Welcome to The Weight Loss Collab! In today's episode, "Emotional Eating with Lora Grabow," hosts Hannah Schuyler and Dr. Betsy Dovec sit down with renowned bariatric therapist Lora Grabow for a deep dive into the complex world of emotional eating. Together, they explore what emotional eating truly means, why it affects everyone—not just those struggling with obesity—and how our habits, emotions, and even food science play a role in why we turn to food for comfort, celebration, or simply out of boredom.

You'll hear practical strategies for identifying emotional hunger versus physical hunger, tips for breaking the cycle of all-or-nothing thinking, and creative ways to soothe yourself without reaching for the snack drawer—like building your own "emotional eating emergency box." Plus, the team discusses the ways modern treatments, such as bariatric surgery and GLP-1 medications, influence our relationship with food, and why the journey toward lasting weight loss is as much about mindset as it is about nutrition.

Whether you’re just beginning your weight loss journey or looking for new tools to manage emotional eating, this episode is packed with insights, real-life examples, and actionable tips to help you show up for yourself with more kindness and awareness. So grab your headphones and get ready to feel seen, heard, and empowered on your path to transformation!

If you want to hear more on this topic, be sure to attend the BodyByTransformation Retreat May 1st & 2nd in Orlando, FL where Lora will be a featured speaker! More information can be found at www.bodybybariatrics.com/bodybytransformation

There she is. There's my girl. We're recording. It's

official. All right, so just get ready to get started.

I'm ready. All right, ready? In 3, 2—

she's a doctor. Hi, I'm Dr. Dovec, and she's a

dietitian. Hey, I'm Hannah Schuyler, and together we are the

Weight Loss Collab, and we. Have our

favorite guest on the show today. We are talking

all things with bariatric therapist, world-renowned

Laura Grabow, who is here from Michigan.

She is going to be talking all things

emotions, mindset.

We're going in deep today, as per usual. So, Lora, thank you for

being on our podcast again. It is great to be back and great

to see you, Hannah and Dr. Dovick. I'm excited for this opportunity.

Well, thank you. So we're going to go right in

and we are going to talk a lot today about

emotional eating. And I think a lot of

us think we know what that is. We have an idea of how it

might show up in our own lives. But how do you

define emotional eating? Right. I'm so

glad we're jumping right in. And I'll have to say, before I start, it's probably

Before I define, it's probably the topic I talk about the most because

it's that much of a topic for all of us. I

think it's important to know that all of us

emotionally eat, not just our patients who are

suffering from the disease of obesity. We are all emotional

eaters. And I'd always be very

wary if someone is saying you can eliminate

your emotional eating forever. No,

that's not my goal. My goal is to help

our patients decrease the power of emotional eating

in their life. And so how would I define emotional eating? What do we want

to decrease? It's eating for all of the reasons other

than physical hunger. So anytime we eat

and it's not triggered by physical hunger, it is

emotional eating. It's so funny because I'm having

like a flashback to recording an episode of the podcast,

like maybe 2 years to 2, 3 years ago. I don't even know. I

couldn't tell you the episode or anything where Dr. Dovak and I were

like talking about this, and then all of a sudden we were like, oh, we

do that. Oh, we both do. Like, we both came to that

real—. Because we're like, no, we're pretty— you. Don'T think we really struggle with that?

And then as we're talking through it, it's like, oh wait, no, no, yeah, we

do that for sure. Absolutely. And, you know,

I think what people think about when they think about emotional eating, they

certainly think about drowning your sorrows in chocolate

chip cookies, right? So eating to soothe

is emotional eating. Eating to celebrate

is emotional eating. That's actually when they do the research, the number one

feeling we eat for is joy

and happiness. We like to keep the good feeling

going and we do that well with food. And

it's estimated that 75% of our

overeating is triggered by our emotions. Like they've done

research, 75% of our overeating is triggered by

emotions. But I think it's important because Hannah, you raised a good point

that there's some things that people think, well, no, I didn't think that

was emotional eating. So,

um, Sometimes, you know, I have a lot of experience— I don't do as many

anymore— doing those pre-op psych evals. And I would ask

patients, um, you know, are you an emotional eater? And sometimes,

no. And I'd say, okay, well, do you ever eat when

you're bored? Yes. Right, so that falls under

emotional eating. Um, they're like, well, I don't really emotionally

eat, I just eat, you know, like by the clock, you know, I

just eat when the time tells me. And so I hear That's habit eating.

Habit eating is emotional eating because our habits make us feel

comfortable. And then this one, I always am

like, okay, is this really emotional eating? And I

actually learned it when I was able to be

trained with, trained under Dr. Beck from the Beck

Weight Management Institute in Philadelphia.

She's the CBT guru. She taught me.

That eating out of desire falls under emotional eating.

And so what does that look like? Yeah, that is, I'm

not really hungry, but I eat because it's there, right?

So it's not tied to emotion, but you walk by your

colleague's desk and they have a bowl of M&Ms and you grab a

few, right? Not particularly hungry, but you eat

because it's there. When I used to make brownies when my

kids were living at home and I just I wasn't hungry, but there was the

9x13 pan sitting on the counter. Just, I'll just take

a little bit. So that's eating by desire. It's

not really like, I'm sad, I want to eat. I'm bored, I want to eat.

It's just, well, I'm just eating because I'm there.

We go back to my original definition.

Any time we're eating and we're not physically hungry, it's

emotional eating. Hmm. I think I,

I think the boredom resonates with me sometimes. I think

maybe this is on the same lines of that. If I'm working really hard,

especially if I'm like just doing something that's challenging, I'm sitting

there, I'm like stiff and I need a break. Instead of

just standing up, stretching, taking a walk, I'll be like, I'm going to go eat

pistachios. Like, I have to take a break.

And that's almost like your reward. You've been such a good girl. You've been sitting

here and you've been putting in the time.

Like, all right, go walk over there and grab you some nuts. You know, like,

okay. Absolutely. I was just going to ask you that. It's probably connected to,

I deserve a break. Like, I deserve a reward. I deserve,

you know, this has just been hard. I need something to soothe. And that's,

those are all healthy needs. They became

unhealthy when we connected it with food. Yeah,

so, so true. I feel like we all go there,

so we all overeat, or we all emotionally eat rather. And

it's, it's interesting, I never really thought about it as like habit eating, um,

just eating for convenience. You definitely know that we eat for it when it's

there. And so how do you, like, when on

that one, when you're talking about the, the sheet of brownies, and of course, you

know, celebration, whatever it is, we have them in the house. How

do you kind of bring it back to prevent that type

of emotional eating when you're at the store? Like,

how do you get in the mindset there where you're like, where you think you're

going to have control? You're like, I'm going to buy all these carrots and all

these things that you're going to trash whenever they, um, you know, expire, but yet

I'm also just going to throw in a little bit of this, but I'm going

to have control this time when I never have had that in the past.

So now you are jumping into another passion I have, another

mindset skill, because you said we talk about everything mindset. Um, I

call that stinking thinking, and there's actually a

category for it. It's called overly positive

fortune telling. Oh my gosh, I've never heard you say this.

Yeah, so it's looking into the future, you're predicting the future

too positively when you know there's other evidence that tells it's true.

So exactly what you said, When I teach about this in our

amazing Project Reset program, I always talk about Pringles.

Like, Pringles are a trigger food for me. And I hope we get into today

why food is so soothing and why comfort food is full of sugar, fat,

and salt. But I will

look at those Pringles, okay? So the trigger is Pringles and

the thought is exactly what you said. I can bring those in

the house. I'll be able to count out 11 crisps.

And just stick to them or whatever the serving size is.

That's not true. Right? So

the, what I teach is these CBT skills to, to respond to

that thought. I'll be able to, this over overly positive

fortune telling, or, oh, I'm not going to touch those. Those are just for my

kids or my grandkids. I teach our patients

to respond with the thought. How has that worked for you

before? Or

will this get me to my goal? And asking that question in

a very non-judgmental, non-shaming way.

Well, I know I never stick to this,

the Pringles, right? So serving size. So I just keep

on walking, right? Because I have a lot

of evidence, right? I'm not So I do some overly

positive fortune telling. My brain can bring some evidence back like,

yeah, Laura, that never really happens. And you know what? There's some

powerful chemicals. Like, that Pringle is

crafted to reach your bliss point and to get you hooked. So

just don't bring it in. So I don't bring it in. Yeah. Overly

positive thinking. That makes me think of you and getting places on time. Dutch

bus life. Oof. I'm a time optimist. She is a time

optimist. She's like, we can do all of that. Look,

sure, you are not like me.

Remember that reel that was out? Some of you might have seen— I put this

out there where it was like, if you can meet yourself the previous

15 years ago for coffee, what would you— what would you tell them? I'd be

like, I'm even later than I was then, you know? Like, everyone else is like,

but she showed up, she showed up 5 minutes late, I showed up 10 minutes

early. No, wrong, totally reverse. It made that like an hour late. Like

It's horrible. Like, ah, anyway, yes,

overly positive fortune telling. You know you ain't going to be there on time.

So yeah, I got to put that into

my thoughts here as well. You use catch, check, and change.

I do. I talk about that with people a lot, Laura. I always credit you,

which catch it, check it, change it. But I think that's such another, like

we said, like Laura-ism of And I think it really does. It ties

into the emotional eating thing a lot, for sure. Oh yes,

absolutely. Yes. Dive deeper into that. So catch it, check

it, change it. So give me a standard, a scenario

where you feel like you can really put that into motion. Right.

I think with the emotional eating, right? So,

well, first of all, catch it, check it, change it is the

3 C's of cognitive behavioral therapy, right? So this is how I

explain CBT. We catch the thought, we change,

um, we check it. Is it a true thought? By the way, not

everything we think is true, and our brains are not our besties.

And we then, we change it, right? So if it's stinking thinking,

we're going to reframe it, we're going to change the thought. So,

um, It could be the donuts in the break room, right? So there's

your trigger, uh, donuts in the break room. Thought:

those look good. I'm having a rough day.

I'm just gonna have one, right?

So if that is your thought, what is your behavior going to be?

You're gonna eat the donut, right? And how fast does that happen?

Like nanospecs, right? Like patients tell me all the time,

they're like, I don't think I have a thought before I eat. And I always

say it's not their fault that they, they don't know that. It's because they

haven't been taught that, right? We've only been teaching movement or

nutrition. We haven't been teaching mindset skills.

Um, but so we have to slow down and say, okay, what thought am I

having? And when the thought is I deserve it, I'm having a bad

day. I would hopefully, if I

was working with someone one-on-one or groups in Project Reset, teach

them how to talk back to that thought. I do

deserve to unwind. I do deserve to release stress,

but my feelings are worth much more than this chocolate cake

or the French fries. And what's another, another way to take care of that?

So there's some patch, check, and change. So,

you know, we— you have a plan, you want to stick to it. A

lot of what you say, I love your, your thoughts over like, just

make a decision. Decision fatigue is also just kind of in this like

mental struggle. It's just emotionally exhausting. Like, do I eat the donut?

Do I not eat the donut? I deserve the donut. I'm having a bad day.

Like all this kind of like back and forth and that sort of thing.

And, you know, I know a lot of people after they emotionally eat

to hopefully feel better, to take, you know, to reverse this

bad day that they're having, they will then feel like they ate

too much. Do you ever feel like there is like a

quantity that's attached with the kind of

aftermath of emotions that kind of come with it?

Like, oh, I, I had a whole bag of cookies, but I actually

did only eat one, and that's okay. Or, hey, that

wasn't on my plan, so should I still kind of feel like

shouldn't have done that, or like, you know what I mean? Like,

is there like a quantifying of how the response

afterwards should be? So I could go

two directions with answering that question. So the first one is, and I,

and, you know, being, being doing this work now for over two

decades, I will often have patients say things like, well,

at least I was emotionally eating protein bars and not the ice cream.

Right. And

okay, we can give that to you. But what I've learned from

our patients is what we're trying to teach, or what I'm trying to teach,

and I think our whole team is trying to teach, they have difficulty sticking to

a plan, right? So whether you're going

off the plan with protein bars or French

fries, we got to figure out why you're going off the plan. Because

we're trying to teach you planned eating and eating only when you're

physically hungry, right? So that's one

way to go with it. The other way is,

um, how do you show up to yourself after you emotionally eat?

Um, because, you know, backing up a little bit,

emotional eating works. Mm-hmm. Right. It does

soothe because what kind of food do we eat when we

emotionally eat? You mentioned the pistachios. I mentioned the Pringles.

Hannah? Oh yeah. Food. So many things.

Yeah. I'm pregnant though, so I did say the very big

at this moment. But when we, we've learned from our

patients through the years, it's these, um, highly palatable, ultra-processed

food full of sugar, fat, and salt. The reason

being the food industry figured this out before us in

the health industry, that sugar, fat,

and salt gives you a nice release of dopamine.

Right. And once you eat it, so these are our patients who say, okay,

you're asking like, well, I only had 2 Oreos. Your brain starts

chasing dopamine. It's like, I need more.

I need more to keep that dopamine going. Because

they've also done the studies that the

dopamine we get, the soothing effect we get from our comfort food

is only 3 minutes max.

But what our patients tell us, they're like, I often don't get 3 minutes. Like,

I am beating myself up like as soon as I'm done

eating it. And so this is back to Dr.

Dovick's question of, you know, does it matter how you show up to yourself?

Absolutely. Because what

happens is you start beating yourself up. I can't believe

I'm doing this. You know, I've, I've had surgery. I'm on a GLP-1.

Look at me. I'm emotionally eating. I'm just so awful. And the shame just starts.

That only triggers more emotional eating because

so many of our patients are really

uncomfortable feeling big feelings. And if you're having a big feeling

like shame, you're just going to go to food to soothe. And it's

this vicious cycle. It's round and round and round, or I'll call it a

roller coaster. Yeah. When I talk to patients

about it, a lot of times I say, you know, I think, and people do

this with exercise as well, but they have such black

and white thinking about it too. And like, we live in such a gray world.

Like there is no black and white, like everything is somewhere in the middle. And

so So it's, it's kind of coming to that point of like, I tell people,

I'm like, you're gonna— this is gonna happen. Like, it's inevitable. This is going to

happen to you, but you can't let it

derail you, right? Like, you can't say, well, you know, it's kind of

the whole thing, I've already been bad today— bad in

quotes— like, now the rest of my day, the rest of my week, the

rest of my month, I've ruined this journey. Like, whatever it is. And again, like

I said, people do this with the gym too, where they're like, I go 4

or 5 times a week and, and I missed one day, so

now I don't go to the gym anymore, you know. And it's just, it just

stops. And it's like, well, you missed one day, or okay, you

had the donut in the break room, like,

take that and let's like move on from it, basically, kind of thing. And

just let it be what it was and then, right, get back on

the plan. But like you said, it can be really challenging just for people

to, to stay on a plan is once that

has, you know, one thing has gone. Off, off

the tracks. If I ever did research, as probably like the most

popular and the most damaging sabotaging thought or example of

stinking thinking, it's, I've already blown it, I might as well blow it big. Yeah,

I've already blown it, I might as well blow it big. And it, and that

touches Hannah right on what you said, black or white thinking.

Again, I mentioned overly positive fortune telling. Another category of

sabotaging thoughts is all or nothing thinking, right?

You— there is a middle ground in teaching our patients

to do that. So, well, and so much of, I mean, like you said, I

mean, it's the food industry, like, and I'm not somebody who sits here and blasts

the food industry all the time, but it's food scientists are really good at their

jobs, you know, like I studied food science in college and

it's very interesting, but part of their goals is to sell product. And

that's— so yeah, they are, they do, they make it highly palatable and they—

it's saltier, it's tastier, it does, it provides that like

dopamine hit. And so

that's done really well. And then also you just see so much

absolutism in social media and in

the conversation, like nuance is just not there.

And I think that makes it really challenging for people too, is they're like blasted

with this content constantly of like,

you know, good or bad.

Yes. And, you know, they've done PET scans on patients who

have the disease of obesity compared to patients who do not.

And patients who do not have an obesity get a light up. I often say

like a Christmas tree, we get a dopamine light up. But patients

with obesity not only get a Christmas tree, they get Clark

Griswold's house from Christmas Vacation. A, like, more of a

light up, like, more of a party. And then the question

is, does bariatric surgery change this brain response? And the

answer is no. Do GLP-1s change the

brain response? Okay, we're looking at it. Dopamine, you know, maybe

not finding as much pleasure, but I'm learning that our patients

on GLP-1s are still emotionally eating. So

let's Something interesting, as you said earlier too, about emotional eating is like

that eating when you're not hungry. And I think that that's another struggle point

for our patients because oftentimes, especially early on,

like post-op or when they are on a, you know, higher dose of the

GLP-1 or just getting started, whatever it is, starting on meds, their

hunger is so suppressed. And so even myself as a practitioner,

I'm like, you still have to eat. Like, you— we got to get nutrients

in. And, and skipping meals and missing— so it's kind of, again, it's

finding that like middle ground in all of that of like what's

more appropriate and what do we need to do versus when

is it, you know, detrimental to you. Because it

could be our, our newer patients could be like, wait, you just told me not

to eat if I wasn't physically hungry. Right. And there's, you, our

patients, our surgery patients in the first year, you know, do have that

physical hunger suppressed and they do have to eat

by the clock. Right? But interesting, I don't know if you

two have heard this, but many of my patients are brand new

patients, especially surgery patients will say,

I didn't realize how much of an emotional eater I was

until I had the surgery. Because I'm learning

there's no way I can be physically hungry right now. And Dr. Dovick, you could

probably explain the anatomy and the metabolic reasons for that and what's going on with

ghrelin hormone. But that refrigerator's calling my

name. Mm-hmm. Right. I really, I was working,

you know, when I was working with a newer patient, they're like, I really wanted

to join in the eating when all of my friends were going out

because that's just what we did. But I knew I wasn't physically hungry, so that

had to be emotional. Mm-hmm. So it actually makes them

more aware of their emotional eating habits.

Yeah. And then even on the topic

of legitimate hunger after surgery,

they will feel hungry. I feel hungry. We get this

message all the time. Am I doing something wrong? No, you're

hungry. You are legitimately hungry and you

need to eat more. Your body is asking for fuel. You need to fuel it.

You need to get the protein. That's why we have all these dietary recommendations and

you have to do that. And You know, and that's

a, that's a huge change to, again, reminding yourself to eat, making sure you eat

this habit eating. And then how do you kind of keep evolving with

it as your hunger cues kind of change? You can eat a little bit more.

You get used to your post-op anatomy. The honeymoon period is over and,

you know, so on and so forth. I think it's a, it's a never-ending

journey as, as we are well aware. And with that being said,

you know, you talk a lot of just backing up to the idea

of, wow, we're comparing someone who has obesity, who doesn't.

And if I was listening to this and I have, you know, I'm suffering with

this chronic disease and I'm seeing like, oh, my brain is already

lighting up all that, even, you know, whether surgery's in there or

meds are in there or not. So like, how can you— and I know

this is, this is what you've dedicated your life to, but how can

you, how can you work with emotional eating knowing that you're already so

far behind the 8-ball than everybody else? Like, how do you

adjust that so that you can effectively remain

away from doing that sort of activity. Right. So

gosh, we just, the rest of the podcast could be on that.

I think that,

you know, I, first of all, when you're talking about physical hunger and fuel,

that is how I teach the difference between physical hunger and emotional

hunger. And I think this is true for both surgical patients

and GLP-1 patients. And again, you could explain the science

behind it, But when

our patients are physically hungry, we want them to put food in.

And when you put food in, the appropriate food,

protein forward, you will feel satisfied. I often say,

I know some people are listening, but I'm putting my hand up like we have

this tank. I think of a gas tank. When we're physically hungry and you

put the appropriate fuel in, you're satisfied,

right? Let's talk about emotional hunger.

When you're emotionally hungry, or some people say when I have had

hunger, so back to this tank, and you put the food in,

the hunger persists despite eating. And

so I hear from our patients, well, first I ate something salty and

that didn't do it for me. And then I ate something sweet and

that didn't do it for me. So then I put them together because I thought

I needed like sweet and savory together, and that still didn't do it for me.

I want to focus on the still didn't do it for you.

It's because you weren't physically hungry. If there's anything our

tools to treat obesity is giving our patients, GLP-1 and

bariatric surgery, is often our patients are feeling physical

satiety for the first time, right? They're physically hungry. They

put the food in, they're satisfied. Emotionally hungry, you put the food

in, your hunger persists, or You could

have just eaten a very balanced macro

plate that Hannah, you know, balanced macros that Hannah teaches, right? Protein

forward, has all the fiber, fat, all the things, carb.

And you, you have this thought like, oh, I have a taste for

something sweet. That looks good. That

sounds good. Well, if you're hearing thoughts like that, that's

another cue, if you will, that

you're— that's emotional hunger. So I guess the first thing I would,

you know, I'm saying to, to patients who say—

well, first I say it's not your fault once you

start eating Oreos, you can't stop. Back to what Hannah said, there

are brilliant food scientists that got paid a lot of money to craft that

product to reach your bliss point and to have you go back for more.

So that part lifts shame. Then we work on teaching them what's the

difference between physical and emotional hunger. And then once

they identify emotional hunger, we're going to take them to then

what do you really need in that moment?

Like just the power of the pause, right? Like slowing

down and saying, am I really physically hungry?

And if you're not, like you said, I've built my career

on, well, what else do you do then? Because your feelings are worth more than

a French fry. And so what are the pause? Yeah.

Yeah. So what are some of those? Because again, I talk with people about this

and I'm like, sometimes it's, sometimes it's also, and I get

this with people too, it's just habit eating, like you mentioned earlier. And I'm like,

you just need something else to do with your hands. Sometimes you want us, I

call it like a second activity. You're like, you're watching TV. And so

normally you eat when you watch TV, but it's really just that you want something

tactile. I'm that way too. I like to have something in my hands. Just

to do something. But like, yeah. So what are some of those

strategies that you teach people? Well, again,

I've learned the most from our patients and I think us therapists have

told our patients too many times, well, just feel your feelings,

like just feel your feelings without food. And then they come back and they're like,

I don't know how to do that. What do you mean? Just feel my feelings.

And so then I would give them a journal and I'd say, well, write about

them. And then they would come back to group or individual

with blank pages. They're like, I got

nothing. Journaling stresses me out. So like that's,

and I tell patients that too. I'm like, it would not work for me cuz

that's so super stressful for me to try to write things down. Yeah. And

so then with you, you'd know that and we'd work on some other things. But

again, back to being able to identify

emotional eating, you have to be able to identify the emotion.

And what I've learned from my patients, and even us,

we don't have the best feeling vocabulary. We may know

happy, sad, mad, happy, sad, mad. There are

so many other feelings out there. And so a tool

I recommend, and I don't know if I've ever shared this with you guys before,

but it's a really awesome app called the How We Feel

app. How We Feel. How We Feel. I

think Yale put it together, and I have so many of

my group patients using it, individual patients. Like, before you

can even honor your food— honor

your— I'm sorry, honor your feeling in a non-food way, you got to

be able to name it. And the How We Feel app gives you

so many names of emotions, right?

Um, for example, you know, I had a client who was using it a while,

and she said, you know what, I just feel— I feel really disheartened today.

I'm like, okay, that's a lot different than sad. Right?

So they start naming the feelings and I

love there's categories in the How We Feel app of like

pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions. That's important

too. I stay away from positive and negative

or good and bad because there's not a bad feeling. I

mean, that would like, we'd want to resist it. Well, there's, there's comfortable and

uncomfortable. There's pleasant and unpleasant. So I'd start

by— well, recently, um, I had a

patient use the How We Feel app when they were eating, especially when they were

eating off plan, and she realized she was an angry eater,

a resentful eater. She was pissed off about a lot of things,

right? So then, okay, what am I really hungering after? Well, one of

the ways she can deal with her anger is talking about it in her session

with me, right? So once you name the feeling or getting out for

that walk, that stress management walk.

So pause, name the feeling,

and then become curious.

Okay, I'm feeling anxious right now.

What do I need? Feeling lonely right now. What do I need?

I'm feeling sad right now. What do I need?

And there's a couple different things I suggest you can do.

Um, you know, you mentioned get busy with your hands, Hannah,

and, um, I call that,

that would fall under, uh, um,

soothing with distraction. Okay. Using distraction. And

someone's like, wait a minute, you just told me you don't want me to distract

with food. No, I, I don't want you to distract with food,

but you're having some big feelings. So I would love if you could

use the power of your mind. And put it to something

more neutral. And that's where I have a little object

lesson for all of you. And if you're in Project Reboot,

this is my emotional eating emergency box. Oh, wow.

Gosh. If you're listening only, it's a very cute box

covered in— yes, filled with. Things

and filled with things. And some things I have in here, and I know Hannah

and, uh, Dr. Drovick, you haven't seen this, but—

oh, you know what this is? Can you see? Oh, coloring

book. Yeah, coloring book, right? And some coloring

pencil, colored pencils. Very soothing, right? I don't know

why we stopped coloring when we became adults.

Um, it's also— you get to see the task go from beginning to

end, which is also very soothing. You get to have control

over picking up picking out the picture and how you want to do it.

So coloring, um, you mentioned

busy with your hands. Do you know what these are, Anna? Is it

knitting needles? Yeah, so knitting needles would trigger me to

emotionally eat. Yeah,

this is where I talk about, you know, how we distract and what's in our

box is very individualized, right? But knitting,

crocheting, sewing— what we also know about these activities

is they're crossing the midline So every time we

cross the midline of our brain, it's soothing. So oftentimes I will

teach people, it's like a butterfly hug, right? Just tapping

like this. I can do this a little bit, right? Just tapping

bilateral. If you don't want anyone to see you do it, you can do it,

you know, like this. You can do it on your, your legs. So tapping.

What else do I have in here? Sorry about that. So excited about my box,

I dropped the computer. Candle, right? Candles

are very soothing, but non-food, you know, it's hard. There are

so many food-smelling candles. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What's

your favorite kind of scent? Lavender is

very soothing. Yeah, I always like the ones that are like— they— it's like, how

is that a smell? Like the beach, or like such, like. Salt

air, ocean breeze or something. Yeah, yeah,

perfect. Or clean cotton. That's actually the best Yankee Candle is clean.

Right. But we don't wanna put on Grandma's Sugar Cookie when we're struggling

with the mold. No, we do not. No. I think

you've probably talked about these a lot. What do you see here? Oh,

chewing gum, brushing your teeth. Yeah. 'Cause we don't wanna eat after we have

that clean in our mouth. A couple other things I have in here.

Let's see. This is just a journal. So again,

Writing, you know, maybe naming some feelings, write it out.

Nail polish. This is the old

way people used to play games, right? Like, but

you know, our phones can be soothing if we're like, don't

go on the news apps, right? Maybe there's a game that you

really like. Like, I like the game Wordscapes.

Meditation. This is the old way to meditate. I actually have a

client who still uses, she gave me this cover, like old school CDs,

but So many great meditation apps now, like Calm,

Headspace, um,

tea, right? Just have a hot, no-calorie

beverage can really be soothing. And again, something in your

hands. And so I have patients create this box. Oh, I have a

bookmark in here because I like to read to soothe.

And so, um, when I'm teaching about emotional

eating, such as in our wonderful Project Reset program,

I have them create their emotional eating emergency box. And we

call it that because oftentimes emotional eating

feels like an emergency. And

I want you to have it ready because our emotional eating urges

are strong. Like we talked about the brain stuff, but then there's also a lot

like, I don't like feeling this big feeling. I got to get rid of it.

So you don't want to wait. Until you're in an emotional eating urge to

go put your box together. That's kind of like, yeah, that's kind of

like waiting to learn to swim when you're drowning, right?

You don't want that. So you want this ready to go. And

I've had so many patients say it just has helped me, especially in the

evening, to like do things with my hands. And so that's like soothing

through distraction. So that's one thing, one

way to curb emotional eating. Another thing I often talk a lot about

is using mindfulness skills. So that's deep breathing,

meditation. Meditation.

Um, what about screaming into the void? I tell people that one. Screaming into the

void, because you just. Got to get it out. Just got to get it out.

Loud music. Um, you know, I, again,

I often say I'm a walker, and if, you know, Jim and I, my

husband, had just gotten in a fight, I'm going to be walking a lot faster,

right? Using movement.

Um, Yeah. Soothing yourself with social relationships, connection.

We see that happen every Monday in Project

Reset. Our patients are really connecting and building

relationship together. And I know by

coming to a group, it's decreasing their likelihood of emotional

eating because they showed up to a group where they felt heard, seen,

validated, and not alone. Yeah.

Yeah. So those are some of the ways. Wow. No, I love

that. And, you know, we talk a lot about

emotional eating and you said something before we got

on that was such a really profound

observation in this new kind of

GLP-1 era with everyone talking about

its association with diminishing food noise.

So tell me, how does food noise going away with meds

or even after surgery, how does that change the landscape

in, in relationship to emotional eating? Right.

So what I've learned, cuz I've been really curious and I've been working with patients

on GLP-1, is that food noise and emotional eating are

very different. And yes, GLP-1s

are decreasing food noise. But it doesn't change your

emotional eating habits. So the way my

patients describe food noise to me is, and what

we know about food noise as obesity medicine providers, is they're always

thinking about food, right? Like, get up, what am I going to have for breakfast?

What's going to be my snack? What's going to be my lunch? What am I

having for dinner? What's going to be my nighttime snack?

That's not emotional eating as we've just discussed.

Right. That GLP-1 is taking that away. We're, we're

excited about that. But I had, um, I actually had

a good friend this week who's on a GLP-1 and she was, she's like, Laura,

I was stressed the other day and there I was

snacking. And I'm like, yep.

That's because GLP-1s do not take away

emotional eating, eating because we're bored, eating because we're

sad, eating. Eating because we're mad,

lonely, anxious, you still got to do your

work on your emotional hunger. But the good news is, is I

believe, just like I've always said with bariatric surgery, with

stabilizing those hormones that are kind of out of whack with our

patients with the disease of obesity, it gives you more mind space to then

work on the mindset stuff, to work on catch, check, and change, to work

on emotional eating strategies. Yeah,

no, I love that space. And that is such, again,

an interesting observation that food noise is very

different than emotional eating. And I have never

really thought about that. My husband's on a

GLP-1 and he has been for years. And I can

tell you, for being with him for almost two decades, that when he went

on a GLP-1, yes, the physical amount of food that he could eat

was very different. Him, you know, just the weight

loss was easy in a way that it had never been for him in

his life, especially since we were together. And so he's

eating less, he's done with meals, he's making healthier choices. And

then we're building the surgery center, for example, and he's super

stressed and he's eating ice cream. I'm like, how are you— why are you eating

ice cream? You're not— you just couldn't even finish your dinner. Like, you know, you're

not— you're so That is making a lot of

sense about it. Like he's still just wanting to get something, like you

said, to be so comfortable in that moment of tough times.

By the way, ice cream, they've done the research, number one food

we emotionally eat, women and men.

But then this is so interesting. It's different

by gender. So when they've done the research, so number one, ice cream, both

genders, the food we emotionally eat. And then they

look at men, and men will say things more like

casseroles, meat and potatoes,

um, soups, right? Big meals.

And females are more cookies, chips,

snack packs, Little Debbie. You guys want to guess why?

Because women are trying to keep their portions— they've always been told to keep their

portions smaller, so they're eating smaller things to make themselves feel better.

Men associate their emotional eating with being taken care of

by their moms, by their wife. They like that meal,

right? And women want a break. They're

sick of being the caretakers, so they're gonna go for something quick and

easy, something I could grab and go. So yeah, that

makes sense. Yeah, because I was like, I would never think of like— I mean,

not that I don't, because like pasta is like my go-to comfort like

meal, but I would categorize it differently in my mind of

like a meal versus I'm gonna run. Like the brownie thing

that she talked about earlier, that's so like classic my

childhood growing up was like, yeah, we'd make brownies every so often. It's like now

if I make them, it's like, ooh, you know, the 1 inch of brownie.

A little bit here, a little bit. And you just keep walking and going back

and forth and back and forth to the kitchen again and again. As soon as

you get that first taste, you just sort of like forget about it. It's done.

I just want more. But like, that's interesting about the ice cream thing.

And I think— and you're, you're talking about, that's so my childhood, that's so quintessential,

that what we did, we would just have that. Don't do Grandma's sugar

cookie. Like, ice cream is the number one food. Is that because,

like, when does this start? When does this emotional eating, this pattern

start? I guess when we're, we're little kids. And, and why is

that? Like, why, why are we putting this cycle to the next generation?

How do we stop generational emotional eating?

You know, it's a— yes, well, solve this for us. The

world's hunger, world's obesity epidemic is going to be solved by this

answer. Wouldn't that be great? Um, I,

uh, I have to go back to what I said earlier, is that, you know,

the reason we emotionally eat is because it works, right?

And food is soothing. And one of the

reasons it's soothing is often it's connected with positive

childhood memories, right? We're hungry for nostalgia.

We see that a lot in the holidays. Like, this is the only time I

get this recipe. Many of us were

conditioned to soothe with food from

a young age, right? You fell off your bike. What did you get?

A cookie. You probably needed, you know, clean the

wound out, a Band-Aid, and a hug. But you got a

cookie. Um, years ago, cause my niece

is now 16, but I was shopping

for my sister's baby shower. And that's when I discovered I was

working in obesity medicine. Cause I've been doing this a long time. They're making it.

Maybe Hannah, you know this cause you're more into the little ones,

flavored pacifiers. Oh, I have not seen

that. I have not seen that either. Okay. So what do you, what do you

think they're flavored like? Sweet. Yeah. So what are we

training? Well, yeah, and it's a natural— we're

predisposed to want sweet things. Like, that's a biological

thing as well. But yes, my God, we don't need any more help keeping that

pacifier in that baby's mouth, right? Right. And I'm

even thinking, like, you know, the sugar water. Like, I remember my daughter had to

have some type of test, and she, you know, so we're— you're right, it

starts young. Because I also think back to— like, Hannah, you're right, like,

there's biology. I also think back to

when my girls were newborns and I didn't know what the heck I was doing,

especially the first one. Like, okay, I fed her,

she's been changed, like, everything's okay. She's still crying,

she must be hungry. Yeah, I'm gonna feed her. And what

did she do? She puked it up, right? I feel like

newborns is the only time they stop eating when they're physically

full. She didn't want it anymore. Well, it— there, there

is a lot, and feeding kids is such an interesting thing. And I am in

the thick of a 2-year-old. She just— someday she eats, and some days she lives

off of the one Cheerio she found on the rug, um, and a

sip of water. I'm like, okay, well, you're surviving.

Um, but it is— it's like kids and things

have a built-in, like, stop feature, which

is why a lot of times too, it is— it's like I see her not

eat for a meal or whatever, and I'm like, it's fine. It means she's not

hungry because she still has that inborn in her. And,

and I think that the problem is that we come at it from it

as adults and say, well, no, you need to be

eating, you should be eating a meal. And some of it's cultural and some of

it's age, you know. We see this with grandparents a lot of times too, of

like, no, they have to be fed, or no, I'll just give them something that

they want, you know, that they— I know that they're going to eat. And it's

like, it's It's really okay. Like, she's growing and developing.

This is all very normal. And I think that that's where it is. It's kind

of like, how do we break that intergenerational thing? It's just

education and awareness and learning that, that people do. You

know, we are, we are born with that,

that nature to stop eating when we're full,

and eventually we condition ourselves out of that.

Um, and sometimes it is, it's a biological thing too. It is like we don't

get that fullness cue. We don't— our hormones do get crazy and we have this

disease and, and things like that. But for a lot of people, it's just kind

of conditioned out of like, oh no, I'm gonna eat.

Um, I'm just gonna keep eating because I feel like I can or I

should. And look at the names of some of our candy bars, right?

Symphony, Dove. Bliss,

right? We're coming up to Valentine's Day. You know, it's not named root

canal for a reason.

I also wonder if ice cream is different because it melts, and so it's like

a liquid and it's really sweet and fatty.

Yeah, and the sugar, fat, and salt. And this is why we've seen the rise

of the salted caramel, caramel,

right? Or, you know, bacon as an ice cream topping, because

they know to Reach your bliss point, sugar,

fat, salt, put it all together. So, but

yeah, I love ice cream. I was gonna say, oh, that does sound good. Oh

shoot. I shouldn't say that out loud. One thing I forgot to say that I

have in my emotional eating box, and because she also goes into why

food is so soothing, is this book. It fits in my box because

it's little. And those that are listening, um, it's called 50 Ways to

Soothe Yourself Without Food by Dr. Susan Elbers. She's a

psychologist out of the Cleveland Clinic. And, um, she

actually wrote another book called 50 More Ways to Soothe Yourself

Without Food. So I always say to our patients, I hate to break it to

you. There are 100 ways to soothe without food. At

least, at least. What I like

about this book is, well, actually she has one. You were talking about all or

nothing thinking. It's not like something you have to read from beginning to end. You

just, oh, I'm going to do this self-soothing technique, exiting zebra

thinking. Zebra thinking is black and white thinking. So she kind of like

walks you through, investigate stress eating, and then she gives you

prompts of like what to journal if you don't know how. So

I've, I'm often recommending this book. And

one other thing I think is really important to say

that I've, that I probably should have said in the beginning.

When our, when any of us emotionally eat, we're looking to

numb. We're looking to escape. I want to escape.

I want to numb, right?

The techniques that I teach in Project Reset that I do in my

individual therapy practice, they're techniques to

help you cope through. How do I cope

through this uncomfortable emotion? It's easier

to numb. It's easier to escape, but we

know the positive feeling fades. So let's learn how

to cope through the emotion versus—

I had one patient say she tranquilizes her emotions with food.

Powerful word. Right. And so

they'll say, well, that box thing or that,

you know, that deep breathing, it didn't give me what pizza gave me.

And I'll say, you're right. Because pizza's about numbing and

I'm teaching you how to cope through. It's a big difference.

It's a big difference. Wow. So much.

There is so many things, but of course we want to keep hearing you.

Our favorite, gosh, you know, you've been on the

podcast before. You've been in other support groups. I hope you'll come to a support

group again very soon. We do this once a month. We love it when you

are. Kind of the featured

special guest. And then our work

that you did in September, we did the Body by

Mindset retreat, which was all about the very,

very specific aspect of mindset, breaking free from

shame. And I swear to God, I just saw a patient

today who told me that she was at that

retreat. She again, gosh, we're many, many months from there, almost

a half a year later. She talks about how powerful it was, and

she talked about burning her shame shield of

her father. She just wrote the word dad on it and how

he's been very triggering to her and how she thinks of that every

day of her life since then. It was such a powerful kind of moment.

And that retreat was so awesome. Obviously, we're having another one.

Yeah, I just want to hear about what your involvement is

going to be in this next one coming

up in May of 2026, the Body by Transformation retreat, and how

you're feeling about the last one and, and your hopefully excitement for the next

one. Well, absolutely. Yes to all of that. I was

so thankful that, you know, you collaborated with me on

my idea to do a mindset retreat in person. And Body

by Mindset were so powerful. And I too continue to hear from patients

who are there. And I think the next

retreat that you have planned is just going to be bigger and better, right? The

butterfly effect, Body by Transformation. And I know

that you've invited me to speak, and for sure we'll be

speaking on emotional eating since it is such a big

part of all of our journeys. And I think we talked about a few other

ideas. I don't know if you want to. Yeah, I mean, one of the big

ones and it is right now, if you're listening, it's around Valentine's

Day. So we are going to be having a

Valentine's Day special. You're wearing red, you have red lipstick. I'm like, oh, she was

on point. She didn't even know what was coming her way. So we are

offering a buy one, get one

50% off on February 14th,

2026 only. So we want to make sure

that not just patients, prospective patients,

past patients, maybe even people who aren't patients will feel

comfortable, of course, to come attend, as you say, trademarked

Community is Treatment. But also, we want to make sure that your,

your support is there— your friends, family, maybe those who've

been on a weight loss journey, maybe those who haven't, someone who's wanting to

do better from a personal development standpoint. And so we really want to

make sure that that room is filled with many people, and you and your expertise,

we really, um, want want you to give an additional session on

that family and friend support system. So yeah, talk a little bit

about what that, um, what the kind of learnings they could get from

that sort of a session as well. Yeah, so I love that you're

doing, uh, the buy one, get one half off, because

what we've learned is the people in our patients' lives are

so important to their entire journey, pre,

post, That is, you know, support team is so important.

And I am so passionate about

teaching a session, if you will, on family and friend support

where you and your support person gets to come. Like a lot of the support

groups, it's appropriately so patient only because of

confidentiality. But at this retreat, what if you— we did

a family and friend support session where I could educate your family

and friends on the disease of obesity and what are the best ways

to support our patients, what gets in the way, what are the

obstacles. I've done— I've shared

this material in person and I've done it virtually, and it's often

very, very powerful, not only for the patient but for the support people. So

I think that will be something that makes this next retreat unique.

Yes, we're very excited about that. I think it's going to— because we get this

all the time, you know, it's like, well, my 'My spouse, my husband, my

mom, my friend, whoever it might be, like, has such an

opinion about this.' And so usually it's negative, and a lot of times it's for

these people that have not yet had surgery, um, and it really

holds them back. And it's not because that person is

mean or, you know, doesn't want to support them, but they, they don't understand,

or they're not, um, you know, they're just, they're just not

educated, or they're not informed on those types of things. Or a lot of times

too, I feel like it's, it's people who one partner struggles with obesity and the

other one doesn't. And so it's like they just can't understand.

They're just like, well, just try the diet one more time kind of thing. And

it's like, I've tried it 60 times. Like, how— what more do you want me

to do? So I think that's going to be an awesome, you know, opportunity.

Um, or, you know, bring your girlfriends, your besties. Like, it's a

Valentine's Day option too. Yeah, because I think even

all of our other speakers and the content is relevant to

everybody. That one session on family and friend

support. And, um, yeah, I'm excited.

I've heard patients say in the past after I've done it, like, I

told my support person that a million times and they like never

heard me until they heard you say it. You know, they heard it from an

expert and I'm like, okay, well, it's all right.

That was about— yeah, absolutely. Well, hopefully, yeah, I

think that there's a little something for everybody at this retreat and

we're going to start again to slowly announce some of the

exciting agenda items. So you're one of the biggest ones.

You're a headliner on this thing. And people are coming.

Like we said, they love the last one. And I can't wait to see what

you bring, value that you bring to this one too. Yes.

Great. Awesome. So you can find Laura on Instagram

at Bariatric Therapist or LauraGraybell.com.

And then of course in Project Reset through Body by Bariatrics, she's there

every every Monday night doing the group session. So we hope that if you're

already part of that, you are joining those group. If you're interested in learning more

about that, send us a text, connect with us on social

media, we'll get you that information on joining that. It is— it's been a really

awesome program, and I know, um, people have really gotten a lot out of,

out of Project Reset. Yes. And then

join us at the Body By Transformation Retreat, May 1st and

2nd in Orlando, Florida. All of the information about any

of this stuff, go on bodybybariatrics.com, play

around on the website. You will find everything that you're looking for and

probably more. But we would

love to connect with you very much. So, well,

Laura, seriously, thank you again. Every time I hear you,

I mean this, I learn something new. My favorite one now was

overly positive fortune telling. That is my—

wow. Jeez, I feel a little, uh,

targeted there, but that's okay, you know. I love— you're seen, we see you.

That's right, seen, validated, heard.

Very much so. Your observations always nail it.

We all have stinking thinking, all of us. We're not alone.

And on that note, I hope you all have an amazing week, and we'll see

you next time, guys. Thanks again. Thanks. Bye-bye.