Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - You Have the Power to Feel: Amber Romaniuk

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Amber Romaniuk is an Emotional Eating, Digestive and Hormone Expert, with 10 years experience helping high achieving women create a level of body confidence, intuition and optimal health through powerful mindset healing, self-care and overcoming self-sabotage with food. She does this through addressing the key negative thoughts, patterns and limiting beliefs that keep women stuck in the same behaviors for years and decades that they haven’t been able to break. Her podcast “The No Sugarcoating Podcast” has over a million downloads, over 400 episodes and is listened to in over 88 countries.Amber overcame her own emotional eating after gaining and losing more than 1000 lbs and spending over $50,000 on binge foods and spending 5 years balancing her hormones, digestion. She also dismantled her deep limiting beliefs and behaviors keeping her stuck in the same looping patterns. Now she helps others achieve the biggest healing miracles of Body Freedom™ so they have the confidence and health to create amazing lives.In this episode Dr. Jody and Amber talk all about emotional eating, mindful eating and that we need to all give ourselves compassion and grace.For More Amber:InstagramWebsite Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the beginning of every episode, there will always be time for an acknowledgement. You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement in every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on a land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost importance to me and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made known as the center part of the province of Alberta.

It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Pekinni, the Tatina First Nation, the Stony Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better, and stay connected to the good. Welcome in. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is not when this is going to air but i we are recording this on international women's day and i got to tell you as i'm sitting here in the sun in edmonton alberta i'm thinking about the women who have come before me and the lessons, the stories that they've endured and learned from in this world and that is alive in each of our own bones. And I couldn't think of a better guest

today to sort of sink into an issue that I think for me as a woman, certainly as I think about my mother, my grandmothers, even my daughter, become so front of mind in a season where we have never seen this significant of a rise in eating disorders. And the data that would suggest that only 2% of women would describe themselves as beautiful led me to wanting to talk about this conversation a little bit more. And so I found this human, I don't know if I'm not going to take credit for that. We're going to figure out how we met each other here right away. But I need to introduce you to this woman today because I wanted to have this conversation, but quite honestly, I've been scared to have this conversation because I feel like I don't know enough. When I was at the children's

hospital, there was a whole specific wing for eating disordered patients, people who struggled with this process to the point of almost ending their own lives and in some cases successfully doing so. I think it's a conversation that we don't talk nearly enough about. And today you're going to meet Amber. Amber Romaniuk, which I would guess is a Ukrainian origin, is it? Yes. Yes. Romaniuk is Ukrainian, totally. Okay. So we're already connected. She is an emotional eating, digestive and hormone expert with 10 years experience helping high achieving women create a level of body confidence, intuition, and optimal health through powerful mindset, healing, self-care, and overcoming self-sabotage with food. She does this through addressing the key negative thoughts, patterns,

and limiting beliefs that keep women stuck in the same behaviors for years, decades, lifetimes, that they haven't been able to break. She also has a podcast called the No Sugar Coating Podcast, and it has over a million downloads, over 400 episodes, and is listened to in over 88 countries. What's important to me that you know about Amber is that she overcame her own emotional eating after gaining and losing more than a thousand pounds and spending over $50,000 on binge foods and spending five years balancing her hormones, digestion, all the things. She also dismantled her deep limiting beliefs and behaviors, keeping her stuck in the same looping patterns. Now

she helps others achieve their biggest healing miracles of body freedom. So they have the confidence and health to create amazing lives. Friends, family, those of you in our group meet this incredible soul. And we know that this podcast is about where you came from. And I know to the core of me that we are all way more alike than we are different. So maybe most importantly, the difference between empathy and judgment, particularly in this eating and body image space, often lies in understanding where another comes from. So let's start with you, Amber Romanek. Tell me, where did you come from? Well, a little town called Barhead, Alberta, just an hour northwest of Edmonton. Travel pit together, probably. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for having me. And this journey was not anything I

ever expected to go through. I grew up, you know, well, it hit hard at five. I was my first day taking the school bus and the older boys called me fat and ugly. And then the whole bus started making fun of me. And that was a defining moment for the next 20 years of my life. And I took on the identity of fat and ugly because if strangers were saying it, it must be true. And so growing up in a small town, I feel things are very clicky, very judgmental. I never felt confident because of that incident that happened when I was younger and food just became such a friend. So I was unconsciously emotionally eating all through my childhood, all through my teens into my early 20s and not even knowing it.

And then I consciously fell into binge eating and food addiction, binging and purging around the age of 20 to 21, where it got really bad and really destructive for a few years. But I think there's always a few things that, or maybe a lot of things that happen for people that create these behaviors and that best experience. And then growing up with a mother who was doing her best, but got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis before I was born. And so she had a food addiction. She had emotional eating. I didn't know it until after I healed my own, but you mentioned the lineage, mother, grandmother, great grandmother from the great depression and the lack hoarding mentality of I have to keep

everything just in case I lose everything again. And that all got passed down with food, with items in the house. And so then we get into this mentality of I don't have enough. I don't have enough food. Even if I have a cart full of food and I'm going home to binge, it's like, do I have enough? But if this is the last time I'm going to do this, like maybe I should get a bit more, right? With that lack mentality. And so I don't know how deep you want to go in, but it was like a very hellish experience for a few years of literally binge eating most nights of the week, numbing out for my reality I went through a breakup lost weight really fast because I couldn't eat got the quote-unquote what I thought at the time through my conditioning was

the perfect body nothing got better didn't get happier period disappeared got more critical and analytical and then one day I'm just like I can't keep this up and then the binge eating just took over full force to the point where I went to a party stole the chocolate for the s'mores hid in the bathroom ate it on the way home got dq got an ice cream cake and a burger and like binged my way through the first memorable experience and then woke up the next day in panic, went to the gym for three hours and that birth, the all or nothing mentality. Wow. Oh my God. It sounds so familiar. And I can imagine that it sounds so familiar to so many people, which, which makes me sad that, you know, also, you know, this exposure of social media for this first generation of kids,

um, you know, the data is quite irrefutable in this space, right? We've never seen this increase. Um, why, so take me back. Can you, can you give me some definitions out of the gate, like disordered eating? How do we define that? And when does it become a clinical diagnosis? Like, can you, can you take me through some of those things? Yeah. So the interesting thing about disordered eating or the words eating disorder is I, I, I like to kind of step away from them because they feel so dense, heavy, impermanent. And I'm a big believer that we can heal and overcome anything, but where we want to get very like mindful and serious is obviously if you are in a case where you're to the point where like your life is in jeopardy, especially if it's heavy restriction

anorexia, which I don't deal with those things. But if it's the point where you're having to get admitted somewhere because your weight is so low, like we need to take that very seriously. You need to go and get the clinical help and diagnosis and all those things. However, to me with, you know, emotional eating, which we can talk about the differences, emotional eating, binge eating, food addiction, sugar addiction, right? Like we can fully heal these things and not binge eating is the number one diagnosis in the United States above cancer, heart, like all of it. And so I think, and this is where I kind of go, oh, like diagnoses, but to me, nothing is permanent so we can heal it. So if you've been diagnosed with binge eating or emotional eating or whatever it is, I hope that doesn't make you feel like you're going to be stuck with it for the rest

of our lives because we don't want to be attached to these labels because then we identify with a label and then it starts to become permanent. And then we start to convince ourselves we can never fully overcome it when we can. Like I was to the point where I was eating out of my garbage can and eating out of my dumpster because I was so addicted to food, but then I fully healed it and have been helping thousands heal it in the last 10 years. So let's clarify that concept of food addiction, because here's what I struggle with the most in the world of eating. So let's clarify that concept of food addiction, because I, here's what I struggle with the most in the world of eating disorders and disordered eating. And, you know, you cannot stop food. So if I get addicted to a crack or cocaine or like I have

to eat. So as I watch, you know, even when I think about my own self, right. Of like the periods of really wanting my body to look a certain way to using food as a reward, a punishment, this concept that we're very ingrained in. Right. Like you work out, you get a cheat meal. The concept of like, you know, we we are in a sense all addicted to food because if we don't have it, we die. What is the difference, you know, when you sort of start to talk about those things in a way that it becomes an addiction? Yeah. Okay. Great question. So to me, food addiction is this constant obsession and need for control with food, even though that you're completely out of control. So you're obsessing over your next binge, your next emotional eating episode, you're obsessing over the next diet. Okay. So it takes the vast majority of your daily thought. So if I have a hundred percent in any given day of the thoughts that are going to,

that are going to be in my space, a food addiction is something we should be considering when like the vast majority of our thoughts are around the next meal, when we're going to get, when we're going to hide versus like, when do we pick up our kids from school? What do we do with this? You know, what do we have on our, on our days? A food addiction is something that really, where are you going to get your next fix? And I like, I really want to separate this from, you know, alcohol or drugs because there is that component of you do need food period, right? We do. But, and then to take it deeper with food addiction, I find you'll look totally revolve your entire focus around food. So if you are really tempted by certain

foods and you hear someone's going to have a party, you probably make up every reason, sorry, excuse why you can't go because you don't want to lose control or you go. And you're like, I'm not going to have this. I'm not going to have this. And then you have a bit, and then it fuels the dopamine high. And then your ego comes in and goes screw it you messed up like everything's ruined you might as well just yeah the fucking mentality right so right now I'm gonna have Chinese food and I'm gonna have like I can't tell you how many times I was gonna start on Monday which meant that okay so on Sunday let's get those bitches all in like I really want ginger beef and like so you're consuming you're putting things in your body just so that you could I don't't know what, like if I think about it now, like so that I could taste those things so that I could say I had them,

like there was very little enjoyment in that process. Why do we do that? The diet industry is a huge reason, right? So the diet industry conditions us, all of these rules, restrictions, it literally conditions us into a perfection all or nothing mentality because most diets that I know of are like, you have to be perfect to achieve the weight loss result so what I find is that the core is unworthiness we don't feel good enough in our bodies or who we are as a person and then we try to you know chase the number on the scale look perfect or attain the perfect diet to think it's going to achieve something and it doesn't and then when we lose control on the diet we go into that fuck it we go into the Sunday, I'm going to eat whatever I want and I'll try again Monday.

But we get so asphyxiated, whether it's with the diet and trying to have control with food for fear of losing control of food and weight, or then we're completely losing control with the food and the emotions and the weight and the symptoms anyway. And it's just like this massive pendulum swing back and forth. And there's so many restrictive diets now, food fears, food rules, apples are bad, a bell pepper is bad, carbs are bad, fats are bad. It's like, oh my gosh. And the food confusion makes it so easy to fuel self-sabotage with food, whether it's emotional eating all the way up to a food addiction. And not to mention the addictive ingredients that are put in food, refined sugars, 10 times more addictive than

cocaine. The casein content protein, which is the protein in dairy is like 10 times what it used to be the gluten content in wheat is 100 400 times what it used to be this excites the same part of the brain as heroin so msg increases our appetite aspartame like rushes all this blood sugar and gives us a bigger increase in appetite than refined sugar. Like all these ingredients make us addicted and we chase this dopamine high. So we start to see there's these layers, there's this void, there's the ingredients, there's the all or nothing and all the diet programming. There's the unworthiness and how you grew up and how your parents were with food in you. And did they put you on a diet? Did they shame you? Right? There's so many things that are fueling all of this. I love that. And the concept of then how does loneliness, the loneliness epidemic that

we are currently in, particularly, you know, across age ranges, how does then food become that place where we feel good even if even for a moment, right? Yeah, totally. Because we get that comfort, that temporary comfort. We get those few minutes of bliss that we start, even the anticipation that you're going to eat the food starts to give you a dopamine high. We're chasing that reward. We're chasing this bliss point, this pleasure feeling, or some are chasing the numb out, the distraction, the checkout, right? And so when we start anticipating, oh my gosh, I'm going to eat those cookies. I'm going to eat that Chinese food. I'm going to eat eat that pizza whatever your thing is we start to get that

high and we start to forget about the loneliness or forget in the moment what you know we're hurting over what we're struggling with and then we have those few moments but then once we're done and then we also have to deal with the loneliness plus the guilt the shame the anger the frustration i can't believe i did that again the bloating the heartburn the puffiness the weight plus the guilt, the shame, the anger, the frustration. I can't believe I did that again. The bloating, the heartburn, the puffiness, the weight gain, the retention the next day. Then it's like tenfold. And then you feel even more lonely because like me, I stopped seeing my friends. I stopped dating because I'm like, I'm too heavy. I've gained too much weight. I'm not good enough. No one's going to want to be with me. I don't want friends to see me because I've gained weight. So I literally went to my crappy retail job, went to the store, justified the health food store because I thought it would be a better

choice. Doesn't matter when you're binge eating. Come home, put on my movie, numb out with my food and wish I was in a reality that didn't exist on the screen. Right? Wow. This is what happens. And then the loneliness is such a huge trigger. But we keep going to food because we've, in my case, I let go of everything else. So it's literally all I thought I had left. And it won't let you down. No, because the dopamine high, and we have this pleasure center in the brain, the hippocampus that stores pleasure memories. So your environment, people you're with the, the last time I was lonely and I ate that food, oh my gosh, that was so good. That lights up. And then it's like, oh, you should go and do that again. And then every time you do that, you're wiring your pathway in the brain.

And so the next night or the next time you're in that environment or feeling that emotion, that pathway lights up and goes, oh, you should go and do that. You should eat that. Remember how good you felt, but there's no memories of the poor crappy stuff. The holidays are coming and nobody wants to deal with seasonal bugs making their way through the family. That's where Maple comes in. No more scrambling for open clinics during holiday festivities.

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If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Get well sooner. new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Okay, so I want to jump into then what we do about it. But first, I want to just sort of talk a little bit about how we are instilling this in our daughters and our sons and the humans in our lives in this moment. And I'm going to share a story with you that I haven't talked about ever, uh, for sure. I'm not on this podcast, but I, I often self deprecate when it starts to, you know, when I talk about my weight or the size of my boobs or like how I've always been a bit of a chunky Ukrainian chassis kind of girl. And I, I watched when I became a mother with my own daughter in particular, I wasn't that worried about my son's weight, but with my own daughter, I was, and it really took me back to the good intentions that parents

often have. So if I can think about growing up, my, I was on Weight Watchers at eight years old. I remember going to meetings with a very well-intentioned mom. I would go to a wall of disgusting packaged food to come home. Now, the intention was the ramifications of being an overweight adolescent were massive. How do we assist our kids in like, you know, training, teaching, whatever. And I think about, you know, the process that we'd go through as a family and we would all go together. Right. And I think about, you know, the process that we'd go through as a family and we would all go together. Right. And so I knew it was going to be way in. So I would buy the Cheetos, go way in and then eat them immediately after so that then I, you know, I knew they wouldn't last till the next week. Right. Yeah. How this gets ingrained in our bodies is so interesting. And I really want to separate the intention and the perception. When we make

comments to our children about our own weight, our own, you know, appearance, how much we work out or we don't, why are we working out? Why are we drinking the 50 pound Stanley of water? What are we doing in this regard? And I think that know, I, my mom and I have often talked about this now, you know, the intention behind what that was like being the only nine-year-old at the Weight Watchers meeting. I I'm fucking making this up. I might've been 13, but I don't know. But it's like, I do remember, like I was the only kid and there was something very special about that. There was something like, I wanted the admiration of these women. Like I was down a half a pound, like fuck it. Like everybody's like, you know, high fiving. But I just think about like the massive desire to be a certain shape is so instilled. have and that us as parents for the first generation of 40 year old women have the expectation to stay in this place. Plus the introduction of Ozempic or, um, you know, the, the long list of things

to sort of suppress the appetite, which, I mean, I, I, I'm so interested to hear your thought on that too, because I think like, we know typically speaking, when you have an extra a hundred pounds on your body, it is harder on your heart. So where's the fine, like, I don't even know what I'm asking. So I just wanted to tell you that story. There you go. That all of us could start in really, I mean, I think we have a lot of fucked up stories like that. Or I used to throw up after every meal and you know, nobody ever caught it as a teenager or like in college, I can't, you know, tell you how many people I'd be like, Oh, she's at the bar doing like, it is so common and it can be so damaging and lonely that I think I'm just so grateful for your work because I think it is

opening up a conversation that so many women have. And let me be clear, I hear you say when we get into the range of anorexia where it is clinically life-threatening, this is a whole other conversation. Okay. We're not, we're not there right now. We're talking much more about the average everyday fucking disastrous relationship. 90, I'm going to make this up. 90% of us have with food, right? It's actually is 90%. You're right. Is it? My God, you're so brilliant because I can't think of a woman in my world right now, maybe two, if I think about one of our... Marty's in the room, so I'm looking at her.

We have a good friend who's just very comfortable with what she puts in and takes out of her body and all these things. But the vast majority of the people in my very sacred group of people who I hold in such high regard of successful women, powerful, thoughtful humans. I can't think of more than two that don't have constant conversations with me, let alone in their head about what am I eating? I'm too fat to put this on. I just had the milk, this is the lactose belly and all those Right. So I guess the next question is, now what, what do we do? What, what is, what are you learning in this space? What do you tell women, men, humans? Yeah. The most step gift yourself grace and compassion. It's honestly not your fault and it's not a blame game to go. It's these, it's my parents. No, it's none of that. It's just have compassion. You're not the only

one. You're not alone. Please don't think you have to go at this alone. And this is so much more complex than anything we've been taught to deal with. Right. It is so deep. So that's the first step. And then we want to start building awareness. The first step is honestly starting to figure out what is triggering you to go to food. Because until I started to make my list and reflect after a binge and go, Oh my goodness, what the heck triggered me to do that? I was tired. I didn't drink enough water. I skipped meals. I overbooked my weekend. I had negative interactions with others and I'm a people pleaser and I'm afraid to let someone down. My hormone imbalances are

messing with my blood sugar and increasing my appetite levels. Like I learned all this through my own healing and started making my list. And that's the first thing that I get my clients to do is start making a list. Becoming conscious of it. So from a very behavioral perspective, and I think there's something really numbing about the use of substance and food that you escape from the present moment. And so I love this idea. You don't have to change anything. All I want you to think about is, you know, where are the times, the days of the week, the days of the month, the days of the year, even the moments that are surrounding you, the TV shows that are on, the songs that

come on, any of those things. If you can be so consciously aware of those things, you don't change a fucking thing. Is that fair? Just really becoming connected to your body again. I think that awareness and that, yeah, being connected to your body is really important, but I think there's more to do. Okay. Tell me more. Yeah. So awareness, understanding your triggers, starting to understand the difference between physical and emotional hunger, because emotional eating or binging is any reason for eating other than physical nourishment. So if you just finish a meal, but you were watching TV and on your phone and doing a million things while you're eating, you're not present. This becomes mindless eating.

And then you finish and you're like, but I want more. I'm not satisfied. But you're not checking in to see if you really need more. You're just going to go dig through the cupboard, right? So learning what is physical hunger feel like to you? Do you even get a hunger signal? Because so many women don't and they assume I'm not hungry, so I'm not going to eat till 2pm. But that's messing with their metabolism, messing with their thyroid, increasing chances of weight gain, etc, etc. And so starting to understand, okay, do I know what hunger feels like do i get a stomach growl do i do i look at the clock and say i haven't eaten in three hours and maybe it's time to have something but do i know what hunger feels like do i know what fullness feels like because many don't

so starting to be aware and building a mindful eating practice where you're present ideally pick one meal a day to start with but eating your food chewing thoroughly put your fork down between bites no distraction of technology people interaction totally fine but this is how you're going to start to build awareness around, well, better digestion, number one, and number two, physical fullness, that leptin is kicking in that gives you a full signal. So, and then what is emotional hunger? It's boredom, loneliness, happiness, sadness. It's that stress response, the fight or flight. I don't feel good enough. It's so many other things, but when we can gain clarity of most of the time that extra urge is emotional, well, then I can really start to understand the depth of my emotional eating

behaviors. And I can start to really like be aware of my triggers and start processing through them. The third thing is most people are terrified to feel their emotions. They don't want to feel you're weak if you feel right? Like you have to be strong and hold it all together. Don't cry, right? How many times, I don't know about you, but I was told that all the time. Don't cry, like be tough. You're okay. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. You're just like, oh, I got to hold it back. Right? So, but then we think we can't express or feel. And so then we use food for that. So it's like the first time I sat and fell, I just suggest this, put a timer on for 15 to 30 seconds, sit and go, I'm going to just sit for a few seconds and feel everything's going to be okay. And I'll swear to you, nothing bad will happen. You will feel

like, oh my gosh, I got to the other side. Everything's okay. And the urge to go and self-sabotage starts to fall away because you see you have the power to feel. I love that. I love that. This concept of stillness is, I think, going to become in this next generation, the most powerful concept of all time because we are so noisy. And it's so scary to sit with it, isn't it? It can be for sure. I love those three things. Okay. Tell me more. Yeah. And so then I think it's really important that we actually find the tools to put in our tool belt that are going to help us process through with our emotions and cope in healthier ways than using food. So are you the type that is going to go out for a walk,

sit in nature, meditation of some kind? You could just be sitting in stillness with relaxing music, that is meditation. Do you want to get into breath? Are you a journaler and you're going to pull out your pen and scribble five pages and get it all out? Do you call a friend? But starting to have, you know, a few practices that you can start to use when you're triggered to come into because as soon as we can go I'm triggered this is emotional hunger I know this and we can pattern interrupt and instead of just going to food and numbing out we can go to try to use a tool or two or or get our hands busy or something to start dissolving that old pathway of self-sabotage and building the new one up, I'm at least going to interrupt the pattern and do something

else. That's going to help the urge to start to fall away. And as you build practices like getting in nature, getting more sun, a bath, essential oils, like going for a mindful run or meditation like these are going to regulate and boost your serotonin and dopamine feel good neurotransmitters. And the more level your mood, the less likely you are to chase massive instant gratification from a quick fix dopamine high. That's going to make you feel like crap. Brilliant. Bottom line, slow down. Yes. Shut off at least one device when you eat. No podcasts while you are mindfully doing, nourishing your body. Do that once a week and just feel the difference. Okay. My question, I have a question around trauma. How does trauma, the experiences of trauma, which,

you know, by my definition is any experience encoded in terror. How does that mess with our contribute to disordered eating? Yeah. So I find for a lot of women that I work with, the trauma is really stored in their nervous system. And so because they've had some experience where they felt completely out of control, or there's a lot of fear, they will go into heavy levels of people pleasing perfection ways to try and make it look like they have it all together when there's so much going on inside, because that's their survival. But then because of that, and the trauma on top of it that maybe they have or haven't worked through, there is so much in the body, shame, guilt, grief, fear, sadness, anger, whatever those emotions are. And it gets really ick and uncomfortable to have to keep feeling that and keep shoving it down with

being too busy or trying to make it look like I have it all together. And so then that just makes it easier for us to self-sabotage because we don't want to deal with the trauma and the rest of what I'm feeling that doesn't feel good. So I'll just keep coping where it's like, I'm so busy. I don't have, we think I don't have time to process this or work through this or figure out why I do this or heal my trauma. All I have is five minutes right now. I need a break. Give me the chocolate. Give me that. Like that's, I find what ends up happening. And then it just builds up inside. And then we end up, you know, with gut issues and adrenal issues and all these other things, the weight gain. And that's where I find another thing with the trauma weight, I feel is a protective mechanism. The body hangs on when she doesn't feel safe, whether it's, you know, because of the binge eating, the food addiction, the restrictive diets, the traumas, the inner child wounding, like what I went through, all the processed foods, all these different things. And so if you've been through trauma and you're like, oh my goodness, like I've, I really, I feel like my body won't let go. It's like, do you feel like you fully process that trauma and feel safe in your body?

Because if not, the body will protect because she wants to keep you safe. The body keeps the score. Yes. A hundred percent. And so I, tell me a little bit about hormone health, because I think, you know, particularly as, uh, you know, I'm 48, um, there's lots of conversations around menopause and hormones and like what that does. Um, how is it connected to all of this? And tell me more. It's so connected. Um, so some of the biggest things I see is pretty much every woman I've

ever came into contact with, including myself and age doesn't matter, has had an adrenal issue, very elevated levels of cortisol or being in a burnout where they're almost next to nothing. And so these behaviors just exhaust the body, depletes us so much, let alone life, right? Traumas, all these other things we've had to process through. And so once we see that adrenal imbalance start to come in and your brain fogged and you have abdominal weight gain and sugar and salt cravings and your sex drives low and you're getting the hot flashes if you're in menopause and your cycle's irregular, right? If you're in that phase, whatever's going on, this is the first big domino I see. But the biggest issue with the adrenal insufficiencies is it messes with our

blood sugar so much that it surges your sugar cravings, your refined carbohydrate and salt cravings and increases your appetite level. And then if you're not eating really consistently to honor your blood sugar, you get hangry really fast and you get faint, dizzy and lightheaded. And then you're like, oh, my God, I need to eat something right now. And then we grab that thing. It triggers the all or nothing. And then we're like, fuck it, I'm going to just try again on Monday. So I see that happening hormonally. And then I see the thyroid for so many women as well. Oh my God. It's like you're in my house. I went through all this in my 20s. This is what I was balancing when I put my body through hell and back, but the thyroid,

the underactive thyroid, that hypothyroid, and we do tend to have less of a hunger signal, especially through the first half of the day. So we assume I'm not hungry. I we do tend to have less of a hunger signal, especially through the first half of the day. So we assume I'm not hungry. I'm not going to eat. So then unfortunately what's happening is we stay in fat storage, you know, suppressed metabolism mode. And then later in the day we get surges of hunger because the body's like, where's my fuel? Where's my energy? Where is what I need to function? And so then I see so many women with thyroid issues having increased chances of overeating, binging, emotionally eating later in the day because they're innocently skipping

breakfast and or lunch because they're not hungry. And then it's just blowing up in their face later in the day. Yeah. Cause you're saving all your points. And this is where we have to work on dealing with all the diet conditioning and food rules. And we got to crush and clear those out of the way at a pace that feels good for the person because it can be terrifying to do so. But we need to clear that all out because it's distracting you from learning how to listen to your body and become attuned. Right. So, so to me, we've got to, you know, ideally we always want to get hormones tested. We want to make a list of diet and food rules and start going, does that really feel like it's working for me? Right. Because if an avocado has got 12

points, I don't even know how it works, but then a bag of like candy has two points. Does that really make sense that like, I'm better off to eat the bag of candy versus eat the avocado. Yeah. Right. And we start asking and really using discernment. Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Like a hundred percent. And I think, you know, how do I just feel my gut? So I like, you know, the use of pop and bubblies and like all of those things to sort of like tide you over what is happening to the physical, the physical body, I think isn't nearly enough of a question. And I think too, you know, how does exercise play into this? Because we know, you know, that one of the binging, binging behavior is just then purging when it comes to exercise. So how does this tie into everything that you know about this disordered eating concept? content. Yeah. It's huge because many women are using exercise as a punishment to try and fix

the overeating, the binge episode that just happened, the self-sabotage to try and punish their body to get to that number on the scale to finally try and be happy. Like we've been conditioned, right? Once you lose weight, you'll be happy, which is such BS. And so I used to do this. I'd binge, I'd freak out the next day, go to the gym and try and compensate and make up for it. And now my workout turned into this mindless self-sabotaging activity as well. So to me, it's like, what kind of relationship do you have with exercise? Is it mindful where it's like, I go for my mood, my mental health. I feel so energized and connect with my body afterward. I'm choosing things I love. Or are you like, I forced myself to go do things I despise and hate because it's the only way I know how to burn calories.

Right. I didn't like the number on the scale today. So I'm going to go and over-exercise to try and like control my weight and lose it. I just binged. So I'm going to write like, or you feel guilty if you don't go. And the thought of rest terrifies you. This is where there's, you know, that unhealthy dynamic with exercise that we want to work on. Here's the mindfuck. When I healed binge eating, my cortisol was 2000. I can't believe I

was still alive after that. I had underactive thyroid, estrogen dominance. I was flagging postmenopausal with my progesterone and I was 24 years old. And I had the limiting belief of if I stop exercise, I'm going to gain weight. But here's the irony. I gained the 80 pounds back and more that I was at the peak when I was in food addiction without food addiction because my hormones were a mess and the exercise was pushing my body over the edge. And so finally, I was like, I'm done.

I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to try rest and I'm going to challenge this limiting belief. And I swear to you, the rest, I'm really focusing on slowing down and self-care and naps and sleeping as much as I could. The inflammation started to reduce. My cortisol finally started to come down. My estrogen, everything started to regulate. And I rested it off. And I've had clients rested off from their 20s to their 80s.

Age has nothing to do with it. It is about understanding what is blocking you physically, emotionally, energetically from helping your body to feel safe and release it. You don't need exercise to lose weight. I want you to use it as a beautiful tool mindfully. But as soon as it becomes unhealthy and mindless, it's going to mess things up more than help. Because anytime we come from fear, lack, insecurity, right, and that's the intent behind our actions, it's probably going to have some kind of a negative impact on our hormones or our gut health or something, right?

Wow. And to that point, I was just thinking this morning, you know, I, I sometimes use my time on the bike or on the treadmill as an opportunity to watch a show. And so it is then just like my sink into that. And I like, I use it to just try to get through it. Right. Like, or I get to watch this. And I think about the difference between really being in a mindful run when I'm like, okay, I'm going to, you know, do my three and ones. And when it's just me and, and maybe even music or not to be able to just to listen to your body and do that, like, oh my goodness. Hey, like I've, I've really thought about that a lot lately because when we, um,

you know, even the concept of just being present in a, in a class versus doing something by yourself where you get to just like, you know, I'm going to just totally watch house of Cards, think about them and then just be, thank fuck I got through that 30 minutes, right? I'm interested like even on the data of what happens in your body when you're very mindful in an exercise experience versus, you know, just trying to get through it. I love that thought, you know, how different it is, how your body experiences it differently. Totally. Well, even with a self-care practice, sort of like if I'm sitting there like not paying attention when I'm doing my EFT tapping or my mind's in a million places where I'm trying to meditate, like you're not going to have that grounded experience.

Or you're drinking your fucking kale. Yeah. Yeah. You're drinking your kale smoothie, but you're just like, fuck, I have so much to do. Like, you know, what's the point? It's not going to do the thing. Yeah. You're already in that stress response, right? I love it. I love it. I love it. This has been just such an insightful conversation. I thank you for this. I, where can people find you? Yeah. So the website is amberproof.ca. I have a free emotional eating quiz. If you're wondering if you're struggling, so you're welcome to take

that and get some wonderful podcasts that i've recorded thereafter around emotional eating the no sugar coding podcast is the podcast we have almost 500 episodes and you love today's conversation you are gonna just love all the episodes that dive deeper into everything we talked about um it's available everywhere and then if you are wanting to further connect and go on a journey or consider exploring support you can book a 30-minute and we can connect. Even if it's just for you to honestly get this off your shoulders for the first time and share what's going on for you and have someone hold a safe space, it can be life changing even just for that. And then if you want more video content, I'm on YouTube and it's my name, Amber Romaniuk. Amber Romaniuk, thank you. Thank you for your time,

your work, and for spending a little time with this sacred community that I just adore so much. It was such an honor to sit with you. And I can't wait to do more because I think this is a conversation that so many of us need to start having, particularly with the next generation. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you taking the time. All right, everybody, take care of yourself. Take care of each other. I cannot wait to meet you right back here next week at the same time. Hey, after this episode, if you're thinking about what do I do? Where do I go to do the work? Where do I land? I'd love to listen to Jodi's voice more.

Gosh, I wish she had a course where I could just do the work with her on my own time. Whenever I'm ready. Guess what I created? It's called feeling seen the course. And it's so fucking good. I got to tell you that it's really good. If you want to have a place to land where you want to think a little bit more, you know, we talked about some really important things on this episode.

And if you want to dive a little deeper with me, you can go to drjodicarrington.com and check out my courses. Feeling Seen is one that I think I created for everybody who wants to just sink in a little more in this time of disconnect. So go there. I'll put a link in the show notes and I'll meet you there when you're ready. The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast is produced by the incredibly talented and handsome team at Snack Labs. Mr. Brian Seaver, Mr. Taylor McGilvery, and the infamous Jeremy Saunders. The soundtracks that you hear at the beginning of every episode were created by Donovan Morgan. Our executive producer is Marty Piller.

Our PR big shooters are Des Veneau and Barry Cohen. Our agent, my manager, Jeff Lowness from the Talent Bureau. And emotional support, of course, is provided by, relatively speaking, our children. For the record, I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education,

and maybe even a little bit of hope. you