Why Am I Eating This Now?
Your Life and Eating Aligned
LIVE Group Program
Have you ever wondered how you can be so good in other
areas of your life but not with food?
Have you tried stress coping tools like journaling,
meditating, and taking a walk but don’t really want to do those
things because they aren’t as satisfying as food, Ted Lasso, or both?
Do the bro habit “hacks” that rely on near total control of your schedule and life
not work for your unpredictable reality due to parenting/caregiving, work,
and late stage capitalism making everything so difficult?
My evidence-based, client proven “Why Am I Eating This Now” (WAIETN) process teaches you how to want to want to eat healthy in a sustainable way to feel remarkably better with your food and life, not just less stressed.
No white knuckling food required.
This group format provides an accelerated learning curve with the support and collaboration of a small group of bad joiners tackling similar challenges.
Registration is now closed
Navigate the Experience
Who Is This For?
WAIETN? is rooted in developmental psychology. It’s different than therapy or coaching yet will make therapy more effective and provide missing pieces to your healing puzzles.
The people who join hate small talk, are bad joiners, driven, have healthy skepticism, and food seems to be the one nut they can’t crack. We value depth, nuance, and wisdom. And we laugh!
This process requires a willingness to take small, manageable actions outside your comfort zone (You will break the all-or-nothing cycle for sustainable results so no GO BIG OR GO HOME energy here).
This Adult Development process IS NOT for you if:
- You have only recently embarked on a path of personal growth
- You are not currently in a position to invest in yourself financially
- You still think food is only about food and are currently unwilling/uncurious to do emotional work
- You want a quick fix, a plan, or more rules to try and follow
This process IS for you if your primary goals are to:
- Work on the root causes of why you turn to food.
- Learn a clear, efficient process to understand the murkiness and chaos of stress eating and resolve it with less to do, not more tools
- Put food in a mindful, not obsessive place in your life
- Stop wasting time and precious mental energy on food, never getting ahead of your overwhelm, and unsustainable solutions
- Get off the “all-or-nothing” train in your food and life and learn psychological flexibility
- You’re ready to invest emotionally and financially in high-level support to deeply awaken to the power you have to create a deeply fulfilling life, and the food falls into place as a side-effect
The Stress-Eating Cycle is about Psychological Safety
Stress eating happens when you worry about not being good or doing the bad thing. With food. And with your specific stressors.
It’s when you worry it looks like you’re trying too hard when you get the salad but aren’t thin enough.
It’s when you worry it looks like you aren’t trying hard enough when you order ice cream.
It also happens when you hop on social media and feel like you’re missing out and feel an insatiable desire for ice cream.
Or you’re out with friends and feel separate because of the life choices you’ve made to lean into loving your family or being an entrepreneur.
Or when you’re so overwhelmed, you don’t have the capacity for anything, other than the easy relief of your UberEats favorite.
You turn to food, if food is your thing, because of past patterns of how you learned to use food.
These learned patterns have gone on for so long they feel like who you are – someone who struggles with food, loves food too much, food addict – versus learned ways of using food.
And if you learned them, you can unlearn them.
Perhaps you were rewarded with food for accomplishments like good grades or after a softball game.
As an adult, this tracks to being hyper-productive and driving towards the next accomplishment. The exhaustion means you deserve ice cream and Netflix for getting through your daily grind.
Or perhaps growing up, your family dynamics or school (academically or socially), were really tough.
And eating out together as a family (or eating in secret) was the one time all hard feelings were forgotten.
As an adult, this tracks with needing a refuge from the unpredictability of when your schedule gets thrown a curveball. Again.
When childcare falls through. Or the relentless unpredictable nature, sadness, and grief of caretaking your ailing Mother.
Food is there like it’s always been to provide a stable refuge.
If you’ve ever felt the unstoppable pull to the fridge, or been on “automatic pilot” around food, that is an example of your historic patterns controlling you.
To stop stress eating is not about willpower, discipline, or more restriction.
It’s about becoming aware of your individual stress eating cycle and effectively interrupting this cycle by making choices that are aligned with your values.
Whether it’s stress from a work project or relationship conflict earlier in the day or week, you can learn how to resolve stress without food.
You’ll liberate yourself from stress eating while bringing more ease, fulfillment, and self-trust to your life.
Clockwise from the top…
1 — TRIGGER
Your kid’s school closed down. Your team member isn’t performing well. You didn’t hear back from your date. You start to spiral…
2 — STRESS REACTION
You “gear up” about what’s the right or wrong thing to do. You (unconsciously) choose between one of three reactions that have worked well in the past: Compete, Avoid, or Accommodate.
3 — BEHAVIOR
These three stress patterns generate choices that reduce anxiety but aren’t aligned with the resilience, freedom, and fulfillment you want. You find yourself irritated, frustrated, and further stressed because now you have your food choices to stress about.
4 — LOSS OF SELF TRUST
You then beat yourself up because you aren’t following through on what you want to be doing. With food and life. And nothing is changing. You believe the “you don’t have enough willpower or discipline” myth that feeds diet culture.
5 — LOOPS BACK TO TRIGGER
You become less resilient, more overwhelmed, and more all-or-nothing, as well as more frustrated and cruel with yourself.
6 — AUTO-PILOT EATING
The cycle repeats…
…and we’re back to the top.
How We’ll Break the Cycle
When food was coupled with your past stress experiences, you never learned how to actually work through your stress. Because growing up, you were at the mercy of what was normal to do. And, you didn’t have the same resources available that you do today, as a grown ass adult.
For example, when I was bullied in fifth grade, I was so ashamed I never told anyone. I started eating cinnamon raisin bagels as soon as I got home from school. This did not solve the problem!
But I grew up in the 80s/90s, the era known as “benign neglect”. No one “did feelings”. So neither did I! I didn’t know there was another way to manage this stress.
My emotional eating escalated because I still felt painfully separate. And now I was stressed about being out of control around food and my weight.
Had I actually told my parents, I could’ve alleviated enough of that separateness. As an adult, while I no longer fear being bullied, I can still feel a sense of separateness when I’m struggling.
Because of the WAIETN process, I know how to identify when I’m feeling separate, how to use those emotions to grow, and then identify what I need to dissolve my sense of separateness and stress.
Whether it’s from being an older Mom (I had my son at 41), or going through menopause before my peers (thanks to teenage cancer treatments), or even when I’m surprised I feel separate, I have the WAIETN process to come out
better from my stress.
At the heart of this work is discovering you have so many different choices in how you can handle your stress today. And stress can be productive, not an obstacle, to accomplishing your goals.
This three-month program draws deep into developmental psychology to guide you through the root-cause of why you stress eat, how to identify and resolve these patterns by infusing more relief, ease, and support into your stress to free you from your “white-knuckle” relationship with food.
The more aligned your life is with what you need and want, so goes your eating.
Why Am I Eating This Now? Live Group program is a safe space for curious skeptics to explore and transform why their frustrating eating makes sense and address the root-cause of the overwhelm that leads to stress eating.
MODULES
Each module acts as a lily pad to interrupt the stress eating cycle. This process is designed and proven to help you make life-changing connections that have been elusive for years and meaningful progress with your food and life goals. You’ll uncover:
- Lesson 1: Why eating self-sabotage and falling off the wagon make sense by discovering the four emotional triggers and rigid beliefs about how to handle your stress that cause you to turn to food
- Lesson 2: Your current patterns of handling stress, which make food worth it in the moment (but not afterward!) and life more overwhelming than necessary
- Lesson 3: How your Inner Critic is actually an Inner Protector and how this mindset shift repairs the self-trust you have in yourself around food for less rules. You’ll learn two key tools to stop turning to food (hint: it’s not about willpower)
- Lesson 4: How to support your nervous system to build your capacity so your stress doesn’t feel like high stakes and you have more choices in how to handle your stress so you don’t turn to food.
- Lesson 5: Discover your values-based Option C to soften your rigid belief of how you have to manage your stress, which both prevents stress and allows you to better manage stress for a more satisfying life and radical food freedom.
This also includes:
- Tools and practices in each lesson to guide you through the above process
6, 90 MINUTE Q&A CALLS (Times/Dates in FAQS)
In each call, I’ll do a live teaching summary of the lesson, break-out rooms to strengthen our sense of community and support, and then have plenty of time for Q&A and coaching to drastically shorten your learning curve. Adult learning is influenced by connection, safety, and experimentation. The live group format offers an invaluable environment for exponential growth and progress.
2, 30 MINUTE NERVOUS SYSTEM CALMING PRACTICES
Insatiable guests and esteemed collegues Stacey Ramsower and Ashley Neese will take you through somatic experiencing and breath work nervous system regulation experiences to support this part of interrupting the stress eating cycle. Both Stacey and Ashley are pursuing their Ph.Ds and are amazing bridges who can speak to the psychology and physiology of change.
24/7 ONLINE SUPPORT ON A PRIVATE COMMUNITY PLATFORM
You’ll be able to connect with others in our live WAIETN group and have support in between our Q&A calls in our private, easy to use, separate from social media and ad-free platform.
The Results
While everyone is different, side effects of this work include:
BEFORE | AFTER |
---|---|
Trying a “different” yet the same restrictive eating plan instead of getting to the emotional root causes | Eating and living more consistently with your goals because you think about food significantly less |
Seeing stress as a reason to put healthy eating and living on hold | Seeing stress and overwhelm as a chance to realize you have more choices to create your life on your terms and this leads to adult safety, making food obsolete |
Feeling trapped in the Deprivation-Guilt/“good”/”bad” eating cycle | Increasing freedom and relief as you realize discovering more satisfying, expansive choices is the solution and you dissolve the “track” |
Feeling like life is happening to you and out of your control | Awakening courage and confidence you didn’t know that you had or was available |
Thinking you are weak or broken based on food choices | Being kinder and more compassionate with yourself as you understand your eating makes sense. This opens the door for honest, not defensive, reflection. |
Self-monitoring and judgment around food and insecure life areas (i.e. job, dating, etc) | Dramatically less food noise and self-monitoring as you gain self-awareness and confidence that will improve every area of your life – even those that are already good |
Client Success Stories
“Why Am I Eating This Now? was the perfect program to show me how to stop crashing and burning.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-2″ class=”accordion-item-first” title=”Read my story”]
I had tried to manage my autoimmune disorder through food with great results until I crashed and burned. I was convinced I had a compulsive eating disorder. Why Am I Eating This Now? was the perfect program to show me how to stop crashing and burning. I learned more about myself than I expected; to say it was eye opening would be an understatement. Using the tools I learned, I’ve now had break-through moments where I can work through the urge to eat without eating. I know I got this!
— Laurie Horwitz
[/accordion-item]
“I stopped slipping with healthy eating and have the tools to keep going.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-4″ class=”accordion-item” title=”Read my story”]
Why Am I Eating This Now? (WAIETN) is about getting to the root of things, not hovering on the surface as too many other programs/plans do. As a result, I stopped slipping with my healthy eating and falling into old thought patterns. I got unstuck and have the tools to keep going. One year out of the WAIETN process and using the tools, I’ve lost 20 pounds.
— Dr. Tina H. Boogren
[/accordion-item]
“I truly thought I’d never break free from emotional eating but I have.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-5″ class=”accordion-item” title=”Read my story”]
I joined Why Am I Eating This Now? (WAIETN) because I wanted to move forward in my own self-development. I was able to discover the deeper conflict around my food battle, including how it protects me and how to move forward. I exceeded my own expectations for my progress, I was challenged and I will continue to make these changes in my life as I have found my Boss mindset. I’ve been binge free for over a year post-WAIETN. I truly thought I’d never break free from emotional eating but I have.
– Lourdes Brolly
[/accordion-item]
“I’m empowered with tools to help me make balanced, healthy choices with not only food, but relationships, work and life in general.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-9″ class=”accordion-item” title=”Read my story”]
Ali’s teaching is both deep and practical. Why Am I Eating This Now? empowered me with tools to help me make balanced, healthy choices with not only food, but relationships, work, and life in general. As someone who values nuance and growth, it was just the right amount of time and information for where I was at with my health, food, and life.
— Reese Spykerman
[/accordion-item]
“It’s not about the food!”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-3″ class=”accordion-item-first” title=”Read my story”]
Participating in WAIETN gave me clarity and hope. I better understand what is going on in my own head and feel empowered to enjoy my life in a way I’ve never been able to before. It’s not about the food! It’s about me and discovering how I can get to a place where I feel at home in my own skin again.
– Katie
[/accordion-item]
“I wish I could bottle this feeling up and give it to everyone.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-7″ class=”accordion-item-first” title=”Read my story”]
Having a long history of trying Weight Watchers, I knew that there was an emotional piece behind my eating choices that I had to figure out. Why Am I Eating This Now? gave me a clear, exact process and tools to understand why I turn to food and how to change this. I’m making better choices aligned with my body and the life I want to live. I wish I could bottle this feeling up and give it to everyone.
-Shelley
[/accordion-item]
“In a way, betting the time and money on the course was like betting on myself.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-8″ class=”accordion-item-first” title=”Read my story”]
I enrolled after really feeling like I had HAD ENOUGH with my mindless and emotional eating. It wasn’t in alignment with my health goals, yet I couldn’t stop it! In a way, betting the time and money on the course was like betting on myself: could I really do this? I am far from there yet, but I have reached a place of curiosity and compassion with my feelings and my story, so I am on my way.
The most challenging part was getting momentum. This is uncomfortable work at times, but working through our stories is the only way to change them, and our responses to them.
– Alison
[/accordion-item]
“Ali has the rare gift of clarity.”
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”]
[accordion-item id=”item-1″ class=”accordion-item-first” title=”Read my story”]
Ali has the rare gift of clarity. She asks questions that help me think more clearly. She has the gift of putting her finger right on the essence of whatever the issue is—especially where nutrition meets a jumble of old feelings and beliefs and information—so I can make something useful out of it. And she has the gift of fearless empathy, of honoring my choices but always helping me make space for new possibilities.
— Krasna[/accordion-item]
[/accordion]
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
[accordion autoclose=”true” openfirst=”false” openall=”false” clicktoclose=”true”][accordion-item id=”item-21″ title=”What are the dates/times for the 2023 WAIETN Live Group? and What’s the time commitment each week?”]
Our live, Q&A calls are scheduled for:
Event
- Opening Circle
- Q&A: Lesson 1
- Somatic Support
- Q&A: Lesson 2
- Q&A: Lesson 3
- Breath work
- Q&A: Lesson 4
- Q&A: Lesson 5
- Integration Call
- Closing Circle
Date
- September 20
- October 4
- October 11
- October 18
- November 1
- November 8
- November 15
- November 29
- December 13
- December 20
Time
- 12 pm EST
- 12 pm EST
- 12:-12:30 pm EST
- 12 pm EST
- 12 pm EST
- 12-12:30 EST
- 12 pm EST
- 12 pm EST
- 12 pm EST
- 12 pm EST
All calls are 90 minutes, except the two nervous system classes. They are thirty minutes. If time zones are an issue, we can explore an accommodation if need be. All office hours and nervous system teachings are recorded. You can send questions ahead of time to be answered on the call if you cannot make it live.
As far as time commitment, the short answer is about 2 hours, every two weeks. This time breakdown is: 20 minutes learning the lesson, 30 minutes on the homework and 90 minutes on the live Q&A calls.
This work is about becoming more self-aware (not self-monitoring) to show up differently in our lives (to actually create more time and energy!). Your life is your real classroom where you’ll be embodying the lessons and experimenting with the homework.[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-10″ title=”What’s the difference between the live and the self-study versions of Why Am I Eating This Now?“]
The material is the exact same, although I have freshly updated the WAIETN Live group (those updates will come to the self-study in 2024).
The difference is the live version provides the support of a dynamic community and “office hours” calls with me. If you want to dive into the material now, get the self-study version, and then you can join the live version in September 2023.
Your investment in the self-study version ($500) is credited toward your enrollment in the live version ($1,000). So you have nothing to lose! This material is about developing a practice of clarity and freedom from stress: each time you work with it, you go deeper and get greater results because you’re at a different place!
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-11″ title=”I really think I have a food addiction. Can this help?”]
I don’t believe people are addicted to food. As they say in the addiction world, the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection.
I think people don’t have the right mindset to feel deeply connected to the support they need in their lives, including living their true values, not the one culture tells us matters. And so they turn to food. And telling people they’re addicted to food only makes them feel less connected to their true essence.
Think about it: There have been times when you weren’t triggered by certain foods where you can’t just eat one or a little. Haven’t there been times when you’ve said no to the fries or you were able to “resist” getting dessert?
Maybe it was at the beginning of a diet. Or when you isolated yourself from social situations where food would tempt you. Or when you were in a really good place in your life. What changed wasn’t the food. It was your internal and external environments. This shift in focus away from food and into your environmental triggers is life changing liberating.
Having said this, this group process isn’t for people with active anorexia or you are purging. The physiology of being desensitized to highly-palatable foods does take time to heal and might require more one on one attention and in conjunction with healing your blood sugar.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-12″ title=”I love your work Ali, I just don’t know if this will work for me. “]
I totally get this. Why wouldn’t you feel this way? When I was fighting food and my body, I thought I was trying all these different things only to end in the same vicious cycle.
What I couldn’t see then was everything I was trying – diets, functional medicine, and 30-day sugar free challenges – weren’t different in that they all involved deprivation and didn’t meet me where I was in my life.
The first thing is in WAIETN, we redefine “what works”. It’s not about following any rules or plan (there are no rules to follow!). It’s about cultivating more and more self-trust. Part of this self-trust is to be where you are in your life.
Second, cultivating more self-trust in WAIETN is about developing more capacity for satisfaction, not deprivation. In WAIETN, we address the root cause of why we feel emotionally deprived.
This work is trusting food and well-being is about freedom, fulfillment and simplicity, not sacrifice and sprouts.
The only thing you will have to give up in WAIETN are your old stories about needing to feel deprived to get the results you want.
This is the most common question and fear that prevents people from working with me and part of why I created Why Am I Eating This Now?. It’s a much lower risk and still provides a complete paradigm shift around battling food and what else is possible. Part of the process starts when you question that frozen or fear feeling as truth and take the risk to challenge yourself.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-13″ title=”I don’t know if I should do Why Am I Eating This Now? or wait till Truce with Food reopens.”]
This work meets you where you are in terms of self-awareness so it’s never repeated. It changes you so that anytime you revisit the material, you’re a different person who understands yourself and your needs more deeply.
It’s like when I read the Great Gatsby in high school. I thought it was a love story. In my 20s, I looked at the book as a commentary on class and power dynamics. And now, I’m looking at this book through the filter of race and the construct of whiteness. As you change the filter you bring to the world, which the Truce with Food material does on a radical level, you continue to see yourself and your life in deeper layers.
Most of my clients are highly critical of themselves. They confuse this self-monitoring with self-awareness. They’re great at managing their image externally, less adept at knowing what’s internally driving them. They’re often shocked at how liberating it is to see the patterns and connections they discover because seeing and then changing these patterns guarantee lasting change.
It takes about a year of working with the material to feel masterful with it. I created Why Am I Eating This Now? to create profound shifts in your self-awareness and build a skill-set that will only strengthen and deepen if you decide to take Truce with Food. If you want to take both, you’ll be well prepared for Truce with Food and will get even more value out of it. So there’s only upside to starting here.
And, you might not need Truce with Food after Why Am I Eating this Now?. The Fall program is a hearty version of my methodology that is designed to be empowering and life changing on its own
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-14″ title=”Can I get reimbursed through my insurance?”]
If you have an FSA or HSA account, most likely. Many clients pay directly with their HSA credit cards and successfully submitted their receipts to their FSA accounts. However, check with your plan as each of them do vary.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-15″ title=”I have gastritis, depression or trouble sticking with the food protocol I know I should. Will this program help me?”]
Why Am I Eating This Now? can definitely support you. I’ve had past clients be amazed at how their stomach issues got resolved as their stress profoundly reduced. You cannot heal to the fullest extent or stick with the food changes necessary if you don’t address the emotional patterns that contributed to your physical symptoms.
By the time we are officially diagnosed with a chronic issue, there’s usually been unaddressed overwhelm or stress on us for years. What my clients come to realize is what I experienced when I wanted to fully get rid of my depression and IBS: being able to transform emotional overwhelm into rewarding outcomes is the missing piece in exceptional healing. In other words, the emotional component is as important as the food.
We won’t be addressing the food (i.e. no food experiments) in Why Am I Eating This Now?. However, the emotional transformation is as critical to your healing and, it will make implementing the food changes easier.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-16″ title=”What is your completion rate? “]
Great question. I’ll break this into two parts. First off, do people show up and do the work? Last round of Truce with Food, which Why Am I Eating this Now? pulls from but doesn’t go as deep, 90% of people showed up and did the work. This is far above average than most programs. Clients who’ve never finished any program before have finished my programs because they’ve learned how their stress pattern makes them de-prioritize their selves over others or avoid the work.
Once they see this pattern and are given the tools to correct this pattern, they continue to show up, surprising themselves.
This question also implies how many people have sustainability after the program. Both of these are important questions. If you’re asking: can I do this, can I show up, can I do the work? Can I continue to make the changes in my life? Yes. I assure you you can do this. This isn’t a diet. This isn’t a plan. This doesn’t require willpower like you imagine. This is a skill-set anyone who is willing can learn.
Many people imagine they will be “fixed”, like a light switch going off. But that’s not what happens (because you aren’t broken). Rather, how we truly change is a gradual feeling of more life freedom and more consistent food choices, on our terms. As clients feel this relief and freedom, they stick with the tools because they are internally inspired, rather than depending on the scale for motivation. In their words, “I’m actually doing this for me. I want to want to be healthy.”
This is for anyone who wants to stop the insanity of fighting food and get off the merry-go-round. Why Am I Eating this Now? is a completely new orientation to how you think, act and respond to overwhelm in your life. The change is self-evident and creates a desire to continue to do the work because you’re finally getting results from the effort you put in. It’s like a snowball going down the hill, with more and more momentum.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-17″ title=”I’m really busy. Can I fit this in?”]
Life today is one constant busy season. Especially for those who tend to gravitate towards my work. However, your life is your classroom. In other words, you’ll be experimenting with new ways of being in your life. It’s not “separate” from your life.
And this program is designed for the on-the-go lifestyle. It does require about two hours every two weeks for maximum benefit. Many participants have said this work actually creates time for you by getting you clear on what you value so you are living a “less is more” lifestyle, which frees up energy and time. Plus, they become inspired from more results with less on their literal and metaphorical plates.
However, if life takes a wild turn, all instructional materials are yours for life—so even if your schedule happens to change, you can still get the full value of the program when you’re ready.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-18″ title=”I’m not really a group person. And I’m ashamed.”]
I call myself a bad joiner so I understand your hesitation. Most of my clients are “bad joiners” because they’re non-dogmatic people. They’ve been in groups either where they felt like they’ve carried the group instead of being supported by it or couldn’t challenge what was being said (i.e. group think was encouraged and the group leader was put on a pedestal). This doesn’t happen with the community we’ve cultivated here. We bring our whole selves to this work and you will be supported, often in ways you’ve never been supported before or didn’t know you needed. My clients are some of the most thoughtful, kind and compassionate people I have ever met in my life.
Also, many clients realize their shame and hesitation to participate in a group is not their true personality but part of their own stress response to being in groups with women and the perceived judgment. We’ve been conditioned to compete with other women in the area of beauty and body, the only suitable area patriarchy makes it safe to be competitive because it prevents women joining together to bring the system down (and there are people, Capitalists included, who benefit from women spending their resources on their looks for various reasons).
This results in more isolation and a disproportionate sense of shame that you are alone in struggling with food and stress. I am skilled at creating a safe space for us to explore our food and stress patterns. Participating in this safe group allows you to experience you really aren’t alone and enables you to more quickly dissolve your separateness and feel safe. You’ll find the group becomes more rewarding than you can imagine right now (“the group was a game changer” is some of the most consistent feedback from program alumni, many who also feel this shame coming into the group).
Also, we take everyone as is and I encourage deep inquiry and debate. Because this is new territory, and as Dr. Brene Brown says, we are braving the wilderness together, we all learn from each other.
Having said that, I’ve had some people stick to themselves and get incredible benefits. However most participants are impressed by the caliber of heart the women in the group and want to participate and get incredible value from the support and ideas of these other open-minded and compassionate women.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-19″ title=”I want to believe this is truly different but I don’t want to waste anymore money on food and weight loss.”]
A healthy skeptic. I totally get it. This isn’t a traditional program in that you’re reading and assimilating material. Aside from my approach being like nothing you’ve ever tried, this course is about genuine change, making it a completely new experience. There’s a radical difference between learning more and changing, which makes you feel different. You will have to get out of your comfort zone but not in the way you’re thinking about finding more willpower or discipline for food. It’s about challenging yourself to show up differently in your life.
If you’re still not sure after reading this program page, I recommended listening to this episode of my Insatiable podcast, or Season 5, which focused on Eating Triggers. You’ll get a clearer sense of how this is different. And, if after that you still aren’t sure, don’t take the program. You don’t want to bring intense doubt and fear to this process – this makes us resistant to self-exploration and trying new things. You may find, at another point in the future, this message resonates better and the program will be here if you eventually decide it is the right path for you.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-20″ title=”My problem is I’m a non-eater or I’m just really stressed and burnt out. Will this program help me?”]
Yes. This program could also be called “Why Am I So Stressed, Having a Panic Attack, or Burnt Out?” Some of us turn to food, some of us stop eating, and some of us turn to screens, shopping, or workaholism. All of these behaviors, that cause our health to decline and us to act out of alignment with our goals, are driven by the same root cause: how we react to stress. And this program will provide the self-discovery and tools so you can now choose how you respond to the triggers that make you eat, worry or zone out on a screen.
[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-22″ title=”How big is the group?”]
Because this process is so unique to each person (no formulas or rules to follow), my group programs are intentionally small. I’ve found to get the transformation clients are hungry for, smaller yields bigger impact. I expect about 20 people. There will never be so many people that makes you feel like a factory farmed animal going through some assembly line program. These groups tend to attract independent thinkers so if you’ve traditionally been a “bad joiner” you may find you’ve been welcomed home.[/accordion-item]
[accordion-item id=”item-23″ title=”I’m in recovery from alcohol, attend 12-step meetings and see a therapist. I have attended food-based 12-step meetings and found them unhelpful. My fear is I will be learning things similar to what I’ve learned through psychotherapy and the 12 steps. Will this program benefit me?”]
My work is a wonderful compliment to AA and/or therapy.
About 25% of my clients are in AA and most of them tell me, “this is what AA is missing” and they love AA. This isn’t to say it’s an either or, just that this is different. And it has to be because while you can avoid alcohol, you can’t not eat. It’s also why 12-step food programs don’t work for most people. More restriction with food isn’t the answer. In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), which I tried myself, they often reinforce the all-or-nothing thinking and corresponding restrict-binge cycle with their “no white flour, no sugar, etc”.
My work is about getting to the root cause of why we turn to food and enable you to feel like you can eat just one of something (moderation is the new radical!).
And in my last program, one client who was also in therapy said she learned more about herself in six months of Truce with Food than 10 years of therapy (Why Am I Eating This Now? is the first several steps of Truce with Food).
I love therapy so again, this isn’t either/or, it’s just that this work is very today and action oriented whereas therapy is often looking backwards and reflection. You need both.
Adult development, which my work is rooted in, is quite different and the people who do the best are the ones who have been in AA and/or therapy because they are comfortable reflecting.
And this work also works on changing the patterns of today (that come from the past) that we aren’t aware of, no matter how much therapy we’ve been in (I’ve done a lot of therapy myself and it never really moved the needle on my eating issues).
[/accordion-item]
[/accordion]
Have a question not addressed here? Feel free to write to me:
My Personal Story
I thought I needed to be fixed when I entered the suburban strip mall Weight Watchers at 11 years old.
Learning how to effectively deal with my own food, health and life stress gave me the perspective, skills and tools to create a miraculous recovery from my cancer treatments, which included freeing myself from a decade of binge eating, depression and this year, getting pregnant at 40 after Western Medicine told me impossible. This ripple effect enabled me to leave my Corporate job and create a business and life where I am in choice and fulfilled in ways I never thought possible and am grateful for every damn day.