295. From Emotional Eater to Food Freedom: A Journey of Self-Trust with Jessica Procini

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness coach, Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings and as a result, my life was a hot mess. Thankfully, 33 years ago I got my act together and since that time I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams.

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Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice and the choice is yours. Today's episode is amazing and I am so grateful for you.

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Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at Coach Sandee. Enjoy the show. Jessica Procini, so great to see you. You just have such a great smile and you just light up. How are you today?

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I'm well. I'm so excited to be here and talk about emotional eating with you. I know before we started to record, I was telling you, I've been reading your bio and this is great. So you created escape from emotional eating, which is a unique process grounded in a decade of research, a background in the psychology of eating, and transformational coaching methods. So this is going to be such a great conversation and I'd love to just start out by hearing your story and with as much detail as you want to provide because I think that there's so many people, not just, I think it's probably more women than men that emotionally, but I'm sure there's statistically, there's stats out there.

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But I think that I'm just excited for this conversation because it is a problem, especially here in the United States. Yeah, well, it's actually international because I've had international clients as well. Yeah. And it's definitely not gender specific, but for many years I was an emotional eater and didn't know it and really started out on this health journey like everybody else, of just trying to eat healthy and work out. And as I started on that journey, I started to become kind of obsessed with healthy eating and even working out in this really kind of fear driven way that if I wasn't eating healthy or I wasn't working out every single day, that my body would just blow up like a blimp.

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And over time, I realized that that fear was really rooted in a compulsive pattern with food where I would overeat, I would eat even when I wasn't hungry. I felt hungry all the time, even though I wasn't physically hungry. There was so much crap in my relationship with food. And for many, many years, I just kind of believed this myth that if I ate healthy enough and I worked out all the time, then it would kind of solve all my food and body problems and I would have peace with food. But long story short, what I quickly learned when eating healthy, working out all the time, and years and years in therapy, never really gave me the peace that I desired.

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What I learned was that I was an emotional eater. And that first came as a really big shock, because if you look at me now and you even look at pictures from the past, you would never know that I was an emotional eater. I don't have a classic story of, oh, I was multiple hundreds of pounds and could put away ten pizzas and ten bags of potato chips. That wasn't me. I was a person who would, after a long, stressful day, use food and a couple of glasses of wine to take the edge off.

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And I was a person who, when I felt anxious or stressed or overwhelmed, I would find a release and an escape in food. And for a long time, I didn't really think it was that big of a deal until I exhausted a lot of my options with nutrition, fitness and therapy. And I still wasn't getting to the peace and the kind of order that I had longed for in my relationship with food. And like I said, that's where I discovered I was an emotional eater. And then from there, I started to look into getting help for it and really didn't find support that aligned with me.

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I found support that was really nutrition and fitness focused, kind of along those lines that I said weren't working or I found things in the other end of the spectrum, like eating disorder clinics, and I did not have a full blown eating disorder. I know that I was kind of in this gray area, in this murky middle where I knew that eating healthier and working out wasn't going to solve these deeper issues. But I also knew that I wasn't at an extreme level where I needed to be in some sort of impatient thing. I needed to find something that was deeper than kind of these surface level approaches, but wasn't as far gone as something as extreme as an eating disorder. And I really searched and searched everywhere and came up empty handed.

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I wasn't finding anything for high achievers, people who have a very extensive history in health and wellness, because at that time, I had already gone through nutrition school, which again, had really missed the mark when it came to my issues with food. So that was when I made a decision that I don't know what to do, but I'm going to figure out a way. And I really investigated every single nook and cranny of my relationship with food and found answers that a lot of people weren't talking about in the health and wellness world.

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First priority was to first heal my relationship with food. And as I started to do that and see that actually peace with food was really possible, that was then where the second priority was to share this with as many people as I could and to really be of service and support and fill in that gap in the industry where it wasn't being served for people like me and those high achievers and people who strive for excellence. So, long story short, now, many, many years later, my emotional Eating is completely extinct. I eat when I'm hungry. I stop when I'm full.

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I can take it or leave it. When it comes to food, I don't feel triggered by it, I don't feel magnetized to it. I don't feel any kind of unhealthy obsession or attachment to it that is gone. And then I'm able to take that energy that was once robbed by food and devote it to these other areas of my life that I want to create and I want to experience. And overall, I'm a hell of a lot happier.

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So that's really what brought me to the work of escape from emotional eating and the work I do with my clients and even this podcast here with you. Wow, I love it. Well, thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing that. And it is. I really kind of get where you were in that middle ground where you didn't need to go into an inpatient program or some of the other modalities weren't addressing it.

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You talked a lot about changing your relationship with food. What advice can you give for people? Are there steps? Would you just dive into that a little bit more? Because the thing is, you have to eat, right?

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Like, you can't just stop eating. It's not like drugs and alcohol. You can stop, but you need food to survive. So how does one start to work on that? Well, the thing about emotional eating and food issues, because we can't abstain from it.

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And food literally is everywhere, is that our issues with it can be so sneaky and so they can really fly under the radar. And what I like to say, especially when I have podcast interviews and people are asking me like, well, how does someone know if they have emotional eating going on? And what I always like to say is, most likely, if you're listening to this podcast, you've got something going on in your relationship with food, right? Like, you know, you may not want to know. Right?

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You know, but you don't want to know. So you pretend to be in confusion about it. And it's just a whole masking of what would actually happen if you accepted that there's a disease in your relationship with food. So the first thing that I say to a lot of people is look to learn what is going on when you come across food. If you see food, do you just put it into your body, or do you stop and do you assess, am I actually really hungry?

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What is my body telling me versus what is my mind saying? And to start to really, actually look at the behavior, both physically and what are you physically doing with food, but also looking at our inner world and the inner behavior that's going on with food. So, for example, when I was emotionally eating, whenever I would just even consider the possibility of stopping when I was satiated and potentially leaving food on my plate, whenever I would start to roll up to that experience and eating experience, I would have this wild fear that I would never eat again. It would be this very. Almost like a rabid.

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Yeah, it just felt like this animalistic, like, you're never going to eat again. You better eat that. It would talk really fast. It wasn't kind of like my normal voice, and it came with such intensity that I remember that it would really scare me into eating. And it sounds so silly to say these things out loud, but this is really what would go on every single time I would eat.

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And every single time I would even try to practice honoring my body's natural satiation, as I would just be flooded with this fear and these thoughts and this internal chatter that it would just become so overwhelmed that I would just keep eating. And it's almost like it would have this trance over me where even though I know I shouldn't keep eating, even though logically I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this right now, it was like something would take over my body and I would just keep eating. And I know people who are listening. I know that if you've ever experienced stuff like this, you can really relate. And this is what we need to be talking about.

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These are the things we need to be spreading awareness around. Because even as I share this now, there's a part of me that's like, oh, gosh, people are going to think I'm crazy to articulate the experience like this because it's not so widely talked about, and because it's not widely talked about, then there isn't the avenue of support that we could be having to then have an eating experience where there isn't a lot of distraction and there isn't a lot of interference and where we can honor our body and we can honor our natural satiation and say no when we are complete.

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I would say starting with looking at what is going on both externally and internally is a great place to start. Yeah, for sure. Because first of all, I just want to say to you again, thank you for being so vulnerable. And you're not crazy, and nobody's going to think you're crazy, right. Because we all have these thoughts in our mind many times.

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We are our own worst enemy because of the thoughts that are going on in our mind, right. So thank you for opening up this space for other people to hear that and be like, okay, it's not just me. I'm not alone. Because many times, no matter what it is that you're dealing with, many times you feel alone that you're the only one that's having these issues and you're not. Right.

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Right. You're not alone. And I actually believe it's part of the health journey. Right. Like, I kind of see these levels of the health journey of, like, level one is kind of learning what foods work for you and what foods don't for you.

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So it's like, a lot of what to eat. And then as you get deeper into kind of the health world, you start to get more into the why are you eating? And that's really where my work exists, is kind of in these deeper levels of health. Because one thing that I know for sure is that when we are emotionally eating, we are not in integrity with ourselves. And I think a lot of emotional eaters can relate to having these experiences where we tell ourselves we're not going to do something like, we'll tell ourselves, like, I'm not going to emotionally eat today, or I'm not going to overeat today, or I'm not going to eat all of this.

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And then the next thing we know, we're eating it all. We're emotionally eating we're doing the exact thing that we said we weren't going to do. And if you do that repeatedly, which is what happens with emotional eating, it totally erodes your foundation of self trust, then you could be telling yourself anything and you don't know what is actually truth. So one of the things that I know is from healing my relationship with food and my emotional eating is that there is a deep, deep sense of self trust, a deep sense of self knowing, a deep sense of self assurance. I know myself so much better.

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I am my own literal best friend because I am no longer afraid to look at some of the parts that are not my best. I'm not afraid to go into those dark spaces and be like, we need to clean this up.

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That's really what healing emotional eating gave me. And if someone back in the day when I was emotionally eating had said, like, oh, well, if you're emotionally eating, you're not really trusting yourself, I'd be like, what do you know? But now being on the other side, I'm like, oh, so spot on. I definitely could not trust myself back when I was emotionally eating. And my behaviors with food were just one way that I couldn't trust myself.

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But there were other areas of my life at that time that I couldn't trust myself. I couldn't trust myself to date good people or be in a career that was aligned with me. I mean, it was just like it was showing up in all aspects, not just with food. Interesting. So when it comes to self trust, do you recommend breaking it down into bite size morsels?

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No pun intended? Because when I'm working with people and talking about forgiveness, for example, it's like sometimes when you have a big situation that you're trying to practice forgiveness, it's going to keep coming up. So it's better to just, sometimes you have to work on forgiveness every minute of every day, or sometimes it's only every hour. So that's what I mean. When it comes to self trust, would you recommend, because you're the expert here, like, I really literally don't know very much about what you're talking about.

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So thank you, because you're educating me. I would just think that, okay, well, for the next hour, I'm not going to emotionally eat. Is that a tool that you could recommend to people or does it not matter? Yeah. So I totally believe and recommend and highlight and underline incrementalization when it comes to learning any new skill, whether it's forgiveness, whether it's confidence, whether it's self trust, whether it's learning how to paint.

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It's just like, let's start small so we can get those good wins and then keep the momentum going and build upon that. But what I found for myself and my clients is that we can't just start out being like, I'm going to trust myself. Because what that then does without having a strong foundation is that it leads to a lot of perfectionism, meaning it'll lead to false promises and trying to abstain or resist certain patterns, and when those patterns can actually be really ripe with wisdom and teachings and learnings. So for my clients, before we even get into the realm of knowing the language of your body and knowing when you're hungry physically, and knowing what emotional hunger is versus physical hunger, before we get into all that, we start paving the foundation by getting into the emotional gym. And we do that by teaching our clients on how to move out of a stressed, fight flight free state and into a rest restore, rejuvenate state.

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And to be able to flip that switch without using food so it gives them more options. And they start to see, like, oh, food isn't the only option I have. I have food and this whole giant toolbox of tools that I can play with. And it starts to relax the attachment to the compulsive patterns. And people start to feel better.

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They start to feel more peaceful, they start to feel more present. They start to really know how they're feeling and be able to articulate it. And what that does is then their inner world doesn't feel so threatening all the time. When we have emotions that we can't name and or we can't tame, our inner world becomes very unsafe. And this is why I truly believe people will then seek ways to distract or numb or cope specifically, that are unhealthy, because they're trying to run away from the inner threats that are going on.

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And using that example we were talking about earlier of these voices in my head, like the inner demons I was eating to get away from those voices, but in reality, those voices are with me everywhere I go. So instead of trying to consume as a way to quiet, we want to release as a way to bring relief. And I teach my clients these tools, like digesting emotions and the fear flush, which I even teach people in my discovery sessions of how do we work with these energies and emotions in a different way? And the trust building and the safety starts from those first steps. So when we start to get into the deeper aspects, like honoring your body's satiation and knowing and being able to manage the risks that come with that and the fears that might pop up, then it becomes easier to trust.

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And trust gets built through practice. So it's like trust is more of, like, a long term goal, but in the short term, we have to build in some of these more foundational pieces so that you have something to rely on and stand on and feel secure in before you try trusting yourself. Because I think a lot of emotional eaters, and I'll just speak from my experience, we have so much baggage in our relationship with ourself. If we're just like, I'm going to learn to trust myself, it's like, well, we can't do that until we make peace with the past. And a lot of these experiences where you overrode yourself or you denied yourself or you blamed yourself.

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Right? We have to make peace with that before we can kind of build this new quote, unquote house of trust. Right? Yeah. That was beautiful, the way you explained that.

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So, emotional eating, when it comes to your self image, because I know most of the time with eating disorders, a lot of it comes back to their insecurity, with the way they look. Does emotional eating play into that as well when it comes to the self image? Or is it more emotional, like you said, emotional baggage, to use your words, or a childhood trauma? Yeah. I believe that our issues with food are deeply connected to our issues with our body and vice versa, because one has consequences on the other and vice versa.

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Again, they are connected. That being said, what I will share, and I want to specifically talk about women who are high performers and strive for excellence. What I believe is that these are the women who are actually, like, the powerhouses. These are the superwomen. These are the women who, if nothing was standing in their way, they could quite literally move mountains.

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But somewhere along the way, they've learned that it's not okay to be their full selves, that it's not safe, that they're too much for this world or whatever community they're in. And they've learned to clip their own wings and hold themselves back and then beat themselves up and judge themselves until they are barely breathing and have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. What I believe is that part of healing our emotional eating is about learning how we can step into the fullest versions of ourselves and not be afraid of our own power, our own beauty, our own value, our own worthiness.

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And I truly believe that healing emotional eating is, like, the way for us to really restore our full potential.

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So when it comes to body and body image and how they see themselves. Of course, we start out with clients who quite literally, if they're really honest, hate themselves, or really don't feel like they're enough. Or clients who just feel like no matter how hard they work or how good they eat, it's just never creating the results that they want. And instead, where we leave them at the completion of our work is where they're having this deep understanding that there was nothing wrong with them. The world simply taught them to cut their wings, to hold themselves back, to just literally be less than their full selves.

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And I would say that my personal experience is a great example of that. And I know that my clients feel the same way. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. This has been such an amazing conversation.

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Social media. Yeah, I know, right? I know. And I feel like it just. Well, it serves a purpose to a point where I like to see what family members are up to and pictures from their vacations, and that's about all.

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I really limit my time. I feel like since so many of the world's problems have just been got, have just gotten so much worse. And I can imagine that for anybody, when they start comparing themselves to the illusion of someone's perfect life. Right. So do you recommend, if people are listening to this and they realize, wow, that sounds just like me, get off of social media or limit your time.

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I think social media has a lot of similarities to emotional eating in the sense of people can see that there's benefits to the consumption of food. Right? Obviously. And people can see that there's benefits to the consumption of social media. But I think we all need to really get clear of why are you on there and what is your personal intention?

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And if you're buying into these myths that, oh, social media is the only way I can connect with my family or friends or see what people are up to, that is the biggest lie that I have ever heard, and I. Will pick up the phone and call them. Yeah.

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Especially because so many people are so reliant on media and kind of like three degrees of being connected, there is so much more meaning in reaching out to someone.

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I think I'm on social media maybe once a week for ten minutes at a time just to see if anyone's dmed me. And then I literally get off because there's literally nothing on there that is of value to me. And I found other ways to market my business. I've found other ways to connect with people who are meaningful to me. I've found other ways even to stay in touch with past clients.

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There's so many other ways. So I think we really need to, number one, reevaluate what's the intention of going on, and how can that intention be served in other capacities so we don't get into this scarcity mindset of, oh, I have to be on social media. Because when we say something like that, that's a very powerless statement. A more honest statement is, I choose to be on social media, or I choose not to be on social media. And each and every person has a choice in where they invest their time, energy, and resources.

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And I've done plenty of experiments myself of how do I feel when I'm on social media and engaging with it consistently, and how do I feel when I'm off. And my research, my personal research, has shown that I am much more creative, I am much more happy. I feel much more connected first to myself and then to others when I am not on it. So I have given myself a free pass to let it go and find alternative methods. I've reached out to people that I haven't talked to in years and just let them know, like, hey, I'm thinking of you.

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I haven't been on social media in a while, so I can't stalk you. Tell me what's going on in your life. Send me a picture of your kids, how are your dogs doing? Right? And that creates such a more valuable connection than going on and looking at someone's photos and then making up a story about what that means in their life.

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I would rather connect with them directly. So that's my two cent about it. I believe everyone has a different opinion, but I would really encourage people to reevaluate the, oh, I have to be on social media to fill in the blank and actually give them the recognition that you have a choice. And there are other ways to literally build a business or connect with people or have those needs met in the same way with food. Of like, there are certain foods that are going to be nourishing, there are certain food experiences that are going to be nourishing and fulfilling, and you will receive a return on your investment in that.

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And then there's going to be certain foods or certain food experiences that are actually poison, quite literally, like poison that your body cannot digest and the continuous consumption of it becomes harmful. These are the things we need to really look at and look at. Why then are we feeling compelled to continue to consume them? Because it's not helping us. And in truth, it's actually hurting us.

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And that's what I'm all about putting a stop to because once again, we can have our needs met in so many different ways. There isn't just one way to do anything these days. Right? Yeah. Well, and I think that's what I was, excuse me.

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When we started out, our conversation, I was saying how it's such a problem in the United States. That's what I was alluding to, is that we're just so unhealthy because of the food that people are choosing to eat. I would say the food, the mindset, the lifestyle, the culture, the mental health. I mean, there's so many things. But also I have know overseas in Canada, Iceland, India, who struggle with the exact same things.

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You would never know know they're in a different country or a different culture. Right. So I think it's a dis ease of our humanity, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Without question.

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And like you said, it's everywhere and you have to have it in your life. I just know that when my husband and I went to France, we ate so much bread and cheese and just ate our way through and drank wine and just had, we both lost weight when we came back because the food is just processed very different over there than it is here in this country. And the food experiences are different. Even the environment in which you eat, the mindset that you're in when you consume over there is different. Very different.

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So different. So I believe it, for sure. Yeah. I was just really amazed. I was like, how did that happen?

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So let me see. Is there anything else, Jessica, that you want to share with the audience before we wrap up? This has just been so enlightening for me. I'm somebody who, I have plenty of other baggage. Unfortunately, food has never really been one of them.

00:36:46
I'm very grateful for that. So this has been very enlightening for me. And I feel like even for the audience out there, even if this isn't an issue that you may be having, it's always good to be educated because there may be somebody around you that is suffering from this and is in denial. Really? Yeah.

00:37:08
So anything else that you'd like to share? I would just like to share that. There's plenty of resources on my website, so I highly recommend coming on over to escape from emotionaleating.com. There's a great starter kit where you can really get into some of the roots of emotional eating and receive a packet of guide and resources and tools. I send out weekly newsletters with tips and inspiration and tools.

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And then, if you're even curious, if I'm the right fit to work with you and help you in this arena. We can also talk about that and set up some time to explore this more deeply one on one. So the place to do all of that is escape from emotionaleeating.com. And feel free to send me an email or anything like that because I'm here to help. And if I can't do it, I can probably connect you with someone somewhere who can be what you're looking for.

00:38:16
So just here to help people in getting what they need. Well, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Those links will be in the show notes as well because I see you have get your free beginner guide, so that link will be there as well. And yeah, reach out to Jessica, because when you're working with a professional, you want somebody who not only lives and talks the talk, but you've done the work.

00:38:44
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing. Because I know, and I just loved how you broke it down because it's kind of one of those things, like you said, that people aren't talking about. So I'm glad that we had this conversation and thank you for what you do.

00:39:00
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you, everyone.

00:39:17
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with peace, joy, and happiness. Take care, everyone.