Emotional Eating, Gut Health & Histamine: A Conversation with Amber Romaniuk

In this episode of the Histamine Well Podcast, Joanne is joined by Amber Romanic, an expert in emotional eating, digestion, and hormonal health.

Amber shares her personal journey overcoming emotional eating and discusses how it impacts gut health and increases histamine levels.

They explore common emotional eating triggers, the role of high cortisol, and the pitfalls of extreme diets like intermittent fasting.

Amber offers practical tips on managing emotional eating, the importance of healing one's relationship with food, and why self-care and setting healthy boundaries are crucial.

Additionally, they touch on the unique challenges women face during different phases of their menstrual cycles and why maintaining a balanced approach is essential for overall well-being.

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Disclaimer: For educational purposes only.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Histamine Well Podcast designed for practitioners and patients alike. This is your trusted source for insights on histamine intolerance, methylation, gut health, women's hormones, and much more. I'm Joanne Kennedy. Your host, naturopath, author, and educator passionate about breaking down complex science into clear, accessible knowledge. Whether you are a health professional or navigating your personal wellness journey, the Histamine Well Podcast bridges the gap between cutting edge research and practical understanding to empower you with the tools to thrive. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today I'm really excited to be joined by Amber Romanic from Alberta, Canada. And she is an emotional eating, digestive and hormone expert. And you are actually gonna hear today how issues with emotional eating, digestive disturbance and hormonal disturbance can drive up histamine. Amber has over 11 years experience helping high achieving women create a level of body confidence. Intuition and optimal health through powerful mindset, healing, self-care, and overcoming self-sabotage with food. And she does this through addressing the key negative thought patterns and limiting beliefs that keep women stuck in the same behaviors for years and decades. Her podcast, the No Sugarcoating podcast, has over 2 million downloads, over 500 episodes. And is listened to in over 88 countries. Amber overcame her own emotional eating after gaining and losing more than a thousand pounds and spending over$50,000 on binge foods and spending five years balancing her hormones and digestion. So she also dismantled her deep limiting beliefs and behaviors, keeping her stuck in the same looping patterns. She now helps others achieve the biggest healing miracles in her course. Body freedom. So they have the confidence and health to create amazing lives. So Amber, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be with you. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's really interesting guys. Amber specializes in, um, an area of practice that is not my forte. I mean, except for gut and hormones, obviously I do that, but it's the whole emotional eating and stress and adrenal dysfunction and blood sugar imbalances that occur in those conditions, and they significantly drive up histamine. This is why I've got Amber on today because she can shed light into some areas that she has more experience in. So thank you. So let's just dive straight in. Amber, I just wanna first ask you how emotional eating and binge eating will impact overall gut health and therefore drive up histamine levels. A hundred percent. so this is a huge impact and one of the things that we always have to remember about gut health is before we even consume anything, we are going into a fight or flight stress response that is shutting off our ability to digest properly, right? Because the body thinks there's a bear and we're getting ready to run away from it. So as soon as you get triggered to emotionally eat. And bloating is an emotional eating trigger because I'm telling you, when I struggled with this and I wasn't in a phase of emotional eating and I got bloated, I'd be like, screw it. I'm bloated already. Who cares? I might as well binge anyway. So our physical symptoms can trigger emotional eating. But I start with the fight or flight because we think that the gut issue starts in the mouth or in the stomach when it's really the stress response. Whenever it's triggering you to wanna emotionally eat. You've had a bad day, your stress negative interaction with others, you saw yourself in the mirror, and that triggered you the scale, whatever it is. And so you're already in a stress response, which is already going to impact your histamine because your brain's telling your adrenals. Run away produce cortisol stress hormone, and that is going to impact and produce more histamine. So you, you could already just be reacting just from that, let alone when you start eating whatever you're eating to suppress, numb down, shove down, feeling your emotions. I went through all this myself and so already you're chewing and eating too fast. So you're not gonna digest, you know, start producing your carb enzymes in the mouth, and you're not gonna probably chew the food thoroughly enough. So when you swallow it into your stomach, it can break down efficiently. We're eating too fast, we're eating too much, right? Like I used to eat 70 to$80 worth of food. And I'd go to the organic store to justify why it was a healthier choice. But when you're eating a table full of food, it doesn't matter how healthy or creamy ingredients are, it's, it's the consumption, the over consumption. And then we hit the stomach. And over time, if you're binge eating emotionally, eating regularly or in the binge purge cycle, you're gonna deplete your stomach acid levels. You're not gonna be able to break your, especially your proteins down properly in the stomach. Right. and again, the stress response is just so heavy because now your digestive system is stress trying to produce this higher increased load of food. There's probably a lot of processed ingredients in there, processed sugar, wheat, dairy, like here in North America, the wheat and dairy are. So processed, very inflammatory, and that any form of. Inflammatory response is going to trigger those histamine levels. And then of course your undigested food or it's not digested enough, hits the small intestine and that stresses out your lining. You don't absorb your nutrients properly. Your feeding potentially unhealthy bacteria and your small intestine may be sibo. And then we get to the large intestine and it's feeding all the candida, the fungal overload that so many people have. Your liver's overburdened. Trying to filter through like all the, the toxins, the sugars, you have a blood sugar spike because you've eaten too many ultra processed sugars, processed carbohydrates, your pancreas gets stressed because now your pancreas is having to produce so many enzymes to digest all this food. Like there's so many things that fuel the stress response and the inflammation, which fuel the histamine response. Mm. It's such a like triple edged sword. Yeah, it is, isn't it? It's, I mean, I see so much nervous system dysfunction in my patients. Not necessarily from um, eating disorders, but just from overall stresses, which is, yeah, driving up histamine in a big way. So Amber, you know, and I know you specialize in this and you know, obviously a lot of women with emotional eating, they're trapped in a cycle, no doubt. Mm-hmm. So they can be listening to us saying, well, okay, this isn't good news for me. Yeah. And I think the first question is how do you know if you've got a problem with sort of emotional eating, binge eating? Yeah. What are some of the telltale signs, and then what are some things that you can start to implement to try and help? Yeah, a hundred percent. Great question. So first, telltale signs of emotional or binge eating are you are eating when you're physically full, you keep eating, you don't stop. You're constantly digging through the cupboard and snacking. You're bouncing back and forth between, oh my gosh, I messed up my diet. Now I've gotta lose weight. Or course correct.'cause I don't want my inflammation to go through the roof. And then you restrict you diet, and then something triggers you emotionally. You're stressed, you ate too much sugar, now you have cravings, whatever it is. And now it's like. Oh my gosh, I just want to eat all the sugar, all the bake goods. All the chips. It, it could be nut butter, it doesn't have to be something processed. But it's like this back and forth between the all or nothing mentality I call it, where you're either restricting or you're losing control. As well, I find a lot of women that are emotionally eating are afraid to feel their emotions. So instead of taking time to do some form of self-care, they're just reaching for the food. And there's often a body image issue. They don't like themselves, they hate their bodies, they're unhappy with their weight, they're fighting with their bodies, and so they're trying to again, use food to either control with a diet and or they're losing control. And it's used as a punishment either way. And so I think there's a lot of negative self talk. Oh, that food's bad. I shouldn't eat that. Oh, that food is clean. I can eat that. I can only eat this many calories. Like this is some of the chatter that can go on in the mind, and you're either like. Thinking about food planning, your next emotional eating or binge right session, or you're like thinking about, okay, like I've got to eat clean because I wanna get my gut sorted, I wanna do this. But as long as these behaviors are going on, they'll keep amplifying the symptoms that you have. And so I think that when it comes to how do we start dealing with this, well, the first step is being aware that you're doing it and actually just being lovingly honest with yourself. I am emotionally eating, emotional eating is any reason for eating other than physical nourishment? Mm-hmm. You're bored, you're sad, you're lonely. You've, you, you're done your meal, but then you wanna keep going. You eat sugar and then you're like, screw it. The day is ruined. I wanna keep going. So being aware of what you're doing and being aware of your triggers is extremely important. If you don't know what's triggering you. It's very difficult to catch triggers and then learn why they're triggers and work through them and heal that. Mm-hmm. Also, I think another thing is that we need to start to become clear on what is physical hunger and what is emotional hunger. A lot of women in particular do not know what physical hunger feels like due to hormone imbalances. Metabolism suppression because of all the diets, skipping meals. So their thyroids are suppressed. Mm-hmm. And if your thyroid suppressed, your metabolism's not working properly, you may not be getting a hunger signal or stomach, or also you assume, I'm not hungry, I won't eat right. We also have to look at your ghrelin, your hunger hormone that makes you hungry. And, and that is tied to your stress hormones. So there's investigation to do. If you're not getting a hunger signal, it's not normal. Hmm. And so, starting to actually like. Eat something small within 30 minutes of waking up, having breakfast to wake up those signals. So you start to become clear of what hunger feels like and what full feels like. I also think that. Most women, like you said, are dealing with nervous system dysregulation and adrenal stress. Mm-hmm. Therefore, their blood sugar is gonna be off. So eating regularly to prevent blood sugar crashes, lots of protein and fat. Mm-hmm. Because if we're missing meals waiting too long to eat and your blood sugar crashes, that is such an easy binge or emotional eating trigger.'cause you're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm gonna faint. What is the first thing I can grab and eat? And then if you have that all or nothing mentality of like. I messed up, I screwed up on my diet. I'm just gonna, who cares? I'm gonna eat whatever I want. That will trigger that emotional eating or that binge eating. So blood sugar regulation's also important. And lastly, it's so important that, you know, you ask yourself, is this physical hunger or emotional? And then it's like, oh, I know what's emotional. Okay, well let me get away from the temptation. Let me take five to 10 minutes if I can in this moment, and actually ask myself, what's triggering me? Why do I want this if I know I actually don't need to eat? What is this really about? And start to ask yourself the questions and start building awareness. Mm-hmm. So before we get into some of these major causes of emotional disruption and emotional eating, I just wanna go back to how you said, um, a lot of people are not getting the hunger signal. They're not particularly hungry. I, this is a red flag for me with patients of nervous system dysfunction and low hydrochloric acid can be more zinc deficiency.'cause you need zinc to drive for hcl L but it's usually nervous system dysfunction where they're just not getting enough stomach acid produced. Mm-hmm. Just'cause then that chronic fight and flight. Yeah. So what's the knock? I can mean, in my mind it's like, well, they don't eat breakfast, so then they get a double whammy of well have a coffee. Yeah. But we always, we always hungry for coffee and then blood sugar dysregulation. And then 11 o'clock eating a donut. Yeah, yeah. Or just then just bingeing on carbohydrate.'cause you're so hungry then'cause you've shot your cortisol and your adrenaline up from caffeine or just from not eating will. It will get your adrenaline, your cortisol going'cause you need it to get up and go to work. So can you just speak to that and how that, that not having a hunger, hunger signal is not good. Um, what causes it and what then happens and what are some good tips for our listeners who have this issue? The low stomach acid is definitely part of that. And most women who are emotionally eating or binge eating will have low stomach acid as well because of the high stress and because of the overconsumption, I had low stomach acid when I was trying to heal this as well. And so, um, so that's a factor. And then of course we have the factors of, like I said, hypothyroid, underactive thyroid or Hashimoto's thyroiditis where the metabolism in your hunger signal are so connected and so few. Have, you know, really dry skin, you're losing your hair, you can't lose weight. You are irritable and you have anxiety. You're tired in the morning. This lack of hunger comes along with that, and so it's important to get your thyroid issues addressed, get your cortisol tested and see if that's elevated. I think it's also important that we work on healing diet mentalities. They're like, oh, eat less and exercise more. And it's like, that doesn't work, especially in these cases where you have multi-layered imbalances going on. the more we keep skipping breakfast, we keep that metabolism dull in the morning and then it's gonna stop firing. And of course, if we have the adrenal stress and the, and the high cortisol. The brain has a hard time properly communicating with the stomach to give you that stomach growl and that hunger signal and produce that ghrelin, which is the communication between brain and stomach. So then of course, like you said, we wait to eat or you have caffeine and you go for a cardio workout first thing in the morning, which is gonna shoot your cortisol through the roof. And then yeah, you're ravenous by 10, 11, 12 o'clock. But again, you reach for the fastest thing'cause you didn't take any time to make lunch or you don't feel like eating that you wanna rebel. And so the like the. We eat that thing. The donut. The cookie, the really crappy sugary granola bar, right? And, and the blood sugars just spike. And not only that, but then we throw dopamine into the mix, which is one of your mood boosting neurotransmitters that your brain produces. And we get this euphoric pleasure filled few moments. It feels so good. This tastes so good. I feel so good. We get the blood sugar high. And then everything crashes. The dopamine crashes. Your mood crashes, your energy crashes. Now your cravings are, you know, bigger and, and you want to eat more. Mm-hmm. Right. And so all of this easily fuels overeating or, you know, emotional eating through the day. And if you're the one that's like, oh, I'm not even hungry at lunch, so I skip lunch too, and I don't eat until later, you're setting yourself up for significantly higher chances of binging or overeating in the evening. Mm-hmm. Because it's just these big spikes and crashes. Mm. So Amber, I just, I'm just thinking about intermittent fasting and how it's often quite problematic for women, especially menstruating women,'cause of the cortisol disrupting your hormones. The often potentially lack of nutrients for your thyroid, not enough carbohydrate for your thyroid. Um, so I know some women are okay on it. It wasn't good for me. I did intermittent fasting, stuffed my home. I mean, I was 47 when I did it. Not a good time in perimenopause. Mm-hmm. I, I remember, had to lay in the park'cause I was so anxious. Wow. Yeah. And then disrupted my cycle. This is really bad for me especially during that perimenopause phase. It is intermittent fasting, something that I know that it's good for reducing inflammation a lot of people, and there's a lot of research on it. It can be beneficial, but it's just there's a subset of women that it is just not good for particularly perimenopause. Have you seen women doing intermittent fasting as more of a, like a control emotional eating type of thing, rather than what it should be just to reduce your overall blood glucose and, um, blood sugar regulation in certain people. Yeah. So many things. If it's pushed as a fad and someone's had a weight loss experience. People are like, oh my gosh, what did you do? I wanna do that too. And that's where we've all gone wrong, is jumping on bandwagons because we feel insecure in our bodies. We're tired of feeling out of control with food and we get desperate. But making decisions out of desperation is not gonna help you do this healing. So fasting, any restrictive diet, anything where we're cutting a lot of things out. Is going to re-trigger binge and emotional eating because you're going from this restrictive extreme and if you don't deal with your triggers, they're gonna kick back up. And then you're gonna go back to food and, and the fasting and these, these restrictive diets throw your hormones off more, which. Often will increase appetite, throw blood sugar off more, give you more anxiety, fatigue, and it just fuels this vicious cycle. So I don't suggest any kind of extreme eating cells, restrictive diets, fasting for women who are struggling with emotional eating perimenopause, high cortisol, like certain, because it just makes it worse. And the problem is, is we're not educated on. Okay. One of the first things we should be doing is healing our relationship with food, looking at our habits, behaviors, and beliefs. We're just taught quick fix. Try this, try that. Take this thing, take this drug fast, like these are, these are the things, but there's only a very small group of women that I feel have a healthy relationship with food and their body that actually can do it. For those health reasons. Yes. I mean, if we're talking about inflammation, a great way to reduce your inflammatory load is healing your relationship with food because you are fueling a fire when you're emotionally eating and you're binge eating. So this is where, let's, let's work on that and while you're healing your relationship with food, we can add in more anti-inflammatory foods and let's get your hormones sorted out too. Yeah. So that everything can function together, but. To me, the core thing is we've gotta heal a relationship with food. If you don't binge or emotionally eat, but you're a people pleaser, you're last on your priority list, you're not getting enough sleep and you're overbooked and overworked, well then we've gotta work on that'cause it's a self-worth issue. So is emotional eating. But if you tie your worth to how much you do and you're terrified to slow down. We've gotta work on that as well.'cause that's all fueling inflammation and hormone issues and histamine reactions is your body needs rest. We are not robots. It's so true. Sydney's a crazy place for, um, what we call rushing women's syndrome. Russian women rushing around a lot of women all ages, especially sort of young girls and, and I think young girls and women getting into their later forties where they're scared of mm-hmm. Getting, putting on weight. They do excessive amounts of exercise. Yeah. Um, intermittent fasting, keto, excessive amounts of exercise, like running an hour in the morning of weight training every day. Yeah. And they lose their periods. Yeah. Which is problematic for many reasons. Like for bone loss for one. Yeah. Yeah. So have you seen women actually completely lose their menstrual cycle from this dysregulated eating? I was one of them. So what I see being the root causes, of course, like you just said, the over exercise and women are waking up first thing in the morning, fasted on an empty stomach, going to the gym or taking pre-workout using caffeine, not eating. Yeah. Right. Even if they don't sleep well, they're, they're like, and this is me. I've gotta get up. It doesn't matter if I didn't sleep good. Like, the drill sergeant in your head is like, you need to go to the gym and you need to burn the calories to manage your weight. And then we're not eating enough through the day. Because we've been so conditioned that we have to lower caloric intake to lose weight and all that's just stressing the body out. And then again, with the blood sugar spikes and drops and the, the cravings that are not dealt with and the underlying stressors and emotions that aren't dealt with. Most women that I work with have high cortisol, stress hormone, low progesterone. It's. Like pretty much non-existent and low estrogen. Mm-hmm. And obviously if that picture is going on, they are not having their period or it's very irregular. Mm-hmm. And they're gaining weight more easily because it's actually not about pushing your body harder. weight is a protective mechanism. The body hangs onto weight when she doesn't feel safe. So pushing and. Forcing and punishing is only gonna give you more of what you don't want. We have to get curious, why is my body hanging on? Why doesn't she feel safe? And start looking at the stimulants and the stressors. We haven't learned how to listen to our bodies. We're not in tune. Again, all these external things have conditioned us. You do these things to lose what you do. These things to whatever. But a lot of them are through giving us these imbalances. and then of course when we're restricting and then we're overeating, that just again adds more stress to the body, the hormones and this, the cycle going away. You lose too much weight, like whatever those things are. But I see it all the time. Yeah. And fertility issues. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. So it's interesting. High cortisol is ultimately very inflammatory and it will put weight on. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's the, that's the catch of this whole thing. Yeah. I think some women can get away with it when they're younger, but I know for me, you know, I was, I mean, I love food. I don't ever have issues with food, but I was doing a lot of spin class. I've always done spin and I started. I was doing a lot. I did a lot in my twenties and thirties and I didn't do it for ages. And at about 45 I started again and I wasn't trying to lose weight amber, but it didn't shift, like nothing shifted. I was like, oh, this is interesting. I'm doing so much heavy cardio. And the instructor who's a friend of mine now, and she's a nutritionist, and she said, at your age, you should not be pushing the cortisol. Because it's actually so inflammatory and it was putting weight on and absolutely was. And so what I did instead, I'd go for a really long walk, which was so much better just for. Like maintaining weight. So it's just really interesting'cause I, I, I knew about it, but you know, you just don't think it will happen to you. I thought if I just flog it out on the spin bike. Yeah. That I will just lose and it just didn't shift. I was really, it was just really interesting. So can you speak more to our listeners about just how cortisol, whether it be coming from not eating, being stressed at work, caffeine on an empty stomach over exercising can actually. Do more harm than good when it actually comes to weight management. Yeah. It always does. And I went through this too with the exercise and gaining a ton of weight and it was like mind blowing to slow down and rest and have it shift so. Cortisols are stress hormone, your adrenal glands produce it. And if you are already in a heightened stress response because of just life in general, and then you add stimulants, like a lot of cardio, you don't take rest days. You're getting up early, working out fasted. You are having a lot of caffeine, even just a cup of day. Push you over the edge though when you're cortisol's off. Um, and then again, your. You've cut out carbohydrates or you're minimizing your carbohydrate intake. Worst thing we can do if we have a cortisol issue for both our adrenals and our thyroid function. But essentially, yeah, the higher the cortisol. Uh, you know, the body's going, oh my goodness, there's a bear that might attack us. We need to communicate to the abdomen and shuttle weight to the abdomen. Retention puff you up. There's the inflammation that puffiness that water re tension. Your rings fit tight. Your face is puffy. Your pants are fitting tighter. This is the protective response that your body is putting you into to protect you in case that imaginary bear attacks you to keep you alive. And abdominal weight gain is one of the first symptoms of that, along with fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, low sex drive, things like that. And then of course, you throw into the mix dieting, not eating enough, not eating a wide array of nutrients that your body needs, and then emotional and binge eating. And then all the guilt and the shame and the embarrassment and the anger and the self-loathing that come along with, oh my gosh, I just lost control with food again. And then you get on the scale and hate the number that you see. It is a vicious cycle. I saw a really powerful reel the other day, and it was a surgeon, but he's very tapped in, very spiritual, very intuitive, and he was talking about how self hatred. Impacts our health in our body. And he's like, the first thing that happens is we have a stress response that makes you gain weight. Your body starts to break down instead of build up. I really believe your cells are always listening to your thoughts. Mm-hmm. And if you're constantly negative towards yourself and you're constantly beating yourself up, you're always in a stress response, which means your cortisol's going to stay up and you're going to stay inflamed. Yeah, it's so interesting, right? Yeah. It's, there's, there's so many scientists like Bruce Lipton, Joe Dispenza talking about Deepak Chopra, talking about how your thoughts, manipulate your DNA. Yeah. It's everything. And it's, it should be mainstream. It's so fascinating. I'd love to, listen to that podcast. I might put it in the show notes. Was it a podcast? Yeah, it was a reel on Instagram. I can send you the link, but just the way he, he broke it down. Um, and I talk about this all the time because. Weight gain is a protective mechanism. So if you are not in alignment with your thoughts and your body and they're fighting, your mind is fighting against your body, your body can't fight against your mind. It's the mind against the body. If they're out of alignment, your body is going to experience your emotions and negative thoughts as a threat and keep hanging on. So it's not just about healing your relationship with food. It's not just about balancing your hormones or your gut. It is about building your self-worth and going on a healing journey to learn to love yourself and forgive yourself and befriend yourself. Mm. It's fascinating. That is a huge part of this. Yeah. And this is a lot of the work that you do. Yeah, a hundred percent. Before we go any further, I want to speak directly to the practitioners and students listening. If you're intrigued by histamine and methylation and eager to expand your knowledge in this fascinating area. We offer the Histamine and Methylation online group coaching course. The only program of its kind, it covers everything you need to know about histamine and methylation, providing both the theory and guidance you need to treat these issues effectively. In clinical practice, we cover sibo, hormonal imbalances, oxalates, M-T-H-F-R, the four pathways of methylation, including the folate pathway, methionine pathway, tetrahydro biopterin pathway, and the all important transsulfuration pathway and much more. The program is delivered by detailed online webinars and handouts for you to keep. And for eight weeks you'll meet with me for live coaching calls in a private community space with other practitioners from all over the world dealing with histamine and methylation issues in their patients every day. Together we learn so much. To learn more and apply, visit joanne kennedy naturopathy.com. So I might just ask you now just to cover like just the most common emotional triggers for overeating and binge eating. Definitely So overwhelm. Yeah. Not sleeping well. And there's twofold with this one is when you're tired, you're in the I don't care mentality. I'm going to eat whatever I want. The second is when we're fatigued, we have an increased appetite level. Yeah. So it's easy to keep snacking and eating, right? Yeah. Um, high cortisol for sure. And that's the increased appetite, the irregular blood sugar. And you have more cravings for refined sugar and salt. Um, also getting on the scale and not liking the number that you see. You start eating processed sugars or processed food, and then your cravings are bigger and you just want more. And a lot of people don't realize this, but when we binge. We're likely to eat up to 40% more the next day. TV and eating, it's easy to eat up to 30 to 60% more when we're distracted with food. It's like you put your hand in the chip bag and you eat the chip and then you put it in again and it's empty, and you're like, where did it all go? You're, you're, it's mindless. You're not paying attention and you're just, again, numbing out. I also have a lot of sensitive empaths who are sensitive to energy and they feel everything, and that is a huge trigger because they're taking on everyone's stuff and it's overwhelming to deal with. So I think that body image and weight are big triggers. Boredom, loneliness, stress overwhelm. Those are some of the biggest ones I see. But each woman has their own unique list and each woman I work with has usually between somewhere between 10, 20 plus triggers. So it takes time to identify them all, and understand which are your most intensive ones that, you know, you give into really easily and which ones can you kind of work through. That's fascinating. And so. Each person will have their own sort of unique set of those triggers. Yeah. And Amber, tell me how, how do you work to dismantle these things? Like do you do the work yourself? Do you refer to other practitioners? Or healing modalities, body work, psychotherapy. Like what, what are you doing with these people to get them sort of onto a more stable keel when it comes to working with these emotional triggers and ending this cycle of cravings and binge eating. Yeah, so don't refer out at all. All the healing work is done just with myself, right? I healed binge eating food addiction binge per cycle, so I have the brain of a recovered addict. I totally can relate to what they're going through. So the first step is helping them understand what is triggering them to binge or emotionally eat. Then we build awareness to physical versus emotional hunger, and then we start introducing really powerful tools to help them catch triggers. And start asking really important questions like, what does it cost me to keep using food instead of actually dealing with the trigger? If I make this choice, what are the outcomes and am I ready to deal with that again? What do I really need instead of food? I help them build self-care practices over time. And those are some of the systems, but one of the biggest pieces is the consistent, steady support. Weekly or biweekly. And it's actually helping them become aware of what I call the ego mind, which is the, the inner critic that is going to tell you're never good enough. You suck. It's gonna make you angry, frustrated, be critical of yourself. And, and how do we take our power back? And what does it feel like when we're in our power?'cause when you're in your power, you're not gonna self-sabotage with food. And so helping them best better understand their inner critic versus their true self. And how to build their worth, which takes time. These are muscles that are gonna take time to build. It's not just a month or a day. Right. It takes time to shift this. Mm-hmm. And then we, you know, work on helping them understand what's triggering them to be critical of their body. Most of these women have inner child wounds. I, when I was five on the bus, the older boys called me fat and ugly. I carried that identity for the next 20 years of my life as an example. So if you've had trauma, if you've had things happen as a child or in your upbringing that triggered you to become insecure or triggered you into people pleasing or to emotionally eat, we've got to help support healing your inner child. There's all kinds of things that we look at and slowly work through because it's gonna take time to shift this. And we don't wanna dysregulate your nervous system, pushing you into discomfort too quickly. That's why we don't rush the journey. Yeah, it's not, you can't rush the nervous system. No, no. That with my patients, no. Yeah. So those are some of the things we do. And then we do hormone testing. We work on blood sugar cravings, like physical, emotional, energetic, spiritual healing. But it's really taken at each client's pace. But we first start dealing with the triggers. And bringing in tools and support. And then honestly, the other thing is most of my clients are last on their list, so we have to start discussing why that is. Setting healthy boundaries with their calendars and their schedules getting to bed earlier, saying no when it's a no. And these things take time because again, if it's out of your comfort zone, you're going to people please. So it's a lot of habitual and behavioral work at first, but we do support the physical systems to help you gain relief from your bloating, your cravings, giving you more energy, et cetera. Um, but it is 90% of it is the emotional, habitual work. Yeah, it is. It's a funny thing I see with my patients is people who are really exhausted and they won't put themselves to bed until one 12 o'clock, one in the morning. I just don't understand. I know that when I'm exhausted, I'm in bed at eight 30. Yeah. Like I just, I just, I'm like, but you're tired. Don't wanna, don't, you just wanna get into bit. Right. So there's just, it's dysregulated. It's stopped. It's not the circadian rhythm. They can sleep. They just don't. Yeah. Can you speak to that?'cause I've always found that quite fascinating. Yeah, a hundred percent. So I think part of it is a lot of people are programmed that they have to. Really like work until this time. They've got a, the hustle mentality is one of the worst things for our health. I think that some people feel like if I can't get things done during the day, then I'll work into the night to get things done. They don't ask for help. They're right. Taking on too much. Um, and or they are mindless scrollers and mindlessly scroll and spend hours on social media, or they're binge watching TV and they're, they're getting a dopamine high from that. And so again. Why are you needing to check out? Why are you afraid to feel your emotions? Why are you afraid to check in with yourself? What's going on there? And some people, again, get addicted to the work and addicted to pushing and staying up late, and then they're just burning themselves out. And that comes down to self-worth. I have to do this because if I don't and I rest and I take care of myself. That is uncomfortable and I don't feel good enough and I'm lazy. And this is some of the narrative that will be going on in some of these people's minds. And it's a discomfort to change it, even though it's gonna benefit them. When the brain senses discomfort, it senses it as a threat. And then the inner critic is like, no, stay up. Like this is what you do. Don't change it. And so there's this inner critic in the brain that's like, no, keep doing what you're doing, even though it's not a good idea. And so it takes time to dismantle that. And build new habits and patterns. It's the same with binge eating. I was in Denelle. I'm like, it's not a big deal. Even though it was a huge, it was like hurting every aspect of my being, but because it was a familiar comfort zone, even though it was hurting me, we'll stay there. So it's important that we understand that a lot of it is the brain and the, the, the wiring in the brain that we've created through the patterns we keep repeating, but it's not serving us to stay up that late. And no, it's not push. I always find this hard with patients. I just, I just try and convince them that I just say to them, but it's so nice gonna bed and you know, like, you feel so much better and they just don't change this mindset. Yeah, it's true. So any tips for listeners that do struggle with this sort of staying up way too late? Yeah, well, I think part of it is explaining like when you stay up late, you're not in that hormone balancing window. You're gonna keep your cortisol high, you are gonna keep inflammation high, you're gonna suppress your mood boosting neurotransmitters, and that's gonna impact your mood, potentially give you more anxiety, set you up for a higher likelihood of overeating the next day, blood sugar issues, and then bigger than the physical. It's like, well. I'm curious, like, why do you keep doing this knowing that it's doing a disservice to your health? Right? And then it's like, well, this is what I do. This is the habit, this is what's familiar. And then I ask like, what is it costing you to actually stay in this pattern?'cause it's not serving you. Mm-hmm. Um, and then this is where again, having the conversation around the limiting beliefs that are validating why they should keep doing it and, and doing that coaching with them is just so important. And I challenge my clients in a loving way, of course. Um, but it's so important that they be lovingly called out and that it's like, okay, let's just pull back instead of 1:00 AM let's do 1230, and then let's do 12 and like slowly. Making the change instead of ripping the bandaid off for some who are resistant. Yeah. Um, but if there's resistance, we've gotta look at that. Why, what's below the resistance? Because there's always something there. Yeah. It's so I do a lot of questioning and exploration to get there, and then we slowly work on making the changes because it's true. As they change it, they feel better and then they're like, I can't believe I stayed in that as long as I did. Right. Totally. I can't, um, help but think about how. The sort of emotional eating, how it disrupts the gut, how it disrupts your neurotransmitters, insulin. And then women getting PMS and PMDD, whereby they feel, especially when they're in perimenopause later or even younger, if it's severe, PMDD. That causes such mental anguish in itself. Yeah. So they could be not great in the follicular phase. They ovulate and then it's severe self-sabotage kicked in from their hormones. So it's very chicken and egg driven and I see this a lot in my, in my female patients and it's very hard to, they can. They improve their behavior in the follicular phase, but then once it all flicks and they're in that ltil phase, it's just this self perpetuating, more binge eating, more late nights, more watching Netflix to deal with the discomfort. But they need to get on. It's like they need to get on top of the physical and emotional issues at the same time, which is quite, yeah. Difficult. Yeah, so I mean, I guess you'd see that a lot. Whereas where their self, their negative self-talk is way worse in the luteal phase. A hundred percent. Yeah. And then if we have, you know, the transmitters are low and then that's, we have deficiency. Like if you have a woman with a low progesterone and, and she's not producing enough serotonin, gaba, right. It's, it's gonna really show up in the luteal phase. And then we have that slight increase in metabolism in our luteal phase, which increases our appetite level, which is gonna feel a hundred fold when you're binging or emotionally eating and you have gut issues.'cause all those gut bugs are like, feed me all the sugar. And then, right. We have increased appetite and increased cravings and, and when we have processed cravings, that luteal phase is such a vulnerable time with food. And so this is why working on healing your relationship with food is so powerful because number one, you get to know and isolate. Okay? Yeah, this is a very vulnerable time for me, so I'm gonna make sure. I'm more on it with my self-care. I'm gonna make sure I'm eating enough protein and fat with my, my carbohydrates to regulate my blood sugar. I'm gonna maybe have like a really nourishing like. Dark chocolate thing that's like not got refined sugar. That's natural that I can have something, but maybe I'm gonna put some really good herbs or things that are gonna support my cycle through this phase, you know, which is part of that. I'm gonna work on getting to better earlier. I'm gonna be aware that I'm gonna be more emotionally sensitive through this time, but the more I heal this, the next cycle's gonna get a bit better and it's gonna get a bit better and things will keep improving and it will it, it will fully resolve itself. Yeah. Yeah, it's a slippery, it's, it is honestly a slippery slope through the luteal phase for a little while, while you're healing a relationship with food because it's so much at once. Yeah. What, um, what tips do you have for, um, ladies that are going through this with regarding getting, doing their best in the follicular phase to prep their food and make sure they've got a pantry full of. Good food for the ltil face because I often see this, I mean, it is hard for working women, but if you make sure that you have the foods in pla, like you have the foods at home and you have the recipes in your mind, and also'cause you know when you're just tired and PMSE and you go to the supermarket, you're like, oh, just what am I gonna like? Your brain doesn't even know. What it needs to get. Whereas if you have some really great recipes that you know are really healthy and easy, or you have the food already at home in that ltil for that ltil phase, do you find that's quite helpful? It can be for sure, but still the underlying factor that is nothing to do with the food is the inner critic that's gonna be like, oh, but it's your luteal and you feel like perhaps you should go eat this'cause it makes you feel good. And so this is where. Yes, having the food available, having the nourishing food available is important. But you've gotta learn how to manage your inner critic and stay more in your power. And so this is where honestly, if you are struggling with emotional eating and you're struggling with this, get some form of support. Mm-hmm. If you can, because it's, you can have all the beautiful food in your if fridge, if you're like, I don't give an F. Yeah. I want this. You've gotta learn how to manage that voice because it will keep pushing you. To keep giving in, which will keep the cycle going. Yeah. I think the last thing that I wanna share about this is whether you're is an association. So whether you're the person who eats in front of the TV every night, or it's like your luteal is when I, I lose control with food the most. Whatever you associate with, you build a pattern or neuro pathway in your brain and that's going to light up during that time watching the tv. My luteal phase comes that pathway lights up. Oh, this is when I lose control of food. So it's not just the hormones or the change in fluctuation it's literally you're associating self-sabotage with a phase of your cycle. Mm-hmm. So. Breaking those patterns down, and this is where I say more self-care. Start exploring your triggers. Become aware, because then when that luteal phase comes and there's this stronger pull to do it, it's like, uh, I'm aware of that. So I'm actually going to take more time in self-care. I'm gonna be more aware of my triggers. I'm going to get to bed earlier. I'm going to eat mindfully. That's another big thing, actually. Eating mindfully with no distraction. Fork down between bites. Yeah, right. And as you do that and you dismantle this old pathway and you build a new one, the desire to do it will be less, not just because of the hormone fluctuation, but because you've built a stronger pathway to support your health and wellbeing. Yeah. And that's wonderful. Yeah. I just love how you said it's, it's creating a muscle, like, it's like building a muscle. Yeah. And it's the, I love the word power that you use. It's in, it's creating, it's empowering yourself. And I know, I know it can be. And it's a slow process for people. Which is why you've brought an entire business around this, which is wonderful. Yeah. And it, and it to be patient and compassionate and forgive yourself, but you can fully heal this. This is not something that I get clients to like 60%. We fully heal this for life. Wonderful. So that you're, you're, you break free. That's the key. Yeah. So where can our listeners find you? Yeah, so the website is amber approved.ca. If you're wondering if you're struggling with emotional eating, have a free quiz as well. I offer a 30 minute complimentary consultation to connect via Zoom and talk about any of these things, the emotional eating, the body image, the weight, whatever's going on for you and what isn't working and, and how a different approach may be exactly what you need. The podcast is called the No Sugarcoating Podcast, and that's available on all podcast apps in the website. And then I have. I'm available on social media. It's my name, Amber Roic. R-O-M-A-N-I-U-K. Wonderful. Amber, thank, I'll put all that information in the show notes, so if anyone is interested, you can easily find Amber. Awesome. But thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. It was awesome. You're welcome. So thank you for joining me. I hope you found this episode beneficial. Be sure to subscribe to the histamine well so you don't miss an episode. Leave a review and you can also share this episode with someone who could benefit if you have any questions you'd like answered. Or have a topic you'd like me to discuss, please go to my website, joanne kennedy naturopathy.com, where you can provide us with that information. Until next time, take care and be well.