The Detached podcast

Ep 79: Journey to Healing: Embracing Vulnerability and Overcoming Binge Eating with Natassia D'souza

• Sophia Delavari • Season 1 • Episode 79

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This episode explores the complex relationship between trauma and binge eating, emphasizing that healing is not a straightforward process. Natassia shares her journey as an emotional eating coach, offering insights into the triggers of binge eating and the need for emotional support in recovery.

• Understanding binge eating as a coping mechanism for trauma
• Natasja's growth as a coach and individual over the past two years
• The importance of addressing emotional triggers in eating habits
• The role of community support and choosing confidants wisely
• Examining the implications of weight loss drugs like Ozempic
• The value of nurturing self-compassion during the healing process

If you or someone you know is struggling with binge eating, consider reaching out for support.

Check Natassia out on instagram :https://www.instagram.com/natassiadsouza?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Feel free to reach me on instagram too :
https://www.instagram.com/sophiadelavari/

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Speaker 1:

welcome back to another episode of the detached podcast. My episode today is with a guest that I've had on not only once, but today it's going to be twice. Yeah, natasja, welcome back to the show hello, thank you for having me back. It's been a while yeah, I think the last time we did a podcast it must have been. It was an online it was online.

Speaker 2:

It was about two years ago, two and a half years ago so how long ago was times have changed? Yeah, this is how long I have the podcast wow, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think, um, okay, then what's happened in the past two years?

Speaker 2:

my god God. Two years, a lot has happened. Business has grown, clientele has grown, my team has grown A lot of growth externally and internally, as well as a person. You know one of the biggest things? I've realized that when you become an entrepreneur or a coach or a health coach or a wellness coach or, like myself, an emotional eating coach, you believe that you have to be healed completely to take people on this journey. And I would say where I am now, even on my personal journey, with food, with clients, with whatever, is so much far ahead than where I thought I was. I wish I had realized that sooner, far ahead than where I thought I was. I wish I had realized that sooner, but I wouldn't be able to get here if it wasn't with them, if it wasn't taking clients through the journey, seeing my own realizations along the way. So yeah, it's been a roller coaster, a good one.

Speaker 1:

Living through your journey and coaching through your journey, I think is such an amazing achievement as well in itself that you have the courage to be able to work and help others around you whilst you're still going through your journey. Yeah, and I think you're more relatable then for other people who are around you yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I'm very open about my struggles.

Speaker 2:

You know, one of the one of the biggest questions I get asked nowadays is and I say, do you still have the urge to binge eat?

Speaker 2:

And and I'm very open and I say yes, of course I do. On my most stressful days, on days where things are just not working out, the first thing that will come to my head is I should order a pizza right now. But the beauty of it now is that you have that remote control in your hand and you can just turn that volume down, and sharing that with people out there that are struggling is such a realistic approach because they're no longer being sold. You're going to wake up one day and you're going to be problem free and you're going to be binge free and you're never going to have those limiting beliefs and thoughts in your head, but rather, yes, they will come up, they are going to be intrusive, but you're going to be so strong enough that you're going to be able to turn that volume down was there ever a point where it was getting a bit exhausting at the beginning to try put on a front that you're fully healed to practice what you're practicing?

Speaker 2:

such a great question. Um, yeah, it was very exhausting because not only was I starting out in business, I had no idea at times what the structure was going to be, what it was going to look like. I was very clear on what I, how I wanted to help people, but I was kind of making all the boxes fit. Not to mention, I was also struggling financially a lot. You know it was a roll of dice on what bill was going to be paid that month. And so you ask yourself how do I show up as the strongest version of myself for my clients when financially, physically, emotionally, I'm really really struggling?

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, there were moments where I would have rather just not, I would have rather just lied in bed. There were moments where, between clients, I would just need to shut down, but never a moment to tell myself I'm not going to show up for this person. You know, I would just shut my feelings down. Some would say that's the wrong thing to do, but I believe it's a skill, and it's an important skill that many should have. I would just put my feelings to the side and say, no matter what, I'm here for this woman, I'm here for this man, and I just need to show up for them in the best way that I possibly can.

Speaker 1:

So to move back into binge eating and where it all began for you.

Speaker 2:

Well, for me, it began really, really young. Binge eating was something I would say now, looking back, as much as I seen it as something bad, I would say now, looking back, as much as I've seen it as something bad, I would say binge eating was my savior. For anyone that struggles with binge eating, binge eating is saving you from something that you don't want to deal with. It's an unmet need. You're meeting an unmet need. For me, not addressing my trauma.

Speaker 2:

Very, very early on, binge eating was meeting me, not addressing that need. It was fulfilling safety for me. It was fulfilling the unease, the guilt, the shame, the dirty feeling that you feel after you've been through trauma of that sort, and so it just got exaggerated over time. When you go years and years and years of not dealing with your trauma, not dealing with your emotions, becoming a people pleaser, not learning how to say no, food just becomes your go-to, becomes your friend, and over time I thought myself that I can be the happiest person I can be for everyone else. All I need to do is eat and I can get through another day. So it was my fuel. It was a recharge. I needed to continue being the best people pleaser. I used to be the proudest person. I say everyone loves me. No one could ever get mad at me. That changed a lot over time.

Speaker 1:

What kind of trauma did you go through?

Speaker 2:

So I've been through sexual trauma three times in my life. One very, very early on I was about five and a half years old. The next time around, I believe I was about eight or nine, and then the last time around was about 13. So it was three different scenarios. I'm in a place now where I can talk about them very, very comfortably, very headstrong. I've gone through a lot of healing for them.

Speaker 2:

But as I grew older, not having told anyone till reaching the age of 30 years old you sit with these guilt, these feelings I wouldn't even say guilt, but feelings of. The best word I can use to describe it was filth, you know, like I felt really dirty. And what I've realized over the years is that I was blaming myself. I would sit there and tell myself at six years old, I would say if you hadn't worn that skirt, that would have never happened to you, if you hadn't been playing outside, that would have never happened. I kept blaming myself, I kept blaming myself, I kept blaming myself.

Speaker 2:

But what I've realized over the years and of course with the help of some of the best therapists, some of the best clinical psychologists is that I was not the one to blame. It was unfortunate. I was in that circumstance. You know, the men in these cases were unstable. They were going through this is not an excuse but um, they, they were going through their own traumatic incidents and repeating it and of course, I was the victim in this case. Uh, but I've realized to take that blame away from me, which has helped a lot in my recovery with sexual abuse.

Speaker 1:

Was it a family member or is it? You don't have to answer this if you don't want to no, absolutely, by the grace of God, it wasn't.

Speaker 2:

I'm I and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm one of the lucky few that it did happen three times. But it wasn't a family member, and every time the first time around it was um. By the way, all three incidents happened in the UAE. I grew up in the UAE as a child before we migrated to Canada, and so um I didn't actually realize that yeah, and so the first time around it was the grocery store owner.

Speaker 2:

Uh, I would just go in to buy chocolate and it would happen there quite frequently. Actually. The second time around it was I was playing outside and it was a guy who just ended up in the building. And then the third time around it was the same thing. It's crazy because the third time around was probably the most. It was very quick but it was the most violent, but I was the most numbed out for that. I guess by the time it reaches the third incident again, it's not even about blame. It was about I'm used to this your normality had been stretched.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which I would wish upon no one. As a 13-year-old girl thinking, thinking I'm used to this, I'll get over it. I remember, after it happened the third time, I remember telling myself it's going to take, I was it'll take you 10 days to get over this, nathasia. It'll take 10 days and you'll stop thinking about it and I'll wake up, I'll be okay one day. You know which is not normal.

Speaker 1:

Did you tell anybody about this when you were?

Speaker 2:

No, I didn't the third time around. My parents knew something happened because when I went up I ran frantically to my parents' apartment door and I rang the doorbell and my mom's sister opened the door. She's like what happened. I said, oh, this guy followed me into the elevator and, you know, he pinned me against the wall and so my aunt called my mom, they called the security in the building, but they never asked me what happened. Am I okay? Am I safe? They knew something happened, but that was about it. That was about it and I never even went much into the details of what happened. I tell people now very openly. I'm very comfortable talking about it now. I'm actually surprised how comfortable I am sitting here talking about it.

Speaker 1:

The last time I had you on the podcast, even we didn't go into this step.

Speaker 2:

No, we didn't. I don't believe I allowed people to get in that deep because it would make me very emotional Again. It was that feeling of feeling like filth, feeling like dirt, embarrassment when you blame yourself so much about the trauma that you've been through.

Speaker 2:

talking about it feels you're ashamed right, you're ashamed, and it's really important, especially to anyone even listening to this, to realize that I am not my trauma. So talking about it should actually help people. They should find it relatable. So talking about it should actually help people, they should find it relatable. And so, yeah, I would say I've come a long way through all of that and really reliving those instances and do I wish I would have opened up about it sooner? I do, I really wish I do. I think I would have started recovery quite far. I would have been quite far ahead right now, but I just wasn't ready.

Speaker 1:

I I don't think you can even go back and even reverse that because, I think things happen when the time's right for you to address them yeah and whether it takes you five, six years, ten years, some people might arrive to their 50s and they only realize, oh, I need to unpack this shit now, but I sometimes think it'll. It'll happen when the time's right for you to address it, and when was the defining moment where you realized your behaviors of binge eating was circling back to these episodes, uh?

Speaker 2:

I would say about four or five years ago. So I knew I was a binge eater about 10, close to about 13 years ago. I knew I was struggling with binge eating At that time when I went for my nutritionist certification. That's when I realized, oh, binge eating is a thing, people actually eat this much. Till then I always thought I lacked willpower and I lacked motivation and you know, because that's what people tell you oh, if you just eat a little bit, do you have no control, natasia? And I would be like, no, I don't. So then I realized I had every single symptom.

Speaker 2:

Definition of a binge eater when it was connected to my trauma was when I started seeing a therapist, was when I started really opening up to my clinical psychologist and telling them you know, I'm struggling with this and they're like you know, binge eating can be a coping mechanism to a trauma, trauma relation, and it's quite common. Now people can go either way. They can go either the anorexic route, because it's a sense of control, or they can go the binge eating route, which is also a sense of control, because you're eating to the maximum point that you're diluting the feelings and the emotions that you're feeling in your body, because then you're so hyper-focused on the feeling of fullness. Why did I do that to myself? The feeling of I look fat, I feel fat, and it takes away from all the attention, away from everything else. The minute they shared that information with me, I then knew that I couldn't be the only one struggling with this. And I see it. I see it in my clients.

Speaker 2:

A good number of my clients struggle with sexual trauma, physical trauma it could be a loss of a parent either emotional trauma of some sort and then it was really important for me to become trauma-informed, becoming a trauma-informed individual.

Speaker 2:

You then allow yourself, in whichever capacity and however you're trained, to be there for that person and not give them the standard guidelines and rules of what they need to recover. So that was very important for me, and looking into particularly certifying myself in trauma recovery for people struggling with eating disorders helped, and it helped me Because when you start really uncovering the depth of why you do what you do, you kind of notice yourself going into autopilot mode at times, and that's what was happening to me. I would go into autopilot mode when I felt threatened. I would go into autopilot mode if I seen a particular man on the street that resembled the men when I was younger and I would come home and I'd want to eat, but I never made the connections or the dots. Right now I see it. I see it. I feel less threatened when I see that type of particular male individual, but I know that my nature would be to go back home and stuff my face with food because I felt threatened.

Speaker 1:

So when you stuff your face with food, essentially is that a trauma response in a lot of cases, or do people just fall into bad habits of feeling themselves to distract themselves? It?

Speaker 2:

is a great question, but it's a trauma response to a certain degree. But it becomes a coping mechanism, right, the trauma response could be fear, it could be shutdown. It could be feelings of neglect, feelings of guilt, feelings of being ashamed or turning away from men, let's say in this case, or even being overly promiscuous could be a trauma response. You could go either way. But I would say the binge eating in particular comes up as a coping mechanism. Because what happens after the trauma? That moment lingers, it just doesn't end right there, right, it plays in your mind again and again and again. And every time that moment replays in your mind, you're now stuck, you're in a very safe environment, but you have nowhere to go, you have nowhere to face, especially if you're not talking to anyone about it. It's one of the reasons why you'll see, after a big traumatic incident, whether a family member passed away or you know, you'll see parents now putting their children through therapy so that they have a safe space to talk about that, to get those emotions to the surface. If someone doesn't have that space and that trauma is reliving as part of their life day in and day out, how do you cope with that unease? And when you're so young, food is the most accessible thing that you can cope with. It's what gives you the fastest dopamine hit sugar, chocolates, cakes, donuts, right. As you get older, that can evolve. It can move to drugs, it can move to alcohol and things of that sort. Now that gives you a different escapism to its finest.

Speaker 2:

But when you're really, really young, and when trauma happens, really young, and you're dealing with this discomfort, you know something's wrong. Every single instance I knew something was wrong. I knew it didn't feel right. Even though I was that young. I remember moments of me sitting in my mom's car when we were going somewhere after the grocery, because it happened to me multiple times when I was young and I would think to myself I feel so bad, why do I feel so bad?

Speaker 2:

But then, when I would eat, we used to have a housekeeper at the time and I would tell her give me more food, give me more food, give me more food, and when I would eat I would not feel bad anymore. So when you learn that manner of coping mechanism so much earlier it, then what started out emotional turns into become habitual. So yes, as you heal, your relationship with food changes, but it very, very much becomes habitual. So now I'm no longer struggling with the thoughts of trauma when I was in, let's say, early 20s, but I would want large amounts of food because now that's how I taught myself to deal with any difficult emotion I got rejected food, I was disappointed food, anger food, and so it became habitual, and it does for most people, unfortunately.

Speaker 1:

Were you ever a kid where your mother said you can't leave the table without finishing your food?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah, absolutely. My grandmother used to say it's one of the reasons why I'm traumatized of beetroots, um, because I've had memories oh god, drastic memories of my grandmother saying you cannot leave this table until you finish your beetroot. And I would sit, sit there for hours, I would fall asleep and she's like you still didn't eat it. You're not leaving, and so until this very day, I can't stand the sight of beetroot, I can't eat beetroot. But we like to call it the finish the plate club. Right, you have to finish the plate before you get up on the table, or sorry, there's people around the world that are starving, and there are people around the world that are struggling, and here you are wasting food. That has a huge impact as well.

Speaker 1:

Do you think it's important for parents to be mindful of addressing that with their children?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. You know you're teaching your child very, very early on to suppress their hunger and fullness cues and which means you're telling this individual very early on to ignore themselves, exactly, To ignore themselves, to ignore their intuition, you know. So we have a lot of people nowadays telling people oh, become an intuitive eater, it will take care of all your binge eating. Become an intuitive eater, it'll take care of everything. So we're asking people to become intuitive eaters when they don't even know what their intuition feels like. Right, they've diminished that so young and so, yes, it is very important for parents to be informed and at least if your child, if they seem that they've eaten enough or they are full, they're telling you they're full, you know it's okay, honor, that they'll come back if they're hungry with binge eating.

Speaker 1:

How do you identify your binge eater?

Speaker 2:

oh, great question. So a binge eater always knows that they're a binge eater, they know. Um, there's a couple of key key points that come up when you're binge eating, one being the excessive amount of food that we have. So this can range anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000 calories. You could have it in one sitting or you could spread it out between two to three sittings. Usually the feeling right after a binge is guilt and shame. So you're so hyper-focused now on the guilt and shame. Why did I do that to myself? And I can't believe I've done that.

Speaker 2:

The third part of the binge eating cycle. That really hits the nail on the head that this person struggles. Binge eating is a severe form of restriction. So they'll say on Monday I'm going to start my dieting, on a Monday I'm not going to eat anything. A binge eater that is binge eating almost every single day. They live in a cycle on a daily basis. So they tell themselves tomorrow I'll skip breakfast. Breakfast, mostly. If you speak to a binge eater, they're not eating breakfast, they're skipping their breakfast. They'll say I'm intermittent fasting, but it's mostly because they've eaten so much the night before. They're still digesting that and then by the time 2, 3 pm hits, the cravings come in and they go back into that cycle again. So if you can fall into any one of those three categories, definitely you would say that again, binge eating, like anything else, goes on a spectrum, but you're definitely on the spectrum of binge eating then.

Speaker 2:

What kind of binge eater were you, I was definitely on the high end of the spectrum. Depending on where and how I felt in my life. I would go between medium to high, and so on my medium days would just be me coming home ordering food from out and then restricting. I would go on weeks of juice, fast weeks of salads and then go back to binge eating again. On my really stressful days I would get so angry if my manager at the time would say I need to stay back 15 minutes at work because that takes 15 minutes away of me getting to the food I had planned out for the evening, which would aggravate me so bad.

Speaker 2:

The binge eating. Would be so bad that I wouldn't even wait to get home. I would stop by at the gas station or drive through, pick up what I needed to at the light. I remember being at the traffic light and I would eat my binge food, whether it be chocolates, cakes, whatever it is, and I would do it in the car, like just hide in the back so that no one at the traffic light could see me on the left or the right side. Then go home, pick up food along the way, because back then we didn't have at least in Montreal. We didn't have kareem or uber at that time. Um, I'd pick up food along the way, go home, eat them. I'd go to costco, I don't. I don't know if you know what costco is.

Speaker 2:

I pick up all these costco family size packs, and that would be, that would be some of my worst days. Uh, just sitting there, eating and eating and falling asleep, getting up, eating the rest of it and then throwing it all out in the morning as though nothing had ever happened.

Speaker 1:

Did anyone identify that you had a binge eating problem, or were they aware, during the duration of all this, of what was going on?

Speaker 2:

You know it's such a tricky thing with binge eating, right? Because, unlike any other addiction, it's so visible in the person's body, of course. So for me, people may have not understood what was happening behind closed doors, but they knew something was happening because I would go through periods of gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, the binge eating restriction, binge eating restriction, weight, the binge eating restriction, binge eating restriction. And so to a person that never struggled with food or is not informed, would think, oh, she's yo-yo dieting, she's just going through the fluctuations that women go through. But unfortunately for binge eaters or fortunately in some cases when we struggle with binge eating, it's very visible. You can see it happening, people know. So if anyone does have someone in their life that they see them going through periods of losing weight and gaining, it's worth having a chat with them because more than likely they are struggling with food for the listener.

Speaker 1:

Can you actually just explain how much weight you've actually lost? Wow, so I've lost 65 kilos, 65 kilos yeah, I'm 65 yeah there you go, you've lost me basically, yeah, that's it 65.

Speaker 2:

And, mind you, I've you know if I had known early on that it was binge eating, because I did gain weight back after that. I gained 30 kilos back, lost it again, gained 10 kilos back, lost it again. I gained 30 kilos back, lost it again, gained 10 kilos back, lost it again. I would say, in the past four years was when I've been the most stable. I mean, I've gone between now gaining more muscle and losing weight, but really stabilizing, but past four years has been the real change.

Speaker 1:

So there's a real difficulty when people go through drastic change in their body. It's difficult for people who've hated their body previously before to be able to maintain that feel good feeling, to really live in the new body that they're in. Did you find that a massive struggle when you lost weight to hold on to that moment and to be able to maintain it?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, I couldn't even recognize myself in the mirror at times. I would look at myself and I was like, oh my God, that's me. And I would have to do that often. And I know now that the main reason that I kept doing that was because I lacked confidence.

Speaker 2:

And I believe anyone that struggles with weight think that once they lose weight, the confidence, the charisma, believe anyone that struggles with weight think that once they lose weight, the confidence, the charisma, the self-worth, the self-value all just comes. But it doesn't. There's not this red carpet that gets rolled out for you and everyone's clapping for you and it just gets built. It's not. And so the lesson I have, the lesson I've learned, is that it's so important along the way to build that confidence, build that self-value, because if you don't have it at the end it's exactly what's going to push you back to where you started. And so along the way, after I lost the weight, I still couldn't look at people in the eye, I still couldn't talk to men, I still struggled in friend group circle. I still try to make myself small, I still try to be the extremely funny one, you know. And so when you start acting that certain way, you start feeling that certain way, and then you start wanting to do the habits that you used to do. Once you start doing the habits that you used to do, you slowly start becoming the person you used to become.

Speaker 2:

And so I very, very quickly started identifying with the old Natasya and went back to her, and, before you knew it, I was binge eating again. I became that person I never wanted to be in the first place, and that, for me, was it was mind-blowing. How could I go back to being the person? I prayed, I prayed, I prayed, I've cried, I've prayed in church, saying, please, you know, I don't want to be fat anymore. How could I go back to being that person again? And so that's when you realize that the issue is so much deeper. It's it was so visceral and it had to be touched onto its root core and what do you do to practice to not self-sabotage?

Speaker 2:

to not self-sabotage. It's important to one check in with yourself, you know, because it's so. It's so easy when your back is against the wall, it's so easy for you to go back to your old habits and your old routines. And one so, checking in with yourself, say oh okay, I'm doing what I used to do, I need to just proceed forward, no matter how I feel. Next is really understanding that the thoughts that come through our head, no matter what they are thousand, two thousand.

Speaker 1:

I can't remember the number of thoughts that we get in a day, there we go in a day. It's sixty thousand by eighty percent are negative yeah, there we go right.

Speaker 2:

And so it's about really understanding that I don't have to believe every thought that comes my way. That's what people struggle with. People struggle with oh I'm, I'm downloading a thought right now. This must be true about me. I feel thought right now. This must be true about me. I feel bad about my body. This must be true about me. But understanding that that thought is not true. If you're trying to become a better person, you can't believe the thoughts that are being downloaded in your head. You have to be, you have to listen to and be guided to a new way of living, a new way of thinking. That would be the next step. I would say that's, once you hit that nail on the head, then everything else whether it be calorie counting, going to the gym, building a habit that slowly comes along but once you realize that I am not my thoughts, I'm more than that the game changes from there do you find yourself, or have you found yourself over obsessing on calorie count?

Speaker 1:

and to not go back to old natassia, I have gone through periods.

Speaker 2:

I have gone through periods because I think when you, you know, when you go through the whole weight loss regime, um, keeping binge eating aside, of course I've. I've gone through some of the most amazing trainers. I've gone through some of the most amazing trainers. I've gone through some of the most amazing nutritionists, and if they are not trauma-informed, if they are not eating disorder-informed, they will do what they know best, which is guiding you to your best physique. No shame in the game there, but they're trying to get you to your best physique. That involves cutting out calories, cutting out carbs, watching your macros, ensuring that your weekends are not fun-filled 1200 calorie days.

Speaker 2:

I've done all of that right, not realizing that some of that actually kicked my binge eating right back to where it started. And so have I tried them. Did they work? Yes, did it last for long? No. So it was very important for me to understand that, even if I want to maintain this healthy weight and even now, over the past year, I've lost, I think, two and a half kilos I have to do it slow. I have to do it very gracefully. I have to do it if my body's ready. Nothing obsessive, but just be more mindful. That's what works for me and that's what would work for any person struggling with binge eating.

Speaker 1:

If they're still struggling with their weight, let's say yeah, I think it's really important for personal trainers to be really mindful of the background of someone's history when it comes to food and nutrition. Because, even speaking from a place of experience myself, I went through binge eating, um, and I was in touch with a personal trainer at the time before I went into coaching, and she was making me eat five times a day, where that was triggering me to eat even more because it's like, oh, the binge eating window is open five times a day, so that triggered the old Sophia before. Now. You catch yourself a lot quicker when you've kind of recovered from binge eating, but these new eating patterns can flip someone upside down. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

In the beginning they feel good. To a binge eater, or to anyone struggling with an eating disorder for that matter, control rules, right. It feels really, really good. And again, what are we trying to seek? We're trying to seek control, right. And so the binge eater in that first couple weeks feels really good, until it doesn't, until we are craving that dopamine hit, until the stress at work is getting to us, until we go through a breakup, until someone you know said something bad to us. Now we no longer want that sense of control, we want relief. We don't want to face that issue head on, we want relief. And then we go back to our old ways, and then it goes back to binge restrict, binge restrict. And so I've seen that cycle so many times, I've done that cycle so many times myself that it gets so exhausting, you know, and I think there was a saying out there once that really resonated with me. It said I'm just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I remember once, waking up after having just completed a session with a trainer where I binge, restrict binge, and I kept bouncing, waking up after having just completed a session with a trainer where I binged, was straight binged, and I kept bouncing up and I kept telling them. I said, oh, I'm so sorry, I'll get back on plan next week. And I cried so much that Sunday and I said I'm just sick and tired. I'm sick and tired of being this way, you know jumping on, jumping back on, jumping off. I was exhausted.

Speaker 1:

I was exhausted and I just had to get out.

Speaker 2:

What's your triggers that would trigger you to binge eat like the old Natassia? For me, um.

Speaker 1:

I would say emotional. So I, I, I, uh, I, even in your, in your professional life. What would your trigger be in your professional life?

Speaker 2:

So there's three important triggers that I ask people to watch out for and that apply to me. I got a bit confused there, let's say, because I was like which one should I focus on the most. So there's environmental triggers, people triggers and emotional triggers, and for me they were emotional definitely Environmental also to a certain degree, and people I realized later on in life. But emotional for me was if I was ever excluded or rejected, that would be a huge trigger for me. A huge trigger for me.

Speaker 2:

Environmental that we all have this perfect couch in our in at our house or the bed that anytime we sit there, we're like, oh, a bag of chips here would be great, you know, a tub of ice cream here would be great. Or in the car, that would be an environmental trigger. People triggers would be someone that just triggers the heck out of you. The minute you see them or after you see them, you just want to eat right, and so that was something I realized very later on in my life that I have people triggers as well. But those are the three main ones that come up when it comes to binge eating.

Speaker 1:

Does that still come up for you now, do you identify? Oh, after you maybe meet someone you're like? Oh, I feel like I want to eat after this. So does that still come up for you?

Speaker 2:

For me now, I would say, the most I come up is emotional People not so much, not so much at all, because I now understand people to a very different degree than when I used to. I would always see myself beneath everyone else. Now it's I look up to this person or we're equals, you know which is which is a great place to be. So people know, environmental know, but emotional, yes. So if I'm really stressed or something is really upsetting me that is out of my control, I will have moments where I feel the urge and that's all that it is. Now it's an urge. I get a very strong urge to want to binge, or very strong urge where I'll be thinking of a very specific item and I tell myself okay, natasya, you, you're really stressed, something is not where it needs to be right now so I can catch it, whereas before I didn't even know it was happening what would the specific item be?

Speaker 2:

oh, it could range anywhere from a pizza, usually like a cheesy pepperoni pizza, or it would be ice cream. Ice cream was my kryptonite yeah, ice cream was my kryptonite.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's an interesting one, because I always think um, when I think of binge eating, I think of like crunchiness stuff to kind of um it you can go.

Speaker 2:

I always ask people which area, which category do you fall into? You can either go uh, savory, or you can go really sweet, or you then have the people that go between savory to sweet, savory to sweet. For me it was always sweet, always sweet, as far back as I can remember. Now, like I said, pepperoni pizza. I don't even know where that came from, but I will think about a cheesy pepperoni pizza at times.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned there a minute ago that you put people at the same level as you or above, above you. You look up to people yeah do you think you would still have that same mindset in natassia's old body now today if you were sat here?

Speaker 2:

No, no, I wouldn't, because my self-value and self-worth was shattered. It was so shattered. So anyone, anyone, was above me, anyone, anyone. They could just smile better than me. They could just have better hair than me, and I would. That's how I would compare myself. I was like, of course she's better than me. Look at her shoes. Of course she's better than me. Look at her eyes. Of course she's better than me. Look at her hair. It could just be one small it was. That was.

Speaker 2:

That was the only reason I needed, you know, and so I wish, I wish that I could show her then that life is so much more beyond just that one tiny little factor that you're comparing yourself to. And you see women out there. You see women who are obese, overweight and are really, really confident about themselves, and really they don't do that exact same behavior. So I'm not trying to say that anyone you know that struggles with weight or is obese was in that same mindset. But for me in particular, given everything that I've been through, I was not. I wasn't capable of looking anyone in the eye and saying, yeah, me and you, we're the same.

Speaker 1:

How can someone heal from binge eating?

Speaker 2:

healing and binge eating is an ongoing journey. It's an ongoing journey I. It's very important that people realize that they don't wake up one morning and binge eating is just going to disappear. That's just not going to happen. There are days you're going to fail. So you have to become really comfortable with failure, understanding that failure is part of the process. There are days you will try and you might get there halfway.

Speaker 2:

You might get through a couple urges to binge but give in on the last one and that's still a win, and understanding that trying is still getting you a step closer to your healing journey. And so you know it varies from person to person, depending on how far deep they are. It's about really meeting the individual where they are on this journey. But if someone were to just start, it's understanding what, who and how triggers you the most and then starting to put these boundaries around those elements to move forward. It's not the perfect diet, it's not the perfect food. It's not. You know, someone told me the other day I say every time I eat I can't remember what it was brown bread. I never feel the urge to binge. I was like you, give me a call when that fades, because that's it's not. It's not a perfect, it's what works best for you and learning how to communicate.

Speaker 1:

Is it important to tell people that you are a binge eater and you're trying to heal it?

Speaker 2:

It is.

Speaker 1:

It is important because in the context that they don't know, Well, yeah, you know, like yourself, you've gone through a journey where you're jumping in the car, you're buying stuff from Costco, you're hiding, you're secret eating. When you're at those stages and you want to heal yourself, do you think it's a good idea to tell people around you?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question. Yes, it is, but be careful with who you share that information with. We live in a very interesting world, and some people like to see you struggle. They like to know that you are the big friend, you are the fat friend, you are the binge eating friend. It makes them feel better about themselves. This boils down to ego and power and things of that sort, and these are things you realize once you only lose the weight, and so it's important to share it with people that can understand, to have a supportive network of people that can be there for you and that will not use that information against you, which is very, very crucial. So, yes, please be open, share, but to someone that can truly provide compassion for you and be there for you in your moments of struggle truly provide compassion for you and be there for you in your moments of struggle.

Speaker 1:

It's a really difficult scenario because when you're in that position where you're at the lowest of the low, you tend to surround yourself with people who aren't supporting you. So your likelihood to share that information with the wrong person is very high.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I mean, this is where the expertise of a coach, a therapist, comes in right, because they go to show you that you really need to lift yourself higher than where you are. It's one of the main things I tell people, and I tell them this very early on. I won't be surprised that as you heal on your journey, your dynamics change. The people that you used to hang out with you're no longer going to hang out with them. The people that you used to like are no longer going to like you back. The people that you once thought were your friends are no longer going to be your friends, because you're seeing the world in very different eyes.

Speaker 2:

What you used to mask before with food, every single moment, you're no longer masking it. So you're seeing situations for what they are, and nine times out of 10, you're not liking it. So it's a very interesting and eye-opening place, and I would say this is where some people tend to fail, because now your eyes are open, you're seeing things for what they are and not every time. You like what you see and so you want to go back to your comfort level. You want to go back to what you know best, but everyone liked you where things felt familiar, um, and it's really about fighting through that part, because there's so much more waiting for you on the other side, but sometimes, unfortunately, people don't get the opportunity to get there yeah, I think it's a really nice reminder to for any of the listeners who are binge eaters to realize that there's beauty on the other side waiting for you if you just see past the things that were giving you comfort previously before absolutely I want to move on to the topic of ozempic please, let's okay.

Speaker 1:

So for the listener, if you don't know what ozempic is, can you even explain um what ozempic is?

Speaker 2:

exactly, absolutely. I hope I get all the terminology right, it's okay.

Speaker 1:

I'm not expecting to be a scientist here, but so ozempic, manjaro, succenda.

Speaker 2:

These are all GLP-1 weight loss injections that allow individuals to lose weight healthy, unhealthy, we're going to probably get into that by blocking certain receptors in their brain, changing their receptors on how they view, think, feel about food, and this allows them to get to a point of weight loss. These injections were first created for people that struggled with diabetes to help regulate their insulin levels, and the studies have shown that individuals that did take these medications were experiencing high amounts of weight loss, were able to stabilize their blood sugar levels. And then it was introduced to the common population and has now gone berserk.

Speaker 1:

So with Ozempic, do you think it's a helpful drug for people who are suffering from obesity? It's a helpful drug for people who are suffering from obesity.

Speaker 2:

You know, when I first heard of Ozempic I heard about Ozempic from one of my clients about four or five years ago and she told me about it and I was like what, what are you even talking about? She's like, yeah, everyone's on it, Everyone in Hollywood's on it, Everyone in Bollywood's on it. Like this is what it's about. And at that point I was scared. At that point I was scared for myself as a business owner, as an emotional eating coach. If this is here, there's no place for me. But what I realized is that we might be in more trouble than we think.

Speaker 2:

Is it helpful for people that struggle with obesity? Yes, but it's also a big mask for people that struggle with eating disorders, because now you wake up focusing on nausea. You wake up focusing I don't want to eat. But if you're struggling with binge eating or you're struggling with emotional suppression or things of that sort, these weight loss injections also give you the belief that I no longer struggle with that. I'm actually a normal person now. I feel like a normal person now. So, while they do help, they need the proper guidance along the way to direct you on the right path, Because if you stop them which when 80%, more than 80% of people that have stopped it have regained all the weight back. It just goes to show that nothing was addressed. So the idea and it's so important to remember that Ozempic is an Monjaro tri-zepatite, zep bound. They are weight loss tools. They are not healthy living lifestyle tools. They are not sustainable weight loss tools. They are literally just weight loss tools, but they're not being treated as such.

Speaker 1:

They did a recent study that showed the people who started taking Ozempic have only been taking it like people who are normal weight and they're using it recreational to lose weight. They've only been on the drug for one or two months. They don't even exceed past that because they come to the realization that, oh, I can't take this forever, so then they, they just stop taking it altogether. Yeah, um, and I think that is actually the reality that it's not going to fix your problems. Yeah, and if, if, there's a deeper route towards them absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I mean it's. You know. My issue arises in things of that sort. When people are three to four kilos away from their goal weight and are now taking these injections to get to where they need to be. What does that say about that individual? That I couldn't tighten up my habits, I couldn't give it what it takes to get to where I need to be. I needed the add-on of a drug into my life to get me to where I need to be, and I don't need it anymore. That's where my issue arises with these drugs. As far as someone who is 300 pounds, 400 pounds probably can't move, probably can't walk and needs that initial kickstart to stop them from eating large amounts of food whether it be binge eating or not potentially could be of aid to them to at least help them kickstart their journey. But on the other end of the spectrum, I'm having a very hard time coming to terms with it.

Speaker 1:

What kind of advice would you give to someone now who's thinking on Ozempic, who only has four or five kilos to lose?

Speaker 2:

I would say, if you have four to five kilos on a zempic, maybe you've used it for the first 20, maybe you've used it for the first 30 or whatever it could be. Um, lower your dose. Lower your dose and start facing your reality. Start planning your habits, start planning your routines, start planning your Lowering the dose still allows you to get that, let's say, a block or that aid that you need in that moment to not overdo it. But it still allows it doesn't block it completely. Where you're going days, hours without eating, you're still getting moments of oh, I'm hungry. So it allows your intuition to kick in, it allows your hunger cues to kick in. It really allows you to become the individual you want to become.

Speaker 2:

I mean, why are we losing weight just for the aesthetic purpose or are we losing weight to truly become the best versions of ourselves, mentally and physically? You know, and so it boils down. And the ones that truly want that for themselves, that say you know what, when I was overweight, I was, I had no confidence, I wouldn't do anything, I was a procrastinator, I was a people pleaser. The ones that no longer want to align with that will do it. But the ones that are doing it purely for aesthetic. They don't care, they don't want to. So for me, I would tell any individual on the injection saying if you want to be the best version of yourself, lower your dose get to that point where you can start building this healthy, sustainable lifestyle habits, routines and then win yourself off it.

Speaker 1:

That's great advice. So, since it's the Detach podcast and I've asked you this before, what would you detach yourself away from that's limiting you today. Oh Sophia, why are we doing this?

Speaker 2:

It's the last question I promise what would I detach myself from? I would detach myself from social media if I could. Yeah, social media is my biggest source of uh, business, don't get me wrong, but sometimes you can get caught up in in doom scrolling. You can get caught up in comparison um, and I don't think that's healthy for me and as much as I'm saying I'm doing it for research, for more marketing information that I want to put out. If I could, I really would. I would detach myself from that.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a big one for everyone. I just think it's so difficult in this day and age to be able to have a simple life away from social media.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you know, I love it. I love it so much I've I've met so many. I mean you and I met on social media, right, I've met some amazing, amazing people on there. Uh, but for myself personally and my personal well-being, if I could, just I would what advice would you give natasja now to manage that?

Speaker 2:

you know, to manage that post and ghost. That's the advice I would, and I used to be very good at it. I used to be post and ghost, just let it go. Now I'm like did it, did you? Is it fine? Is it did it do? Okay, should I go? Did I, did I do this? Did I do that that? But yeah, I need to get back to posting and ghosting love it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, anyway, for today's episode my absolute pleasure.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me.