S2E44: Finding the Courage to Heal Emotional Eating
Cassie Christopher
Cassie Christopher is a Registered Dietitian, Emotional Eating Expert and owner of Cassie Christopher Health Coaching. She graduated with a Master's degree in Nutrition from Bastyr University and specializes in helping women 45 and up find the courage to trust themselves around food and make the supportive eating choices that bring them health and happiness.
Social media and contact information:
Get my free audio guide to stop food cravings: https://cassiechristopher.net/stop-food-obsession/
https://cassiechristopher.net/free
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CassieChristopherRD
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where recovering emotional eaters com to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged and that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is you the one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.
You are the people who inspire me to be more fully me, not in spite of my trials. But because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Cassie, Christopher. She has many roles in her life. Daughter, mother, sister, wife, registered dietician, and more. We'll talk about how she struggled with emotional eating as a dietician and how she found health and healing let's talk.
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today we've got Cassie Christopher with us. She's not just a registered dietician. She specifically works with emotional eaters and is an emotional eating expert and owner of Cassie Christopher Health Coaching.
She graduated with a master's degree in nutrition from Bastyr University and specializes in helping women 45 and up find the courage to trust themselves around food and make the support of eating choices that bring them health and happiness. The best thing is she's got a freebie at https://www.CassieChristopher.net/free tell us about it, Cassie. Let's go.
[00:02:32] Cassie Christopher: Yeah, thank you for having me. If anyone out there is struggling with making the choices that you wish you were making with food and you suspect maybe you're using food to numb your feelings or as a primary source of pleasure in your life. I mean food works is the short answer and it feels good. But if that's become an issue and it's affecting your quality of life, which it happens for so many of us go grab, my guide is called, you're done dieting, but still want to heal emotional eating.
And it's a roadmap that shows you what it's going to take. And you know, the spoilers in the title, it is not going on another diet. So you can get that exactly. As you said, https://www.CassieChristopher.net/free
[00:03:16] Damaged Parents: Now. Okay. I'm pretty certain you're here because you had a struggle. Otherwise you went that be on this podcast and that's just, my listeners know that, but how did you even know you were emotionally eating?
[00:03:30] Cassie Christopher: Yeah. that's such a great question. Because I think we are trained by what I'll call diet culture which is kind of the water we swim in this idea that if you live in a larger body, you should be dieting. And probably if you're in a smaller body too, you know, you need to be in control at all times, et cetera, et cetera.
And, that kind of mentality in our culture that you're more valuable when you're in a smaller body and you're in control of eating leads us to thinking the problem is, with us that it's a willpower problem. It's a self control problem.
[00:04:04] Damaged Parents: And I'm thinking a lot of those messages come implicitly. Like we don't even realize that we're receiving that message and you're nodding your head. Yes. So please elaborate on that.
[00:04:15] Cassie Christopher: Yeah, a hundred percent. Those messages come implicitly. So I work primarily with a women 45 and up, and many of them were put on diets at a young age, or they were told at a young age from maybe family members or people that they trusted, that being small was going to help them attract love, it's going to make them more desirable.
They're usually also told that they're too sensitive or they have too many feelings and they just need to, you know... rein it in. Exactly.
[00:04:48] Damaged Parents: Put them in a barbs they're too much work.
[00:04:51] Cassie Christopher: That's it they're too much. They're too big. They're too sensitive. They eat too much, like all of this. And so that you internalize that, especially if it's a message you've received as a child from the people you trust, but we also get it in culture, right?
Like media shows us smaller people at fat fat. What, is it called? Fat you tainment? I can't remember the term, but
[00:05:16] Damaged Parents: what is that?
[00:05:17] Cassie Christopher: Yeah, the obesity action coalition is coined a term for our being okay with. making fun of fat people on TV.
[00:05:25] Damaged Parents: For being okay with
[00:05:26] Cassie Christopher: Yes, it's, socially acceptable to make fat jokes or to have, kids who live in larger bodies, eating a bunch of ice cream and the ice cream falls off their cone and we're just supposed to, laugh at them.
In our culture, it is accepted. It's called weight stigma to believe that people who live in larger bodies are lazy or less moral. Somehow there's something wrong with them.
[00:05:49] Damaged Parents: Okay. I'm sitting here and my mouth is dropped open because I'm like, whoa. I had no clue. I mean, I knew that there was the implicit bias, but I didn't realize that, there was actually people pushing for let's make fun of this group of people. I mean, I couldn't imagine because I'm thinking the weight doesn't come from being usually there's some trauma I'm thinking or something that happens.
I'll just use me as an example. I was at my heaviest after my disability came on, like the depression and the pain and suffering that comes with that. And I don't know, I don't remember really changing my eating habits a tremendous, but I remember it felt like there was nothing I could do to take the weight off.
[00:06:41] Cassie Christopher: Yeah. You know, I've a similar story myself. And we started this conversation because you asked me like, did you know you were an emotional eater and the answer is no. And. there's a lot of good reasons as you can see now that are really systemic reasons. You know, Cultural reasons why someone may not know that they're an emotional eater.
They may just think there's something wrong with them. That they need to go on more diets. So I was in grad school, using food to comfort myself from all of the stress of studying, get this nutrition. And I found myself going to the school convenience store buying my artisinal dark chocolate bar just about every day.
And as you might imagine, a bar of dark chocolate a day over time leads to weight gain, but that wasn't even really the, problem that I discovered using food to cope was having the problem was I was using food as a way to numb my discomfort of the stress and all of the feelings of inadequacy I was experiencing, the result of perfectionism and not living up to what the unrealistic expectations I put on myself and that dark chocolate actually didn't
work. It made me feel good in the short-term, but the long-term was the stress unprocessed and unresolved continue to build up in my body until I woke up in the middle of the night, standing in my bedroom, screaming feeling like someone was trying to murder me is like the only way I can describe that feeling.
And I'd had panic attacks before, but nothing like that. And so what happened for me is I was using food to avoid it worked as a way to really numb or avoid having to actually deal with what was really going on until it didn't work. Right. And the anxiety was too much. And so, unfortunately I did. I see the way that was related at the time I thought I had a food problem and that the anxiety was something separate.
And so I tried to solve the food problem by going on all the diets that I was learning about you know, all of the things I was learning in grad school studying to be a registered dietician, all of this optimal way of eating, I would go on these diets and then, because the diet removed my coping mechanism.
Right. I would feel terrible and I would end up, in the whole foods, parking lot buying and eating a tub of guacamole in my car to comfort myself or to zone out, to try to just get a break from all of that emotion in my body. And the reason I did it again, wasn't a willpower problem.
Wasn't a self-control problem. It's because that emotional eating works, but unfortunately the all or nothing dieting only made the problem worse. Because it disconnected me from my own feelings of satiety and hunger. Right? Cause I was using apps and tracking and whatever else to tell me when I was hungry or when I was full.
it causes what's called this,
[00:09:54] Damaged Parents: hold on. Wait, wait. that just hit me. You said you lost the, connection with your body for being satisfied or being hungry. Because you were using these apps, It sounds like you started ignoring what your body was telling you.
[00:10:10] Cassie Christopher: Yes. because I believed that this diet that I was on that was supposed to have all of these benefits, you know, I'm in school, I'm reading the scientific research around these various diets right? That that knew better than I did because obviously I didn't know better. I was eating a tub of guacamole if left, unattended.
Right? Like,
[00:10:32] Damaged Parents: I love how you said that.
[00:10:34] Cassie Christopher: I felt like I couldn't trust myself because the emotional eating was leading to feeling out of control. And so I thought I could trust the diet.
[00:10:44] Damaged Parents: Oh, so you couldn't trust yourself, but you could trust this diet or this app or this, this, so you're losing the feelings of, being satisfied and being hungry and. I was thinking also in some ways, losing connection with the emotions.
[00:11:04] Cassie Christopher: Oh, yes. Yeah. I was losing, yes. Because I was just, if I wasn't stuffing with food, right. When I was emotionally eating, then I was needing to find a different way to escape those emotions, whether it be scrolling on my phone or Netflix, but what happens and there's so much great research around emotional repression is when we avoid our emotions, they
stay in our body And it sounds woo woo. but it's not the emotions can cause immune dysfunction, immune deficiency and your immune system can be weaker inflammation. Like they don't just go away. You have to feel them and process them for them to dissipate. And when you use food instead, you don't get to go through that feeling and processing.
You just kind of stop the process at the beginning, and that has consequences.
[00:11:58] Damaged Parents: And then it kind of gets stuck right there. So how did you learn to start processing those emotions?
[00:12:05] Cassie Christopher: You know, I wish I could tell you that I learned something in school that, taught me that, or that I figured it out right away, but it was really several more years for me as I saw this pattern that the dieting wasn't working and as I became a registered dietician and saw the same thing in my clients and then becoming a new mom and under new, you know, and different stress and, really not doing a lot of self care.
I'm just kind of laying it all out for my daughter. I was at a place again where I was using this time, Ritz crackers and Tillamook mature white cheddar cheese for any west coast people you will know and go, Mm. Yes. To to manage those, those feelings. And it led to inflammation and was making more pain in my body.
And I ended up with auto immune issues and you have this kind of a confluence of things, right. Genetics and self care and inflammatory foods. and I realized something had to change. I had to figure out. How to use food in a way that nourished me and stop blaming myself, because this is what I saw happen in me and the people I was working with that when they automatically went to willpower, I have a self control problem.
it's my fault. I just need to do better. I, you know, I know what there is to do. I just need to do it. When people went to self-blame then they couldn't actually see real solutions because the solution is I just need to be better, which absolutely never works for anyone.
[00:13:38] Damaged Parents: So almost like the ego, that control, I've got a quote here. I think it's from Richard Rohr that you just totally brought to mind. Ah, okay. So this is a quote from Richard Rohr out of breathing under water, and it says here's the incestuous cycle of the ego. I want to have power. I will take control. I will always be right. See I am indeed powerful. This is the vicious circle of the will to power. It does not create happy people nor draw happy people to us.
And it seems like that is exactly what you're saying about food. It's not about the willpower. It's not about the control. There's something deeper going on.
[00:14:21] Cassie Christopher: Yeah.
Yes. you know, I agreed with, I mean, who can argue with Richard Rohr? And yet, and yet I think that there, we already carry most of us so much shame about our eating and our bodies because of diet culture, which I described at the beginning of this conversation and, our own beliefs that we're not doing a good job.
I think the solution, rather than just saying, we need to have less of an ego because that feels like it's our fault. Right. And I really, I really don't believe it's our fault. I really believe that emotional eating is us doing the best we can given the emotional, physical, spiritual, health and resources that we have.
[00:15:06] Damaged Parents: Yeah, and I love that you say that, that you challenged me on that thought because I could see that as being a very, that could be a very threatening idea,
[00:15:15] Cassie Christopher: And they're blakely as some truth to it, right? Because we do carry around egos, you know,
[00:15:22] Damaged Parents: I mean, but still like, there is like, even if what you're saying, it's like even coming from that, quote, which really was a loving quote, but at the same time, there's this, I could totally see taking it on as well. I just control too much. And I just, this and I could totally turn it around into shame and that is not helpful.
[00:15:44] Cassie Christopher: That shame and blame game for a ride. It stops any sort of positive change with eating because. you don't feel safe to try to reconnect with yourself if you believe that you are, the problem, right? Like why would you come find out more about your own hunger and satiety and things like this, if you're not to be trusted in your, the problem.
So, I really believe that with all of these issues, the best way forward is self-compassion because. You know, for me, I had to work with a whole team of people, my naturopath, my therapist, I had my own dietician. I was reading, I've got a bookshelf behind me with all of the books and the research articles to try to figure out what was happening with my eating.
And it wasn't possible that it maybe wasn't my fault because.
[00:16:41] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And when you say you've got all these books and everything, it's the problem is separate from you. You know, When you're looking for all these answers instead of inside, which I think is what you referred to earlier as it's kind of sounds a little woo, woo.
[00:16:57] Cassie Christopher: Yes,
[00:16:58] Damaged Parents: Am I getting what you're saying here?
[00:17:00] Cassie Christopher: Yes, because dieting disconnects us from our body, you know, it dieting and just the culture we live in disconnects us from our body. And for me personally, and in this happens for my clients as well, is my history of dieting. All of that knowledge that I had learned actually made me stop trusting myself around food.
And in order to heal my relationship with food, my relationship with my body and my health, to make the choices that I wanted to make with food. So I could lower inflammation and feel better in my body. I had to find the courage to trust and the courage to trust that I am enough and the courage to trust that I can be around a bar of chocolate without eating the whole thing.
And there are things that I had to do in order to make me trustworthy again, because dieting, is making yourself hungry, right? Keeping yourself hungry or keeping yourself from eating that disconnects your trust with your body. So you have to heal that before you can feel like you're trustworthy around food and you trust your body to give you the signals that you need.
[00:18:12] Damaged Parents: Ooh. how does somebody do that? I mean, healing that emotional and it's not just emotional. I mean, you even spoke of spiritual earlier. There so much more there than. I don't know, turning in is, difficult and scary. I think so. How did you do that?
[00:18:31] Cassie Christopher: A hundred percent. that is why we need courage. it's true. And I have to say in some ways it's easier to keep eating the Ritz crackers and fancy cheese. That in some ways it's easier to keep doing that. Like you're saying then it, you know, it's, hard and scary to turn inward than it is to actually figure out why you're using food.
And to stop using food, to numb your feelings and to sit with the discomfort. So I have a courage to trust framework that includes four pieces, one being the nervous system that you need to calm your nervous system, because when your body is on alert and you're in that fight flight or freeze, not only does the research show, you're going to reach for food and it's not going to be carrots, you know? no one's ever stressed, ate a carrot. I don't think.
[00:19:25] Damaged Parents: I don't know, maybe my dog.
[00:19:27] Cassie Christopher: Maybe your dog. Yeah. And dogs don't count. Love that dog stress eating carrots. I've watched a video that you need to calm your nerves system. So that you can feel safe to feel because if your nervous system is constantly keyed up, you're anxious or you're in a heightened, emotional state.
That's not a safe place to sit with the discomfort of something like loneliness or grief or anxiety. Does that make sense?
[00:19:52] Damaged Parents: Okay. So I think what I hear you saying is in order to process on some level, I've got to feel safe and it's not safe to process that until I get to a safe place.
[00:20:03] Cassie Christopher: Exactly a hundred percent. The other thing you need, the second piece of the framework to create the safety you need to feel rather than eat is self-compassion. And I'm a big proponent of Dr. Kristin Neff's work, mindfulness based self-compassion and there's so much great research around what self-compassion does for us, but essentially.
It un-does a lot of what we've learned from diet culture heals is probably a better word. it helps you accept how you're feeling. So a lot of times we don't want to feel something cause we just don't want to feel that way. I have a story where I was mad at a mentor who I like love. I dearly love her.
And she said something that hurt my feelings. I was mad at her, but I didn't want to be mad at her. And I ended up emotionally eating until I could sit there and go, Yeah. I'm mad at her. I don't want to be mad at her. This is like such a triggering subject for me, for whatever reason. And I had to let myself accept the fact that I was upset with her and be kind to myself about being upset with her. Like it's okay to be upset with someone who hurts your feeling.
[00:21:14] Damaged Parents: Yeah. But before you even got to that point of, like you said, you went and ate and everything. Before you got to the point where you could even notice, you weren't even aware that there was a feeling that was why you were eating right.
[00:21:28] Cassie Christopher: Th that's a really great point in the past. I would not have been aware. Now I have these situations that happen for me maybe once or twice a year, whereas before it was every day. And so now I'm so much more attuned to myself. I remember in that instance saying to my husband that day I'm in funk.
Something is wrong. I'm in a funk, I don't know what it is before I might not have even noticed I was in a funk because I was so disconnected from how I felt. But now I've done that work to the point where I knew something was wrong. I wasn't quite sure what it was. It was still on that subconscious level at that point.
But I, made the choice to not stop and explore. I made the choice to not go sit with my journal and write out about how I was feeling and try to connect with myself to see what was going on. I made the choice to ignore it that day. And so by 8:00 PM, I was on the couch with Netflix feeling, you know, it's emotional eating when it's like a primal urge to go eat.
It's not just like, Ooh, that would sound good, but I don't need to leave the house at 9:00 PM to go buy ice cream. Right. That's crazy. But when it's emotional eating, you're like, how do I get the ice cream?
[00:22:44] Damaged Parents: Oh, and it's so much easier nowadays with door dash. Oh my gosh.
[00:22:48] Cassie Christopher: There is literally down the street from my house, like less than a block away, they have a espresso stand that they've converted into a cookie stand. There is a drive-through cookie stand in my neighborhood.
[00:23:03] Damaged Parents: Oh, yeah, the drive-throughs and the door dashes. It just is so easy to go and solve it with food.
[00:23:14] Cassie Christopher: It's so easy. And so what happened for me that night is I was feeling that primal urge. I got up and I knew what I was doing, but I'll be honest with you because I had been ignoring my feelings all day. I was exhausted because that actually takes a lot of work to ignore how you're feeling. And for me, it just feels so exhausting.
So I ended up at the cabinet and anyone out there who's ever experienced this is totally nodding their head right now because I saw the marshmallows and I went rice Krispie treats, but we did not have any rice Krispies. So I made a mug of Cheerio, rice, Krispie treats
[00:23:51] Damaged Parents: In the
[00:23:52] Cassie Christopher: desperation. Yes. In the microwave.
Yeah. Get her done. And I, sat on the couch and I ate it and I was going, I know I'm emotional eating right now. I'm so annoyed with myself, and I need to deal with this later. I felt a little bit of guilt about it, which is really unusual for me now, but very common in the past. And, disappointment in ourselves.
We often feel that way. And so I took it as wow, what a great empathy building moment for me to remember what it's like to be in this place. But I think that shows you, even when you have made it safe to feel and healed, your emotional leaning, I consider myself healed for me now that primal drive to eat that experience is like a check engine light.
Like I'm having this strong urge. I'm in a funk usually before I get to the microwave with the marshmallows and the Cheerio's and the butter, I will have checked in with myself and done the work I needed to do. So it doesn't get that far. But occasionally, like I said, it gets there and I can practice self-compassion and know, that that's okay.
I'm not a failure. That food helped me survive that moment. And someone listening out there is going, yeah, one mug of rice, crispy Cheerios is nothing. You should see what I eat. And I was the same way. It used to be a tub of guacamole, used to be three cupcakes from the school cafeteria.
[00:25:18] Damaged Parents: Or the great big tub of ice cream
[00:25:20] Cassie Christopher: Yes. Yes,
[00:25:21] Damaged Parents: in the fridge. Yeah.
[00:25:23] Cassie Christopher: Rather than, one little bit of something that made, I allowed it to help me feel better in the moment and then could, was able to do the work later. Calming your nervous system, self-compassion both of those things are important to make it safe to feel. And then the third frame piece of the courage to trust framework Is to listen to yourself.
[00:25:44] Damaged Parents: Is that hard at first?
[00:25:46] Cassie Christopher: Oh, yes, because self doesn't know what to say. Yes. It's very hard at first and this was why it takes courage. But, I would say it's not hard. It's just confusing. Maybe. What do I want in this moment? I don't really know. I find we learn to listen to ourselves well, by learning from what we've see as mistakes, debriefing those moments, like what , I just shared with you that Cheerio, rice, Krispie experience debriefing that later on allowed me to go.
Okay. So earlier in the day, when I felt the funk and at lunchtime told my husband, I was in a funk. I needed to have listened to. So next time I'm in a funk, I'm going to stop what I'm doing. Set time aside to go journal, because that's what I need to do for, to care for myself to connect with myself.
That's my warning light. If you will. That feeling of being in a funk
[00:26:40] Damaged Parents: So first the warning light was the Cheerios with the well, the microwave mug with the butter and the marshmallows and the Cheerios. And now that just gave you a great, so in that moment, giving yourself grace and that opportunity going, oh, this is an opportunity to check in.
[00:26:57] Cassie Christopher: Yeah.
[00:26:57] Damaged Parents: Okay. when did this go sideways a little bit. Right? So then now, okay. Well maybe when I say I'm in a funk, that's really when I need to check in with myself. So it's, not about being perfect at it. It's about catching it just sooner and sooner, hopefully. And knowing that sometimes if it's a new feeling, maybe that you might still get to the cup at the microwave with Cheerios in the marshmallows and stuff and that's okay.
It's a great time to love yourself. And then it's another new thing you learned. That's what I think I'm hearing you say.
[00:27:29] Cassie Christopher: That's a hundred percent it. And what I want to call out there is sometimes we can't figure out. The what incited the eating event on our own. That's where we need support from other people, whether it be our therapist or our friend, or this is work that I do for my clients, as well as walk me through what happened around that eating event.
What led to that. And it's often. surprising things. An example that comes to me as a woman was sitting down and doing something she loved on her computer. She's a photographer and she loves the editor photos. And she gets up in the middle of that and just goes and binges on Hershey's kisses, just like a bag of them.
And she's like, well, what the heck? I was doing something I enjoyed in that moment. Like I was feeling good in that moment. Why did I have to go eat these Hershey's kisses? She felt like it was you know, senseless and random, and there's just something wrong with her and she's never going to solve this. Well, as we got to talking, what we discovered is she feels guilt for being well off and not needing to work.
That being able to sit at her computer and play with her pictures during the day and get that pleasure during the day actually made her feel guilty and bad about herself. Like she wasn't contributing to society. Like She didn't actually give herself permission to enjoy. She was feeling that guilt.
And so that's why she went and ate because that was a very uncomfortable thing to be feeling under the surface while she's trying to enjoy herself.
[00:29:02] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I mean, I'm really what I'm getting is this underlying thing that we don't even, we don't always know what it is. It's very subconscious and yet we still do it. So it takes a minute to figure, that out. And it doesn't sound like it's a solo journey.
[00:29:19] Cassie Christopher: Certainly not, I think, for, for some of the most self-aware and intuitive among us, perhaps it can be, but it has not been a solo journey for me. And, obviously for my clients, they have my support and a lot of the women I work with have, done years of therapy or read a lot of Brenae Brown or, Self-development work before coming to me as well.
And so if you can't do this work on your own, there's no shame in that. Like it, it often takes an outside perspective to, really understand and see for yourself because we are so trained again by the all or nothing, dieting to blame ourselves. And that's, what that woman did in this instance.
[00:30:04] Damaged Parents: Well, and I was just, you reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine earlier this week, and we were doing a book study together and, this question came up and she's like, yeah, I don't do that. And I chuckled. And I'm like, I'm just gonna remind you about last week.
Sometimes I mean, it's true for me too. I don't recognize it until sometimes someone tells me, but I've got to be open and willing to take a look and go, oh, okay. I do see that inside of me most of the time, I'm just like, you know, before it would have been well pfff they don't know what they're talking about. darn jerks, you know, like, why are they picking on me?
[00:30:44] Cassie Christopher: Yeah.
Yeah. So to be able to be kind to yourself and willing to practice courageous enough to practice listening to yourself, those are real gifts. And, that's why as a result of my work with, people, not only are they creating the supportive relationship with food and their body and health.
And they can eat with joy instead of eating to seek joy. But they're also telling me, my family says I have more joy. I can look in the mirror and I smile now where I used to cringe and avoid it. Like when you are kind to yourself. Like I said, the research on self-compassion doesn't lie, life gets better.
I really, I really believe that The fourth piece of this courage to trust framework. Oftentimes women come to me and they've been dieting to try to control their weight. And so, I don't necessarily believe, although I know there are people out there who believe that any attempt at weight loss is harmful. I, I don't believe that.
So I support women by helping them boost their metabolism and just create a relationship with food where they're, including these supportive foods that are boosting their metabolism and kind of doing the work for them rather than having to restrict because restriction research shows just leads to more wanting of that food, more eating of that food, more thinking about that food.
It creates that obsession that none of us want.
[00:32:13] Damaged Parents: Well, and I think too, with the calorie restriction, doesn't the metabolism decreased too. And so it just means more and more restriction and less and less of things that we can enjoy.
[00:32:24] Cassie Christopher: Yes. I've worked with women who say like, if I eat over 900 calories, I gained weight and that's not enough food for your body to actually get the nutrients it needs not to mention, that can't possibly feel good. You've got to be hungry and disconnected from your body. If you're, only eating 900 calories and so that your right
aging menopause, dieting. All of these things individually can work to slow metabolism and people are often afraid. If I'm kind to myself, am I going to just eat all the donuts? And the truth is no, because being kind to yourself also involves, finding a way to eat healthy food in a way that you enjoy and feel satisfied from so that you can live. You know, Your most energetic, your most vital life.
[00:33:16] Damaged Parents: Yeah, wow, what a great work you're doing. I just, I love the perspective and I love the self compassion and just that we were able to really go back and forth. I mean, it seems like I can apply so much of what you're teaching in many different areas of my life, which is just beautiful. But we here at that point in the podcast where I ask you if somebody in this situation right now, or maybe they're just even wondering, am I an emotional eater or something like that, top three tips or tools that you think that check this out, right?
[00:33:51] Cassie Christopher: Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great question. you know, If someone's wondering if they're an emotional eater I don't think this is what you were getting at, but, You can book a free call with me on my website and I'm happy to talk with you and help you figure it out. I have the approach that if I can help you, I will tell you how.
And if I can't, I'll refer you to someone who can and help you figure out really the best next step for you. So I can't help but offer my
own help
[00:34:15] Damaged Parents: No, that's the way it's three top tips or tools. And I don't know if anyone could know sometimes without talking to someone. So.
[00:34:24] Cassie Christopher: I love that you said that I had a woman who was on a phone call with me the other day, and she's like, everything you're saying I really resonate with, but I don't think I'm an emotional eater like, okay tell me about it. And we're talking. So, I mean, while I'm cooking dinner, I always eat a lot of cheese.
So that's interesting, but I'm not feeling anything in the moment. So we're talking and eating for her. So she wasn't aware of like feeling bad, eating and feeling better, which is what people often think of as emotional eating. She was doing what we often call trans eating or eating to zone out this idea that.
Eating allows you to kind of disconnect or maybe just associate for like a trauma term from your body or from the moment from what is uncomfortable, whether it be for the day or at that time. And so, yes, like she was like, oh, That's exactly it, but she couldn't figure that out unless she had had that conversation with me.
So, yeah. Anyone's welcome. https://www.CassieChristopher.net. You know, Even if you're not a woman over 45, I'd love to help you figure this out. Second tip or tool is this when you notice self criticism about your body or what you're eating or what you are or aren't doing, if you use the word, should, there's another great indicator of that.
All or nothing thinking and self criticism. I would offer you this little mantra to hold onto, and that is, may I be kind and I've been using that in my own life. When I lay down at night and I noticed my belly start to creep over my pajama bottoms and I'm going, oh, why, why? And I say to myself, may I be kind And it, rewiring my brain. I have to tell you, I'm not as affected by that as I once was because of that simple, simple tip. It has helped me to be kinder to myself. And then the last tip I would give anyone out there who's been dieting forever and ever, and you're like, I have no metabolism, you know, metabol what?
Right. Like my relationship with food is so odd. I'm obsessed with it. What, whatever. I'm going to tell you something and you're going to have a hard time doing it on your own because you don't believe me yet, but you need to eat more and you need to eat a nice big breakfast. I know that intermittent fasting is really popular right now and skipping breakfast is popular.
And if you're out there listening and you don't struggle with emotional eating and it works for you. Awesome. But for people who struggle with emotional eating. I mean any diet isn't helpful, but in particular, something that's limiting, what you're eating like that likely is making the problem much worse because intermittent fasting research shows increases your stress, hormone cortisol. So. it creates that nervous system activation that, that we were talking about that you need to calm in order to feel safe enough feel.
[00:37:04] Damaged Parents: Wow. There's so much that really goes into the whole person. I'm just so grateful that I got to have you on this show. Everybody Cassie Christopher find her at https://www.CassieChristopher.net. Don't forget to check out the freebie, which is https://CassieChristopher.net/free. I'm so grateful that you are here and how the knowledge you're able to share with us and really the relate-ability that you brought to our conversation is just a huge gift. So thank you so much.
[00:37:33] Cassie Christopher: Thank you. I know you're talking about the Cheerio rice Krispies.
[00:37:38] Damaged Parents: Yes, I am.
Thank you for listening to this Week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoy talking to Cassie about how she learned to help herself and others. We especially liked when she spoke about microwave Rice Krispie treats and connected with us on such a deep level.
Do you night with other damaged people connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
