods not being Purchased, even things like, my ex will say this to my son sometimes, and it drives me nuts. But he's like, oh, sugar is poisonous. And I'm like, no, no, no, sugar is sugar. It is not poison. We need to stop demonizing and villainizing this because it is that restriction that drives the binge behavior. If you remember growing up, was there a girl? I'm gonna just talk about a girl who grew up in a very restricted home. Maybe with food, maybe with going to parties, having friends, maybe it was reading non Christian books or movies or things that were, quote, secular. And then when she got either off to high school, maybe into college, or at least out of the house, what typically happened, nine times out of 10, that girl would go buck wild, right? She would lose her mind. She was the one drinking the most, raging the most. There was no limit because it had been previously so restricted. This is how our brains are wired. We wanna be really aware of how that restriction may have created a sense of all or nothing, good and evil, some of those aspects. So I'm gonna just share some of the most common things that you may have learned. And then I'm gonna share a story about where I was shamed because I was no longer following the food rules of the house. One of the thoughts and beliefs that we've talked about a little bit on here is, you know, you have to clean your plate. Don't waste food, don't throw it away. That's bad, it's shamed, it's scolded, right? And so you learn that you have to clean your plate. I've also heard from some women where they grew up and they learned the men eat first and the men get dibs on seconds first. And so it was this sense of, you shouldn't need as much food and you don't get as much. But it was really interesting because she was like, even as an adult, even if I'm still hungry, I feel like I have to wait for my husband to finish and make sure he gets a second portion before I get more. We learn to not trust our own body. There are times where pausing before getting seconds is actually great. But sometimes we learn things that have us mistrusting our body and what it's actually telling us. You might have also learned to get it while the getting's good. Whether it was maybe your parents living paycheck to paycheck, maybe your parents didn't cook a lot, maybe you grew up with just one parent, maybe there were multiple kids. And if you grew up with older siblings and Other family members who ate a lot of food. It was like, you've got to get it while it's available and while it's there, otherwise somebody else would get it. And so now you don't just eat a couple cookies, you might eat a whole sleeve. You don't just eat a piece of cheesecake, you eat all four of them. It's not always this driving force and like a conscious thought, it's more of like, well, it's here and I can't trust that it's gonna be here tomorrow if I want it, so I better get my fill of it now. It makes a lot of sense when we like logic it out in our brains and this is where we need to have a lot of compassion and understanding. These are the little thoughts, the little beliefs, the little permission giving thoughts or justifications that we use to eat, that we use to give in to our cravings and our urges. And this is part of why, if your brain is just running on autopilot, it's why you're giving into that urge. You don't maybe even want the food. You don't know why exactly. You have such a strong desire, yet you also can't seem to say no or walk away, or you don't know what is always compelling you. When we understand these thoughts and beliefs and things that we've really adopted now we can be on the lookout for them. Now we can talk back to them. Now we can. Instead of feeling like we're in this like hostage negotiation room where we're trying to deal with this like raging desire for the cookies, we can actually have a calm conversation with ourselves. And we know that it's not urgent. We feel more in control. And my goal is that you feel more peace and ease. And food can become neutral, but it can't become neutral if it's a coping mechanism. It can't become neutral if it's the highlight of your day. It can't become neutral if you now feel the shame of eating it because that was a bad food, that was poisonous. Shame on you for eating that bad food. These are the internal cycles that we have to break. That is your relationship with food. That is one piece of how we handle the cravings and the urges. This is why most other programs, diets, protocols, they're going to tell you just don't eat it, have more willpower, don't buy the bad foods, do a pantry, clean out. They're going to try to give you tools to not eat because those are the options. It's either you give in and now you're bad. Or you just fight and resist your way as long as possible. For some people, sometimes you can do it for a couple weeks. You might even be able to do it for a couple months. But eventually you want to live your life again. Eventually your willpower wears out. So let's get back to some of the things that you learned. So you may have learned that certain foods or food groups were bad or off limits. Maybe things like sweets were heavily restricted in your house growing up. And so if you went to a friend's house where it was more relaxed, then you might have been like, you might have had more fun with the food versus with your friend. It was like, oh, what do we get to eat when we're going over there? Because that's where you actually get to have the snack food, the junk food, things like that. Maybe you learned to be ashamed of your size, shape, or weight. Maybe you were shamed for getting a second portion or a second helping. Then on the flip side, you might have also been shamed for not cleaning your plate and you were forced to eat even though you were physically not hungry. So this is where it's like, while there's this overarching aspect of shame around food, that can be for either end of the spectrum, because I also know some people who were shamed for being skinny girls who felt like shame and discomfort and awkwardness for being skinny because they wanted to feel normal, they wanted to be athletic, they wanted to look like all the other girls. Right. I think so much of this is like wanting to fit in, wanting to be a part of the group, a part of the community, a part of, like, having friends, like, being accepted, being valued. And it's often so much of what we learn can come from that dysfunctional home that we grow up in. And then we learn that we scan for other people's emotions so that we can scan for how do we need to fit in. And sometimes we mistakenly think it has to do more with our body and our size, shape, or weight than it does with who we are and the character of who we are and our personality. This is where it's easy to fall into, like, any type of label of, oh, I'm the funny one. I make people laugh. That's how I'm loved. That's how I'm valued. That's how I'm approved of. So we can see this play out with, like, personality traits and with people pleasing just as much as we can with something like, well, I'm the funny kid. I'm the class clown. I make people laugh. So much of these thoughts and these beliefs, these are ingrained in us by 7, 8 years old. We learn them young. We learn before the age of eight, and then they get reinforced over time. They get reinforced then as a teenager, as a young adult, as a married adult, in your 30s, 40s, and beyond, it's like these just get reinforced. You might have also been in a family that struggled more with their weight and were overweight. And so it was like you were picked on and shamed and mocked because you were the skinniest of the group. So there was like shade being thrown your way, right? All projection, all their internal shit coming out on you. But then you were shamed even more if you ever dared to want to get healthier, want to get in better shape, want to be fitter. When I was young, I would say by the time I was seven or eight, there were thoughts about my body and I was fat. And then there was evidence as I got older that reinforced. Even if I wasn't fat, then it was like, oh, this must mean I was fat back then. So from a very young age, there were a lot of thoughts about my body, thoughts about food and, like, how to look skinnier and what was ideal. And then when I was 15, my family, we moved overseas to Tbilisi, Georgia. So we are in a. What felt like a third world country at the time was probably more second world. It was run down and dilapidated after their civil war, after the fall of the Soviet Union. And so it just. It was a. It was a tough place to live at that time. So I'm in high school. We know no other Americans, no other English speakers. We just feel so isolated. And I have two younger sisters at this point. And so we kind of start to find a routine. And part of our nightly routine was we would try and go find a new movie that we could get in English, usually some type of bootlegged version that was recorded in the theater, like secretly. But we find a movie in English and then we would get an American candy bar. And eventually we worked up to where we had a pretty good selection of movies to pick from. But we would still go and get our American style candy bar. And they never quite tasted the same, but it was just like this little bit of home, this little bit of comfort. And my sister and I talked about this several years ago when she was writing her book, because she was retelling and sharing some of our story. And this example came up of, yeah, no wonder we use food to feel Better. No wonder we use food to cope and to comfort. Now it's look at what was taught to us growing up. It was never said out loud, but there was this unspoken, this will make me feel better. This makes us feel a little bit like we're at home when we're not. There came a point a couple weeks in where I noticed I don't need a whole candy bar. So I would start saving little bits. Sometimes it was just a couple bites, sometimes it was a quarter, maybe a third, sometimes maybe it was even half. But it was like we were getting them every night and I didn't need a whole one every single night, so I would save them. So after a couple weeks of that, I had this little stash of probably 6 to 10 partially eaten candy bars and with leftover things. And in my mind I'm like, I'm going to save this for when I really want it. I didn't really want it in the moment, so. So I'll save it for a time when I do really want it. And my dad came into my room at some point and he looked at that and he laughed. But then he started mocking me and teasing me and he was saying I was a hoarder, I was hoarding candy and that I was a miser. And he was basically projecting all of his own fears and issues about himself, especially with money. He was now projecting onto me. And I remember thinking, I have done nothing wrong. I'm 15 at this point. Don't like him very much, have hated him my whole life. That has not changed. But I just remember thinking, what the hell, I have literally done nothing wrong here, number one. Number two, I, I could tell and in my brain there was a little bit of processing of he's just mad at himself because he doesn't have the self control to not eat the whole candy bar. There was enough awareness in my mind at that age where I couldn't fully put my finger on what was happening, but there was enough to know. I think he's really just mad that he can't do this, but this is actually a really great skill to have for a kid to be like, you know what, I only need a little bit and that's good. And I'm going to save this for later. This whole aspect of delayed gratification, what a great skill set to teach a kid. And instead I was shamed. And so it was really interesting because it was almost like the family accepted this motto of we use food for comfort. Food makes us feel better and you better eat it. All. And if you do hit save any, now you're a hoarder, now you're a miser. And now there is shame because you are not falling in line with the family rules, with these unspoken family beliefs and these rules about how we are supposed to operate. It's wild. It's fascinating to see. And looking back, I don't know that he realized what he was doing. I guarantee he didn't realize what he was doing because he's emotionally abusive and narcissistic. This is just who he is. And I would say my emotional eating and binge eating habit really seemed to escalate more in college. And then after college, it was certainly several years later. It's almost this damned if you do, damned if you don't. There was shame on my mom for being overweight and criticism for her for being overweight or eating the, quote, bad food or not having more willpower. And then there was shame for me, if I am saving it. Those become the impactful moments. That's what we have to unwind and unpack and make sure that we're not still holding onto. But it's moments like that, it's conversations like that. This is part of the process, this is part of the journey. But this is definitely a piece of handling urges and cravings now is we have to understand our relationship with food. We have to change our relationship with food. We have to look at our food rules or diet rules and what it is that we think, I can't eat this and still lose weight. I can't eat this and still maintain my weight. Because it's not just about losing it. Right. I think for many people are very much. It's. It's not just about losing it. It's the anguish and the suffering of trying to keep it off, like fighting like hell to try to make sure it stays off. It was like this internal fear and anxiety that I had. I was always on a diet and I was always dieting because I couldn't relax. It was like, no, I have to keep this. I have to keep my body the exact same way it is. And there were times when I could do the exact same habits and it felt like my body wasn't cooperating. And so while the goal is not necessarily always lose weight, I think the first step has to become, we heal our relationship with food. We create a healthy relationship with it instead of being at war with it. And we have to break free from emotional eating or binge eating. When we start to do that, it creates more freedom in our body, to get our body back to processing the way that it's supposed to. But one of the things that I've mentioned with many people now has been it's maybe really hard for your body to release weight. It just might feel unsafe. It's not that it can't or it will never, but wanting to also manage expectations of. We need to create safety for your body to do this. And there is a psychological safety, but there's also a physical safety. And there are internal things that we cannot see from the outside that habits alone are not going to fix. That habits alone are not going to impact your biology, and your survival mechanisms will override that. For better or worse, this becomes our work. All right, I think that's it for today. This is gonna be a really fun month of just getting to explore and go deeper on some of these other topics. In the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna be sharing more of my divorce story. I'm gonna give you the prelude and share a little bit more of how I grew up and really the trauma and abuse that I grew up with, because it was really that the waking up to that became the catalyst to waking up to the dysfunction in my marriage. And so whether yours, you know, regardless of which dysfunctional relationship you wake up to first, we need to recognize and understand the impact of both. But we'll do that next time. If this has spoken to you, if this has resonated, your next best step is to schedule a free consultation. Come talk to me, and I'm gonna help you to better understand how to break free from these diet rules, the traps around food and body image, and really understanding all of the aspects of healing so that way you can create the life and body you crave. That's what this is all about. We need a healthy relationship with food. We need to end the war with it. We need to learn how to stop using it as a coping mechanism and to feel better. And we need to learn how to handle our cravings and how to do it from a place of love and compassion. And instead of punishment and white knuckling and willpower, it's just a different way than we've ever been taught. But you can do this. If you'd like some help, schedule a consultation. I'll drop the link in the description, and I'll help you better understand how to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. All right, y' all have a fantastic week. Here's to creating the life and body you crave. If this episode resonated with you. [00:26:11] Speaker A: It's time to break from free from destructive cycles around food, alcohol and toxic relationships. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Your next step? [00:26:18] Speaker A: 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. You'll walk away with fierce clarity and a game plan to step into a life full of fun, adventure and self love. Grab your spot now at www.bodyucrave.com VTC. It's time to break the cycle. [00:26:45] Speaker B: I'll show you how.