Emotional eating is common.
Stressed? Ease your mind with a snack.
Overwhelmed? Take a break and grab a bite!
Happy? Congratulations, you’ve earned a treat!
Sad? Food will make you feel better...right?
Yet, in the meantime, we experience the symptoms of eating when we aren’t even hungry (and it’s usually not healthy foods!)—the weight gain, the physical disease, the mental unrest—that come from the emotions we’re stuffing down. And these emotions, as well as the way we cope with them, can come from ACEs.
It might be easy to rationalize our emotional eating in the moment as a way to deal with surface-level emotions, not deeper ones rooted in ACEs. But, if you have a high ACE score, I challenge you to look deeper. Sometimes, our ACE-related behaviors are unconscious and require closer examination to see what’s really going on inside.
Are you eating for sustenance, nutrition, and enjoyment, or to cover up something you don’t want to deal with? When you reach for food, is it conscious, calm, and controlled, or mindless, anxious, and desperate?
Only you know the real answer.
Something I’ve seen repeatedly in my decades of work, and that’s been proven by the ACE Study, is the connection between ACEs and emotional eating. Emotional eating is a symptom of the unresolved ACEs but also acts as a way to self-medicate.
It’s no wonder, then, that obesity is linked to a high ACE score, and that emotional eaters constantly struggle with weight loss programs that tout diet and exercise as a one-size-fits-all solution.
The thing is, it’s not the food or the exercise that’s the problem, it’s the root—the reason—for the emotional eating in the first place. No workout regimen or diet program gets that deep, which is why they’ll never work long-term.
Dr. Vincent Felitti, the Co-Principal Investigator of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, and I are intimately aware of the way food can be used to cope with difficult emotions stemming from ACEs. We’ve seen it in thousands of patients, clients, students, and, of course, ACE Study participants over the decades.
In March 2020, Dr. Felitti and I teamed up with Relish Life to offer a comprehensive weight loss program that integrates the science of ACEs, and it’s an ideal solution for emotional eaters. The Relish Life program offers a root-cause approach to weight loss that combines the best of psychology, behavioral health, holistic wellness, fitness, nutrition, medication, technology, and more to help people lose weight and keep it off.
Dr. Felitti (left), Dr. Ray (right)
Dr. Felitti is an advisor for Relish Life and I’m the Chief Behavioral Officer. Dr. Al Ray, who worked intimately with the ACE Study for over two decades at Kaiser Permanente, is Relish Life’s Chief Medical Officer.
Challenging emotions aren’t going anywhere, so it’s critical to learn how to manage them in an effective and healthy way.
To create a future that is healthy, strong, and happy in body and mind, we must first address the root cause of our emotional suffering and weight gain, and that starts by identifying and healing from the traumas we’ve stored and repressed since childhood.
Relish Life does just that to help people who struggle with emotional eating and weight gain lighten up from the inside out.
Relish Life solves the root neurological and physiological issues that cause weight gain using a personalized and comprehensive approach. The program includes:
- Personal Physician: Monitoring your health and progress with regular calls, check-ins, and unlimited text/email support
- Personalized Medication Plan: FDA-approved, stimulant-free, scientifically proven, and delivered right to your doorstep
- Designated Health Coach: An initial strategy session and ongoing support and accountability via live check-ins, and text/email
- Expert Psychological Support: Weekly small support group counseling sessions with experts to uncover your ACEs and heal your relationship with food
- Daily Inspiration, Meditations, Tips, and Tools: Elisa, a friendly chatbot and pocket cheerleader, helps keep you motivated and on track every step of the way
- Members-Only Educational Portal: A library of mindfulness, hypnotherapy, fitness, and nutrition programs (with live guidance) for lasting change
- Private Community: Gain access to our private Facebook group to connect with others and leverage the power of community on your path to health and happiness
- A Mobile App: For even more access to the treatment team and resources (coming soon!)
If you’d like to lose weight, we encourage you to look beyond the reflection in the mirror.
Instead, turn to your ACE score and find the inner weight—the heavy, unresolved traumas—that could be leading you to use food to cope through emotional eating.
To find out if Relish Life might be a good fit for you or someone you love, click here. Be sure to use code “PACES25” at checkout for 25% off!
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