Episode #91: The Emotional Eating Roadmap for High Achievers

Summary

In today’s chit-chat style episode, I’m breaking from tradition, recording while on a car ride, sharing a candid and unfiltered conversation about emotional eating. This timely episode, released during the winter holidays, delves into the specific ways emotional eating affects high achievers and outlines actionable steps to break free from this pattern. I share my personal experiences, insights into the motivational triad, and the importance of recognizing emotions without seeking refuge in food. I’ll talk about the interconnectedness of overworking and emotional eating for high achievers, providing a holistic perspective on achieving weight loss goals. Don't miss this episode that challenges conventional notions of emotional eating, leaving you with a fresh perspective on your journey to better health.

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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Chit-chat with me in the car about where emotional eating might be showing up in your own life 
• Discover a unique perspective on emotional eating, specifically tailored for high achievers, let’s unravel the connection between emotions, stress, and food habits.
• Gain valuable insights into the motivational triad and understand how seeking pleasure, safety, and avoiding pain play a crucial role in emotional eating for high achievers.
• I’ll share my personal and relatable journey, from medical school to residency and beyond, revealing moments of stress, pressure, and emotional eating.
• Move beyond conventional weight loss strategies and learn about the need to address emotional eating and overworking for a comprehensive and sustainable approach to achieving your health goals.

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Full Episode Transcript:

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• Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, and you're listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. We're talking all about emotions and how emotional eating specifically shows up for the high achiever. I'm doing something I have literally never done. Not only are we doing a chit chat style podcast, I am recording this on my phone, which means excuse the quality of the sound, but I am today bringing you on a car ride. This is typically when I call my besties, I chit chat about my life, sometimes commiserate, sometimes complain, and oftentimes, especially if it's a coaching buddy of mine, often problem-solve what's coming up for me. But today, let me tell you why we're doing this in the car. So if you hear trucks, if you hear car sounds, if there's an occasional bump in the road, you understand why. I'm like hoping that I even air this. We're just going to go, this is me being imperfect, but the reason we're doing this podcast in the car is because I have to, my team messaged me saying, Priyanka, we need your podcast for December. It's the holidays. We need to get this podcast episode. And here I am ready to do it. Because I have been thinking about this topic for quite a while and I have all my notes because I was going to walk you all through really how emotional eating shows up specifically for the high achiever. I think it is a little bit different than the average human I think emotional eating really affects high achievers Especially working moms in a very very specific way and I want to talk to you about it today I think this is the perfect time to address this this conversation address this topic and also What you can do to start changing the tide. I think this week is really important. This episode is going to air during the winter holiday, the day after Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas, likely you are home or you're on vacation or your kids are home with you. And this is that week before New Year's that I'm guessing you are thinking about 2024 goals. You're thinking about what you want it to look like, what you want to achieve and the plan that you want to implement in 2024 to lose the weight you want. You need to understand the concept we're talking about today. I'm going to be giving you a whole explanation for why emotional eating is an essential step for you to lose the weight that you want to lose.

  And also, I want to make sure that you know I am hosting an upcoming webinar. It's happening next week on Thursday, January 4th, 12PM Eastern and 8PM Eastern. You can go grab your seat for free at theunstoppablemombrain.com/webinar. This is one you do not want to miss. I'm going to be covering my three proven steps to really create your blueprint, your roadmap for 2024 so you are confident that you're going to hit your goal. Let's get into today's episode. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories, or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you. Ready? Let's get to it. Emotional eating is not what you think it is. Emotional eating is not you sitting in front of the TV with a huge tub of ice cream or guzzling back a bottle of wine on your own after a hard day. Now, yes, this could look, this could be emotional eating, but that is kind of what you might've seen in the movies growing up with, that woman who was wronged by her colleague or her boss, and she shows up at home, you know, eating the gallon of ice cream or pour herself the, the big bottle of wine. That is not really how emotional eating shows up in our life or for, especially for the high achiever. So let's just first define what is emotional eating really and why it is and how it is that it shows up specifically for you, the high achieving working mom. Emotional eating the way that I'm defining it in the unstoppable universe is eating food, snacking, nibbling, taking licks and bites, eating anytime that your body is not actually hungry.

   

  Now, this might be something that is really hard to notice and catch, particularly if you are someone that's not very familiar with when you're actually hungry. One of the main reasons that you might be emotionally eating way more often than you even realize is because you're not even aware of when you're actually hungry. Why is this? Why are women not aware of when they're actually hungry? It's mostly because you're so used to eating by a rule book. You're so used to eating when the clock strikes 12, or the clock is 6, or because everybody else is eating. You're used to eating when, you know, somebody offers you food, you think you can't say no. You were probably told when you were really young to finish the food on your plate or to be grateful for the food you have or just eat because it's dinner time. There are numerous reasons and there's a whole podcast episode on this topic for why we are disconnected from our body's natural signals, our natural, natural grumble of hunger. You're not even aware of it simply because a lot of the programming you have gotten for many decades. So I want to just normalize starting off in this episode. The reason that you are likely eating a little bit, or a lot of the time when your body's not hungry, it's simply because you don't even know when you're hungry. This is not a you problem. This is just what you have been taught and it is possible to unlearn. But before we get into that. Let's just get into how this actually shows up for you and why is it that we're doing this? There are essentially two reasons that we will ever eat food, snack, nibble, or lick when our body is not actually hungry. It's driven by the motivational triad, which I have talked about on this podcast before. It is really the most primitive part of your brain. It's very reflexive. It's rooted in survival. It is focusing on your safety, focusing on you being taken care of. And it's designed to help you seek pleasure, create safety for you in the moment. And very importantly, avoid pain. Why is it that smart high achievers ever eat food when their body is not hungry? That is specifically driven by your primitive brain. Nothing is going wrong. All of us, all humans, however involved you are, all have this primitive reflex. It's rooted in our survival. It is what lets us run. If there's a line outside the cave, it is what creates safety for us. It's in the moment. So we don't ever want to judge or criticize or get mad about our very natural and primitive tendencies. But what we can do, and this is what we're doing on this podcast is we're bringing an incredible amount of awareness to how, when you're not aware of it, when you don't make decisions in advance, when you don't give yourself intentional direction, which is what we do in Unstoppable, how your very primitive reflexes are going to take over. And when that happens, you're going to always, always find yourself reliving old habits. Specifically overeating, what's happened along the way over the past many years is humans, and especially women and high achievers have started to get certain wires crossed in our brain. We have started to perceive certain emotions like stress, overwhelm, pressure, anger, worry, concern, has a discomfort, like as though there's a line outside the key, really thinking about the last time that you felt really stressed or pressured or overwhelmed or discouraged or just stuck, think of how bad that experience, that feeling felt in your body. When we are not aware that this emotion is just normal, it's a part of our human experience, our brain is going to try to troubleshoot the problem. While we believe that half of our emotions, the negative emotions that don't feel so good are a problem that we should never feel that we need to avoid that are too much for us, our brain being the brilliant organ that she is, is going to troubleshoot for you so that you don't feel it while you believe that the stress, the overwhelm, the pressure, the worry, the frustration is too much for you while you have a contentious relationship with these emotions, which are normal, your brain will always default to your primitive reflexes. It will say, okay, it's too much. You don't like this. Don't worry. I have a solution and it will make that desire to snack, nibble, bite, and eat food when you're not actually hungry. Very, very compelling. You're going to hear your brain offer you all of the thoughts, all of the excuses, all of the justifications of, let's just have a bite. We just need a break. We deserve to take a break from our day. Let me tell you, if this is you, you're not alone. This used to be me. And it was a serious part of my problem. It was a serious reason that over 10 years, I slowly crept. I gained 60 pounds over 10 years. It did not happen overnight my friends, it  happened because I was emotionally eating. I was at my ultimate lowest on my wedding day. Okay. So I lost a lot of weight for my wedding. I was very strict with my plan. I've shared the story before. I literally ate 100 calorie oatmeal packets. I hit the gym five to six days a week. I was even eating cottage cheese, which by the way, I hate simply because I wanted to lose the weight for my wedding. I did it. It was awesome. Photos are awesome. And then the day after my wedding, I stopped doing those actions. It was an unsustainable practice. It was an unsustainable strategy for me. And that was when I started medical school. I started medical school just after I got married and not surprisingly, There was a lot of stress for me during that time, which is normal as a student starting grad school or medical school or whatever higher education you went on for. It's very normal. You experienced moments of stress for me. I had a lot of stress. I felt a lot of pressure to do well to forget, get the a plus. I just wanted to like do reasonably well. That's kind of like the state that I was in in med school. And then after medical school, there was residency or pulling 24 hour shifts doing all night, all weekend calls. It was a really, really hard time and during that time when I felt the stress or the pressure or the fatigue or just all out like overwhelmed, my brain, because I made a lot of those emotions such a problem was like, listen, let's have a snack. You deserve a break. You've been working really hard. You just like delivered 10 babies. I think that we deserve some Oreos. I think we need some peanut butter and graham crackers from the nurse's lounge. Go get it. Have a ginger ale while you're at it because pat on the back, you deserve it. Right? This is, I mean, I want you all to think about why did the creep up ever happen? And I think this is so important to understand before you create your 2024 strategy. I see this mistake all the time. I'm in so many Facebook groups where I see so many women saying, hey, should I do intermittent fasting? Should I count calories? Maybe I should do noon. Maybe I should do keto. No. No, no, no. Before you pick a strategy, which we're going to talk about separately, you have to know what created your weight gain to begin with. And if you're not super clear on this, you're going to lose a little bit of weight when you start a new strategy. promise you, you will gain it back. I know because I was on this roller coaster for years. I do not want this for you. I had to get so honest with myself. I had to be so honest. Priyanka, why have we gained so much weight? I was tipping the scale at 200 pounds. I'm a smart person. I do amazing things. I am delivering babies. I'm handling emergencies at the hospital. I have two kids. I can multitask like a Ninja. Why is it? that the scale has ever tipped 200 pounds when I wanted to lose weight for years. Every new year, fresh start. Why is it that by February, my plan has gone out the window? It is because of this reason. I did not know that I was emotionally eating and I did not know how to get a handle on it. I never identified as an emotional eater because I wasn't doing the gallons of ice cream and the bottles of wine binging every night.

  I mean, every now and then I would have a couple but it wasn't my routine M.O., it was little bites, little licks, little off plan moments, little moments that I would just like kind of have like forget about, you know, those moments where like, I'm eating great. And you're like, actually if you did,  if there was a fly in the wall that really watched how you had been eating the last seven days and seven nights, actually, that's not true. There were so many moments that I would just forget, quote unquote, forget about because I was like, that wasn't even that big of a deal. Yes, it is. So I had to get really honest and I want this episode to invite you to get really honest before you pick a strategy for 2024, get clear on what has created your weight gain. What is it that has gotten you stuck on the scale? I'm telling you, it is this, this is the reason. It's because you're eating when your body's not hungry and it's always for an emotional reason. So let's get into, I want to like dive into this. I want to go back to my story. You know, as I was sharing with you medical school and residency, I was taking those breaks. I was eating my graham crackers with peanut butter from the nurse's lounge, ginger ale to stay up at night. This was like, Priyanka, how do we stay awake? We stay awake by eating food. How do I focus? I need a snack. How do I treat myself? I had a tough night shift. Like, let's go out. Also, by the way, I wasn't just eating to avoid my stress or overwhelm or pressure or like taking a break from my residency life. I was also using it to celebrate, right? This was the other part of the motivational triad seeking pleasure. So you better believe the day that I passed my oral board exams for, um, to become a board certified OBGYN, me and my husband were like, we're going out to dinner. We're going to go celebrate, right?

   

  So food was used for me to take a break from my life, but equally to celebrate special moments in my life, right? This is so common. This is cultures across the world for holidays, for weekends, you pass a board exam, you get an A on the test. Your kid gets potty trained. Oh, your kid got on the bus. We need to celebrate. Open up the bottle of wine. Let's order dinner. Let's, it's always food and alcohol to celebrate. So if this is again you, it's not a you problem. This is just what is practiced in our society. So here is what happened. Okay. So now Priyanka has gained quite a bit of weight. We have gone through medical school, probably gained about 10 to 15 pounds in medical school. And then in residency, I probably gained another 10 during the first three years of residency. And then my fourth year, my final year during my chief year, I got pregnant and I had my first baby and I gained a lot of weight during pregnancy and it just never left. It was like I was not one of those women who I would see often in the office like, you know, they would just breastfeed and the weight would “melt off”. Yeah. This was not Priyanka's story. Priyanka gained a lot of weight and then postpartum gained a little bit more. Like I think I just, because I was breastfeeding, I took it as permission again to treat myself, to just eat because I was tired, to eat just for all the reasons that. really were not real reasons, like not actual fuel. And I gained weight even postpartum. I had a really hard time losing the weight. Okay. Flash forward. Now my son is three and my daughter is, comes into the picture and this is now I'm an attending. I have a whole different set of responsibilities. Now I feel different kind of pressure, right? I just felt a different layer of stress and pressure. And again, because I was not aware of this because I didn't have another coping strategy. I wasn't even aware I would eat to treat myself, to take a break from my life. Let me tell you what happened. So in 2018, 2019, my daughter was born. My daughter was a few months old and this was when I was really, this was my personal heaviest 200 pounds. And I really got to that, that moment where I was like, I am seriously just, I'm done. I do not want to live like this. My kids are young. I am a young person. I have worked too hard to not feel comfortable in my body. I really want to figure this out. And so I researched as we do. I researched. Searched all these plans. I came up with a great strategy. I was like, this is going to be good. And I started losing weight. Okay. So this was again, January of 2019. This was the fresh start guys, January 1st. I was like me and my bestie, I was like, we are going to lose weight this year. This is the year that we do it. It's like our story every new year. Right? Like this is the year we do it. I had such a great plan on it. Losing weight. And then, in the spring, now I've probably lost maybe 10 ish pounds over two or three months, and I'm at the office, I'm running between room to room, if you're a physician you know, like you might be double booked or maybe you're running behind because you were spending a lot of time. You were trying to give a lot of attention to one patient who maybe had another problem, so now you're running behind on schedule for your whole day. I'm thinking about my deliveries from the night before, and I get a call from the preschool. My son's preschool, he's three years old. I'm laughing about this now. It was definitely not funny at the time. You know that moment where your phone rings if you can see that it's your kid's school and your heart drops. That was me. Pick up the phone and it was the assistant principal and she was like, excuse me, Dr Venugopal, your son is fine. As they say, you know, just to make sure that you know that your kids okay, not injured. But you know, there was a little incident this morning and I think that it would be really great if we could set up a meeting to best support him, you know, with his, some of the behavior that we're noticing guys, I felt if, if you, you know, those rubber band balls with all the emotions jumbled up, I had so many feelings in that moment, I was pissed because I'm like, why is the school calling me in the middle of a workday? Number one, number two, why are they calling me and not my husband? Why do I have to be the one? deal with it. I was annoyed. I was irritated. I was also worried about my son. I was like, what's up with him? Why is he different than the other kids? Why can't he figure this out? I felt guilty. What am I doing wrong? I mean, I'm trying my best. Am I, what am I missing? Am I doing something wrong? Am I messing up? I felt inadequate as his mom. I felt annoyed, frustrated. I mean, literally every emotion. I get home that day and I was snippy with my husband, snippy with my son and that perfect plan that I had, that I had been losing weight with. That was working. Went right out the door. The minute my kid went to bed, the minute the kitchen was cleaned up, you better believe I made a beeline for my Cool Ranch Doritos, threw on some Kraft cheddar cheese, made myself a plate of nachos, and poured myself a big glass of wine. Probably not just one plate, I think I might have had like more than one plate. So, for about 10 minutes or 15 minutes or however long it took me to inhale the chips and have the wine, I got a break from those emotions. Okay? Let me just say that again. For those 10 minutes, 15 minutes, however long. Oh, by the way, of course I had Netflix binge happening in the background, because we need to have all levels and all layers of distraction when we're feeling this way.

  I felt like I got a break from the rubber band ball emotions, the annoyance, the irritation, the stress, like the great one more thing that I have to deal with, right? All of those emotions. I got a break from 10 minutes, 15 minutes mats. I woke up the next morning, the scale was up. Two pounds, guys, two pounds. I didn't know that I ate two pounds worth of nachos or two pounds worth of chips, but apparently we did. Apparently that's what happened. Two pounds worth of nachos and wine. Forget the scale, okay? Yes, the scale was up, but forget the scale. My gut, my body felt like, Ugh, just from eating such crap food. My gut felt gross. I felt bloated. I felt heavy. I felt like just, Ugh. And then here's the, here's the kicker. My emotional problem was not solved. Emotional eating that night did not solve any emotional problems. I woke up the next morning and I still had the situation to deal with. I still had to deal with my son. I still had to figure out how I was going to manage this meeting with the assistant principal. I still had to figure out how was I going to see all my patients and how was I going to cover all the labs and how was I going to handle the meal prep and do the laundry and talk to my husband about our holiday plans. I still had all of these things to handle and to do. So the lesson I learned, it was the best lesson I could have learned. It's why I tell the story when I'm talking about emotional eating. It is such a powerful moment for me personally. I'm grateful to myself for that moment because a light bulb went off in my brain that morning. Emotional eating wasn't solving any of my problems. It was a distraction from my stress, my overwhelm, my worry, and my pressure. But guess what? All of those emotions were just waiting for me. The next morning. That was the morning that I realized that this was the real reason this whole topic that we're talking about today. Emotional eating. Eating when I wasn't actually hungry to take a break from my life. Was the real reason that I had ever gotten to 200 pounds. It answered the other question that I had been having, which is like, Priyanka, we're smart. Why, why is this a perpetual problem? It just doesn't make any sense. If we can do all these other things, why can't we do this? It's because of this piece. I had in the past, and if you have been on the rollercoaster, then you are familiar with this. If you have gone up and down, it's working and then it's not working. If you have been on that weight loss rollercoaster, here is what I want to tell you. This is going to be the best news and also a bitter pill. You will lose the weight. You will have a really great strategy. You need a really good strategy. You need a science backed strategy that is going to make you a fat burner. That's not the point of this episode. You need a strategy that is going to make you a fat burner. And also, you will not implement your fat burning strategy consistently if you don't solve this. If you keep needing a break from your life, if you keep trying to take breaks from your real life emotions with food, this will be a perpetual struggle. So this is, guys, this is the invitation. What if we didn't have to? Take a break from stress and overwhelm and pressure. What if we have to distract from, from it? What if there was other ways of being with ourselves in those life challenges and especially listen, if you're a high achiever, if you're a working mom, then you have, you're going to have these moments. That's the life we have signed up for. And listen, if you're a high achiever, as I know you are, I know you're achieving. You want to go get big things. You're reaching for leadership roles. You're, you're a team leader. You're reaching for promotions. You're reaching to have an impact in your community with your patients, with your clients. You want to have an impact, which means. You are a goal getter. If you're listening to this podcast, you are likely a goal getter, which means to achieve big goals. You're going to have certain emotions. You're going to have moments of stress, moments of discouragement, moments of failure. If we could just stop taking a break from that part of our life, can you imagine how much faster you would reach your goal weight? So much faster. I also want to take a pivot because emotional eating is not the only thing that shows up for the high achiever when it comes to you trying to take a break from your life, which is why this episode is geared for high achieving professional working moms. You will also find yourself perpetually having a state of stress, overwhelm, pressure, and worry, like, just like, in the background, kind of humming in the background, because you might have perfectionist tendencies. And even if you don't identify as a perfectionist, listen, if you're someone that hates making mistakes, you're a secret perfectionist, you will find yourself overworking a lot. And I wanted to share this because I think that this is intricately related with overeating. When it comes to your work life, when it comes to your profession, when you're feeling some flavors of stress or worry or overwhelm or pressure. Because you're a high achiever, you will have a very reflexive pattern, motivational triad, because you want to seek pleasure and avoid that discomfort. Your brain has associated overworking with your solution to those emotions. How often will you work past your typical workday? How often will you be checking charts or responding to emails or checking the census at like 10 o'clock at night for what your workload is tomorrow? How often will you find yourself reading and rereading emails to make sure that you have responded just right? How often will you find yourself thinking and ruminating about a problem at work? Right. All of this comes under the umbrella of overworking, high achieving working moms, women especially are overworking.

  We are overworking at home. We are likely overworking with our kids. We are absolutely overworking when it comes to our professions. And I don't just mean checking emails every now and then past our workday. I mean like we're overthinking, we're ruminating about our work a lot. Here's the truth. Overworking and overthinking about your job. It's like emotional eating. It's not solving your stress. It's not solving your pressure. It's not solving your overwhelm. And I'm going to tell you from personal experience, I have done this. I have felt some pressure. I have felt this underlying, like, I need to get it just right. I want to make sure I do a really good job. And I will overwork. I will spend extra hours on the emails, I will spend extra time double checking and triple checking, making sure it looks just right. Thinking that overworking and having a superior quality product is what's going to take away that feeling, guess what happens? I finished the assignment. I finished the project and the feeling is still there. It's because no actions will ever take away an emotional problem. No actions, eating, drinking, scrolling, overworking is never actually going to solve an emotion. Never. This has been a lesson. I've had to learn this lesson in so many ways. First I learned it with weight loss and then I learned it with overworking in my business. And it's a lesson that I think I might, I might learn many times in my lifetime. But the intention of today's episode and why these two are so important and so related is because when you are overworking in your job or overworking in your just busy working mom life, that Friday night, when you finally get home. That evening, that weekend, whatever, the Tuesday afternoon that you finally sit down on the couch, your brain will be extra justified. It will have an extra, extra strong, compelling justification of we just deserve a break because we are working so hard. This is where that walk to the pantry, to the fridge, to the glass of wine is going to be even more compelling. And that's why I wanted to really fold that into today's episode. This is why the concept of emotional eating has a very special lens for high achieving professional working moms. I want you to imagine. What it would be like if you could experience your day, you get a call from the assistant principal about your kid. You have five patients that you're juggling at the same time. You have an overflowing email inbox. You have a project deadline coming up. You got a, you got into a fight with your partner. You're trying to plan the next vacation holiday event and you're having an emotion about it. You're feeling some stress, some worries, some pressure, some overwhelm, some anger, some frustration, some discouragement, whatever the emotion is. I want you to take a pause. And really ask yourself, is taking a break from that emotion with overworking, overthinking, overeating, over drinking or overscrolling actually solving anything? If you answered no, if you can truly see like how I had that light bulb moment when I was 200 pounds with a plate of nachos the next morning, I had that light bulb moment. This is the real reason that I'm even at 200 pounds is because of these moments that I'm distracting from my life. You have an invitation, which is: am I ready to put that down? Am I ready to stop distracting myself from my own life? Am I ready to learn the skills, and truly it is really just some skills that you can learn how to do. Am I ready to learn the skill of not emotionally eating anymore? What would I do instead? If you, can you imagine that there could be alternatives when you felt stress or pressure or worry that didn't involve food or alcohol? Can you even imagine that? I know for a long time I was like, what? What do you mean? Is that a thing? Instead of distracting from your life problems, imagine that you started solving those actual problems. I just, I shared in this episode, emotional eating does not solve the problem. Emotional eating does not take away the emotion. Problem is just waiting for you. There are two things that we have to understand. What would you do instead if you didn't eat or drink? What would you do instead? Number one, you would accept that sometimes part of being human is having stress, is being overwhelmed, is feeling frustrated, is feeling inadequate. Sometimes that is just a part of the game. And also, that doesn't mean that we just sit there complacent in our life. What if instead of letting those problems sit, what if we got better at solving those problems? I know for me that my stress, my pressure, my overwhelm, my worry for my kid, my work, my partner, all of the parts of my life that created my uncomfortable emotions, they would, they would grow. They would compound because days would pass as I would distract myself with the nachos and the wine and it wouldn't solve problems and so my emotions would just linger and grow and the problem would just get bigger and bigger and bigger. And of course I was undoing my weight loss success, my weight loss results. So that was one more added problem for me. What if the solution was two-fold? What if you got better at letting yourself feel stressed, bored, frustrated, annoyed, worried? It's not a problem. What if you got better at doing that and at the same time because we're high achievers and we are doers? What if we got better at solving the actual problem at the root? You know how much time I spent avoiding problems? I had no idea that I was even doing this. The phone call from my, from the assistant principal is a great example. I spent so much, in my mind, so much irritation. Why did she call me? Why do I have to deal with this? Why can't she just call my husband? Do you know how much time I spent in that story? Resisting the fact that she called me and Priyanka, we have this problem in our lap. Instead of me getting to the bottom of solving the problem, I spent so much time resisting the problem. And truly, this is where coaching will take your life to the next level. One of the things that we do in the Unstoppable group, some of the things that I teach my clients, are the solution in two-fold. I teach my clients a concept called Calm Habit 90 and the three bucket system, which is really retraining your brain to create new habits so when you feel stressed or worried or pressured or even bored, how to just allow that emotion, how to be with yourself in that experience without distracting from it. So you stop undoing your weight loss success. It's honestly a skill that my clients not only love, but are creating so much weight loss success with. But then two-fold, the second piece of it is actually getting coached on their struggle. The difference between just what you do with your friends, with your besties, where you're just chit chatting about your life problems. That's not what coaching is. Coaching is you bringing an obstacle that you are facing, something with your kid, with your partner, with your time, with your work, with a responsibility, something that is coming up that's creating that feeling of stress, overwhelmed pressure that you find yourself like wanting to me enter into the pantry, right? That emotion that's coming up for you. I help my clients. I coach my clients through those experiences. so that they can actually navigate their obstacles so much more powerfully. When you're stuck in your problem and you're just feeling the stress, you're feeling the overwhelm, you're feeling the pressure, you're feeling the annoyance. Sometimes it is really hard to see objectively what is happening and that is what I help my clients with. I help my clients separate the data, the facts from their story and it's your story. It is always your story that's creating your emotional, your emotional experience. So if you want to know how to stop emotionally eating, you want to stop being stuck on the scale.

   

  If you want to really feel a lot more freedom, no matter how busy your life is as a high achiever, I highly encourage that you fold in two measures into your success strategy in 2024. You have to know how to feel stressed. bored, frustrated, worried, overwhelmed, without needing a break from it, without going to food. It's a necessary step to get off the roller coaster. And second, getting coached on your obstacles is how you free yourself at the root from the emotions to begin with. You need both in equal parts. You can't just do one without the other. They really do go together to create a lot of forward progress for you on the scale. I'm going to be covering this step, the emotional eating step in my upcoming webinar. So make sure you join me live. I highly recommend that you come live mostly because number one, you're really signaling to your brain that your weight loss goal is a priority. This is not just lip service to yourself. You're coming, you're putting it on your calendar, you're showing up live and honestly, signaling to yourself that this is a priority for you is the first step in you guaranteeing your success in 2024. So make sure you grab your seat, theunstoppablemombrain.com/webinar, January 4th on Thursday at 12pm EST or 8pm EST. I want to see you there live. The other reason that you want to join me on this webinar where we are going to dive deeper into the three steps, the blueprint for your 2024 success, and emotional eating is step two. So there's three steps. They're equally important. Emotional eating is step two. I want to tell you why you also want to register for this webinar when you were registered for this webinar, you will qualify for a really special bonus if you decide to join the Unstoppable group. So the Unstoppable group is my six month intimate small group coaching program. It's opening right after the webinar. It is for high achieving working moms. We have live weekly coaching calls, daily written coaching. The best brand new on demand curriculum. Seriously, every layer of support for you to hit your goals in 2024 when you were registered for this webinar and you joined the Unstoppable group within 48 hours of doors opening, you are going to get a bonus one on one call with me where we are going to take this three steps that you're going to learn the webinar and create your custom 2024 roadmap for you to lose the weight that you want to lose. It is seriously going to be such a valuable call for you. So if you have been considering. The Unstoppable group. If you have been playing with the idea, just go and register, even if you can't attend live, you will be sent the replay. This bonus is only if you are registered, so I do not want you to miss it. It is such a high value bonus because I don't offer one on one almost ever, so it's a rare opportunity. I hope that you all enjoyed today's podcast episode where I did a ramble, we did a car drive together. It was here, there, everywhere, but really, I hope, emphasizing the value of Understanding why are you stuck on the scale? Why is it that weight loss has been up and down for you? It is because of this piece, and if we don't address it, weight loss is going to be a perpetual struggle, and I don't want that for you. I know that it's possible to be a high achiever and a busy working mom. I lost 60 pounds while being a busy physician with on call schedules and unpredictability and two little kids. If I can do it, I know that you can do it too, and I'm on a mission to help you create that for you to feel more powerful, no matter what you're experiencing. My work and with us, my goal for you is not to free you from your life stress or to free you from your moments of worry or overwhelm. It is to show you how to navigate through those emotions more powerfully. I'm telling you it will change your life, and I want that for you. I cannot wait to see you live on the webinar next week. I hope that this topic and this conversation touched something for you. I know that I was blunt and honest in sharing why this is a necessary step for you to lose the weight, but I want this message in your ears. I want it to land so you feel the truth of it in your body. This week, I know the week leading up to New Year's. is that week where we are reassessing our goals and our priorities. And we're thinking about 2024 plans. But before you get to a plan, you have to know why you have the results you have. If you did not hit a goal this year in 2023, if you did not hit your weight loss goal, if you got stuck, if you gained weight back, whatever it is, It doesn't even matter. It is because you are emotionally eating. And if you don't plan for it properly, if you do not have the skills to not do that, to create safety for yourself, to allow these emotions, weight loss is going to be a perpetual struggle. And I don't want that for you. I hope you enjoyed this ramble. This was really fun for me to do in the car. I really hope that the sound quality was okay. And I will see you all next week. I'm going to be actually bringing out some extra podcast episodes. We're gonna do a little bonus series. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So keep your eye out for that. And I will see you live next week. Seriously, block your calendar.

  It is going to be so good. I love you all so much. I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast episode, today's car ride with me, and I want to make sure that you join me next week for the live webinar. It is going to be so good. It's the three steps that you absolutely need for 2024 success. It is proven it is what created my success on the scale is what I see creating success for my clients. You need all three steps. You cannot just do one. You need all three. So make sure you don't wait. Go grab your seat over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/webinar, and I will see you there live. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com.