Pod Insights Change Wired Fixing stress eating and stress drinking with 5 science-backed strategies. How I stopped my emotional eating. About this episode Your cravings might not be “a you problem” at all. They might be a lack of nervous system training problem. I’m Angela Shurina, Master Health Coach 360 and stress and sleep management coach, and I’m sharing the five simple strategies that changed my life and helped my clients stop emotional eating, binge eating, overdrinking, overthinking, and other stress-driven habits that leave you feeling regret and shame. You’ll learn 5 no-tech tools you can use immediately: sitting with discomfort so...
Transcript 0:09 Speaker 00 Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your master health coach 360, stress and sleep management coach, executive coach, and just someone who is a huge fan of change, of self-development, of self-growth, self-transformation, self-awareness, of feeling, looking and doing our best a little bit more every day. I'm a huge fan of human potential and everything that we can do with it for our extraordinary lives and more positive impact in the world. And today, guys, you are about to learn something that completely transformed my life and I'm yet to see a
0:53 Speaker 00 person whose life it didn't transform. A skill set, five strategies, five tools that you can put in your self-growth, self-development toolkit and you can use in your life to deal with all the challenges and stressors and difficulties, overwhelming emotions and just, you know, all the stuff that life throws your way to deal with it effectively and well and through it, move in your life forward, growing, developing and becoming more and more of your true best, your like most inspiring version of self. This toolkit changed my life and again, I'm yet to
1:35 Speaker 00 see a person whose life it didn't change. I learned it myself many years ago as the psychology, as all these sciences like neuroscience of different therapies like CBT, ACT and a lot of other therapies. The more we develop this knowledge, the more research is done on stress regulation, on how our body works under stress, our minds, our brains and what we can do to work. Towards better outcomes, like obviously I updated my toolkit. I'm getting always like certified, recertified and just I am naturally curious about those things.
2:15 Speaker 00 So I always know like what the best tool out there and some of those tools, you know, stood the test of time. That's what I'm gonna teach to you today. And some of them are got upgraded, but a lot of these tools have been with us for a long time. We just now start to understand why it actually works, the science, the sort of psychological and biological mechanism behind it. But to cut the long story short, today you're gonna have five strategies. And I'm gonna tell you exactly how to use them that will help you to deal with things like overeating, binge eating, overthing, overdrinking, emotional eating,
2:57 Speaker 00 cravings, or if you lose your sleep or your your temper and do all kinds of stuff to that self sabotage you in some way or the other, things that you later regret or ashamed of, things that happened because you just really did not develop and practice enough stress management, self-regulation skills. That toolkit, when you practice it, the strategies, when you put them in regular practice in your life, they won't just transform the area of your life or that habit that you don't want to do anymore. That's again, overeating, overdrinking or something else, over smoking.
3:36 Speaker 00 They don't just help you to deal with that, they will help you to deal better and in a different way with the rest of your life. Because that one skill, this one skill set is transformative on all levels of your life. Because the way you deal with stress in one area is how you're gonna be dealing with stress in the rest of your life. Right? So without further ado, let me tell you a story and then the five tools.
4:07 Speaker 00 In my twenties, someone like me twenties, early twenties, I struggled with emotional eating a lot. But to give you an idea, I did not even know that that was emotional eating. I would just crave food, the stress from studies, work, relationships would pile up. And I feel this pull toward food, like it could caution me, protect me, ground me when everything felt like it was spinning out of control. I didn't even know the words, like, well, at least not to my conscious awareness, stress or emotional management or self-regulation or that I was, you know, stress eating. It wasn't a thing in my mind. I would just eat. I'm like, okay.
4:50 Speaker 00 It was an urge I couldn't control and it was controlling me. And it was, it wasn't constant to become, you know, this like something that would creep in my life, but it was consistent. Every week or two, I'd have an episode. Usually I would eat sometimes things like, like a lot of nuts and then wouldn't end up eating cookies and sweets. That was my thing.
5:18 Speaker 00 Eating past the point of full, past the point of comfort, when my stomach would start hurting because it was so full. And just something like leading into something that felt almost like a punishment of some sort. And I thought it was, you know, willpower problem and discipline problem, that just, just couldn't deal with myself around food. It was me problem. I told myself I'd do better next time and next time it would be different. And this was the last time and I start, I'm starting new thing, new life, new me, starting Monday or tomorrow.
5:55 Speaker 00 And it never worked, you know, because the next time stress hit, the next time anxiety comes or worries or something emotionally overwhelmed me.
6:09 Speaker 00 And I, again, I didn't even have the language for those things. I just thought, you know, it was my life. And from time to time, I needed to binge it. I just knew I needed to eat right now, a lot, and it would happen again. And it would happen because I did not change myself just by thinking about it or wishing for it. And so the behavior, my habits, it didn't magically change either. Being at that time, I was in fitness modeling and fitness training. And that didn't help either, right? Because as a trainer, you're supposed to have your like shit together. Looks it in a way, act it in a way.
6:49 Speaker 00 And so I'd swing from binge eating episode straight into another strict diet, counting my, I don't know, a carb, so being on a keto, a low carb experiment, and disciplining my way through the week until the next stress episode hits. And then, at some point, guided by some advice and maybe luck, I found my way into stress management coaching and nutrition counseling. And that's when everything really changed for me. I realized that there was nothing wrong with me and that I just didn't have any skills or habits to manage my stress properly.
7:29 Speaker 00 My difficult emotions, my anxiety, my worries, like, nobody taught me this at school, even those words. If they had, I would have known. I was a straight A student. It wasn't something, you know, we were taught.
7:42 Speaker 00 And so going through this coaching certifications, I learned, I learned what stress actually was, what it does to your body, to your brain, to your emotions. I learned strategies to work with that stress, physically, emotionally, psychologically. I learned that the way I was eating, also swinging between binges and all kinds of restrictive diets, it was contributing to my stress and making my cycles worse. And so I learned all of this, and then I practiced, and I built new habits, and I built new habitual responses. And I also learned what it actually meant to eat a balanced diet and why it mattered and how it worked on a cellular level.
8:28 Speaker 00 And then a year or two in, something remarkable happened. I didn't even notice it that much. It was kind of like transitional and gradual. But food lost its grip, its grip on me that it had for years. And I was free. I learned how to eat to keep myself well, physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically. No diet, no gurus, just, you know, skills of self-care, self-management, balanced eating, emotional regulation, understanding what my body needs versus what some Instagram plan or guru says it should need. And eighteen years later, I had my six-pack for modern decade, probably all of those two decades, actually. But that's not the part that matters the most.
9:12 Speaker 00 The best thing is that I can eat a piece of cake or just a spoon of cake, not needing to eat the whole thing. I don't need to finish what's on my plate, but instead finish when I'm full. When stress comes, I don't feel the need to eat anything or drink anything. My smile always comes from the inside, even when going through challenges. And I haven't needed a diet ever since, not because I eat perfectly every single day, but because I don't need to be on a diet because I ate a cookie. And that's been pretty remarkable, guys. And those skills didn't just change me around food.
9:58 Speaker 00 Those skills changed how I approached everything else in my life, how I dealt with my life. And so I want to share with you strategies that helped me back then. And I built on top of them a little bit more to help me deal with life even more. And then I practiced the skills and I teach it to my clients. And all of my clients who lean in to that learning and practice them, they are, they are transformed, like around food, around relationships, around work, around sleep. I have five tools that will help you. But a warning, they are skills, they are habits. They're not to be perfect from day one. They're more like a new suit, a new pair of shoes.
10:40 Speaker 00 When you first put them on, they feel awkward, uncomfortable, and the whole thing feels so much more natural. But.
10:49 Speaker 00 Give it a little bit of time and they would start feeling like your second skin, something you just do and teach and can teach others anytime. And again, it will help you to deal and get rid of for life of your binge eating, binge drinking, losing sleep over stress and all kinds of, of again, self sabotaging behaviors that you later regret and ashamed of to some degree. So without further ado, let's dig into five skills. They're very simple, require no tech whatsoever. They just require your willingness to try them out and put into practice the next time you're going through stressful situation. Number one, sit with discomfort.
11:33 Speaker 00 So every morning I take a cold shower or a cold plunge. Not because I love it, guys, or because like I, like I don't enjoy them. But it helps me to practice this feeling of calmness inside discomfort. And to realize, hey, this uncomfortable feeling will pass. It's okay, I will not die from it. In fact, the more you sit with that without reacting, without numbing, without having to run away from it, the faster it just moves through you. And you can then sit in a cold plunge, you're like, yeah, that's fine, uncomfortable, but I'm totally fine. I can listen to my music or my podcast and it's like nothing happening.
12:16 Speaker 00 And the same skill, the same thing will happen under stress. You'll be okay, this is happening, but you're not losing your mind and you don't need to numb it or run and do something. Number two, so first sitting with discomfort as a practice. You can like choose your own sort of poison and see where you can practice this sitting in discomfort with doing nothing. It's like a Jedi skill for life. Number two.
12:46 Speaker 00 Breathe. You know, by the way, the sitting with discomfort, it's also the same skill when somebody is, I don't know, telling you something mean or not nice or very stressful. It's the same skill when you are in it and you hearing it. And yes, you understand that it's bad, that it is sort of stressful, but you also account. I look, okay, we'll deal with that. And that is a superpower in today's world. Once you get it, you're like, oh, my God, I'm on a completely another level. Number two, breathe. Eight counts in.
13:25 Speaker 00 Or four counts in, eight counts out. Just really long, long exhales. Repeat five times or more. Eyes closed, body softening, relaxing a little bit more with each exhale. And what you're doing there is switching your nervous system from fight or flight into rest and digest. The state where urges lose their urgency, where you get your ability to choose wisely. You get this ability back. Okay, number two, breathing. Number three, writing it all down. Dump everything onto the page, the worry, the anger, the fear, the frustration, all of it. Brained up, uncensored. This isn't journaling for reflection, it's neurological first aid.
14:10 Speaker 00 Writing activates your prefrontal cortex more, the thinker, the logical door, and deactivates your amygdala, the freaking out center. Translation, it moves you from autopilot reaction to actual thinking and choosing your actions. From I need to eat the entire fridge right now to, okay, what's actually going on here? And what will serve me better? Number four, productively distracting yourself. Take a shower, go for a walk, take a nap, dance your ass off in the kitchen. Change your physical state and your emotional state will follow. The body leads, let it. Mate, you don't have to be sitting there by, I don't know, your fridge or whatever that is.
14:54 Speaker 00 You can just lay down on your bed, on your floor, put your blanket on top of you, I don't know, listen to some music. And you'll notice then in like, I don't know, a few moments, maybe five minutes, you'll be in a totally different state. Number five, don't starve yourself. You know what I've realized going through this emotional eating, like, process of change? Is that
15:20 Speaker 00 you don't have to either starve yourself and be hungry or binge. There, these are not the only two choices. You can have a banana, some rice cakes, a protein shake, a piece of fish, some eggs, some more milk with honey. And slow it down, don't rush it. And just, it will help you to manage your blood sugar, take the edge off, give your stomach something to work on with all the nutrients that you actually need, that actually might help you to deal with stress physiologically.
15:55 Speaker 00 Be- before your cravings turn into, you know, something that over tickle like a wave. You don't have to again starve and be hungry or, or eat, eat your like fridge off. You can just eat something nourishing. And actually, in that year, while I decided to really work on this emotional eating, I gave myself the permission to eat to fullness whenever I wanted. But I only had one rule, actually two, eat slowly, actually chewing your food. And the second thing, only whole foods, again, fruit, protein, nuts and seeds, but I don't know, bananas, apples.
16:38 Speaker 00 And then once there, you know, you use this toolkit. Sitting with discomfort is what you, what I recommend using every day for a little bit. And then when the urge, the craving or that stress hits, you do breathing, you do writing it down, breathing four in, eight out, five times or more, writing it all down and then productively distract yourself. And then, you know, have some milk with honey. And then go on and live your life. Act on what you can control, put down the rest that was never yours to carry.
17:19 Speaker 00 And in some time, you'll realize that you didn't have to win your urges and cravings or discipline yourself or willpower yourself all over. But instead, you just needed to build a skill that you were never taught. This emotional regulation, stress management techniques that actually work when you work them. And again, just like any habit, just like any, any tool, any behavior, anything, just like driving, right? When you learn how to drive, at first you have to pay attention to everything and it feels awkward and you're like, you don't know what you're doing.
18:01 Speaker 00 But then, once you really learn it, it feels like your second skin. Like, you can do it with your eyes closed. Hopefully, you don't, but you know what I mean? And that's exactly what house stress management works as well. After a while, you'll be free from your cravings and urges for life. And it's just gonna be the thing that you do all the time and you teach to other people, transforming their lives as well. So, we're gonna sum it up in a minute, but before we do that, don't forget to rate, review this podcast so we reach more people and help each other, help me grow this podcast to more and more countries and more and more cities. We are a global podcast on four continents, I think like eleven thousand cities, so let's
18:45 Speaker 00 bring it to more people. So we all get this skill of stress management, self-regulation, and a need to eat ourselves into more stress, more regret, more shame, instead of growing, developing, and building our extraordinary lives. So please share this podcast episodes with people, one person who, who might really need it. And yes, let's recap, to learn it, to remember, and start using it in our daily lives. So, practice to do every day, sitting with discomfort, choose something, like maybe staying hungry, right? It's also discomfort. And guess what? If you just stay hungry and don't do anything with it, you'll be fine, right? It's also a practice. That's where fasting is really cool.
19:30 Speaker 00 It teaches you, you can be hungry and you're not gonna die.
19:36 Speaker 00 Three or four other practices that you do when this urge, when this craving really gets to you, or when you're stressed and you maybe can't sleep because of that.
19:48 Speaker 00 Breathe, four counts in, eight counts out, repeat five times, write it all down, dump it all on the page, don't try to be smart, just write it all out. Productively distract yourself, nap, shower, bath, walk, dancing, whatever, you know, whatever moves you. And number five, eat something nourishing, something that you like, something that makes you feel good now and something you're proud of tomorrow. Have those foods ready. That's why I always have a lot of bananas, by the way, and rice cakes and some sort of protein. And then go on and live your life. And that's it, guys.
20:28 Speaker 00 Thank you for listening, thank you for tuning in, and don't forget to share and use it. And till next time, keep growing.
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