The Hidden Hunger: Understanding Emotional Eating in Midlife and Beyond with Tricia Nelson - Episode 275

Important Links:

Get in touch with Tricia Nelson here:  https://healyourhunger.com/

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Imagine eating not because you're truly hungry, but because you're trying to fill an emotional void. That's the reality for countless people struggling with emotional eating – a challenge that expert Tricia Nelson knows intimately.

In this deeply personal conversation, Tricia shares her powerful journey of losing 50 pounds by healing the root causes of her emotional eating. She offers a refreshingly honest definition that cuts through the confusion: emotional eating is simply "eating to change how you feel." This insight immediately shifts our understanding away from willpower and toward emotional awareness.

Tricia reveals why carbohydrates and sugary foods become such powerful comfort tools – they provide a quick serotonin hit that temporarily calms our anxiety. But as she explains, this strategy ultimately backfires, especially as we age and our bodies change. For midlife women experiencing hormonal shifts and accumulated life stressors, emotional eating often intensifies, creating a frustrating cycle that diets alone cannot fix.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Tricia challenges popular approaches like intermittent fasting, which she's found can actually worsen emotional eating patterns. Instead, she advocates for what she calls "three meal magic" – a structured approach that allows true hunger signals to emerge and emotions to be recognized rather than numbed with food.

"Overeaters are overdoers," Tricia explains, pinpointing how busyness serves as another numbing strategy alongside food. Her practical guidance on slowing down, creating community, and finding true nourishment beyond food offers a roadmap for anyone tired of the endless diet-binge cycle.

Whether you're struggling with occasional stress eating or more serious food addiction, this episode provides compassionate insights and actionable steps toward healing your relationship with food

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Balanced Living
• 1:33 Summer Reboot Series Preview
• 4:14 Support and Follow the Podcast
• 8:15 Interview with Tricia Nelson Begins
• 10:07 Understanding Emotional Eating
• 16:00 Identifying Your Emotional Eating Patterns
• 22:57 The Need for Self-Awareness
• 32:25 Creating Healthy Eating Patterns
• 40:15 Food Addiction vs. Stress Eating
• 51:10 Finding Support and Healing
• 56:13 Episode Closing

Transcript

Sandy Kruse: 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Sandy Kruse of Sandy K Nutrition, health and Lifestyle Queen. For years now, I've been bringing to you conversations about wellness from incredible guests from all over the world. Discover a fresh take on healthy living for midlife and beyond, one that embraces balance and reason, without letting only science dictate every aspect of our wellness. Join me and my guests as we explore ways that we can age gracefully, with in-depth conversations about the thyroid, about hormones and other alternative wellness options for you and your family. True wellness nurtures a healthy body, mind, spirit and soul, and we cover all of these essential aspects to help you live a balanced, joyful life. Be sure to follow my show, rate it, review it and share it. Always remember my friends balanced living works. My friends, balanced Living Works. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy Kay Nutrition, health and Lifestyle Queen.

Sandy Kruse: 1:33

Today with me, I have Tricia Nelson and we're going to talk all about emotional eating. I figured this is a great conversation to have. You know a lot of people are thinking about their summer bods and all of that, so I thought this is a great way to end my season and kick off with my summer reboot series. I've decided to start my summer reboot series a little earlier because I have so many incredible episodes that I've recorded in the last year. So some of the episodes that I am going to replay will be all about sober living Another one that's a great topic because many of us over consume alcohol in the summer. So Jenn Kautch is a great advocate just for sober living. I'm going to have Kristine Carlson you know, don't sweat the small stuff, she's coming back. I'm going to have Udo Erasmus. I'm going to have Richard Johnson talk to us all about sugar. Dr Daved Rosensweet his first recording with me all about menopause. I'm going to replay that because in the fall he's coming back to us with a brand new episode. I'm going to do another great episode, a reboot of my thyroid episode with Dr Amie. I'm going to actually have Brenda come back to talk to us all about beam therapy. Evette Rose, metaphysical anatomy. Oh my God, you guys, I have so many incredible episodes that I will replay for you so that you can listen to these episodes that you might've missed in the winter on your drive to that cottage. It's perfect time for that.

Sandy Kruse: 3:34

A couple of announcements. So I do not do any promotion, meaning I don't use agencies. I don't have anybody to help me with my podcast editing. I don't use anybody to push my downloads or my views or anything or to help in that area, so I rely solely on my own personal social media, what I do there, and then on sharing. So I'm going to ask you, whoever is listening to this, to share with just one person. So that will go so far to keep me going into the new season starting in September.

Sandy Kruse: 4:22

The other thing that really helps is for you to actually review my podcast. Just with a few kind words, probably on Apple, is the best way you can give a five-star rating and then you scroll down a little bit to write a review. If you write a review, let me know. Please send me an email, sandy, at sandyknutritionca. I want to personally thank you if you do that for me, because it means the world and it's how I keep having amazing guests come back each and every week.

Sandy Kruse: 5:01

I'm still going to be around, so follow me, even though I am going to be doing the summer reboot series. Please be sure that you are following me on Instagram. I'm most active. I'm on Instagram. Facebook. I have a private Facebook group. I have my page. I'm on Tik TOK. It's Sandy K nutrition everywhere. Again, when you follow me, you actually support me and my content.

Sandy Kruse: 5:30

I'm also a writer. I'm very active on Substack, so you can follow me there. It's more about explorative writing to help you think about your health as it relates to you as an individual, versus telling you how to think about health. So you can follow me on Substack. It's sandycruz, s-a-n-d-y, K-R-U-S-E dot. Substackcom. All of this will be in the show notes.

Sandy Kruse: 6:01

I really just want to send out a very heartfelt thank you to all of you who follow my podcast wherever you're listening. You know that if you're not sure where you can follow, go to sandycruzca, s-a-n-d-y, k-r-u-s-eca, and then you kind of scroll down a little bit and you'll see where my podcast is so that you can be sure to follow it. I'm everywhere you guys, but I hit five years of episodes in February. I'm calling it going into my fifth season. It's just the way I split it up that September.

Sandy Kruse: 6:40

I change over seasons, but this podcast and I want to speak so from the heart is solely from the heart, and we've come into this world of AI and this world of pay to play and we really don't know who's paying for what title, to gain what status, and what's true, what's not, and what I can say is that I have built this brand primarily a hundred percent on my own, with very little help, and I do this because I am mostly a hero's journey. I'm not here to see how much money I can earn from this affiliate discount code, like a lot of these other wellness influencers, and I'm not trying to put them down Listen, people need to earn money but what I can say is that I come from a place of integrity. I come from a place of my hero's journey and I come from a place of just wanting to help others live and figure out what it is they need to live a healthier and happier life. So I appreciate all of you and happier life. So I appreciate all of you. I want to thank you and I'm now going to cut on through to this episode all about emotional eating. Thanks, hi everyone. Welcome to Sandy K Nutrition, health and Lifestyle Queen.

Sandy Kruse: 8:19

Today with me, I have a special guest. Her name is Tricia Nelson, and Tricia lost 50 pounds by identifying and healing the underlying causes of her emotional eating, and that's what we're going to talk about today. You guys, it's going to be such a great conversation because Tricia is an emotional eating specialist and a TED Talks speaker whose talk has garnered over 2 million views on YouTube. She's the author of the number one bestselling book, heal your Hunger Seven Simple Steps to End Emotional Eating. Now Tricia is the host of the podcast, the Heal your Hunger Show, and has spent over 30 years researching the hidden causes of addictive personality.

Sandy Kruse: 9:13

Tricia has been featured on NBC, cbs, ktla Fox and Discovery Health, and today, as you guessed, we're going to be talking about emotional eating, but we're going to kind of hone in also on why it seems to kind of get worse as we get older. And I know this because there's so many of you who listen to my podcast, who follow me on Instagram, and we talk about this Like it's like we never had this problem before. Why do we have it now? So it's going to be a great conversation with that. Welcome, tricia. Thank you so much for coming.

Tricia Nelson: 9:52

Thanks for having me. It's great to be on your show, yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 9:55

So we obviously I gave a little bit of a preamble there that you have lost 50 pounds and kept it off, like give us a detail on your story. I think that's very important to the conversation.

Tricia Nelson: 10:10

You bet. Yeah, I mean, the reason I do what I do is because it does come from my personal experience. My message comes from my mess. So I think, as far back as I can remember, I was an emotional eater and I didn't really know what that meant. I was in my teens and my sister came home one day from school and announced that she was an emotional eater and I thought, well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. So I'm like that's not me, I just like food. But once you hear something, it's hard to unhear it.

Tricia Nelson: 10:45

And what happened for me as I began to just observe my relationship with food and it was different than my friends? Like we'd go out to eat somewhere, you know, and they'd order a sandwich and it would come with fries. They'd eat their sandwich and pick at their fries. Well, I would pick up my fry. I mean, I would eat my fries and pick up my sandwich. Like I'm like how? And I'd look at them and think, how could you ever leave French fries on your plate? You know, that's the best part.

Tricia Nelson: 11:13

And so for me, I was really somebody who was obsessed with food, obsessed with my weight. So it was really. I was 50 pounds overweight by the age of 21. So it was, but really I was 50 pounds overweight by the age of 21. And it was in part because I was not only an emotional eater but I was a binge eater as well and I could eat you know 2000 calories in a sitting just sitting and watching TV, and I would go back for more cereal and more cereal, you know, or bread or chips, or you know, candies, whatever ice cream. So I was. I love sugar and carbs and obviously I packed on pounds because of that. So that's kind of how it went for me. And I felt very hopeless because I had tried so many diets, I did so many diets and exercise programs, but I always put the weight back on. And it really wasn't until I started to identify the fact that I was an emotional eater and what that really meant.

Tricia Nelson: 12:14

I met somebody who became my mentor, who helped me. He had been morbidly obese. He lost over 100 pounds, not through diet, you know, not through medications or anything. He lost over 100 pounds not through diet, you know, not through medications or anything, but really more on a spiritual journey of addressing the things he buried for so long. I mean all kinds of emotions. It just wasn't, you know, it wasn't something I had ever dealt with. I mean, I had experiences as a child that I just buried with food, and so I was a snacker and a binger, and so it's just important, you know, instead of slapping a diet on it which will never last I mean 90, 90% of all diets fail I had to take that more introspective journey and do different things to heal my stress.

Tricia Nelson: 12:59

And we can get into all that, but that's that was my. That was what happened. And then, because I was able to lose weight and keep it off, I started helping my mentor, help others, and for decades that's what we've been doing. And I started my own company, heal your Hunger, about eight years ago to help women specifically and to help them online. I now have a version for men as well, but it was really important that I put in a codified way and it's my book as well this step-by-step process to take this journey and to heal at a deeper level. So that's what I've been doing and I love doing it.

Sandy Kruse: 13:41

That's great. I mean, I think a lot of people will be able to identify with what you just said, and I just want to preface this conversation. If we mentioned or if we mention anything relating to disordered eating, we just want I think it's important that we mention this we are not giving any kind of medical advice here. If something comes up in conversation, it's important that we mention this. We are not giving any kind of medical advice here. If something comes up in conversation, it's for discussion purposes only. Please see your own practitioner on what might be right for you, because I know Tricia is an expert in emotional eating, but there's so much more that comes into that, like trauma, like childhood experiences and all of that. So I just think it's important that we mentioned that at the start of the conversation. Beautiful, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think it's a good place to start. Tricia is what is emotional eating? Because, like, how do you identify that you're an emotional eater?

Tricia Nelson: 14:48

Yeah, good question. You know the the. To me, the simplest and really the easiest way to explain emotional eating is it's eating to change how you feel. It's eating to feel better. Obviously, you don't eat to feel worse, you eat to feel better. Um, you end up feeling worse if you go overboard, um, but initially it's like huh, like I don't, like, I'm just it's, it's nothing you put your finger on, you're just like.

Tricia Nelson: 15:15

You know, oftentimes people like I eat over boredom, you know which. It may be more than that, but initially you're like I want something to do. So you go to the refrigerator and you eat. Typically, it's not actually boredom, it's an uncomfortability with just being with yourself and your emotions, you know. Or the gaps, you know the quiet.

Tricia Nelson: 15:34

That's hard for people who are emotional eaters. We like activity, we like adrenaline, we like to be busy. Overeaters are overdoers, so we're on the go and when we have that lull, it's uncomfortable and we want to fill it with something. So that's really what emotional eating is. And you know, as I said, some people are actual binge eaters, like I was meaning. Once you start, it's hard to stop and then you go overboard. Then you feel stuffed and sick and mad at yourself and your pants don't fit, you know, and that kind of thing. So there's really a spectrum for emotional eating and I have a quiz on my website that people can take which will teach them if they're an emotional eater or a food addict or somewhere in between. And so it's a spectrum and food addiction is on the higher end of that spectrum and I was definitely a food addict. And if you go by the kind of well-known or clinical telltale signs of, uh, when you start, you have trouble controlling how much you take, like how much you eat or use anything, this is kind of classic signs of addiction in general. Um, if you have negative consequences from what you're doing, um, if you have it, have a hard time scaling back or moderating. Um, you know, if your health is impacted, if family members are saying something like mom, I want you to be able to see my grandkids, you know, when they're born, I don't want you to die early, you know, and things like finances are affected. So there's a lot of consequences that happen when we're binge eaters that people don't think about, you know, or emotional eaters, and so the addiction side of it, when somebody takes that quiz on my website, they'll find it where they are on that spectrum.

Tricia Nelson: 17:35

Some people are just regular old emotional eaters and I think we're all emotional eaters to some degree, like I think we're hardwired to have an emotional connection with food, so we will eat. I mean, think of the beautiful side of it, which is a mother breastfeeding her child. It's a bonding experience, you know, which is over food, if you will. So there's good sides of it as well. It's just when we take it too far.

Tricia Nelson: 17:59

So the two things that really qualify where we end up on that spectrum the first one is the amount of control we do have. Like can we pull back If we go on a cruise and it's all you can eat, and we come home we're five pounds heavier and we're like, oh, I don't feel so great, I'm going to jog extra this week and I'm going to cut out sweets and then boom, those five pounds are off. That's someone with a lot of control. But there's other people like me who will come back. We're five pounds heavier and it's like we've opened the gate and then we just can't close the gate again, and so those five pounds turn into 10, turn to 15, and we've been in a funk for weeks on end, and so that's somebody who's on the higher end of the spectrum. They just don't have the control to course correct. And the that's somebody who's on the higher end of the spectrum. They just don't have the control to course correct.

Tricia Nelson: 18:47

And the other is consequences. If we're doing this yo-yo cycle and I was a yo-yo dieter, so I'd lose 10, gain 20, lose 15, gain 10. I was all over the map and I had like five different sizes of pants in my closet because I never knew what size I was going to be. If that's more what we do, we're going to have consequences, especially the longer we do it. So you talked about women who are older. My experience is, and my clients are older, they're 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and they've been at this for a long time. They've been trying to get control for a long time. They've tried numerous diets and exercise plans and their body's beat up. You know their body's beat up. They're diabetic or pre-diabetic. You know their hormones are definitely all whacked out and there's all kinds of you know heart issues and skin issues and autoimmune issues and things that happen when we beat our bodies up for long enough and especially with really crappy, unhealthy food.

Sandy Kruse: 19:58

Question in terms of women. I don't know if you know this. What are the stats of women? I don't know if you know this. What are the stats of women? I'm going to say women are more emotional eaters than men. Would you agree with that or no? You would know that better than I would.

Tricia Nelson: 20:17

Yeah, I mean, I personally I get very few inquiries from men. I mean I'm not a man, but I definitely think that's true. I think, you know, women are more emotional and we're also. You know, I think we do use food, probably for emotional reasons as a result as well, and we do have many hormonal shifts more often than men and that just drives us again eating to feel better, using food for comfort. I do think more women are emotional eaters than men and more women are apt to admit it than men, because men are a little more disconnected emotionally.

Sandy Kruse: 20:59

I also think that unbalanced hormones can be somewhat of a driver as well. I know like you're speaking more on the emotional side, but just as somebody who's worked with a lot of women who have had some issues with their hormones, that can sometimes be that driver, Like they don't feel well or even if you're just sick, like it's almost like a way to kind of soften that feeling, shitty feeling you know, yeah, eating to feel better Like you, just you feel you don't feel yourself like yourself and you just you're in a funk, you know.

Tricia Nelson: 21:43

Or you feel a little depressed and food works. I mean, the thing is it works, you know, it works temporarily to pick up our mood, to make us feel better. It's just that it comes with a host of negative consequences, which is often just feeling worse, like feeling worse emotionally and physically. I mean, if you eat too much, you feel bad. You know you feel bad. And then you have all the you know self-recrimination. Why did I do that? I wish I hadn't eaten that and you know I'm so. I lack willpower, I'm lazy, it's like there's a whole lot of things that come with it. So it definitely makes us feel worse, but in the moment it works to make us feel better.

Sandy Kruse: 22:21

Yeah, and I know that stress is a big factor in this emotional eating landscape and it's really interesting because I find myself all like I don't know if you would know this my daughter was sick at the age of five. She was diagnosed with cancer and during that time Tricia, it was like food was like poison to me. I couldn't eat, I just couldn't. But other times when I can't, kind of like what you said, I couldn't like I can't identify that feeling and then I'm like I'll just like eat this, eat a little chocolate, eat a little this little, that I need the carbs. So like, where do we even begin to identify? How do we start? I know you mentioned your quiz and kind of finding out what sort of an eater, but aren't most people kind of day-to-day different?

Tricia Nelson: 23:24

Absolutely. I think that what's really important is and I love that we're having this conversation and for those listening, it's really important that we just start observing, like observing our habits. You know, just like I was observing that french fries were more important to me than they were to my friends. It's like that carb hit, that greasy, yummy food that I loved. That was an emotional choice for me. So we make emotional choices around food. Even somebody who's not a binge eater, they're like oh, I'm not an emotional eater, but if you tend to want, you know, bread over vegetables or pasta, you know, if you go to a restaurant and you're always looking for the pasta option, the heavier option, those are emotional choices where you prefer potatoes over broccoli or bananas over apples or berries. Or, you know, the heavier, more carb or sugar dense choices are emotional choices because those foods they're heavier, they're heavier and they will coat our emotions. And again, we don't think I'm going to have pasta to coat my emotions. You know, you're like I want pasta. But with this conversation comes awareness and people can start observing that their choices are like like I want comfort, I want to, I want this food to do something for me, like to give me a hit that I'm lacking, you know, and so we really are. It's not just nourishment for us and it's not that we shouldn't enjoy our food. We must enjoy our food.

Tricia Nelson: 25:00

But if we're looking for more from that food, sometimes I'll say to my clients, like what do you that food you're obsessed with? What does it symbolize for you? Like, what are you that food you're obsessed with? What does it symbolize for you? Like, what are you trying to get from that food? And it's always like all these emotional things, like I want comfort, I want companionship, I want to feel better. You know, I want to feel safe and grounded. It's like all these emotional things we're trying to get from just an animate object, like just, you know, some flour and sugar. But we, it's like we were trying to get something from it that we need. It's something we're lacking emotionally. That's emotional eating. And if we can just observe what's really going on, it's a great start. Like to realize, wow, like I want more from this food than the food can give me for sure.

Sandy Kruse: 25:50

That's so interesting that you talk about like carbs or you know you were saying bananas as opposed to. I don't remember. If you said berries foods, the more comfort it's giving us.

Sandy Kruse: 26:13

Have you heard that you know when you know certain food? I don't know if this is true, maybe you know, but people who always need the crunch, like give me a bag of chips, give me this. I know that salt. See, like I'm going to look at it from a hormonal perspective. Typically salty foods would indicate there's stress, anger, because the salt your adrenals. It's like a sign with the adrenals and the stress.

Sandy Kruse: 26:43

And then there's the like you said having bread, having pasta, it's like that heavy feeling. So does that mean you have heavier feelings? It's like, how do you even correlate that?

Tricia Nelson: 26:58

So I don't, I don't typically go down that road of analyzing what foods do it for you, cause I think it's a little too analytical. So I really feel, like you know, as an overall rule, we want the food to help us in whatever way we need help. I mean, I liked carbs and sugar. Was it the crunchy or the sweet or the you know smooth, or the creamy, or you know, I don't, it's too in the weeds for me, like I want food to change how I feel. That's what I focus on is I don't, and that that means I don't want to feel what I'm feeling, you know. So to me, that's where we should be focusing, not analyzing, you know, how crunchy or soft or sweet our food is, but what we're trying to escape from, you know, what we're trying to distract from feeling, and to me that's really important.

Tricia Nelson: 27:59

So, whatever somebody's drug of choice is right, I mean like what the food is that they really crave. It's just we all, you know, different strokes for different folks, you know. And so I will say there's a tendency to eat the carbs and the sugar, in part because they do give us more of a physiological hit, like a serotonin hit. They do calm us, you know, and emotional eaters are anxious people like anxiety runs high for us, and so we're going to want the foods that will calm our anxiety. I mean, steak won't necessarily do it, you know. So we're. It's not usually meat we're overeating on, it's the carbs, you know. It's the carbs which metabolizes sugar in our bodies and give us that quick hit. They also give us that quick hit of energy, you know, and often we're, we are stressed out and we're tired, we're, we need a nap, but we're looking in the refrigerator for something to nosh on.

Sandy Kruse: 28:59

You know what actually that's true when you say that, so if I didn't have a great sleep and I know that, again, this can also relate to ghrelin and other hormones when you don't sleep well, so you'd like I don't know about you, but like if I'm not, if I don't have a good sleep, I will, somehow it's like I'm gonna go all day like feeling like I'm going to go all day like feeling like I'm missing something. It's like, okay, yes, I like, and I feel that and I'll be like, oh crap, Like I'm definitely eating a lot of garbage today. I didn't have a good sleep last night.

Sandy Kruse: 29:38

Or you know people who are, you know, big drinkers of alcohol, that that feeling that there's obviously a physical reason why you have gut rot because you drank booze the night before. But you know like it's like all still tied to how you feel. And even after a nap, like if I'll take like a little nap, I'll be like I'll immediately wake up and be like I need to eat something, you know, and it's like all these feelings are always tied to food, much more than just saying I'm hungry, I have hunger pains, yeah Right, Like even snacking.

Tricia Nelson: 30:20

We just don't think along those lines, you know. We don't think along, we just want to be comforted in that moment, you know, or get the energy boost in that moment. So it's really just about getting more conscious. You know, we typically as a culture aren't tuned into our emotions Like we have so many emotions over everything. Like everything that we do throughout the day.

Tricia Nelson: 30:41

There's an emotional impact, you know, and it may not be big. I mean just going sitting down and, you know, having lunch or watching television show, it's not deeply impactful emotionally. But the point is, you know, a phone call, an email, a deadline, these things all come with emotional impact and we're just not tuned in. So we're just looking for food and we don't realize there's a connection between our stress, how stressed out we are, how much pressure we feel, what thoughts are going through our head as we're trying to make a deadline. Like I'm so slow, why didn't I do it sooner? I'm not very smart, otherwise I'd get this. It'd be coming to me more easily Like there's a whole life going on inside of us that we're not very tuned into.

Sandy Kruse: 31:26

So what is okay. Like I, I agree, I think we live in a world of numbers. Like we're all numbers. Like let's numb through social media scrolling. Like I fully, I fully even admit to that and I'll, I'll say to my husband I'll be like, oh shit. Like I've been on Tik TOK for a half hour now. Like, yeah, total time suck. Right, like it's like a time suck, but it's numbing. Yeah, it's really, it's, you know it's. I think the awareness is key. So how do you teach somebody self awareness?

Tricia Nelson: 32:03

Well, you have a conversation about it, right, like you can't unhear this conversation, and once you hear about numbing, you know about distracting from what we're feeling. It at least gets us closer, like closer to the solution, and the solution really is to tune in. Slowing down is big, you know. As I said, overeaters are overdoers, so we tend to be super busy. We tend to love noise, so we might need to have the TV on or the radio on at all times. We're basically afraid to slow down and be with ourselves, because when we're with ourselves, we have emotions and we don't want to feel Like. The reason why we numb is because we don't want to feel what's going on inside of us, and I, at a young age, just decided feeling was for the birds, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, I want nothing to do with it, and so that's really what I needed to do is slow down. It's hard to do, and so it's really important to be in community with people who are on board with it. If you hang out with a bunch of runners and numbers, you're going to be running and numbing, you know, whereas if you want to get more conscious and you want support to be more conscious. You're going to need to be in community with people who have that goal as well. You know we are who we hang out with, and so being with people who want to be more awake and conscious is going to be important. Not that you have to do that all day. You don't have to sit down and, you know, be in the lotus position all day long meditating, but it does help to be around people who are craving that, who are craving that and who are seeking that. So it's not so strange or different to do that.

Tricia Nelson: 33:53

I meditate twice a day. I meditate because it brings down my stress level and I teach this to my clients as well. It brings down my stress, and stress is absolutely inextricably linked to how much we eat, because we stress eat. We eat to slow down, we eat to give us quick energy, and so if we have a more conscious way of reducing stress, which does include taking on less, you know we can't be all things to all people and emotion leaders want to be, and so pulling back and realizing it's not realistic and it's not paying off to try to be all things to all people, having boundaries in our time, pulling back and having some self-care in our day, you know, filling your calendar with things to do and people to help.

Tricia Nelson: 34:50

It's like we have to change our lives and I often say, sandy, that it's a living problem more than an eating problem Like we have to change how we live. We can't be running around like a chicken with her head cut off and not be overweight. Like it's going to impact our hormones, obviously, but it's going to impact literally how much we eat. Because when you're tired and you're busy, over busy and stressed, and then bitchy, and then you have guilt because you're bitchy, right, or you're not spending enough time with your kids and you're beating yourself up about it, all that leads to overeating, you know. So we can't just try to people, always again trying to slap a diet on it but or a pill now, but that's not solving the real issue. And the real issue is we need self care, we need to slow down, we need to learn how to stop running from ourselves and face what it is we think is so horrible, which isn't horrible at all. We're good people.

Sandy Kruse: 35:54

Yeah, but that's also part of addictions overall. I know this conversation isn't about other addictions.

Tricia Nelson: 36:03

But it definitely applies.

Sandy Kruse: 36:04

It definitely applies because one of the things that you know, I've I've looked at this I don't know. Do you know who Dr Bradley Nelson is? No, no, anyway, there's. There's a lot of these practitioners who talk about the emotional aspect to pain, to problems, to addictions and everything like that, and so people don't want to feel so they numb, just like what you're saying, and it's like when you open up the curtains and look inside, sometimes you're like, ooh, I don't want to look, let's close that back up again.

Tricia Nelson: 36:47

Nobody wants to look. I mean it's not a comfortable Because it's hard to look. Let's close that back up again. Nobody wants to look. I mean it's not a comfortable thing Because it's hard to look.

Sandy Kruse: 36:52

Tricia sometimes.

Tricia Nelson: 36:53

Yes, it's not easy, you know. I mean, I have a whole program based on helping people clear the things that they're running from, you know, because you really can't do it alone, because you're just so scared. You're so scared and you also have a lifetime of running, like we've built into this habit, and so and it's not, as I said, what's ever there is not so terrible. They're just uncomfortable emotions.

Sandy Kruse: 37:20

You remember, during COVID I don't know if you were on TikTok or Instagram During that time there was this trend of women and wine o'clock and they would grab their bottle of wine and they'd go and you know, it would always be like in joke, in fun, but I was like, wow, like this becoming a trend is basically saying let's mask how we're really feeling right now during this pandemic, and mask it with wine and make it fun and let's pretend it's not even existing. It's kind of the same thing with eating. It's like you know you have these feelings that are uncomfortable for you, but let's just, let's just have a big old bag of chips and pretend it doesn't exist.

Tricia Nelson: 38:10

Yeah, it's easy to kind of laugh it off and ha ha, you know, um, and people probably prefer to admit that they're stress eaters before they admit that are emotional eaters, cause emotional sounds more like you're messed up or something. But first of all, every it's the same thing. Stress eating and emotionally eating is the same thing, and and and. The thing is, if somebody doesn't have a big consequence from it, they're probably not going to change it. You know, like everybody's using something, it's when it really hurts you and when you're an overeater and you gain weight and you're, you know you have to live in the cultural shame of being overweight. That's when you get a little bit more interested.

Tricia Nelson: 38:53

Or if you have health issues on account of your eating. I mean, I have clients who aren't overweight at all, they're sugar addicts or whatever, but they have major health issues because of their eating habits. They're just not eating healthy. And now with the medications, you know people can get away with making crappy choices. You know you can take a medication and just have a diet of chocolate and pasta, you know. So imagine what that's doing to people's health. You know, now there isn't a consequence from, from an obvious consequence of the weight, so that that presents some other issues. So you know it's it's hard to be motivated if you don't have, if you're not up against the wall, you know. But hopefully with this conversation people will want health, you know, and they're probably wouldn't be listening if they didn't. So that's good.

Sandy Kruse: 39:47

Yeah, and the big thing too that I love people to kind of understand why the food that you're eating is so important is as we age, we have a few things going against us. You know we have, with women, it's menopause. With men, they have andropause. They lose their. They don't lose their testosterone, their testosterone lowers. There's a lot of things. A lot of times digestion is an issue and it doesn't all come into play until you're around, you know, 45, 50, a little older.

Sandy Kruse: 40:27

You hear of a lot of people who have diagnoses of autoimmune disease. You have a lot of people like cancer. So this is why, as a nutritionist, I'm always like the building blocks are important, and one of the reasons why I'm always like listen, you can take one of those really fancy injections, but are you supplying your body with what it needs to age? Well, how are, how, how, what kind of quality are those building blocks that you're giving your body? So that's why it's so important, so important Like the stuff, like the stuff I eat. It's not always my first choice, but I do it because I'm like I got to support my health.

Sandy Kruse: 41:16

So you know like I'll buy those big old bags of the veggies that are frozen from Costco and I make sure that I grill half of a plate of veggies always, and then my protein and sure, maybe I'll have a little piece of bread, but it's not the staple.

Tricia Nelson: 41:36

Yeah, that's so important. And what's important for those who are like yeah, but I want the bread, I totally get it. We need to nourish ourselves in other ways as a replacement. You can't just take away the bread. You have to be nourished in other ways and that's nourishment we have to give ourselves. So, having a morning routine, I call it putting money in your spiritual bank account. You have to fill the bank with some money so you can spend it. If you don't, you're just withdrawing and you're in the red.

Tricia Nelson: 42:12

So start your day with meditation, prayer, spiritual readings like get nourished, nourish yourself with the real food. You know, soul, food, connection, community, like these things will feed you. You have to be fed. You know we're hungry. It's not food we're actually hungry for, so we have to get fed. So there's other ways to feed ourselves, and then we don't need the food, but the food like that's what we're reaching for is. You know, we want connection, we want a feeling of connection.

Tricia Nelson: 42:45

I mean, last weekend I called like five girlfriends and I'm like I'm lonely. I left messages. Of course, I got everybody's voicemail, but I'm like I'm lonely and I need connection because I have an online business and I don't realize I'm missing that human connection that I want more of. I need more of because that's what we're really hungry for. So I had to reach out and make us some phone calls and my partner was like, oh, that sounds so needy. I'm like, well, tough shit, like I, I, I feel I feel a need for girlfriend time, like I need some girlfriend time. You know, I need that oxytocin. I'm not getting it. So we have to nourish ourselves in the proper way, otherwise it's just that our fallback is food, food and wine.

Sandy Kruse: 43:33

I love that that's so important. Though and you know, I think the I don't know about you, but the older I get having really, really enriching relationships are important. It's not about having 20 girlfriends, it's about having like three that are my besties, that we could sit down and have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea together and just really talk, and having these kinds of relationships, I think, are very, very important. I couldn't agree with you more. I personally start my day every day with journaling, but that really resonates with me because, like I'm a writer at heart, I love to write. So, you know, I think that this is all really important and it really kind of sets a foundation for a successful day of eating.

Tricia Nelson: 44:31

I guess you could say yeah For reaching for the. I mean it's just makes it when you're nourished in other ways. It makes it easier to not reach for food, for that quick energy or that quick hit, you know, when you feel. It's just easier to make choices that are self-caring.

Sandy Kruse: 44:49

Do you ever? I don't know if you've heard of this, but I remember hearing one person, I think they were on my podcast. They were talking about not eating disorders but disordered eating patterns and they said, like you know, if you're that person that always kind of gets up and goes to the pantry, like there's, there's ways in which you can kind of stop yourself and think like I don't know, do you have any tactics like that that you help people with?

Tricia Nelson: 45:21

Yeah, really important. First of all, in my experience, to eat three meals with nothing in between. So I'm just I call it three meal magic and people love to fast or skip meals and I'd say it doesn't pay off. If you're an emotional eater, it does not pay off because you'll end up overeating 100% 100%.

Sandy Kruse: 45:46

You heard it here I became insulin resistant Tricia while doing listening to all of the big gurus about intermittent fasting. And you know why? Because I was doing the 16-8 fast, so I wouldn't eat my first meal until like 11, 1130. Fast, so I wouldn't eat my first meal until like 11, 1130. And then I would fucking binge for eight hours. Yeah, and it would be. I'd be like, all right, my eating windows open, let's go.

Tricia Nelson: 46:14

That's right and that's true for emotional eaters. It's just, it's, it's too it's, it is destabilizing and it's another. I mean it's just another way to beat up our bodies. And I'm not saying IF is terrible. I like to have 12 hours between my dinner and my breakfast. You know, just for a little bit. You know of benefit. But I need three meals with like four or five hours in between each meal.

Tricia Nelson: 46:39

And when I do that, it's not only a really like self-caring way to eat, because you're not doing these erratic swings, you're not getting super hungry. It's just a grounding thing. And not only that, but you get to learn what your emotions are. Because when you're over hungry you don't know that you're having emotions, you just feel starvation, you just feel hungry or deprived. But if you have a regular way of eating, then you start to observe just emotions that are between meals. If you're snacking all day, you have no idea what you're feeling. And if you're too hungry, you have no idea what you're feeling. And so the three meal magic plan is so good because you can start to identify. You know what sadness feels like, what anxiety feels like or whatever, and you're not just feeding it with food.

Tricia Nelson: 47:33

So that's one thing, but also it's just a really self-loving way to eat when we've been doing so many diets and so many erratic plans and hacks for so long. It's self-abusive, you know, and it's like would you say to your sweet baby daughter oh honey, you're not going to eat for 16 hours because you're going to shed a few pounds. You know. It's like you would never do that to your daughter. Like, so feed yourself how you would feed your child, right, with regular meals. Let them know you've got their back. You're going to pay attention to when they need to eat again. You're going to prepare a meal that tastes good and has love in it. We don't do that for ourselves, but we would never abuse our kids that way. But why don't we treat ourselves the way we would treat our children? That's what we need to start focusing on.

Sandy Kruse: 48:31

I love that I actually what I figured out was I had to stop listening to all these you know, all this health advice that was online and start paying attention to what worked for me and eating exactly. It's so interesting because, like, I eat, exactly like you're saying, and ever since I did that, I know when I'm hungry, tricia, I know. I'm like okay, trisha, I know I'm like okay, four or five hours or whatever.

Tricia Nelson: 49:06

I'm like, yeah, I'm hungry now, and it feels good to have hunger pangs. Yes, because it means you're not overeating. It's like you're eating what your body needs, your body's. You know digesting and using the energy and putting the ingredients, nutrients, where they need to go. You know using them, how they're meant to be used. And then it's like, oh, time for more food that I can use for nourishing my body and it's it actually feels good. It's just scary for people you know to feel hunger and it's like we have to learn how to deal with hunger not starvation, but just literal, like those natural hunger pangs. And if you've been eating in wacky, erratic ways or you're a binge eater, it takes some time to get to that place of feeling good when you feel hungry.

Sandy Kruse: 49:55

A couple of things I just want before we close off. What's the difference between being a food addict and stress eating?

Tricia Nelson: 50:10

being a food addict and stress eating. Well, I would say, like I said before, it's the control and the consequences. So those are the two telltale signs. So stress eating is like you eat extra because it gives you a boost of energy and you distract, like that's. A lot of people do that, but that doesn't mean you're going to fall down the rabbit hole and eat 3,000 calories of popcorn and ice cream in front of the TV. So it's, if you have control, like you eat a little bit extra. That's stress eating.

Tricia Nelson: 50:36

Food addiction is when you go into a dark hole, you go down the rabbit hole and you eat too much and you feel bad. And also consequences, you know, is it affecting your life, you know? Is it like too many potato chips really, you know, ruining your life? But if you do that on a regular basis because you can't deal with your life or your marriage, which needs attention, you know, then you're starting to have health effects because you're eating really unhealthy foods in a perpetual way. So it's control and consequences. But I guess you could be both. Oh well, yeah, emotional eaters are stress eaters. Food addicts are stress eaters. Yeah, absolutely yeah, that's the thing is in my quiz. If somebody takes that quiz and they're on the high end of the spectrum. They get a higher score and they're food addicts. They are inherently emotional eaters or stress eaters. But if you're on the low end of the spectrum, you're not a food addict just because you're an emotional eater.

Sandy Kruse: 51:38

So what? Okay, if somebody was to join your program, what would they expect?

Tricia Nelson: 51:46

What happens in my program is I have basically laid out a step-by-step process for overcoming emotional eating and food addiction and I layer on each module. I have modules that people go through, we have group calls on Zoom. People get coached. I mean it's a whole comprehensive program because this is a big deal, you know it's. We're overcoming a lifelong habit that, by the way, is one of the hardest addictive habits to overcome. You know, people are always like they have this inherent embarrassment that they might need to get coached to change their food relationship. But to me it's the hardest relationship of everything because you have to eat. It's not like alcohol where you can put the plug in the jug and you just stay out of bars. No, you can't get away from food. You have to eat three times a day. You have to take the tiger out of the cage, pet the little kitty and then put it back in the cage without getting your ass torn off. Yeah, so it's much harder. So you need more support and people don't mind going to the gym and hiring a trainer to make them do all the reps, you know. But when it comes to our relationship with food, we're like no, I got it, I'll handle it Cause there's like shame involved and people are like oh, how bad am I that I would need a coach. It's like it's the hardest of all addictive habits to overcome. You've had the habit probably for decades, you know, so you're going to need some help. So that's what I do is, um, we do a lot in groups, like on zoom. People from all over the world join my program and but we do it through Zoom because you know Zoom is amazing, right, and you can be anywhere. But also we do it in groups because people always think they're the only ones who have done the terrible, bad things.

Tricia Nelson: 53:38

My TEDx talk that you mentioned at the beginning. I start out my talk talking about eating out of the garbage, you know, and there's like all these slew of comments oh my God, I've done that. You know. Like you throw away your binge foods. You're like I can't eat anymore, I'm done with that food, I'm never eating it again. And then later you're like I know there's cookies in there, you know so. So everybody thinks they're the only ones, and then we beat the shit out of ourselves because of it and then that perpetuates the behavior, you know. And so in groups, women are like oh, oh, I get like I felt that way. Oh, I did that thing, you know, and so it's again. That's soul food. Community is soul food. We have to have connection and community, because that's what we're really hungry for.

Tricia Nelson: 54:25

So everything is in groups and we do one-on-one coaching as well, and then I walk people through a process of healing which does include self-care, it does include community. It includes also, like you said, the writing, the journaling. People are starting to get in touch with their emotions. You know, they write about it, they talk about it, they pray about it. You know there's a process for being able to unload those things that we usually stuff down with food and so. But it takes time to kind of learn. It's a new behavior for us to not just immediately, as soon as we're uncomfortable, go to the refrigerator and eat. And the longer somebody has been overeating, the more help they're going to need. The more support they're going to need, the more time it's going to take to turn it around. You know, and no diet can do that. I mean, we've been medicating for decades with food.

Sandy Kruse: 55:19

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people would benefit from your program. Let us know where they can find you.

Tricia Nelson: 55:25

Tricia, I think a lot of people would benefit from your program. Let us know where they can find you. Tricia, Absolutely. My website is Heal your Hunger H-E-A-L. Heal your Hunger and that's got everything on it. You know, my Instagram is Tricia Nelson underscore, but on my website, my TEDx talk is there, my podcast is there, the Heal your Hunger Show. Um, access to my book is there, so it's a good. And the quiz you know, definitely start with a quiz, Cause that's a. That's a great place to start, and then you get steps after that.

Sandy Kruse: 56:00

That's so great. Thank you so much for all you do, Trisha. It was really a great chat today.

Tricia Nelson: 56:06

Absolutely. Thanks for having me and thanks for all you do.

Sandy Kruse: 56:12

Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit and always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me to keep going and bringing these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new exciting conversations to help you live your best life.