#101 Renée Jones – Keto for Emotional Eating

Meet Renée:

I’m a counselor, coach, and speaker with a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Counseling and a clinical residency.  I spent 40 years on the Diet Yo-Yo until I learned how to overcome emotional eating, which freed me to lose my weight in 2012, and I have not regained it.  I broke my Diet Yo-Yo.  Now I help others overcome their emotional eating and any other baggage they’re tired of dragging with them.

Show Notes:

ABOUT RENEE

• I spent 40 years on a diet. I started when I was 10 years old because my mother thought that if we sort it out then, I’d be set for life
• Unfortunately, she was not good at it and neither was I, so I just did the yo-yo thing until 2010 when I was about to turn 50 years old
• And we know what happens to women after 50. There is no chance you can lose weight after that
• I figured out that my main issue was emotional eating and I started working on that, and I lost my weight the week before my 50^th birthday
• I lost about 35-40 lbs.
• Every time I choose my food well and don’t eat for an emotional reason, the weight does come off
• When I do what I know I need to do, it is not that hard and I hate to admit that, but it’s true
• I woke up on New Year’s morning and I thought that “We are doing this New Year’s resolutions again.”
• So, I was really good for a couple of weeks and I fell off my plan
• At the first of February, I started again and fell off the plan on the first of March
• In April, I needed a bigger size and I was absolutely mortified because that is when I hit the 40 Lb. mark
• And so, I thought to do something different because this is not working
• I went online to do some research and I found this piece of information that I thought was absolutely ridiculous
• And they said, “Only eat when you’re hungry.”
• So, I just kept looking around and I found some information about emotional eating
• I did great until something happened and I crash-landed into the refrigerator to soothe myself
• I did some research and study on that to try and apply it
• When I actually had a colleague that I spent some time talking to when I would get wound up I would call her and she would talk me through it
• I did actually on a low-fat, low-calorie, no flavor diet. So, I was actually starving myself
• It was a struggle because I was hungry
• 2 years later, I was still getting through it trying to maintain and I found out that I was tired, hungry and cranky all the time
• At that point, I did a metabolic test and it said that I needed fat in my diet
• I was at my goal weight at that time because that was weight watchers told me
• I followed their diet for a week which is essentially low-carb except you’ll have cheese sauce and butter in everything and I lost 2 lbs.
• And I liked it because I wasn’t hungry and that started me down the path toward keto
• I was beginning to try to figure out what is this keto thing and by April of 2015, I thought of doing it and I have been keto ever since
• Once I started adding fat back to my diet and reducing the carbohydrates, the blood sugar levels, leveled out
• I ate for emotional reasons most of the time and I was addicted to sugar
• I thought every meal needed dessert freely or some sweet component
• Before I went keto, I made a rule for myself and the rule is, I will only have sugar on Sundays
• About 10 days in, I haven’t been as moody as I once was and realized that the sugar and carbohydrates are part of that which gave me a reason to continue and I want full-blown keto

• Most of the foods that we go to when we are stressed out, upset or mad are comfort foods
• They are usually associated with memory
• For me, it was peanut butter
• When my mother passed away, I crawled into my peanut butter jar and gained pounds
• A few years later when my grandmother passed away, I thought that I do not want to gain that weight again
• So, I thought what is about peanut butter and realized that it’s because all 3 of us loves peanut butter and I also realized that all I need to do is look at the jar and it is a tangible connection
• Once I recognized that, I always told myself that my grandmother is not in that jar, it’s just a connection
• I did not know that I did not feel good
• After I got adapted, I had more energy and I felt better in my body as well as in my spirit
• It was just because I always had carbohydrates and lots of them, and I just did not know that that’s what made me feel suboptimal
• I do not get those terrible moods anymore and that’s wonderful
• If people will get into the fat-adaptation, I think they will stay with it
• Just getting in there can sometimes be a challenge because you will go to the things that bring you comfort
• From birth, we are taught that when something happens, put something on your mouth – think about a baby
• Every man that I asked if what is their go-to food, they will always say ice cream
• I make my own ice cream by using a book of a recipe by Carrie Brown, Ice Cream Scoop

• One of the things that I teach them is that overcoming emotional eating is not hard
• It just takes a while to get the HANG of it
• I have an acronym for HANG and the letter H stands for am I HUNGRY? If you are, you probably need to eat something, but if you are not then A, what is the ATTRACTION to food for you? N is for, what do I actually NEED other than food? And then G, GO GET THAT because that will soothe you more than any food ever could
• One of my tag lines says, “face your stuff, don’t stuff your face.”
• I do a little bit of speaking, but I also see clients
• I love one-on-one work with clients because it is just so satisfying when you are able to help people
• I have a book out called, What’s Really Eating You?: Overcome the Triggers of Comfort Eating
• It has been out for a couple of years and you can get it on Amazon and also at Barnes & Noble
• The 80’s, aerobics, stick figure was kind of a much
• There’s a healthy weight range that we can be in that’s good for us emotionally and physically, and we got to find it
• I don’t think it is a certain number, I think it is a feeling
• I am in my healthy range and that is my intent to stay here forever

• One of the things in overcoming emotional eating is that we have to find what’s driving the behavior
• We have to separate the food from the emotional pull
• Sometimes, your cravings just come out because you’re not getting the nutrients you need
• So, figure out whether you’re eating because you’re hungry or if you’re not hungry, ask yourself on what’s going on
• If I can tell somebody one thing, I would say, “Do not do the sleeper”
• There is a trick with the yo-yo diet called, the sleeper
• When the yo-yo goes down, it just spins at the end of the string. It does not go up or goes down, it just spins
• And the sleeper from the diet yo-yo is believing all the nonsense that there are some magic pills, potion or exercise program that will just make the weight just fall right off you
• The only thing that we could do is to make really good choices consistently for the rest of our lives

Where can people find you?

www.packyourownbag.com

facebook.com/packyourownbag

 Instagram: @packyourownbag

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