Emotional Eating

I'm going to get really raw and real in this podcast , mostly for people who have emotional burden attached to their body image , but I do it because I love you guys and I want to let you know that creating a healthy relationship with yourself , regardless of your size , shape and skin color , is possible .

And I come from a place of love and I want to take you guys there so you can experience that for yourself . Because , trust me , you guys , you cannot hate , punish or struggle your way through weight loss . When you're experiencing these lowly emotions , you're using your primal survival brain .

By default , your guardian brain is shut off and when that happens , you create more negative emotions like guilt , sorrow , helplessness , and then you eat more to drown out these emotions . Emotional eating has two major components to it , which is silencing negative feelings by comfort eating and ongoing engagement in learned helplessness .

All of this happens when pathways to our primal brain are much stronger than the pathways to our protective brain . When you learn to accept yourself , neural rewiring starts to happen and these pathways switch . Protective brain pathways become much stronger , and this is where change starts to happen and life starts to look completely different .

So I want to ask you guys and I think I've asked this question before is how many times do you think of your body or look at your body and actually genuinely love it ? Versus ? How many times do you look at it or think about it and list all the things that you want to change ?

How many times do you think about your weight and tell yourself there's nothing I can do about it ? In those moments , you feel defeated . You know that you are otherwise an intelligent person , hardworking , practicing Muslim , but this weight seems to be the bane of your existence .

You might actually believe at many levels that you can do wonderful things in the world , but you feel powerless when it comes to your weight . You make resolutions , you make plans , and none of that works . The most tyrannical thing is that there are so many answers out there , but none of them seem to work for you .

So people struggling with weight become victims of learned helplessness , and this learned helplessness perpetuates more negative emotions and you eat to drown out those emotions and the cycle intensifies . So for people who are emotional eaters and struggling with being overweight , there are two steps to the process .

One is about hormonal balance , which is all about body's physiology and biology , and the other one is mind drama . We usually have a very good scientific knowledge about the first part , which is the biological , hormonal part . We know a lot about metabolism , calories and hormones and all sorts of different diets out there , but we know minimal about mind management .

And this is usually the weakest link in your struggle towards weight loss , because without mind management you don't know where all of your emotions are coming from , that you're constantly trying to drown out with food .

You might have feelings of deprivation and constriction on a diet and most of the time you end up cheating on your diet plans because of these feelings and then you become frustrated , not knowing what to do . So , like I said , there are two components a biologic and then a mindset component to weight loss .

In my program Stop Emotional Eating for Muslim Women , I go into detail about both of them , but here I'll give you a preview about hormonal , biological component . And I'm positioning this podcast right at the junction of New Year's , because a lot of people's New Year's resolution have to do with weight loss .

I have previously spoken briefly about this concept in my podcast titled Weight Loss in Ramadan , which had to do with allowing urges , so that podcast also provides a very good review in relation to this topic . So a lot of human beings struggle with eating to drown out their emotions , which leads to weight gain .

There are obviously a lot of psychological and health struggles that come with it , but in this podcast I'm going to focus on one . This podcast is not about dealing with body image . It's not about looking good for the sake of sexual attraction . It's definitely not about eating disorders or any related pathology .

This podcast is speaking to women who eat because they're anxious , depressed , sad , frustrated or stressed . Since , as a nation or humanity at large , we are never taught how to deal with these emotions , many of us turn to food . So I'm going to introduce a term here that you might have heard previously . It's called fat adaptation .

What that basically means is that this is a state where your body turns to fat for fuel instead of carbs , meaning , in a fat adapted state , your body gains fuel from the fat stores rather than the immediately available glucose or glycogen stores . Most simply speaking , when we eat more than our body requires for fuel , we store the rest as fat .

A lot of us eat when we are not hungry . It could be because of socialization , because we're at a party or because somebody asked us to eat , or you might think that this is the next logical thing to do at a gathering . Because of the socialization around snacking , we might be eating again because we want to feel better from a stressful situation .

As a result , we give ourselves so many reasons to eat and never stop to question if any of them are actually valid or not .

I will challenge you that if you're above your desired weight , then you are taking in more calories than you're burning , and that you are sugar adapted , not fat adapted , meaning you're burning immediately available sugar for fuel rather than fat . After hearing this , people pose questions to me saying I only eat when I'm hungry .

So I don't know why I gain weight . And I will tell you that might be because most of our hunger cues are distorted , because when we are burning sugar for fuel , we might feel hungry when actually that hunger is the withdrawal from sugar . That happens when glycogen stores run out .

This glycogen is the most immediate form of stored sugar it is easiest to access when that runs out . Body has two choices it can demand more food by sending hunger cues , or it can access fat from the body as fuel . Which one of these do you think is the easiest for the body to do ? And , yes , the answer is it asks for more food .

It presents you with hunger . Accessing fat for fueling the body requires a lot of work . So in our evolutionary design of storing as much fat as possible for the long winter to come , when the food will be scarce , our body is designed to keep fat around for as long as possible .

So distorted hunger cues are your body's demand of replenishing the quickest form of fuel . That is sugar , which leads to snacking or eating more than you need to maintain a healthy weight . Now , in the ongoing drama of the obesity pandemic , there enters a new character and the plot thickens . And the character is engineered . Food is engineered food .

Food industries spend billions of dollars in advanced neuroscientific research on engineering the exact type of food that will induce the highest amount of dopamine release . There's so much research that goes into getting the right type of texture crunch , chewiness , combination of sugar , salt , spicy , sour , you name it .

They can engineer any type of taste and texture combination and start calling it food . Because there are so many manufactured foods out there , it seems impossible to cut out your choices .

When our primal brain was evolving it was looking for the dopamine reward and now we have isolated the dopamine reward to be exponential with these engineered foods , our primal brain doesn't stand a chance holding up against these forces . It is going to seek that dopamine reward and it's going to seek it at all costs .

It is going to be nearly impossible to win that battle with a mismanaged mind , with our primal brain running the show .

So hunger cues that you've been eating from are actually hanger cues , which is withdrawal from any type of manufactured food substitute where your body is demanding an item immediately to replenish those sugar stores and the item can only be like an iced latte . It will seem like a medical emergency and you must go get it now or you will die Like .

That's the truth that our brain will present to us . When you are successfully fat adapted , there is no emergency for food . You can delay your next meal and plan to eat healthy and feel satiated . In a fat adapted body , it knows to reach out to the fat stores for fueling purposes .

I am well aware that this is a very simplistic explanation and again , I do that intentionally at Islamic Life Coach School , because all the sciences and the intellect in the world is useless if it cannot be used to help us generate our desired result . In this case , the desired result is of a healthy weight , healthy muscle fat composition .

So what does fat versus sugar adaptation have to do with life coaching ? And the answer is everything , because when we start to starve and deprive ourselves on a diet , we are just suppressing our emotions .

There is so much scientific data and so many experts that will tell you what to eat , how much to exercise , but nobody ever teaches you how to deal with your emotions when you are trying to cut out pleasure foods .

This is where most of the experts fail us , because when you cut out sugar from your diet , then you are left to deal with the overwhelm that your mind generates , where your brain is demanding sugar , immediate gratification , and just the thought alone of not being able to satisfy that demand makes people anxious . They are left with no support .

So , in order for you to become successfully fat adapted , where you will start to lose weight because you will start to access the fat stored on your body for fuel purposes .

You have to learn how to deal with your emotions , and all sorts of emotions are going to come up when you're trying to switch from being sugar to fat adapted , and the reason you have not been able to keep your new year's resolutions around weight loss has to do with the combination of all of the factors I just mentioned .

It is not because there is something inherently or genetically wrong with you .

As a recap , those factors are never learning to love yourself , regardless of your body image , seeking comfort food to drown out heavy emotions , engaging in an ongoing cycle of learned helplessness where your intelligent brain might offer you a lot of evidence why weight loss is not possible for you .

Neural pathways to primal brain getting stronger and stronger out of self-hate feelings of defeat and the intense dopamine response to manufactured refined carbohydrates . So all of this is a perfect setup for you to start believing that there's something actually wrong with you and you cannot lose weight , when actually that's not true at all .

It only seems true because your savior brain has been silenced . To address this problem , I actually have a workshop coming up where I go into much more detail about hormones , fat and sugar adaptation , and that webinar will be held on Sunday , january 9th , at 1pm EST .

I will be talking about insulin response related to certain foods and how the hormonal imbalance is causing the majority of the problems behind emotional eating . So if you're interested in that or know somebody that might benefit from it , please go to my website , islamiclifecoachschoolcom , and the events page will have all of the details .

So , not surprisingly , it again boils down to what I always tell you , guys , and that is that our unwanted results in life are created from us living an unconscious life of the primal brain that is , our nafs .

The key ideas that this nafs perpetuates is self-loathing and self-criticism , urge to seek immediate gratification and comfort from the dopamine response of manufactured foods , and staying stuck in the learned helplessness , because these pathways have been hardwired and it's easy to think the same self-defeating thoughts over and over again .

I'm telling you , guys , this nafs is up to no good . Shaitan uses it to make our problems so much more worse , but this shaitan is going to drown and he has every intention to take us with him . Learning to overcome this neurobiology of the nafs is literally the most important factor behind weight loss .

With that , I pray that Allah , subhanahu wa ta'ala , give us the strength to overcome our nafs . I make dua that we benefit from the advances of the scientific discovery and that we are able to use them to create our ideal , healthy life .

I pray that we use these bodies as an amanah , as a gift that Allah gave us , and utilize it to the best of its functions and without giving in to the destructive , pleasure-only patterns of the food . And without giving in to the destructive , pleasure-only patterns of the food .

O Allah , help us become successful in our goals of bodily and spiritual health and help us thrive as a Muslim Ummah . I pray that all of us , including myself , are able to elevate our mindset through the components of this podcast and all of my other resources .

I make dua that we are able to utilize this elevated mindset to gain success in the world and the next . I will talk to you guys next time .