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The Psychology of Eating Podcast

Afraid of Gaining Weight? How to Move from Food Fear to Food Freedom – In Session with Marc David

The Psychology of Eating Podcast

Marc David

Nutrition, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.7586 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our culture is quick to praise dramatic weight loss. But it rarely acknowledges the heaviness that so often lingers afterward – the fear of gaining it all back.

When we're afraid of being overweight, it's easy to see food as the enemy. We'll often try to skip meals and deny our appetite.

And it seems to make sense … After all, it's food that makes us gain weight, right? 

The challenge is, when we fear or blame food – or try to repress our biological need for nourishment, we can develop other unwanted eating habits like "sneak eating" or binge eating. Which often leads us to spiraling into even more fear about our weight.

That's what we explore in this episode of The Psychology of Eating Podcast, where Marc David finds our guest coaching client Tamara at a critical crossroads.

Tamara's journey with weight began at age 10, when she was bullied for being heavy as a child. Through a series of lifestyle changes, Tamara, 48, has lost nearly 270 pounds – and yet, Tamara is still haunted by her weight.

With 10 more pounds she'd like to lose, Tamara lives in fear that her "addiction" to food and late-night eating will prevent her from further weight loss – and may well cause her to gain weight again.

So many of us can relate to Tamara's fear of gaining weight. In fact, fear of weight gain is one of the most common food and body fears out there. 

But as this episode demonstrates, being afraid of weight gain can take a huge toll on us. It undermines our mental and emotional well-being, and it can keep us in survival mode. 

As Marc explores, one of the keys to healing our relationship with weight is learning to trust life, and seeing the beauty in our personal journey.

"Until you embrace the beauty of your journey, and the success of your journey," Marc says, "all the little tricks and tools – they're not going to work."

Follow along as Marc offers essential insights for understanding the toll our fears can have on us, and why learning to trust our journey is an essential ingredient in repairing our relationship with food and body.

You'll also learn:

✅ Key tools for working with fear of weight gain

✅ Why the concept of  "food addiction" can do more harm than good

✅ How food is the solution and not the enemy

✅ How to move from food fear to food freedom…

---------------

Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating:  https://psychologyofeating.com/ 

Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/

Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food.

Follow us on social: 

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatingpsychology/

- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eatingpsych

#weight #bodyimage #dieting #foodfreedom #antidiet #healingjourney #psychologyofeating #foodpsychology

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Psychology of Eating Podcast, where food and body challenges are the doorway into a happier, healthier life.

0:11.3

Now, here's your host, Eating Psychology Expert and founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, Mark David.

0:28.0

Thank you. Institute for the Psychology of Eating, Mark David. Welcome everybody. I'm Mark David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Here we are in the Psychology of Eating

0:33.0

podcast. I'm with Tamara today. Welcome, Tamara. Thank you. So let me just let people know if you're new to

0:40.8

the podcast for everybody, how this works is Tamara and I are meeting for the first time together.

0:46.5

And the idea is to have a session and see if we can make some good things happen. So Tamara,

0:52.4

if you could wave your magic wand and if you can get

0:55.2

whatever you wanted when it comes to food and body, what would that be for you? I would like to be

1:02.7

able to stop obsessing about food, being able to hear or feel my full and hunger signals. I think I've ignored them for so long.

1:13.9

So I'm just always having to obsess about when's the next time I'm going to eat and all that.

1:20.7

Also, I would be able to control my eating in the evening. I struggle during that time.

1:26.4

I have dinner. And then from that time on,

1:30.3

I'm just snacking. I'm not hungry. I would just love to get that under control because I feel

1:35.9

like I'm going to have a hard time maintaining my weight with this food addiction. So if I could

1:41.8

fix those things, I'd be good. All right. So how long has this

1:49.7

sort of thing been a challenge for you? You know, probably all my life. I've just finally

1:56.2

have been okay with learning that I do have a food addiction. I've been overweight since I was a

2:02.7

little girl. I've gotten to my pretty much my goal weight or maintenance, however you want to call it,

2:10.2

but the addiction I have, it's the behavior. So I've had it forever. Um, so it's the behavior so it's i've had it forever um so what's the what's the earliest

2:21.6

age you could remember uh probably about 10 i think so and what did you notice about yourself

2:30.4

were you just eating a lot where you just just what do you think was going on for you? Yeah.

2:36.8

You know, like I said, I've always been overweight and I think I used it for pretty much every emotion.

...

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