212. What is Emotional Eating and How Can You Stop With Jessica Procini

As an emotional eating expert, Jessica Procini has made it her mission to give you permission to stop and listen to the parts of you that might be asking for a little bit of help. For those of us that are so high functioning, who we think we don't need anything, but that might actually be at the heart of emotional eating. Since 2011, Jessica, the founder and leader of Escape from Emotional Eating, has been helping women heal the roots of their emotional eating so they can embody their full potential. Jessica had already gone through nutrition school and had health and wellness expertise under her belt when she found out that she was an emotional eater. It blew her mind that she still couldn't manage when it came to food. She knew there are other people who know so much about health and wellness but really feel powerless at certain points in their relationship with food and their body. There is a difference between just intellectually knowing information and motivating us to take action to create change.  For Jessica, it wasn’t a lightning strike moment when she realized she was an emotional eater. She recalls not being at peace with food in her body and noticed it was getting worse. She found herself reaching for food when she felt stressed, or life got overwhelming.  Jessica says people assume that emotional eating means that you have to eat ten bags of potato chips, you know, to be an emotional eater. It’s not about what you're eating, and it really has nothing to do with 2 or 20 of something. It's about the why and really honestly answering that question. You might think, “Well, I can't do anything about this, so I might as well eat.” Or, “I look forward to eating. Eating and food is really like the joy in my day, so I might as well eat.” Another example is having this fear when you reach a certain point in an eating experience, and you have to choose: do I keep eating, or do I stop?  You might feel like, “This is all too much.” Life is too much, the day's been too much, there's too much going on. And there is this feeling of “I need to eat something.”  These examples are unhealthy coping mechanisms that involve self-silencing and powerlessness. Jessica says there isn’t any reason why anyone should be upset with themselves, specifically when it comes to what they’re eating. If we're constantly engaging in this cycle of eating something and then beating ourselves up about it, it creates a really toxic internal environment.  “What I love about emotional eating, and the portal that it opens when we're willing to do the real work is that it puts us back in touch with ourselves from even just the nuances of, ‘well, how do you know when you're hungry?’ ” says Jessica. “Because especially as women, we've been taught that it's not okay to be hungry. We shouldn't be hungry for food, and we shouldn't be hungry for success.” If you truly want freedom and peace, no matter how healthy you eat, and no matter how much you exercise, you have to get to the roots of your unhealthy relationship with food.  You can take Jessica's free quiz at https://www.innerwork.me to explore the four roots of emotional eating and get clarity and strategies to stop. Connect with Jessica Procini: https://www.escapefromemotionaleating.com or on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JessicaProcini  Other GoG episodes you might want to check out: Fighting With Your Food? https://sarahwalton.com/adina/  Liberate Yourself from Weight Loss Conversations https://sarahwalton.com/functional-medicine-weight-loss/  Understand Why You Eat What You Eat https://sarahwalton.com/audrey/  You can check out our podcast interviews on YouTube, too! http://bit.ly/YouTubeSWalton   Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom and clicking “Write a review.” Then we’ll get to inspire even more people! (If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can watch this quick tutorial.) #EmotionalEating #EmotionalEatingRecovery #EmotionalEatingExpert #StressEating #IntuitiveBusinessCoach #WomenInBusiness #AskExpert #SalesCoach