499: Why Willpower Fails: Emotional Eating Explained

Today, I’m joined by scientist, nutritionist, and emotional eating and self-sabotage coach Matty Lansdown for a real conversation about health and weight that goes way deeper than food rules. Matty shares why most of us already know what to do, but still feel stuck, and how the real shift happens when you understand the patterns underneath your choices.

We talk about emotional eating, trauma and self-protection, dopamine loops, and the unsexy truth that sustainable change usually comes from building awareness first, then making small tweaks consistently, without triggering rebellion.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello everyone and welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

We have a very exciting show today with the one and only Maddie Lansdowne.

I'm very excited to have him on.

We're gonna be taking a deep dive into,

Mmm,

I don't even like saying weight loss.

I'm gonna say weight loss and health.

More importantly,

Health.

And let me tell you a little bit about him and we're gonna jump right in.

So Maddie Lansdowne is a scientist,

Nutritionist,

And an emotional eating and self-sabotage coach.

Love that.

And he specializes in weight loss and self-confidence.

Maddie believes that most disease and illness is not due to bad luck but as a result of poor nutrition and lifestyle choices.

Maddie's extensive experience allowed him to uncover the deeper challenge people have with health,

Which is not about calories or kale,

But in fact it's a mindset and behavior change.

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show,

Maddie Lansdowne.

Hey,

Thanks so much for having me on.

I'm glad that we,

Yeah,

Finally organized the time to do this.

I know,

I'm so glad to do this with you.

Wow,

I love this.

I love this.

It's not about calories or kale.

I was pretty happy when I came up with that one.

That was really good.

I like it.

So I know that you did start out in the field of nutritional epigenetics and spent several years in the hospital as part of a disease research team.

So you learned a lot.

So I'd love to hear a little bit about your life story and then I want to get into exactly what we're gonna talk about today,

Which is all about this health and it's not about kale or calories.

I'm gonna go deeper into this.

This is such,

This is a worldwide topic.

Who doesn't talk about this at some point or another?

So let's hear your story.

Sure.

So basically I grew up with my mom as a nurse and I would actually go to the hospital because it was a small country town.

I would go to the hospital as part of daycare,

Like not in a daycare group.

I would literally run around the ward and so from a very young age I had a positive association with medicine and the hospital and I sort of grew up with this idea that it was,

You know,

Extremely noble work and all that kind of stuff and so I grew up into an adult that really,

Really believed in the hospital and medicine and all those kinds of things and science was the be all and end all of everything and,

You know,

I was a scientism warrior,

If you like.

And along the journey of being a cancer scientist,

I just asked some very basic questions to my professor and to my colleagues and,

You know,

I was young and naive,

As I was told,

But after my first six months into my career,

I thought I really should learn about cancer,

You know,

I should like really get an education on it and I simply started by getting on to the World Health Organization and at the time they had the same statistic,

Which was that 90 to 95 percent of all cancers are caused by diet and lifestyle.

And I was pretty,

Yeah,

Right,

Like,

In case someone was daydreaming,

Say that again,

That was big,

That was really big.

Yeah,

90 to 95 percent of all cancers are diet and lifestyle caused,

Right,

And so that was shocking for me as well because I was thinking,

You know,

Like,

We're in this billion-dollar hospital that I worked at here in Melbourne and thought,

Why is this building not full of,

Like,

Personal trainers and nutritionists and I was young enough that I wasn't jaded yet and so I literally went to my professor,

Who's an absolute genius and like probably the most intelligent man I've ever met,

And I said,

Why don't we have nutrition and all of these other things here that,

And there are dietitians,

But we can get into that conversation,

But,

And he just kind of laughed and said,

Oh,

Matty,

If it was that simple,

We would have figured it out a long time ago.

And,

But I was still unsatisfied with that answer because I was like,

If the biggest,

Like,

Sources of cancer information in the world are literally saying this at the first sentence of their About Cancer page,

Yet the hospital does not reflect that,

Like,

What's going on?

And so that just led me down a very organic research rabbit hole of learning about cancer,

The history of cancer,

The history of Western medicine,

The history of the pharmaceutical companies,

And it was along that journey over about a six or seven year period that I just became a full-blown hippie.

And just really understanding how the world worked,

You know,

I was young and naive in the sense that I thought,

Yeah,

People showed up in the world and everybody was here for good.

And,

And that,

Maybe that's true and we're all just misguided in what good means,

But I came to discover that maybe the pharmaceutical companies were not acting in our best interest.

And I think,

And I was doing this long before COVID,

And then COVID happened and it was like complete confirmation that,

You know,

Business and profit before health.

And I'm not an anti-capitalist or anything like that,

But yeah,

It's pretty sad that we have a world where people can profit and control massive millions,

Millions,

Billions of people even.

And,

And so,

But the cancer,

The cancer story is equally a part of all of that.

And the war on cancer,

Ever since the war on cancer was announced by Reagan,

They're basically,

Cancer's just,

Numbers have just gotten worse and worse and worse and worse and worse ever since.

And so,

And of course,

Why would you,

Cancer is now a significant part of most countries' economies,

Especially in the West.

And so why would you solve a problem that employs millions of people and,

You know,

Keeps food on the table for millions of people and also profits those that get to profit as well?

So,

So along that journey,

I discovered other doctors and other scientists that also came to the same conclusion many years before I did and had written books,

Had been banned from practicing for speaking out,

Had relocated to other countries to be able to continue their practice.

Many of those of which have ended up on my podcast,

Which has been amazing.

And so,

So that's what led me down this rabbit hole of like,

Of becoming a nutritionist,

Because I thought,

Oh,

Food is medicine,

Food is the answer.

And along that journey,

Discovering that,

Oh,

You know,

Stress and the toxins in our home and the makeup that women put on their skin and the beer that we drink and all of these things contribute,

All of these lifestyle factors contribute.

And so once I got really into working with clients one-on-one and I would work with cancer patients,

I'd work with diabetes victims and I would work with,

You know,

People that were just simply overweight.

The one consistent thing that kept coming up,

Which sort of lands me where I am today,

Is that everybody knew that vegetables and steak or chicken or salmon,

Like,

It was good.

And yet we,

In this,

In the health space,

We always bang on the education drum.

We've got to educate people more.

We've got to educate people more.

And I don't believe that's correct at all.

I've never met someone,

I've spoken at public speaking events all over the world,

Different socioeconomic demographics,

Whether they're poor,

Whether they're rich,

I've never met somebody that thought vegetables were bad and I've never met somebody who thought it was a smart choice to have chocolate for breakfast.

So we don't need more education.

So that leads us to the sort of final destination of,

If I know what's good for me,

Why don't I do it?

And that's where I help people.

That's why we help sort of emotional binge overeaters and that's the angle that we come at weight loss,

Because everyone that's ever joined my weight loss program,

They have done 20 or 30 years of dieting or they've received a diagnosis a long time of some kind of chronic disease,

Which is influenced by their diet,

Yet they still continue to make all of these choices which harm their body.

And so that's where I work in that space of the mindset,

The mental health,

The psychology piece of how we go about our lives,

Because if we know the information and don't do it,

There's something going on there.

Yeah,

Such a great point.

What do you,

When you talk about emotional or emotional eating or binge eating,

Is there a common route that you found over all these years?

Yeah,

I think there's two common routes.

I think like there's always a trauma component when we lean in the direction of dopamine self-soothing behavior.

So there's a group of people that fall into that group of like,

Yeah,

Trauma,

I'm burying memories.

And I work mostly with women and being a woman yourself and working with many women,

You would know,

And many of your listeners would know that sadly,

Like the sexual assault and numbers are like,

Like one in two,

Basically.

It's like awful.

And so my experience,

That's whether it was just a one-off comment when they were really little at the wrong time,

Whether it was a toxic relationship they had as an adult and a man or a woman that just wore them down in a way that really destroyed their confidence and self-belief,

Or whether it was really a horrific single event that occurred in their life or repeated,

You know.

A lot of the people that I work with,

They're in this space of using food to gain weight strategically to be able to hide from the world.

And so it's like when I'm at a healthy weight or when I'm more attractive,

I get attention and that feels dangerous and scary.

And so they're in this unconscious battle of,

I know I need to lose weight because I look in the mirror and I think I'm disgusting and gross.

And then at the same time,

As they start to get results,

That self-sabotage pops up because actually we're safe when we're overweight.

There's literally a physical barrier between me and the world.

So there's that group of people.

And then there's also the other group of people,

Which is that we are all human and we never developed historically,

Evolutionarily.

We didn't develop a mechanism in our body to say that's enough sugar because sugar was so rarely available in nature that we didn't actually evolve to be able to say,

Oh,

That's enough.

And so it's very easy to get on the sugar addiction,

Dopamine addiction cycle.

And so that's sort of more of that.

The companies are literally spending millions and millions of dollars hacking that dopamine cycle in our brain,

Whether it be the amount that they flavor chips or crisps in a bag.

They're trying to tap into psychology,

Which means we just keep going into the bag or we finish the whole,

The bar of chocolate or block of chocolate.

And I have real sympathy for both groups because these companies are intending to hack our evolutionary mechanisms,

Gets us into doom scrolling.

That's completely by design.

And so in that instance,

Or in both instances,

It's about figuring out,

You know,

Why am I seeking escape?

Why am I seeking dopamine stimulation?

And what am I really after?

And I think that where most diets miss the point is that,

I mean,

Most people listening probably know I've been doing this for years,

Which is using willpower and white knuckling it.

And all you need to have is one night of poor sleep or a situation of maybe you have a fight with your partner,

Something that it's cortisol,

Adrenaline,

Stress stimulating.

And all of a sudden you don't really care about your diet.

And all of a sudden you don't really,

You know,

It's not really of importance in this moment.

And so the willpower strategy doesn't really work for very long.

It does for some people,

But that's,

I would say it's a very,

Very small group of people.

But the willpower white knuckling it is sort of the traditional diet model.

But if you neglect the purpose of the food in the beginning and understanding why that food is required for that person,

Then we're leaving a massive gap in the need that that food originally fulfilled by white knuckling it and willpowering ourself not to have that food,

Not to meet that need.

So we need to identify that need and then find an alternative pathway to soothe or nurture that need.

Wow.

I have so many things I want to talk about based on what you just said.

It's so true.

It makes me so sad.

I remember when my children,

I have,

My kids are in their twenties now.

And I remember when they were in,

When they were toddlers and I was a raw vegan.

So I was very,

This is 20 years ago.

And I was very,

It was like a year and a half,

Two years.

And I was a raw vegan,

But while I was a raw vegan,

I was so conscious of what I was putting in my body,

In their bodies.

And that was when I really started reading labels,

Like crazy reading labels.

And I was,

It would take me like two and a half hours to be in the grocery store,

Every single label,

You know?

And it was such,

I mean,

It was all about,

I remember buying,

I remember there was like a Dora the Explorer,

A little fruit juice.

And they were like in preschool.

And I liked it.

It sat on the front filled with fruit juice.

And you flip it over and I was reading the ingredients.

It was like fruit juice was the last ingredient,

Which means that's the least amount of the ingredients that's in there.

The first thing was like,

You know,

High fruit juice,

Corn syrup,

And then a whole bunch of things that I couldn't even pronounce.

And then at the end was like pear juice,

Food coloring.

I mean,

These things had a little Dora on the front,

You know,

On the little box.

And I thought,

Oh my God,

This is such,

This is so misleading.

And we're filling,

We're feeding our little babies,

Like our little toddlers and children.

Basically,

It's like toxic chemicals.

And most people,

Especially 20 years ago,

Weren't looking at labels.

They were not,

I didn't even know to look at labels until I really got conscious about my food and really started looking into food and how it affects us and all the things.

And I thought,

Oh my God,

I gotta,

I remember thinking,

I gotta do something about this.

I didn't know what I was going to do.

But anyway,

But,

Um,

It's crazy.

And I remember learning about,

I remember reading,

Reading a book.

I think it was called like excitotoxins.

Is that the name of that book?

Do you know that book?

Um,

I,

I'm pretty sure I do know that book.

I'm just trying to.

It's the chemicals that are,

That are in our processed foods that make us addicted to that food.

Any chemical.

And it was like,

And what it does to the brain.

This is again,

Like 15,

20 years ago,

I remember thinking,

Oh my gosh,

Most people don't know this.

Most people we trust,

Let's say in the United States,

The FDA,

Like,

Oh,

They're going to take it.

No,

They're not.

No,

They're not.

So we really need to get conscious and we need to get,

We really need to own and look at what the heck we're putting in our bodies.

It's pretty shocking when you do a deep dive into like what really is going on with our food.

So even I,

I just,

I just read an article or heard from some,

I can't remember about Ozempic.

You have Ozempic in Australia.

Okay.

And they're changing.

Okay.

This is what I read for processed food.

They're going to change our food now and put chemicals in the food in order to counteract Ozempic.

So then that won't work any longer or what won't work in the same way.

I'm like,

What is going on?

Are you kidding me?

Like,

Come on.

So yeah,

That doesn't surprise me at all.

Sadly.

Yeah.

I've done a few podcasts on Ozempic.

Yeah.

Because the one,

The list of side effects is huge.

And also if you look at the history of weight loss drugs,

And I did a podcast on the history of weight loss drugs,

All of them that were big and famous and had really great marketing campaigns,

All of them taken off the market,

A hundred percent of them.

So I actually have a sort of skeptical belief or a cynical belief that that's actually just part of the,

It's like,

It's like the saying,

Ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

I think they go hard for five,

Maybe 10 years,

If they're lucky,

Take home a hundred,

$500 billion in profit,

End up paying a couple of billion in fines on the end,

But it was worth it.

You know,

The FDA took us off the market,

But we still made a hundred billion in the process.

So yeah.

Anyway,

I did a podcast on,

On going through all of them.

I mean,

It was like,

And this was taken off the market for cancer and this was taken off the market for schizophrenia and like.

Yeah.

So can you give us a little high level or highlight on these?

I don't want to go off on a big tangent over here,

But since it is the topic on the table and I know a lot of people personally that are considering these sorts of drugs for weight loss,

What's your take on them?

Yeah.

I mean,

The argument that is often used is maybe this will help me get,

Get things going and then I'll begin to change things.

And I had a friend that reached out yesterday and said,

You know,

I feel similar to you about these kinds of drugs,

But maybe it'll help my mum get started changing her other habits.

And I guess my question is,

Have you ever solved a problem and then wanted to solve it again another way?

No,

Because if you make the problem less of a problem,

There's less pressure to actually go and change.

So the idea that people will get themselves started and start working on their,

The psychology of their food or their habits,

Why would you do that?

If you've just,

You're like,

I'm getting results and I'm sitting on the couch.

Like there's no incentive for me to get up and go and do other things.

So,

So I mean,

There's,

But when it comes to side effects,

There's people with gut issues,

There's people that have gone blind.

There's actually a court case.

Yeah.

With,

Um,

The,

Um,

The guy that started it,

He was,

Um,

Sued for a hundred billion dollars,

Um,

For,

Uh,

The people that there's over a thousand people that have gone blind to the,

What's the word,

The class action of people that were representing them.

There's people that get their pancreas destroyed,

Which is interesting because this is first and foremost,

The diabetes,

The type two diabetes drug.

Yes.

There's people that get the burnout of their pancreas,

Which then causes type two diabetes.

Um,

And so,

And gut issues and joint issues,

Um,

Osteoporosis,

Um,

Is a side effect as well.

Um,

I mean,

It's like every drug ad it's like,

Here's the promotion in 30 seconds and here's the three minutes of disclaimers.

Um,

And so,

But,

But my biggest issue is,

You know,

Let's,

Let's say that I'm actually,

I think it's a great idea is that what happens when they one,

Take it off the market or two,

You can't afford it anymore.

Like what next?

You know,

Do you just keep taking the drug?

And,

And many people don't feel good with their body.

Like,

Um,

Like I've had many people in my program that tried it and just didn't feel good.

Like they didn't have necessarily an obvious side effect,

But they just felt gross essentially.

And so it's like,

Then what?

And like,

Oh,

We're back to the square one of like,

Oh,

Well I got to fix the underlying cause,

Which I know isn't sexy.

And I understand why Ozempic is way more appealing than what I do.

Um,

I,

I totally get it.

And that's why my,

You know,

Sort of the person I work with has done 20 or 30 years of dieting already.

Um,

Because they've done enough of the,

I,

It didn't work out to finally realize like,

All right,

Fine,

Maddie,

I'll actually do what I need to do,

You know?

Yeah.

I love that.

Yeah.

I actually know someone that did lose the sight in one of their eyes from this.

It's horrible,

But I also know people that are taking not specifically Ozempic,

But other ones that lost tons of weight and feel great.

So I'm hearing,

You know,

All again,

It depends on who you are and you never know until you start taking it.

Of course.

Of course.

Of course.

Yeah.

There's,

I mean,

There's,

Yeah,

There's always good,

Good stories,

But my,

My fundamental,

So I'm fundamentally a biologist from my training and my belief is that nature doesn't make mistakes.

And so when we introduce medication,

Which the liver often interprets as a toxin,

Um,

There is a cost in the system somewhere.

And if you don't have to feel that cost,

Awesome.

You,

You made a deal,

You made a deal with whoever,

And it was,

It was awesome and awesome outcome.

So,

But yeah,

I always think like,

Oh,

What is the cost of trying to cut the corners?

You know?

But again,

If it's working,

I'm not,

I'm not here to judge anyone.

I'm just here to really,

To be like trying to protect everyone from the consequences,

You know?

Right.

Exactly.

Okay.

So let's talk about the unsexy ways.

They're really boring.

Like,

Because here's the thing.

And I,

And I do feel as though so many women and men too.

I mean,

We emotionally eat,

We emotionally eat,

Or we're grabbing for that glass of wine or that pint of ice cream.

I'm a pizza,

Pasta,

Potato girl or popcorn,

Four of them,

All the peas.

And I learned that as a little girl.

And you know,

When you're in an environment where it feels unsafe or unsteady or emotionally,

You don't know what to do with your emotions.

As little kids,

We reach for whatever is available or we disassociate.

Like I think I always say now,

Disassociation was my superpower because I was like,

I'm out of here.

I can leave and I don't see it as a bad thing.

I did learn how to come back,

Of course,

But,

But also food for me,

Eating was so soothing for me.

And then,

You know,

As I got older,

It moved,

You know,

In high school and college,

I started drinking and I was like,

No,

You know,

I did wake up to all that eventually,

But it felt really good.

And it still does.

I mean,

I'll say to my husband,

I think we need to order a pizza for dinner.

He's like,

Oh,

Did you have a bad day?

Yes,

I did.

He's like,

I know you had a bad day if you want to get pizza.

He's like,

Is it going to be gluten free or gluten?

Cause I really try not to eat gluten.

I'm like,

It's going to be a gluten kind of night.

He's like,

Oh boy,

It must have been a really bad day.

So it's a difficult thing.

So let's talk about that.

What are,

So when you have people that come to you,

Like,

How do you high level?

What do you,

What are we,

What are we supposed to do?

What are we supposed to do?

Because again,

Also,

But let's talk,

Let's add in here.

We've got perimenopause that can hit as early as 35 and menopause and post menopause.

It's like,

What the hell's going on with my body?

Like all these changes that until probably in the last year,

Nobody was even relating to perimenopause.

So we got hormone shifts.

We've got this crazy,

Weird weight gain around the waist.

All of these things are going on.

So Maddie,

Take it away.

We need some help here.

Give us the unsexy way to help us with all these things.

Well,

The first and foremost part of the unsexy is unlike sort of Instagramification,

Instagram reels,

And the marketing and the ads that tell us they know our solution.

The truth is I don't know the problem for you.

Right.

And because menopause and perimenopause is a part of it and toxins are a part of it and stress is a part of it and trauma is a part of it.

I don't know yet what the big thing,

Like the small hinge that's going to swing the big door is for you.

And so we have to start with figuring that out.

And I guess that level of honesty on the front end is like,

One,

Comforting,

But two,

Like,

Oh,

Finally someone that's like willing to go searching through the weeds,

You know?

But then the other side is like,

Oh,

Dammit,

I wanted clarity and solutions like today.

So we need to first and foremost develop some body awareness,

Some mind awareness of like,

What are the patterns?

You know,

Whether it be a symptom diary,

Whether it be an eating diary,

That's one of the first things I get everybody to do is that before we change anything,

I get them to track three things,

Which is what they're eating,

Where they're eating it and what they're feeling at the time.

And that helps even just in that first two weeks of people doing that,

They start to identify where things are going wrong or the emotions that they're trying to eat or bury with food.

So that's always the first step because we want to just get self-aware.

I was like,

What's actually going on with my body?

What's going on with my behavior?

What automated sequences and behaviors have been going on for years possibly that I have just been unaware of because I dissociated or it's so deeply embedded in my habit ritual that I'm just not even conscious of it happening basically.

And a lot of people will say that to me is that they're just like,

Oh,

It's just a bad habit.

And I said,

Well,

Before it was a bad habit,

What was it?

And it's like,

Oh,

Okay.

So there was a,

There was an event like something happened,

Whether it was small,

Whether it was convenience,

Whether it was marketing,

Whatever there was a,

Before it happened.

And then it happened for 30 years and I don't even notice it happening.

Um,

So there's always a moment in time where it starts to become a habit and sometimes that's trauma related.

And sometimes that's convenience because we had kids and life's stressful and this was easy,

You know?

Um,

So I'm not,

I'm not one of those people that's like,

Everyone's traumatized and we're going to,

We're going to heal everyone.

It's like,

Sometimes we're just sugar's easy.

It's available.

We're addicted to it as sort of a natural mechanism.

And most people's brain leans in the direction of addiction towards those things.

And you're busy.

So like,

That's totally sometimes what's going on.

So we need to develop this self awareness,

What's going on.

And then from there it's moving the needle one,

I call it one tweak a week,

Which is one small step at a time,

Which is really unsexy because everybody wants to be like in 28 days I want to be,

You know,

50 pounds lighter and be a totally new woman and be able to look in the mirror and not even recognize myself,

You know?

And I'm like,

Amazing.

How did that work the other 34 times you did that?

Like,

And usually it's like,

Well,

I wouldn't be talking to you if that worked out.

So,

So my programs are quite long,

Six to 12 months.

And many of the people in my communities have been around for four or five years because we do it really slowly.

And,

And the idea is that we identify part of,

We get developed that self-awareness and like,

Oh,

I'm in this cycle of doing this thing.

Maybe it's eating sugar or ordering a pizza at the end of a stressful day.

And instead of white knuckling it through stress from now on,

We now need to understand how at the end of a bad day,

Do I actually release and process stress?

How do I get it out of my system?

And so instead of eating it,

Which keeps the stress in the system and pushes it further down and distracts ourselves from us,

We need to get it out.

So that might be journaling.

It might be screaming into a pillow.

It might be sitting down with your husband or calling a friend,

But we need some kind of thing that completes this loop because the pizza previously completed the loop,

But now we need an alternative.

And so we essentially do it as doing substitutions for,

It's like,

Oh,

Pizza solved stress.

So now I need to do breath work at the end of the day.

Like for me,

I have to journal at the end of the day to separate my day from my home life essentially,

So that I can not bring it home and be all kind of messy and stressed and worried.

And so that kind of rounds out my day,

But it gets it,

I really believe in getting it out of the body,

Either via the pen or by speaking it.

And I get some people that don't want to write a journal because they're worried that somebody at home will read it.

And so I get them to record voice notes on their phone as like a voice journal so that they can just,

Again,

Externalize it,

Get it out of the body.

And so that's what we do over the course of time is once we've identified what the coping mechanism is and what the food is and what the situation is,

Then we start swapping them out.

And so I guess the question then from there is,

Oh,

Isn't doing some of the healthy alternatives still a form of escapism?

And the answer to that would be yes,

Is that we still need to deal with the actual problem.

So sometimes the stress might have been caused by a friend or a husband or a colleague that was mean to us or made us embarrassed or humiliated or something in a situation.

And so soothing ourself from that situation is one part of the equation,

But the hard conversation to put a boundary in place or to have a discussion to resolve that problem or prevent that problem happening again,

That's another part of it.

So it's one thing to soothe yourself continuously through a relationship that's awful,

But it's another thing to then turn around and try and change that relationship so that it doesn't continue being a place that you need to save yourself from.

And that's the same with our traumatic memories is that if we are continually running from those memories,

That just leads us nowhere,

Really.

We just end up back at the same place and we end up continually running from our memories.

So we have to either work through feeling the emotions that we didn't feel at the time of that traumatic memory or talking about it or sharing the load with people that care about us so that we can again start easing the burden or the weight that we carry or the thing that we wish to avoid that's in our mind,

That's in our body.

And again,

Get it out of the body so that we don't feel the need to eat it.

We don't feel the need to suppress it so that we can be in a situation where we feel free of the actual problem.

So every day looks different,

Right?

Sometimes we need to have a coping mechanism,

A healthy coping mechanism.

Other days we need to sit down and have the hard conversation.

Wow.

That's such great stuff.

So much of it is about awareness.

I want to go back to where you've been started,

Which is just journaling about it.

Like when am I eating?

What emotion is coming up?

I have found in my own journey that when I have identified the emotion that I'm feeling,

Right before,

Like sometimes it's when I'm in the middle of my potato chips.

Like,

Wait a minute.

Oh,

Let me feel that emotion.

And then the craving for the chips goes away.

It's wild.

It's absolutely wild to me.

So I love that.

Yeah.

People have that experience once they feel what they need to feel.

And that's,

You probably use this saying as well,

But the healing is in the feeling.

Yeah.

I always say you can't heal what you won't feel.

You have to feel it.

You have to.

Yeah.

And unfortunately,

We're not taught how to do that.

Who taught us how to feel emotions?

Like,

No.

So something else is,

You also talk about intermittent fasting.

And of course,

That's such a hot topic.

It has been for the last couple of years,

Two to three years,

I would say.

Talk about that for a little bit.

Can that help us?

Does that not help us?

And yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess it's,

It looks a little bit different for everybody and intermittent fasting,

Like sometimes it's looked at as a diet.

Like,

Am I intermittent fasting or am I not?

But every single human on planet earth is intermittent fasting every day because it's just the cycle of eating and not eating.

So no matter how short the window of not eating is,

We're still in that pattern.

And so then it becomes,

You're like customized to the individual.

Like,

You know,

Some people still need to have breakfast at 7am.

But the way that they go about their intermittent fast is that they work on reducing the amount of snacks that they eat.

So there's,

You know,

Like maybe there's four or five or six hours between meals so that their blood sugar can drop and their body can do a bit of work on burning some fat.

Whereas some people prefer to delay breakfast.

Some people prefer to delay dinner.

And so the reason that I often work with that as part of the way that I go about things is that often there's two sides.

There's like the intuitive eating approach,

Which is I think where we want to end up.

But before we get there,

We often need structure because our taste buds and our hunger cues and like everything's all over the place.

It's all messy because of the way we've been eating and living up until now.

And so introducing a little bit of structure.

And this is in the context of emotional binge,

Overeating,

Trauma driven eating.

Intermittent fasting is sometimes a tool I use.

Sometimes it's not needed at all,

Right?

Because depending on the individual and if we're forcing structure onto somebody who's really triggered by structure and goes into rebellion,

Then it's useless.

So we don't use it,

Right?

So it's just one of the many dietary tools or timing tools that we can use to help people reduce the amount of time that their blood sugar is triggered and activated,

Which means that we're going to hopefully spend a little bit more time in a fat burning state.

But that is always dependent on the individual and whether or not,

Because rebellion is a big part of people's story.

Like when control and structure is imposed,

Often the way that people express their rebellion,

Whether it be against their mother when they were 10,

Or whether it be against their hubby from today,

We often rebel in food.

We're like,

I'm an adult.

I do what I want.

I'm going to eat what I want.

But the problem is,

It's like that saying with resentment.

It's like drinking the poison,

But I suffer the consequences.

I never thought about that.

That is such a good point.

When we're little kids,

Toddlers,

The one thing and growing up,

Of course,

The one thing we have total control over is what we put in our mouth and swallow.

That's it.

That's it.

I don't know what it was like for you at home growing up,

But I knew the sugary foods and at nighttime,

I would creep downstairs silently to eat some of these chocolate or drink some soda.

It was baked into me that that was a rebellious boundary pushing thing to do.

I was a very rebellious child.

I still do push the boundaries on a lot of things.

For me,

And we have to do this with clients,

Is that if we identify that rebellion is a big part of what you do when you're in a diet or you're in any kind of structure or control,

We have to find a healthy outlet for rebellion.

Rebellion is not a bad thing.

Rebellion for me has meant that I'm really articulate in arguments.

I'm really good at putting boundaries in place.

I'm really good at defending people that I care about.

There's lots of really good use cases for my rebellion,

But there's also some really bad ones,

Which is that I can be awful in a confrontational situation where I end up regretting what I say or I end up,

If I don't access that rebellion somewhere else,

It might be in the diet.

It might be like secret eating when nobody's here at home.

For me,

I have to release that by racing go-karts,

Where I can be boundary pushing and extreme and go super fast and try and win and compete.

That aggression can get out of me.

We have to find,

Again,

Like I said before,

We can't just ignore it and willpower ourselves through something that our body clearly needs.

If we have a need for rebellion,

I also get the rebellion from my podcast because a lot of it is the antithesis of mainstream medical advice in many ways.

It's a part of my rebellion,

Which I scratch that itch there.

If people are listening and they're like,

Oh yeah,

I really do rebel in food or that's where I give myself permission to do whatever I want,

Then amazing,

You've identified that.

Now let's just find a space in your life where that same emotional expression can happen that isn't causing you actual physical harm as a result.

That is so cool.

A lot of what I do in my own work with people is parts work.

It's my own version of parts work.

It's very energetic,

Very quantum parts work,

If you will.

Often what I'll say is I think that that part of you,

So let's say the rebellion part,

We need to role reassign that part.

Let's reassign the role of rebellion.

I love what you're saying.

I love it because you're right,

We do rebel like me with the pizza.

That's my version of me like,

I had a bad day.

I got to numb myself up.

The other thing that you just said,

Which really caught my attention,

Which yes,

Structure when we're doing intermittent fasting or following a particular diet plan,

Let's just say,

Whatever the heck it is.

I don't care what it is.

Even if it's eat this five times,

Whatever the heck it is,

I never thought about that structure,

Excuse me,

But can piss some people off.

It activates some of those parts.

I was like,

Oh my God,

That's me.

I get so mad when someone tells me,

You have to do something like this.

I rebel.

I'm like,

I'm out.

I had a memory just out of when I did personal training,

I could not handle doing it for an hour.

I was so pissed.

I don't want to be here for an hour.

I would watch the clock the whole time.

I was irritated.

I didn't want to do it.

I'd be in a bad mood.

I asked my trainer,

I said,

Can we just do,

Because everyone did an hour.

When I said,

Can we just do 45 minutes?

She goes,

Yeah,

Okay.

I was fine.

No problem whatsoever,

But I didn't want to be so structured like everyone else doing it for an hour.

I was like,

What is wrong with me that I'm doing this,

But I get it.

That structure pisses people off,

Makes us mad.

Then we want to rebel or tell me more about that.

I think a lot of people,

If you say to them,

You can't eat until we're going to do,

Let's say an 18 hour fast or a 12 or 14 hour fast,

That makes some people get,

And I have a lot of friends that say,

Why do I get so mad when I think I can't eat until this time?

What's happening?

Often a lot of food anxiety comes up as well,

Because it also taps into this evolutionary mechanism,

Which is like,

Why would I deprive myself of abundant food and nutrition?

When we finally get to the time we end up binge eating anyway or overeating anyway,

But to get back to your question is that I think the way that I,

I've got a video on my program on this exactly,

This question exactly,

Which is like,

If we think about from the day we're born,

We've got our parents,

We've got police officers,

We've got doctors,

We've got the road rules,

We've got,

We're in this authoritarian world as little humans where everything is too much or too excessive or go back between the lines or no,

Don't go there,

Stop doing this.

And so depending on the type of parents you had and the way that you received it,

Because you know,

Every personality is different,

Is that for me particularly,

And possibly you too,

Michelle,

Because it sounds like we have some similar traits,

But I like,

I felt really like pushed into a box by all of that.

And that caused me to be a massive rebel.

And so as part of that,

I also felt like whenever anybody,

I got a,

If I got a scent,

A sniff of somebody trying to control me,

I would be like,

I'm going to break every boundary that I can see,

Basically.

It was like,

It was like a red rag to a bull.

And so,

And that was kind of my toxic trait in relationships when I was younger too,

Is that any like hard boundary that was put on me,

Which was,

You know,

In retrospect,

Totally reasonable,

I would be like,

Women are trying to control me.

Like,

You know,

It's like,

No,

They just want basic respect,

Maddie.

So,

And younger me was like a terrible partner,

But it's just this idea that it's like,

We've grown up in this authoritarian world and depending on the type person you are,

I'm very extroverted.

So,

It's very easy to be too much for people and a lot,

And to be told to shut up and sit down and all of these things.

And so for people that feel like they've had a life like that,

Yeah,

You then get to a space where it's like,

Oh,

Here's a diet plan that says you have to do this,

This and this.

And you're like,

I'm not doing that.

Like,

This is just my mother in diet form,

You know,

Or this is the police or the government in diet form,

You know.

Yes,

It's so true.

Oh,

My God.

So,

But how do you navigate that?

What are we supposed to do with it?

We recognize it.

And then what?

Yes,

We recognize it.

And the perfect example for this is when people have a partner that have told them something,

Or you've told your partner something 25 times that they should do that's amazing,

And they don't listen to it.

And then they go and self discover the exact same piece of information in the world and come back to you and say,

Oh,

My God,

Guess what?

And you're like,

I've been telling you that for years.

So the important part of that is that they discovered it themselves.

Like they must feel empowered in the self discovery or in the benefits or in the utility of the information or the tools or anything like that.

And so those people have to be some to some elements self guided and their coach or the support team need to be sort of nudging them along,

But not with hard boundaries.

So I think it's important that,

Yeah,

It's about empowerment for those people,

That they need to feel in control of their journey and in control of their diet.

But like,

We're also in this conversation,

We're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place,

Because if we're stuck in this story of I must be in control,

But also,

I can't get any help as a result of that.

And I'm just stuck in this loop forever,

Then obviously,

You know,

We're in a tricky space.

So this is why for some people,

It takes years,

Because we need to slowly peel back the layers of the onion,

And do a little bit of healing,

And then introduce a little bit of structure.

And that structure might simply be,

Let's try and have,

You know,

Three vegetables today.

And that might then become four or five,

You know,

And instead of being like,

You must eat at this time,

And it must look like this,

Just one one little bit at a time.

And then ideally,

The self empowerment or self discovery part is,

Oh,

I feel better.

Like,

You know,

I'm a bit more alert.

And and upon reflection,

Or self assessment,

It's like,

Oh,

Okay,

I feel good.

Maddie didn't tell me I feel good.

I'm aware that I feel good.

Like,

If that makes sense.

Totally.

Yes.

I like that.

And I really do agree with you as far as easing your way in.

Because when even for myself,

Like saying,

Well,

You can never eat pizza again.

Like what?

No,

The rebellion part of me would be like,

I'm out of here.

I'm not doing that.

So I like that.

And I remember,

One of my friends is,

Has been for years,

Like addicted to Mountain Dew.

Just addicted to it.

I cannot stop drinking it.

And then we were talking one day.

And I said,

You know,

I said,

I know you because I know I need to stop.

I said,

What if you didn't need to stop?

What if you just had,

Instead of drinking,

You know,

Several a day?

What if you drank two a day,

Like and spread it out and really nurse it,

Like throughout the day or something.

So she ended up actually decreasing it to just having it on the weekends,

Which was phenomenal.

But she didn't do it overnight.

You had to do it incrementally.

And she had the experience that you just said.

She's like,

Oh,

My God,

I've lost weight.

I feel better.

I'm not jittery.

I don't know.

And on and on and on.

I'm like,

I can only imagine.

So it does,

It takes these incremental little steps.

And I like that saying,

You know,

Hey,

I'm going to just eat two or three more vegetables this week,

Or this today,

Something like that.

But I want to I want to touch on before we go,

This is my last question around intermittent fasting,

And how it's different for women.

Because I have read so much being again,

In menopause,

Perimenopause,

We have to be really careful,

Because of the cortisol spikes.

Now,

When we are in intermittent fasting,

Can you just say just a little bit on that?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So as much as like we say,

How is it different for women?

It's also different for different women.

So that's also one of the really annoying answers that people that are being honest to give to those questions,

Which is it's unique to the individual.

But generally,

Yes,

If you've lived a life where you like you've been super stressed out,

You know,

It's been hard to keep up,

There's been the normal amount of toxins under your kitchen sink and in your bathroom and all of that kind of stuff,

Which are full of obesogens.

And,

And so like,

There's a lot of stress going on,

Sometimes,

Something like intermittent fasting,

Sometimes something like saunas as well,

Doing saunas,

It's like,

It's more stress on top of an already stressed out,

Burnt out body.

So sometimes,

Yeah,

The intermittent fasting is not a good idea,

Or at least the intermittent fasting that is really restricting your eating window.

Like reducing snacks here and there,

If your meals are really wholesome and healthy,

Usually reducing snacks is going to be beneficial to most people.

But that assumes that breakfast was really good,

And lunch was really good,

And dinner was really good.

So,

So yeah,

So not everybody should wake up and not eat until midday.

You know,

If you feel that,

Yeah,

You're more stressed out or by that,

Or you're sort of activated by that.

The other thing to mention is that especially in a world with so many people that are overweight and have been dieting in the past,

Is that introducing more calorie restriction on top of a long history of calorie restriction cycling is not a good idea.

Some people have really damaged and broken metabolisms as a result of many,

Many years of that.

And actually,

As,

As like contradictory as it seems,

Some women really need to do what's called reverse dieting,

Which is we actually need to eat like three meals a day,

Two snacks a day consistently for a while so that your body starts to heal the metabolism and develop trust in that there is a food supply available.

So a lot of people's metabolism down regulates after long histories of calorie restriction,

Because evolutionarily there's,

There's the indication that we're about to enter famine or we are in famine.

And so the body naturally slows down energy burning and prioritise fat storage.

And so we can't necessarily cure that overnight if it's been going on for 30 years,

You know,

And some people,

So many of my clients say that their mum put them on their first diet at seven or 12 or,

You know,

And so it's like,

They don't even know anything,

But that,

That model of,

Of looking at their body and thinking about themselves.

So,

So,

So for that reason,

Whether it be perimenopause or just a super long history of,

Of dieting,

Yeah.

Intermittent fasting might not be the template that is useful because we don't want to add more stress to a stressed out body.

We want to nurture it.

We want to nourish it so that we can get you to a place where your body naturally finds its set point.

And so that it can start burning the body fat,

Releasing the weight,

Shifting the weight so that you can find,

Find a place that you're happy in your body.

Okay.

I lied.

I have a couple of questions.

Okay,

Great.

I'm glad to hear number one,

That we can repair our,

Our metabolism because all the yo-yo dieting,

All the things that,

All the things that we do,

The intermittent fasting,

The keto diet,

Like we do so many different things trying to lose the weight so we can repair it.

And it just takes a little bit of time to get it fired up again,

Which is great to hear.

You talked about,

You just mentioned the word,

Which I was just reading about the other day again,

The set point.

What I read was,

And again,

I really want people to hear,

I'm not encouraging people to be skinny minis,

Like,

Or I just,

My goal with having you on was to help people to be healthy,

Whatever that means,

Whatever that that looks like.

I'm not all about everyone needs to lose weight.

Some people need to gain weight,

Let's be honest.

But what I know is that we all have a set point.

That means the body,

I'm defining it,

You probably should do it,

But I think it's like the body works best,

Is healthiest.

And there's a set point,

There's a weight that really,

It does its best at,

Right?

So you define it because I was very clumsy with that one.

Yeah,

No.

So the idea is that your body,

Yeah,

Has this point where it has a proportion of body fat that is healthy for your body and protective for your body.

And that looks different for everybody based on your genetics,

Based on,

Yeah,

The history of your family lineage and what they were exposed to as well.

And so the complicated part of that is that that set point isn't always where people want it to be.

So yeah,

So some people,

I've experienced a lot of people,

And actually I know a handful of people that are on Ozempic to take us back to which I visually look at them and I'm like,

You don't need to lose any weight.

You're at a healthy weight.

And if we talk about the perimenopause,

Menopause thing too,

Is that when you go through that phase of life,

You should gain a little bit of body fat and soften a little,

Not because the universe hates you,

But because when your ovaries go offline,

Body fat literally takes over hormonal production.

And so if you then also make a large effort to suppress your calories and burn that body fat,

It's highly likely you'll have a really uncomfortable experience through menopause and perimenopause because your body's intelligently transferring the hormonal responsibility from ovaries to body fat,

And then you're trying to get rid of that body fat.

So then where is that hormonal management going?

It's not going anywhere.

And then you can have women that are like really testosterone dominant,

Lots of facial hair,

Because they're not allowing their body fat to do the management of some of those hormones.

So there should actually be a softening for most women in that phase.

And as to how much that should be,

It's based on your body,

But it's usually going to be five to seven pounds.

And I know nobody wants it to happen.

I'm sorry,

I didn't make it happen.

No,

We don't want it to happen.

I can assure you there.

Totally.

So yeah,

But it's just,

Yeah.

And there's arguments with the set point theory too.

And it's called set point theory.

It is.

Yeah.

I was just reading about it.

Yeah.

Some people believe it exists.

Some people don't believe it exists.

Some people think it can be changed.

Some people think it can't be changed.

Well,

The thing that I was reading about actually was the microbiome,

And that's a whole other avenue we could go down,

But we're not going to do that today.

Our microbiome,

Our gut health really does affect our set point.

So if you've got dysbiosis,

If you've got leaky gut,

Whatever the heck is going on in your gut,

That is affecting your set point.

So you might have that extra weight or have a really hard time losing the weight because your microbiome needs some attention.

Yeah.

And the thing is,

Often we hate our fat bodies,

Right?

But your body storing body fat is by design.

It's very intelligent that your body stores this excess energy for famine,

For when you're sick,

Because when we're sick,

We eat a lot less.

And so the question then is,

Or what's posed by the microbiome thing is if we've got a dysregulated microbiome and we're storing more body fat or it's hard to lose fat,

Then that's our body being intelligent.

So it's storing a protective layer of fat because something's wrong in the system,

Right?

So,

And I like that you brought that up because we're getting to like the root cause,

The real problem of what's going on.

And a really easy way to start solving those problems is some people might need some heavy dose supplements to knock out some bad species that have developed over too much sugar exposure,

Whether that be candida or there's a whole list of them.

But fermented foods is a part of what I get every single client to do.

I do it every day,

Sauerkraut,

Kimchi,

All of that kind of stuff.

Yeah,

They're interesting tastes.

Nobody just saw my face that's not watching us on YouTube,

But I went,

Ew.

I don't like it.

Yeah,

No,

Totally.

But ideally,

I mean,

You can buy a probiotic from the chemist or the drug store or something like that.

But ideally,

If it's living bacteria,

That's far better.

But that will help populate people's guts in a more favorable way and also help them increase their B vitamin production.

Because interesting,

Fun fact,

B vitamins are called B vitamins because they're bacterially derived in our gut.

So it's like we eat food and the bacteria poop and they poop B vitamins.

I did not know that.

You just taught me something.

Thank you.

I love that.

I did not know.

All right.

Now,

This is really my last question.

I promise.

Okay,

Great.

You used a word that I love.

I've never heard of it before.

Obesogens.

Yeah.

And you said something about obesogens.

I think you said in your bathroom cabinet or something underneath the sink kind of thing.

So yeah,

So these are things that lead to obesity or weight gain or toxicity,

Right?

Tell us about that.

So obesogens,

They're essentially environmental chemicals or toxins that disrupt your body's metabolism,

Your energy balance.

They promote fat storage and weight gain.

And so they're often found in the chemicals under your kitchen sink.

They can be found in makeup.

They can be found in food as well.

But it's usually these non-food related chemicals that disrupt your metabolism.

And hormones and all the things,

Which I have been on a hot mission around this and with my own life.

It's crazy to me.

I mean,

Maddie,

I was at the grocery store the other day and I looked around and I said,

Almost everything is in some sort of plastic.

Everything.

Yeah,

Phthalates are an obesogen.

So these microplastics we are ingesting,

I was like,

Okay,

I'm going to buy some organic free range chicken,

But it's sitting in a big plastic container.

And then you go over here where there's the hot rotisserie chicken that's absorbing all those chemicals.

And I never thought about all this stuff until like the last year or so.

And then I go home and then I'm home and I get out of the shower and I'm using my shampoo that isn't plastic.

Then I'm using the lotion that's in the plastic.

I'm like,

We're inundated with plastic.

So I'm a big sauna girl.

And I do like that.

I have to say,

I feel good when I'm sauning.

So I think that's actually good for me.

But I know,

Like you said,

It's not good for everybody,

But gosh,

We've got to be really aware of this.

And it can really,

I can start going really mental about this stuff.

Like,

Oh my God,

What am I supposed to say?

It's hard though,

Because everything is in plastic.

But I think that that's why detoxing is so important.

Because you can't do it and not get it away.

So do you want to end on that note?

Anything else you want to say around that?

Yeah,

Sure.

I think saunas are great.

Yeah.

Sometimes people that are super stressed,

They're not always an additional,

Because it's another stress to the system,

But doing a workout,

Like working out hard enough to actually build up a sweat for 30 to 45 minutes,

Not 60,

45.

So that we can.

.

.

I just got it.

I just got it.

Don't get me drunk.

I got it.

Because 60 would tick me off.

So yeah,

Like sweating is so important.

Looking after your liver is so important,

And that's just done by eating well,

Because your liver is your main detox organ.

But yeah,

Eating healthy will help that liver detox more effectively.

And healing our mitochondria and our thyroid.

So your thyroid,

Which is often a big part of people's challenge to lose weight,

Because that's where sort of about 60 to 70% of your metabolism is regulated,

But it's also a magnet for heavy metals.

And so,

Which are in all of the places we've talked about already in our lives,

Under the sink,

In our foods.

And so yeah,

We want to move towards eating clean.

And again,

We've talked about it already,

But one tweak a week,

Which is like,

Just change one thing this week.

Maybe you'll write a plan for something different to change over the next 12 weeks or the whole year or whatever it is,

But make it small so that it's not overwhelming and it doesn't trigger your rebellion,

And just slowly chip away.

Because yeah,

Like you said,

It's such a rabbit hole.

It can be so overwhelming.

Where do I start?

What do I eat?

Is anything good for me?

Is it all bad?

I might as well just eat pizza anyway.

Well,

You know,

They always say to shop in the exterior of the grocery store,

Spend the most time there,

The most time.

Now,

I got to travel down the chip aisle,

I do have to get my chip,

But they are like the healthy chips without the oil.

You did talk about the oil.

I know that you do talk about the oils,

But it's a healthy oil chip,

And it's organic,

So I figure it's okay.

But most everything's on the outside of the grocery store.

So anyway.

Maddie,

I could talk to you all day.

This is so fun.

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you for being on with me today and for sharing all your wisdom with the audience.