Stop Stress Eating Today

Cheryl Gordon: I have a confession to make. I have a huge sweet tooth, and absolutely love anything salty and crispy. And I eat these things when I'm not hungry.

And I have eaten a lot of these things when I've been feeling stressed, or lonely, or depressed, or hopeless, or overwhelmed, and or, in general, states of grief. This is called emotional eating.

I don't think I'm alone, and my guest today is an expert in helping us understand and change our emotional eating patterns.

So welcome, everyone, to the Midlife Reset Podcast. This is episode number 23, where we guide women through the tools of yoga and mindfulness so they can feel stronger, and sleep better, and live lighter.

I'm your host, Cheryl Gordon, and today, I'm thrilled to sit down with an inspiring expert, Kim Hines. She's a compassionate nutritional health coach who helps women over 40 finally heal their relationship with food and body, without punishing diets or loss of shame.

Kim, I'm so glad you're here, welcome!

Kim Hynes: Hi, Cheryl, I'm honored to be here, and congratulations, episode 23.

Cheryl Gordon: Kim, you can help women break free from emotional eating and those exhausting diets that just… they never really seem to work in the long term. Can you share how your own journey has led you to this sort of holistic approach?

Kim Hynes: Absolutely. I realize, as I go back and I really dig deeper into my own patterns, that it started as young as 8 to 10 years old. I was left at home, and I don't know in Canada what they call it, but in America, we called it being a latchkey kid, where Your parents would go, and the kids would get off the bus, they'd be home alone until dinner when the parents came home, and I got put in charge of my younger brother, which was very stressful, because he just did whatever he wanted.

Younger brothers are. Exactly. So, I would dig in. My mom always had stuff for baking—she had chocolate chips, we had this lemonade that would come in a tub, Country Time lemonade, and it was a powder. I would lick my finger and stick it in the lemonade, because it was all sugar and lemon.

So I found my own ways, because we didn't have a lot of sugar in the house unless my mom baked. Back then, it was a real treat. We didn't have things like Twinkies or anything around. So that was the first that I can remember—under stressful situations, I went looking for it.

In high school, because I had my own money and could go to the little stand, I would skip lunch and grab this package of three Grandma’s cookies and a little carton of milk. That’s what I would have for lunch every day.

The worst of my emotional eating came in college, where I was so stressed out my freshman year. I got put into some really interesting situations when I went away to school, and I really wasn’t ready. I wasn’t mature enough emotionally. Everything that happened to me that year was because I really needed a year at home—but my parents divorced that year, so trying to figure out where I would live, I just went to college.

This is where I could go to the convenience store and nobody would know that I was grabbing the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And anybody who knows me knows that peanut butter and chocolate is my thing when I’m really stressed out. I gained 25 pounds during that time.

And that is when I also began the diet cycle, where people made comments at home. I even had a boyfriend, when he broke up with me, tell friends that his other girlfriend had a better body.

So when I would restrict and diet—because that's all we knew, was to stop eating and move more—then I would end up binging after doing that for a while. And this restrict-binge cycle just kept going on and on.

Probably the last moments of emotional eating that I was really hooked in was when I unfortunately went through my own divorce. Before I got remarried, I was a single mom for about six years, and getting used to the kids going and spending time with their father, I’d have these weeks alone, week on, week off.

Those were the times that I would really get into it, because I was alone, I was lonely, I was sad, I was getting used to a new situation, and I literally used it to escape. One of my worst nights was when, in my pajamas, I drove to the gas station to get a king-size Hershey chocolate bar.

And so that was my journey. I taught high school math for a while, and on the outside, I was very healthy—I was a marathon runner—but inside, I was dying. I knew in that phase of my life, when I was getting to my late 30s, that I wanted to talk to women about this. I wanted to open up, and I also wanted to help with nutrition and health.

As you know, because you work with midlife women, we were all starting to go through these changes, and I realized that's where I could serve people better. So that journey led me to nutritional health coaching, food addiction coaching, and a lot of other ways for EFT tapping certifications—because I needed so many tools.

Because I had to help myself first.

Cheryl Gordon: Right. And Kim, you're saying all that, and I'm just… I'm cringing for you, because I have been a single mom, I have done the midnight run to the convenience store. For me, it was always the salty, crunchy things that drove me there, though. And I know that crushing loneliness—I know it. So, I’m with you, girlfriend.

In yoga, we often talk about listening to the body. It's often repeated, but you teach that in terms of food.

How does that work in real life, Kim—listening to your body about food?

Kim Hynes: Yes, and it's one of the hardest things to do. It's literally one of the last steps that we get into. We first have to slow the body down. We have to connect with it. And it's great, because you and I have had conversations about this before. I use tapping and breathing in order to help slow the body down.

Kim Hynes: Slowing down and being mindful in every part of our lives has to happen before it can just happen. We can't just do it in food.

So, we are so disconnected, and I love that you brought this question up, because we think, “Oh, we just… we have no willpower, there's something wrong with us, we're gluttonous,” but what's really happening is we've cut ourselves off from feeling any emotion at all. So what we have to work on first is the emotions. How are we processing the emotions? How are we sitting in them? And how are we soothing the body and the mind, and even—when we talk about physical and emotional—also spiritually, in order to enhance our whole life. And I have a saying: I always say, nourish your entire life.

Because we have to nourish the entire life before we can just get to the food, because it's not about the food. We can only connect with our bodies when we've started taking care of ourselves in other parts of our lives.

Cheryl Gordon: So that sounds like self-compassion to me.

Kim Hynes: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely—grace and self-compassion.

Cheryl Gordon: So, what does that translate to? When you work with your clients and you're trying to get them to be willing to, say, face a strong emotion—like when you were going through that crushing loneliness, when your babies were out of your sight and out of your care for a whole week—how do you deal with something like that? Like, that's visceral, right?

Kim Hynes: It really is, and I think the biggest part for my clients is they just have to be able to talk about it. And so when someone comes to me, we're not just laying out a meal plan, we're not saying, “This food is good, this food is bad.” We're starting with, “What's going on in your life right now, and how are you coping with it?” And we find the tools that we can use in order to cope with those emotions.

When I was going through it, I didn't know that I should be sitting without the TV on. I should be sitting by myself, and I should be allowing the emotion. We're afraid—we're very, very afraid of hurting. We're very, very afraid of being scared, having fear. And when we realize what anxious thoughts really are, they are a base of fear. And when we really get down to it, that fear is not as big as we think it is.

Kim Hynes: It's just something that we have created, because we've lost a little control. We think we've lost control with food, we've lost control of the fear, and we have to bring it down. Sometimes I'll even say to my clients, what is the worst case scenario? What's really the worst thing that can happen right now?

You're gonna be single for a little while. What's the worst case scenario? What's the best case scenario? You fall in love again. You get to go out on some dates. We go through every scenario. So, I am not a mental health counselor. I'm gonna put that disclaimer out there. However, nutritional health coaching and food addiction coaching has a lot of talking involved, not just food and exercise.

Cheryl Gordon: Right. And so many people just say, tell me what to eat, or for me, they'll come to me and say, tell me the magic pose that'll help me to lose weight. If you go on the internet, there's all those silly things, you know? And so, I think we're both saying the same thing, is that you need to be your own best friend.

Kim Hynes: And have those tools to lead you to that self-compassion, and then you can start understanding why you're eating at the gas station at 11:30 am.

Cheryl Gordon: Can we talk about EFT? That's Emotional Freedom Technique, right?

Kim Hynes: Yes. Well, it's really funny, because I started my certification class to learn how to use it for my clients, and it turned out to be my number one tool for myself, because we've talked about meditation and breathing. I find it…

To be a struggle on some days to meditate, and to let go of my thoughts.

And when I finally understood, first of all, meditation isn't just having no thoughts, it's allowing those thoughts to flow. That made sense to me, but I still… my nervous system was still just on edge enough that I couldn't really sit and appreciate that stillness.

So, what tapping is, is we are able to use our acupressure points. And I use the top of the head, the inner eyebrow, the outer cheekbone, under the eye, under the nose, under the mouth, and the collarbone. In fact, I have a free tapping video for anyone who would like it to learn how to use tapping to stop emotional eating. But this tapping really resonated with me, because I found even if I didn't know what was wrong with me, I could just tap.

And all of a sudden, it would come to me. And 99% of the time, my stress was fear-based.

Again, so it's funny how it just comes back around, and when we tap, we have a script, and I teach my clients how to use their own life, and we don't have to use the exact script. And if you don't know what to do, you just tap for a while, and then you can choose a script of, I choose peace. I choose love.

Cheryl Gordon: Whatever resonates with you.

Cheryl Gordon: Speaking of script, this is off-script, but when you were showing your tapping points, they correspond to some energy points that we know in yoga as marma points, and I do think it's quite magic, the way it can help you tune in to some inner peace or inner calm. It's quite… it's quite interesting.

You get exposed to that if you do something like an Indian head massage at a spa or something like that.

Kim Hynes: Yes.

Cheryl Gordon: So, how long does the tapping normally take? What kind of investment of time?

Kim Hynes: Two minutes.

Cheryl Gordon: Two minutes, so that's pretty… immediately.

Kim Hynes: You can do it as much as you want, but it's usually only about 120 seconds. The first time I do it with someone, I ask permission, and I ask, “Can I take 120 seconds of your time to try this?” Because people are a little leery, and it's really interesting — I'm not trying to throw men under the bus, I mostly work with women — but men are the ones that are very skeptical.

And when they go through a session, even just two minutes, when they open their eyes at the very, very end, we close our eyes, and we do a round with our eyes closed, and I tell them where to tap.

And it's funny, because when they open their eyes, you can see the shift that they've made.

Cheryl Gordon: Yeah, because eyes really do show whether you're in a stress response, or a relaxation response, or you're fluid in that. Eyes will show that right away.

Kim Hynes: Yes.

Cheryl Gordon: So that's amazing. That's a really immediate, really accessible tool that people can take, and people can download your free guide.

Kim Hynes: Absolutely.

Cheryl Gordon: Really no excuse not to jump in.

Kim Hynes: Exactly, and something funny that I've had my clients do is they just will do it on their collarbone in the car when they're stressed out with traffic. They'll be at a stoplight, and they'll just sit on their collarbone, and they'll just tap away, and it helps soothe them.

And if you think about it, think about babies or kids that have little tics that they use to feel better — whether they're feeling skin, playing with a blanket — tapping is a similar soothing response, and this can take the place of soothing yourself with food.

Cheryl Gordon: Yeah, so when I'm having that craving at night, when I want to not feel lonely, or not feel sad, or any of those really big emotions, you could try a technique like tapping. What are some of the other tools that you might bring into a session?

Kim Hynes: Yeah, so I talk about some physical tools that I would like them to be doing on a regular basis.

One of the first things is consciously nourishing your body throughout the day. We're finding that there's too much of the diet culture in our brains. Women our age, we grew up with the things like SlimFast, and the dieting, and South Beach Diet, and all the different diets, grapefruit diet… my mom did a liquid medical diet at one point. So we are not used to actually purposely putting the right foods in our bodies. We're used to taking out things—and that's restriction—and our brain reacts to that negativity. When we are adding really good food into our bodies, it’s a whole different signal.

I feel like, again, that's very personal—what works best in your body—and I want you to work with an expert on it if you're not sure. But I'm just gonna use me as an example. Please only use this as my example for Kim. I think everyone should have their own plan. So this is the Kim plan: I feel best when I nourish myself four times a day.

And I don't call it snacking—it's my third meal, for example. One, two, three, four. Four times a day, and I have a lot of protein and fiber, a lot of fruits and vegetables, and a lot of water. My body runs better, and I'm not as depleted at the end of the day. Doesn't mean I'm not going to want that little habit chocolate, but I am not going to be dying for the carbs and the sugar, because when we're so depleted, the first thing our body wants is that glucose. We want to grab something that's going to give us energy. So consciously nourishing is the first thing.

The second thing is walking, and we all have exercise in different forms—whether it's running, weightlifting, yoga—but walking is so powerful, because when we are walking, not only are we stabilizing our blood sugar (like the food is also doing), but when we move our eyes and our legs at the same time, we have two sides of our brain working, and we are processing our day and our emotions.

Cheryl Gordon: I did not know that.

Kim Hynes: It's fascinating and really powerful. The problem we have with walking is we take our phones with us. It's okay if you want that for an emergency, and if you're listening to something nice, that's great, or you're learning, but when you're walking and trying to return text messages and emails, you're defeating the purpose.

The other thing is seeing nature. When we see green, our bodies respond really well, and we have a calming effect with that nature around us.

Kim Hynes: And, obviously, the tapping is one of the tools.

And I do ask people to consciously breathe. Because as you know, because you've taught me breathing, we have a shallowness in our chest when we're anxious, and we breathe very tight, very short. When we can lengthen that breathing and fill ourselves up and slow it down, it brings the heart rate down also.

And that gives us a fighting chance to make some decisions, because by the end of the day, we've had decision fatigue. The end of the day is a hot spot for people, and we've made too many decisions in the day. Food’s just… we're 5% on our battery at that point.

Another tool is to have a transition — a transition between 4 and 5 o’clock and dinner — where you're saying, “I'm home, I'm relaxed, I don't need to reward myself. My reward is being here, I'm done with work.” Closing down work and being all there for yourself in the evening.

There are so many other tools, but those are the things that I start with that they have control over until we get control over the emotions and can process those better. Some people do not like journaling, but some people do, so we find prompts they can use. If people can't journal, I have them leave voice messages for me, where they just talk right in and tell me what's going on.

Cheryl Gordon: Yeah, I love that, because it is really important to have a sounding board. If a journal can be that for you, or if you have a coach, they can be your sounding board. Now, Kim, you also have a podcast.

Kim Hynes: Yes. And I also had a very special guest today on my podcast.

Cheryl Gordon: Hi, Cheryl.

Kim Hynes: By the way.

Cheryl Gordon: Full disclosure, it was my first time guesting on someone else's podcast. It was quite fun. Thank you, Kim.

Kim Hynes: Oh, and I can't wait for your listeners to listen to it, because you did a fantastic job.

Cheryl Gordon: I think we're going to become quite fast friends, you and I, Kim. So anyway, tell us about your podcast.

Kim Hynes: The Emotional Eats Podcast started off with a vision that I wanted to have long-form content for midlife women. I really wanted to explore the idea that we consume so much more than just food in our world. There's so much that women have been conditioned to buy, and I wanted to break through that diet culture and really get into health, especially perimenopausal and menopausal health.

As the podcast has gone on, I've also incorporated my solo episodes around, mostly, emotional eating. Sometimes I go off on other topics, like friendships, because midlife friendships are different, or traveling — what do you do when you're on vacation, and how do you bring that back? There are so many things we can talk about.

I also wanted to have a platform where it wasn't just me, because I don't know everything. The functional medicine doctors, the fitness trainers, and all the different viewpoints we’ve had on the show have been amazing — including yours — where we just have different tools and perspectives, things I wouldn’t even think of. So, The Emotional Eats Podcast — you are going to be episode 122.

Cheryl Gordon: So, it's been quite a journey.

Kim Hynes: It’s been a lot of learning, because this is a day-to-day process, but I love it. I just want to share, because there are so many great people out there. It’s not just about me — it’s about other experts who have a lot to share.

Cheryl Gordon: And I really enjoyed our visit this morning when we recorded episode 122.

Kim Hynes: Yes.

Cheryl Gordon: Now, Kim, there's one thing I wanted to bring in, because I think you have a lot to offer in this area. It's something that I'm fascinated with, and that's gut health. I know that there's a huge connection to mood and nervous system function, and I know you work with your clients on this.

Kim Hynes: Yes, what we're finding is… I'm very blessed. I have an ARPN in town, and she does hormone and gut testing, and I send a lot of my clients to her.

Because what we're finding is a lot of women who are struggling with emotional eating have two things going on. One, they're going through the regular hormonal changes where the drop in estrogen and progesterone is really affecting all of their hormones, including ghrelin and leptin, which are hunger and satisfaction hormones, serotonin, and our gut is connected with the serotonin. Our immune system is in our gut, so the hormones we take care of, but then we also… and she tests for me, also, just regular things, because we really do need to know our regular blood work. But she looks at it from a functional medicine side.

The other side of it is we're also finding, due to environmental toxins and the types of foods we've been eating, that there are a lot of women having gut dysbiosis. It could be parasites, bacteria, Candida, SIBO — so many different things. Just getting tested is the most important way that we can jump on it and get started. What I am really excited about is when I own a practice with two therapists.

We have so many referrals going back and forth. The referrals I get from the therapists are people who have anxiety and depression — that’s a majority of my clients that come from them as referrals. We know there is a definite connection between gut health and mental health. When we're not getting the nutrition that we need, we're messing up that neurotransmission between the brain and the gut. It can really affect mood, agitation, and anxious thoughts.

That's why I like to have people, even though I don't want to force them into a way of eating, see the pros and cons of eating a really balanced, nutritious plan so that their brain is working well. You need every fighting chance to stay out of the food that is going to make both the brain and the gut not work well.

Cheryl Gordon: Yeah, if we want to battle emotional eating, we need every tool in our arsenal, and having a healthy gut biome really gives you the support so that emotions don't sweep you away. You don't feel so victimized by them.

You also have your quick little “10 Easy Tips to Stop Stress Eating.” Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Kim Hynes: Yes, I think everyone can relate to stress eating. It's hard to call yourself an emotional eater sometimes, because you may not realize what it is, but it really can be the same thing. There are so many ways that, throughout the day, if it's just straight-up overwhelm, burnout, stress, we can protect ourselves a little better. One of my favorite things that you and I have talked about is being in the present moment, which is so challenging. I encourage everyone to take a mini break every hour, even if it's just for 5 minutes — off the phone, off the computer.

To breathe and separate. Our brain is going back-to-back-to-back all the time. We have zero space, zero stillness. The power of stillness is to make really good decisions, but we can't wait till 5 o'clock to have stillness. We need to start first thing in the morning, start our day in quiet.

Have a non-chaotic, peaceful morning — not flying out the door. I laugh because I was that woman, flying out the door, coffee in hand, bag on my shoulder, trying to find my keys. One time, my bag got caught on the door handle and yanked me right back in the house — it was basically my wake-up call: slow it down. But every hour, just take a moment to breathe and make sure you are eating and drinking your water.

With stress, we can anticipate it. I ask people to look at their stress calendar. When you look in your calendar, instead of just saying, “I have a 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock, 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock appointment,” ask yourself: where am I going to have stress today, and how can I head that off? When you anticipate it a little, you can head it off. Otherwise, when we're not in the moment, we are caught off guard. That's when we swing through the drive-thru, grab the sweet soda, the extra cup of coffee, or the cookie at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We are caught off guard.

Our brain goes into automatic habit mode. It just says, “Oh, I just need something,” and the higher brain is not even present when we're in automatic mode. Some of the tips involve just taking a minute. One thing that's really good when you're stressed out is humming. Humming is really good for the vagal nerve and calming your nervous system. Singing a song works, too. Those are just some of the tips.

Cheryl Gordon: Okay, so people can find that on your website. We'll put the link in the show notes, and I would really encourage people to look into the tapping and the 10 top tips for beating stress eating, because we can all relate to that.

Cheryl Gordon: It's been amazing having this conversation, Kim. Thank you so much. When I'm in Florida next time, I'd love to come by and see you.

Kim Hynes: That would be amazing. I would pick winter instead of summer. If I ever make it north of the border, I will definitely make sure we get together.

Cheryl Gordon: You got a spare bedroom to stay in, girlfriend.

Kim Hynes: I love it.

Cheryl Gordon: Be sure you look into Kim's two free resources: the Guide to Emotional Freedom Technique, which is a tapping program that will help you calm down and make better decisions around food (and many other areas), and the top 10 tips for beating stress eating. All of us can benefit from that. I'm also including in the show notes a couple of other resources you might find helpful — like my Five Steps to Mindful Eating. A lot of overlap, but it doesn’t hurt.

Kim Hynes: Do your research, right?

Cheryl Gordon: Yes, perfect. Thank you so much, Kim. Have a wonderful afternoon. Namaste.

Kim Hynes: Thank you, Cheryl. Namaste.