The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast

Andrea Caprio: Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Eating

July 16, 2023 Andrea Caprio Episode 37
The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
Andrea Caprio: Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Eating
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Ever struggled with food related issues such as emotional eating and sugar addiction? What if there was a proven five-step formula that could help you regain control? I'm thrilled to welcome Andrea Caprio, a master transformational nutrition coach who has developed the Food Freedom Formula to help individuals overcome these struggles. Andrea’s journey began with her own battle against stress-induced sugar cravings and through overcoming them, she founded her approach.

The conversation with Andrea goes much deeper than just food issues. We tackle the tricky topic of self-sabotage, which is often rooted in a fear of success. Andrea shares insightful ways to identify and counteract this fear using tools like meditative practices, journaling, and the supportive ear of a coach. We also discuss the importance of understanding and addressing the triggers of emotional eating and how balancing neurotransmitters in the brain can play a crucial role in this aspect. We also address the often-overlooked issue of work addiction and how to recognize and handle it.

As the cherry on top, Andrea offers a Quit Sugar Cravings Workbook that can ignite your journey towards overcoming cravings. She also has two amazing gifts for you, a free nutrition audit and a free food freedom consultation, because everyone deserves to have a healthy relationship with food. Our conversation is packed with actionable advice and practical tools that can transform the way you look at food, stress, and success. So tune in and start your journey towards food freedom today!

Free Food Freedom Consultation https://web.wellnessmethods.com/freefoodfreedomconsultation

Quit Sugar Cravings Workbook https://web.wellnessmethods.com/sugarcravingsworkbook

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Florence's courses & coaching programs can be found at:
www.FlorenceChristophers.com

Connect with Florence on:
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE

Speaker 1:

Hello everybody and welcome. I have with me today Andrea Caprio, and she's an expert in emotional eating. She also has understanding and some expertise in sugar and sugar addiction. She is a master transformational nutrition coach and developed her food freedom formula to help women in particular struggling with cravings and compulsive eating sort out their relationship with food so that they can lose weight. Her mission is to help people break free of self-sabotage, to heal their relationship with food at the deepest levels, to look underneath the symptoms of the ways in which we struggle with food and to help them figure out how to live their life on their own terms. Welcome, andrea.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, florence, for that nice introduction and welcome to everybody.

Speaker 1:

So most of us working in this space have our own story of recovery to share. Do you want? To share yours with us.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yes. I absolutely believe most of us come through our own story and for me it was the same. I was really an amstel, but I would say stress is probably something in my life that has always been there. I always put a little bit too much on my plate, doing too many projects, wanting too many things, troubling too much, moving too much. There was many years ago, before I became a nutrition coach, was a time really where I realized that all the stress has eventually resulted in eating a little bit too much sugar. There was a little bit of sugar here, and there was a little bit of sugar in my coffee, and then the cookies, and there were more cookies and it all kind of added up and I really felt that my health started taking a toll. I had acne as an adult, which I found a bit strange always, and I had bloating all the time. I had weekly migraine headaches. I had fibroids that had to be removed several times, though they re-grew each time and doctors telling me I should do hysterectomies, etc. Etc which I oppose, by the way. Everybody needs to decide that for themselves. No, that's not an advice or so, but there were so many things coming together and obviously I had put on a little bit of weight too.

Speaker 2:

I came at that stage across something that really made me change. I came across a cleanse. It was sort of a detox, but a very healthy detox. The idea behind that was to help the body get rid of toxins to detox from sugar, of course as well, and processed foods and only eat healthy during that time. I followed this and suddenly everything started improving Suddenly. My skin cleared up, eventually. That obviously later on, instead of weekly headaches or migraines, I have them maybe two, three times a year. Only my fibroids never re-grew.

Speaker 2:

I lost weight, the bloating went away, I got more energy. I forgot the energy. I was always on low in energy, so I got more energy, and so on. By that time I realized, wow, how much food played a role. That was, for me, really an eye-opener in there. I went like, oh, wow, okay, as it is sometimes when that happens, we Google something and then suddenly Facebook shows us ads.

Speaker 2:

At that time I got actually all kinds of ads about nutrition schools. I must have googled that one, I can only assume Anywhere. I then researched 60 different nutrition schools, decided for one, started going through the course, doing my certifications and then eventually doing my specialization. I have eight different specializations, so I became a master certified transformational nutrition coach. During that time I obviously started working with clients, which now, when this airs, actually I will have passed my seventh birthday, or anniversary, rather. I mean in my practice I have been working that long with many, many people, helping them to lose weight, to improve their relationship with food, to help them overcome any food issues they might have, like emotional eating, food addiction as well sugar addiction and any health issues they might have developed, usually related to that.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, wow, one-stop shop. This sounds amazing. So tell us a bit about your five-step food freedom formula.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So my five-step food freedom formula is something I really developed over the years working with my clients, because I realized most people come there want to lose weight as a first thing. Right, most people who come say, oh, I want to lose weight. Many people do not realize they are struggling with a food disorder or an addiction or eating disorder or emotional eating. They really they kind of often don't realize. Sometimes they might realize and not want to realize as well. So it depends a little bit. So for me that is really important to help those people. So when somebody starts with me, I really help people first of all.

Speaker 2:

So that's the first step is to recognize the root cause, right? So I always like to know, okay, what is your issue? And then look at the root cause. And I believe that's really really important, because when you don't know the root cause, how can you address it? Right? So first of all, the root cause. Is it an addiction, right? Is it an eating disorder? Is there some hormonal imbalance? Is there maybe some digestive issues? Is there some trauma that happened in the past? Right, some emotional things, other limiting beliefs, etc. So we're looking really deep at the root cause, because only once we know the root cause, we then can address it obviously. So that's step number one.

Speaker 2:

The step number two is to reset the body's healing abilities. Now, very often people go directly into having a diet or overcoming, you know, maybe addressing certain type of things right, cutting out food. But the problem is if, for example, if you do that and often people don't see results, is because the body often is stuck actually and the liver is being our biggest detox organ, is often stuck, that it doesn't get in, it's not able to get through the toxins and process them and that can affect negatively, for example, our hormones, and then we end up, for example, with grilling levels, leptin levels that are wrongly, or maybe even our adrenals, the thyroid, etc. So all these things are playing a role. So we definitely want to have our liver in top shape and that is the detox I have done. Initially, when I became, before became a nutrition coach, which helped me in my own journey.

Speaker 2:

That just reset the body, so it starts, it kick starts the body, allowing the body actually to heal better, and that's usually when you get more energy. You start maybe seeing the first advancement or so, and then you can go to the next step and then you can actually repair the root cause. So there we are looking really into okay, fine, what do we need to address, right? Is there maybe because of, let's say, extensive sugar or processed food eating, or so maybe our digestive organs have taken a toll, maybe there's something like leaky gut or IBS or whatever? It is Candida. A lot of people have Candida who are dealing with sugar addiction.

Speaker 2:

So we really want to address all these things through, obviously, the foods, and, of course, at that stage comes also very often we want to then look at, let's say, there's an addiction happening, right? We want then, obviously also to help repair that by nourishing the body while at the same time, whatever food we are addicted to let's say it's sugar helping the people to cut it out completely, because in the end we all know from addiction is that abstinence is where we eventually going to and that, of course, we need some help with this. We also might need, perhaps, to balance the neurotransmitters, which played, of course, of course, a huge role in addiction and any eating issues some people have. And then the next step is that we want to relearn healthy habits. Now, many of us had those habits in the past. Right, we have been eating maybe healthier, we have had a good lifestyle, but we forgot about these things, right.

Speaker 2:

So we want, then, really to go into and relearn those, and I always say it's a little bit like brushing your teeth, right, when you brush your teeth in the morning, in the evening, most people don't think about it. I'm asking the listeners do you think about it? And I guess your answer is normally no, right, you just do it. And the same way, we want to learn healthy habits, because then we can just do it, and that is obviously helpful as well. Overcoming the sugar addiction. And then the next step, which is the fifth step of my 5R steps, is to rewire your brain, basically your mindset, and that is often so. If we have gone through a trauma, maybe if we have had some limiting beliefs, maybe we feel not valuable, lovable or so working on these, of course, help as well to overcome any issues you might have around cravings, sugar addiction, weight loss, any issues, of course, with illnesses related to that. So that's my 5R steps.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, incredibly comprehensive. How long does the process take when you work with clients and move them through this five-step process? What does that usually look like for people?

Speaker 2:

Great question. So it depends a little bit on where people are at right. It's not a quick fix, I must say, and I personally believe people who usually are at that level and need that help. I always say they're usually maybe in their 30, 40s, 50s, 60s or whatever, and that took many years to get there. So it's not just a two-weeks approach to get them over it, because then we go back to the year-to-year dieting that so many people try and they don't work. So I start seeing success after usually two, three weeks, but then we go a little bit deeper into addressing the root cause.

Speaker 2:

The body needs to repair itself. It takes time. That can take several weeks, even several months, and then of course also learning habits takes time. So we want really to set them, because in the end you want to find a system that works for you for the rest of your life, because in the end that's really what, in my opinion, counts. And then of course we're why at the mindset there's also sometimes a little bit deeper work to be done. But this can all be parallel.

Speaker 1:

Got it Very cool. So talk to us about self-sabotage and what are some of your best insights and strategies for overcoming sabotage.

Speaker 2:

Great question, love, that it's one of my favorite themes. So self-sabotage I think I believe we all self-sabotage at stages in our lives. I think it's a little bit natural. But the important part is to understand where does the self-sabotage come from? Self-sabotage, in my opinion, is very similar to procrastination that both have their root in fear. Now most people think actually it's fear of failure because they fail so often and they think they are just having that fear of failure. But in fact what very often it is, and most of the time it is, is actually fear of success.

Speaker 2:

So what usually I invite people to find out is to see, okay, what is and I'm asking you out there what might be the worst thing that can happen if you were to be successful, to kick the sugar habit, to lose that weight, to be healthy, whatever it is, what your goals are right. And often people and it's a question that needs time so great ideas, for example, to meditate on it or to journal or to work with a coach, for example. But really get clear, because often people forget what it is really or what it could be, because, of course, all this is in the subconscious. And with that in mind, just a couple of ideas. It might be that you might be afraid that your partner doesn't love you so much anymore when you lose that weight. Or it might be that if you are eating really healthy all the time, your friends might not like you that much anymore because you're a healthy nerd or something like that, right, and so you might be afraid, kicking the sugar habits, that that might be happening and your friends don't accept you anymore. Or it might be that in your family everybody always said everybody in our family is fat or overweight or whatever the words are, and you might not fit in anymore with that.

Speaker 2:

So I mean, there are plenty of other things, right. It might be that you say, oh, but my partner should love me the way I am, so why should I make an effort to change? Because if they would love me more, maybe you know, then it's not right anymore. So there's so many things and we don't. We are not always aware of that and because it happens in our subconscious, Totally, totally.

Speaker 1:

so what happens if someone's sitting down to answer the question? What would be the worst thing that happens if I'm successful at this, whatever the goal is, and they're stuck and they're not getting a lot of insights? Have you ever had that happen and how would you help them through that?

Speaker 2:

Yes, definitely have seen that happening with our clients and that's that's where the the coaching work starts and where it's really I love that work. I must say I usually work with my clients a lot through various methods, going from emotional, psychological, spiritual tools let's say I always call them a toolbox so such as workbooks, for example. I have a lot of clients who have negative thoughts like this, negative thinking you know, I'm useless or you know whatever it is. And we all have our own chit chat in our brain and that usually comes from our childhood or from our past, but usually is rooted in our childhood, right, where maybe our parent, one of our parents, has said something and we took that that we are worthless, useless, not, you know, lovable or so. So we have that chit chat somewhere in there and keep having that on and on.

Speaker 2:

So this negative mindset, that's, negative belief, obviously manifests when we are an adult all the time, which can lead to eating, eating addiction and so on. So working on, for example, rewiring the mindset is one of the exercises I do with my clients and it's one of many, right. So, for example, then I would go with them and help them, either through a meditation or through journaling or through the exercise, to find out, okay, where did that show up the first time in your life, right? What is your earliest memory when you felt like that or when you had that thought? And find out what it is.

Speaker 2:

So then we usually also go in and just accepting it and embracing it, because most people push it away. You know, we're always taught to push away, like you should not cry, you should not feel upset, or so. But in fact, if we take it on, it doesn't have the power on us anymore, right? So, for example, embracing that as well, as I said, finding out where it comes from and then finding out, okay, what actually did it serve us? What is the positive thing of it? So you kind of take away the power and it became something that's more like normal and I don't like the word normal but in a way where we can deal a better way with it. So this is just one example that I'm using, but obviously there's so many and I doubt we have the time to go through everything here.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, got it. So if they're stuck with trying to figure out, why would I? Why would I be afraid of the success I'm working so hard to achieve? And they might ask themselves okay, what are some of my earliest memories? So, if there's fears coming up, what is my earliest memories of those fears? What circumstances were going on at that time? And instead of being afraid afraid of what you discover to actually embrace it and accept it and validate it, and then to sort of ask yourself what are the benefits, Like, in what way is this staying stuck or staying at this level benefits me? And to sort of unpack that a little bit to see if you can get some insights that allow you to move forward in a way that makes you feel safe.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. There are always some benefits. Now the question is, do these benefits serve us today? They might have served us in the past. To give you an idea or a sample, I had one of my clients many years ago, 31 year young woman.

Speaker 2:

She weighed 400 pounds, around 400 pounds. She has been raped when she was a teen or child actor between her eight and 14 years, numerous times and she obviously at the time to protect herself, but also to put make herself ugly or undesirable and she was, by the way, very beautiful. She ate and ate and ate right and put all that weight on. So at the time it might have served her right. So there is a positive thing. It might have served her to learn to cope with difficult situations at the time, but today it's not serving her anymore.

Speaker 2:

So, by learning that we can then work on practicing other behaviors right, or a different mindset, and work on that to help her overcome this and in the end, that it's also and that's part of it as well as we. Then, of course, once we acknowledge we let go right and then we also practice of, instead of this negative mindset or the negative words we say or we use, then changing that into something positive. Okay, so, instead of thinking I'm useless, I can say oh no, but you know, there are things I'm actually good at, right and I'm not useless. So maybe focusing more on the winds, where you're good at, or things like that.

Speaker 1:

Got it Talk to us about emotional eating. What are some of your best strategies and insights, I guess, around what is emotional eating and how do we overcome it?

Speaker 2:

Okay. So emotional eating is eating that usually is based off on emotions, right, as the word says. So I think again, there is recognizing what drives or what triggers emotional eating is already the first step. So always becoming being aware actually of what triggers it is, I think, very important Because then you can often remove the trigger or, you know, deal with the trigger in another way already and making it again much easier to deal with what you're struggling with, like the addiction, for example, right. So when you have that being aware, okay, is it each time my boss calls me that I'm handing, you know, heading for the cookies, or is it each time I'm coming home and I'm bored is when I eat, or is it when I'm happy? Right as well, because sometimes people forget that we also eat emotionally, with happiness, like weddings is a very great example, actually.

Speaker 2:

So just understanding that, what drives the emotions or the emotional eating, which emotions drive the emotional eating, is good, but also understanding then, okay, how can I help it? Very often you know emotions like, for example, sadness, anxiety, frustration, or so, are. Also, I go back to the neurotransmitters and I'm very passionate about, you know, helping to address neurotransmitter imbalance is really finding out. Okay, there is maybe an imbalance of serotonin or dopamine, and then how can I address that right? There are several ways as well to make it easy. So, again, going back to the root cause of the emotional eating right. So we want to figure that out and help that, and so that is a way where I work with clients mostly on emotional eating, finding out what triggers it and then again becoming aware and practicing on overcoming that.

Speaker 1:

Got it so that you're tracking triggers and you're either learning how to avoid these triggers or minimize these triggers, or you're learning to respond to these triggers in new ways, with new healthy habits?

Speaker 2:

Yes, and then we go back to my five step system, my food freedom formula, of course, and using those within, yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

What are your I guess what's your expertise around having to balance in your transmitters of the brain?

Speaker 2:

I work a lot with my clients on that. I really love Trudy Scott. I think she's amazing and I learned a lot through her, I must say. So I work with a lot of clients using amino acids to help them balance the neurotransmitters. So I use normally a form with them finding out where they are at which kind of neurotransmitters are more likely to be maybe low, and then working on amino acid therapy to help them to balance them.

Speaker 2:

Now, just interesting, it's not an easy, clear cut thing. It can be a very quick thing when you get the right. I guess I see you working over that as well. So it makes it much easier to help overcome, for example, addiction. But sometimes you need to get it right and often I see people who have several neurotransmitters that might be quite low and balanced, and then it's really getting the right combination of it. So it's a little bit of trial and error approach, but sometimes it can be literally like this right, literally, you have some of the amino acids that you take and then it can be instant that the craving disappears even. What's your experience with that Complex?

Speaker 1:

Very complex, yeah, and I've had people where because they're on other pharmaceuticals. You have to be careful, or if this goes too high, this can drop and they can wind up depressed and anxious when they weren't before. And there's complexity, sarah, I feel like people, when they talk about amino acids, make it sound like, oh, it's like so easy. Yeah, that hasn't been my experience.

Speaker 2:

No, I agree, I agree it's not easy and I have literally I mean with some clients immediately, some. We have to be careful, they were on other medication hours. Give that warning to you know, whenever you do this kind of therapies, to check with your doctor, especially you know when you have any issues or take any medication, because they're absolutely there can be very wrong interaction happening and I don't want anybody to be at the end of it and it can be dangerous for your health. So please, if anybody wants to try that, check with your doctor. And yeah, and it's really to get it right, it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah yeah, and I think the more people we work with, the more of us in this space recognize there's definitely nuance With respect to mindset. Some think you do sort of like a little bit of a CBT approach, but is there anything more you want to say about how people can work with their mindset to set themselves up with for success?

Speaker 2:

It's such a complex question, actually, and I'll try to see how I can answer it in a short while. I think what is really important is to understand that our thoughts are often, or the mindset is often, based on our in our childhood. Many people don't always see it. They say, oh, but my childhood was good or was not so bad, or so I didn't have trauma. It does not need to be a big trauma like 9-11 or whatever it can be. Even the simple fact that the parents came home, they were tired, they put their child in front of TV with a bag of cookies. The child thinks, oh, my parents don't love me, but my cookies love me, because that's what they think gives them the love at that moment.

Speaker 2:

This is a mindset and so often people don't realize that connection. It's nothing major. The parents were good parents, they were there and they just did their job or tried to do their job. I don't know if you're a parent, but I've certainly not been perfect, but I think in general, I was a quite good parent. Often it's not the big thing, so people don't realize that. I think it's also just giving it time to go deeper and then, when you start working on it. It's practice, practice, practice. The mindset is not the already seldom like a thing that changes immediately. You really need to practice things and getting into it. It's a bit like building your muscle. It's not going to happen over mine. If you want to train your mindset to be more positive, to have a better mindset, to become maybe your future self, not the old self that you would want to leave behind, or so, just practice every day and then your mindset eventually goes into the right direction.

Speaker 1:

With respect to individuals. So there's an expression in the emotional eating recovery space. We've heard it. It's been said many, many times that women who are overwhelmed and overworked overeat. End of story. That is the way it works. Obviously, the overwhelm and the overwork and the being too busy and having exceeded the capacity of our nervous systems is a huge piece of the problem that we need to solve. What advice would you give to women who are in that boat?

Speaker 2:

First of all, I believe when you're in that overworked, overwhelmed, not everybody needs to overeat, because very often we think it's the only way out or the only way to balance it out.

Speaker 2:

I work with a lot of very successful women who are usually overwhelmed, overworked. I very often find almost that the more successful they are in the other fields, like their job, their life or whatever it is, the family life and so on the worse they have an area which obviously the people I'm working with is usually the emotional eating, the food, the overweight, food addiction and so on. They almost try to balance it and I think it goes back to that fear to being too perfect, the fear of too much success. Because what if I were to lose that weight or be really good in that area as well? Then I would be really perfect and then everybody would be jealous of me and nobody would love me or something like that. I don't know what it goes exactly on, but these kind of words, I think that's really recognizing, that I think is really really important, and then, of course, you can work on that.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. What about individuals that are locked into workaholism patterns? There was this chronic, like you were saying. I was very struck when you started the interviews that I used to put too much on my plate. That is a metaphor that we use with respect to food I am overeating volume eating and with respect to workload, and that those can parallel and mirror each other. What advice would you give to women who are doing compulsively keeping themselves too much on their plate or keeping themselves really busy? Have you seen that and how do you work through that?

Speaker 2:

Again, going back to recognizing is, of course, the first step. I think with everything is there. Now the issue is having too much on your plate, like, let's say, in sugar, and being addicted is obviously one thing, but finding out if you're addicted to work is then another thing, because very often when you have an addiction in one area, you're most likely having addiction in other areas as well. So finding that out and then dealing with it from an addiction point of view is sometimes what might help Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it really does. Yeah, I think we all have our backup, our backup addictions, and for many, many of my clients, I've seen that being one.

Speaker 2:

And often we replace one addiction for the other right.

Speaker 1:

One goes down, the other gets acute. Anything you would like to say about the topic of women and food and emotional eating and sugar addiction and recovery?

Speaker 2:

I would like to give some hope. I really want to say to those listening here is that you deserve to be happy, right? Even so, maybe you have tried hundreds of diets or approaches and that didn't work right. You've been told so-called by the food or the diet industry that you're useless or your failure, or you have that impression. You can really achieve what I call food freedom right. You can really have a good relationship with food, the right relationship with food, with yourself, and feel comfortably about it and be happy. I believe everybody can get there. So it's not you who's the failure, it's just what you've been trying is just not working for you. So believe that there is something that works for you and being here, of course, and following you, florence, with the amazing podcast you put out and the content you put out, that is really something that can be the first step right, and then you can continue on that journey.

Speaker 1:

I really love how you've tied in sabotage into this, because if you have hope, I can turn this around. I can have a peaceful, loving, nurturing, nourishing relationship to food, and then that frees you up to move into a happier future. Is there any fears around that? Where and why might you sabotage that? Because we can keep stuck with the food and thinking, ah, something for the food is not about the food. You don't feel safe. You don't feel safe moving into a happier, healthier future, whatever that success is, and to really deeply explore that. I really think that's a unique angle on this and a lot of the people that interviewed haven't talked about that piece and unpacked it in such a real way. So thank you so much for that. I think you said you had a free gift or something you wanted to talk about. I'm happy to create some space now for that. I'm empty-handed.

Speaker 2:

So I have actually two gifts.

Speaker 2:

One I have a little workbook that is a Quit Sugar Cravings Workbook that helps you as a first step to overcome cravings or reduce your cravings, eat a healthy way.

Speaker 2:

There are lots of tips as well and where, for example, sugar heights a lot of people don't know actually where sugar heights, et cetera, et cetera. So it really helps you to kickstart your sugar cravings journey, the link you will share. And then I also offer a free food freedom consultation. So if you are interested to go a little bit deeper, if you found that interesting, if you think I can help you and you want to know a little bit more, how can you apply that to your own story, issues, problems, whatever you have right, you can sign up for a free consultation that allows me to find out a little bit more what you're struggling with, what your goals are, and then we can actually put an action plan together for you and you can then implement that yourself, or we can discuss, of course, should you need my help or so. So these are the two gifts and they will be here in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Thank you so much again, Andrea, for your gifts, for your time, your expertise and thanks everybody for tuning in today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Mastering Emotional Eating and Sugar Addiction
Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Emotional Eating
Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Eating
Overcoming Workaholism and Sugar Addiction
Free Food Freedom Consultation Offer