S2E54 - Leaving Large - The Stories of a Food Addict
Michelle Petties is an author, speaker, and recovering food addict. Her debut book, Leaving Large – The Stories of a Food Addict, chronicles a lifetime of eating for the wrong reasons. After gaining and losing 700 pounds, Michelle finally discovered the “secret” to ending the battle between her mind, body, and hunger. By unlocking her unique Food Stories, Michelle debunked her misconceptions and misconnections about the purpose of eating. She now teaches others how to find their food truths.
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Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were addicted to food worthy, joyful people come 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 the damaged person. 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. These 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 for strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Michelle Petties. She has many roles in her life. She's an adopted daughter, aunt, sister, and more. We'll talk about how she was addicted to food and how she found health and healing let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Michelle Petties with us. She is an author speaker, recovering food addict, her debut book was Leaving Large, The Stories of a Food Addict Chronicles a Lifetime of Eating for the Wrong Reasons. She has gained and lost 700 pounds. Michelle discovered the secret to ending the battle between her mind, body and hunger by unlocking her unique food stories. Michelle debunked, her misconceptions and misconnections about the purpose of eating. She now teaches others how to find their food truth.
Michelle. Welcome to the show.
[00:02:41] Michelle Petties: I am so excited to be here. Thank you, Angela for having me.
[00:02:44] Damaged Parents: You're welcome. Okay. I want to understand what do you mean by food? Truth.
[00:02:50] Michelle Petties: Oh man. Yes. All right. First, before talk to you about food truth, I do want to say it was 700 pounds over the course of a lifetime. I never weighed 700 pounds, but the process of gaining and losing yo-yo dieting 50 pounds, 60 pounds gain 50, lose 60, lose 60 gain 60. That cumulative 700 plus pounds, really, but I just wanted to be clear.
I'm clear with that.
[00:03:17] Damaged Parents: Thank you.
[00:03:18] Michelle Petties: So food truth is eating for the right reasons. and I work with so many people that say to me, I'm an emotional eater, right. And the reality is we're all emotional eaters. We are all the problem becomes we are emotional Overeaters. That's the first problem.
And the second problem is, well, we can't separate what we feel about a food. And what the food Really is. And that's what I mean by food truth. And I'll give you a prime example It just happened today. You and I were talking, prior to the beginning of this podcast and I said, oh, I've been having computer problems.
I've been having computer issues. And as I said here, going from one laptop to another, I felt something in my stomach that said, I'm going to eat something.
[00:04:06] Damaged Parents: Really right there.
[00:04:07] Michelle Petties: right. Then I felt that, but I knew I wasn't hungry because I ate breakfast before I came in, but I wanted to eat something.
and what it was is I was frustrated and angry about and stressed about what was going on with being able to complete my work, get my, get on this laptop, talk to you in a little while all this stuff was going on. And that stress, that frustration that I felt. Showed up in my stomach is this thing.
Cause that's what it does. This is a thing. But if I wasn't really conscious about why I eat, which I, I used to not be conscious of it. I would have gotten something to eat because I would have thought that that was hunger rather than frustration. So what I say, I teach people to recognize their food truth is to understand, and I know this.
Right because I'm a recovering food addict the way you learn how to do something in my estimation is to do it wrong for a very long time.
[00:05:05] Damaged Parents: Isn't that the truth?
[00:05:08] Michelle Petties: 43 years. I ate for reasons that didn't have anything to do with hunger, I couldn't even recognize real hunger. And so now I really learned this secret , to recognize that what you hungry Is and that's what I mean by the food truth. if I had eaten something, when I was feeling frustration, Over this, what was happening with my laptop?
That wouldn't have been a food truth because I would have eaten some chocolates and chips, some something, and I would've come back to the same frustration. My laptop still wouldn't have been working and I would have eaten something that wasn't really going to serve my body in the way that it needed to be served.
[00:05:43] Damaged Parents: Is it almost like you've had to learn to listen to, or just recognize that that feeling might not be hunger?
[00:05:50] Michelle Petties: That's exactly right. You have learned to listen, but see the, thing is is that we don't even always know what we're hearing. Right.
So in the old days, you know, I would get the diet books, right. And the books would say, well, stop eating. Stop.
Don't eat when you're not hungry, stop eating when you're not hungry. But if you don't, if you don't know the difference between hunger and thirst You may still eat if you don't know the difference between hunger and exhaustion. Cause I mean, in the old days I would say something like, oh my God, I have worked so hard all day that I'm going to go home.
I'm going to get something to eat and I'm going to go to bed. Right. If I'm tired, why am I eating? And I'm going to bed. If I'm tired, I should just go to bed.
[00:06:30] Damaged Parents: Yeah. So is that, cause something you said earlier was that we're all emotional eaters.
[00:06:37] Michelle Petties: Yes.
[00:06:37] Damaged Parents: So as you're telling your story, I'm trying to go. Okay. what does that mean? In the example you just gave is a little bit about, okay. So if somebody is coming home from work and they're doing exactly what you just said, that might be a sign that their emotional eating, instead of.
Just eating because they didn't eat dinner or it could be both. Maybe. I don't know. So how, would you know.
[00:07:04] Michelle Petties: here's the thing, when I say that we're all, emotional eaters. And the problem is when we, emotionally overeat, if we don't, we have to eat to live, right. I mean, eating is about survival. What will happen if we don't eat.
[00:07:16] Damaged Parents: Then we don't survive.
[00:07:18] Michelle Petties: Right. Right. And we don't serve, I mean, means we die if you don't eat you'll die right. And although we're all conscious of the fact that we will all die at some point. Nobody's ready to do it right now. Nobody's nobody's ready right now. We eat out of fear. That's the emotion.
Fear is the emotion that drives everybody to eat. At some point, if I don't eat, I'll get hungry. I won't get enough food. I want to get into. enough nourishment. I won't survive I'll die that's the underlying emotion for everyone to eat.
[00:07:49] Damaged Parents: So,
what you're saying is that. The reason we eat is because of this fear, not for a need. Am I, I don't think, I don't know if I'm understanding that
[00:08:00] Michelle Petties: Okay. So the reason to eat is for nourishment and nutrition, so that we will survive and won't die. that's the purpose of eating. That's the purpose of hunger to, signal you hunger. The purpose of hunger is to signal that you, that your body needs replenishing, that your body needs nutrition, that your body means new energy now.
So it's time to right. Satisfy hunger. So you will survive and probably won't die because otherwise you will die and nobody's ready to die Right.
now. And this fear and fear is driving that here's the thing about emotional eating? Is it the emotion doesn't pop up and say, Hey, I'm doing it. You just feel it.
And then you respond, with it with food.
[00:08:41] Damaged Parents: Okay. So I feel an emotion, sadness, frustration, whatever it is. And instead of. Feeling or figuring out what else to do with it. Instead I would eat food
[00:08:54] Michelle Petties: Yes. That's exactly. So I'll give you another prime example. and I live it and cause I'm conscious of it because I used to not be conscious of it.
I've lost my credit card a while back. I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it. I don't even know where it was. I had it like where is it? I don't know. where it is if I can find some I'm in my office, I'm out to my car. I'm in my office. After my car, I go out to my car and when I go out to my car, I'm like at my wit's end because I had been looking for it for a couple of hours, but I get into my car.
I look and I don't find it as I'm getting ready to close the door. I look on the backseat of the car and I see a package of chocolate caramels of sugar-free caramels. And I feel this twinge in my stomach and I reached for the caramels and as I'm reaching for the caramels, I say to myself, because I do this before I eat anything.
Am I hungry right now? Or am I something else. And I knew I wasn't hungry. I wasn't hungry when I walked out to the car to look for my card. But when I saw those caramels, I felt this twinge in my stomach. I thought it was hungry, but it was, it was frustration and anger and not being able to find my credit card because if I had, walked out and found my credit card, I might've looked at those caramels and still had the same twinge because I was happy, you know, I'm going to celebrate.
Cause I found that I, don't know, but, here's how you check yourself right here. Here's what I teach. And this is how we have to become conscious of what we eat And part of this is just. Walking around and eating mindlessly because food is there because we have this condition response.
Right. We see it. We eat it the first question. is am I hungry or am I something else? So that breaks the pattern that makes you stop. And like you said earlier, listen to your body listen. Am I hungry? Am I something else? And then you think, well was a hungry. And when was the last time I eat? What just happened?
Who just walked in the room? what.
did I just think about? Or did I just see there's something else driving the driving, the fact that I would want to eat, because just because you want to eat doesn't mean that you are hungry.
[00:10:50] Damaged Parents: Okay. So almost like needing to become curious about what is this feeling, trying to tell me right now.
[00:10:57] Michelle Petties: Exactly. Exactly. What does this feeling telling me that I need to do? And it's not, eat, but we're so used to doing it. that's the thing that we do. So it's am I hungry or am I something else? And the second question is why this food now why this particular food now?
And the third question is. If this food will not give me the body that I say that I want, why am I eating it? So part of the problem for me, and I feel like it's for so many people, it's just this mindless eating, it's this conditioned response. And once we break the pattern, once we just break the habit, if we just get conscious
then we can create a new behavior, but first we have to be conscious of what we're doing. a lot of that stuff stems from childhood. You know, I talk about, in my book a lot of the stories about how is a kid, I've learned how to eat it's not like learn how to eat incorrectly, but I use food in ways to, to soothe
different situations when you're a kid, but you don't have any control over it. So food is something pleasurable, something you can, you know, sugar, right? I mean, so that, you know, it just becomes a habit that we started eating for pleasure and entertainment and as an activity, instead of eating for what reasons that we really should eat, which is nourishment and nutrition
[00:12:12] Damaged Parents: yeah, and I think it would be easy to connect those two. If you think about in this world, what do we celebrate with food? And. You know, Something's wrong. Oh, let me go get you an ice cream or little things like that. That then we tie it to the emotion instead of the other way around now
would you mind sharing? Actually, I'm just going to shift gears real quick, sharing a little bit about your childhood so that we can understand where some of this came from.
[00:12:39] Michelle Petties: Yeah, yeah sure. I want to say that I grew up in a dysfunctional house. But the truth is all households are dysfunctional to some degree, so that's like fear, that's like emotional overeating, everybody eats emotionally. Well, everybody's got some sort of dysfunction in their household, so I'm not going to, blame it on that.
what I am going to say. Is it, there are a couple of stories in the book that, that speak to my relationship with my mother and I, actually, my grandparents adopted me and I grew up with my grandparents in a very loving environment, but my mother wasn't able to raise me and. As I look back on my life.
And I think about myself as a kid, I always longed for that. I long to be with her, but that really wasn't the reality of my situation. And that caused me to feel anxiety, which we didn't, we didn't call it that in the sixties, they didn't, you know, nobody knew that that's what it was.
But I remember. Spending time with her, you know, I knew her, I would go visit her. She would come to visit and all that. And there's this one story I write about is called Atkinson, adventure. And my mother was the seamstress and I am too. So my good, so is my grandma's. So this, thing that we all share.
But anyway, when she would come to visit my hometown, we would find some time where we would sneak off together and we would go to the fabric store. it was just me and my mom's. So it was like our special, a little special time in the story I write about is one time we did go to the fabric store and when we were leaving the fabric store, we pass by a donut shop donut shop that she used to go to when she was girl.
And she was at, oh my goodness, let's go in here. Well, you know, I'm going to do whatever she wants to do. So, we go to the, we go to the donut shop and we share this donut. I mean, she buys donuts for everybody else in the family. We have the next day, but while we're in the car is just me and my mother eating this donut and talking about stuff.
And in the story I write about When she leaves with my brothers and my sisters, I continue to go to that donut shop on the other side of town. Whenever I will have allowance, whenever I would have extra money, I would get on my bike and I would go over there and I would just get as many donuts as I could just eat them, just eat them.
and that's something I continue to do, as an adult. So I figured it out. that, those donuts and that time, it might've been the beginning of my food for the addiction. I mean, my sugar addiction, you know, I don't know, but I didn't want the donuts. I didn't want the donuts. What I wanted to be was connected to my mother.
And so the donuts were representation of that. And so when ever, you have these situations or whenever I had these situations, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be a situation where something would happen. And I would just consciously say, Oh, I'm fat or I miss my mom. I wish I, I wish I was with my mother or I'm in this stressful situation.
I want to do that. I'm going to go have some donuts that's not what happens, what happens? You just feel it, you just feel this thing that makes you want to eat it. You just feel that.
[00:15:29] Damaged Parents: right. Well, in that connection, it would seem to me just on some level, the only way to feel like you were connecting with mom. If she wasn't there was through that food. And then it became like a addiction.
[00:15:44] Michelle Petties: that's because that's the only way I knew how to do it because it wasn't the food that I wanted. It was the memory. It was the memory of that moment. It was the feeling from that moment. It wasn't, it wasn't a donut. And so once, once we learned how to identify. what memories we associate with certain foods, once we realize how to do that, which is what I teach you, how to do.
And then separate the food from the memory. And we're able to, we can still get the comfort that we need by going directly to the memory. We can go directly to the memory or in certain situations you can go directly to the person. Right. So back then, if I had known that that's what it was, my grandparents would have, let me call my mother.
It would have, let me do that. Right. I could've called her, and had that moment, but I didn't know that that's what it was. And so that's how we all get so stuck when we talk about and why I just consciously do not say this and I encourage other people not to say relationship with food.
Because we don't have a relationship with food. We manage food. And we start giving food the qualities of our relationship, Right When we start giving food, as long as we give food relationship qualities, things that we should go to for people will continue to go to food for. when were lonely or when we're bored or we're sad, or when we angry or that, language reinforces it.
So when we are lonely, angry, sad, bored, we need to go to people. We need to go to our friends. We need to go to our family for that kind of support, not food because food will never give it to us. And that's where the addiction comes in because we keep going to food, thinking it has some super power to solve an emotional situation, which it cannot ever do.
[00:17:29] Damaged Parents: Okay. What you said was not using the statement of relationship with food. And so I think what you're explaining when, when you say this is that when let's say, I said, I'm working on my relationship with food, . Then there's this tendency maybe subconscious or unconscious to quite literally give food the power to, have an impact on my emotions.
I think that's what you're saying.
[00:17:57] Michelle Petties: Yes.
[00:17:59] Damaged Parents: Okay.
[00:17:59] Michelle Petties: Yes.
[00:18:00] Damaged Parents: sense. I could see that because does not have yes I might tie in emotion to it, but food itself is not my relationship.
[00:18:10] Michelle Petties: Exactly.
[00:18:11] Damaged Parents: Okay.
[00:18:12] Michelle Petties: The only, the only problem food will solve his hunger. But because we say in believe things like relationship with food, and we say I'm a stress eater. We give power to the notion that food can do something other than what it can do. And we have to nip that in the bud.
Well, I think I want to get really clear. We have to get really clear because as long as we are not clear Angela about it, then we are going to be robbed. We're going to be robbed of our ability to have the kinds of authentic relationship with people that we're supposed to have. We're not going to go to people when we supposed to go to people.
We're not going to be vulnerable when we're supposed to be vulnerable. We're not going to get, we're not going to get our emotional needs met because we keep trying to get food to it.
[00:18:59] Damaged Parents: Okay. what you just said resonated in me and that it reminds me of, oh, I don't know if it was the Gottman's but relationship stuff. Right. and one of the things that they talk about you know, you have this relationship that has this little house and at first. if you go outside the house, you basically create another door or window into the relationship.
And now the relationship is not the relationship with that person. The relationship is three people, because then there's this tendency to go to the other person. So we get like that triangulation. So I think what you're saying is food can also be that other place for some people
[00:19:44] Michelle Petties: it can be that other place, but it will never give people what they need, but they keep trying to make it, give them what they need
[00:19:52] Damaged Parents: Right? Just like that third person can't really make the relationship between the two better, but they keep going there thinking that it might. Okay. Huh?
I hadn't thought about that as a way, people would relate to food, but that's really interesting now that I'm starting to think about it. ,
[00:20:13] Michelle Petties: so this is, let me tell you this is how this all came up for me. I feel like this is the time to tell it. As I started writing the book and I started trying to just get off this yo-yo cause I had tried so many times and I would always gain the weight back and I just knew I was missing something.
And as I was thinking, a story came up and story came up for me that my uncle told me, this is my mother's brother. Right. And so we were on his farm. I grew up in Texas in a small town, on the farm, a small town in Texas. And we were on his farm. We were having a family cookout, barbecue, something like that.
And we had watermelon and I was like, bill, Hey, do you want some watermelon? He was like, no, I don't eat it. I don't eat watermelon and he didn't even say, I don't want watermelon. He didn't even say I don't like it. He said, I don't eat it. Then I'm like, well, what do you mean everybody? Like you, you don't want any right now.
Why don't you like it? Why don't you want it? He was like, I just don't eat it. And I'm like, you, you can't just say that to me. You have to give me a reason. And he went on to tell me and so understand Angela. At this point, my uncle was probably 75 years old. He might've been almost 80. And I said, well, you've got to, you've got to give me a reason.
He went on to tell me that when he was a little kid, maybe five or six, he and some buddies stole a watermelon from a neighbor's garden. And my grandfather, his father found out about.
it. Now my grandfather was a church trustee and a railroad worker, and the one person that a five-year old or six year old that just stole something.
The one person they don't want to meet is that guy. And so my grandfather went on and gave him a beating, a very severe beating and beating so severe that now 70 years later, he won't even eat that food. he never ate watermelon again, because of that beating. My grandfather literally beat the taste out of his mouth. And so when my uncle told me this story, the importance of it didn't really settle on me. I mean, I heard it, I thought it was awful, but I didn't really make the connection. But as I was starting my, final journey, this, last leg of the journey for me, I said, oh my God, that is it.
that is what yo-yo dieting, that's what my problem is. Is that he would not eat that food because it was so painful, too painful for him, the memory was too painful that he would never eat it for 70 years he died without ever eating again. That must be the same thing that the flip is also true.
That must be the same thing for people with food and me, for the foods that you just can't stop eating. that you just continue to eat meat because it is the memories that are associated with the food are So pleasurable, so wonderful. You keep re wanting to relive the pleasure that you associate with that food and that's the breakthrough is to be able to separate the feeling that you associate with the food from the food itself and know that the food is not the feeling
That's the work.
[00:23:09] Damaged Parents: So the most important part is learning that the food is not the feeling. And then I would think there's another step in there and that's learning how to interpret and understand those feelings also.
[00:23:23] Michelle Petties: Yeah.
Yes. Oh yeah. they're more steps for sure. You have to interpret and understand the feelings and then you have to learn to make the right substitutions, you know, I mean because if you're still hungry, You still have to learn the right. Make the smart choices.
Right. But, understanding your food story, what it does, it breaks the pattern. Right. It gets you mindful. It gets you to a place of understanding. I mean, if I can just raise our collective consciousness about why we eat what we eat,
[00:23:51] Damaged Parents: What's amazing is, as I'm thinking about this as for chit chatting is pork, not in a shortage of food, really,
[00:23:59] Michelle Petties: no, no, there's not.
[00:24:00] Damaged Parents: And yet there's still the seems this, maybe in some ways, this desperation to have food.
[00:24:07] Michelle Petties: But in the desperation, Angela is not out of hunger is the disapprobation is not out of physical hunger. The desperation is out of getting our emotional needs met. Is it, we think that we can solve some emotional need that they cannot solve. That's where the desperation is. That's what the desperation is.
And you think about, all the clues that exist, all the pools that exist, that has little to no nutritional value
and there's tons of it. So the only purpose for that food is to provide pleasure. And people will say, oh, I want some junk food or I need, or I eat junk food.
we don't accept junk in any other area of our life, but people have No, hesitation about eating junk food and that that's a whole nother other thing right there, but everything becomes about what does it taste like? And as soon as I stopped making my own decisions about what I was going to eat in stop thinking about what does it taste like, the taste of the moment, and even understanding that we can enjoy foods and the other, some of the way you don't have to eat it.
Right? I mean, you don't, I mean,
[00:25:13] Damaged Parents: No,
you're just reminded me. I used to joke with the kids if I wasn't hungry, but it smelled good, you know, and I would just take a big old whiff and I'd be like, oh, that sure tasted good. And they would chuckle and laugh at me and I'd be like, but then I was fine after that.
[00:25:30] Michelle Petties: That was real, but that's real. I mean, that's the thing, just because it's people, I have friends, I have plenty of friends, even though I drink coffee now they love the smell of coffee, but they don't like the taste of it. They don't. So just because it smells good or is there the meaning of eating?
you can just smell it and still get some satisfaction and get some joy from the aroma. Right? There's nothing more beautiful. I mean, there are other things that.
are more beautiful, but I love a beautiful case of gelato. All of the colors, it all looks so beautiful and pretty all the colors.
Right. I love, I love looking to gelato. I'm not going to eat it, but I'm like looking at It
[00:26:05] Damaged Parents: It is beautiful.
[00:26:07] Michelle Petties: So that's not the only way to enjoy it. I mean, I don't eat bacon, but I like the sound. I like the sound that it makes when you, when it's in the skillet kind of crackling up. Right. So there are many different ways to enjoy food. If we will allow ourselves to enjoy it in the, in that manner.
[00:26:25] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I'd love that. I love that. I said that because I hadn't thought about looking at it and listening to it and really using those other senses. If I'm not hungry. Oh, you know what? I still can feel myself by looking and appreciating and loving what's there.
[00:26:42] Michelle Petties: Yes. Yes, we have five. We have at least four other senses, maybe five. If you talk about intuition, other than taste. we have five other senses with which we can enjoy the world, but we just go immediately to this, tasting. Right. So if you're stressed, go out and smell some flowers, get some joy from that.
Right. Well, if you live near the water, go out and walk on the sand, get, some joy from feeling that, it doesn't have to be, I got to go you know. Something, but we have to, teach ourselves that we have to learn that we're responding in a way that aren't really serving a bodies and the, our best health,
our mental, and physical.
[00:27:27] Damaged Parents: Right. Right. And I would think some of that comes from learning to love those, icky feelings in some ways.
[00:27:35] Michelle Petties: Yes. I'm so glad you said that. Oh. Oh,
[00:27:39] Damaged Parents: for it. No,
you go take it
[00:27:42] Michelle Petties: Okay. cause he is, here's the thing. We have this notion that we aren't supposed to feel discomfort, that we aren't supposed to feel pain. And so we use food to mask that, to mask the stress, mask the pain, massive discomfort, to cover it up, right.
To avoid it, to delay it because we don't want to feel it.
And here's the thing is if we will allow ourselves to step into whatever discomfort or pain that's going on, that's where the answers are. The answers are in the pain. The answer. In fact, I believe on many levels that our greatest gifts, our greatest joy is in dealing with the pain that we have in our lives.
But if we mask it and we uncover it and never deal with it, we never get to the thing that might completely change our lives because we're using food separate us from it.
[00:28:35] Damaged Parents: Yeah, because we're unwilling to maybe check in with those feelings
[00:28:39] Michelle Petties: Yes. Yes.
[00:28:41] Damaged Parents: or sit in them. And I don't mean when I say sit in them, I don't mean sit in them like depression and despondency. When I say sit I'm thinking, processing and understanding.
[00:28:53] Michelle Petties: Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Sometimes you got to sit with it. Yes sit with it.
And those icky feelings, man, I was listening to will Smith being interviewed and I love this. I feel like I'm going to write about them and talk about it. I want to do something with it. He said something I'm going to paraphrase.
That problems are the way that God, this is how we learn that God sends us problems so that we can learn. Well, if we are using food as an avoidance is a masking as something to cover up those problems that we never get the lessons that are intended for us, we don't get them. So we got to lean into the problems.
We've got to lean into the learning. We got to lean into the pain. We've gotta lean into the discomfort because it is in those answers. It is in those answers that we do find some freedom. Yeah.
[00:29:43] Damaged Parents: 100% am on, track with that.
[00:29:46] Michelle Petties: Yeah. Yes. I'm so glad you brought that up.
[00:29:49] Damaged Parents: Well, it's something I think we've that we forget. I don't know. As a society. I think we forget to talk about it because growing up, I think feelings are wrong. Think of the two year old, having a temper tantrum in a store. there's usually not a validation. There's like a shame that happens in the mom.
And oh my gosh, I'm not doing my job. Right. Who are all these people? They're going to judge me.
[00:30:14] Michelle Petties: Right, right,
[00:30:15] Damaged Parents: You know, so then what are we teaching the child? Is that, that emotion isn't valuable. If anything, it's an expense.
[00:30:24] Michelle Petties: When you talk about that, here is an example. That comes to mind when you say that I was in an airport not too long ago. And it was, this was pre COVID, right? This is pre COVID. And there was a mother that was going through the airport with her child in a stroller. And the kid was fretting and I don't have children.
So I can't really speak on what parents are supposed to do or what parents aren't supposed to do. I'm just going to tell you what that.
[00:30:47] Damaged Parents: I think even when you have kids, I'm not certain that I could, I have kids and I don't know that I could speak
to that either.
[00:30:55] Michelle Petties: So the child was fretting and the mother had, she stopped in the airport. She had, some sort of food. She had, I don't know if it was something sweet or some crackers or some cookies or something, but she had it in a baggie and she when the child started to fret. She got to a really quickly and gave it to the child and child stopped fretting and started focusing on, I'm going to say it.
was an Oreo. Just for the sake of this story. And I looked at that and I thought to myself, I wonder what was really going on there? Was that child really hungry? Or was it how just anxious and nervous and obsessed because they're in this airport is crowded. It's a lot of people, the child is feeling the frustration or the mother trying to get the
flight on time and the child is feeling that. And what would have happened if the mother had just taken five seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and stop the stroller and picked up the kid and kind of comfort to them and said, I know you're upset, but mommy is okay. We're okay. We're headed to the airplane. It's going to be all right in a second.
Put the kid back in the stroller
[00:31:59] Damaged Parents: yeah.
[00:32:00] Michelle Petties: Maybe the child really was hungry, but all I'm saying, is the notion that food is the answer to situation? To certain situations comes to us early on. So they spend a lot of time in the airport and that kid gets anxious in the airport a lot. And That's the response.
that child very quickly learns that when I am frustrated and anxious, what I need is what my mother just gave me an Oreo cookie that solves the problem and what the child really wants and needs is for mama to stop and comfort me and
be okay.
And so that's happening having misconnections.
That's how the misconnections happen. I remember, being a kid in. And scraping my knee or whatever, and running in and being upset. Cause I see a little blood or something and my grandmother would say something like, oh sweetie, come here, let me kiss it and make it better.
And she would kiss it and make it better. And I run back out right. she didn't say, well, come in and make that grandma make you some ice cream.
[00:32:58] Damaged Parents: Yeah. But if that just goes to show you, you never really know where that, connection is going to be made. and while it might not be tied to physical pain, it's tied to emotional pain. And for some other people, maybe it is tied to physical pain. so I think as, parents and grandparents and great-grandparents in this world, We never know, but are the best thing to do is check that emotion first.
It sounds like,
[00:33:23] Michelle Petties: Yes. Yes, absolutely.
[00:33:25] Damaged Parents: and not connect it. So if someone is, dealing, they're recognizing they've got a problem. They're going, oh my gosh, they listened to this podcast. you know, maybe I am an emotional eater. What would be the top three tools and tips you would give them or say do this, or try this.
[00:33:42] Michelle Petties: my top three tools and tips are those questions. And the questions are the questions that break the pattern And part of it is what you just said is sitting in processing with emotion I'm going to go through this. But the, situation really becomes am I, I am that recognize if I am at hungry, what I am is said instead of eat, I will.
I mean, that's the, statement to recognize the thing that you are. Uh, That it's not hungry and then have a replacement or replacement for food, Right, I am not hungry. What I am is angry instead of eat. I will. What I am is I am bored. I'm not hungry. I am bored. Instead of eat, I will feel is to fill in those blanks.
And have an appropriate response for the thing that you're feeling, because hunger is just, one is just one thing in this world that we feel is one thing. And there is at least 52 other emotions that are out there at least 52. Right.
[00:34:42] Damaged Parents: Right, right.
[00:34:43] Michelle Petties: And so could I, what I look at when I look at old pictures of myself, when I see somebody now, That's obese.
What I know, I know that they have some stuff that's going on in their world, that they have not figured out the tools in which to manage that stuff. That's all it is. We haven't, they haven't figured out the correct way to manage all this other stuff that's going on in the world. Other than food. they think food is the answer and food is not.
[00:35:10] Damaged Parents: Well, I am so grateful to have had you on the show, Michelle, this has been a fantastic conversation. I love it.
[00:35:18] Michelle Petties: It's Been my pleasure for sure.
[00:35:20] Damaged Parents: for sure. And then they can look you up on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. And do they just look up your name, Michelle Petties
[00:35:29] Michelle Petties: yeah. If, you look up Michelle Petties Michelle P E T T I E S, everything will come up. Right. My book will come up. the book is Leaving Large. L E A V I N G Leaving Large The Stories of a Food Addict. If you're listening to this podcast, you can download a free chapter. You can go to my website and download a free chapter.
you can go to website and back copy if you want. It's also available on Amazon. You can order from Amazon. There's many different ways to reach it. You can get the book itself that way, but if you want to reach me, you can reach me on Instagram or YouTube, Facebook, @Iambrandnewnow, and you can connect with me.
I would love that. I would love to continue the conversation with anybody who wants to have it.
[00:36:09] Damaged Parents: That's awesome. Thank you. Michelle Pettis said I am brand new and everywhere on social media. Check her out. She's amazing. And you spell her name, her last name, P E T T I E S. Thank you again so much for coming on the show.
[00:36:26] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Michelle about how she gained and lost over 700 pounds over her life. We especially liked when she spoke about getting donuts with her mom. To unite with other damaged people connect with us on Instagram look for damaged parents will be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
