Night-time binge eating.  It’s a pastime that many people struggle with, and can feel truly insurmountable. But nightly binge eating doesn’t have to get the best of you.  The reality is, there’s a clear road to recovering our power and being in control with food – all that’s needed is a deeper understanding of why nighttime binge eating – otherwise known as “nighttime eating syndrome” – happens, and a wise framework for overcoming it. In this episode, we meet guest coaching client, Megan, who would like to finally break free from this challenging nighttime habit.  As a former fitness competitor, Megan spent many years on a low-calorie diet. Eating only 1,200 calories a day, and exercising extremely hard, Megan would find herself ravenous at night. And this would inevitably lead to giving into unwanted cravings – and heavy duty self-rejection. Years later, Megan is no longer competing, and isn’t so restrictive with her diet. She eats well, and takes care of her body. And yet, she hasn’t been able to kick her nightly binge eating … a habit that takes a full 2 hours every night snacking, munching, and roaming the kitchen for food. Disempowered and deflated, Megan feels like a failure with food. As Marc David helps Megan see – it’s understandable given her history that she’s having a hard time kicking her nightly binging. Bringing compassion and self-awareness to the table is the first step in transforming nighttime eating syndrome. The next step is identifying an effective approach that addresses the root problem. And that’s where things get really interesting in this episode! Marc offers Megan a soulful, unusual approach to healing binge eating that you won’t hear anywhere else. So, please be sure to tune into this powerful episode to discover this beautiful tool in overcoming binge eating! Marc gets to the heart of why we eat at night, and how to gently transform it without the fight or struggle.  Some of the key insights &amp; practices you’ll learn: ✅ The concept of “conscious ritual” – and why it matters. ✅ Identifying nourishing nightly rituals that powerfully transform binge eating. ✅ The relationship between “fast eating” and nighttime cravings ✅ The counterintuitive need to stop fighting and criminalizing nighttime eating. ✅ Learning to trust pleasure &amp; how to make friends with food. ✅ And much more… --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful,

Harnessing the Power of Conscious Ritual to Overcome Binge Eating – In Session with Marc David

Like so many of us, Cherie, age 56, wants to lose 20 pounds – but without the constant fight and struggle. Cherie has been battling these 20 pounds just about all her adult life – and she’s feeling ready for a new approach. Cherie’s kids are about to leave the house, and she’d like to focus on her life for the first time in many years. She dreams of letting go of her day job and taking on an exciting new career, and she knows that now’s the time to step into her power. Everything is falling into place for Cherie to take a big leap in life.  But her weight continues to weigh her down. In this week’s episode, Marc David coaches Cherie to finally have a breakthrough with her weight. And it’s all about focusing on this one weight loss secret: ➡️ Becoming a natural eater. You see, Cherie has been a rather *unnatural* eater. Since age 13 when she was a young gymnast, her life revolved around working out, looking trim, having very little body fat, and winning the approval of others. For young Cherie, food quickly became the enemy. Eat too much of it, and everyone will notice your extra body fat. Starve yourself, and you’re doing exactly what you need to do to keep being loved and successful. Unfortunately, Cherie has taken this same unnatural relationship with food that developed during childhood into her adult years. She has no idea what it’s like to truly enjoy food and not be on a diet. As their conversation unfolds, Cherie opens up to what being a natural eater might feel like, including: ✅ Making friends with food. ✅ Letting go of the inner bully that’s beating herself up around weight. ✅ Allowing herself to feel hungry, eat a meal, and enjoy it.  ✅ Stop looking at food like it’s going to become fat on her body. ✅ Give dieting a long vacation.  ✅ Listen to her body’s wisdom when it comes to food. As this episode explores, having an honest and sustainable approach to weight loss means that we need to look beyond dieting, calorie restriction, and self attack. Instead, finding a natural rhythm as an eater, finding nourishment in food, and discovering what our individual body needs is key. When we’ve been trying weight loss strategies for decades and they continue to fail us, it’s time for a new approach. Tune into this fascinating session and watch as Cherie realizes why her approach to weight loss hasn’t worked, and how she can have a whole new and inspiring weight loss journey.  --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psycholo

Why Becoming a “Natural” Eater is Key to Weight Loss – In Session with Marc David

Raelene, 46, would love to lose about 40 kilos. And she’s had great success in the past: all she has to do is eliminate sugar, cut down on the carbs, watch her calories and portion sizing, and the weight will eventually come off.  But the problem is, she just can’t seem to stick to a diet plan for more than a few months.   A cooking teacher and mother of two, Raelene says she simply doesn’t have the discipline to stick with it. And after 15 years of off-and-on-again dieting, Raelene still hasn’t reached the promised land – and like so many of us, is pretty frustrated and confused about what to do.  This is clearly a conundrum.  She knows what she needs to do, but she just doesn’t have the discipline to do it.  In this episode, Marc David helps Raelene realize something important:  Diagnosing the cause of her weight challenges as a lack of self-discipline is misplaced. And we know that to be true, in part, because her many years of trying to simply muster more discipline hasn’t been working. Discipline by itself will never solve her weight loss problem.  The reality is, Raelene hasn’t been in the right conversation with herself, all because of an incorrect assessment she made about herself many years ago.  As you’ll hear in this episode, Marc helps Raelene refocus on the true heart of the matter:  ⇒ Understanding what’s truly driving her relationship with food (her eating psychology), and changing her core beliefs about food, weight, self-worth, and lovability.   So many of us focus on our weight from a place of judgment. But we deserve so much more than that. When we can bravely learn to step away from our harsh inner critic, and instead evoke compassion towards ourselves, we can discover what’s really behind our patterns with weight.   For Raelene, part of that is understanding the impact of what she learned in childhood about weight loss: she was a “good” girl only if she was slender. Fat girls would never be loved and accepted.   It’s no wonder that food became a source of anxiety, and the simple act of eating took on so much stress and pressure. If being overweight means being unlovable, then everything she eats must be just right, and her appetite must be in absolute control so she can finally receive love.  But the reality is, Raelene knows deep down inside that this is a battle she can never truly win. So a part of her rebels against dieting because her dieting is being driven from a place of low self worth. Eating to prove one’s self worth is unnatural, and it goes against our humanity and our dignity.  Marc helps Raelene see the beautiful truth that she is unconditionally loved by her kids, her husband, and the people who care about her the most. There is no one in her life who needs her to lose weight so she can be more lovable. Except for herself.   And it’s time to give herself some love when it comes to her body and her weight.  Episode highlights:   Eating psychology tools to h

Why Self-Discipline Can’t Fix All Our Weight Loss Woes – In Session with Marc David

Barbara, 60, is finally ready to explore the world, go on adventures, and find the man of her dreams. She’s done lots of therapy, read all the books, and it seems like nothing should be in the way. But something is clearly holding her back.   A lifetime of dieting and disliking her body, and a string of unfortunate dating experiences in the past has her majorly doubting herself. Barbara so deeply wants to move on and create the life she feels like she’s long overdue for – but there’s part of her that is having a really hard time trusting that it’s possible.  For all of us who struggle with weight and body image, this can be an all-too familiar story.  What do we do when we’re ready to embrace life, but we feel held back by negative constructs about our body, our weight, and our past? How do we heal patterns that have been around for decades? And how do we find trust in life when we’ve been previously hurt?   In this episode, Marc David identifies some of the hidden forces at work that are driving Barbara’s confusion, and delivers some powerful advice to help her take a big step forward.   At the core of Barbara’s challenge is a lack of confidence in herself, and her body – which are intimately entwined. To help Barbara find her confidence and self assuredness, Marc focuses on a surprising area: cultivating her dating and relationship skills.  Previously, Barbara wasn’t clear about what she wanted, and what she was willing to put up with when it came to dating men. But as Marc helps her to see, it’s time to bring clarity to this important part of her life.   Using the powerful frame of our eating archetypes (or inner personas that drive our life and relationship with food) – Barbara realizes that her inner Child Archetype has often been the one making her decisions. But as Marc shares, it’s Barbara’s Queen Archetype that is best suited to help her find her inner confidence and choose the right partner.   When our inner Queen or King Archetype is leading the way, we can finally transform our lives through the maturity and self-knowing that these personas represent … and make the very best decisions for our life and relationships.  Episode highlights: ✅ How our relationship with food often reflects our intimate relationships. ✅ How developing dating and relationship mastery can help us transform old insecurities into massive self-confidence. ✅ Why listening to your dating intuition is essential to finding the right partner.  ✅ Owning the power of “no” without needing to apologize.  ✅ How to restore our trust in ourselves, our body, and our relationship with food.  ---------------  Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/   Struggling to understand what’s at the root of your challenges with food and body? Discover the eating archetypes, or hidden personalities, that may be driving your eating challenges in our free mini-course

When Body Insecurities Cause Us to Date the Wrong People  – In Session with Marc David

If you’ve been dieting for many years, you know it can get to be a little “much.” Chronic dieting can leave us frustrated, exhausted, and exasperated. Why does something so simple – weight loss – have to be so hard?  Millions of people around the world are realizing that they’re just plain tired of dieting. So much so that an increasing number of people are deciding to take a break from weight loss altogether.   But taking a diet break doesn’t alleviate the very real fear that many of us experience: that the second we stop dieting, we’re going to gain weight.   In this episode, Marc David works with Stephanie, 47, who has taken a 1-year break from weight loss – but has gained a stone (about 14 pounds) during that time, and is afraid she’ll only gain more.   Nevertheless, she’s given herself this time to move away from “weight loss at all costs” to approaching her weight from a mindset perspective, and doing all the reading and learning she can from self-help experts like Dr. Kristin Neff and Brene Brown.   As Stephanie shares, she’s at an inflection point. She’s been dieting since she was a teenager, often with the help of slimming clubs that are popular in the U.K. She became so disenchanted by her experience in the weight loss world, that she knows she can’t go back.   She believes that her spiritual path lies in trusting her body and accepting it the way it is – but three decades of dieting have lodged deep-seated fears around weight gain.   Stephanie asks, “What can I do to overcome the conditioned fear of weight gain?”  Regardless of where we’re at with our weight, this is one of the very best questions we can ask of ourselves. Because the truth is, we may want to lose weight … but deep down, we’re wanting to love and accept ourselves even more.  Episode highlights:  ✅ Why finding the right foundation for ourselves as a person – one based on our true value instead of our weight – is so important. ✅ Why it’s unrealistic to think you’ll 100% accept yourself one day – and why allowing yourself to be imperfect can help you heal and grow.  ✅ How our collective judgment around weight clouds the notion of what it means to be truly healthy. ✅ Why BMI science is outdated, and can contribute to our weight gain fears.  ✅ The interplay between “self” and “self-improvement” and why we need to sometimes let go and allow ourselves to simply “be.”   ---------------  Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/   Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/  Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: http

Tempted to Take a Break from Weight Loss But Afraid of What Will Happen? –In Session with Marc David

Emotional eating always has a psychological or biological reason for showing up in our life. It never just “happens” … it’s almost always an unconscious psychological strategy to regulate difficult emotions.  That’s the case for guest coaching client, Katy, who’s going through a period of massive change – and is struggling to manage her feelings about it all. As a newly-turned 30-year old, Katy is figuring out what’s important to her in life, what sort of career she wants to pursue, and how she wants to earn money. She’s hoping to find a life partner, and would one day like to become a mother.  And all this great change is bringing up major uncertainty, as well as feelings of anxiety, fear, and self-doubt.  Amidst all of this, Katy has been experiencing on-off cycles of emotional eating, overeating, and body judgment. She wishes her food habits didn’t feel like such a roller coaster ride, and that she could just feel consistently joyful and positive about her relationship with food and her body. But as Marc David explores with Katy, it can be pretty difficult to maintain a consistently positive and joyful relationship with food when the rest of our life is in a state of change and upheaval.  The truth is that our relationship with food is a reflection of the rest of our life. If we find ourselves in an uncertain time of life, it’s natural to feel uncertain and inconsistent with food.  Through self-awareness and self-kindness, we can begin to see food as the powerful and effective emotional regulator that it is – and stop making ourselves wrong for turning to it sometimes when we aren’t feeling so good about life.  As Katy looks to the bigger context of her life, she realizes that her love-hate cycles with food and body, and in particular, with emotional eating, are simply reflecting the cycles of change she’s experiencing in her inner and outer worlds. And with this new awareness, she can bring some much-needed forgiveness and self-compassion to herself – which ironically, can begin to free herself from the very unwanted eating patterns that are weighing her down.  Episode highlights: ✅ Why seeking to be in a constant positive state with food can keep us trapped in our eating patterns.  ✅ How to find forgiveness and self-acceptance in your relationship with food – and why times of change call for it more than other times of life. ✅ How to know whether fasting or cleansing is right for your body, or when it might exacerbate yo-yo dieting tendencies. ✅ How to take baby steps with mindful eating. --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc tal

Emotional Eating in Uncertain Times: It's Time to Forgive & Let Go – In Session with Marc David

It’s no surprise that many people around the world would like to lose weight. In fact, between 2017 and 2021, 55% of all Americans have expressed the desire for weight loss. And unfortunately, many people who are single and would like to find love in their life are instead putting it off until they’re at their desired weight.  That’s the case for 41-year old Shawnna, our guest in this episode of the podcast.  Shawnna would like to lose about 50 pounds, and find a more peaceful relationship with food – one where she’s not constantly thinking about what, when, and how much to eat. As she shares, she’s tired of feeling like food and her weight is holding her back from following her dreams, including finding a significant other.  But despite her best efforts, Shawnna has struggled over the last decade to not see her weight as one of the most important aspects of life to overcome.   She’s tried every approach she knows to lose weight. And she’s tried everything to try to forget about her weight, move on, and have a happy life.   No matter what she does, Shawnna feels limited by her relationship with food.  So what should she do next?   As Marc David shares with Shawnna, part of the solution is remembering that our relationship with food is a great teacher – one of the key tenets of eating psychology, otherwise known as food psychology.  When we understand that our eating challenges are here to help us learn and grow, we can then turn to a powerful question: What is my relationship with food and body trying to teach me? What can I learn from this situation?   And for Shawnna – like so many of us, part of the answer lies in being clear about what we truly want from life – and learning how to prioritize and put those things first.   Episode highlights: ✅ How our family “tribe” influences our eating challenges, and what’s important to know as you’re healing your own relationship with food.  ✅ Why learning to pay attention to our desires is key to transforming our food and body challenges — and how to start. ✅ How to be the “real” you now and have the life you want, even if the weight isn’t gone yet.  Tune in for a beautiful episode on not waiting to lose weight to find love. Because we all deserve to experience love in our life…  ---------------  Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/   Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/  Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peac

Stop Waiting to Lose Weight So You Can Find Love – In Session with Marc David

In this episode of The Psychology of Eating Podcast, we’re going to take a look at why we need to get past the label of ‘body dysmorphia’ – a medical term – and instead look to understand why body dysmorphia is actually present. And to do that, we must explore our personal story from childhood to adulthood – because our history contains the clues for where this pattern developed in the first place. The reality is, many of us have dysmorphic tendencies. Meaning, we see our body differently than it actually is – and not in a good way. That’s the case for Rory, 62, who reports struggling with body dysmorphia since childhood. As he shares with Marc David, he’s never had a problem controlling what he eats. He’s been able to maintain his body fat at 8-10% consistently since his 20s through extreme sports and rigid dieting.  But none of his efforts ever feel like enough. Rory’s body hate runs so deep that he avoids mirrors and glass windows so he doesn’t see his reflection. In his mind, he wishes he had the body of an Olympic athlete, strong and lean and muscular. But that’s never been the body he sees reflecting back to him. He considers his body overly thin, with too little muscle regardless of how much strength training he does. Despite all his internal struggles, Rory has a pretty incredible life: 5 kids and a beautiful marriage, and a lot of commitment to his own personal growth. He really wants to discover how he can stop the voice that says, “I hate my body” – and instead find peace and self-acceptance.  Whether you or a loved one is struggling with body dysmorphic tendencies – or find yourself, like Rory, telling yourself “I hate my body” – this episode is for you! Episode highlights: ✅ Why self-labeling as “body dysmorphic” unnecessarily medicalizes our human condition, and why understanding our food and body story is more important ✅ The connection between body dysmorphia and our childhood strategies for self-protection and love ✅ Why bringing self-compassion to our inner child can powerfully shift body hate ✅ How to move from doing things TO your body to instead creating a nourishing conversation WITH your body – and why that’s key to fostering a positive body image ✅ How to create the optimal conditions for releasing body dysmorphic tendencies… ------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career hel

Why We Need to Get Rid of the Term ‘Body Dysmorphia’   – In Session with Marc David

We all have different reasons for wanting to lose weight:  Feeling lighter  Being healthier Fitting into your “skinny” clothes Or sometimes, just feeling more confident…  And sometimes, there are hidden reasons for wanting to lose weight that we don’t even realize we have. For Nataliya, 46, weight loss has been a lifelong journey. Nataliya wants to be more confident in her body, and to feel lighter. She jokes that her goal is to feel “like a squirrel” and be able to jump from branch to branch. But what she doesn’t quite realize is that her desire to feel lighter is driven by a part of her that’s thinking some “heavy thoughts.” And as Marc David explains, those heavy thoughts are all about her resistance to something that so many of us would like to avoid: ===&gt; Aging.  Even though she is youthful, has a young child, a great marriage, and is in good health, Nataliya is starting to feel older – and her unwanted weight is just one more reminder of the aging process. She finds herself often longing for the body she had as a young girl. As Marc points out, making peace with aging is a spiritual practice. And to find peace with our age, we ultimately need to connect with that part of us that’s wiser and more mature. Because it’s perfectly understandable to have a hard time saying goodbye to our youth – but it’s also vital that we develop a healthy relationship with aging. Along the way to making the powerful connection between weight and aging, Marc also helps Nataliya see that if she truly wants to lose weight, she needs to focus on a whole new approach, including: ✅ Letting go of needing the approval of others to feel that her body is “acceptable” ✅ Noticing when the “teenager voice” within her is taking over the weight loss conversation ✅ Finding peace with aging, and making it a spiritual practice  ✅ Learning that body confidence doesn’t come from future weight loss … it happens when we do things, right NOW, that help us feel better in our body  ✅ And much more… Tune into this wonderful episode on aging, weight, and making peace with ourselves and our lives. --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage Instagram: https://ww

Accepting Our Aging Bodies – In Session with Marc David

The desire to lose weight unites so many people around the world. And while it may be a common global phenomenon … what’s not frequently recognized is how unique all of our weight loss journeys turn out to be. The truth is, if we want to lose weight and keep it off, we need to intimately understand our life story and how it affects our journey with weight. In this episode of The Psychology of Eating Podcast, you’ll meet Wendy, 57. She’s been on a strugglesome journey to lose weight. And one thing that particularly stands out in Wendy’s life story is the prominent role a particular archetype has been playing all these years: Her Inner Child. Each and every one of us has an “inner child” – which you can think of as an archetype – or “voice” or “personality” that shows up in different parts of our life. Here are some descriptions of the child within us:   Our Inner Child wants immediate gratification.   It loves pleasure and fun.   It’s a part of us that’s very innocent and naive.   Notably, the Inner Child doesn’t care about the consequence of its actions.   This personality often takes over our decision making process when it comes to food and diet.   So what does this have to do with weight loss? Well, when the Inner Child is sitting at the head of the table and making our food choices, it will go against our better judgment. It will make decisions that run counter to our goals of health and weight. As you’ll hear in this episode, Marc David, master eating psychology expert, works with Wendy to explore her Inner Child and help her demystify her weight loss journey. For a long time, Wendy’s Inner Child has been at the head of the table, making nutritional decisions with little regard to the negative consequences.  Marc ultimately helps Wendy see that the best way for her to work with weight is to take charge of the different personalities inside of her, to accept her Inner Child’s desire for pleasurable food, and to let the voice of her Inner Adult run the show when it comes to her eating choices. Along the way, they also cover some fascinating topics such as: ✅ Weight loss during Covid times ✅ Grieving and weight ✅ The impact of our primary relationship on weight ✅ The dynamics of the “good girl” and “bad girl” archetypes with food ✅ And much more… -------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Struggling to understand what’s at the root of your challenges with food and body? Discover the eating archetypes, or hidden personalities, that may be driving your eating challenges in our free mini-course, THE 8 EATING ARCHETYPES: A Self-Discovery Tool. Sign up here: https://psychologyofeating.com/eating-archetypes/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychology

How We Learn to Parent Our Inner Child Around Food & Weight – In Session with Marc David

In this episode, Marc David works with Richard, 72, who is living in a constant state of vigilance when it comes to his weight and health.  Like so many of us, Richard has developed a belief that his diet must be perfect in order to maintain his health, avoid illness, and keep weight off. And what happens if he can’t maintain the perfect diet? The moment Richard gains a pound, he imagines that he’s just around the corner from a heart attack. He believes that if he doesn’t eat 100% perfectly all the time and at every meal, then his family history of arteriosclerosis will instantly catch up to him. On top of that, Richard has an intense fear of gaining weight … having bounced back and forth between extreme weight gains and losses starting in his early twenties. He acknowledges that his lifelong challenges with weight were born from his early struggles with dyslexia, learning disabilities, and childhood feelings of isolation.  So even though Richard is a mature, successful and healthy 72-year old man, he simply can’t find a way to let go of incessant weight and health worries. Listen in as Marc guides Richard into greater awareness of the emotional triggers that contribute to his quest for perfection and cause him to disconnect from himself whenever he eats.  Together they explore how to put an end to his worries about weight and health by focusing on his deeper purpose in his remaining years. Because ultimately, Richard is here to do more than feel trapped by his constant worrying – he, like the rest of us, is here to have a fulfilling and truly meaningful life.   You’ll also hear:  ✅ How savoring the experience of eating can enhance the mind-body connection, improve digestion, and help regulate appetite. ✅ Why learning to minimize and manage stress is critical to lowering the risk for a variety of health conditions. ✅ How embracing food and body challenges as great teachers can help us to live a happier and more fulfilling life.  --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatingpsychology/ - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eatingpsych #antidiet #dietsdontwork #weightlossjourney #selflove #embodiment #foodfreedom #

A 72-Year-Old Man Releases a Lifetime of Food & Health Worries  – In Session with Marc David

When it comes to weight loss, so many of us feel that we need to restrict our food, punish the body with exercise, and be in a constant state of worry. We expect our weight loss journey to be an ongoing battle where we can never truly relax and live. But there’s a much better way. In this episode, Marc David works with guest podcast client David, and challenges the belief that weight and health goals have to be difficult. At age 74, David wants to lose weight and eat healthy, but he’s tired of all the hard work.  He knows what he wants, but he’s confused about how to get there.  David would like to enjoy food and not live in a state of restriction, but at the same time, he wishes he could be 40 pounds lighter. Fed up by the cycle of working hard to lose weight, and then gaining it right back, David wonders:  “Can’t I just be me? When do I get to just live my life?” Listen in as they explore the power of cultivating a more natural and easy relationship with food and body. Instead of punishing the body into weight loss, Marc helps David develop a strategy to nourish himself into finding his natural weight.  “You have a natural relationship with food and with your appetite. You just have to create the conditions for that to emerge,” Marc says. Paradoxically, by taking weight loss off the table, not only can we finally relax and enjoy life, but we actually create the ideal conditions for real and lasting weight loss.  You’ll also hear Marc share valuable insights on: ✅ How putting “pressure” on food to make us lose weight doesn’t work. ✅ Creating a relaxed relationship with the body that gets us closer to our natural weight. ✅ How having a spiritual reckoning with ourselves can help us have a more loving body image. ✅ Why clarity about our life’s purpose is especially powerful for older men and health. --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatingpsychology/ - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eatingpsych #ditchthediet #chronicdieting #weight #wisdom #bodyimage #holisticnutrition #mindbodyconnection #selfawareness #selfkindness #eatingpsychology

A 74-Year-Old Man Finds Peace with Weight & Body Image  – In Session with Marc David

So many of us are trying to lose weight.  We can put all of our energy, our heart and soul, into fulfilling what seems like a simple desire - just lose a bunch of body fat. When our efforts aren’t working though, things can get complicated. We can become a bit anxious, and adopt the kind of beliefs that are intended to motivate us, but actually hold us back. These beliefs can include:    I’m not good enough as I am   I am not lovable   Something is wrong with   Once I lose the weight, then and only then can I finally be happy   If I just work harder, then the weight will come off   When we think such thoughts, oddly enough, the body itself does not feel safe.  And when the body doesn’t feel safe, our physiology tends to hold onto weight. That’s the dilemma Marc David helps our guest coaching client Carrie untangle in this episode. After a recent weight loss, Carrie feels conflicted about the praise and positive comments she receives from the people around her. Far from feeling validated by the feedback, it seems only to raise the volume on her own self-judgment.  What’s most problematic though, is that Carrie equates losing weight with spiritual growth.  Meaning, Carrie believes that if she can work hard enough on her spiritual growth, then the last remaining pounds she wants to lose will magically drop away. From there, she imagines she can finally be her best and truest self, which she’s admittedly put on hold the last 20 years. But as Marc helps her to see, that’s an extraordinary amount of pressure to pressure on our body, and ourself.  When we put off our happiness and satisfaction into the future, when we tell ourselves that “I can only be the real me once I lose weight” - we are assuring that the life we have right now is at best only half lived. Follow the conversation as Marc guides Carrie in a process of decoupling weight loss from spiritual growth.  In the process, Marc helps Carrie redefine her approach to her own spiritual journey. He reminds her that, “just because there&#39;s places where you need to grow doesn&#39;t mean there&#39;s something wrong with you.” He helps her see that true healing goes far beyond the size and shape of our body.  After all, when we look at our weight as proof that we are broken and defective, we just perpetuate a cycle of unhappiness, discontent, and constant judgment of our body. Sometimes, finding peace with food and body simply means loving and accepting our body just as it is – right here, right now. From this place, our journey to actually lose weight can be far more successful. This episode also explores how: ✅ Owning our preferences means we don’t have to explain ourselves ✅ Self-acceptance creates an embodied sense of safety ✅ Our inner rebel can be a powerful ally in weight loss and in life   --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with

Weight Loss & Spiritual Growth: What’s the Connection – In Session with Marc David

When it comes to weight, many people can identify with the concept of “weight extremism” – otherwise known as yo-yo dieting.  We’re “all in” with our health commitments, whether that’s daily exercise, a healthy diet, getting to bed early every night. We analyze, assess – and maybe even obsess about – every little morsel of food we put into our mouth. And then, well – life happens. Tragedy happens. Stress happens.  Our habits start to unravel, and before we know it: our healthy lifestyle is kaput. We’re secret-eating in the dark and binge eating when we think no one is looking.  The weight starts to creep back up, and before we know it, our weight has swung widely to the other side of the spectrum.  And every bite of food is accompanied by terrible, self-attacking thoughts like, “I’m so disgusting. I can’t believe I’m doing this again, I can’t stand who I’ve become.”   As Marc David explores in this episode, the extremist mentality can go way beyond the realms of food and body.  But in every case, our extremistic mentality simply isn’t sustainable – and when we fail to notice that, our heart, mind and body suffers. That’s what’s happening with guest coaching client, Jeff, 53, who has gained and lost 100 lbs many times since he was young. Through extreme approaches like juice fasting and running marathons, Jeff has always been able to lose the weight. But inevitably, something happens in life that throws him off. He gets divorced, his parents die, he moves. Grief arises, as does loneliness – and he turns to his familiar friend, food. But Jeff is deeply tired of the yo-yo dieting, and of all the weight that piles on – and that’s so much harder to lose as he gets older.  And he’s exhausted of all the shame-filled, hurtful thoughts his brain hurls at him about how he’s “weak” – a message that’s all too familiar from the childhood lectures his parents used to give him around his food and weight.  So how can Jeff and the rest of us move beyond weight extremism, yo-yo dieting, and the “all or nothing” mentality? How do we find the middle ground with food? Find out in this moving conversation… --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating - Facebook: https://www.fa

Weight Extremism & Shame: A 53-Year-Old Heals His Heart & Body – In Session with Marc David

Food is so much more than just fuel for our bodies. It’s also a powerful connector.  Food brings us together with family and friends, and allows us to express and receive love and appreciation, spark new relationships, create memories, discover and care for the world around us, and even navigate and explore our inner emotional and spiritual landscape. Because food helps us feel connected, we may also reach for it in moments of disconnection, distress, isolation, and loneliness. We can turn to it for comfort, or for a sense of familiarity and reassurance. And that’s because of a foundational, biochemical truth for every human being on this planet:  When we eat food, we feel better.  As Marc David unpacks in this episode, using food to self-soothe and comfort ourselves isn’t all bad. In fact, the conscious use of food to feel better can actually be beneficial. Fifty-nine year old guest coaching client, Debra, endured the death of her late husband several years ago – and now finds herself again grieving the loss of a relationship – this time, a breakup.  In response to her grief and sadness, Debra has noticed she’s started eating compulsively in the evenings. And she feels ashamed of having gained some extra weight in recent months. Follow their conversation, as Marc explores how the loss or absence of close relationships and social ties in our lives can mean we look to food to satisfy some of our most basic needs – and how, at different times in our life, that can be a therapeutic strategy. 🎧 Listen now to learn more about why eating for comfort or connections isn’t shameful, and can actually be supportive in our healing journey – if we learn how to make it work for us, not against us.  You’ll hear how consciously seeking intimacy through food can ease the pain of isolation, while prioritizing social time in everyday life can help protect us from falling into future loneliness. --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatingpsychology/ - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eatingpsych #emotionaleating #nourishnotpunish #grief #loneliness #mindfuleating #intuitiveeating #selflove #eatingpsychology #marcdavid

The Therapeutic Use of Food in Times of Grief or Loneliness – In Session with Marc David

Our culture is quick to praise dramatic weight loss. But it rarely acknowledges the heaviness that so often lingers afterward – the fear of gaining it all back. When we’re afraid of being overweight, it’s easy to see food as the enemy. We’ll often try to skip meals and deny our appetite. And it seems to make sense … After all, it’s food that makes us gain weight, right?  The challenge is, when we fear or blame food – or try to repress our biological need for nourishment, we can develop other unwanted eating habits like “sneak eating” or binge eating. Which often leads us to spiraling into even more fear about our weight. That’s what we explore in this episode of The Psychology of Eating Podcast, where Marc David finds our guest coaching client Tamara at a critical crossroads. Tamara’s journey with weight began at age 10, when she was bullied for being heavy as a child. Through a series of lifestyle changes, Tamara, 48, has lost nearly 270 pounds – and yet, Tamara is still haunted by her weight. With 10 more pounds she’d like to lose, Tamara lives in fear that her “addiction” to food and late-night eating will prevent her from further weight loss – and may well cause her to gain weight again. So many of us can relate to Tamara’s fear of gaining weight. In fact, fear of weight gain is one of the most common food and body fears out there.  But as this episode demonstrates, being afraid of weight gain can take a huge toll on us. It undermines our mental and emotional well-being, and it can keep us in survival mode.  As Marc explores, one of the keys to healing our relationship with weight is learning to trust life, and seeing the beauty in our personal journey. “Until you embrace the beauty of your journey, and the success of your journey,” Marc says, “all the little tricks and tools – they&#39;re not going to work.” Follow along as Marc offers essential insights for understanding the toll our fears can have on us, and why learning to trust our journey is an essential ingredient in repairing our relationship with food and body. You’ll also learn: ✅ Key tools for working with fear of weight gain ✅ Why the concept of  “food addiction” can do more harm than good ✅ How food is the solution and not the enemy ✅ How to move from food fear to food freedom… --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating:  https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career hel

Afraid of Gaining Weight? How to Move from Food Fear to Food Freedom – In Session with Marc David

When we’re facing a chronic health challenge, one of the great ways to help ourselves is to turn to food and diet. So many of us have had great success when using the “food as medicine” approach. But what happens when our healing diet routine feels too restrictive?  And how do we reconcile our need to avoid certain foods with our natural desire for freedom and exploration? These are just some of the questions Cecili’s hopes to unpack as Marc’s guest on this episode. Cecili is a nutritionist who’s spent more than a decade self-treating her own inflammatory bowel disease. After rejecting conventional treatments, Cecili embraced a food-as-medicine approach which eliminated her symptoms within months.  Now, Cecili seeks support in one area that continues to confound her – fear and anxiety around introducing new foods into her diet, and their potential for causing unwanted symptoms.  Follow along as Marc supports Cecili to reframe her journey, from a focus on fear and anxiety to the development of self-trust.  “As you become more explorative in your life, it's going to be a little bit easier for digestion to relax,” Marc says. And when we pair the experience of safety with the knowledge that we are capable of caring for ourselves amidst unwanted symptoms, then we can finally create a more relaxed and joyful nutritional journey.  Listen now to learn more about:  ✅ How mental and digestive processes can mirror each other ✅ Why discerning between trust in body and trust in self creates space for exploration ✅ How to cultivate a relaxed and resilient mindset around trying new foods ✅ The importance of challenging limiting beliefs about what we require to be healthy --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatingpsychology/ - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eatingpsych #foodfear #ibs #anxiety #chronicillness #foodasmedicine #wellnessjourney #foodrelationship #eatingpsychology #nutrition #intuitiveeating #healingjourney

Releasing Food Fears & Embracing Your Inner Nutritional Explorer – In Session with Marc David

When it comes to food and weight, many of us have learned to treat our bodies as a kind of machine.  We know what our Body Mass Index (BMI) “should” be, and we strive to stay within it. We may severely restrict our caloric intake, increase our weekly exercise to the point of exhaustion, or take other extreme measures to lose weight. And here’s the thing: these efforts often work, but the cost can be huge. At one point or another, most of us who pursue weight loss in this way end up feeling starved for pleasure and enjoyment in life. That’s the world that Jacques, 55, has been inhabiting since childhood. As a rabbi, Jacques counsels members of his community and helps them find wisdom in their challenges and tribulations.  But when it comes to his personal relationship with food, Jacques is struggling to let go of what he refers to as his “obsession with food.”  Jacques has tried so many things to lose weight, such as addressing his gut microbiome, taking hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) for weight loss, and committing to work with a personal trainer three times a week, despite his extreme dislike for working out.  None of these efforts have led to lasting weight loss. Instead, Jacques is feeling even more anxious and confused about what seems like it should be a pretty simple thing: to be at his natural weight, to feel nourished by food, and to live a good life.  For so many of us focused on weight loss, we tend to think about what needs to be lost, removed, or restricted … when what would actually serve us is embracing our love of food, and opening up to pleasure as a source of healing and transformation.  As you’ll hear in this episode, Marc David reframes the idea of “food obsession” as it pertains to weight loss - and explores why cultivating a nourishing relationship with food necessitates inviting pleasure into our lives.  As you’ll hear, Marc explores: ✅ Why embracing our love of food is one of the most life-affirming steps we can take ✅ Finding the wisdom in our love of food and pleasure ✅ How to unwind the cycle of self-punishment that so often defines our relationship with food and body ✅ Following our joy when it comes to movement and eating ✅ Why finding our natural weight can only come when we’re truly embodied --------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food.

Discovering the Wisdom in Our Love of Food & Pleasure – In Session with Marc David

For so many of us, numbers hold power. Whether it’s our bank account, the calories on our plate, or our final exam score, we give tremendous meaning to numbers. But there’s one number we often give the greatest meaning of all – and that’s our weight. Most of us have a “number” in mind for what we “should” weigh, and we tend to believe in it wholeheartedly. We can place almost mystical significance on that figure, believing that the world – our world – will be so much different when we finally achieve it. In this episode, we meet 52-year old Reni from Australia, who has been dieting since her 20s. At one point, she *almost* reached her weight loss goal of 55 kilos, but missed it by 1 kilo.  As Marc David explores with Reni, that 1 extra kilo held significance for her far beyond the weight itself. Reni holds the common belief that she’ll feel more confident about herself once she loses the weight. And that extra confidence boost could be just the thing she needs to get out of a job that’s draining her soul, and move on to more fulfilling work – something that is of great importance to her. But as she shares, it’s challenging to focus on life goals when she hasn’t reached her goal weight. So how does Reni – and the rest of us – get out of this never-ending loop? How can she take her power back, and place it where it matters most: on who she really wants to be, and how she wants to live her life? As you’ll hear, Marc explores: ✅ Why we place magical or quasi-religious significance on weight, and how this can hold us back from the bigger life we’re yearning for ✅ The key mindset shift so many of us can benefit from: focusing on WHO you want to be instead of how much you want to weigh ✅ How to recognize when it’s time to have a weight loss “reckoning,” and how we can begin to think differently about our bodies – and our life ✅ The role of baby steps when practicing being the “real you” ✅ And more… -------------- Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food. Follow us on social:  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Psychologyofeating - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IPEfanpage - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatingpsychology/ - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eatingpsych #weightloss #weightlossjourney #bodyimage #dieting #emotionaleating #selfacceptanc

The Magic Weight Loss Number: Taking Our Power Back – In Session with Marc David

One thing we learn very early in our journey with food and body is that everyone’s got an opinion. We find no shortage of health and nutrition experts offering a variety of strong, and often conflicting, perspectives too. About healthy eating. About the ideal weight and body shape. About what we’re doing wrong. “But who is right? Will it work for me? What if it doesn’t?” And so we try everything – only to end up feeling overwhelmed, stuck, defeated, and lost. That’s where we meet today’s podcast guest. Hara is an accomplished 55-year-old business woman who enjoys confidence in all areas of her life – except in her relationship with food. Hara first started dieting at age 12 and has felt caught for decades in an unending cycle of perfectionism and restriction, followed by rebellious eating and overeating. Though she managed to free herself from dieting in recent years, Hara says a peaceful relationship with food still eludes her. In her words, “Loving myself didn’t magically make the food conversation go away.” She longs for more comfort and confidence when it comes to food and body, but can’t figure out what’s in the way. In this episode, Marc explains and explores how our relationship with food has a way of humbling and humanizing us. It brings us face to face with our imperfections and the reality that perfection is unattainable. During their conversation, Hara comes to the realization that a hidden perfectionism has been ruling her inner dialogue. She learns that by changing the way she speaks to herself and to her body, she can actually change the game. “Everything depends on how we speak to ourselves,” Marc says. Follow along as Marc offers powerful insights for how we can reclaim a sense of peace in that inner dialogue. He also shows how shifting that conversation can support a sense of renewed overall empowerment in our relationships with food and body. You’ll learn about: ✅ How our inner dialogue shapes our experiences with food and body ✅ How personal relationships can support us in creating space for a loving inner dialogue ✅ How embracing preferences over perfectionism supports us in having the body we want ✅ Why being present and aware while eating is more effective than following “the rules” ✅ And more... --------------- Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/ Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/  Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food

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