SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome back to Hashimoto's Nutrition RX Show. Today's guest is someone I'm so excited for you to meet, Dr. Melissa McCreary. So Dr. Melissa McCreary is a psychologist, emotional eating expert, author, and the creator of You're Missing Peace, a program that helps smart, busy women break the exhausting cycle of overeating and finally find peace with food. She's also the host of Too Much on Her Plate podcast, and her work has been featured in places like the Wall Street Journal, CNN Health, Good Housekeeping, and Women's Health. Dr. McCreary, welcome.

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

I am so glad to be here. Thank you for having me, Natalia.

SPEAKER_01: 0:47

Yes, you know what I love about your approach is that it's not just about more willpower, restrictions, or rules. It's about uncovering what's actually driving your cravings and I guess creating a new relationship with food. Guys, if you have been navigating fatigue, hormonal shifts, and this roller coasters with Hashimoto's, right? I think you're going to feel incredibly seen in this conversation. Now, Dr. McCreary, before we dive in, I would love for listeners to hear a bit about your journey. What led you into this work of helping women break free from emotional eating?

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

There are about four different versions of that story I could tell you, because there's so many layers to that at this point. But I think the key words that you use there are breaking free. So I am a woman who, like just about every other woman on the planet, has had their own struggles with food and with weight and with eating and with the relationship with food and all that kind of stuff. And I healed that decades ago. Found a relationship with food that felt freeing and felt peaceful and was mine. And I thought I was done with all of this stuff. It was not, I often say, I used to bite my nails when I was a little girl, and then I stopped. And I don't wake up in the middle of the night worrying that tomorrow I might bite my nails. I don't worry that will come back. I don't have a habit checklist of don't bite my nails today. I just don't bite my nails anymore. And my relationship with food and overeating and emotional eating was that peaceful. And then I became a psychologist. And what I learned working with women and working with women and issues with food and eating is that I guess what I like to say is I sat across from one too many amazing women who looked me in the eye and told me about all the amazing things they were doing in their life and all the accomplishments that they had achieved. And yet they felt like food was this one thing that was always going to be a struggle for them. They were always going to have to control it. They were always going to have to stay on top of it or worry about whether would they be able to get the results that they wanted. And as a psychologist, I also learned that's what professionals believed too. We were supposed to be teaching people to manage behaviors. And I knew it from my own life. I knew from the work I was doing with my clients, that's just not, that's not enough. Life is too short to spend it struggling with food. And then the internet opened up, and all these possibilities happened to work with people around the world. And that really became my mission was to help people let go of this stuff, right? To have it stop taking up so much space in your head so that you can do the things that are really important to you. And not very many people are teaching women that is possible to do.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

Yes, and I really appreciate your sharing your story. And I also appreciate that you had a personal connection to what you're doing right now. Because I think when we say we've been there, done that, it makes us a better clinician or practitioner. It makes us better in helping people. So you mentioned something. Let's talk about this smart, capable women struggling with foods. Because I see so many women with Hashimoto's who are incredibly successful in their careers and families. Yet food feels like this one thing they cannot get a handle on with the fatigue, brain fog, and these hormonal fluctuations that come with Hashimoto's, it can feel like their willpower just gone, disappeared. And I'm just curious, why do you think so many smart, capable women feel completely in control in other areas of life, yet food feels like that one thing that they cannot master?

SPEAKER_00: 4:51

A couple of different reasons. One is that we live in a world that teaches us to use food for everything, right? And food is one of the few things that touches all of our senses. It really can provide all sorts of different experiences for us. Food is a lovely thing if you're somebody who's a busy overachiever, who's a people pleaser. It's something that you can stick in the cracks of your life without slowing down and without saying no to anybody else, right? It's incredibly convenient. But I think the other reason that so many smart women get caught in these never-ending cycles with food is that we get taught the completely wrong approach. We get taught if you line up, everybody listening to this episode, think about what it is you think you're supposed to do to stop an overeating pattern or an emotional eating pattern that you don't like. And most people will say, well, I need to eat less or I need to restrict or I need to be stronger, I need to have more willpower. We've been taught that's the answer, and that if this doesn't work, then we're not trying hard enough. If you haven't found success with the plan that you're on, if you haven't been able to follow the protocol that your physician gave you, whatever it is, it's your fault. It's your fault. You haven't been trying hard enough. Exactly. And what gets completely missed in this whole puzzle, which is what it is, is how come you haven't been able to do it? What are the reasons that food has so much power in your life? And for smart, busy, capable, high-achieving women, think about the reasons you tend to grab something to eat, right? Maybe you're tired or you're stressed, or you were too busy to eat earlier in the day, and now you're starving, or you haven't gotten enough time for yourself, or there are all these very compelling reasons that food becomes something that we can use to keep going or to push down that need or to distract ourselves from the fact that we didn't get what we needed. And when we don't address the reasons that food has the power, the cycle just keeps continuing.

SPEAKER_01: 6:54

And this makes so much sense. And to layer onto what you said, when it comes to Hashimoto's, because I have Hashimoto's, I've had it for over 10 years. 99.9% of people I work with have Hashimoto's. This platform is dedicated to Hashimoto's. Hashimoto's changes the way the brain and body talk to each other. And when thyroid hormone is low, dopamine signaling drops. And dopamine, that's the one that motivates and rewards chemical signals that help us feel drive and pleasure. So food, like you said, becomes one of the only quick ways that the brain knows how to get the spark of energy or relief. And sometimes we don't know why we're reaching for certain food or why we're craving it. It's maybe because, like you said, the stress increases, your cortisol increases, it decreases dopamine release. So we always feel in this slump. So I say it's never a character flaw or lack of willpower. Never. It's the body's way of trying to create this balance when energy and drive are low. So it makes completely total sense of what you said. Now, talking about we don't know why we're eating and when, there's this idea of hidden hungers, right? That's really resonates with my clients. Even when they eat enough calories, many say that they never feel satisfied. And I often see this when their gut is out of balance. So I would love for you to explain what are the hidden hungers and how do they drive this overeating without us realizing it?

SPEAKER_00: 8:37

So, great question. Hidden hungers is the concept that I teach and that I use in my programs around the psychological reasons that we use food, the reasons that we use food, the things that we are hungry for, the things that we are needing that have absolutely nothing to do with the need for fuel. And I I alluded to them a little bit when I was talking about what it's like to be all of us, think about what it's like to be busy or overwhelmed or stressed, right? For women who are in that position, and as somebody just said to me, she said, I think that's everybody, all women, the there are five hidden hungers that tend to really create overeating cycles. They can look different in terms of what kind of overeating shows up, but they also tend to exacerbate each other. They piggyback on each other. The things that trigger hidden hungers, stress, strong emotions, being exhausted, being too busy, not getting enough of what you need, not getting enough self-care and me time. And then the one that sneaks in there that a lot of people either forget about or they minimize the importance of is being too hard on yourself, expecting too much of yourself, pushing yourself, not giving yourself space to have your feelings. So those kind of things trigger when we're not taking care of those things in a way that really meets our needs, you end up with a hidden hunger for stress relief. You end up with a hidden hunger for rest, right? Or self-care in me time or self-compassion and kindness. And whether you're comfort eating or mindless eating or eating for energy, we can start to pinpoint what this specific hidden hungers are that are underlying the overeating that's happening. And what I have done is I've created a free quiz, which you can go to my website and take, which helps you identify what the primary hidden hunger is. Because what happens for a lot of people, and if people are listening and this is resonating for them, feel free to leave a comment. But what happens for a lot of people is they start hearing about hidden hungers and they think, I have all of them. This isn't helpful. This is just more stress. This is just more overwhelming of yes, I'm exhausted and I'm too busy and I don't get enough time for myself. And so what I did was I created a quiz where you could go and you could figure out, okay, yes, all of these things work together, but here's the place to start. Here's the primary hidden hunger. And also here are some simple, very doable things that you can start to do to change the cycle. Because that's the other reason that women overeat is that you get so busy or stressed or overwhelmed or you have all these strong feelings or all of the above. And it doesn't feel like you have any more bandwidth. Then you throw in an autoimmune disorder, you've got Hashimoto's, you've got your hypothyroid, you're exhausted, you've got that going on. You don't need one more hard thing to do. It's so much easier to just collapse and grab a bowl of ice cream or put your hand in the bag of chips, or and we got to understand and have some self-compassion for why that happens. There are little tiny things that you can do to start to make a difference.

SPEAKER_01: 11:51

Absolutely. I completely agree with you. I see this constantly. When women may be eating enough in terms of calories, but if digestion is impaired, like with Hashimoto's low stomach acid, gut inflammation, gut dysbiosis, the body cannot actually access or absorb the nutrients. So the brain gets stuck in this seeking mode. It keeps asking for more food, hoping to get those missing building blocks. And for someone with Hashimoto's, this can be intensified by nutrient deficiencies like iron, zinc, selenium, B vitamins, which are very common and make cravings feel more relentless. And the fact that you brought up the hitting hungers, I love this concept. I love that you created this concept because, like you said, it's so overwhelming to know why you're overeating. But if you can start pinpointing down, like taking the quiz to at least point me in the right direction, guide me, I think that's all we need. We just need a little bit of guidance and understanding that these are all hormonal shifts. This is dopamine, this is our ghrelin hunger hormone, this is cortisol stress hormone. It's not you, it's not the willpower. Willpower probably has this much play in the game, right? There is willpower and the consistency, but hormonal balance, we need to realize what our body wants. And I always ask my clients ask, rate your hunger from one to ten. If it's like below five, true physical hunger, ask yourself why. Why are you eating? And they're like, Well, I just want to crunch on something. And I keep telling them, keep asking why. Why you want to crunch on something? Why this? Why that? And I worked through this exercise with one of my clients, and the end question answer at the end of five whys, she was like, My daughter hasn't called me in like a week. And I told her, I'm like, here you are, you're missing the connection, human connection, or stress, whatever it might be. So it's kind of this conversation led me is leading me towards this physical and emotional hunger. With Hashimoto's, I mentioned hunger cues can be so unpredictable. Some women have zero appetite all day and then intense cravings at night. And that can make it confusing to know what's real hunger versus something else. So, how can someone tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional or hidden hunger?

SPEAKER_00: 14:39

This is such a good question. And I think the thing to really acknowledge is that just asking this question is something that I don't know, 95% of Americans don't do. Am I hungry? What am I hungry for? And part of it is because the paradigm is we've been taught to just say, I shouldn't be hungry, or I should be hungry, or I should eat this, or my friend says, yeah, I just ate. Like we have become really disconnected from ourselves and from our just our tendency to just ask, what do I need? And so it sounds really simple, but simply starting to ask that question, am I hungry? But also what do I know about what I'm hungry for is so important. And I want to say, because I get a lot of questions from people who are looking at working with me or joining my program, and they will say, But I have a thyroid issue. Is this something I can do? Or I have, I do have some nutritional requirements that I have to follow because of a health issue I have. Can I still work with you in your program? There is a reason that you eat always, right? There is always a reason you eat. There is always a reason you overeat. Sometimes it's a need for fuel. Sometimes there's a neurochemistry, something going on that can explain it. Sometimes it is hidden hunger. But we live in a world where we have been taught to stop asking and to be curious about what the reasons are. And so the tools that I talk about for emotional eating and for dealing with hidden hungers are actually the tools I have hypothyroidism. And that's how I diagnosed it in myself and went to my doctor and said, hey, we need to do these tests. And it turns out I was right. But it started from a curiosity. And so that's a huge part of knowing what we're hungry for, and knowing you're the only person who's lived inside your body your whole entire life. And so you've absorbed all this wisdom from all these other experts. But getting the kind of results that you want, getting freedom from overeating, tackling what your body needs for its health is only going to come when you take that wisdom and filter it through your own wisdom and your own knowledge of your body. And so the way I don't think there's a there's an easy answer, a quick answer anyway, to say what's the difference between the two hungers. But I think instead of telling yourself what you should need, beginning to be more curious and ask yourself, okay, what do I know about what's going on inside me? Right? What am I feeling inside my body? And as I'm sure you see all the time, Natalia, in your practice, a lot of women don't know anymore if they're hungry or not. We get we've become so disconnected from that for lots of different reasons, whether it's a health issue or being on the diet treadmill for so long, that it's just to start asking, what do I know about what's going on inside my body? What am I feeling right now?

SPEAKER_01: 17:30

I think this is such an important skill to have to know what questions to ask and when. You have to get that question in before that overwhelming feeling, overwhelming feeling of hormone flushes, and then you can't really control yourself, and then you overeat. So you have to start listening to your body and picking up on those cues that something is brewing there, something's gonna come up, and ask the right questions. And like you said, yes, we know our bodies the best. We know a lot about foods. We work with women who are high-achieving, busy, they're running families, but they need guidance. Sure, like I said, they know a lot about foods and what diets to follow and what not to eat, but they lost the connection between them, self and the brain.

SPEAKER_00: 18:28

You were talking about needing to ask the questions before the hormones get so intense. And yes, that's really helpful, but I also want to say to people that none of us are perfect. And sometimes we don't get curious at the right time. Sometimes you do find yourself in the middle of a binge or you're sitting there and you're thinking, what did I just do? I feel like I undid a whole day of trying really hard to follow a plan. Being good. And so I think there is also value in because in those moments when it feels like it was too late, you're at a crossroads and you can go two ways. You can do the old thing that you've probably been conditioned to do, which is beat yourself up and blame yourself and tell yourself you'll be stronger next time and you will be more perfect. Or you could get curious. Two things curiosity and compassion are what create freedom from overeating. You can get curious about what happened. How did I miss it? What were the signs? But you can also have compassion instead of saying, I blew it, I can't believe it, I did it again, I didn't try hard enough, I got all the stuff that you know backwards and forwards, and probably in three different languages. You could also just say, Oh, okay, wait, this is what my body does. This is that hormone, hormonal reaction that I have. This is the Hashimoto's, this is paramenopause, this is I didn't get enough of sleep last night. And so my hormones are also out of whack, right? My hunger hormones are out of balance. The more we get clear on the reasons, the more it's easier to have compassion for yourself, and the more easier it is to get somewhere in terms of creating solutions and creating a relationship with food that works for you.

SPEAKER_01: 20:11

They say that in a way that makes sense. Absolutely. I think I relate to it, and I know everybody who's watching and listening and will be watching and listening can relate. I even grew up saying, I've been good all day. So I deserve to have a dessert for dinner. We gotta stop this connection to being good if you're on a diet or restriction, and being bad if you have a dessert for dinner. As soon as you go away from these labels and recognize exactly what's happening, it's okay to have dessert for lunch and not dinner. It's okay to have dessert for lunch and dinner. It's not that you are bad all day long. It's what are you craving? And when you, like you said, when you learn to recognize the hidden hungers, why are you eating dessert for lunch? And then why are you wanting it for dinner? Sure, it may be because of the holiday, but normally we shouldn't be enjoying such high-calorie dance foods all the time. These are treats. So why are you treating yourself all the time? What's there missing? Is there a family member? Are you missing a hug? Are you missing a phone call? Are you missing a self-care? Just maybe you need to just get out and read a book or something, just zone out. So looking for those stressors, I think it's so important. And not blaming yourself because so many of my clients blame themselves for lacking this willpower, right? But they're often in this biological energy deficit because of low thyroid hormone, high stress, whatever you mention them. And it makes me wonder like, why does the willpower actually work long term when it comes to food? Why it doesn't work long term when it comes to food.

SPEAKER_00: 22:05

Yeah. First of all, who wants to live a life based on willpower? It's no fun. Second, we have a capacity, we have a limited amount of willpower. And think about the times you overeat. When you tend to overeat is when you're probably already out of bandwidth. You don't have you've used up your willpower. So it's a faulty fallback plan. And I just keep going back to first of all, it's no fun. Who wants to live a life based on having to be strong all the time? I had a client who we were talking about cheat day, and she said, This is just ridiculous. She said, This is my relationship with food. I would never have a relationship with somebody else where I felt like I needed to have a cheat day. That would mean there was a problem with the relationship. Yeah. So when we set ourselves up to have to be perfect, to have to be good all the time, is that really the kind of relationship with food that you want to have? Or relationship with anything that you want to have?

SPEAKER_01: 23:07

Right. Yeah. And I had a similar conversation with one of my clients, and she wanted to enjoy her weekends to the fullest. And she said, I can keep a strict diet Mondays through Friday or Thursday, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it's like everything is off, right? Like hormones, everything. So what we decided to do, we decided to spread out that those binges that she was doing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We spread them out through the week. Because what ends up happening, we as a human being, we can do a lot of things for a short period of time. We can restrict ourselves, we can follow a strict plan or diet. For a day or two or three, most people do it for four days. That's Mondays through Thursday. That's where our willpower usually tanks. And like I said, that's on average. Some people can do seven days, eight, or ten. That's our New Year's resolution. Most people can only hold it for 10 days and then everybody kind of get off the bandwagon. So if you spread the desire to eat over the weekends throughout the week, you remove this willpower that's holding, that's raises cortisol, that's creating this actually feeling of being out of control. And like you said, you don't bite your nails not because you have a checklist or because you're afraid to break a rule. It's because it's no longer holds control over you.

SPEAKER_00: 24:40

I don't need the habit anymore. And so many people also approach overeating or binging as okay, I just need to stop this. How can I stop it? How can I do less of it? How can I not do it on Wednesdays? But the thing that is so key here is that there's a reason you're doing it. And when you start to deal with the reason, the urge loses its power. And so what happens with so many people in my program is they get focused on other things because in my program, we don't focus on not binging or counting your carbs or something, right? Only eating four potato chips. We don't focus on that. What they get focused on is feeding their hidden hungers and taking care of themselves and ditching the diet mentality and all that stuff that's in your brain that you probably doesn't even know is there. And then what happens is they have these realizations. I just got an email from somebody today, but realizations like, I just realized I haven't binged in three weeks, which is so different from you got the little checklist, right? And you're like, oh, okay, four days I haven't binged, five days, I haven't binged. What's wonderful is when that food loses its power and you forget to do it. You forget the habits. I haven't worried about biting my nails in, I don't know, 40 years. I it's not a part of who I am, which is exactly how my relationship with food is. I don't worry, I don't wake up and worry, oh, how did I do yesterday? Am I going to be good today? You can get to that point, but you don't get there by willpower, which is so important. The path that you take to achieve a goal is what it feels like when you get to the goal. So when you can deal with the cause, the underlying causes, you end up in this beautiful place and you achieve your goal.

SPEAKER_01: 26:32

And it feels normal. It doesn't feel like you're working on something. And as a clinical registered dietitian, we always work on improving not just relationship with food, but food choices. And I was talking to one of the clients, and she's like, Well, do I have to? I'm always craving these candies. So we substituted them to some extent with fruits. And then she started eating more salad. So we and she's like, Do I have to be on this diet? And it's very hard to explain to somebody this is not a diet, this is a normal way of eating. We are as a society so far on this, it's called sad diet, right? Standard American diet, SAD. We are so far removed from healthy eating, then when the healthy eating is being introduced back into your life, it sounds like it's a diet. So it's very hard to reframe somebody's mind that this is the way you should be eating, this is the way I should be eating. Doesn't matter if you have Hashimoto's or not, it doesn't matter who you are.

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

What helps with that a lot is moving the focus from okay, this is how you should eat, to how do you feel when you eat that? And I'm sure you do this with your patients, right? But how do you feel when you eat this? And I've had so many clients. We do a practice called pausing in my work where you start practicing checking in with yourself. You get really intentional about 30 seconds, stop a few times a day and just ask yourself, what do I know about what I'm feeling? What do I know about what I need? What do I know about what I want? Start getting in the habit of asking yourself that. And what will happen for people over time is they also start to identify different things about how certain foods make them feel. These foods that they always thought were their greatest joy turns out sometimes they feel like sick or gross after they eat too much of them, right? Or it turns out I thought I really loved eating this, but when I really tune in and pay attention, I'm tired all afternoon. So how does this food make me feel? How do I want to feel when I'm done eating?

SPEAKER_01: 28:38

Right? I tell my clients all the time, I'm like, it's so messed up. This whole culture, how we are tracking calories, macros, fat, fiber, name it, whatever, but we're not tracking how the food makes you feel. Every time I have a client in the office, because a lot of my clients are telehealth, when I have somebody in the office, they get a little notebook as a gift from me. And the only thing I'm asking them to track is how the food makes them feel. And like you said, when they realize that this food that is calorie-dense and maybe not as healthier or as healthy as it should be, actually makes them feel like crap. So when they sit down and reconnect and write it down, they realize they no longer want to eat that food because they feel bad.

SPEAKER_00: 29:28

So I say and there's such a difference between I don't want to eat it and I can't have it. Exactly. If you don't want it, it's really easy to not order it or to walk away from it.

SPEAKER_01: 29:41

Or to say no when somebody keeps saying, Are you sure? Try it. Come on, you didn't order dessert, try it. I'm like, I truly don't want to. If I would have wanted, I would say, Hey, can I have a bite? It looks that Snicker dessert bar, it looks amazing. I would have asked, but it's so easy and it becomes You second nature to say no because there's no hormonal shifts. You're completely in peace. You know that you can get it tomorrow or in a week, or if you don't get that dessert, it's fine. So it's reframing that it's not that you can't have it, you just don't want it. And it's not a trick.

SPEAKER_00: 30:20

I think sometimes when we first talk about this, people feel like they're trying to trick themselves. And it really isn't. I talk a lot in my programs about taking your power back from food, putting yourself back in the driver's seat. And when you do that, yeah, I don't want it. I don't want to do that. Or I think I would like to try it. I'd like to try this plan versus I know I have to eat a certain way. I think I'd like to see if this evens out my blood sugar. There's such a different feeling that comes with that. And I'm so glad we're having this conversation because I know we're talking about emotional eating, but I also think what we're talking about is psychology and the psychology of change gets left out of the conversation so often with physical issues. But if we don't consider the psychology, you really are so much of the time trying to push a boulder uphill by being strong and having enough willpower, and you're going to end up feeling deprived.

SPEAKER_01: 31:15

I agree with you. A lot of my clients come to me and they say, I already've tried some meal plants. I'm like, oh, where did you get the meal plants from? This is just curiosity. And I said, Oh, my trainer at the gym, give it to me. So there's probably a downloaded template or protocol that the trainer gets. But here, and I'm not beating up on personal trainers, they're amazing and physical activity plays a huge role in everybody's health journey. But when you're given this plan, hard plan to follow that is so generalized and generic from somebody, a personal trainer, who is their job is discipline. They want you to be on the spot perfect all the time. And God forbid you miss five grams of protein per meal. It messes up with how we should look at food. We shouldn't look at food as, oh, there's 455 calories and 20 grams of fat. We should look like, hey, will this lower my cortisol because I'm so stressed out? Will it increase my blood sugar? Or how can I stay awake at 3 p.m. when I'm in the office falling asleep? What food will bring it up? And caffeine and candies don't count, right? We gotta be a little bit more creative. So I think that's where the structure comes from people getting these meal plans that are not applicable to real life, to people that have children and jobs or two jobs. You can't apply that. So it's very hard. And speaking, we talked about like labels, right? Why can they be unhelpful? Because I hear women label themselves as broken or I'm not perfect when they overeat. And then they stop looking for the real reason behind it. So I would love to hear your perspective on it. Like why labels like emotional eating or stress eating can actually maybe be unhelpful or unhealthy?

SPEAKER_00: 33:15

Because I think we just apply a label, two things. When it comes to food and eating, I feel like the old way is that all roads lead to blaming yourself for not trying hard enough, right? That's always the answer. You need to pick a new Monday or a new season and start over again and get it perfect this time. So it's really easy to say, I'm a just I'm a stress eater. I need to just not do that. And in fact, there's really bad advice out there that will say identify stress eating and basically knock it off. Like, yeah, if we could do that. So oftentimes we give labels that to things and then don't really connect a solution to them. But the other piece goes back to this idea of hidden hungers. So I can be emotionally eating, and emotional eating is eating as a way to cope with an emotion or satisfy an emotion or distract myself from an emotion, a way of dealing with emotions. I could be an emotional eater in a particular situation, but I don't maybe need more tools to deal with emotions. Maybe that isn't my issue. Maybe I'm emotionally eating because I have been going since five this morning and I haven't had a break and I didn't get to stop for lunch, and my blood sugar is low, and I don't have the bandwidth right now to deal with this emotional situation. And so all the information about how to deal with whatever is going on is not going to help me because my hidden hunger right now, it might be physical hunger, or my hidden hunger might be that I have a hunger for rest. So we can put these labels on things. Same thing with stress eating. I can be stress eating, but my hidden hunger might be one for self-compassion. I might just need a nap. And so the more we can start to tune into ourselves instead of put these big global labels on ourselves, the more we can find small ways to start to be effective. We also blame ourselves a lot. Oh, I'm just a strong, I know I need to do something about this stress. Honestly, most of the time, if you could, you would. And that is why you're stress-eating.

SPEAKER_01: 35:23

Yeah. And I want to clarify something for everybody who's listening, watching, that even when you get a handle of these knowing what hungers, what hidden hungers, emotional, physical, whatever, stress eating, and you get really good at identifying and addressing it, there's no guarantee that it will never come up. Because past Sunday we went to a football game. Guess what was happening? We were eating and drinking for no reason. Does it mean that I did something bad, that I ate too much barbecue, that more than I normally? No, it's perfectly fine. You have a meal like that and you move on. So there are still gonna be times where you will be eating, emotional eating, because of a joy, and you want to have time with your family. And if you travel, if dinner in Italy lasts three hours, it's okay. But that's only five or ten percent of your life. Concentrate, I wanna say do 80-20. Do your best at 80% of your what you can control at the times and days and you know where you can control. But when birthdays or holidays or stuff comes in, I'm like, how can you control it? So that was just my five cents. Somebody asked in the comments on Instagram, they said, I am on levosyroxin. Is there anything else dietary that can help Hashimoto's? And I want to say, regardless of you're on thyroid medication or not, we all have Hashimoto's or hypothyroidism, which is an autoimmune disease, right? It's your immune system overreacting. It's your immune system overreacted at some point and decided to attack your thyroid gland. So, what is the best way to improve Hashimoto's and decrease Hashimoto's related symptoms is by improving your immune system. And how do we do that? The immune system lives worse. More than 70% of your immune system is in the gut. So, what's the best diet for Hashimoto's is the one that can improve your gut health. And that's high fiber, prebiotics, polyphenol-rich foods, anything that's high in antioxidants that can feed your good gut bacteria and improve your gut dysbiosis and prevent chronic gut infections, because that's what causes flare-ups. So, the best way I always tell my clients don't try to starve yourself out. Don't do these crazy elimination diets because first they're not sustainable, and second, they will actually destroy your gut health because this AIP diet that removes all the grains, not seeds, health fibers that actually feed gut bacteria, they destroy your gut. And another point that I wanted to make is that your Hashimotus is here to stay, it's not going anywhere. So I always say make a friend with your Hashimotus and nourish your body. When you're trying to pinpoint a hunger, you gotta be friendly with your body, you have to listen, you can't fight it off, right? You have to be patient. You have to same with Hashimotus. It's here to stay, you walk, you're gonna be walking with it for the rest of your life. So nourish your body, stay with it, and listen to it. What is it? Don't get upset when you have a Hashimoto's flare-up or system symptoms flare up. It's not that you did something wrong, your body is sending you a signal. So stop and listen. And Dr. McCreary, you said I have this exercise that we stop and listen in your program. So, what are the four pillars of your missing piece in your program? What are you basing it on?

SPEAKER_00: 39:20

So, your missing piece is my six-month group coaching program. And we do things, as you might not be surprised, differently than traditional programs around changing your relationship with food. So the first thing that I think is really important is the first module of the program, it's all about taking your power back. Because at this point, probably in your life and your relationship with food, if you have been somebody who has struggled with your weight or your eating or overeating or emotional eating, you could probably turn anything into a deprivation-based diet where you blame yourself for it. So we got to take your power back. You got to detox the thinking and the stuff that doesn't work and the perfectionism, which we have talked about a lot today. And then after you are in the driver's seat, after you're the one who's getting to choose, I'd like to try this instead of I have to do this and I don't want to. And because by the way, that's the other thing we didn't talk about. When you're forcing yourself to do things, you know who always shows up? Your little inner rebel who is going to sabotage you every single time. So we get you in the place where you've taken your power back. That is when it's okay, diets don't work. What is the kind of eating that's going to work for me? And as I said earlier, you can take all the wisdom and expertise in the world, but it has to flow through the filter of your body and your specific needs. There is not one way of eating that works for everybody. And so figuring out how do I ditch all the diet talk and the diet thinking, and then how do I start to play with food to come up with my recipe for what works with me? The third thing that is really essential is becoming the CEO of your time and your energy, taking back your power with your time, your energy, your calendar, learning how to say no, learning how to say yes, answering that question, what do I really want? A lot of women don't know how to answer that question. So playing with that. And then the fourth pillar of my program is about, I call it forever freedom. It's looking at why stuff hasn't worked in the past for you and putting things in place in a way that they are sustainable. They fit with your life, they fit with your schedule. If you travel for work, you have a plan for that. It doesn't require you to be perfect. It doesn't require you to feel deprived. It doesn't require you to get too hungry or give up, give up the kind of foods that you love and only eat boiled skinless chicken breasts for the rest of your life. So those are the pieces that I think really all of us need to have a peaceful relationship with food and to eat in a way that's really going to serve us. And to pay attention to what's going on physically in our bodies and be tuned into our health.

SPEAKER_01: 42:04

I love those four pillars that you mentioned. It sounds like it's a very holistic approach that sets up the foundation for the rest of your life. You're not giving people a new diet, a new plan, a structure to follow. You're teaching basic things that will help them manage their own health in their own way, apply it to their own life for the rest of their life. So I absolutely love that. Now let's talk about first steps somebody can take when they feel stuck. Because so many people or just women with Hashimoto's feel like they have no energy left to fix anything. So if someone's feeling completely stuck, what is the very first step you would want them to take?

SPEAKER_00: 42:51

I would tell you to go to my website and take the free Hidden Hungers quiz. You're going to take the quiz. It is like 30 some yes or no questions or true or false questions. You're going to get your result. You're going to get one primary place to start. And then you're going to get some free resources and simple action steps. Try this. And I will tell you, because we are complicated, high-achieving people, your brain will say, Oh, that isn't enough. I should do more. I need to do all these things. Trust the process. Try the simple step. Let it be easy and see what happens. And the other thing I would tell people to do is start practicing doing these little pauses. Ask yourself a couple times a day. You do not have to link this with food. You can if you want to. But ask yourself, what do I know about what I'm feeling right now? What am I feeling? What do I know about what I need right now? What do I know about what I want right now? And don't worry if you don't know the answer right away. Just start getting your brain used to asking those questions and tuning into yourself. It may have been weeks since you've done that, or maybe even longer. Years.

SPEAKER_01: 43:59

Yeah, years may feel like forever. Yeah. Yes. I love that you said make it easy. Make it easy because that's where compliance comes in. If you sign up for this hundred-step process to become whatever, it doesn't matter what your goal in life, including improving relationship with food, if it's too complicated and if it's not science-based, you're not gonna do it. You're gonna waste your money, and more importantly, you're gonna waste your time. And even more importantly, you're gonna feel like a failure again because oh my god, I probably didn't do something right again. So I love that you said make it easier. Now, Dr. McCreary, thank you so much for sharing your heart and your expertise today. I know this conversation is going to resonate with so many women who feel stuck in the cycle of emotional overeating. And guys, if you're listening right now and realizing that what you have been doing, calling a willpower problem, might actually be your body asking for support. So please know that there is nothing broken about you. And when we nourish our bodies, balance our hormones, and start listening to what we truly need, food stops feeling like a battle. And we talked about it, right? It takes the power back, be in control. And so I will link all the ways you can connect with Dr. McCreary in the show notes and explore her, your missing piece program in the show notes. And if you're ready to dig into your own root causes and learn how to eat in a way that supports your thyroid, your gut, and your energy, you can always connect with me through website on Instagram. And I hope you found resources that Miss Dr. McCreary shared with you today very helpful. Please share the episodes, leave us comments, we'll come back and we'll answer them. Thank you, Dr. McCreary, so much. We would love to have you for next episodes because we just kind of touched the tip of the icebergs, right?

SPEAKER_00: 46:07

Yeah. Oh, I would love to come back. There's so much to talk about, but thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 46:11

Yeah. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody.

unknown: 46:14

Bye.