Podcast Transcription: Make 2023 Your Best Year Ever: Part 2: Not Addressing The Underlying Reasons Why We Eat

Ted Ryce: Let me know if this sounds familiar, something stresses you out and to feel better, you reach for some food, or some alcohol, or both. And it does make you feel better, until you start to feel guilty. And that kind of stresses you out too, on top of the initial thing that was stressing you out, and you start to feel stressed, and then you want to eat something, or drink something or both, and it makes you feel better. And the cycle continues.  

This, my friend, is the cycle of emotional eating. Now guys don't like to call it emotional eating. But that's what it is. And today, we're going to be talking about emotional eating, why it happens, why many coaches don't address it. And I'm going to share with you my own struggles with emotional eating, and what I do personally, as well as what I teach my clients to conquer emotional eating.  

So, what is up, my friend, and welcome back to “Make 2023 Your Best Year Ever.” This is Episode Two.” Now in Episode One, we went into what I feel is the biggest reason that people fail with body transformation or fail with fat loss or fail, walking in health for life, locking in healthy habits for life. So, if you haven't listened to that first episode, make sure you go back and check it out.  

But today, we're going to be dealing with emotional eating. And the reality is, is the strongest food cravings hit usually when you're at your weakest point emotionally. It's not when you're feeling great. It's when you're feeling your worst, and you turn to food for comfort. Maybe it's conscious, maybe it's unconscious. 

For me, I'm an emotional eater. It's a not something I identify with. I want to make that clear. It's not my identity, “Hey, I'm Ted.” “Welcome to the meeting, Ted.” “Okay, cool. I'm Ted, I'm the emotional eater.” That's not what I mean. I mean, it's something I became aware of. It was an automatic habit that I became aware of.  

Even when I was lean, I was doing this, and I'm getting lean now. And I did it yesterday. So, when we're facing a difficult problem, feeling stressed, or even feeling bored, we eat, then we feel bad for eating too much, then we feel dissatisfied with our body, then we kind of get a case of the fuck-its, say why not, then we eat more, but then we feel bad.  

And then we feel dissatisfied with our body, which causes more stress. And it's just this cycle. And as I said guys don't like the term “emotional eating,” because it doesn't sound too manly. We can call it stress eating if you want, but you're still eating because of your emotions. And the issue with emotional eating is that it can not only sabotage your weight loss efforts, your fat loss efforts, but it can ruin your health, if it's a cycle that you're locked into. Because the thing is, not only are you eating too much food, you're not really interested in the acai bowl, and the green juice.  

At least I'm not. I don't want to eat the fat free Greek yogurt and the frozen strawberries. I want the cheesecake, the strawberry cheesecake, the cookies and cream ice cream. So, here's the thing. The good news is that if you're prone to emotional eating, I'm going to share with you what I do personally, and what I teach my clients to get back on track—well, to damage control, because I think that's an important part.  

We can't always avoid emotional eating. So how to control the damage of emotional eating? That's just a way to – it's just a colloquial way to say it. It's not really that you're damaging yourself or anything like that. So please don't think that and I'm going to tell you how to get back in control.  

So I want to first share with you, I was feeling emotional yesterday. Why? Well, things are quite… I mean, business is good. There are some things about my business that stress me out. Not going to lie. I love coaching clients, but some of the developing systems and some of the other things that I do and posting across platforms on social media gets tough.  

And that's just on a normal day. Being an entrepreneur is tough, growing your business is tough. Some days you feel like a hero. And some days you feel like, well, not the villain, whoever gets…Like, who the hero needs to come and save. You don't feel like the hero. You feel like the person who needs to be saved.  

And yesterday I got some news. I want to move to Portugal. I'm tired of bouncing around every one to three months. I want to get locked in somewhere and I would love to spend a year in Europe. So cool how you can just fly to Paris for the weekend, go to Spain for a few days, hit up Greece, hit up Mykonos. 

And I did a consultation with this startup, actually, with these people who helped facilitate the move to Lisbon in Portugal, because that's where I would like to be based out of. I know people there. And more importantly, I'm dating someone there. And then I got hit with a hard reality that my plan isn't going to work.  

In fact, probably I can do it, but I won't be able to do it now. And that means I'm not going to be able to see the person I'm dating for more months than I really want to. And I felt a bit defeated. I was trying to work but I knew I needed to take a break. So, I went and got my hair cut. I was like I needed de-stress so I wouldn't got my hair cut. And on the way back from the haircut, I smelled something delicious. Now you may not know but I'm in Mexico right now, in Playa Del Carmen. It's about a 45-minute drive south of Cancun. Cancun has all the hotels. Playa Del Carmen is where you rent an Airbnb and stay for months.  

Better place to live in Cancun. My opinion, at least. Plenty of walkable, cool places. And I was walking back from getting my hair cut, and I smelled something delicious. It was a taco place. And I said, “You know what, give me three tacos,” because it was three for two Tuesdays, “and give me a side of guac,” which is quite a bit of guac, guacamole, and a bunch of corn chips; totopos, they're called here.  

I brought it home, and I ate it all. Now, it wasn't the worst emotional eating situation. I only overdid my calories by 500 or 600. Maybe more like 700. Guac is quite high, the calories in the chips. So it wasn't terrible. But I felt like you know what, I'm going to go do something else. I think I might...  

I was thinking, I saw some little cheesecakes in the supermarket earlier. Maybe I could go and buy that packet for mini cheesecakes. Or there's a coffee place here called [Aka Cow 07:00]. It's kind of like the Mexican Starbucks, at least in this region, except the coffee's delicious. I don't particularly care for Starbucks coffee. And they have this carrot cake. And I was like, “Mm,” thinking to myself, maybe I'll get one of those.  

Instead, though, I realized what was going on. And I called a friend and said, “Hey, you want to go for a walk?” And she was around and that's what we did. So, you walked, we had a conversation. And I told her what was going on? I didn't try to play it off. Like, yeah, no, I'm cool. Life is great. Oh, yeah, everything's going so amazing.  

No, I shared with her what was going on. And she gave me a hug, actually, several hugs and it was really nice. And as a result, I was able to skip the carrot cake, and the mini cheesecakes. Go home, go to bed, and I feel better this morning. So why do we emotionally eat? Well, food works to make you feel better, especially things like carrot cake, cheesecake, things that tastes delicious, doesn't even have to be sweet.  

It could be savory pizza. It brings pleasure. So, it helps suppress or soothe negative emotions, stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness, loneliness. Now, not all of us are emotional eaters. Some of us lose our appetite when we're stressed. And if you are that type of person, you know who you are. We hate you. Not really. But the vast majority of people, at least in America, 70% of the population is overweight, and emotional eating is a big part of it. So, we use food, to medicate our emotions or to manage our emotions.  

And I want to say this: it's not the end of the world that we do this. The problem is when it's your major or your go-to coping mechanism for when you're feeling bad. It's easy to see that, oh, well, sometimes I go for walks, sometimes I food, sometimes I'll go to a kickboxing class. Or sometimes I'll go for a run. It's easy to see if you don't have a lot of things that you do and it's just food and alcohol. If you do that a lot and if you become stressed or upset a lot, it’s easy to see how that can lead to major health problems.  

So, whatever the emotions are that drive you to overeat, the end result is the same.  The effect of the food is temporary. The emotions usually return and then you bear the additional burden of guilt about what you've done. Especially if you're on a fat loss program or wanting to change your body, you feel like you've set yourself back big time, and it can lead to a very unhealthy cycle. Your emotions trigger you to overeat.  

You beat yourself up for getting off your weight loss track, you feel bad and you overeat again. So, let's talk about how to get back on track. And the things I'm about to share with you here, these are things I actually do and actually teach. I'm a coach, folks. I don't just write things that sound cool or share things that I think will resonate.  

Well, I do actually share things that I think will resonate. But I don't just do it because I think they'll resonate. This is stuff that I actually do. So, number one, develop awareness. I want to tell you when I first, I was like…and I had a conversation with my friend, Joe, he's a former NFL football player, turned primal eating coach, personal trainer to the rich and famous back in Miami.  

And we both were talking about this. And we both had this realization, you know, we're emotional eaters. Yes, we may be lean. Yes, we work out a lot. Yes, a lot of people would look at us and say, “Hey, you're the pinnacle of health, but the reality is, we're both emotional eaters.” 

And the way to develop awareness is this: Is your hunger physical or emotional? Did you eat a big meal? Do you feel the food in your stomach, then it's emotional.  yesterday, I want to tell you after ate that guacamole, and those three tacos—Two for Three Tuesday's—I felt full, but I still wanted to eat more. That's an example of developing awareness.  

Okay, I'm not hungry here, my stomach is actually full, and it almost even is a bit stuffed. So, I don't need the carrot cake, or the mini cheesecakes. The next thing I would tell you is tame your stress, you need alternatives to eating. So, for me, yesterday, I do meditation. I want to even say this to you. I did exercise yesterday, I did meditate yesterday, and still I had this reaction because it was quite strong.  

And it really had to do with the fact that I'm dating this woman. And I think it might end our relationship or it has the potential to end our relationship. And we have a very strong connection with each other. We'll see what happens. And that really messed me up. So even in spite of exercising earlier in the day, and getting a walk in and meditating, and sleeping well, the night before, I still had that reaction.  

And even though I did those things, and even though I had the emotional eating attack, and still wanted to eat more, what I did, I realized what was happening. And this goes back to develop awareness. And I said, “You know what, I'm going to call Angela, my friend,” who's also a coach, she's been on my podcast, she's amazing, amazing person, amazing coach, we have fantastic conversations about the brain and actually stuff like this, about the emotional side of, of helping our clients.  

And I went for a walk, had a talk, opened up to her emotionally, told her what was going on and how I felt, she gave me a hug. And I felt better afterwards. So, you need to tame your stress with something other than food. And here's the thing: it doesn't mean that you don't emotionally eat at all. It means that you start to broaden your coping skills.  

And I want to tell you something, you don't this is these habits. You need them before you get triggered by stress. You don't do them in the moment. In other words, the reason why I went for a walk yesterday and knew what to do was because I've been going on walks with her already. Do you see what I'm saying there?  

In the moment, you're going to default to whatever your training is, whatever your habits are. The Navy Seals have a great quote that says, “You don't rise to your expectations, you fall to the level of your training.” So, if you listen to this and say, yeah, next time, I'm going to go for a walk, or I'm going to meditate or I'm going to do some deep breathing or yoga, but you're not currently doing it now, it ain’t going to work. 

The other thing is, take away temptation. So, we have developed awareness, tame your stress, take away temptation, don't keep hard resist foods in your house. Because if you do, you know you're going to eat them. And if you're living with other people who have those things, have a conversation with them, and tell them to lock them up somewhere where you don't know where they are and you don't have access.  

So, take away that temptation. I almost bought those mini cheesecakes but I told myself, you know what, if you buy these, you're going to eat them. And it's okay if you plan to do it. But if you think you're just going to buy these, Ted, and have them in the fridge, and you'll just have one every once in while? No, you're going to eat the whole thing, probably the first day.  

So, don't have temptation, take it away. This is actually called “stimulus control” in behavioral psychology. Now, here's the next thing: binge on healthy foods. So I did end up eating more last night. And you know what I ate, 0% fat Greek yogurt with frozen berries. It's not what I wanted to eat. But I was having a hard time controlling myself, even after having that walk in that talk with my friend, Angela.  

So have some healthy snacks available at home: fruits, 0% fat yogurt, frozen berries. Binge on healthy food, if you're just like, man, the binge is going to happen. Binge on healthy food. And the fifth one is, learn from the relapses. If you have an episode of emotional eating, don't beat yourself up, do what you need to do start fresh the next day.  

Today, what did I do, I went for a walk this morning, and went and got coffee, actually, met someone and had a conversation in the morning, met someone for coffee, and then went did some work, then went and hit a workout. So learn from the setbacks and get back on track as fast as possible.  

And the sixth one is, get support. You're more likely to give into emotional eating, if you lack a good support network. So lean on family, friends, whoever you can. I want to tell you something, I think one part of this whole weight loss situation, this whole weight loss journey for people, the fat loss journey, body transformation, whatever you want to call it.  

If you're struggling with diets, you need… If you're struggling, let's say specifically with the emotional side of this, you probably need way more support than you realize. And if you feel like you're in a really tough situation, psychologically, don't hire some macro counting coach to help you. Because it's not going to solve the problem. You probably already know what to do. But your emotions are overriding you, the stress in your life is overriding you. So, you have two choices here or three, one is lean on your family and friends, like I leaned on Angela yesterday.  

Number two, if you're really struggling with your emotions, if you're borderline clinically depressed, or suffering an anxiety disorder, get psychological help. And I recommend cognitive behavioral therapy, don't sit on a couch and tell someone about your childhood. That's not the best approach anymore. Cognitive behavioral therapy, because they're going to help you change your behavior now, change your cognition now. And that will help you change the way you feel.  

And if you are a person, you feel like, well, I don't feel like I have clinical depression, I don't feel like I have a panic disorder, or anxiety disorder, but I struggle with this a lot. Because I'm overweight or obese. And I'm running my company successfully. But I certainly need some help with this, then I want to suggest that you hop on a call with me.  

If you feel like the psychologist’s route isn't right and you need a little bit more support than who's in your life right now, in fact, you may be the person who other people lean on for support, then I want to suggest that you hop on a call with me. So, you go to www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply. Again, www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply  

and book a 15-minute call with me. And you may not even be sure, should I hire a psychologist? Should I hire one of these CBT therapists that Ted's talking about? Or, is Ted okay? Is Ted good enough or appropriate enough? I'm certainly good enough. I'm world class at what I do, folks, but appropriate enough for my situation that he can help.  

And I can also help you figure that out, because I don't take on clients who I feel would be better off with someone else. But if you're a person and you're doing well in your relationships and you're crushing it in business, you've got a lot of things going for you. And that's why I say I work with entrepreneurs, founders, and high-performance professionals, attorneys, doctors, accountants. 

So if you've listened to my podcasts and you felt a connection, you felt the call to hop on a call, www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply is the place to go and set up that 15-minute call for us to talk. So that is it, folks, for today's episode about emotional eating. And let me cover these tactics that we talked about. Number one is to develop awareness; is your hunger, physical or emotional? And here's the hint. If you’ve got a full stomach, and you just ate, but you have a craving for something else, probably emotional.  

Number two, tame your stress. And again, you have to start before the stress happens. You don't go do yoga for the first time ever, when you're having a stress crisis of emotional eating, right? Stress induced crisis of emotional eating. That's not the time, you won't feel like doing it.  

Number three is, take away the temptation. Either keep the foods out of your house, or have a conversation with your family to they keep the foods away from you. Seriously, I have a client—shout out to you, Ryan, if you're listening, Ryan had his family lock away some foods, you can ask your family to do that. It's okay.  

Number four binge on healthy food. If you're in a situation and you know you're going to eat, just go for the 0% fat free yogurt. And the frozen berries, in my case, or fruit. It's better to do that. And it'll also help fill you up faster.  

Number five is, learn from the setbacks. It's okay to have an emotional eating episode. Forgive yourself and start fresh the next day. And think about how can you do better.  

And number six, is get support. I can't tell you how important this is. If you have someone like Angela in your life, lean on them. But if you need more support than what you currently have, decide whether you need someone to really help you with your emotions, really on the psychological side of things like therapy, which there's nothing wrong, I've been in and out of therapy and have a lot to say about it. But I won't get into that.  

Or if you’re feeling like we might be a good fit, I can help you, depending on the extent of the stress in your life, and your willingness to make the necessary changes, then let's hop on a call. But those are the ways to tame emotional eating to handle those situations.  

And once you do this, they don't maybe ever go away 100%, but you can get to the point where you're feeling great the next day and you handle it with poise, like I feel I did yesterday, because I'm getting quite lean, and you can still get on track and achieve your best body ever in 2023. Hope you enjoy today's episode. We're going to be talking about the next episode in the next episode.