Intuitive Eating with Peta Coote Part II
[Intro] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell. I'm an intuitive guide, and I absolutely love helping people to heal from within so that they can create a life that they love, a life that they enjoy. We weren't meant to just tolerate and get through life. We were meant to thrive and enjoy the life we're living.
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Corinne Powell: Hello there, and once again, I have Peta Coote with me today for part two of a two-part conversation.
Pita is a non-clinical certified intuitive eating coach and self-kindness guide. She is a self-professed cat lady who always has a cup of tea to hand.
Pita worked with adults coaching in self-kindness, body image, self-worth, and intuitive eating, as well as in schools around the world with children and teenagers.
If you didn't catch part one, it's worth listening to. But it is also perfectly okay to listen to part two without having heard part one yet.
And I hope that you will be touched by what you hear and be liberated by what you hear.
Peta Coote: I'd love to speak a moment to kind of comfort eating and stress eating and secret eating as well, because I think it's something that many people struggle with and feel very ashamed of. And it can often be one of these taboo subjects that means that people feel very, very alone in it. It's the really normal and natural thing to do, comfort eating and stress eating.
It's something that naturally soothes us because we are animals, we're human. And as a baby, if we would cry, we would be soothed with milk.
Corinne Powell: Yes.
And then the likelihood is, as we kind of grow up as children, if we're crying, we're upset about something, a well-meaning adult in our surroundings. We go, oh, don't worry about that. Come here, come and have a biscuit or come and have a sweetie or come and have this. And it is a soother. It's a wonderful soother. But when it comes to comfort eating or stress eating, or even kind of happiness eating.
So if I'm really excited about something, I'll kind of, I want to reach for something to eat. The same with nerves as well. It's really useful before reaching for that food to ask ourselves, is there anything that would better serve me right now?
So just taking a moment to pause, take a breath and kind of go, “Sctually, is there anything that would better serve me long term?” So maybe it's going for a walk and getting some fresh air. Maybe it's speaking to a friend. Maybe it's journaling. Maybe it's watching TV. Maybe it's taking a break or getting an early night.
Because sometimes we can use food to numb feelings. We can use it to bury things down that are kind of going on for us, which is great. It works really well for about 10 minutes. And it's brilliant. It works so well for about 10 minutes. And then everything floods back in again. It all bubbles back up. Plus, on top of that, we have guilt or shame around the fact that we ate whatever we ate. And we're feeling bad about that too. So we've kind of amplified it even more.
Sometimes there is nothing that's going to better soothe us. For whatever reason, we find ourselves in a situation where we're like, there's nothing. The only thing that's going to soothe me right now is a piece of cake or some ice cream. Don't deny yourself of that if that's the only thing that's going to soothe you.
Because that's really unkind. But it's about kind of going to yourself, right? I know that there's nothing else that's better going to soothe me right now. I've looked at that. I've thought about it. Let's take the example of ice cream. I'm going to choose to eat some ice cream. But what I'm going to do is rather than do it really quickly, because I feel really bad about this, I'm going to make this a lovely self-care moment for myself.
So I'm going to get a really nice bowl. I'm going to pop some ice cream in the bowl. I'm going to grab a blanket. I'm going to light a candle. And I'm really going to enjoy this moment. I'm really going to enjoy the ice cream and let it soothe me. Let this moment of self-care soothe me.
And then when it comes to secret eating, because secret eating can often kind of fall into this category a little bit. Secret eating is often quite frantic. There is a lot of shame surrounding it as well. It comes up hiding the evidence of secret eating. I don't think I've ever worked with a client who hasn't eventually said to me, by the way, I secret eat.
And sometimes it can take them so long to go, there's something I didn't tell you. I secret eat. It's something that many of us do. And often, if you're kind of someone listening to this and you're like, yeah, no, I secret eat, it's really useful to try and trace it back to the first time.
Where did it start? Why did you start secret eating? So I've had people who would secret eat. And it started. It started when they would get home from school and mum would say, no, you can't have anything to eat right now. Dinner's going to be in an hour. Go out and play.
And so when mum's back was turned, they kind of go into the biscuit pot and they'd grab a biscuit and then run up to their room and eat it.
I've had other people that when the shopping would arrive, mum would say kind of like bat their hands away. No, you're not having any of that and putting it away. And they'd kind of sneak something then.
Or children who would have a midnight feast because it was really exciting and really adventurous and it was very fun and thrilling to do. And these things are really innocent as children.
There are no kind of feelings of guilt and shame often as children. It's quite funny. It's quite exciting. But it's only as we get older that that behavior kind of grows and evolves. And it starts becoming something that we're really hiding, that we don't want others to see.
And so because of the kind of added layers of people feeling certain ways about certain foods, certain foods labeled as good or bad or unhealthy or healthy, those foods fall into the negative categories.
If we want to eat them and we like them, they make us feel good. We can get to a point where we will hide that eating and we'll hide that behavior and we'll then hide the evidence.
So it may be that when you're shopping in the supermarket. You kind of buy biscuits or a chocolate bar or something. And then as you're driving home, you eat it and then you hide the packet before you go into the house.
Or it might be that in the evening you have something in your bedroom when your partner is watching TV in another room. And then you hide the evidence in the bin and you move a few things over in the bin. You put it in the trash bin and then you cover it up. The act of secret eating, in my opinion, isn't the worst part about it. It's the shame and the guilt that we feel around this that truly eats away at us.
And it's something that we carry with us. And the idea that someone could find out about this is just for some people is just absolutely not. Like there's no way someone can find out I do this. Something that we can do around this is we can kind of go to the to whoever we are hiding that secret eating from. We can say to them, “Hey, by the way, for a while now, I've been secret eating this. And it's something that I have felt really ashamed of and really guilty about. I'm really trying to work on my relationship with food and my relationship with myself. And so I'm letting you know this is what I've done and I'm not going to be hiding it from you anymore. I understand that you may have your own opinions. And that's totally OK. But for now, I would like you not to share those opinions with me. If you see me eating this food, I'm working my way through it”.
Corinne Powell: Yeah.
Peta Coote: And the moment that we step up and do that. Often, depending, of course, on the response of the other person, often that behavior stops because we've got nothing to hide anymore.
Sometimes we can become really obsessed with certain foods, so we may be like, oh, do you know what? I would be fine doing this kind of intuitive eating thing as long as I didn't have crisps in the house or as long as I didn't have chocolate in the house.
And one way we can overcome that is kind of going, OK, I give myself full permission to eat what I want when I want. And I'm sure there's going to be people listening going, no, if I did that, I did my whole kitchen out. There would be nothing left in my cupboards. This is a terrible idea. What's she talking about?
But let me put it like this. Take, for example, this food that you've got on this pedestal that if you had it, you would just eat it all day long and you'd eat it forever. And you have that food. Let's say it's cake and you have that food for breakfast. You have a plate of cake for breakfast and you're like, oh, I really enjoyed that. That was lovely. And then a couple of hours later, it's midmorning. You're feeling a bit peckish. You have another slice of cake. Nice. That was really nice. And then lunchtime comes along. You're peckish again. You have three slices of cake. You're like, OK, I'm full.
And then a little while later in the afternoon, you have another slice of cake for snack. By the time your evening meal comes around, do you still want that cake? I imagine the likelihood is you don't. You're probably a bit sick of that cake by now. And you're probably thinking, do you know what? I'd really like whatever it is.
As humans, we like variety in our diet. And so when we give ourselves full permission to eat whatever we want, when we want, it's really interesting. We manage to almost eat our way out of this food being on the pedestal. Suddenly, a cake is on the same level as an apple. We can have it. We can have it whenever we want.
Or a glass of water. We can have it whenever we want. For those of us who live in countries and have the privilege of kind of having water whenever we want. And so I imagine you're not thinking, if I said to you, give yourself full permission to drink as much water as you want, you're not kind of going, if I drank as much water as I wanted, my water bill would be sky high. It's not because it's not on a pedestal, right?
That's like if I said you can have it whenever you want. If you can have as much broccoli as you want, you probably wouldn't be going, oh, my God, I'm going to eat so much broccoli, the supermarket is going to sell out. But we do that. We have this idea that we can't control ourselves with certain foods.
And actually we can. But it's because they're on a pedestal . And if we can take them off that pedestal by kind of going, you know, I can have that whenever I want. I can also have that and that and that and that whenever I want to. Right. And it's a process.
It's a process that we have to work through food by food. So kind of my advice would be don't kind of go at it all of a sudden like I can eat whatever I want when I want. Pick a food that you've got on a pedestal and say to yourself, right, this food, this particular food, I can have it whenever I want. And then if it's a food, say, for example, like ice cream, narrow it down even more to I can have this flavor whenever I want.
We don't have to work through every food and every flavor. In order to have food freedom. After a little while, all of the foods just kind of drop down to the same level. But this kind of working through it methodically to begin with is a really useful thing to do for our brains. And it's really it's a method that I use with most of my clients and it works really, really well.
Corinne Powell: Yeah, I love that. That's great. I remember because I've had to go on my own journey with like around food. And I remember. Recognizing that I actually wanted more, say, of dinner sometimes, but I was so accustomed to “Oh, you have if you're going to have dessert, you have it after you eat dinner”.
And I realized there was times when I didn't want the dessert, but I would want another plate of dinner. And just letting myself have that and recognizing this became something that was normal for me based off of just society, really. But why did I need to look at it that way? There's nothing wrong with having another plate of dinner if that's what I'd prefer over the dessert.
It was just fascinating. It's the moments where I'm like, oh, I didn't even think about it from that perspective before. How interesting.
Peta Coote: Really interesting. And I think it's important to note as well within intuitive eating, we're not kind of going and nutrition doesn't like there's nothing to do with it. We don't ever think about nutrition. There is a principle.
Within intuitive eating, which is called gentle nutrition, but we don't get so out of the 10 principles, nine of them can kind of be worked on in whichever order naturally comes to the person that's working through it, because there's going to be certain things they really struggle with and other things that actually come really naturally to them.
And with ease, because they don't have so much tied up within it. But the one principle that we have to leave until the end is gentle nutrition. Because if we bring that in too early, we start making it all about following a really specific plan and we start creating rules.
Corinne Powell: Yep.
Peta Coote: What we're looking to do is not have rules and actually tune in and listen to ourselves and go, actually, yeah, no, I do fancy another plate of dinner.
Corinne Powell: Yeah.
Peta Coote: And it's so satisfying when we're able to listen to our body and tune into that.
Corinne Powell: I'm interrupting the episode because I want to invite you to a group session.
If you're interested in what you're hearing on today's episode or previous episodes, then my guess is you would really love coming to a group meeting.
What we talk about varies and it's different every meeting. So you're not going to necessarily feel like you're out of the loop. You can show up. We're going to talk about a new topic and you're going to get a chance to ask your questions, to get my feedback. My groups are very warm and inviting.
They're usually on the smaller size so that I can give my focused attention to everyone that's there. And if you want to join, you can either come live on a Tuesday evening. They're held at 7h15 Eastern time, or you can watch the replay. We meet virtually. So no matter where you live, you can join.
Definitely check out the show notes for a link to sign up. And I hope that you will continue out today's episode and enjoy it.
Corinne Powell: Yeah, it is. It is. And then sometimes, you know, just in remembering what life used to be like before. Before I changed my relationship with food.
It's so liberating. Or, you know, if I'm out with people and I realize. Oh, what they're saying or how, or how they're thinking based off of what they're saying.
I remember that I can identify with that, but not feeling attached to it any longer. It is the most liberating feeling to recognize that, like you said, it's not this free for all in the whole scheme of things. But it, in some levels it is just like you, I think, you know what I mean? But like, it's just.
Peta Coote: It frees up so much mind space, doesn't it?
Corinne Powell: Yeah! The rules, those rules that somebody somewhere has put on food and diet culture. It just, I can't. There are times when I step into spaces and I realize, oh, I know this conversation is just not for me.
Like it is, it goes so against every bit of the way I do life that I remember it. But I want to be so far removed from it because it's toxic. And so I love what you're doing. I love how you help people. Thank you for what you are doing to just change lives and make an impact in the world because how needed and how beautiful it is.
The work that you do from the little bit. I know of what you do. I know of what you just told me. I'm sure there's so much more because I know you do self-kindness pieces and all that, but just what you're sharing here. I love it.
Peta Coote: Thank you so much. And thank you for this wonderful podcast. It is just a delight to listen to. And I know that it must help so many people.
Corinne Powell: Well, I'm glad to, I'm glad to be doing it. So, and how, how can my listeners connect with you and find out more if they want to work with you or just want to follow you on social media.
Peta Coote: So I'm on Instagram. I am @nourishingsoulfully. And I post, I post all things, intuitive eating, healing your relationship with food, self-kindness, and then quite a bit about my cats too, I’m a cat lady.
And then I have a website, which is nourishingsoulfully.com. And on the website, you can find out different ways to work with me. I run two courses, a course in self-kindness and an intuitive eating group course.
As well as I have an offering of one-to-one coaching as well. But on the website, there are complimentary resources, which are completely free of charge. You don't have to kind of put your email in to access them.
And there is a resource on there, which you can audit your relationship with food with. So it kind of works you through an audit of your relationship with food and looking at the areas, maybe where you would like to focus some more of your time and attention on, which may be really useful if anyone's kind of listened to this, “This sounds like something I might be interested in, but where do I start?”
Corinne Powell: All right. Super. Well, thank you so much, Pita.
Peta Coote: Oh, thank you.
Corinne Powell: And I hope that you have a lovely rest of your evening.
Peta Coote: You too. Thank you so much. And thank you for, for taking the time to speak to me and for having me on your podcast. It's, it's been an absolute honor and a pleasure.
Corinne Powell: Thanks. My pleasure too.
[Ending] We've come to the end. What did you think about what you heard? I hope that there's something you pull from today's episode and start implementing it into your life.
Create the change that you want to see the change that you hear about. You have the opportunity to transform your life and I'm ready to link arms with you and to help and guide you to the life that you want to live.
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I hope that we'll connect whether it's for a session or just to connect because I enjoy meeting new people. You can find me on Instagram, @corinne_changeradically or on Facebook Change Radically. You can also always email me corinne@changeradically.com.
If you have thoughts, questions or anything that you just want to talk about, send me an email. I hope that you have a wonderful week, but no matter what your week is like in the moments that are quiet, maybe it's when you pillow your head at night or when you're driving in the car or taking a walk or maybe it's going to be in the midst of the chaos with your children or with the craziness of work.
I hope that you'll remember how significant you are, that there is meaning and value to your life and that I, for one, I'm so glad that you're alive.
Catch you again next week.
