You’re so determined and ready to eat in alignment with your food goals, but something always seems to get in the way. And it isn’t just that you’re lacking willpower!
Often, when working towards our healthy eating goals, we’re told the more effort we put in, the more results we’ll see. The more you resist food, the more successful you are. Just have more self-control or willpower and then you’ll know you’re doing it right! But what if the solution isn’t really about willpower, brushing your teeth after dinner and resisting food?
Instead, getting to the bottom of why you self-sabotage and eat when you aren’t hungry are keys to transforming your relationship with food. Truce with Food (Appetizer) is the first 3-months of the Truce with Food (Main Course) 6-month program.
So, how do you know if Truce with Food (Appetizer) is right for you?
- You have a lot of information and know what you “should” be doing, but for some reason you’re unable to consistently stick with it.
- You’re sick of obsessing about food and having it take up most of your mental energy.
- You’re open and ready to get to the bottom of WHY you self-sabotage and “fall off track” so you can take back control of your eating.
- You have a suspicion that maybe your weight and relationship with food aren't really because of the food. You think there must be something else to it!
- You’ve invested a lot of time and money into addressing this “food thing" and are hesitant about if this process will work for you. The 3-month program is a great way to dip your toe in the water and see what kind of results you can start to experience.
This process is NOT for you if you’re:
- Looking for a meal plan and for someone to tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat.
- Searching for a quick-fix or formula with more tactics to resist food.
- Not able or willing to do deep emotional work (if that’s where you are right now, that’s OK!)
- Feeling behind and like you needed to lose all the weight yesterday
What's really happening when you're in a cycle of self-sabotage?
If you’re often “good” during the day and eat in alignment with your goals but then at night find yourself eating a whole bag of chips or a pint of ice cream, traditional dieting would tell you to just pick yourself up and get back on track tomorrow, which is easier said than done. Do you ever wonder WHY that happens?
Most likely it's because you're in this unconscious cycle:
- Trigger: You experience emotional discomfort from a trigger such as tired, anxious, inadequate, or lonely. This may happen after receiving an email from your boss you perceive as negative feedback about a project you messed up on. Your stomach drops and your shoulders tense up. What’s happening isn’t actually stressful or depressing, we have an internal emotional trigger, so we focus on food or our bodies.
- Story: Your triggered emotion can feel “unsafe” because it was unsafe in the past. So, you fall back on this powerful (and often unconscious) story that creates stress and tension. Thinking back to the email from your boss, your story might be that you felt misunderstood, you’ve failed and are at risk of losing your job.
- Stress Reaction: You protect yourself with the emotional versions of fight, flight, or freeze mode, which are to compete, avoid, or accommodate. Once you feel like you’ve failed from the email, you immediately think about finding a new job. This is part of the avoid stress response where you want to get out of the uncomfortable situation ASAP.
- Behavior: The stress reactions lead to behaviors that create a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a result, you feel stuck, unfulfilled, or isolated. With the sudden desire to start looking for a new job, you search job sites, or draft a defensive email back to your boss. You get up from your desk and beeline it to the candy stash at your co-worker’s desk.
- Eat Out of Alignment with Your Goals: You mindlessly eat, stress eat, or emotionally eat, hoping the food will help “save the day.”
- Lose Self-Trust: You start to question your ability with food and your body. Once you inhale the candy, you feel like you failed again and didn’t stick with the healthy eating plan you started out with in the morning.
- Loops Back to the Trigger: You become triggered again because you’re less resilient and creative about other choices you have. As a result, you become more stressed and start to lose hope.
Now you might be wondering, ‘so now that I know this cycle exists, how do I change it?’
During this program, you will gain clarity around the external factors causing your cravings because once you’re aware of them, the pull of food can decrease. Through our sessions, you’ll also strengthen your self-trust, which will lead to being more in tune with what works best for you, your body and your lifestyle. (Hint: It likely won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach.)
Specifically, here is what we cover in each session:
If it feels like you’ve been in a long, constant and never-ending battle with food, the Truce with Food (Appetizer) program is the first 90 days of the full 6-month program to give you a taste of the process so you can start gaining clarity, relief and results. If you're ready to get started, schedule a Curiosity Call to ensure it's the right fit!
"I would recommend Laura to anyone who has been trying to lose weight but has gotten stuck for some reason and is frustrated by their inability to move forward. Laura’s positive encouragement and thoughtful evaluation of what the underlying causes of my eating habits could be was very eye opening.”*
~ M.S., Chicago, IL
“Through my time working with Laura I regained my independence and removed myself from a toxic relationship. I was also able to identify what was derailing my progress and holding me in old habits that no longer suit me.
Overall, Laura has really helped me move forward and I have realized that I am stronger than I think. I recommend her for anyone struggling with weight or major life changes because you will identify things you never knew were holding you back!“*
~Tammy D., Minneapolis, MN
“I started working with Laura because I wanted to feel more in control around food. Throughout the program I realized that I often accommodate others ahead of myself so I end up feeling depleted. I now feel more in control and aware of some of the issues I have around food. Overall I’m feeling less anxious because I’m more aware of my role/reactions and feel more in control of them.
I really like the “casual” approach to the sessions. Talking about and digging into the whys around eating and food is as important as nutrition and exercise. I recommend Laura to anyone struggling with many diets, have dietary issues or someone who notices they may binge or have irrational thoughts about food.”*
~ A.G., Chicago, IL
*Results may vary from person to person.
Have some questions?
The difference with Truce with Food® is it isn’t just another tool or tactic to try that’s built around willpower. Throughout the program, we will get you to see your “bad eating” as a protective behavior and will start to understand the real root cause of why you battle food and “fall off track.”
Ultimately, we will shift the focus off dieting and deprivation and onto you, your emotions and your triggers. We rarely actually focus on the food itself. Instead, we focus on physical and emotional safety, which are the key root issues to battling food for years.
Many programs guide you to get clear on your “why” and ground into why it’s important to you to reach a goal or make a change. In Truce with Food, we focus on the “why not.” Why do you know what to do but you’re not doing it? Why do you have meaningful health and weight goals, but you still fall off track?
Gaining clarity and being able to answer these questions is at the heart of what we do in this program. Other emotional eating approaches might tell you to feel your feelings and help you recognize that you eat when you’re lonely. They’ll help you come up with ideas of what you can do when you feel lonely (e.g., reach out to a friend for support). The thing is, you aren’t falling off track with your eating because you didn’t reach out to your friend.
In Truce with Food, we get to the bottom of why you feel lonely to begin with. We explore and identify what your story is, as well as the patterns and behaviors that lead you to isolate yourself. We then identify new choices, so you feel in control of your life (and in this example, deeply connected). The self-awareness and skills you develop prevent these feelings from arising in the first place, leading to no longer feeling out of control of food and needing to eat when you aren’t hungry.
During this program, we will meet every two weeks for three months. You will receive a homework exercise to complete between sessions and I will provide email support in between the meetings in case you’re feeling stuck along the way.
Meeting every other week provides the accountability you may crave while also providing the space to process and digest what comes up in sessions. Your life is the classroom so we use those experiences as data and information to guide our discussions.
Below is an overview of what we cover in each session:
- Session 1: (105-minutes): Get to the bottom of why you battle food and “fall off track” by diagnosing the story that’s been keeping you stuck
- Session 2 (60-minutes): Connect the dots between your story and eating, which will provide more clarity so you can be compassionate with yourself and the process
- Session 3 (60-minutes): Understand and identify what leads to unaligned eating choices in the moment and how they drain your energy
- Session 4 (60-minutes): Characterize how you’re being in your story that leads to the behaviors making you feel out of control around food and in life
- Session 5 (60-minutes): Characterize how you’re being “good” to get out of your story and to help see your story more so you can further begin to choose differently.
- Session 6 (60-minutes): Tools to soften and safely be with discomfort and challenge your story.
Results vary by client based on where they are in their journey, how open they are to the process and the work they put in. However, many clients tend to:
- Experience more ease around food by thinking about it less and naturally making the more nourishing and healthier choice.
- More naturally eat in alignment with their healthy eating goals without having to resist food.
- Feel relieved, hopeful and empowered by being able to identify the themes that are leading them to make unhealthy food choices. They tend to see a shift where they are more naturally able to eat in alignment with their healthy eating goals, without working so hard to resist food.
- Feel more comfortable and confident in their bodies.
- Take more risks in their lives and are no longer avoiding things they would have in the past. This can show up with new job/career opportunities, in their relationships, making a move to a new home, etc.
- Create more balance in various areas of their lives, including with food and exercise.
- Speak up more often for their needs in an authentic and genuine way that feels right for them. This leads to experiencing relief and more fulfillment.
Curiosity Calls are always free! Exploratory “Why You Self-Sabotage Deep Dive” sessions are $350 and will be applied toward the cost of a program. Program prices start at $1,898 and vary based on their length. Payment plans are also available to fit within your budget.
During the Curiosity Call we will determine which program is the best approach for you based on where you’re currently at and the type of support that would be most helpful for you.
So many programs promise to be different but underneath they’re all different ways to give you a formula (often not based on research) or cut calories that creates more restriction, which only leads to eventual rebellion.
This is a process you can’t fail if you devote yourself to trying and learning how to understand your out of alignment eating, which is what Truce with Food gives you the awareness and tools to do. It doesn’t require willpower in the traditional sense. In fact, imperfection is built into the material and is expected!
This process is challenging and is not for everyone. The challenge is the willingness to be a beginner and continue to show up when you’re new (e.g., not the best) at building a new skill set. This can be uncomfortable for perfectionists and those with an all-or-nothing mindset. It’s about being devoted to yourself.
If you can commit to showing up when you feel imperfect, this process will work for you. There’s not a formula for success or failure here. This process meets everyone exactly where they are in their self-awareness and lifestyle. It’s the opposite of having a bunch of rules to follow that only fuel the battle and a sense of failure.
Sessions can be done in-person, over the phone or via Zoom. You don’t need to be local in Chicago but many people who are close by prefer meeting in person, when possible. It’s really a personal preference and what works best for your lifestyle. Regardless of how we meet, clients tend to get similar results whether we meet in person or virtually.
Ready to get back on track for good?
Schedule a 40-minute Curiosity Call free from shame, guilt and judgment. You'll fill me in on your challenges with your relationship with food, gain some insight, and will have a safe space to talk about what's been swirling around in your mind. You'll walk away knowing the steps to create sustainable change (no willpower required)!
There's absolutely no charge for our first chat.
