Truce with Food

Oh, I love this question! It gives me a chance to geek out on how change really works. Let me answer under the premise that there is a range of training and expertise for health and life coaches. So my answer is based on each discipline’s general philosophy.

Diets, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and most other health coaches, focus on the food. Rather than tell you to chew 20 times or identifying how you want to feel about how you’ve eaten, Truce with Food focuses on physical and emotional safety, which are the key root issues to decade long food battles. We focus on the Why Not, not the Why.

Traditional health and life coaching isn’t necessarily root-cause resolution to change. It’s more of an accountability model that helps you with the issue you want to change. It can expand your thinking but usually the expanded thinking is around food, exercise or your body. This overlooks the story issue.

Traditional coaching is great for people trying to start new habits, who are new to the power of nutrition, and who need ideas on how to be more self-compassionate. Yet it’s quite outdated when it comes to transformational change (in fact, David Petersen, Google’s head of Leadership and Development, called the adult development foundation I use in Truce with Food both the disruption and future of coaching).

But if you’re trying to stop a habit like fighting food and your body, traditional coaching can alleviate the symptoms like Tylenol for a migraine, but you’re not addressing the migraine or in our case, the food battle causes.

For example, an emotional eating health coach might tell you to feel your feelings and help you recognize that you eat when you are lonely. They’ll support you to generate ideas of what you can do when you feel lonely like call a friend. But you aren’t falling off track with your eating because you didn’t call your friend.

In Truce with Food, we get to the root of why you feel lonely in the first place. What is your story and protective strategies that makes you isolate yourself ? And what are new choices so you feel in control of your life and in this example, deeply connected? The self-awareness and skills you develop prevent these feelings from arising in the first place.

But more deeply, my approach is on food being about belonging. This still isn’t on the radar of most emotional eating courses.

As a result, this program is about self-awareness and meeting your needs, not food.

You’ll 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 look inward and 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.

Still not 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.

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. I’m happy to provide a receipt for health coaching if you need one. 

The number one thing I look for is someone who has tried everything else yet still has the ovaries to listen to that voice that says, “I know there is something more for me”. This is often accompanied by a readiness to be patient with results if one confidently feels they are on the right track. Have you tried enough solutions like Shakeology or Weight Watchers, gone through the roller coaster of “yes, this time will be different” and come down and realize, nope, it’s not? My weight is still weighing me down.

At this place, there’s usually a simultaneous expansion and excitement (and some nerves) at the idea of joining Truce with Food. Many of my clients say my approach resonates. And they’re up for the internal challenge. And as the cultural narrative continues to shift, more and more clients come ready and excited (especially since over half of Truce with Foodies come from past client recommendations!).

This program is not girlfriend advice to buy flowers or steps to upgrade your life – although you will. It just won’t be all puppies and rainbows like some coaches promise…and then tell you “you’re blocked by self-limiting beliefs” when that doesn’t work.

Being comfortable won’t get anyone the results they really want, like freedom and agency with our body. Like anything meaningful in life, this will be challenging and rewarding. But it’s not about willpower or discipline but rather, the challenge to be a beginner and stay curious.

This is not a traditional weight loss program. The focus is not on weight loss and you are allowed to want to lose weight in this community. Weight loss has become highly charge today – which I think is great as there’s a lot to unpack. However, if you do the work and make this process a practice so you’re consistent with eating healthy, you will lose weight.

My philosophy is sustainable weight loss is a side-effect of sending physical and emotional safety signals to the body. Some people will say this is still diet culture. I disagree. Sometimes our weight is a health issue (and sometimes it isn’t). And sometimes weight is protective (and sometimes it is not). I’m not here to tell you what to do with your body. I’m here to support you to feel the best you can in your body and life.

For example, I recently lost my post-pregnancy weight. My focus was on my insomnia and story-driven stress first. Food is easy for me now yet I had to adjust my nutrition needs because of menopause.  I’ve lost 20 pounds in the last two years. It’s been slow yet sustainable and I’m not losing and gaining the same pounds like I used to do.

The focus on safety signals like sleep, physical pains, or stress helps us know what to do when, enable us to feel great in our bodies along the way, and allows our body to come to a healthy resting place for each of our unique bodies.

Some clients lose weight. Many stay the same. However, many clients who still want to lose more weight post-Truce with Food will say, “I still have more weight to lose but I know it will happen without me worrying about it anymore.”

I don’t believe people are addicted to food.

(I do think some people have more sensitive physiology to sugar yet not so much that they are powerless over food).

Rather, we all have a primal, non-negotiable need for emotional safety via belonging. 

And if we don’t feel emotionally safe, we will turn to food to simulate that feeling. Food makes us feel safe but doesn’t satiate the deeper belonging need we have.

As Dr. Gordon Neufeld says, “There’s nothing as addictive as something that almost works.”

And telling people they’re addicted to food only makes them feel less safe of themselves!

Having said this, this course isn’t for people with active eating disorders. Once you feel stable and firm on your recovery path, this is when this course would make sense.

Yes. This program could also be called “Why Am I Not Eating Now?” or “Why Am I Restricting Now?”

Some of us turn to food, some of us stop eating, and some of us start restricting.

While different food behaviors on the surface, underneath, the common thread still leads back to belonging and safety. We all just relate differently to belonging.

Why Am I Eating This Now?  will provide the self-discovery and tools so you can now choose how you respond to the triggers that make food a bigger part of your life than it needs to be.

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. (about 50% of my clients are sober).

This isn’t to say it’s an either or with AA, 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!).

In terms of therapy, I love a good therapy/therapist! 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.

I’ve actually found my sober and therapy clients to do incredibly well because they’re comfortable becoming more self-aware.

Yes. This is a wise choice because when you stop turning to food, your problems will still be there that caused you to turn to food.  The self-awareness and tools you’ll learn in Why Am I Eating This Now? will enable you to work through the emotions that will arise when the food isn’t covering them up. This means you’ll be better able to keep the weight loss off.

Additionally, without addressing your emotional eating triggers, you can feel very overwhelmed. Some people report anxiety and depression on these drugs because now they’re coping mechanism of food is gone. This program will enable you to work through the triggers so you can enjoy the results of your weight loss (as weight loss alone won’t make us happy or resilient in the face of stress). 

Also know that this community doesn’t care if you do want to lose weight or not. I know some programs and communities judge weight loss goals. Not here. You do you (I myself just lost 30 pounds after pregnancy and going through menopause so weight loss was a focus for myself up until recently)!.

Why Am I Eating this Now? can definitely support you.

In fact, this program can help you not only stick to your healing diet, it can exceed your expectations for what you think is possible with your healing.

This is because we address how you’re relating to yourself. Those of us who’ve struggled with chronic health issues (I used to have depression and IBS) often have a unhelpful relationship with ourselves. Meaning, we are mean to ourselves and put so much pressure on ourselves to heal perfectly.

This process is about changing your relationship with yourself, which physiologically will put you more into a “rest and renew” healing space than fight or flight. 

I’ve had past clients be amazed at how their stomach issues got resolved as their stress profoundly reduced.

And you cannot fully heal if you don’t address the emotional tiggers and patterns that contributed to your physical symptoms (functional medicine and most nutrition-based healing approaches miss this all the time).

By the time we are officially diagnosed with a chronic issue, there’s 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 triggers and overwhelm into safety is the missing piece in fully healing.

In other words, the emotional component is as important as the food.

We won’t be addressing the food 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.

Plus, as you emotional heal more, your gut becomes more resilient so you can eat more foods, not restrict more. Total win-win.

Great question. I’ll break this into two parts. First off, do people show up and do the work?

80-90% of people show up and d0 the work in my programs.

This is far above average than most programs. Clients who’ve never finished any program before have finished my programs because they’ve become self-aware of their emotional triggers that make them want to quit or not carve out time for themselves.

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 for anyone who wants to stop the insanity of fighting food and get out of the crash and burn cycle of healthy eating.

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 fulfilling and exciting, which creates a desire to continue to do the work because you’re finally getting results from the effort you put in. Continuing to do the work doesn’t feel like Sisyphean task. Instead, it feels like a snowball going down the hill, continuing gaining speed.