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Listen to this podcast because you’ll learn something new about your relationship with food. 

If you’re short on time, I recommend jumping in around the 11:11 mark.  

From there, Rita asks some hard questions like, “Is all emotional eating bad?” and many more. 

My answers will shock you and the “a-ha!” moments are abundant throughout this episode so listen now!

In service to your freedom, 

P.S. After you listen, I invite you to hit reply on this email and let me know: what was an “a-ha!” you had from this episode? 

I’d love to hear from you and my door is always open. Plus, it helps me know what to share more of with you. 

Can’t wait to hear from you!  

P.P.S. Rita opens the episode with a beautiful centering and grounding exercise. It never ceases to amaze me how a few seconds can shift how we feel in our bodies. I hope you’ll let yourself receive this. 

Back when I was an emotional eater, I thought my issues with food had solely to do with food itself. So for years I made valiant attempts to eat super healthy, cook all my meals, portion control, burn calories, etc. 

But, my efforts focusing on fitness and nutrition always missed the mark. 

Which meant I stayed trapped in the emotional eating cycle for years. 

Much longer than I needed to IF I had just known the truth. 

If someone had just told me that my issues with food were called compulsions and helped me see that I using food to cope. 

If someone had just told me that in order to change I would need to shift my focus to the INNER work… 

Well, I would have overcome my emotional eating a lot sooner. 

I would have avoided years of investing my time, energy, and resources in mis-matched solutions.

While I can’t go back and re-do the past, I choose today and every day forward, to help other women escape the emotional eating cycle a lot faster and easier than I could. 

So I put together this video highlighting a few other misconceptions that our society believes about emotional eating. 

As you watch this, I invite you to reflect on these questions: 

– Have you heard any of these before?

– Do you, yourself, believe any of them?

– How might these beliefs be enabling your emotional eating? 

Watch this with compassion in your heart and curiosity in your mind. 

In service to your freedom,

P.S.  Beyond food, what other areas of your life are you being guided to let go of the past and choose to do things differently today? 

Hey,

Ever said to yourself, “I don’t want anyone finding out I need help”?

I’ve heard this from just about every woman I’ve ever worked with in the last 13+. 

I’ve even said this myself. 🙋🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

There was a time in my own food-healing journey that I didn’t want anyone finding out that:

(1) my emotional eating was out of control 

and 

(2) I really wanted, needed, specialized support. 

So I isolated myself…silently drowning in my own ocean of shame.

I worried, “What will other people think of me?!”

At my core, I believed that healing my relationship with food meant I would lose love and respect. That people would see me as weak, broken, crazy, high-maintenance, etc. 

My emotional eating destroyed everything it touched – my body, my mind, my work, my finances – I didn’t want it to rupture my relationships too. 

Believing the cost and consequences of change were too high paralyzed me for years. 

So, I want to share with you a few things I’ve learned from my food-healing journey so you can learn from my experience, just like my clients do. 

1. FOPO is real. 

FOPO = “Fear Of Other People’s Opinions is a hidden epidemic and may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential,” according to high-performance psychologist Michael Gervais’s research. 

In my experience, my desire to fit in, the paralyzing fear of being disliked or being labeled as “other”,
enabled my emotional eating to continue for YEARS. 

During that time, I traded my authenticity for other people’s approval. 

I wouldn’t raise my hand or take a risk if I couldn’t completely control the outcome. 

I pursued power, instead of purpose. 

I chased the life that people told me I “should” have, rather than create the life I truly wanted. 

As I would scurry around the world trying to please others, I became disconnected and out of touch with my own needs. 

I hustled SO HARD for my self-worth. And was always coming up short. 

No wonder I was used food to cope. 

2. FOPO enables self-silencing. Self-silencing enables emotional eating. To break free, reclaim your voice. 

The first thing that changed everything for me in my relationship with food was allowing myself to receive the right support and accountability. 

Setting that appointment, showing up to it, and using my voice to honestly share what was going on was scary. 

So scary that I attempted to cancel and reschedule 3 different times, because (as I shared above) it felt risky and I couldn’t completely control the outcome. 

However, that conversation changed my life.

From that day on I had an ally — someone who saw me for who I really was and what I was really struggling with. 

Someone who held my hand, taught me, and guided me to have courageous conversations. 

I was finally able to jump the hurdle of, “Oh no, what will they think of me?” and start creating the life I truly wanted. 

3. Don’t let the hurdles stop you. Instead, learn to jump them. 

When it comes to committing to change your relationship with food, you will encounter many hurdles. 

      > There will never be a “right time”. 

      > You will experience FOPO many different times. 

      > And you will doubt if freedom and peace with food is even possible for you.

But don’t let these things stop you. 

When I work with my clients, I teach them how to jump these hurdles. 

When your life gets busy, we collaborate on personalized adaptations and evolutions, so they continue their healing journey AND tend to the intensity of life. Not one at the cost of the other. 

When you are frozen with FOPO, I teach them how to navigate it. 

And every time they doubt themselves, I hold the faith – steady and strong – until they are able to trust themselves again. 

My clients call me one part “loving teacher”, one part “tough love” and one part “dear friend”. 

Support + Accountability + Confidant 

Receive these key ingredients by clicking here right now. 

In service to your freedom,

Come behind the scenes of my business in this podcast episode! 

Over the days (or years 😉) we’ve been connected, you’ve heard many different versions of my personal story with emotional eating. But today, I’m thrilled to share personal stories, insights, and inspiration from the 13+ years I’ve been self-employed. 

• What was my life like before I started my business? 
• How did I get my business off the ground? 
• What was my business called before it was Escape From Emotional Eating? 
• How do I still not resonate with being called an entrepreneur, even after 13+ years in business?
• What does my relationship with being bold, assertive, and going after what I want look like without it coming at a high cost to my health? 

The answers to these questions will surprise you – listen here! 

I even share personal stories from way back when I was teaching fitness classes full time to how I filled my practice without even having a website, and so much more. 🤭

I’m also delighted to introduce you to my dear friend and fellow entrepreneur, Marrin Costello.

If you like beautiful things, scroll through her gorgeous jewelry line! I personally treated myself to this necklace. These earrings to match are next on my list! I’ve also been eyeing these babies. 😍

Listen while you shop online! hehe! 

In service to your freedom, 

Hi! Once upon a time, I was addicted to busy-ness. 

I wore it like a big gold medal so everyone knew I was the very best at doing all the things…aka binge scheduling. 

Binge scheduling looks like: 

➤ Being so busy you’ve stopped hydrating because you don’t have time to pee (let alone eat) 

➤ Saying yes to everything (especially the stuff you don’t really want to do) 

➤ Rarely, if ever, accounting for travel or transition time because in your mind teleporting is real 

➤ Chronically showing up late, stressed, scattered, and nervousbut pretending like everything is “just fine”!

Which culminates in this show-stopping bellyflopping grand finale: 

Where the end of a busy-stressful day comes… you are so fried, burnt to a crisp, and running on fumes – that eating becomes your “sweet escape”. 

Sound familiar? 🙋🏼‍♀️

This was me. 

But not anymore! 

Because many years ago, I made a commitment to stop binge eating. 

Which meant dismantling all the things that enabled my binge eating. 

Therefore, binge scheduling and my hidden addiction to busy-ness had to change. 

So today, as September and the swirl of back-to-school swarms in around us, I wanted to share a few things I learned about the correlation between binge eating and binge scheduling. 

Let’s dive in! 

1 – Back when I was the Queen of Busy-ness, it never occurred to me that I was the creator of my own chaos.

Just like with food, my behavior with my to-dos was compulsive. Compulsive = out of my control / I could not stop. 

It was so deeply rooted, so deeply ingrained, that I couldn’t see the forest from the trees. I couldn’t see how I was contributing to my own demise.

It wasn’t until I got help from someone outside of myself that I realized, “oh my gosh. I’m doing the same thing I do with food in sooo many areas of my life.”

Actually…it was more like, “wait. you mean I made this sh*tshow? I’m contributing to the problem?!”

🤦🏼‍♀️

2 – Another thing I learned along the way was that my busy-ness, just like my overeating, was a coping strategy. Both had high costs to my health and my integrity. 

The go-go-go, do-do-do, more-more-more of life AND food put a buffer between myself, my awareness, and my feelings. 

Both patterns kept me out of touch with what I truly knew and felt. 

The more I ate and the more I pushed through my to-do list, the more I kept denying my intuition and inner guidance. 

Over time, it kept me in a perpetual state of deferring my needs, hopes, and dreams. 

3 – The big kicker was how deeply tied this all was to my self-worth and identity. 

On some deep internal level back then, I believed if I did it all, I’d be seen as good enough. Worthy. Like I’ll be “doing life right”.

Which fueled the addictive patterns of overeating, overworking, and over responsibility.

So the pattern continued until I made a conscious choice and commitment to change it. And let myself have a teacher, a mentor, a coach who could teach me new skills. 

Looking back, I feel so much compassion for the old version of me who was just trying to do her best (at the time) with what she had back then. 

And I’m SO grateful I no longer binge eat. Because of that I no longer binge schedule, either. 

I’m grateful I’ve come to learn a different way: where I know, own, and honor my unique boundaries with food, my energy, my schedule, and my responsibilities. 

Where I’m deeply rooted in my connection with myself and will slay anything that tries to interfere (productivity culture be damned!).

I’m grateful I’ve learned to make time for what truly matters to me, to what aligns with my values, and with what will move the needle towards my goals. 

I’m proud that I’ve gotten good at saying “I’m full” – with food, work, and life – and not being afraid of those healthy boundaries. 

And sometimes I still can’t believe I’ve had the honor of passing these lessons along to my clients, and people like you, for the last 13 years. 

I hope something in my story inspires you or helps you connect some of the deeper dots in your own unhealthy compulsive patterns. 

When you need help changing them, click here.

🤗

In service to your freedom, 

Right before I eat something – doesn’t matter what it is – I do this thing. I created it for myself at a time where I couldn’t get through a meal without overeating… where food was my safety blanket, the only way I’d survive… and when peace and freedom felt like genes I wasn’t born with.

It’s a simple yet powerful practice… a ritual of sorts… that I grew into. Over the years, I’ve taught it to my clients. 

Now today, I am passing it to you to help you grow into a healthier relationship with food, your body, and yourself.

It’s called the Escape From Emotional Eating Blessing.✨

Before you eat, pause. Take a deep breath. Focus your energy, attention, and intention by saying this:

    I bless this food and allow it to nourish me.

     I eat in peace trusting my body already knows what to do.

     I give thanks and affirm I am healthy, happy, and free.

Then, notice what changes in your body, mind, and soul.

Implement this!

Here are a few tips:

I recommend starting with a doable amount of time (like 1-2 weeks) and commit to using it consistently (1-3x a day). If you forget or miss a day, just pick right back up with it again. This is about practice and play – not perfectionism!

Use is to honor the part of you who wants to believe and embody these statements. The more you play with it, the more you will grow into it too.

If you are a visual learner like me, write this blessing on a post-it note or index card and leave it where you will “bump into it” as you go to eat something. Like your kitchen table, counter, or tuck it in your lunch bag you bring to work. That way when you see it, you’ll use it and you don’t have to remember.

Move this into action and feel free to let me know how it goes (just reply to this email at any time)!

In service to your freedom,

P.S. If you’re rolling your eyes and thinking, “I’ll need more than three little lines to change how deeply embedded my unhealthy relationship with food is.”

You’re not wrong. There is a lot more that goes into fully repairing your relationship with food. If you’re the type of person who likes to be all in, click here so we can pin this down by the ears and go at it. 😁

In the meantime, don’t underestimate the power of this blessing. Use it. Notice what changes. It’s a valuable baby step in alignment with your ultimate goals.