Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Hidden Triggers Making You Overeat and Stall Fat Loss (Sarah Krieger) | Ep 303

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Hidden Triggers Making You Overeat and Stall Fat Loss (Sarah Krieger) | Ep 303 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:02
  Philip Pape: If you've ever found yourself demolishing a pint of ice cream after a stressful day, even though you weren't physically hungry, your problem isn't lack of willpower.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: It's invisible emotional triggers hijacking your eating decisions without your conscious awareness.
• 0:17
  Philip Pape: Today, we're exposing these hidden psychological forces and why they're sabotaging your nutrition goals, despite your best intentions.
• 0:25
  Philip Pape: You'll discover the neurological reasons your brain connects food with emotional relief, how to decode your unique trigger patterns and some strategies to rewire these responses for good.
• 0:36
  Philip Pape: If you're tired of that frustrating cycle of emotional eating followed by guilt and shame, today's conversation will give you the psychological toolkit you need to finally break free.
• 0:48
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 1:04
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm excited to bring you a special collaboration with Sarah Krieger, owner of Consistency Over Perfection Fitness and host of the Don't Call Me Skinny podcast.
• 1:15
  Philip Pape: We're giving you twice the fun today, because we are dropping two conversations on our two shows, each tackling emotional eating from different angles.
• 1:24
  Philip Pape: Today, sarah is diving into the, I'll say, very, very powerful, very critical psychological side of emotional eating.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: And then make sure and follow her podcast Again Don't Call Me Skinny, look it up.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: I'll include the link in the show notes and you're going to hear me discuss the data-driven system side of conquering emotional eating, and I'll again include the link in the show notes, as both episodes should have dropped today.
• 1:49
  Philip Pape: All right, so a little bit about Sarah.
• 1:51
  Philip Pape: After losing 80 pounds, keeping it off for four years without fad diets, she now helps women through her, empowered by the Basics method, a really solid method, totally aligned with us in this show, so you definitely want to check that out and she focuses on a lot of mindset work and breaking free from diet culture.
• 2:10
  Philip Pape: As a former educator turned coach, she's developed some powerful strategies, some tips to address the emotional side of eating, and today we're going to look at some of those hidden triggers that drive emotional eating and then give you some tips to build a healthier relationship with food.
• 2:24
  Philip Pape: Sarah, thanks for doing this with me and welcome to the show.
• 2:28
  Sarah Krieger: Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.
• 2:29
  Sarah Krieger: It's been a minute and I'm excited to tackle this one.
• 2:32
  Philip Pape: Let's do it.
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: Let's do it.
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: So, emotional eating it's a big hot topic and I don't know.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: I think one of the best places to start for folks is just in like the practical problems that you see day to day when people come to you and they're like I'm hungry, I crave things, I overeat, I love the Ben and Jerry's ice cream, um, and we can get into topics like um, emotional hunger, you know physical versus emotional hunger signals and all that.
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: But just let's take a take it from the beginning.
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: You know what?
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: What is, what is the issue?
• 3:03
  Sarah Krieger: Yeah.
• 3:03
  Sarah Krieger: So I think there's it's a cult, like a culmination.
• 3:05
  Sarah Krieger: I think that, um, you know my story really is what drove me to be a coach and help women.
• 3:12
  Sarah Krieger: And even in the very beginning I was very like here's your macros, here are your, you know, here's your training program.
• 3:19
  Sarah Krieger: Like why are you not turning in a check-in?
• 3:21
  Sarah Krieger: Like what's wrong with you?
• 3:23
  Sarah Krieger: I say that in quotation marks Like I thought you wanted to lose weight and it wasn't really until I started coaching other people where I realized like this is a much bigger issue or problem.
• 3:34
  Sarah Krieger: The emotional side of this, tackling the feelings, tackling okay, well, why am I having all of these things?
• 3:40
  Sarah Krieger: Why can I not stop at one Oreo?
• 3:42
  Sarah Krieger: Why do I have to eat the whole bag?
• 3:43
  Sarah Krieger: Why do I wake up at 2am with sour cream and you know, sour cream and potato chips all over my chest and I blacked out and I don't know what happened, like how does this?
• 3:53
  Sarah Krieger: Like how did I get here?
• 3:55
  Sarah Krieger: And so I feel like this emotional, this emotional side I like to refer as like fixing the food relationship and just having a better relationship I think all comes down to an awareness piece.
• 4:09
  Sarah Krieger: I think a lot of people just aren't aware, they're not educated around food, educated around emotions, how to emotionally regulate themselves, and I think that that's kind of like the deep part of this where it's this it can get ugly and it can get really um, I don't want to say it can get very like self-judgy, like what's wrong with me?
• 4:35
  Sarah Krieger: Why can't I get fixed?
• 4:36
  Sarah Krieger: I there's, why can so and so do this, but I can't seem.
• 4:40
  Sarah Krieger: Why can she have cake and not eat the whole cake?
• 4:42
  Sarah Krieger: But I can't do that right.
• 4:43
  Sarah Krieger: So then it turns very internal and I think that this is a big piece that we are completely missing the mark on.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: Yeah, there's, and there's a lot of comparison.
• 4:51
  Philip Pape: Like you said, there's a lot of frustration.
• 4:53
  Philip Pape: I mean people, root cause, which would you agree that you know everybody's different, Like some people can process through some mild emotional eating, potentially with just some strategies, Others it's like let's go crack open your childhood trauma here.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: Like what do you agree?
• 5:19
  Philip Pape: There's this maybe spectrum going on?
• 5:21
  Sarah Krieger: Oh, absolutely, I think that you know, especially it depends.
• 5:23
  Sarah Krieger: I truly do feel like this stems that you know, especially it depends.
• 5:25
  Sarah Krieger: I truly do feel like the stems from you know your childhood.
• 5:28
  Sarah Krieger: I feel like not everybody has always had a weight issue.
• 5:31
  Sarah Krieger: A weight issue was always my story.
• 5:34
  Sarah Krieger: Like I knew in kindergarten I was the big girl, I was bigger than all the other girls.
• 5:38
  Sarah Krieger: Like that was my story.
• 5:39
  Sarah Krieger: That's what I knew.
• 5:40
  Sarah Krieger: Some women come into this.
• 5:42
  Sarah Krieger: Maybe you know postpartum that I see that are like this hasn't been an issue until you know my adult life.
• 5:50
  Sarah Krieger: I had never had this issue growing up and I really truly feel like a lot of the women that come to me on the bigger, I would say the more difficult end of that spectrum, where it's that this is very deep rooted hiding in closets eating Doritos you know the parents buying, you know food, but they weren't allowed quote unquote, allowed to eat that food, those kinds of things.
• 6:13
  Sarah Krieger: Or just growing up in a home where food was always that right.
• 6:17
  Sarah Krieger: Like an Oreo is always going to be an Oreo, it's never not going to be an Oreo, it's never going to trick you or anything.
• 6:22
  Sarah Krieger: So it's like, almost like it's creating that safe place with the food.
• 6:26
  Sarah Krieger: It's like okay, no matter what I do with this Oreo, it's going to be an Oreo and it's going to be delicious and it's going to make me feel better in this moment, and so that's what I'm going to turn to.
• 6:33
  Sarah Krieger: So I definitely think there's a spectrum of women that I see where it's just like hey, we have to get really deep on, like what's going on?
• 6:41
  Sarah Krieger: Versus like okay, this has been an issue for this long.
• 6:43
  Sarah Krieger: Like here's some methods.
• 6:45
  Sarah Krieger: Let's try these first and then go from there and see what happens.
• 6:49
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you know, I've I've seen that, I've seen that spectrum and it really depends on where the coach is coming from.
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: That's why I like how we're we're covering this from different angles today so people understand that you know everyone's different.
• 6:59
  Philip Pape: Um, you mentioned awareness.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: I really love that because we want to define that.
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: I think today, to me, awareness could be to someone listening, I'm tracking my food, or it could be I'm identifying my triggers, or it could be I'm journaling my hunger.
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: What do you define as awareness?
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: Is it all those things, or where does it start?
• 7:24
  Sarah Krieger: all those things and every again.
• 7:25
  Sarah Krieger: I think one thing about, like coaching and people, is realizing.
• 7:27
  Sarah Krieger: Like everybody's in a different place, I've had people come to me where they've already tracked all their macros before they know exactly how to use a scale, and I have other people who are like that is so I've tracked coins, but I've never tracked macros.
• 7:37
  Sarah Krieger: I don't know what I'm doing here, so I think that it's all.
• 7:40
  Sarah Krieger: It's all.
• 7:41
  Sarah Krieger: This whole thing is very individualized, so sometimes awareness is my clients just taking photos in a food log.
• 7:48
  Sarah Krieger: Hey, let's start here.
• 7:49
  Sarah Krieger: Where are you at?
• 7:50
  Sarah Krieger: Oh, hey, let's just start with.
• 7:52
  Sarah Krieger: I call it the basic plate method.
• 7:53
  Sarah Krieger: So everything I do is about the basics.
• 7:55
  Sarah Krieger: So just learning how to build a basic plate.
• 7:57
  Sarah Krieger: It is not.
• 7:58
  Sarah Krieger: This does not have to be your you know five star gourmet French meal.
• 8:02
  Sarah Krieger: This doesn't have to be this.
• 8:04
  Sarah Krieger: It can be literally just like let's understand and define what is the protein and make sure we're getting protein at every single meal, right?
• 8:10
  Sarah Krieger: So I think that awareness can be.
• 8:13
  Sarah Krieger: It can be that kind of tracking.
• 8:15
  Sarah Krieger: It can also be like why am I wanting food right now?
• 8:18
  Sarah Krieger: Like what is it about food right now?
• 8:20
  Sarah Krieger: Like I'm feeling stressed right now.
• 8:22
  Sarah Krieger: Am I actually hungry for food or am I just wanting this?
• 8:25
  Sarah Krieger: Because this makes me feel good in this moment and I think I need it right?
• 8:29
  Sarah Krieger: That's also awareness.
• 8:30
  Sarah Krieger: So I think it just like meeting the individual and the client where they are, because no one, no like, no two people, no five people, no 10 people that I've ever worked with ever start in the same place, ever.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and so as far as where you are, then I mean I like your method and your framework.
• 8:49
  Philip Pape: I love frameworks.
• 8:50
  Philip Pape: You know, you have the basics and all that.
• 8:51
  Philip Pape: If we were to talk about a framework for the emotional eating cycle or the chain of events, right, there's a trigger potentially somewhere, there's cravings in there, there's indulgences, there's guilt and shame, there's you even alert alluded to feeling safe, like that Oreo.
• 9:08
  Philip Pape: That consistent Oreo helps you feel safe, which is a could be a very powerful concept when you explore it.
• 9:13
  Philip Pape: So what kind of framework do you like if that makes sense, or how can people really understand it, who are listening to figure out where they are in the cycle or how you would take them through that?
• 9:22
  Sarah Krieger: Yeah, I think that you know, I I listened to a lot of language.
• 9:26
  Sarah Krieger: I listened to the language that people use.
• 9:28
  Sarah Krieger: So, um, if somebody were to come to me, or if you use language such as like, oh, I can't eat this, it's bad, or language like that, I can't eat that, I'm on a diet, right To me this is kind of like language of somebody who has a poor relationship with food.
• 9:45
  Sarah Krieger: They probably use food to cope or emotionally, um like make, make them feel better, so cope, um those kinds of things right.
• 9:54
  Sarah Krieger: So, if you're using specific language, that's where I'm going to be like, okay, we need to start by educating.
• 10:01
  Sarah Krieger: Like food is not moral, it's not good or bad, we give it the moral value based off of what society has told us, based off of what we think oh, I ate all these Oreos.
• 10:11
  Sarah Krieger: And then the scale went up.
• 10:12
  Sarah Krieger: But we're not addressing the actual problem, which isn't the Oreos.
• 10:15
  Sarah Krieger: Actually, the Oreos were there to help.
• 10:17
  Sarah Krieger: I use Oreos because I love Oreos.
• 10:19
  Sarah Krieger: Hey, I don't disagree, dipped in some milk.
• 10:22
  Sarah Krieger: I know People yeah, people dog on them so much, but I absolutely love them.
• 10:26
  Sarah Krieger: But it could like insert your vice.
• 10:28
  Sarah Krieger: It could be pizza, french fries, it doesn't matter.
• 10:30
  Sarah Krieger: And so it's like understanding like the Oreos aren't actually the problem.
• 10:35
  Sarah Krieger: It's why we are going to the Oreos, why we can't stop with the Oreos.
• 10:39
  Sarah Krieger: So for somebody that's using language such as, again, this is bad food or I don't eat that.
• 10:45
  Sarah Krieger: It's bad, you know it's.
• 10:49
  Sarah Krieger: I even just recently, I'm like, going through these conversations that I've had with people like you know, even language such as, like you know, trying to work off the food that they've eaten in the gym oh, I need to burn all these calories, right, that to me is language.
• 11:02
  Sarah Krieger: And I'm like, okay, you're in this category, right.
• 11:05
  Sarah Krieger: But if we understand that, it's like, okay, I, I know that I can have hashtag balance, and I use that word very faringly or very kind of yes, kind of sarcastic Cause it's like hashtag balance.
• 11:17
  Sarah Krieger: It's like, well, there's not.
• 11:18
  Sarah Krieger: I don't know what that really is for people.
• 11:20
  Sarah Krieger: But so if you're coming to me with that kind of language where it's like, well, I know, I can have an Oreo, but my problem is X, y Z.
• 11:28
  Sarah Krieger: Like I know that I can eat cake with my kid on at a birthday party, but that cake then leads me into well, then I have cake, and then I have this, and then I have that.
• 11:38
  Sarah Krieger: Ok, well, you might be in a little bit of a different category or a different place, right?
• 11:42
  Sarah Krieger: Or it's just like I know what I'm supposed to do, I just don't do it.
• 11:46
  Sarah Krieger: Right.
• 11:46
  Sarah Krieger: Again, language is like language is everything.
• 11:50
  Sarah Krieger: Ok, but there's a reason, ok.
• 11:51
  Sarah Krieger: So if you know what you're supposed to be doing and you know that you need to be eating fruits and vegetables, but it just doesn't seem to happen, is that actually an emotional issue or is that like a capacity space?
• 12:01
  Sarah Krieger: Like it's just I'm so busy I don't know how to plan appropriately.
• 12:05
  Sarah Krieger: Like, is it more of an emotional issue or is it more of like a technical, almost issue versus that?
• 12:10
  Sarah Krieger: So it becomes a little bit.
• 12:12
  Sarah Krieger: It just kind of depends and I language for me is like huge listening to what the client is telling me.
• 12:19
  Sarah Krieger: That's kind of how I decide, like, hmm, I think that we need to start here first.
• 12:23
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I love that.
• 12:24
  Philip Pape: I don't know if that's a framework, but no, no, it is.
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: It's actually crystal clear.
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: I mean, I got at least two major takeaways here that I think the listener can can just on their own, like a self audit is is thinking about how they speak.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: Um, you mentioned, you know, the moral judgment on food, or even morally labeling yourself in the context of food as really powerful statements.
• 12:45
  Philip Pape: I would even kind of infer from what you said really anything that's that's negative.
• 12:51
  Philip Pape: Um, to generalize, it could possibly be a reframing opportunity, even if it's the truth.
• 12:57
  Philip Pape: Do you know what I mean?
• 12:57
  Philip Pape: Like, even if you're stating a fact, but in a negative lens.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: I'm a very positive optimism bias type person and what you're suggesting is that, like if you're a coach working with someone, you don't just jump into here's your macros, go follow it.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: It's like, talk to me, talk to me, what's happening, what are you trying to accomplish here?
• 13:15
  Philip Pape: You know, hopefully you have a good intake process and then you can say, okay, I'm hearing some things you're saying and when you check in with me, um, let's, let's try reframing it this way.
• 13:23
  Philip Pape: I love that.
• 13:24
  Philip Pape: Um, where was I going to go with the second thing you mentioned.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: It's totally escaping me right now, but you know how that goes.
• 13:30
  Philip Pape: We'll come back to it.
• 13:39
  Philip Pape: I do It'll.
• 13:39
  Philip Pape: It'll hit you at a different moment.
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: It will, it's right.
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: Oh, I know what it was.
• 13:41
  Philip Pape: So what are your thoughts on?
• 13:41
  Philip Pape: Um?
• 13:41
  Philip Pape: So I've I've got a lot of experts that come on my show.
• 13:42
  Philip Pape: I know you talk to people on yours and occasionally I'll get the person who's like.
• 13:44
  Philip Pape: I'm aligned 90, 95% with them.
• 13:46
  Philip Pape: But there's this piece about clean eating, or like judgment of like the ultimate place to get to is no processed foods.
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: The ultimate place to get to is like you're clean.
• 13:57
  Philip Pape: And there's this little bit of judgment even for people who obviously have gotten their goals they're fit, they're lifting, they feel great, like everything's in check and, yes, they have those Oreos, like they've gotten to a healthy mental state and they're eating Oreos.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: What are your thoughts on that in the industry?
• 14:14
  Sarah Krieger: Well, my personal thoughts are I don't believe in clean eating unless you're putting your food in a dishwasher or scrubbing it like I think that's what we reference as clean eating.
• 14:25
  Sarah Krieger: Now I do believe in uh, how I, how I frame it is like, yes, there are more nutritious foods than others, like that we can't state that, like an apple is quote unquote worse than an Oreo.
• 14:39
  Sarah Krieger: We know that's not true.
• 14:41
  Sarah Krieger: Right, you're getting nutrients and all sorts of things and the the amount of just fullness that you're going to feel from an apple versus an Oreo, like there's distinguishable differences, but sometimes the Oreo satisfies a need or a desire that you want to have and it doesn't make it bad.
• 14:59
  Sarah Krieger: So, for me personally, I'm kind of under the guise of like the majority of times, whatever that means for you personally.
• 15:08
  Sarah Krieger: Yes, you should be eating whole foods that are nutrient dense, that make you feel good, that don't drag you down, that don't make you groggy and tired and bloat and blah, blah, blah, that don't drag you down, that don't make you groggy and tired and bloat and blah, blah, blah, and either super constipated or pooping.
• 15:20
  Sarah Krieger: All of it Like, yes, like that to me is optimal.
• 15:24
  Sarah Krieger: But also part of optimal is living right, which also means that maybe you do have.
• 15:29
  Sarah Krieger: You know, like, tonight I'm going to be super honest.
• 15:32
  Sarah Krieger: Right Tonight we're going out for my brother-in-law's birthday, okay, so am I going to have an alcoholic drink?
• 15:38
  Sarah Krieger: Probably right.
• 15:40
  Sarah Krieger: Do I drink alcoholic drinks every day of my life?
• 15:43
  Sarah Krieger: No, I'm not a person to tell somebody not to do something you're not allowed to have.
• 15:49
  Sarah Krieger: Don't eat this.
• 15:51
  Sarah Krieger: The goal is to get there on their own, like, if they choose, then you know, I've had clients that drink, honestly, you know, 10 to 14 drinks in a week, maybe sometimes even more, and I'm like, whoa, right, like, let's, let's talk about how this impacts our.
• 16:06
  Sarah Krieger: Let's talk about how this impacts our um, um, our results that we're trying to get Right, um, it's no different than a client that comes to me, though, and has 700 calories of, you know, peanut butter, m&ms, or you know, chocolate, milk and all this stuff and like, but their lunch was 200 calories, but their snack side was 500, right, like, how can we like?
• 16:27
  Sarah Krieger: This isn't necessarily, you're not bad for doing this, but how can we do it a little bit more so that it gets to where you want to go?
• 16:35
  Sarah Krieger: Right, let's increase those meal sizes and let's decrease what we have, because you're not going to want those snacks.
• 16:40
  Sarah Krieger: I'm a big believer in that part the bigger the meal, the less the snacks.
• 16:46
  Sarah Krieger: So for me it's like just trying to get a client to get there on their own.
• 16:49
  Sarah Krieger: So I'm not necessarily like a you're not allowed kind of coach.
• 16:53
  Sarah Krieger: Right, you can have M&Ms, you can have Oreos, you can have an alcoholic drink.
• 16:57
  Sarah Krieger: But like you also need to take responsibility and own how that is going to impact and then understand like, well, the scale didn't go down this week.
• 17:06
  Sarah Krieger: You know, on average I maintained or my sleep was kind of trashy, or now I drink too much in my digestion.
• 17:15
  Sarah Krieger: You know I've sat on the toilet all day.
• 17:16
  Sarah Krieger: Like, okay, well, that's what happens when we do those things.
• 17:19
  Sarah Krieger: And now we understand how that impacts something and how can we change it a little bit differently for the next time.
• 17:26
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and that is back to your first comment about awareness.
• 17:28
  Philip Pape: That's closing the loop.
• 17:29
  Philip Pape: Right, that is closing the loop.
• 17:31
  Philip Pape: People are walking through their day in a state of chaos and uncertainty, a lack of clarity, shoveling food in their mouth, not realizing why they're doing it and also how it interacts with how they feel and everything else.
• 17:44
  Philip Pape: Right, or you know, like definitely the zealots in the certain diet spaces will say well, I feel great on XYZ.
• 17:50
  Philip Pape: Well, have you tried the other alternative, the more flexible alternative, and linked it to your performance, your feedback, your digestion, et cetera?
• 17:58
  Philip Pape: Flexible alternative and linked it to your performance, your feedback, your digestion, et cetera.
• 18:02
  Philip Pape: Um, yeah, I just.
• 18:02
  Philip Pape: I asked that question because I think sometimes people put on a pedestal elite athletes or physique competitors or whoever might have these somewhat extreme approaches and even though it's kind of quote unquote working and they started through that process that we're trying to take them through, they end up at their own form of an extreme.
• 18:16
  Philip Pape: That isn't necessarily where we want to be.
• 18:18
  Philip Pape: So back to emotional eating.
• 18:21
  Philip Pape: Then you mentioned triggers.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: You mentioned safety and things like that.
• 18:25
  Philip Pape: Is there something you'd like the listener to know, to be aware of the triggers or or documenting those Cause.
• 18:32
  Philip Pape: That is the awareness when it comes to this, this piece.
• 18:35
  Sarah Krieger: Yeah, I mean, I think this is a process.
• 18:37
  Sarah Krieger: This is, I think, the first thing that somebody has to understand that this is not changing tomorrow.
• 18:41
  Sarah Krieger: You didn't get here in a day and those behaviors that you do have I mean, we live on autopilot what 95% of our day.
• 18:50
  Sarah Krieger: So once we start forming these habits and these things are just part of who we are, it's going to take an actual like stopping point, a wall.
• 19:00
  Sarah Krieger: You're going to have to go.
• 19:01
  Sarah Krieger: Okay, I've hit this wall.
• 19:02
  Sarah Krieger: I have to.
• 19:03
  Sarah Krieger: Okay, stop, pause.
• 19:05
  Sarah Krieger: I have to stop for a second, right, and that takes a minute to get to.
• 19:08
  Sarah Krieger: Sometimes it's easier, you know, depending on the client, it can be easier for some than others.
• 19:13
  Sarah Krieger: But what I like to do is first start just, you know, saying out loud, or just having the client they could write it down, right.
• 19:21
  Sarah Krieger: What we want to do is start bringing awareness without judgment.
• 19:25
  Sarah Krieger: I think that that's the bigger key to this.
• 19:27
  Sarah Krieger: It's not about like, well, I thought about having this thing, but then I went and had it anyway.
• 19:32
  Sarah Krieger: Okay, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing, because we were at least at least able to be aware before we did the thing right.
• 19:40
  Sarah Krieger: So then it's a different move from that element.
• 19:44
  Sarah Krieger: Right, but the very first thing I have people do is just take a breath, take a pause for a second, the moment this thought comes into your brain, or even maybe you don't even realize the thought.
• 19:53
  Sarah Krieger: But now you're reaching into the refrigerator, or now you're reaching into your pantry and you're going oh, wait a minute.
• 19:58
  Sarah Krieger: Or you're opening it up and you're like, oh, wait a minute.
• 20:00
  Sarah Krieger: Right.
• 20:00
  Sarah Krieger: It's like making just a pause and going okay, I'm doing this thing right now.
• 20:05
  Sarah Krieger: And just like saying it okay, I'm doing this thing, okay, I'm getting, I'm going to eat this thing.
• 20:15
  Sarah Krieger: Right.
• 20:15
  Sarah Krieger: It's not about like being aware.
• 20:18
  Sarah Krieger: Like I said, the majority of us are not aware.
• 20:20
  Sarah Krieger: We, we drive places.
• 20:22
  Sarah Krieger: We don't even did I just stop at that stop sign, like I don't even know how I got, like we're just and that's scary because we're driving and I've had those moments Like I'm like how did I get here?
• 20:34
  Sarah Krieger: I have no idea where.
• 20:35
  Sarah Krieger: Or you're on autopilot and you always go one way or one direction and then you need to go a different way, but you turn the way that you always go.
• 20:43
  Sarah Krieger: It's a very similar concept, so For me it's like having them pause.
• 20:48
  Sarah Krieger: They could document in a journal they could document in the food log.
• 20:51
  Sarah Krieger: I actually had somebody do group coaching and every time she ate she put down why she was eating, like okay, breakfast, this is what I had, this is why I'm eating this.
• 21:01
  Sarah Krieger: That was her choice, that was something that she wanted, because she can go back then and see like why am I eating what I am and what do I need to do to kind of move away from it?
• 21:10
  Sarah Krieger: Eating what I am and what do I need to do to kind of move away from it.
• 21:15
  Sarah Krieger: So I think just even just like breaking up that brain pattern of like just doing it versus pausing before we do it.
• 21:19
  Sarah Krieger: So like pause method, that's very common.
• 21:21
  Sarah Krieger: I always talk about the apple method, like if you want the Oreo, eat the apple first and if you're still hungry, then go ahead and have that.
• 21:29
  Sarah Krieger: So I think there's like lots of different ways to to document what we're doing.
• 21:34
  Sarah Krieger: I talk a lot about food pairing for people.
• 21:37
  Sarah Krieger: So like again, like having the apple with the Oreo, like this is cool, let's do it together.
• 21:42
  Sarah Krieger: That's another way to become a little bit more aware.
• 21:45
  Sarah Krieger: But I really just feel like in the very beginning, like for somebody that's really struggling with, and again, this is language that they use.
• 21:52
  Sarah Krieger: Typically.
• 21:52
  Sarah Krieger: I don't eat a lot during the day.
• 21:54
  Sarah Krieger: I'm barely eating anything, the the.
• 21:57
  Sarah Krieger: The reality is we're we're eating a lot more than what we think we are.
• 22:00
  Philip Pape: We're just not aware that we're eating the what we are, and so stopping that brain pattern and probably not satisfied with what we're eating, so it feels like we're not eating right.
• 22:11
  Sarah Krieger: Correct.
• 22:11
  Sarah Krieger: Oh'm still hungry.
• 22:12
  Sarah Krieger: I couldn't eat that much.
• 22:13
  Sarah Krieger: Oh, probably.
• 22:15
  Philip Pape: So, speaking of pause, I want to pause there because people should sit on this and I resonate really hard with this.
• 22:20
  Philip Pape: I was thinking of an example through Toastmasters Toastmasters, a public speaking organization 10 years ago.
• 22:25
  Philip Pape: When I started doing that, I had lots of ums and ahs.
• 22:27
  Philip Pape: And I had lots of ums and ahs and I'll tell you, podcasting works that out of you too, but I had lots of ums and ahs and one of the roles in a Toastmasters meeting is to pay attention to those.
• 22:35
  Philip Pape: And another thing you're encouraged to do is video yourself, and as soon as you do that, like immediately, you cringe, right.
• 22:44
  Philip Pape: We have an emotional reaction to ourselves.
• 22:45
  Philip Pape: It'd be kind of like if you had a camera in your kitchen.
• 22:46
  Philip Pape: As I was thinking, as you said this, for your midnight snacks, you had a camera just watching you the whole time and you watched back your security footage of yourself and you're like oh, interesting, like here are my behaviors.
• 22:55
  Philip Pape: So the point is it does work, and I think a lot of people are not even taking that first step.
• 23:00
  Philip Pape: It's not that hard.
• 23:01
  Philip Pape: I mean, sarah, what you're telling us is not that hard.
• 23:03
  Philip Pape: It's got to be done.
• 23:04
  Philip Pape: And then, once you do it, who knows what you discover it's crazy and we're going to talk about data and systems and like, really it's all aligned, like that's what you're saying is the same thing.
• 23:12
  Philip Pape: Um, we may just come at it from slightly different starting points.
• 23:17
  Philip Pape: And you also mentioned how, like the apple and the Oreo or heck you know, controlling your environment and having the bowl of apples you keep saying that keeps seeing the apples.
• 23:26
  Philip Pape: I really want an apple right now.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: I had an orange for lunch.
• 23:28
  Philip Pape: It was so good, so I'm good on my fruit for a little while, but anyway, um, I'm just, I'm just kind of rambling because I think it's really awesome that people understand they can pause, they can document in some way, whatever way works for them, they can recognize, and that leads to behavior change.
• 23:41
  Philip Pape: Measuring leads to behavior change.
• 23:43
  Philip Pape: Um, what about?
• 23:45
  Philip Pape: What about the deeper stuff?
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: What about when you have issues in the past, past experiences that shape that emotional relationship, traumas?
• 23:53
  Philip Pape: We kind of touched on that, but some people are thinking, geez, it's deeper than what you're saying.
• 23:57
  Sarah Krieger: Yeah, and I think that that's what a lot of people you know.
• 23:59
  Sarah Krieger: The admittance of that, I think, is very difficult.
• 24:04
  Sarah Krieger: I come from a home where we were Italian.
• 24:08
  Sarah Krieger: We scooped carbs with carbs, you know.
• 24:10
  Sarah Krieger: We put that pasta right up on that bread and go to town.
• 24:14
  Philip Pape: That's great.
• 24:15
  Sarah Krieger: Yeah, you know where.
• 24:17
  Sarah Krieger: We had big family dinners.
• 24:18
  Sarah Krieger: So there's a lot of different ways that food can be embedded in the emotions, right?
• 24:22
  Sarah Krieger: Also, being Italian, we eat food for every single motion that exists You're happy, you're excited, you're sad, you're depressed, it doesn't even matter.
• 24:30
  Sarah Krieger: There's a reason always to be eating and it's always tied to something that either makes you feel really good or really bad, and then then boom, insert.
• 24:40
  Sarah Krieger: That's the solve your problem.
• 24:41
  Sarah Krieger: I've grandma said it would so clearly you know.
• 24:45
  Sarah Krieger: So there's that piece of it, but I do think that.
• 24:49
  Sarah Krieger: So, speaking from my own like I'll just speak from my own personal opinion, or take on this experience, which is I always was made fun of, specifically by siblings, specifically by, I think that's that's about it.
• 25:03
  Sarah Krieger: And when I, in my childhood it was, it was a lot of my siblings as I got older, I always had this weight issue, as I said, and then I got married and in this marriage it was a lot of cheating that took place and unfortunately, I used as why I had always used was food to cope with that element of me.
• 25:25
  Sarah Krieger: So even when I have moments that I'm removed from this marriage by almost 10 years, 12 years at this point, I think actually, so I'm removed by this marriage.
• 25:35
  Sarah Krieger: But anytime I have a thought from the past or like this feeling, felt a lot like that feeling, did I go back and it kind of like brings this visceral emotional body response right.
• 25:50
  Sarah Krieger: Hands might get clammy, heart might start to race a little bit, like those kinds of things, and the first thing that I wanna do, or used to do, was I would used to just go fuel it.
• 26:02
  Sarah Krieger: I would just go oh, this will make me feel better.
• 26:04
  Sarah Krieger: The ice I love ice cream.
• 26:06
  Sarah Krieger: Ice cream's gonna make me feel better.
• 26:07
  Sarah Krieger: Taco Bell is gonna make me feel better.
• 26:09
  Sarah Krieger: Pizza is gonna make me feel better.
• 26:11
  Sarah Krieger: Eating out of this bag of chips is going to make me feel better.
• 26:16
  Sarah Krieger: And again, by the time I didn't realize it, you know I'm 250 pounds and what just happened to me, you know what happened.
• 26:22
  Sarah Krieger: And so understanding, unfortunately, I don't feel like that.
• 26:25
  Sarah Krieger: We allow ourselves to just sit with the emotions.
• 26:29
  Sarah Krieger: We try to fix ourselves, we try to cover them, we try to move on from them as fast as possible, because they're awful and they feel terrible and that's the reality.
• 26:40
  Sarah Krieger: So it's a matter of how do I sit in this and just let myself feel this and go.
• 26:46
  Sarah Krieger: This is uncomfortable, but it's okay, and nothing is nothing is going to fix this.
• 26:52
  Sarah Krieger: Nothing's going to change me.
• 26:53
  Sarah Krieger: Eating the pizza doesn't actually fix the problem.
• 26:56
  Sarah Krieger: It doesn't change the feeling.
• 26:57
  Sarah Krieger: It's not going to make my heart rate slow down this exact moment right, but how do I just sit here and let this be for a minute and that?
• 27:07
  Sarah Krieger: We don't like that.
• 27:09
  Sarah Krieger: We want to try to fix ourselves as soon as we can, so we just go for the thing that we think is going to make us go.
• 27:14
  Sarah Krieger: Everything's better until the next time.
• 27:17
  Sarah Krieger: And it happens again and again, and again.
• 27:19
  Philip Pape: So how do people do that?
• 27:20
  Philip Pape: Because that I totally agree.
• 27:22
  Philip Pape: Like there's so many paradigms of of watching the emotions float by and the river of the mindfulness practices of maybe the pattern interrupt you already mentioned, which is maybe another tool to you're about to eat, you stop.
• 27:35
  Philip Pape: Maybe you think about the emotions that you're recognizing, like.
• 27:39
  Philip Pape: What are your thoughts on that?
• 27:40
  Sarah Krieger: I wish I had an answer that it wasn't.
• 27:43
  Sarah Krieger: It depends, but unfortunately in this, what we do, it always is going to depend on the person.
• 27:51
  Sarah Krieger: I'll say this the majority of women that I have worked with have deep emotional childhood trauma and I am not a trauma specialist, right, I'm not here to help fix people.
• 28:03
  Sarah Krieger: What I am here to do is help guide them into understanding why these habits are happening.
• 28:09
  Sarah Krieger: Understanding why these habits are happening and, on the flip side, if they need to go, get that additional support outside of me so that they can work through those things like I don't work through things with people like that on that level, right, but we talk about what these habits are, why we might be feeling this way, those kinds of things.
• 28:25
  Sarah Krieger: I'm really, really particular about staying in my scope of practice, but what I will say is this having a coach, having a person, one that can relate, that can understand, that can just say you make sense, this is okay and there's a reason why it's happening.
• 28:41
  Sarah Krieger: Sometimes, give that client enough space to go just breathe for a second, because all of their life my life included until I figured this out, I didn't know that that was okay.
• 28:54
  Sarah Krieger: I didn't realize, like, what I was doing was actually keeping me from doing who knows what I don't even know, right, I mean we could go to the deep end and go to drugs or alcohol or who knows and people do that, right, they do those same things for coping.
• 29:08
  Sarah Krieger: So I feel like we don't know enough that it's okay, like these things are keeping me safe, right.
• 29:15
  Sarah Krieger: I always talk about the previous version of myself, like I wouldn't be who I am today without her fucking up and fighting like hell for me, right, like I would not be, I would not be here doing the thing.
• 29:28
  Sarah Krieger: So what she did for me the last you know, 32 years prior of my life, she kept me going, she kept my furnace burning, she kept, she kept me alive, she kept me all those things so that I could figure this out and do what I needed to do today.
• 29:42
  Sarah Krieger: So I wish I had a better answer of, like how somebody would go about this.
• 29:46
  Sarah Krieger: But I think that if you're struggling with this, you need to find a coach, a therapist, somebody that can help ground you a little bit and help get you to see, like this is, this is okay, like you are not broken, you're not, you don't need to be fixed, but you just need to give yourself some space to be and that's okay.
• 30:06
  Philip Pape: And I hope, if they're listening to the show and hearing your soothing voice, sarah, that they will understand that this is the first step, like just hearing that it's possible that you can get there, that there's support and that also your identity continues to evolve.
• 30:19
  Philip Pape: Your identity, your, sarah, as well as the person listening's identity, continue and mine as well forever, which is great.
• 30:25
  Philip Pape: It's part of the human condition.
• 30:26
  Philip Pape: That then depends on what level of support they're going to need.
• 30:29
  Philip Pape: But if you haven't resolved the issue, it sounds like someone should at least start with maybe some of the tools here.
• 30:35
  Philip Pape: I'm all for experimentation.
• 30:37
  Philip Pape: Try it out today, try it out Logging awareness, things like that, and then you know, reach out, keep listening to our shows and then reach out for the kind of help you need.
• 30:45
  Philip Pape: Is there anything about emotional eating?
• 30:48
  Philip Pape: We didn't cover?
• 30:48
  Philip Pape: It's a huge topic, it's a massive topic, I know, but just to kind of keep it concise today, is there one specific thing you wanted to mention that?
• 30:56
  Philip Pape: we haven't yet.
• 30:57
  Sarah Krieger: I mean that we haven't.
• 30:59
  Sarah Krieger: I think you kind of touched on something right there that we haven't touched on and I'll just briefly talk about it.
• 31:03
  Sarah Krieger: It's be open to try things.
• 31:06
  Sarah Krieger: Be open to try things and they might not work for you.
• 31:07
  Sarah Krieger: And I think, again, people want specifics.
• 31:10
  Sarah Krieger: Right, we can.
• 31:10
  Sarah Krieger: Here's your macros, here's your training program.
• 31:13
  Sarah Krieger: Okay, here's the exact amount of time that you need to go work out and here's all the but really it's that's not what you actually need, and you might find that this particular method might not work for you.
• 31:26
  Sarah Krieger: The pause method might not work for you.
• 31:27
  Sarah Krieger: Okay, so what we got to find out what will, and be open to that.
• 31:32
  Sarah Krieger: Like, hey, that wasn't for me and that's okay.
• 31:35
  Sarah Krieger: Like this thing oh man, she talked about this thing on here and that she's crazy.
• 31:39
  Sarah Krieger: Okay, but there is something out there, it's not the only thing, yep.
• 31:43
  Sarah Krieger: Correct.
• 31:43
  Sarah Krieger: That can potentially work for you.
• 31:45
  Sarah Krieger: So I think, being open, like everybody just wants the answer, just tell me what to do and I'll do it.
• 31:50
  Sarah Krieger: Everybody just wants the answer.
• 31:53
  Sarah Krieger: Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it.
• 31:57
  Sarah Krieger: Man, if it was that simple, we would be, everybody would just write the book about it and you would just serve everything Exactly and everybody would be looking like a hot snack, right, like that's the reality.
• 32:02
  Sarah Krieger: So, and that's not the case, sadly.
• 32:04
  Sarah Krieger: So we, we, we got a lot of work to do in our, in ourselves.
• 32:08
  Philip Pape: Love it, and the fact that you can do it and it will happen, and you just haven't found the right approach for you, is a great positive.
• 32:14
  Philip Pape: That's the optimistic attitude that I absolutely love.
• 32:16
  Philip Pape: All right, so I'm going to tell the listener here that, if you enjoyed this, this is just one half of a greater conversation about emotional eating on Sarah's podcast.
• 32:25
  Philip Pape: Don't call me skinny, right, don't call me skinny, it's got.
• 32:28
  Philip Pape: It's got a longer name behind it.
• 32:30
  Philip Pape: Uh, that you'll see when you search it up.
• 32:32
  Philip Pape: Don't call me skinny.
• 32:34
  Philip Pape: We are going to talk about data and systems and all that, but a lot of it's going to be aligned with what we're talking about here.
• 32:38
  Philip Pape: So, stop now hit follow, cause this is almost the end of this episode.
• 32:41
  Philip Pape: Anyway, go in your podcast app, find it, use the link in the show notes and you'll catch me talking on her show, and then you could also, uh, enter the world of Sarah, where you can hear about all her other frameworks and her other episodes, which are awesome.
• 32:54
  Philip Pape: Um, she's got a little bit spiciness to her and a really great you know mindset about all of this that I love.
• 33:00
  Philip Pape: So, sarah, thank you for coming on my show.
• 33:01
  Philip Pape: Thank you so much you.