What We Talk About in This Episode

In Episode 6 of the Joyful Health Show, we interview board certified psychiatrist, Dr. Stefani Reinold to help shine light on a common struggle, “Why do we keep eating emotionally, and how can we stop?”

Dr. Reinold shares her personal story from recovering from an eating disorder to practicing and teaching a grace based approach to food and body image concerns. As a psychiatrist, she helps her clients uncover the heart of their struggles, and often, “it’s not about the food”—which happens to be the name of her popular podcast.

In this episode we discuss:

• The reasons why food and emotions are often interlinked

• Ways in which emotional eating is often about something else other than the food

• The non-linear journey with making peace with food and your body and importance of managing your expectations and having grace for yourself.

• The Need to feel safe in whatever steps you’re taking in healing your relationship with food and some practical tips for getting started

Resources Mentioned

1. Dr. Reinold’s podcast: “It’s Not About the Food”

2. Dr. Reinold’s free resource, “So What’s It About?”

3. Dr. Reinold’s practice: Whole Hearted Psychiatry

Guest Bio

Dr. Stefani Reinold, MD, MPH

Dr. Stefani Reinold is a board certified psychiatrist, women's mental health expert, eating disorders specialist, and host of the podcast It's Not About the Food. Her mission is to help women uncover why they struggle with food and their bodies because "it's not about the food." She helps you look beyond the surface and think deeper in order to cure lifelong struggles. She runs a private psychiatry practice outside Austin, TX where she resides with her husband and 3 kids. Connect with her on Instagram @stefanireinoldmd, Facebook , or her website at https://stefaniereinoldmd.com

Episode Transcription

Introduction

Hey, Friends, welcome to the Joyful Health Show. I'm Aubrey, registered dietitian, and I'm Kasey, a personal trainer. And together we’re here to help you discover joyful health by grace Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of The Joyful Health Show. This week, we have the privilege of speaking with Dr. Stefani Reinold about the common question, which is why do I keep eating emotionally and how do I stop? So we're so happy you're here. Dr. Reinold welcome. 

Dr. Reinold

Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. 

Kasey

Yes. So for our listeners who may not know Dr. Reinold yet, Dr. Stefani Reinold is a board certified psychiatrist, a women's mental health expert, eating disorder specialists and host of the podcast It's not about the food. Her mission is to help women uncover why they struggle with food and their bodies, because it's not about the food. She helps you look beyond the surface and think deeper in order to cure lifelong struggles.She runs a private psychiatry practice and outside of Austin, Texas, where she resides with her husband and three kids. So welcome, Stephanie. 

We are so excited to hear from you. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you got started. Maybe start with your struggle. Maybe it was a personal struggle or a career struggle in this topic. How God met you and what you do as a result. 

Dr. Reinold’s Story

Dr. Reinold

Yeah. You know, in a lot of ways, I think my story is much like many people story. And in a lot of ways, you know, each of us have our own unique spin on things. But, you know, I grew up in the South. I grew up in Texas, a pretty, you know, normal average Christian family.

You know, we didn't really talk about food, anybody. My dad actually worked in the food industry. And so food was perfectly available to me. Good foods bad foods, everything in between. And so it wasn't really from a place of food insecurity, but I did a lot of image centric activities. I did dance in gymnastics and reached a competitive level.

And by about adolescence, when my body started to change, of course, I looked for ways to fit in with everybody else. And make my body change to look like other people. And so that really catapulted my first diet, which for me turned into Full-Blown bulimia for about probably four to six years of my life. And, you know, in through college before I really, you know, took a step back and kind of started healing with a very DIY approach.

I had a therapist at the time, but I actually never even talked about this stuff with my therapist. Which was probably the first seed that was planted that this stuff is not about food. Because I realized, interestingly enough, when I was talking about seemingly completely unrelated things, my eating habits were improving and I was actually beginning to feel a little bit more confident in my body.

You know, fast forward some time I met my husband. Things were continuing to improve. You know, and then babies happened and my body changed again. And it was not actually my first pregnancy. My first pregnancy was actually very positive experience. And it was actually very healing for me in a lot of ways. It's actually my second pregnancy. And again, this kind of is the thread that you'll hear from me if you listen to anything I say or in this episode to because my second pregnancy, I was actually, to be perfectly fair, my body size was the smallest it has been in any of my pregnancies.

And I was like, it was actually a very fit pregnancy. Like, I felt very physically active and yet I was miserable and really peeling back a lot of layers to my life. At the time. There was so much stress in my life. It was a really stressful time in my training. My marriage was not in the best season of its longevity.

And so there were just so many other things going on. So I actually went back to therapy and it was the most healing therapy experience. And still to this day, I just credit that therapist with so, so much because she literally changed my life in so many ways because it really clicked for me that it's not about the food, you know?

And it was really completely in that instance, everything in my life started to make sense. Everything from patients and clients I was hearing from started to make sense. And I was like, this is the key. This is the hidden gem. If people just understood that you cannot keep control saying food and your body to try to control food and your body, that makes sense.

Then everything, everything else makes sense. Like you start looking at other areas of your life that likely are easier to fix, ironically, and actually you actually have a little bit more autonomy and control to fix these other areas of your life rather than your body. So, you know, that's when I was first introduced to intuitive eating was actually in this pregnancy.

My second pregnancy with my son. And, you know, I went down to help at every size rabbit hole and everything in between. And, you know, I kind of swung pendulum and all maybe to the other side a little too extreme for a while. And then I've sort of found more of a sweet spot, I think, when God met me in it and kind of helped me understand Grace to everything and that was a piece that although intuitive eating and health at every size were so pivotal in my professional journey in really understanding a weight neutral approach with my clients and my patients, I found it actually a little bit triggering in different ways.

I now kind of found a little bit more balance and just understanding there's grace to be had wherever you're at in this journey, whether you are still dieting, whether you are, you know, gaining weight in the process of healing wherever you're at, there is grace to be had. So that's really just what I would I want people to know. And that was kind of my story. 

Aubrey

Yeah. Oh, man and so many things that I want to touch on in there, especially what you're talking about at the end, which is that there is grace to be found wherever you are in your journey. Because like you said, even in the intuitive eating, health at every size world, it can become another set of like, black and white rules. Oh, you're in it, you're doing it right or you're not.

And we definitely know that's not the case. We know that God has each of us on our own journeys, and he has grace for us no matter where we're at.

The Roots of Emotional Eating and How to Move Forward

So, Dr. Reinold, I want you to share a little bit for someone who feels like, “you know, I cannot give myself permission to eat the food because I emotionally eat. I come home every night and I just sit and I binge on whatever it is, chips in front of the TV. And I know that if I give myself permission and I let go, that I'm going to spiral out of control.” Can you speak to that person just about that term, emotional eating, and maybe what are some of the food, and like you said, non-food things that might be behind it 

Dr. Reinold

Yeah, that's such, it's such a loaded topic. First of all, such a loaded topic. I don't really actually know where to start. We'll start here. So there's two things that I really consider. Just off the bat, anybody I'm working with. One is safety. Feeling safe and comfortable in whatever steps that you're taking, in healing, in therapeutic work.

You know, I feel like we don't spend enough time around safety and feeling safe. You know, so many of us have a trauma history. I mean, I didn't even think that I had a really traumatic life until I got into therapy and realized there were so much so many traumatic triggers that were around food in my body, you know?

And a lot of times, you know, from childhood, the eating table is a very emotional place. And so even if it's not trauma, like we think about, you know, like sexual assault or war trauma or something, it's traumatic in the sense that it causes chaos in our lives. You know, it causes chaos in our emotions. And so kind of understanding what feels safe if you truly do not feel safe going all in whatever all it means for you.

And that'll be my second point is, which is expectations, kind of managing that. But you know, if you don't feel safe with that, what do you feel safe with? Do you feel safe taking maybe a single portion size of these potato chips if that was a very triggering food for you in the past, or maybe you feel safe eating with other people, or maybe you don't feel safe eating with other people, maybe you feel safer on your own.

You know, wherever you're at in your journey, you have to feel safe about what you're doing or you're never going to keep doing it. It's going to feel, you know, that FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT mechanism in your brain is going to kick in every single time you try to do this work. And it's going to feel very, very, very uncomfortable and not a good discomfort that leads us to that next chapter of our healing journey but really bad discomfort that probably causes regression and maybe even catapults us deeper into diet culture. So  I always recommend working with some kind of professional. You know, this day and age, you can find any kind of coach online, you can find a dietitian locally, you can find a therapist like honestly, it doesn't even matter the credentials.

But I do recommend probably talking with somebody even one time for a consultation because they'll kind of help you gauge this safety measure because so many of us were so used to kind of ignoring that hunger, awfulness, ignoring our body so we don't trust ourselves these are really deep issues that really come back to us not feeling safe in our body.

And so when I hear that, you know, this fear of like, well, I just can't trust myself around food or I'm just going to bet I hear you are so afraid. Like this clearly doesn't feel safe for you. So what can feel safe? So that'd be my first thing up front. Everything is about safety. Secondly, let's kind of manage your expectations.

Are you expecting that you're going to be able to just all of a sudden have all of this you know, quote unquote, junk food in your house that previously you had restricted for, you know, years, decades of your life and be fully confident and comfortable around that food. Well, that's not a realistic expectation, right? Just like I wouldn't expect someone who never runs to just tomorrow run a marathon.

You know, this is a muscle to work out in your brain, just like if you were lifting weights or training for a marathon or, you know, working toward something really big you know. And so a lot of it is about managing expectations and making sure you feel safe with the steps that you are taking. 

Kasey

Hmm. Yeah. That's really helpful.

I think those are some really structured. To me,  order makes me feel safe. And so you talked about like when I hear someone say this around food, I hear I'm afraid. So what about the person who's afraid of emotions because they don't have experience with naming their emotions around food, but they just do. How can that person maybe walk more into those emotions safely?

I know you've already talked about those steps as far as like feeling safe, finding that safe space, managing expectations and working with a professional that will help them to understand when they're eating emotionally and what that emotion actually is. And then you talked about like with your life, you were able to manage other areas of your life and the food habits kind of fell in line.

So would you say that naming your emotions and how they applied maybe to different areas of your life would help? 

Explore the Why Behind Emotions and Start with Something Safe and Tangible.

Dr. Reinold

Yeah, and it's interesting. I actually take kind of a paradoxical approach to that because I think traditional emotional eating experts out there, it's how do I say without, first of all, full disclaimer, I love anyone who is helping people with emotional eating, because I think it's very, it feels very uncommon to that person suffering from it.

So whether or not we believe it's real, we believe it's from restriction. There's lots of schools of thought on emotional eating, and it's actually kind of become a controversial thing to talk about. But it's a full disclaimer. I love anybody and respect anybody who's working on this. However, I'll just say this a lot of times that people that have branded themselves out there as emotional eating experts, they take an approach that I think feels very unsafe for people, which is just sit with your emotions.

You need to learn to sit with your emotions. And everything is about the emotions. And so paradoxically side about the emotions like here's the layers of the work that I do, you know, for me and this kind of comes back to even how I healed. And so I took some of my personal lived experience and some of what I was seeing in all of my patients and clients is that you can't just jump there.

I mean, for me, it felt like someone was speaking to me in Chinese. When I remember my therapist was like, Where do you feel it in your body? And like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Like, I was so literally I was like, this lady's crazy. I mean, this is the therapist that helped me so much.

So I love her. But literally in some of those first sessions, I had no idea what she was talking about. So if that is you, totally. You're in the right place. Okay, because we've suppressed emotions for decades. Sometimes, you know, our childhood it's even how we raise our kids. There's so many layers to this about why people suppress emotions, but we know that we do, right?

Because they're uncomfortable, because we don't like to feel uncomfortable. And that's the whole job of our brain to keep us safe and make us be comfortable. So I actually take a paradoxical approach, which is actually looking at other areas of your life from a very intellectual, thought based place. And so you it's a little bit easier to sit with emotions when it doesn't have anything to do with food.

So, for example, kind of just coming back to my own personal story in that pregnancy when things you know, I was struggling with my husband, I had no problem venting about how awful my husband was and, you know, crying about like fights that I had. And, you know, that was easy for me, you know, talking about food and why I'm choosing this and why I'm not eating sometimes and why I am suppressing my hunger, you know, that that was a foreign language.

So start where you can start and again, comes back to where you feel safe, what feels just easy and comfortable, you know, and that's kind of like habit change. 101. Like these are all habits, like really ingrained, awful, destructive habit sometimes. But their habit at the end of the day that we've wired into our brain. So that would actually be kind of paradoxically, the first step I would take is let's look at some other areas of your life right now because I'm telling you, ten out of ten times when someone is struggling with food, there is some area of their life that they are struggling with and they're using food as this easy safety net because they're avoiding this other problem in their life. And usually those other problems, whether it's money issues with your family issues that their kids, your spouses, your, you know, maybe it's like a spiritual crisis you're going through. Maybe it's just personal identity issues, maybe it's your career. Those are going to be so much easier to talk about and vent about than food stuff.

So actually starting in the reverse place, ironically, it helps you then just be more mindful in general with your life and also around food. And so then it's not uncommon weeks months down the road, you've kind of given the foundation of how to process things that you're avoiding. So then when you bring it up around, you know, well, why am I compulsively eating in this period of time?

Or Why do I just keep snacking at this time of day? Or, you know, I'm not even hungry, why do I keep eating off of my plate? It's so much easier at that point in time.

Aubrey

Hmm. Yeah. Oh, it's almost like, it's almost like then the food behaviors can just become sort of a signal to something else is going on that I need to address or maybe that I'm avoiding.

It's funny because I don't remember where Kasey and I were having this conversation, oh, with another podcast guest, and talking about how can we get this message out to people? How can we talk about these things with the church and with people? And she kind of told us, you know, people when they hear the words like dietitian or body image, like they run and they don't want to have to deal with that conversation.

And I think, you know what you're saying about the fact that we have a lot of these emotions around food and eating that we might not even be aware of is part of that avoidance. It's that feeling of being uncomfortable. And this next question might feel a little leftfield, but you're talking about, you know, needing to feel safe with whatever step we take.

HO

And I'm curious, where is the line? You know, how do we know that we're challenging ourselves enough, but also staying in a safe enough place where we're not going to regress?

Dr. Reinold

I think it comes down to where your motivation still lies. If you're not feeling safe, your motivation is really quickly going to you're not going to trust the process.

And so your motivation is now going to be back to diet culture, you know,  and that's okay. I mean, I think that's part of it, too, you know, it's so so common to like kind of dip your toe into the non-diet world and then go back to dieting and dip your toe in and go back. And that's okay.

And I think we should actually normalize that a little bit. That's perfectly okay. In fact, I actually usually expect that as part of the journey. But I think that also tells me, okay, this person just doesn't feel safe in this place yet. And maybe there's lots of reasons for that. Maybe they're just not ready emotionally. They just don't have the capacity to kind of take on this place.

But also, you're going to see if someone's still very motivated or is still trusting the process so the common kind of phrasing I'll get is like, you know, I hate my body or I hate that I'm gaining weight, you know, or I just don't even feel good that, you know, now I'm bingeing on all these sweets now or, you know, whatever kind of that phase is of kind of the honeymoon phase where you're just really making peace with all foods and you're really trying to see everything on emotionally.

Usually people just feel a little bit uncomfortable physically like in their body because they're seeing their body change. So that's when people feel the most uncomfortable in their body physically. But usually people still have motivation to continue the process. Like, they're still excited about the journey. They still see the end game, which is freedom, truly, and grace.And people still kind of believe in it. If they're losing that belief, that tells me, okay, maybe we're just not ready.

Kasey

Yeah. I think that's so important. This is to see the entire process. I remember reading a scripture that talked about that we are being perfected, and that word meant like extending and the reference, the telescope as far as I can you it's sure, but the further you extend it the more you can see.

And so I compare that to our timeline of like the more that we walk, the better perspective that we have. And so maybe could you, I know you've mentioned grace and how, you know, you swung in both pendulums of intuitive eating and the other side of it. So how does grace fit in there for the person who's frustrated with their journey of emotional eating?They feel like they're, they're sliding back, they're angry with themselves and then they feel guilty. Where does God's grace fit in there? And do you have any encouragement from your own story that you can give them hope for where they are?

Grace Means We Can Have Flexibility In Our Eating

Dr. Reinold

Yeah. I feel like people end up putting rules on intuitive eating, too, you know? So like, for example, I remember hearing, you know, from a client years ago and she was like, you know, I still know that I feel good when I eat these kind of foods. And when I drink this much water in a day, is it wrong to kind of have those as guidelines And I was like, no.

I mean, if you know that and you kind of maybe just need a little bit of accountability to tell yourself, you know, cause some people's brains are a little bit more analytical in that way. And they need to say, I need to eat vegetables with my lunch and dinner in order for me to feel good. Or I need to, you know, not probably have just sugar and carbs for breakfast or else I'm going to crash, you know, and unfortunately, I feel like in the intuitive eating, you know, some of the non diet world, people are like, no, that's still a diet.

You're still in diet culture. And I used to be that way, I think, when I was first coming into it because technically, I mean, I do think if you're truly making rules and it's so much rigidity in your brain that say like you're never able to have a cinnamon roll for breakfast, like even on vacation or even on your honeymoon or something because oh my gosh, you know, you're going to feel awful.

Well, there's a time and a place for like pleasure and joy, and God wants us to have pleasure and joy in our lives, too. So there's grace to be had on the rigid mentality front, regardless if that rigidity is coming from actual diets or if that rigidity is coming from intuitive eating, you know, Jesus Christ did not live his life in a rigid manner.

You know, he lived his life very convicted and very, you know, he had very strong opinions because that's the truth. So it's one thing to know the truth and then to also live your life with some flexibility. You know, so I even like some of the words like flexible eating a little bit better because I mean, for example, like, I can't always eat exactly what my kids eat, you know?

And I remember when I was first coming into the intuitive eating world, people are like, I just always eat different for my kids. And here's the funny thing. Fast forward, I, me and my husband eat kind of differently from my kids, too, because I just know they have different flavor profiles in their brain and their taste buds, and they're not going to eat the exact same thing.

I will, you know, so I no longer see that as diet mentality, you know, like I think I think the reject the diet mentality, you know, of intuitive eating gets really black and white with people. And so just be mindful. If you are somebody that can be a black and white rigid thinker, you may struggle with kind of the consummation of the work you do.

Like, it's all sort of part of the journey. Like, I think it's natural in the beginning to kind of go all in and to be excited about like never having to worry. And it's almost like this rebellion, which feels good. And and I say rebellion not in a bad, sinful way, just like kind of rebelling from the world, really, which is actually what God calls us to kind of rise above this world.

But then kind of coming back to this middle ground where it's like, okay, I just don't feel good because it feels chaotic to me. Like, I need a little bit more structure. I mean, I'm a working mom of three. I have a fourth baby on the way. I have to have structure. Like, I do have to plan my meals we have to plan our grocery list.

We have to plan most of our dinners like our, you know, family meals. So is that diet mentality? I mean, maybe some people would call me out, but it was I found grace that God's grace covers everything. I mean, my goodness, like I can't plan a dinner for my family without it being dieting. Tell me you know what I'm saying?

It gets a little bit almost bizarre at times, like and that's just the extreme rigid thinking. And so I think it comes down to like that cognitive rigidity. Like, are you feeling so rigid that it allows for no flexibility because grace allows for flexibility? That's the difference to me.

Aubrey

That's so helpful because I think just that mindset of are you feeling rigid or do you have room for flexibility? And just picturing Jesus and how he lived his life convicted, but he also lived his life just following every word of the father or every, you know, leading of the spirit. And he didn't know like he didn't know, which I think is or, you know, we don't know where we're going next.

Like God knows where he's leading us next. And with diet mentality or even with like super strict, like following intuitive eating, whatever form of eating you're trying to follow a system with. We're trying to effectively know where we're going next. Like we're trying to figure out every move of our lives and control it. And that's not the picture of surrender and following Christ.

And so I think even just having that as a filter of like how you're eating and how you're viewing food, is it this tight grip thing, whether it's intuitive eating or not, or is it a surrender one meal at a time, one day at a time thing? And so I love that. So, okay, I wish we could talk to you for forever.I'm like, can, can I have a session with you? But also, we want to make sure that people, if they do want to have a session with you, are with one of your staff that they know where to connect with you. And so could you share, you know, where we can find you? And then also any resources you have for the audience.

Connect with Dr. Reinold

Dr. Reinold

Yeah, you can go to my website: https://www.stefanireinoldmd.com –that's a good umbrella for everything. If you are interested in actual more patient or one-on-one kind of services. My professional site is https://www.wholeheartedpsychiatry.com  and I do have a free mini class. It's called, “so what's it about?” So if you want to walk through actually my process of how I kind of help you uncover, you know, what's it about, what's really going on, that’s a https://www.stefanireinoldmd.com/freeminiclass . 

Kasey

Awesome. Thank you so much. This is just so helpful and I think for the person who has a lot of emotions right now, this verse also came up for me as you were talking was Philippians 16: “He says, I am sure of this that he who began a good work and he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” so being able to hear your story where you are now, how you say grace covers all things such a comfort for our reader.

So if you don't mind if there's anything else you want to add and then just like leave our listeners with and and pray for them as well. 

Emotions Are a Part of God’s Design

Dr. Reinold

Yeah. The last thing I just want to leave you with is emotions are not bad. Emotions like food are not good or bad. You know, I feel like in a lot of Christian circles, we sort of view emotions as just bad or we've gotten this pop culture kind of image of a woman that's so emotional and it's just kind of taken on this negative tone.

I mean, God made us with emotions. He himself had emotions. You know, we we shouldn't be afraid to express emotions, even anger for us women. You know, there's no emotion that's good. No emotion that's bad. Now, could it be driven from a sinful thought or sinful flesh? Of course, because that's all of us that's up for discernment with the Holy Spirit, you know?

But emotions by themselves exist because we are human beings. And so I think sometimes that holds us back because we think that somehow that's just bad, you know, kind of like the whole flesh is just bad. Like our body is just bad. Like, I mean, our emotions are part of our brain. There's literally parts of our brain for different emotions.

And God created our brain. So God created emotions. And, you know, if he didn't want us to have emotions, we wouldn't have emotions. So don't be afraid of it from a spiritual standpoint either. 

Kasey

Mm. Yeah, that's good. Right. 

Dr. Reinold

I'll pray for this. 

Kasey

Yeah. Thank you. 

Prayer

Dr. Reinold

Yeah. Okay. Dear Lord, thank you so much for anybody who is listening to this. I just pray that you just give them grace and you just cover them with your word and your comfort through such a really challenging journey to make peace with food and your body and that they can know that their body is good, that their brain is good, that emotions are healthy and appropriate. And that you can just meet them wherever they're at to take them to the next place so that they can ultimately live and bring you glory in.Jesus Christ name, amen. Amen. 

All right. Thank you so much, Stephanie. And for everyone listening may you rest in his grace and follow the joy.