An Emotional Relationship with Food?

In today's podcast, we ask the question: What does it mean when we say we have an emotional relationship with food? Tune in, because these insights and awarenesses are an absolute KEY if you want a more empowering relationship with food and a vibrant, healthy body!

Episode Highlights:

9:49 Foods are engineered and designed to produce huge dopamine spikes in our brain. Dopamine is the pleasure center. These heavily processed foods are engineered to produce this response that feels like love in our brains.

13:11 II've actually had people tell me, it's like all of my family traditions revolve around food. And suddenly, if I decide not to do that, I'm no longer a member of the family. We get these feelings of belongingness and belonging to a group is a primal need. It's how we survived. So if you feel like you're doing something that's against group norms, if you're doing something that's against what your family has raised you to believe, then you have to deal with this intense anxiety coming from your primitive brain that's saying, oh my gosh, you are going to be left alone. You are going to die.

27:22 And that's why I always say, the weight loss journey done well is a journey of personal evolution. And the skills that you learn in the weight loss journey done well are skills that are gonna serve you in all areas of your life, not just in your health.

--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:00):
You are listening to the Keep The Weight Off podcast with Dr. Angela, episode number 55.

Introduction (00:07):
Welcome to The Keep The Weight Off podcast, where we bust all the dieting myths and discover not just how to lose weight, but more importantly, how to keep it off. We go way beyond the food and we use science and psychology to give you strategies that work. And now your host, Dr. Angela Zechmann.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:27):
Hey, welcome to the podcast, everyone. Hey there, Marchelle. How are you?

Marchelle (00:32):
I'm good. How are you doing?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:34):
I'm good. I'm good. So I wanted to have, I wanted to talk about something that you said on a recent podcast that just sort of hit me like a ton of bricks. It was very interesting. And I don't remember your exact words. Maybe you remember your exact words, but it was something along the lines of, I'm trying to let go of my emotional relationship with food. And I thought, wow, that is so profound. I think I even said that on the podcast that was profound. And so I was thinking about it more and I'm like, we need to devote an entire podcast to this because it was so profound. So I wanna know Marchelle. What does it mean when you say you have an emotional relationship with food? What do you mean by that?

Marchelle (01:26):
So I guess how I would describe it if I had to define it, it would be, for example, if I am bored and I go to the refrigerator, even though I just had lunch and I go to the refrigerator and I open it up and I'm looking around like, what sounds good? Like, what's gonna make me feel better right now because I'm bored and I need, I need something to fulfill. I'm not thinking about it in those terms, like, oh, you know, I'm bored. I need to fulfill something. I just, now that I know what I know, and I can look back on the things that I've done that define my emotional relationship with food. Or sometimes when I've had an argument with my husband and I go to the freezer, cuz I want some ice cream and I'm not really sure why I want ice cream because honestly ice cream is not nutritious. Mm. And it's not feeling like a meal. It's just too it's to make myself feel better. Mm. So I realized that, okay, so I'm a snacker. Yeah. And that's something I've had to like really pay attention to. Yeah. Cause I'm not really sure why I snack and I just love snacks. I mean, you could see if you guys looked at my desk, I hide these snacks behind, you know, my monitor at work

Marchelle (02:51):
Because I have not, I haven't quite given up this need to have like something if I need it, even though I'm not hungry. Yeah. I had eaten the right breakfast. I've eaten the right lunch. But throughout the day, if I maybe am stressed like with patients or something or things are, you know, overwhelming. Yeah. Then I will sit there and eat my snacks. And I know that it has to do with me, making myself feel better in some emotional way.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:20):
Yeah. So what you're saying then if I understand correctly, is that you're using the food as a way to make your, to help yourself feel better in the moment,

Marchelle (03:32):
Right.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:33):
Yeah. So, so that's, when, when you say you have an emotional relationship with it what you mean is it's making me feel better. Is that, is that correct? Yes.

Marchelle (03:44):
Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. It makes me feel better.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:46):
It makes you feel better. So I actually went

Marchelle (03:48):
It's, not nutritious.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:49):
It's

Marchelle (03:50):
Not nutritious. It's not broccoli.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:52):
Okay. So I, I actually went to the dictionary because I'm like, what exactly. Because remember in, in my coaching training, I'm trained to always, anytime somebody makes a statement, we wanna like pick apart the exact words. And so I looked up the word emotional and the word emotional means arousing or characterized by intense feeling. So the food could bring you an intense feeling or an arouse, an intense, intense feeling. Would you agree with that definition of it?

Marchelle (04:30):
Yes.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (04:31):
Yes. And then I looked up the word relationship and it said a state of being related or interrelated or a romance or passionate attachment. And I was like passionate attachment sounds really a lot like what I felt like my relationship with food was like a passionate attachment to having certain types of foods at certain times of day or whatever. Does that make sense to you as well? Or?

Marchelle (05:04):
Yeah, that, that definitely makes sense. I mean, when I think about let's see certain, okay. How about like birthday cakes? Yes. like we, cause I know that if I was eating the way I'm supposed to be eating, I would not have a need to eat birthday cake at a party. Right. But I can't picture having a birthday party without a birthday cake. I know. And that's always been a big deal, so right. I feel very passionately about birthday cakes at birthday parties. Right. Or certain meals on, you know, my favorite meal is macaroni and cheese. And when I am struck out or my family's really stressed out or we're, you know, having, I don't know whatever's going on, we all crave macaroni and cheese it's not nutritious, but we need it so bad because it makes us feel better

Dr. Angela Zechmann (06:00):
That quintessential comfort food. Yes.

Marchelle (06:02):
Right. Yeah. Comfort food. There you go.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (06:04):
Yeah. I mean, there's a reason it's called comfort food because it brings comfort. Right. So yeah.

Marchelle (06:10):
Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (06:11):
Yeah. I remember I had a friend who who was just with breast cancer and her friends came over and I was there that night and we just all had comfort food. We had macaroni and cheese, we had brownies, we had bread, we had wine. It was just all as, as we're getting used to this whole idea that this beautiful friend of ours is going to be going through cancer treatment. And there's always that fear of death in the background. Although these days breast, cancer's certainly not a fatal diagnosis by any means, but it was just like, it was just shocking, you know? And so we were just like comfort, comfort, comfort. So, and Mac and cheese was a part of it. For sure. So yeah, so it's so I think, yeah, we do develop these passionate attachments to using food as a way to help ourselves feel better.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (07:09):
You know, it's interesting cuz one of our patients actually, she, she loves to write and journal and she brought me a written description of what her relationship with food was like. And I just wanna read that. I wanna read what she wrote because I think it's profound. And she said I'm - and she's so she's writing this letter to food. So imagine this is addressed to food. She said I'm, I'm pretty sure I loved you the moment I met you, if you were to ask my parents, they would probably say the same thing. She said, I was first introduced to you in the good old south raised on the commandment-like guide that you were the primary love language. So I'm just interjecting my own comments here. We are oftentimes sort of conditioned that food is love. She says how many times I've heard it said that you were the way to a man's heart.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:12):
I saw this truth in my own eyes when my mom would bake for hours for her four brothers and her only son or as my father would light up at supper when he walked in to greet you. I remember just how he would sparkle at the mayor's sight of you. It doesn't go unnoticed that every visit to a loved one's house involved you being offered around as a token of one's love. So no, it doesn't surprise me that in you, I latched on to the most important feeling in the world. Yes. I fell in love with you as a child. From the earliest age. I can remember. I waited for you, excited at every attempt to consume your powerful, love, not caring when or how much of you I placed within me. I craved you in every sense of the word you instantly became my childhood best friend.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:11):
So you can see, I don't think her experiences unusual at all. I have experienced exactly the same thing and you can see that this emotional relationship starts very, very early in childhood. Right.

Marchelle (09:27):
So I could never describe it like that. Those, those are the most beautiful, powerful words. I've actually never, I'm not even sure if I've read this before. Yeah. that's wow.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:38):
Yeah. I mean she, yes, she's a beautiful writer and it's it's poignant and it's a perfect description of what happens. Yes it's

Marchelle (09:48):
Yes.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:49):
And so, you know, we talked about, I've talked on previous podcasts about how she's not talking about chicken and broccoli. Again, remember she's talking about baked goods and comfort foods and sweets and all of that. And she's, and I'm I'm. I just wanna remind our listeners that, you know, I've done previous podcasts on how these foods are engineered and designed to produce huge dopamine spikes in our brain. And dopamine is the pleasure center. So these heavily processed foods are engineered to produce this response that feels like love in our brains. And the food industry is actually purposefully targeting children because they know that if they can find a way to get children, to love their products, as friends, to develop this emotional relationship at a very young age, they're gonna have a customer for life.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (10:51):
And I also want people to understand, like, this is very much like a drug addiction. And as a matter of fact, there are many people who try to like, they, they develop struggles with their weight in childhood or early adolescence. And then when they see that there are illicit drugs available that can get them off the food and get them skinny, then they will turn to drugs as well. And this has happened. This happens frequently actually. And so I just want people to understand when food brings this much pleasure, people will often think like, what's my life gonna be like without this awesome friend, how am I gonna get through my day? Right. And you sort of talked about that. You're like, well, I have my snacks. Like I, I need my snacks to get me through the, the day.

Marchelle (11:49):
Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (11:49):
So yeah. I mean it's it's

Marchelle (11:53):
I was thinking, so this reminds me of a conversation that I just had with Michelle, who is our nurse practitioner at the clinic. So we were kind of in this discussion, I think it was about a week ago. And I said, okay, Michelle, if what is most addictive sugar, heroin, or crack? And she said, hands down sugar. Yeah. So if so, if people can wrap their minds around that yeah. That people say, oh God, don't do heroin. It's so addictive. Like it is the worst. Like don't do that stuff like, oh, crack is whack. Don't do it. Right. Yeah. Well, people don't think the same about sugar and it is much more addictive.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (12:36):
Yeah.

Marchelle (12:36):
And yeah. It's it's and you won't know that you're so addicted until you try to quit eating sugar, right? Like, oh no. I mean, I can do without it, you know, I can take it or leave it. Yeah. Well, try to do a five day sugar and flour detox and then see how you exactly. Once, once you're not doing it, then you realize like how much you focus on it. And like, and like, it's like you go through this grieving period. Yes. Of, especially if you have an emotional relationship with food, it's like, yeah. It's like, you lost your best friend. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (13:11):
It's so true. I actually had I've actually had people tell me, it's like all of my family traditions revolve around food. And so it's like, suddenly if I decide not to do that, I'm no longer a member of the family.

Marchelle (13:29):
Oh, I hear that all the time.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (13:30):
Yeah. It's like so, so we get these feelings of belongingness and, and we've also talked about this in the past podcast about how belonging to a group is a primal need. It's how we survived. So if you feel like you're doing something that's against group norms. So if you're doing something that's against what your family has raised you to believe, then you have to deal with this intense anxiety coming from your primitive brain that's saying, oh my gosh, you are gonna be left alone. You are gonna die. Right. Cause that's what your primitive brain is gonna think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I don't, I just want our listeners to understand that, you know, if you've been on diets in the past and you've tried to give this stuff up and you felt like a failure because it didn't seem to work, there's nothing wrong with you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. Your brain is perfectly normal and your brain has from an early age developed basically a romantic attachment to food. And so learning how to live life without this romantic partner in your life, this, what was the word? I gotta go …

Dr. Angela Zechmann (15:00):
A passionate attachment, you know, living, living your life without this passionate attachment to food is gonna bring profound changes to your body and to your health. But it's also gonna require profound changes in the way you think about food as well. It's a little bit like it's a little bit like breaking up with a romantic partner that you suddenly realize is not good for you. Like,

Marchelle (15:27):
Right, right. Like

Dr. Angela Zechmann (15:29):
They're emotionally abusive. They cheat on you. They cause you to feel awful about yourself. But at the same time, like they're all you've ever known that brought you any pleasure. So yes. It's a little bit like that.

Marchelle (15:41):
Right. I wanted, I wanted to interject something too, because I don't want people cuz I'm, I'm almost getting the wrong idea when we're talking about an emotional attachment to food. Okay. Not all food, right? Because we have to eat. Okay. We, we have to eat that's that's what keeps us alive. Okay. Right. So it's not an emotional attachment to food. It's an emotional attachment to sugar and flour and carbs, high carbs that are not good for you. It's it's that, it's the, I mean even salt. It's the it's the things that we ingest that have no nutritional value and yet we can't live without,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:16):
Right. It's the processed food.

Marchelle (16:18):
Right? Exactly

Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:21):
The factory food. You're not gonna have this issue with vegetables, with whole vegetables and protein and healthy fats. You're not gonna have this. You're gonna have this issue with chips and dip or with cookies or with brownies or whatever, ice cream, you mentioned ice cream, macaroni and cheese, macaroni and cheese is actually very highly processed food.

Marchelle (16:47):
Oh, it's so bad for you.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:50):
I know its yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:53):
So I have a mentor who says, imagine that you you aren't eating anymore, that you, you don't eat anything. But this one, like you have this one bar, she calls it a sparkle bar. And so imagine you eat a sparkle bar and the sparkle bar has all the nutrients and all the fiber and all the calories you need or an entire day, I kind of imagined it to be like, like these, MRE's that our soldiers get when they're out in the field. Although MREs are really horrible. But imagine that the sparkle bar is just kind of like that. There's nothing - it, I mean you can eat it, but it doesn't give any great joy or pleasure, but it does have everything that you need. It's very nutritious and it just gets your body fed. And so then the question becomes, okay, if you just have a sparkle bar every day and you weren't using food for this passionate attachment or this emotional connection what would you do?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:55):
Like how would you entertain yourself? How would you celebrate? What would you do when you were going out with friends? Like could you just go to a restaurant and just have some sparkling water or some tea and just enjoy your friends without food, how would you manage your anxiety or your restlessness? Like, could you just sit on a couch and watch TV without popcorn chips? How would you reward yourself at the end of a long day? And of course, you know, we don't wanna substitute alcohol or cigarettes or any other type of mind altering drug for food in any of these situations -- that could actually be even more dangerous. So is something to think about like, like if you have this emotional relationship with food, how are you gonna manage your life? Right. What do you think Marchelle?

Marchelle (18:48):
I think this is a, this big awareness right here. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (18:53):
It's huge. It really is. Yeah. It's like and I don't think that most people have any idea of just how big of a role food plays in their life. I don't think they do. And I also wanna say it's perpetuated by our society. It's perpetuated in our advertising. It's definitely perpetuated by the food industry. You will see if you pay attention to food advertising. It's very interesting to see just how it is that they try to get you to envision food as your friend, you know, like you, you deserve a break today, come to McDonald's

Marchelle (19:36):
Or exactly. I mean even like somehow the food industry, entices people to drink those monster drinks. Okay. Grossest things on the planet. Yeah. They don't taste good. They're not good for you, but somehow that company is making missions of dollars.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (19:55):
Yeah, for sure.

Marchelle (19:57):
Yeah. So I mean, and, and I, I don't think that, I think that people are aware. I think there's a ton of people in America and you know, probably all, I don't know about the rest of the world. I'm just gonna like say America. I know there's a ton of people living in guilt and shame feeling that they don't like the body they're in. They feel like crap every day, they're eating fast food. They, you know, cuz their, their jobs are overwhelming. They don't have, you know, gotta get the kids to soccer and go here, go there, you know? Or I'm working, you know, 70 hours a week. Yeah. And so they have to get something on the go. I hear that a lot. Like if I just had the time I would eat better, but I don't have the time. So I choose to eat like crap.

Marchelle (20:40):
And so I know that people around the nation are feeling bad every day and they, and they, like I said, they, they sit around in their guilt and shame and they really just have no idea how to change it. Yeah. They wanna change it. They wanna eat better. They wanna do better. Cause I think we all have this underlying knowledge because we are all taught like the food pyramid and school. Yeah. You know, the four basic food groups type of stuff. Yeah. You know, in health class, you know, we all have been taught sort of, you know, like what healthy foods are and there, you know, Snickers was not on the food pyramid,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (21:18):
But, but, but it does have nuts in it

Marchelle (21:22):
Thousand Snickers in my, exactly. Exactly. It's got nuts in it. It's healthy. So I mean, I just, I just feel like this kind of awareness is why we do these podcasts is because usually it's you and I sitting around BS'ing and about something. Yeah. And then we get on a subject and you're like, oh man, we gonna do a podcast about this because yeah. If we like bring this kind of awareness to other people, then they're gonna understand that there is a way out of, of this. You don't have to live like this forever. And it doesn't mean you need to come by. Somebody's ready, made packaged protein meals.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (21:56):
Oh gosh.

Marchelle (21:57):
To help you lose 30 pounds in 30 days or whatever. Yeah. You know, all of those diets are not intended to be sustainable.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (22:06):
Right.

Marchelle (22:07):
They know that you're gonna, you know, you're gonna have reduced calories. You're gonna be starving. You know, you're gonna hate life for 30 days, but you're gonna drop all this weight, which is mostly water weight at first, just saying, yeah, you're gonna drop all this weight. And then at some, at some place you're gonna crack either. You can't afford to keep buying like the ready made meals or, or you just can't do it anymore. And the minute that you stop doing it, not only do you gain the weight back, but then some, because it comes on so easy and I've, I've, I've lived that life. Yeah. Where I've not, I've gained weight, but not just the weight that I lost, I gained 20 more pounds on top of it. And it just came on just like that.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (22:48):
Yeah.

Marchelle (22:49):
So I mean this, yeah. This kind of awareness is some, is like opening the gates to people being able to change you know, people having the knowledge that they're not broken, they're not failures.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:02):
No,

Marchelle (23:02):
This is, you know, the food industry is, is the enemy. Like they are tricking all of us into thinking that this, that we eat, these process foods is food. Yeah. It's not even food.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:14):
Yeah, exactly. It's a drug. It's a powerful drug. Yeah.

Marchelle (23:20):
Yep.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:20):
Well, you know one of the ways that we can help is you know, I've been doing, I've been doing obesity medicine for 14 years now. And what I realized over the years is that people need more help than just learning how to eat properly. Because how many times have you heard, like, I know exactly what to do. I just can't seem to make myself do it. And the reason is because there is this emotional relationship with food and our brains don't know what else to do. Like imagine if you, if you tell your brain, okay, here's this thing that brings us really intense pleasure and helps get us through your day. We're not gonna do that anymore. And as, as a matter of fact in its place, you're gonna have pain because now you don't have anything to help you with that anxiety.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (24:13):
So now you're gonna also have to deal with that anxiety. So it's like, yeah, holy smokes. So now I don't get the pleasure of the food anymore. And I also have to deal with the pain that I have and dealing, you know, that I have been avoiding using this food as a distraction. And so people really need new and different skills and new and different understanding. And so this is why I developed the online membership. It's called Empowered Weight Loss. And what we're doing in Empowered Weight Loss is we're teaching you, what do you do? How do you manage this? How do you manage your life? How do you manage your emotions? How do you manage all of these cravings that you're gonna have without turning to food? And it's a process. It's not something that's gonna happen overnight. It's not some quick and dirty, you know, let's lose 30 pounds in 30 days kind of BS.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (25:17):
And it's not, it's not you buying bars and shakes. It's not you signing up for something where you get stuff delivered to your doorstep. It's you learning new tools and new techniques. And it's a process. It starts with a 30 day Done with Dieting Bootcamp. Okay. The Bootcamp is awesome because the Bootcamp is gonna teach you exactly what's going on in your physiology. In other words, your body's metabolism, and what's going on in your brain that is creating this disease of obesity and what to do to manage this disease. So when people go through the Bootcamp, they'll lose weight fairly quickly. If they do it day by day, day, the way I have it designed. But we also have to recognize that 30 days is just the starting point. That's why it's the Bootcamp. Like you don't go into the army and do your Bootcamp, and then you're done you, the Bootcamp is preparing you for what is to come, right?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (26:27):
So that's why we have the membership. And so you're gonna learn skills in the membership. That's going to help you deal with what do I do now that I'm not using food as as my emotional crutch, basically, as, as it's like, like I said, it's like sort of breaking up with a bad boyfriend, an abusive boyfriend. It's like, what am I gonna do now? And how do I relearn how to live my life? And it really starts with your thought because your thoughts are what reacts eventually creates your life for you. And so we're teaching you how to think in this, in this in the membership, we're teaching you how to change the way that you think. And when you change the way that you think it's not just your body, that's gonna change. It's everything about your life, that's gonna change.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (27:22):
And that's why I always say, you know, the weight loss journey done well is a journey of personal evolution. And the skills that you learn in the weight loss journey done well are skills that are gonna serve you in all areas of your life, not just in your health.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (27:38):
So if you're interested in that you can just go to JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com and you'll see tab there that says 30 Day Bootcamp. And you can look into that and sign up for that. If you're interested - and once you're done with a Bootcamp, then you can join us in Empowered. … You, you get free access to the Empowered Weight Loss membership while you're in the Bootcamp too. So you can start learning some of these skills while you're getting your body's metabolism rebalance too. So that's the cool part about it. So I just want people to know, like, there's help with this. I don't want you to underestimate how important it is to get the right support. It just is. It's important to get the right support, to stop all the crazy diets and learn how to do this properly. We've got all kinds of, of awesome, awesome support for you.

Marchelle (28:34):
So I, so I wanted to just jump in here for a second because yeah, I, so, so this is your program. So just speaking from somebody who has been a part of the program, so I guess I can equate it to this. So with me you know, I, I was over drinking. Mm. And I was feeling like crap. Yeah. And, and I, I wanted to stop, but I didn't really know what else to do. And so just stopping then I'm like, well, now what, because now I am resentful. Yeah. And stuck in my emotions that I tried to escape. Yeah. And so basically what this is like is, you know, if you were an alcoholic yeah. And you wanted to stop drinking. Yeah. And you can, you can not pick up the bottle, you know, you can physically stop drinking, but then you need support. You need a community. Yeah. We need some accountability. Yeah. We need to find out the tools for lasting sobriety. Not just, I can go a week without drinking or I could do a sober January. Right. You know, like that kind of stuff, because, you know, you're, there's always gonna be like, you're gonna go back at the end of whatever time period, like, which would be a diet. Right.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (29:49):
Right. Exactly.

Marchelle (29:51):
Then like Alcoholics Anonymous is, you know, this program where you get this support and they take you through these 12 steps to like really break down the reason why you drink. Cause really like the problem isn't the eating or drinking. That's just a solution to the problem. Right?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (30:09):
Yeah.

Marchelle (30:10):
So really the problem is with our thinking, like, I have a thinking problem, not a drinking problem, not an eating problem.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (30:17):
That rhymes. That's good. I

Marchelle (30:19):
Know. Right. I know I need to make like a little little out of it, but so, I mean, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of how I feel about this Empowered Weight Loss it's and the, you know, Done with Dieting, the, you know, the 30 day Bootcamp. I mean, that Bootcamp word might throw people off a little bit, so that don't know about what your program offers. So that's why I just want people to realize it's, it's this kind and gentle way of being able to deal with the reasons why you have an emotional relationship with food and form this new identity and work through like some deeply rooted issues. And, and most of America is addicted to process foods. I mean, we are all in this together. Yeah. It isn't like one person has a problem and everybody else is doing okay. I mean, I, we see this all the time with people. Nobody you don't have to feel alone. And what I love about your program is it gives you this community support where you start to realize that you are not the only one exactly. Like this. There's nothing that you're gonna be able to say in these like the, your, your Tuesday support meetings. There's nothing, you're gonna say that all the other people there don't understand exactly or relate to or say exactly my gosh, you do that too. I thought I was the only person.

Marchelle (31:39):
So,

Marchelle (31:40):
I mean, I just, it's just gives you, it's just whole, this just whole new, and that's why, you know, this 12 step program, it like breaks things down, walks you through it, you know, from A to Z and helps you, you know, if you really like work the program, then you can make these long lasting, sustainable changes in your life. Yeah. And you don't have to pay somebody for, you know, like you said, a delivered box to your door. Exactly. Or, you know, some, because, cause that's just like a bandaid on the problem.

Marchelle (32:08):
Exactly.

Marchelle (32:10):
Exactly. I, I guess that's my way of describing this. I hope that

Dr. Angela Zechmann (32:15):
I think there are a lot more people in this country that struggle with the with processed food addiction than struggle with alcohol addiction for sure. Which is why Michele said sugar's a way more powerful drug than anything else.`

Marchelle (32:28):
Yeah, definitely. I mean, hands down, she said easy - sugar.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (32:31):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, like you wouldn't give a, you wouldn't give a two year old a beer, but we certainly will give a two year old sugar, you know, it's

Marchelle (32:45):
Just, that's true. I know, I know. That's yeah. We gotta change the awareness of all this stuff and

Dr. Angela Zechmann (32:50):
Yeah

Marchelle (32:50):
This is a big thing. It's big was listening out there. This is a big thing.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (32:54):
It is. All right. Well, I think that we have done good job of helping to explain the emotional relationship with food on this podcast. I would encourage anybody who's interested in learning more head to the JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com website. And hopefully we will see you in the program because it is awesome. And we're here to help. I mean, it's, it's a, a tough problem and we're here to help and we will do everything we can to help you. So take care everyone, and we will see you next week. Bye now,

Closing (33:28):
Hey, if you really want to lose weight and keep it off for good, your next step is to sign up for Dr. Angela's free weight loss course, where you're going to learn everything you need to get started on your weight loss journey, the right way. Just head over to JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com/freecourse to sign up. Also, it would be awesome if you could take a few moments and write a review on iTunes. Thanks!

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Dr. Angela

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