Episode #73 Featuring Amber Romaniuk! Overcoming emotional eating, The dangers of restrictive eating, Food addiction vs. Substance addiction, Steps to recovery and more!

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Welcome back to the Dillon Jamele podcast. So you're gonna see right off the bat why my episode today is very personal and emotional to me. I've talked about a lot of the issues within myself that I'm gonna get into today. And I have been very, very blessed to meet my guest today. And I believe that she can make a drastic impact on so many people that feel lost, hopeless, struggling. I myself, I mean, she's already played a good role just in listening and talking and everything. So we're gonna get into a lot today. Now, she is an emotional, eating, digestive and hormone expert. She's got 12 years of experience, helping high achieving women create a level of body confidence, intuition, and optimal health through really powerful mindset, healing, self-care and overcoming self-sabotage with food. And her podcast is called the No Sugar Coding Podcast that's 2 million downloads, 600 episodes. It's listened to in over 90 countries. I'm gonna be on there with her too to talk about different aspects of things that I've gone through. But I am really, I'm excited to talk to her today, but I have this like sense of emotion too about it. And I was telling her before, you know, I'm so overbooked and tired. To me, it was, this is so important. I don't care what's going on. There was no way I wasn't gonna do this with her today. So without further ado, and I don't wanna butcher her name because she already coached me, but it's Amber Romaniak. You got it. Thank you so much for having me, Dylan. Thanks for being here and for listening, for helping, for being open and honest about so many things. And I know we've only talked a couple of times, but you have this sense of calm and comfort in your voice and the way that you convey your message. And I'm, you know, I'm speaking on a personal level here, but I'm sure it resonates with everybody. And that's why you have a good following. But I'm excited to get that out of you today and bring that to the audience and talk about it. And I know that you've helped a lot of women, but you have an impact on men and everybody. And so I know I said that in the onset, but I wanna make it clear that you help everybody. Yeah. And yeah, I just wanna drain you for information today as much as I can. I'm happy to share everything I can. Well, all right, let's talk about it then. Let's get into it, cause this is a touchy emotional subject. A lot of people hide it. A lot of people don't wanna talk about it. A lot of people, how do I say we live in denial about something like this? And first and foremost, you do emotional eating. You do digestive, you do hormones. Talk to me a little bit about yourself. What brought you to take on this kind of work because it's not easy. And a lot of times it's something we've dealt with ourself. And if you don't mind opening up about that and just talking about why you do what you do. Yeah, yeah, I'm so happy to. So for me, I had planned to go to college and become a entertainment news reporter. So none of this that I know now is on my radar at all. I'm like, I just wanna do like sports and entertainment. And then of course I went to college for that. And then a whole like 360 degree change in my life happened when I had a breakup happen and ended up being so hurt I could barely eat. But to just fast track, a couple of things that were precursors to my binge eating and food addiction issues. When I was five, it was my first day taking the bus. I get on the bus, the older boys call me fat and ugly. And then the whole bus makes fun of me in that moment. I took on that identity of fat and ugly for the next 20 years of my life. And it made me very insecure in myself. And I grew up in a household with, you know, parents that were doing the best they could. My mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis before I was born. And she unconsciously had a food addiction her whole life. And I think when that diagnosis really hit her, it became a massive vapor, her cope. And because of a lot of the symptoms she was having, she was very overweight. One of our ways to bond was with food and to compensate for a lot of the things we couldn't do together because of her symptoms. So I had whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. And I think I had a unconscious, emotional eating, sugar addiction from a very young age because I didn't realize, you know, eating in front of the TV and eating two chocolate bars and two cookies and all this stuff was probably not the best for me. But I named nothing but nutrition or health. I just, I literally thought you either have crappy genes or you have good genes, you get Delta bad, you know, a bad hand of health or a good hand of health. And like, it's all decided for you before you, you know, even step into it. And obviously that is not true, but I didn't know anything at all at the time. So then I have this breakup. I lose weight really quickly because the diet industry has conditioned me that once you lose weight, you'll finally be happy. So I hit my goal weight through restriction, over exercise. I'm at the gym two hours a day, probably eating six or 700 calories a day. And obviously that was not sustainable. Cycle disappeared, I'm getting too thin and I'm getting so much more critical of my body. It didn't make me happy. It didn't resolve anything. And then the real big switch flipped when I went to a barbecue and I took an ice cream cake, but I'm like, no, I'm just having salad because I always just restricted when I would go out with my friends. And that night I ate a piece of ice cream cake and it was like this euphoric moment, which of course, I know now is a huge dopamine hind then the all or nothing kicked in, which was like, well, you messed up, you're not as sweet, whatever you want. So a more ice cream cake, I had a burger. I took, I stole the chocolate bar off the counter that was for the s'mores for everybody. Went in the bathroom, ate it, then made up an excuse that I had to leave. On the way home, got fast food and whole ice cream cake. Took it all home, binged until I was so full, I was sick. And that started my cycle of binge eating, which essentially was probably five or six nights a week for about three years. And I gained 80 pounds in four months. I went through a period of binging and purging for six months because I thought if I purge, I won't gain weight, even though that didn't do anything and just made me gain weight probably more easily. And then after I stopped purging, I said to myself, I can't keep purging because this is hurting me more. And I'm not taking any ownership or responsibility if I keep doing this, because I think, well, who cares if I binge, I'll just purge. And so I promised to stop purging. And I was just telling you before we came on that I had never really calculated prior to like how much I could eat in one sitting, but I would go to the organic store to justify why it was a healthier option, but I was eating tables full of food. So I was eating a good 5 to 6,000 calories in one binge. And it was like 400 to 500 grams of sugar, for three to 400 grams of fat, like 5,000 plus milligrams of sodium within about a 45 minute period in the evening. And then I would obviously be in so much pain, feeling so unwell, go to bed and try to, you know, restart the next day with restrictions, skipping breakfast, going to the gym. And that would just, you know, trigger the binges into the next evening. And so for me, that really vicious cycle lasted for a few years. And I really consume my entire identity. My, instead of being social dating, like I was in my early twenties, there's supposed to be very like exciting years, but I was at home isolated in shame because I'm binge eating and I'm 80 pounds overweight. I don't, I hate myself. I hate what I'm doing. I don't really know why I'm doing it. But all my hobbies, friends, everything just got cut off and I always had a story or an excuse so I couldn't hang out because I didn't want anyone to see me. I also was really obsessed with the number on the scale and I wasn't allowing myself to go in public or with friends aside from my retail job unless I was below a certain weight. So I was very critical of that. And then for me, what really, you know, started to change the path was I'd started to learn about binge eating. And I'm like, I think this is what I'm doing, but I still have no idea how to deal with it. I have a food addiction. I was addicted to Proceh sugar, MSG, Aspartame, gluten and dairy because after further research and learning how they all give you a huge dopamine high and they'll excite the same part of the brain as heroin or a hard drug, which was mind blowing. But essentially you're right. Like you said earlier, I was in this denial. It's like my inner critic was telling me, it's not a big deal. Like food is your friend. This is what you do. It makes you feel good. You can rely on it. It's there for you get to pick what you want to eat. And so the denial plus the fear of change, the thought of, oh my gosh, not only do I need to lose 80 pounds, like I don't even know how to deal with any of this. And then it was so daunting and intimidating and overwhelming to think about changing it that that plus the denial kept me in this comfort zone of suffering. And then when I had my low, low point moment, when I throw the food in the garbage, that specific night, I threw the food away, sat on my couch in pain, just my stomach always felt like it was gonna explode. I was like, I don't think I'm gonna make it a few more years if I keep doing this. Like it was so severe. And then of course my food settles a bit and that I call it the ego, the inner critics. Like, well, if it's the last time you're gonna do it, all or nothing, you might as well go eat the cookies out of the garbage. And so I did, I went into my kitchen, pulled out my garbage, ate the cookies and then threw it in the dumpster in the back alley, went out in the dumpster later in that night, pulled it back out, ate more of it. And I was like, who am I? Like, how did this become my life? I just ate out of a garbage in a dumpster. I'm broke, I'm alone, I have no life path. I am very unwell on all levels. Like, how did I end up here? But I needed that moment to happen because I can no longer deny that this wasn't a serious issue. The denial got crushed by the low point. And also, so did my fear of change, fear of the unknown, the intimidation around how am I gonna deal with this? All of that was crushed in that moment because what seemed like such a comfort zone now is so uncomfortable that I was like, I need to figure this out. This is not gonna end me. Like, I can't have this be what ends my life prematurely. So then I was catapulted onto the healing journey, which I did myself. Part of it was, I think, like God's guidance, just this invisible guidance of you're gonna figure it out. And part of it was I had one poor experience with the psychologist. I'm not poo-pooing them, but I went in, poured my heart out for the very first time, and she essentially said to me, well, just don't go to the store and buy the food. Just love yourself. And I was like, how is that gonna help me? I felt so judged. And then I asked her, like, have you dealt with any of this? And she said, no, I haven't. And I said, well, how can you help anyone? And then that triggered me to go and binge in. I'm like, I need to figure this out by myself. So I don't. But that was like what prompted me to get onto the healing journey. And then obviously was then inspired to, that this is my life purpose, because I get it to such a deep level. And I was at the lowest of lows with everything, but I never dealt with anorexia, but with food addiction, compulsion, emotional eating, binge eating, diet addiction, exercise addiction, like the body image dysmorphia, all of it. So it was quite the journey to heal it. It's hard to explain if someone's never gone through it, what it feels like, but it's like living in this endless, and you tell me how you feel, but I've always felt like this darkness, and you can't get out of it. Like you can't escape it. It becomes one of those things where you start to wonder, like, what am I even doing here? Because you start to add up the time, the money. We're not even talking about the health, okay? We'll just leave that to the side, because that's the most glaringly obvious. And then it would be like, and then let's actually, let's go back to the health. You go in for blood work and something's been wrong, and then it turns out okay, and you're like, okay, well, I'm okay then, I can just keep doing this, because it's okay. And it's like, it's a constant justification, right? And whatever you can come up with to make it seem okay. And it weighs on you, but you get so blind to the weight. And it's hard to explain, and it feels like I'm going back and forth on what I'm saying here, because I've gone through it for so many years. Similarly, a little bit differently, but similar. I, mine was on the bulimic side, and binging and purging side, but it's still the similar mindset. I wanna ask you, because I've always been like, well, I drank, I did drugs like, you know, I'm like 20s and I quit it easily. I mean, cocaine, alcohol, I had no trouble stopping at zero. And I'm not kidding it, it was not difficult, but with the food, it's like a fear of stopping it, and it feels it's overwhelming. What is it about food over other things? Is it something in the food? Is it the control that somebody has? I'm sure it's person to person specific, but what is it about the food? I think there's many things, and I think one of the first things is you can't quit eating. You can quit alcohol, you can quit drugs, and not go to the store and see it everywhere, I guess with a liquor store, but I feel like those things can stop more easily because they're also in some regard, not as society-ally acceptable as food. Like there's YouTubers that have millions of followers, and they're binge eating, they're binge eating, and people are validating them for that, and going, oh, so it must be okay to eat, a huge pizza and all this stuff, and so the way society has normalized over consumption of food and binge eating and overeating, which in my opinion is not okay because it's not good for any aspect of our health, I think that's part of it. I think there are addictive ingredients that are put in the food obviously on purpose to make us addicted. The people that did the cigarettes and tobacco companies just came over to the food industry right afterward and started working on adjusting and making the perfect dopamine high, that perfect, pleasure-y, euphoric moment, and you don't just have to eat an unhealthy food or a processed food to get that dopamine high. I went through a phase where I was binge eating cashews, peanut butter, organic peanut butter, and 10 bananas because what I started to realize is, yes, part of it is the food and the way society views it and so much is associated with food celebration, loss, hurt it, you skin your knee as a kid, your mom gets you ice cream, there's a death in the family, you eat, you celebrate holidays, you celebrate your birthday, something good happens, you eat, you reward yourself with food. I think part of it is the family dynamics and how did you grow up with it? Because if you were guilt-tripped, that they're starving kids and you need to finish what's on your plate, you're ignoring your phone list signals and that makes it easier to overeat or, oh, if you finish what's on your plate, you'll get dessert and then it's like that food reward. So there's all of these facets that I think can feed this being self-destructive with food so easily. And then I think it's in our face all the time. Everywhere you go, there is food available, either bookstore or the gas station. And then we end up associating pleasure, numbing, calmness, a very temporary little moment of euphoria with food. And the longer we've been in that behavior, the more ingrained it physically is in our brains chemically. And the more depleted we are of our mood-boosting neurotransmitters, the more we want to seek quick-fix dopamine highs from food or online shopping or scrolling. So I just think there's so many facets of it. And then I think, like you said, the darkness, like when you're in these behaviors, it's not just affecting you physically, mentally, emotionally, it's impacting you energetically, spiritually. So what I really started to learn as I was on the other edge of my healing was every time I do this, I am dropping into low vibration emotions, hatred, fear, worry, anger, loathing. And when I drop my frequency to such a low vibration, that's when I'm actually compromising my energy field and making it easier for my field to be influenced by negative energies, other girls, negative energies. And then I would be finding myself wanting to contact ex-boyfriends that were horrible for me or like go buy a bottle of wine and drink it, even though I'm like, I don't like wine or mindlessly spend money, right? So I just think there's so many things that equate to this heaviness and this darkness that impacts our frequency because it's so many of these things that we're doing to ourselves, thinking, saying to ourselves what we're putting in our body that is all compromising our frequency that kind of keeps us in this looping behavior. You know what's wild that you got me thinking about what you were saying that is, I still can pinpoint the time where I, so when I met my wife, I had moved before she could, because I was waiting for her job to transfer and I moved to Vegas and mind you, I had stopped partying and drinking and it's a long story, but I went out for New Year's and I was on the phone with her at like midnight, calling her telling her how miserable I was because I was drinking and I had done drugs again. And I said, you know, I remember all these nights and how miserable I was and I would still go keep doing it. And I said, but I just, I don't want to do whatever again. And to this day, that was like 11 years ago, 11, almost 12 now. I haven't again, but with the food, no matter how many times and how many times I would say, I hate this, like I can't stand this and I'd sit there doing it and say, I absolutely hate this. I couldn't convince myself to not do it, no matter how many times I said I wouldn't, you know, and I kept asking myself, how the hell did I quit the most addictive things, you know, the drugs and alcohol and why, like why? And then I think what you have to do is try to just like, not do one thing instead of trying to do everything at once. So I'd be like, okay, I just proved to myself, this wasn't so bad, I didn't do this. So let's try like, so we take X, Y, Z. So I did X, well, man, I feel kind of pretty damn good. Like I like this feeling. So let's try Y. And then I was like, I can't quite make it to Z. So what do I have to do? You know, when I kind of stagnate, but I think, and you tell me, because you've worked with this so long, I find with stuff like this and people that I've talked to, it, you have to ease yourself out of it. Because if you try to go all in all at once, you're just gonna fail and probably end up worse off than you were because you're gonna have such a massive relapse and just this huge withdrawal. And I think if you step by step it, you just have a far better chance of weaning yourself off and making it, you know? But you tell me, what is your methodology there or your belief and what you've encountered? I agree with that. You cannot fast track this journey. You can't quick fix it and you can't do it all in a week, a month or even a few months, especially if you've been dealing with it for years or decades. This is years of inherited patterning, behavior, beliefs, brain chemistry shifts, hormone shifts. Like there's so many things here. And so it is about going slow and being willing to accept that this healing journey is going to take time. That is what you have to offer yourself and muster up your patience. Because the reality is it's going to take time to change. It took me three or four years to fully overcome this. It doesn't usually take my clients that long because I'm able to help them with that. But the average amount of time I work with someone is at least 12 to 18 months. Some of them it's about two years and it's not just them healing emotional eating. They wanna set boundaries. They wanna fully get their hormones in check. They want to really build their self-worth. And if you spent your whole life feeling unworthy, it's gonna take more than a year to rewire all of that. So be patient first off. And yeah, then there's layers to the journey. And to me, the most important first thing we have to start understanding is what is triggering me to use food instead of actually dealing with the trigger and working through it. And the biggest block is there are dozens and dozens of potential emotional and binge eating triggers and we're not taught what they are. Yeah, overwhelm, loneliness, sadness, happiness, right? Some of us are aware of some of our triggers, but a lot of people don't know that, right? If you have a weight chasing the number on the scale as you get on the scale, you don't like the number. You see that can become a trigger. If you didn't sleep all last night and your cortisol's up, you're a ghrelin levels, which is your hunger hormone is increased and it's easier to overeat. You produce less leptin that makes you full. If you have a thyroid issue, you don't feel hungry. And then he wanna overeat later in the day. So there's a significant level of hormonal imbalances near our transmitter imbalances, gut imbalances, blood trigger issues, hunger hormone imbalances. And then there's the emotional, emotional eating triggers, the self-loathing, the unworthiness, if I'm alone. A lot of people, if they're spouse leaves, they're like party time, time to eat all the stuff and no one's gonna see me, right? There's a wounded inner child we all have that needs love and healing. And then we have the energetic emotional eating triggers, like I'm a sensitive empath, I can feel everyone's stuff and I don't know how to process it and not take it on. And then all of a sudden I hang out with my friend and they're upset and I take on all their stuff and now I'm stressed and now I wanna binge, right? So we see on all these levels how this can really impact and keep triggering us. And if we don't know what's going on and we're last on our lifts and we're constantly in self-loathing and negative, food is gonna continue to be your option of choice. And diets, restriction, cutting out a lot of foods, aside from what I would say is more ultra processed up, but you still have to do it slowly and have alternatives that are gonna be better for you. Like me as an example, I was so addicted to sugar, wheat and dairy, I tried dozens of times to cut them out because I started to realize like, I don't think I can gain progress if I keep trying to have these in the house, I keep losing control. Zarda, dozens of attempts, I was able to stop eating them, I found alternatives, but then I realized, okay, I still wanna eat a whole jar of cashews and a whole thing of nut butter and all this stuff. And that's when I realized how deep the emotional healing was that I needed to do. I had this void, this lack of self-love, I was trying to fill with food. But I do think that for some people, if you're in a really severe food addiction, minimizing your intake of whatever your kryptonite is and having better alternatives is gonna be part of what helps you forward. Some of my clients don't need to do that because it's a minimal issue, but I've had clients who have tried having certain things in the house and they're like, I keep going back to it. So getting honest with your food vulnerabilities and your food fears and having a period of time where you feel more relaxed in your own home, I think is important because once you heal it, because I'm a product of that and store my clients, you can have anything in your house and you will not be tempted. There's this detachment that you build with food where you love it, it's good for your fueling, you enjoy an indulgence here and there, but you're just detached from it otherwise because you found much healthier ways to cope and feel through and bring you joy and level your mood and all that stuff. But it definitely feels like a slippery slope in the beginning, so we have to take it slow, understand what's triggering you and start working through those triggers and introduce tools and methods to help you deal with those triggers. Some of them are big, right? People pleasing is an example. Well, you can't, don't just take a supplement or add it a food to stop people pleasing. That is like probably yours of feeling insecure, feeling the need to get validation from others because you don't feel good enough. People are terrified to set boundaries. It takes time to muster up the courage to do that, to say no, to ask for help, to prioritize your needs, to work through the guilt of making yourself a priority. So this is where it's taking the time and where you're probably hearing me and going, that's why the diets don't work and the quick fixes don't work because you're just detaching from actually going inward and seeing what actually needs love and attention. Yeah. Our teachers are trying to show you where you're out of alignment and where you need love and attention and continuing to distract and disconnect with diets and quick fixes and chasing numbers keeps us from going in and doing that healing. One of the things that can be terrible that people do to themselves that can trigger this and cause potential disorder struggles or exacerbate a problem is restrictive dieting. And one of the things that I realized within myself over the years, and you know what's really crazy about this Amber is I've been a nutritionist for 15 years and like just none of it resonates. I'm just sitting here and beating myself up about being a hypocrite alone because I'm teaching people to do one thing and not doing what I teach. But restrictive dieting and fears of foods, especially fats that terrified me for so long even in knowing the importance of them. And from the personal side in October, I came home one day and I told my wife because she's watched me and just suffered through it with me and just kind of done whatever she can to make me feel good, right? And I said, okay, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I'm so sick of being so restrictive all day that I'm so miserable. I'm always angry. I'm always short with you and everybody else. I can't stay focused more than 20 minutes and I'm eating 20 servings of fucking vegetables all day and nothing else, right? Excuse my language, but I'm gonna get rocked on this. So I said, you know what? I said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go, we're gonna go buy ground beef. I'm gonna eat avocados. I'm gonna have a whole eggs and stop being such a weirdo with the egg whites. I'm gonna have salmon even though I tell you I don't like it, I'm gonna try it. I tell you I don't like avocado. I don't even know if I do, I'm gonna try it. And you know what? I went from eating 15 to 1700 calories a day and you and I have discussed and most people know how much I work out. That's like so drastically under eating or a person working out on my level. Now I'm up to 27 to 3000 calories a day and I went from 15 to 20 grams of fat to 135, okay? And I have not been this trot, this shredded and this like happy with the way I look. And I've lost weight and I'm eating more like than I've ever eaten. And I'm not trying to lose weight, mind you at all. But the way I feel and look and my skin and my attitude, even when I'm tired, I'm still happy, right? And I think that restrictive eating and fears of things without understanding or crash dieting can play a really massive role in either exacerbating or developing an eating disorder. What do you think? Yeah, no, you're 100% right. And I'm glad you added in the fat. So essentially there's aspects to this. So diets teach restriction. They in essence teach a perfection mentality. You either have to be all in to attain or create X result or outcome. And if you're not, then you are a failure. You didn't do it. And a lot of people are wanting weight loss. Yes, maybe for some it's improving their gut health or blood sugar, but a lot are wanting weight loss because they're in desperate need to finally feel happy and thinking that that's gonna solve everything, right? So this diet restriction mentality teaches the all or nothing. And then that perfection, all or nothing comes not only just in with food, but every other aspect of our lives. But we do really inherited or like, you know, I went through phases, I was vegan, I was raw. Those were horrible. I trashed my digestive system. It made me wanna binge more because all the carbs, I'm eating all my protein. I stopped eating animal protein. I'm eating all these plant proteins. My blood sugar is a disaster. I have bigger cravings. I wanna binge even more, right? I went through a phase where I cut out fruit thinking that was gonna help heal my gut, but I was still binge eating. I wanted to just binge eat all of the fruit. Restriction only fuels the desire to have what you're not allowing yourself to have and food rebellion. And what happens, maybe you do good for a week or two, but then essentially it hits the fan for lack of a better word and you get triggered. Once your triggers are hitting you in the face again, that's when you go back to the binge emotional eating because they do not address what's actually triggering you. They're just that other quick fix. Same with, and you know, it's innocent. Like I've had many clients come to me with this. My naturopath put me on an elimination diet because I have Candida. My naturopath put me on this diet because I have high insulin, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, did they ask you a kind of relationship with food that they have? Did you tell them, well, I don't feel safe doing so. So there's actually a missed dialogue, I find, with a lot of healthcare practitioners not acknowledging anything to do with relationship with food. And then they just put their patients on these protocols. This is the way, because this is what they're taught. And then they get upset with their patients when they're coming back saying, well, it didn't work or this didn't change. And then almost like blaming it on the patient or getting upset and frustrated when there's a lack of dialogue and understanding about, you can't put some on an elimination diet. That is binge or emotionally eating because they're going to get triggered. And then they're gonna be like, I'm never gonna heal because I couldn't keep doing that. Just like people with weight loss. Unless I can be perfect on the diet, I'm not gonna achieve my weight loss and be able to keep it off. So same with fasting, in my opinion, it's one of the worst things anyone can do if you're binge eating, emotionally eating and a food addiction, because it's just gonna end up all boomeranging later in the day and you have a surge of hunger, right? A surge of cravings and you want to overeat. So in my opinion and my expertise, we cannot be restricting and skipping meals to help us heal our relationship with food. And if you're doing that, don't shame yourself, but it's starting to get curious and go, why do I think this is gonna work and why is this my approach? Is it still less calories means more weight loss? Because we gotta deal with that and heal that because you'll stay stuck in those cycles. Yes, Jess, Jess. You know how long I would say like, oh, fat's gonna make you fat and all of this. And look, I try to be one of those people that doesn't go back and regret this and that. I use it as a tool and I use it as something to help me. But I was telling my wife the other day, just out of the blue, I said, do you know how pissed off I am that I haven't eaten butter in 10 or 12 years? You know what I mean? Like you know what I mean? These things that I maybe threw up at number eight and I thought we're gonna harm me and I have ground beef like almost every day and it's, and when you actually, so if you have a fast food burger and then, and it's, even if you're keeping it down, you feel like just crap, right? But if you get like grass-fed ground beef, even 80, 20 and you eat it and you feel great and it, then I wake up and I'm like, man, I'm more cuffed than I was yesterday and I ate all of these calories and this fat, but it's good quality food that your body needs. And if you understand what certain things do with in your body and how they work and how they feed you, I mean, I understand and we don't have to do the whole diet mythology about the, you know, cholesterol and everything, cause I talk about it all the time and we would talk for a year on that because I get so irate with that. But, you know, some of these foods that we're scared of and we're going to leave out the other reasons why, like I said, we could get scared if we just realized what their function is, why they're important and the role they play, but, you know, just like anything else, like you said, there's good ones and bad ones. So there are high fat foods or high carbohydrate foods or high, whatever that are processed and made like crap that will make you gain weight. But if you take quality nutrients and use them right and balance them right and, you know, we could get into the low carb versus high carb and all of that. Everybody's a little different on what works for them. I get bodybuilders that need more carbs, but I think for, and you tell me, I think for the general everyday person, I don't like over consumption of carbs. I think it's good to have a couple of high carb days to, you know, maintain metabolic flexibility, but I think higher fat, higher protein tends to work well for more people, general from what I've observed. I just, just, what are your thoughts on that before we get in further to, you know, some of the things we're talking about? I'm curious. Yeah, I agree. So I think one of the biggest blocks in the beginning, a misunderstanding or again, the fat fear, the protein fears, we have really been taught that we shouldn't be eating a lot of them and many people are undernourished with protein and fat. And so to help with blood sugar stability, reduce the sugar cravings, the carb cravings, we need to make sure we're eating enough of those because that all becomes a trigger and the more stable your blood sugar, it helps kind of clear a layer of wanting to binge and emotionally eat, because you also feel more physically satiated and if you feel more physically satiated, you're not going to be as triggered. Now, being that I work with a lot of women, I do find, and it's not like a lot of grains I find. Personally, I don't like doing a lot of grain. My body prefers more like carbs from fruits and vegetables, starch vegetables, things like that. But most of the women that I work with and some of the men that I work with, all have really high cortisol due to all the stuff that they put their bodies through with the binge eating, the overbook schedule, et cetera. So they're doing very good amounts of protein and fat, but they also need enough carbohydrates because if they do too high protein, too high fat, it's just gonna shoot their cortisol higher. So that makes the nut balance as important. But it's like whole foods from nature carbohydrates, like sweet potatoes, right? Mixed with your greens and like beets, carrots, squashes. I just find that those are such wholesome foods to pair along, but part of it is really gonna really be dictated by, where's your cortisol levels, right? And where's your blood sugar at? Those are huge parts of this because one mess up that I made, and this caused me to gain 80 pounds after I stopped binge eating, was when I cut the fruit out and I cut out most carbohydrates. And I was, this was horrible, don't do this, anyone. I was eating like tuna and steamed cauliflower for breakfast. Cause someone told me it would help me heal my gut. And so I did that for a few months. My digestion felt a bit better, but did I ever want to binge even worse? My cortisol went 10 times higher than it should have been here in Canada. I shouldn't go above 375, that's like optimal, it was 2000. I gained hypothyroid, estrogen dominance, low progesterone. I was flagging post-menopausal at 24. And this heavily carb restrictive way of eating, really obviously along with my binge eating behaviors that I previously had, just created all these serious hormone issues. And when I realized my cortisol was so high and I was not eating enough carbs and I'm waking up going to the gym, eating like such low carb and protein and fat for breakfast, I started adding in more whole foods carbs. And that was one of the things that helped my cortisol start to regulate. So depending on your hormones, your blood sugar, but each person is a little different. Like my husband, he loves having like brown rice and more of those kinds of things with his meals. He processes it well, I don't like them. I want fruits and veggies. So yeah. Well, my wife is Filipino and she eats like a gallon of rice a day. And I ended up getting a way with it. But as a diet person, I've talked to her and we've changed, she doesn't gain a pound. She's still under a hundred pounds. Like it's anomaly, right? But it does get excessive. And so we talk about it and she's very good and very on my same kind of mindset on diet. But I like having this discussion with somebody like you because we can talk about overcoming it and like it's fun. And it's crazy the things that I am, are like my foods. That if you asked me, I don't know, less than a year ago, what foods can't you live without? And you asked me today, you'd be shocked at the difference. Cause everything I've listed would be like this vegetable and whatever. And now it's like avocado can't live without it. And I used to think I didn't like it because of the texture and all the fat. And I'm telling you, I went from when I started eating avocados to, cause I weigh all my foods and measurements precisely and I went from eating 80 grams of avocado a day and going, I'd tell my wife, ah, that might be pushed it to 200. Okay. And on the weekends, 225 to 250, cause I'm having a bigger meal and less of the other. But like my staple foods went from like all these low fat vegetables to now avocado, whole eggs. I was doing like 20 egg whites a day and now really enjoying the egg whites and understanding the nutrients in them and ground beef. And all of these things like we're talking about that would never go near. And I think when you find somebody like you that helps recover, it's not just the recovery on the health side, it's mentally what it does for you. And I would like to ask you, you know, I think it's fairly, and you can touch on some of the health problems with binge eating, but talk to me about the mental side of it and what you do for people mentally and kind of things that they endure mentally. Yeah, a hundred percent. I think this is one of the biggest pieces. So mentally, your inner critic is running the show when you're going through all this. It's hating on you and being critical of you because you are in these behaviors. And then it's being critical of you and hating on you for deciding to go on another diet, but enabling you to restrict and go on another diet and skip breakfast tomorrow and go to the gym and work out for longer. Nothing will ever be good enough. And this inner critic that I call the ego mind gets fully programmed into us between ages zero to seven. And it really is birth from our insecurities, hence my being five on the bus and getting bullied and then having that identity for 20 years. And so this is a huge part of the work I start doing with my clients, aside from starting to become aware of the triggers is let's talk about what it feels like when you give your power away to your inner critic and how do you behave once that part of you takes over and how do you start to take your power back? Because as soon as our inner critic takes over or has been just constantly running the show, it's gonna keep justifying why you should stay where you are, not change and keep doing what you're doing and keep you in denial, right? And then from a brain standpoint, this was all mind blowing when I learned about the brain and the brain chemistry pieces. So another thing that's extremely important and why it's so important to be patient is when you repeat the same habit. So I was binge eating it every evening pretty much. I'd put on the same movie, buy my food from the organic store, eat it, right, and repeat. And so when I wanted to stop binge eating, I would get to the evening be like, I don't wanna do this. And then all of a sudden I would have such an urge to go to food. And it's because I learned of course, when we are creating habits and patterns, we are wiring what is called a neural pathway in the brain. So if you're being hard on yourself, right, here's the mental part, you're being so hard on yourself because you keep getting triggered, you suck, you don't have willpower, you gotta try harder. Well, actually, you've literally wired a pathway in your brain that is lighting up around the same time every day that you go to binge eating. So for me it was the evening and it was the specific movie. I literally couldn't watch that movie for four years because every time I turned it on, I wanted to eat so bad because I created this association. So being aware of that patterning is incredibly important. I think as well, we need to start to become aware of the way we're speaking to ourselves because it's very exhausting and draining to constantly be berating and belittling yourself, telling yourself you're not good enough, you're stupid, you're fat, you're ugly, you're useless, you can't even do this, right? Like it's so freaking exhausting. And so starting to build awareness around the way that we're speaking to ourselves and actually being willing to start apologizing to ourselves for the way we're speaking to ourselves is incredibly important. And to actually start thinking about, writing about, affirming how I want to feel living in my body, how I want to treat myself, who would I be if I felt worthy, if I was free of this? You've got to start imagining what you want to create because that's part of how you create and manifest it other than taking the actions. And I know a lot of people say, well, I'm a fraud, I don't love myself, I hate my body-less stuff. Yeah, I was there too, but I had to start reprogramming my subconscious mind, all the negative self-talk, all these things that I have been talking to you about. And I started to affirm, I'm healing this, I'm learning how to like myself, I'm proud of myself because I like these parts of my body and I'm like, this is bull, I know this is a lie, but I had to start reprogramming. So while we are hearing what we're saying to ourselves and we start to take a bit of an inventory of how negative we are toward ourselves, that gives us awareness of how to shift the dialogue and start forgiving ourselves. I had to do so much forgiveness work around what I put myself through. And I was immensely grateful for my body because I put her through hell and back and she gave me a second chance and I will forever be so grateful for that. So there's that aspect of it in a big part and this is men and women equally as important in our child healing. If you have had trauma, you were told you're not good enough, you got bullied, you got put on a diet as a kid, you had to move your parents separate or whatever happened. That had a significant impact on you as a child. And unless you have gone in and talked to that part of you, and actually heard that part of you and taken time to give love to that part of you and release those things, that builds up in your body and that creates the insecurities you have to this day. Whether it's about weight, people pleasing for your abandonment, being attached to your partner because you're afraid they're gonna leave, whatever it is. And so I had to go back to that bus experience 12 times with my inner child and walk with her and observe her when she got called ugly and fat and be with her and explain why that probably happened and help her like essentially neutralize that memory that was stuck and dysregulating my nervous system. Right, because that's what happens. The more we suppress and numb and shove our emotion down with food or whatever, and the more we have these wounds build up in our body, your nervous system gets so dysregulated because it's this accumulation. You can't necessarily see it maybe with weight, but you can feel the heaviness, the darkness, the density, the sluggishness. And part of that is all the stuck emotion and energy building up in your body and it will manifest in different places for different people, but add that you start to apologize, catch the negative self-talk, do inner child healing again, be patient. This is gonna take time. Using tools like breath work, EFT tapping, oh my gosh, game changer because it clears negative thoughts and emotions from the subconscious to a cellular level. And then we can tap in more of what we wanna feel instead. These tools are gonna be, and everyone's gonna try different things, mindful movement, getting into nature, praying, journaling, getting help. These things are going to be pivotal because you need healthy ways to cope and you need tools to help with what happens when I get triggered. What am I going to instead of food? So you build these practices over time. So these are some of the many things that I'm helping my clients with and then I'm helping them reshape their identity. Who would you be if you weren't binge eating anymore? How would it feel if you loved yourself? How would it feel if you caught a trigger? Instead of people pleasing, how do you wanna respond to this person who is taking advantage of you? Wow, it sounds like your relationship with your husband isn't in a really healthy place. How would it feel if you could have a conversation with him and you guys could work together and heal it? It's just so powerful because we spend so much time thinking about what we don't want and all the suffering and the struggling, we actually don't entertain what we really want instead. And so taking time to give energy to that and to bring that into the body and the subconscious also as part of what is gonna help us shift it. There's many aspects but those are some of the things that are extremely important to help us change it. I think that it's so complex and so difficult for people that they don't even know where to start and it's scary. You know what I mean? And I always felt like, why am I so weak with this? Like, and back then it's different now but you gotta think 15, 20 years ago this is one of those things as a man, especially like me and bodybuilding and things that I'm around and saying anything like this. It's like you can't, you can't, but you can. You can't because of what you're saying, the people pleasing them to worry about other people and worried about what anybody else thinks which makes zero difference. It makes none. All that matters is that you're going and being honest about what's going on and getting the help you need and fixing it because in the end what anybody says or thinks when you wake up in the morning what bearing does that have on your life? Yeah. None, right? And if it does, that's a whole nother area that you need to address, right? And I had to come to grips with that and it was from multitude of things. The industry that I'm in, the image that I try to carry but you know what? I found every bodybuilder, everybody in health and fitness, everybody's got some sort of eating disorder or image issue, right? Whether it's bigorexia and aurexia, it's something and it's all revolved and related around a body, image, diet and food. And it's a struggle for so many more people that don't even realize they have an eating disorder or a bad relationship with food. I think that it affects almost everybody. Now, obviously not everybody takes it to an extreme of a full-blown what we're talking about. But I think being honest, if we all took a deep look inside, this is one of those things that it's like anxiety where almost everybody has it to a point. What do you think about that? 100%, you're so right. And it could be minor emotional eating where you have a bit of a stressful day and you need half a chocolate bar, right? It could be that minimal minor, I eat a little bag of chips but I actually didn't need it. But then it can turn full-blown into the binge, eating the binge per cycle and the full-blown food addiction where all you think about is food, whether you're counting and weighing and measuring to have control or you're dieting to have control or you're planning your next binge or you're planning, oh my God, what do I eat next to like counter what I ate yesterday? Like you're just consumed with it, right? So I just feel like there's different kind of spectrums and levels of it, but 90% of the female population in North America struggles with some form of emotional relationship with food and body image issues and men is about 50 to 60%. Maybe there's an updated stat since I looked at that. So you're right, it is the majority of the population and it's starting as young as four to five now for little kids because they're, and I gained how you want a parent but you're letting your kids on social media and they're playing around with filters and they're seeing all these images and it is, in my opinion, not helping. And now they want to get surgeries and they want to diet because they're starting to compare and again, we think there's something wrong with us. So it is a huge epidemic, but let's face it. They made it an epidemic on purpose. The diet industry, the weight loss industry, there are multi-trillion dollar your industries. The food industry, then you need pharmaceuticals, right? Because your doctor isn't helping you properly deal with these issues or you're not opening up about them and you end up type two diabetic and sun resistant, whatever is going on. So it's like all these systems are literally like counting on you to stay in this vicious cycle. Look at the media and how dysmorphic, like photoshopping, editing, right? We've been fulled such bowl. So you see all these big systems and they've literally, in my opinion, been designed to keep these behaviors amplified for people and keep them going because if you heal, you're not giving your money to the diet and weight loss industry, you're not buying ultra processed food. You don't need pharma. Like you are self-sufficient. You're maybe getting some vitamins. You're going to the farmer's market and supporting the local, like it largely benefits the local economy and you, first and foremost. They don't want that. It's an easy way to keep people out of their power, keep them desperate. And then it's funny, I went to LA to do a podcast interview a couple of years ago, I'll share the story with you and I was walking down Murdo drive and this Lamborghini pulled up and I don't know some famous rapper came out and this lady was like freaking out. She's like, can I get a photo of you? She's like, I wanna look like I'm somebody. And I just thought to her, this does not make you somebody, you are somebody, but you don't get your value and they've done such a good job of ripping that out of people. And that's why this healing is so powerful because you get to bring it back and you get to remember you've always had it. You were born with it, but you were conditioned that you're minuscule, but we're all children of God. We are all so worthy, but you've got to do the healing to bring it back in and remember it and reclaim it. I understand that not everybody's going to be spiritual and that's fine. I don't ever push it on people, but at the same hand, for me, I kept going, I need to do this, I need to do that, I need to do that. And then one day I was just walking down, I just said that just need to let God lead me. He was telling me and I just, and it's still a battle and not quite there, but it went from like a seven day a week thing to like a two day a week thing. And that for me was like unreal because it was like for every single day. And it was like just when you put God first and you find that answer and it's not just for the eating, it's for everything. Because then you realize how non-important, so many of the things that you think are important are. And I'm sure there's, if you're not religious and you don't follow that, I pray for you, but there are other methodologies or ways to still wrap your head around it and find something to help you. But the main, I think, the takeaway that you and I are both trying to convey here is, doesn't matter. It's about yourself. You can't love it, anybody else would do anything else. If you don't love yourself, if you don't take care of yourself and what some people think is important just isn't. No, 100%. It's so true. And we're mirrors. So when we're in these behaviors, like I was attracting all these alcoholic like guys, like dating, they all had drinking issues when I was being genius, like no wonder, emotionally unavailable men because I'm emotionally unavailable, thinking a guy is gonna fix my issues. I'm like, little did they realize, but they're gonna be my motivation why I don't binge eat. So like thinking someone else can motivate you to stop also is not ideal. I've had clients be like, I had a baby because I thought that that would motivate that I'm like nothing outside of you support, but nothing outside of you is gonna help you yield this. So please call your power back to you and recognize if you're being a mirror and you're unhappy with certain people or circumstances you're attracting, what's going on within that is creating that external reality, right? Cause it will shift as you heal. I've done that. I bought like expensive cars and said, well, I spent a bunch of money in this. So I'm not gonna spend the money on the food and I'm just gonna go sit out with the car and I'm just gonna go to the, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work. It none of that stuff works. You tell yourself it's gonna, you make yourself believe it's gonna when it just doesn't. Well, let me ask you this. What is, and I wanna kind of veer off to this because I think this will be one of the most impactful questions I could have for you. What's the first step that somebody needs to take to address this? Is it admit it to yourself? Is it go talk to somebody? What is, what can someone go? When they finally had enough, what is the first step and how can they overcome whatever fear or whatever is impeding them? What do they need to try to do? I think the first step is being lovingly honest with yourself that this is what is going on. Admit it to yourself and don't have shame, gift yourself grace. It's not, you're not the problem. And there's nothing wrong with you. This is multi-complex and faceted and you have not been taught how to deal with it. And then I think from there, it depends like, do you wanna start building awareness yourself? Because starting to figure out before you eat is this physical and emotional hunger is a great question to be asking yourself because you will start to see how often it is emotional. It's just physical and that's helpful because you're like, oh my gosh, I'm always like reaching for stuff because it's emotional hunger. And then you can start making your triggers less, right? So that's super powerful that you can start with on your own. And even if you do give in to food afterward, here's the biggest thing people, you've gotta be willing to start dedicating time to understanding why you're doing this. You cannot just be like, oh, I did that. I'm not gonna think about it. So after you binge or if you are triggered or to emotionally eat, try to remove yourself from the temptation and go, what is going on right now? Is it the visual of seeing the food that's triggering me? Is it I'm tired, I had a bad day? Like what is going on that is causing me to need this right now? Because that is gonna start catapulting your awareness to understanding what's triggering you and starting to pull back more on that emotional hunger. Now, if you've been struggling with this for years or decades, you've already admitted it to yourself, you're like, I feel like I know it's triggering me, but I literally can't stop. Then that's when I would encourage you to reach out and have a conversation with someone. Consider getting support. Healing this and having support, I think is one of the most empowering, emotional, physical, financial investments because you've probably spent, like I did 50K and five years on Bench Foods Quick Fixes, personal trainers that I quit seeing after two sessions because they couldn't, like they weren't gonna motivate me to stop, right? How much money have you spent? All you could invest in yourself and actually resolve it and actually save so much money and then also be free of this. So consider that or even just to talk to someone and let them know what's been going on, but pick someone you feel safe with, right? So that you don't regret that experience like I did when I first opened up. But yeah, so I think is this physical or emotional hunger? What is triggering me? I need to admit to myself that I'm doing this, open up and talk to somebody about it. All drastically good points. I'm not gonna get into the money thing because I'll cry, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I really deeply, and I think people aren't watching, you could probably see some of the reactions on my face, how much this conversation is impacting me. I hope it has resonated and had that on so many people that are either scared and feared, just don't know, just don't understand. When you can talk and be open and have these kinds of conversations, and it's like anybody can talk about it, it doesn't matter what they do, what their stature is, high, low, whatever. I always tell people, I am just like the next person. I have a lot of followers online, big effin' deal. It means people like to hear what I say. It doesn't make me anything. I'm a normal dude with normal shit that wakes up every day and I want everybody to always see that all of us, it's not about me thinking I'm special. I just want you to see like, you might look at me a certain way. I don't. And that it should show you that every person, every person you think is so famous or whatever, they're all the same. All the same, they're just good at what they do. That's it. You're great at what you do and the next person is great at something else. So don't think that other people don't have the same things going on we do. I think it's important though that we're vulnerable in terms of, as you can see, I don't care. I'll say whatever the hell I wanna say. If you don't like it or if you're gonna judge me on it, I don't want you watching. Yeah. You know? So I hope that, you know, this has helped. I can't tell you and give you enough gratitude and grace on what you're doing and what you've done and what you continue to do, just, you know, on a personal level, how appreciated it is to me and touching. So I can't give you enough thank yous. All I can do is, you know, try to put you in front of people and, you know, give you what you deserve around people. But if you would tell people the best ways to follow you, how they could hire you, how they could talk to you, whatever, and we'll link it all in the description. Yeah, and thank you for having me and being willing to have this conversation. We need to normalize this conversation. So my podcast is called the Nail Sugar Coding Podcast, which I'm so excited to have you on and it's available everywhere, of course. The website is amberapproved.ca. I have a free emotional eating quiz and workshop if you wanna check those out. If you're wondering if you're struggling, you wanna get an intro in and then I offer a 30 minute complimentary body freedom consultation. Anywhere in the world, we hop on Zoom, we do a quick intake and talk about what your struggles are, where you're seeking support, what isn't working, and why a different approach could be exactly what you need. So if you wanna reach out for support, I'm here for you and then I'm on Instagram and YouTube and it is my name, AmberRomanic, R-O-M-A-N-I-U-K. Awesome. Well, I, like I said, I can't give you enough compliment or grace, just no. And I think you can see in my face the impact and the appreciation. I am certain this will convey greatly to others and I am blessed to the highest extent to get to talk to so many different people like you and put this out there. And I used to be so selfish in everything I did and it was Dillon, Dillon, Dillon. Now it's everybody else. And I just thank you for being a part of that and helping me on my personal journey to become greater for me, but for everybody else that I'm around and try to really do God's intended work. So thank you because you won't ever know because I can't put into words the impact you've had on me alone. So thank you. My pleasure and thank you for holding the space so I could come and share. Absolutely, absolutely. All right, everybody. Well, that wraps up another one. I really, really, really hope this resonates with everybody. And in one way or another, I think that whether you have a big disorder or not, this is going to help you in one facet or another. So stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dillon, Jameli and AmberRomanic signing off.