I won't let my body out be outwait everything that I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who.
I am, I get I'm strong, I feel free, I know everybody of me.
It's beautiful.
And that will always out way if you feel it. But you are, She'll some love to the food. Why get there? Say go one day and did you and die out way?
Happy Saturday out waigh, welcome back. It is Leanne here and I'm so happy that you're here with me today. And before we dive in, I just want to say that if you're tuning in, it is for a reason, and maybe you've been battling with food in your body for a while now, and if so, I just want to send you a massive virtual hug and let you
know that you are not alone. Because today we're going to have a really honest chat about something I've personally struggled with and something I hear from women all the time, and it's when food struggles become our dirty little secret. And this is one of those topics that usually carries a lot of shame with it, So I want to help you start releasing some of that shame today because you're not crazy, and you're definitely not alone in this.
And if you've been hiding your food struggles and feeling like no one really gets it or would understand, then this episode.
Is for you.
You See, I used to feel like I was in a food and body prison all the time. And what made it worse is that no one really knew the depth of my struggle. And sure people saw me trying different diets or hitting the gym obsessively, but they had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. Because I got really good at smiling and faking it and
pretending like I had it all together. I mean, you might relate to that, But every single day, whenever I was around anyone else, I wasn't even present, because inside I was obsessing over how many calories were in my lunch or whether I'd burned enough at the gym that morning to you know, air quotes earn a treat later. And I remember nights when I'd come home feeling so drained and frustrated that I'd find myself standing in the
kitchen scooping peanut butter straight out of the jar. And with every scoop, I'd swear to myself like this is the last one. I'll be better tomorrow, but tomorrow never came, and I'd be right back in the same cycle. And the worst part was that no one knew because I put on this happy face and I tried to be, you know, the perfect woman and the perfect friend and the perfect daughter, and I didn't want anyone to see what was really going on inside my head and heart.
And what I want you to know is that I've heard so many stories just like this from the women I work with. And I hear stories from women who are successful and strong and seem to have it all together, but they're hiding this big, deep struggle that makes them feel like they're out of control, and they're standing in the pantry at midnight feeling crazy and helpless because they can't stop eating those cookies or that leftover pizza.
And then they wake up the next morning.
With all of that shame hanging over them, wondering why can't I just get it together, Like why can't I stick to the play and or the program like everyone else. A one client of mine, Sarah, came to me because she felt like she was living a double life into the outside world. She was this superwoman you know, managing a big team at work and raising two kids and
being a devoted wife. But in reality, she was stuck in this cycle of binging on junk food late at night and feeling guilty and ashamed, and then spending the next day trying to, you know, air quotes make up for it by restricting her food and hitting the gym really hard. And she felt like a fraud. And she told me, Leanne, if anyone at work knew what I was doing at home, they'd think I was a complete
mess and they'd lose all respect for me. And that's how shame works, right, It isolates us and it makes us feel like we're broken our week. But Sarah wasn't broken her week. She was just trapped in a really vicious cycle that made.
Her feel that way.
Another one of my clients, Jen, was afraid to go to work events because she had gained weight and she was terear that her colleagues would notice. And she was avoiding leadership roles at work, and not because she wasn't capable, but because she didn't want to be in the spotlight, because she felt like her body was the enemy, like it was keeping her from showing up as her fal self. This is what she was experiencing before she came to work with me and my client. Julie told me about
something that I had never heard about before. She told me about these diet bets. Okay, there are these bets that some of her friends and coworkers did every January where they'd throw in twenty dollars and whoever lost the most weight would get the money pot. Right, But Julie avoided it every year, and not because she didn't want to be healthy, but because she the thought of being weighed in front of her friends made her feel so exposed, and she knew that if she didn't lose weight, it
would just add to her shame. But she was also terrified of what her friends would think if she didn't join in. And I totally get that, right. She felt like she was being judged no matter what she did, Like if she participated, she'd be judged, if she sat out, she'd be judged.
And so I'm not saying these diet.
Bets her something I want anyone to partake in, by the way, right, I never even heard of these things, But the fact that abstaining it, abstaining from doing it also.
Left her trapped in a shame prison.
Speaks volumes to what was going on inside her heart, right, Because in an ideal world, she could have just said, no, that's not for me. I'm going to just like sit this one out. But that was torturing her as well.
Right.
And here's the thing I really really want you to get. It's not about the food or the weight. It's not about willpower or motivation. It's about the shame prison that we've built around ourselves, and the prison that keeps us stuck in this battle with our bodies. And if we don't address that shame, we'll keep going in circles, hopping from diet to diet, thinking that the next one will be the solution. So what is the solution, Like, what's
the alternative to that? Well, I promise you this. It's not another diet or a food plan, and it's not another gym routine. It's about rewiring your brain and healing your self image. And it's about changing the story that you tell yourself about who you are.
And what you're capable of.
And so when my client Jen, who was afraid of work events, the one I just told you about, when she learned how to separate.
Her worth from her weight.
She began to see herself as the powerful, capable woman that she truly was.
And the food stuff.
After she started there, it started to fall away on its own, because it wasn't that she suddenly had more willpower or that she found the perfect diet. It's that she no longer needed food to comfort or numb her because she was no longer living in that shame prison. It's all of it, right, It's the shame prison. It's healing your relationship with food so that you're no longer using food as that numbing agent. It's all these multiple
things together. Another client of mine hadn't taken a full body photo in years, and so every time somebody pulled out a camera, she'd hide in the back or volunteer to be the photographer. And so she missed out on so many family photos because she couldn't stand to see herself in the photos. But it wasn't the photos that
were the problem. It was the story that she'd been telling herself every time she looked in the mirror and she saw somebody that was, you know, too big or too weak, or too out of control, and she hated her reflection because it represented every one of her perceived failures.
And so when we.
Worked together, she started changing her internal narrative, and she began to see herself differently, and she began to accept and even appreciate the woman looking back at her. But first and foremost, she had to draw that line in the sand and say, no, I'm so done missing out on my life because of this story that I'm telling myself, and I'm so sick of letting my body dictate what
I do or don't do. And if I keep this up, I'm literally not going to have any photos with my children in them, right, Like, she had to make that kind of like line in the sand declaration before we could even go to work. And once all of these shifts happened, she didn't feel the need to hide anymore, not just in photos, like hide in her life in general.
But first she had to get to that point where again she drew that life in the sand and she was like, no, I'm no longer willing to miss out on my life.
And those photos weren't.
Really the thing, right, they just represented every single thing that she was missing out on and saying no to when she really wanted to say yes. And again, it was about taking back the power to choose so that she was in the driver's seat of her life. I really want you to get that, Okay, So, if any of this is resonating with you, I want to invite you to take a good, hard look at where you
are right now. And I mean this with so much love right when I say take a look at it, but I mean like a loving look without the shame, right. And so are you holding on to this struggle like it's your dirty little secret?
And are you.
Feeling like if people knew the full extent of what you're dealing with, they would think less of you? And if so, I want you to know, first of all, it's okay to feel that way, right, but you do not have to stay there. And so the first step to healing is really just acknowledging the struggle without judgment, because so many of us we know we have a struggle,
but we judge it, we shame it, we blame it. Right, So the first is just acknowledging like, hey, this is a really big problem, but I'm not going to add shame on top of the problem, right, and recognizing that this isn't a food problem or a body problem. It's about healing the relationship that you have with yourself, and it's about breaking out of that prison of control and giving yourself the freedom to just be.
And again, if you are.
At that place where you're like, oh my gosh, my food and my body struggles, they feel so out of control.
It's gotten to that point where like, again, if anybody ever.
Felt found out, I would just die. Right, That's where I want you to know, like, you are so not alone. And I know people hear that and they think like, yeah, right, Lene, I know you're saying that, but I really don't feel like I know anybody else that struggles like this. And that's because of the secrecy and the shame that comes alongside this problem.
Right.
And it's not a coincidence that so many of the women that come to work with me they are high achieving, very intelligent, very successful, very driven women, because this also is not an intelligence problem. It's not that you're lacking the smarts, right, It's not that you're lacking the education or the intelligence.
Right.
In fact, there more highly intelligent you are, the more common these struggles are. Because we think we can logic and reason our way through these things. Right, But again, you'll never be able to logic and reason your way through an emotional struggle, and you'll never be able to logic and reason and like information your way through something that's deeply ingrained in your brain and in your nervous system.
And again that's where I also want to invite you to just ditch the shame because you just learned a way of thinking and a way of living and certain patterns and habits and behaviors around food and doesn't take away from the amazingness that you are. But I know it feels very isolating when you feel like, Okay, if anybody ever found out, they're going to judge me. And so again I want to acknowledge like it is a okay to be where you are and feel how you're feeling,
but you don't have to stay there. And the first step is just acknowledging like, hey, this is a really big problem and I don't have to be ashamed of it, but I.
Also can't get through it on my own.
I need that help, but I need that support, right, because it's about healing the relationship that you have with yourself, and it's about breaking out of that prison of control and giving yourself the freedom to just be where you are words in all right, So that.
Is really what I wanted to share with you today, ladies.
And I hope that you got something, whatever you needed to get today out of this episode, even if it's just a reminder that you're not crazy, and you're definitely not alone, and you are definitely not a self sabotager, and you're not destined to stay this way forever. And there's nothing dirty about this secret, right, There's nothing dirty about you. There's nothing that is a shameful thing about you. Because you're struggling the way that you are. I wish
somebody had told me that years ago. Okay, And if you want to learn more about how I teach my clients to turn off the part of their brain that's obsessed with food or obsessed with their weight and rewire their own brain for peace and freedom, then head on over to Stressless Eating dot com and sign up to watch the Stressless Eating sneak preview, where I've literally peeled back the curtain and walked you through the exact strategy I teach my clients to heal themselves from the all
or nothing diet mentality for good but without restricting themselves, punishing their bodies, and definitely without using words like macros and low carb or calorie burn. So it's over there for you to access over at stressless Eating dot com and if you like, out Weigh. I actually have another podcast here on iHeart where I talk about all of this self image and body image stuff, but from the perspective of where brain science intersects faith.
It's called What's God Got to Do With It?
And you can access it here on iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. So that's it for today. I'm Leanne Ellington signing out and I will talk to you soon. Bye.