Emotional Eating (GROUP COACHING PROGRAM FOR 2024!)
Hear ye, hear ye! I have launched and concluded the first cohort of an 8-week group coaching program, Understanding and Exploring Emotional Eating! This is limited to 6 people. I will open other groups as needed, but spaces are limited. Please email me at [email protected] if you, or someone you know, is interested.
I am pleased and excited to share that I’ve completed training to earn the designation Certified Professional Food Addiction Coach. I knew when I became a health and wellness coach that I’d be keeping my eye out for something like this. We all have our “schtick” with food, and participating in this course meant learning to appreciate deeply what this means for people, as well as for myself.
I am excited to share this, as coaching 1:1 around this issue can be incredibly transformative, and I will be running group coaching sessions around this as well. Being able to explore your needs, feelings, and experiences in a safe place, and learning from others’ experiences can be even more powerful. Please contact me at [email protected] to learn about the next group starting, and please share with those who may wish to know about this. We need a minimum of 4 people to start a group. The maximum is six.
Not everyone will come in saying, “I have a food addiction.” It’s not necessarily even a construct which is taken seriously. Often it presents as the desire to lose weight, handle cravings, or to better manage blood sugar, or to improve one’s self-image and confidence. Many doctors are dismissive, and will simply say, “You just need to eat better and exercise,” as if you didn’t already know that and haven’t already tried. I have an appreciation for your frustration, dejection, and exhaustion.
The food industry is not your friend. Did you know that the big food companies employ people in laboratories to find a “bliss point?” That’s right – this is the perfect level of sweetness to keep us coming back for the maximum consumption. They’ve caught on to the fact that processed food (in particular, salt, sugar, and fat) can light up our brains’ reward centers in the same way as drugs (yes, you read that right). A big part of this coaching is helping you understand that none of this is a moral failing. Food labels are misleading and confusing. False claims of health are on labels everywhere, and people are struggling with their mental and physical health more than ever. It’s no coincidence.
In this kind of coaching, we cover a wide variety of issues, including starting with whether you have the right team behind you. Usually people need a doctor monitoring blood sugar and/or medications, and often a therapist needs to be part of the mix, although everyone is different. We’ll talk about what’s worked and what hasn’t. We may use some short questionnaires to help you start to see your own patterns and behavior trends. We’ll figure out together exactly what you want from coaching, and make some SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant, and time-bound), so we have an idea of what we’re shooting for. Remember, though, that goals are really just experiments. There is no judgment, no pass/fail. Not going well? We put our heads together to explore how the approach might need to be changed, and often you’ll have an idea of this yourself already. I may provide information in the course of our coaching, but the goals and choices are all yours.
Things we may address, not in any particular order:
Medication compliance/struggles with blood sugar monitoring
Gauging true hunger
Filling in gaps in your knowledge about health and what it entails
Needs and emotions around eating
Learned patterns around eating
Learning to calm your own nervous system and manage stress
Learning to monitor and challenge your own limiting beliefs and self-talk
Learning to navigate eating around others; setting boundaries
Sleep
Appreciating and seeking joy and connection (two variables highly correlated with addiction)
Planning for maintenance of progress
Curious? Please contact me at [email protected]. A consultation is free and we’ll talk about whether you would benefit from this as a group program or 1:1, and the advantages of each.
