From Emotional Eating to Empowered Living with Megan Gaul & Manon on The Healers Café

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Healers Café, the number one show for medical practitioners and holistic healers to have heart-to-heart conversations about their day-to-day lives while sharing their expertise for improving your health and wellness.

[00:00:17] Welcome to The Healers Café and today I have with me Megan Gaul and she's a weight loss coach from Staten Island and her mission is to support women aged 30 and up with about 200 pounds and up to achieve their weight loss goals without shrinking their lives.

[00:00:42] She came to this mission through her own 100 pound weight loss in 2018 where she discovered food freedom, healthier emotional boundaries, self-trust and a richer life. And you've been at this point in business and coaching for five years. And, um, yeah, so let's talk about both aspects of it.

[00:01:10] The, um, the business of coaching, what that's like, you know, for you because a lot of our practitioners, you know, are looking at coaching as something necessary because all of them are naturopathic,

[00:01:27] naturopathic doctors and, you know, and then when patients come, they, um, they, they expect different things, but sometimes they expect that the naturopathic doctor is also going to coach them. And, uh, you know, and, uh, you know, and that's not the price point or the, um, the payment, like that's not what we're trained in that sense to spend our time with.

[00:01:52] It's more to diagnose and to, uh, to prescribe and to make sure that all the blood tests and everything is right and they're optimized. But if they need more, you know, constant, um, care and reassurance and guiding and all of that, we tend not to be the right people unless we are. And we, we wear that hat.

[00:02:20] So, um, I think anyway, so maybe let's, let's start because obviously you have your own story and we'll get to that. But why don't we start with how the coaching came to you as like something that you wanted to offer and that you could offer. And yeah, tell us a little bit about that journey. Absolutely. So, um, I'm trained as an educator. So I worked a little bit as a teacher and a tutoring center director.

[00:02:48] So I've always been in the, the space of, uh, learning acquisition, right? Right. And mostly for, for kids, but also I was, uh, you know, I trained a lot of the tutors that we had. And so my background has been in that, that space of, you know, we both agree that you want to get from point A to point B. How can we facilitate that? And, and just like teaching coaching is both of us working together that way. I don't have the answers.

[00:03:17] You don't have all the answers. So we're doing a group project in a way. Um, so in that way, coaching felt much more intuitive of a choice than, uh, you know, going for a degree of some kind, getting some kind of, uh, you know, large program with knowledge acquisition for myself. Right. So I really wanted to focus on, on the behavioral aspect of, uh, folks trying to achieve what they wanted to achieve.

[00:03:46] And the reason weight loss became, um, the main thing I want to, I wanted to coach around was because I myself had a very significant, uh, weight loss journey that impacted, um, not just, you know, how I go about my life and, and my level of energy. But also my confidence in tackling any decision or any big project.

[00:04:13] So that's, uh, I was really interested in the, the behavioral aspect of it, the getting it done and keeping it that way aspect of it rather than all the important work in diagnosis and in, uh, you know, providing those, those services. Mm-hmm. And so in your own journey, did you get the, um, the pleasure or the opportunity to work with somebody or, or not?

[00:04:41] So I worked, mostly I needed a lot of help with my thinking. So I worked with a cognitive behavioral therapist. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't particularly for weight loss. Um, it was more for, I noticed behaviors around, you know, compulsive eating, emotional eating, and a really strong inability to manage my stress or to recognize my stress even. Right.

[00:05:10] So, so CBT was so helpful, helpful for me to understand, okay, so I do want to work on changing how I'm eating. And now that I'm rolling, I would love to reach this lower, healthier weight to, to make my life feel much better, to make choices feel more open to me with what I can do. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:34] So, I mean, in your case, because you created your own program, so, um, so, and not everyone needs the same type of help, right? Uh, so is part of what you're doing, um, it, you know, I know you can't diagnose, but you can still say, hey, have you had your thyroid checked?

[00:05:54] You know, have you, like the basic things that, you know, you would need to, to differentiate because if, you know, they're, they're missing some major thing, you can do all the weight loss tricks in the book, but you're not going to lose it. Right. And you're going to. Definitely. Other issues. Right. Yes.

[00:06:16] There's like, you're saying, there's so much that goes into where your weight ends up and it's not definitely not all emotional, definitely not all behavioral. There's so many pieces to it. Right. But I find that a lot of the folks that I work with have run the gamut of trying to find everything medically wrong. Exactly. No. And there's plenty of those, right? Like, then you go, what's wrong with me? Right. Like, why am I like this?

[00:06:44] Or, you know, and, and how do I change habits? Right. It's one thing to acknowledge you got habits, but you know, who's going to keep you, you know, accountable to the change of the habits. Right. A hundred percent. And I like to, most of the folks I start chatting with before we work together, they will say, these are the things that I know are holding me back.

[00:07:07] You know, they already have decided it is this behavior or this thought circle that always brings me back to doing these eating behaviors. And so that's where, where I want to create the change. So in that case, you know, they've done, they've done all the background research that they need to do. They already know what they want to do. Right.

[00:07:27] So can you share like a common mental behavior or loop or whatever that, you know, like obviously people find you as they find everyone at the right time for what they need, you know? And, and thankfully, a lot of people do their research so they kind of know what they need. So that helps.

[00:07:51] So, but let's say they find you and you're, they're the perfect client for you and you're the perfect person for them. What, what are the types of things that come up that you resolve or help resolve? So one thing that I see often is, and this is a very kind of, uh, very common one is that kind of the weekends are not a part of my plan.

[00:08:19] The weekends, I just do my best. And that's all that I can hope for. So I often see that, um, folks who have a really strong weekday habit, they've got, you know, their, their work responsibilities, their home responsibilities. Um, they can line in any diet or any food change that they want to make. They can put it, slot it right into those weekdays.

[00:08:44] But once a really unstructured day hits like a Saturday or like a day where they're not working, um, they feel very adrift. And so that's when a lot of the kind of boredom eating or, uh, grazing kind of behaviors happen that often derail what they were trying to do in the weekdays. I see. I see. Okay. Yeah.

[00:09:08] So, um, and some of that thought cycle is I deserve to rest without over planning every moment of my life, which it's a very enticing thought circle to me too. Yeah. Yeah. I like that one too. Yeah.

[00:09:24] So that's one where, um, it's really interesting to find out how they define rest and whether any of the activities that go into having a more, uh, structured weekend, whether that can feel aligned to what they want to do. Um, so there's all sorts of ways we can put a kind structure or a relaxed structure into a weekend to make it work better for their goal and stop undoing what they did during the week. Mm-hmm. Okay.

[00:09:55] So, so in a sense, you're working with the meaning they have behind things in, in a sense, right? Like if, um, we're using the word structured, so the week is structured and by nature, because it's unstructured, it means that there's no parameters. They don't know what to do, but then there's those who believe that that's what they deserve. Right? Right. I actually like to go down the road of that's what they deserve.

[00:10:25] What do you do with those people? So then it becomes a one. I love to validate, like you deserve everything. Like, I agree. Wait, we all have, um, lives that are full of suffering, right? So, of course, there's, um, we deserve relief from that suffering. And then the question becomes, how do you want to get that for yourself?

[00:10:47] So, there's a short-term relief of having that unstructured Saturday, you know, where you can stay in bed as long as you want or where you don't have to put the meal prep together. You know, that's one kind of relief from suffering. But there's other suffering that's happening, too. There's the, you know, the pain that you feel getting up in the morning or there's the pain of having to, you know, get the seatbelt extender on the airplane.

[00:11:13] You kind of get to choose where you want that relief to come in. And you've always chosen this way. So, is there a different way you want to choose? So, I like to, I like to understand, you know, once I pose that, usually the client will have some kind of reaction of where that's, like, kind of bumping against the value that they have. And so, that's a great place to unravel there, too.

[00:11:43] Right. So, the value they would have is, I'm assuming one would be freedom. They don't want to be told what to do or it shouldn't be this hard. Right. Like, that kind of thing. Right. Yeah. Like, why do all these other people don't have to worry about that kind of thing? Right. Like, so, how do you deal with that? So, and that's a common one, too.

[00:12:11] Like, it shouldn't be this hard. It is a fascinating thought circle that often leads to giving up the actions that were working. So, it means I back away from doing my meal planning or I back away from, you know, eating the meal that I know would have worked for me today. So, what I like to do when someone feels that, what was, how did you phrase it?

[00:12:41] What did I say? Like, something about why me? Why does this have to happen to me or why? Why? It's like you're the victim of it, you know, kind of. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, I like to kind of poke at how true it is in all circumstances. So, I like to kind of ask, is that true all the time? You know, and what is the evidence for it? Where do you see the evidence pop up for you?

[00:13:10] Is it true for, you know, people you know? Do they never have to worry about this kind of thing? Or are there ways that they're doing hard things with their health and they're making hard choices with their health, maybe in a slightly different way than you? So, maybe some people are struggling with, you know, addictions to alcohol and things like that, that you're not struggling with.

[00:13:33] So, I kind of like to get a sense of where that idea came from them and also see where they're seeing holes in it. And I like to help them kind of widen those holes a little bit to, you know, lessen the power of that belief in the moment. Mm-hmm. And what have you found to be the, like, the most stuck pattern?

[00:14:02] The one that, you know, in general, if people have that, it takes a lot to break it. Not that it can't be broken, but just that it takes quite a lot to work through. So, this is an interesting one. And it's one that kind of bothers me because I want to be better at helping folks through it. But it's the one where, and it's really a good problem to have.

[00:14:28] It's the one where you've already kind of gotten rid of the on and off idea of health. And, you know, sometimes I'm on and I treat my health well, but sometimes it doesn't count, right? So, now this person is probably maintaining their weight helpfully. They're eating well. They might have overeating moments or times where they eat something that doesn't serve them, but it doesn't really hold them back from doing their everyday life and having joy in their life. But they want to now.

[00:14:58] And that's a really healthy place to be, right? Because you've kind of undone a lot of the harm that the diet industry has done to us. Yeah, absolutely. You can't have your carbs, you can't have your wine, you can't have your sweets. But at that point, sometimes the stuck place becomes, well, now I accept. And it's a wonderful thing. I accept where I am.

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[00:16:35] Now, I know I'm not on or off and I don't have to do this in six weeks. So, I can take as much time as I want. So, do I have to really work on this at all? And then there's a stuck point of always putting off the work of achieving a deficit and taking off five pounds or taking off ten pounds that maybe improves your blood work or something like that. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:05] So, but it's a good stuck place to be because I would rather have someone be there for their whole life than be stuck in, you know, maybe be skinny for ten years, but always be stuck in that harmful diet-minded food noise place. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, plus their body then knows what works for them, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Right, so it does make sense, you know?

[00:17:30] Yeah, so what do you think is harder for weight loss? The physiology and the biology of the body or what goes up in the mind? I think it's the mind every time. The mind. Okay. Because, you know, you can put anyone, almost anyone, in a vacuum, a hyperbaric chamber, some kind of,

[00:17:55] you can shut them off from society and probably, depending on what you give them to eat and what you give them, you can have them drop some body weight, right? So the mechanics are the same for most humans. Yeah. Um, but it's the mind that prevents people from being able to keep it off, uh, or to prevent that five pounds down, five pounds up pattern, or even 20 pounds down, 20 pounds up pattern. So it's the mind every time for me.

[00:18:25] Hmm. All right. Okay. And so for, I mean, do you want to share a little bit your, like, your story? Because it's probably the easiest one to know inside and out. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. What got you, first of all, decided that you were going to become healthy? And yeah. When, when do we go with that? Yeah.

[00:18:51] So I think it was, it was around, it was the age of 28. And I had, I had, I had started to become conscious of a behavior that I had been doing for probably months. And the behavior was, I would go to, in the middle of my work day, I had two hours between shifts. And I would go to a McDonald's or a Subway or a Dunkin' Donuts. And I would order enough food to last me for that two hours.

[00:19:22] And afterwards, you know, I didn't recognize it for what it was, which was, I was trying to numb whatever stress had come up during the day. I was fearing for later in the work day. But what I did notice was that I, I just felt guilty about eating. I just felt like I wasn't doing it like a normal human. Like I, I didn't have control over what I chose to eat.

[00:19:47] Um, and so it was that guilt that kind of drove me to get some help. It drove me to say, there must be people who can tell me what's going on here. Um, and thankfully, once I started having a little bit of insight into what was behind, you know, the desire to numb, what was behind that behavior, it started to become more possible in my mind. Like, maybe I can do something about that.

[00:20:17] Maybe I can change, I can change what I'm doing here. And it really, it was nice because I had a question from my therapist, which was, well, why don't you drink another, an extra glass of water each day this week? And I was like, of course, I can do that. Easy. And I did. Uh, and then the next week I think she said, well, what if you, it wasn't a walk. What was it? She said, what if you downloaded this app and, and kind of did a food journal each day? And I said, of course I can do that. It's easy.

[00:20:47] I don't have to change anything else. Sure. I'll do that. Um, but what those two questions showed me and what I was able to do with them was I can make a very small change in my daily behavior and do it for seven days in a row. And see that I feel different two weeks later. It was so, it seems so small and obvious, but it didn't feel obvious to me that I could control anything in my day.

[00:21:14] So that helped me decide I, I can do something about what I want to be. I can become healthier. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So giving, getting the control back, like seeing it, that you, you actually have some control. Yeah. Like my therapist could have told me I have control, but that wouldn't have done anything. No, no, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It was great to do it, to prove it to myself, to see that evidence.

[00:21:40] Yeah, and I think I would be stuck with, well, you've got a morning job, if I understood, and you've got an afternoon shift. But, you know, my brain goes, well, you should be eating in between, right? Mm-hmm. Because you've got to nourish your body. So, um, so I would have thought, okay, that's what I should be doing, eating. Yeah, and I did, that's kind of how I got to that point, because I was like, of course, this is the time for eating.

[00:22:08] But I think the severity of how much I was ordering was the thing. It was, I ordered maybe four different McDonald's sandwiches and 20-piece McNuggets. Okay, okay. So it wasn't just a meal. It was, during that whole two hours, I was able to put something in my mouth every few, every 30 seconds. Okay, okay. Well, also, if it's not nourishing, your body doesn't feel fed, right?

[00:22:37] So it's kind of how it goes with junk food. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the first things that I, I guess it wasn't one of the first things, but maybe one of the first ways I could make a difference with lunches was my partner at the time, who is now my husband, he was making slow cooker lunches. Right. You know, for his job. And I was like, I guess I hadn't cooked at all. But I said, I guess we could do, I could do that.

[00:23:07] And so I remember my very first Sunday lunch prep. And that whole, you know, I overcooked the chicken. It wasn't perfect, but it really made a huge difference in that two-hour time. You know, I had a few minutes and I ate. Yeah. And then I was forced the rest of the time to confront how nervous I felt. And to calm myself in other ways. Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:36] Because you weren't actually hungry anymore, right? Yeah. Like, I think that's the thing, you know, we say we do with the psychological term, but when you're, yeah, you're eating, like nervous eating, but you can't overeat, I mean, a little bit, yes, healthy foods. In the sense that you're, you know, your body has the signal I'm full, right? Yeah.

[00:24:03] You don't really crave endless sweet potatoes, do you? No, no. Not the same way. Not the same way, exactly. So it's working closer in tune with your body, basically. Yeah. And it was a great experience for me to start doing that for myself. Not that I had never had a healthy meal. It was just that at that point I was, you know, a young adult on my own, not cooking for myself.

[00:24:30] And I had fallen into a really easy place to be, which is you're super overstressed. You're going to find some easy things to soothe that. And thank God it wasn't gambling or thank God I didn't have sports betting at the time. That would have been horrible. Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Yeah, interesting. Interesting.

[00:24:53] So, okay, let's think, I want to think about another example because I think that that's really good. It shows very clearly sort of how there's both the mental component and also the biology. And then you're so-called stuck with your anxiety. And so what did you do for that to help yourself?

[00:25:18] So that's what I, I'm trying to think of the sequence of it because I know where I am now with it. But at the beginning, I saw it as a thing that I needed to get rid of, right? And I saw it as a state that I was kind of stuck in, like you said. Right. My thinking on anxiety has changed a lot since then.

[00:25:39] I was really influenced by the three principles and Dr. Amy Johnson, her just a thought book. Oh, I love it. But what I started with was getting more kind of calm in the day. So one place was during work, you know, even after I had changed jobs, I was still super nervous going to work.

[00:26:07] So I started to do a five-minute guided meditation, having never done any meditation in my life. I just picked, you know, an app and chose some five-minute mindfulness prompts for myself. And I did that every day before I went into work because I said, I have to be able to do something about this. Right. The constant pit in my stomach.

[00:26:31] And so that was nice because I started using it as I think it's more intended to be, which is kind of practice in focusing my attention and my awareness.

[00:26:44] And there's a lot of healing that can come from changing your awareness from those things and those beliefs that are worrying to you and beliefs that are much more buoying and much more helpful and positive. So it's not like I got rid of the anxiety, but I was able to be aware of other positive things happening at the same time that kind of righted my reaction, my anxious reaction to everything.

[00:27:14] So that was really helpful. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a holistic thing. It makes sense, you know. Yeah. Yeah. No. Interesting. And what was your, the hardest thing for you to shift? Let's see. Well, I think the, in my own journey, I was, I'm a numbers person. I call myself, I identify as a numbers person.

[00:27:43] So I feel it's fun and it's interesting and flowy for me to dive into the calorie counts and the amount of protein I'm having. And so my brain loves to work like that. It loves to kind of clunk things into place and plan my day. So I have just the right amount of protein for the day. Mm-hmm. And so it was really helpful for me about four or five years in.

[00:28:13] So after losing the hundred pounds and then now maintaining, I started to see some emotional eating come back, come back after years of not being there. Mm-hmm. And so at that point, it was so, it was so difficult for me to let go of the control of planning my day so it was just right. Mm-hmm.

[00:28:37] And acknowledge that I need to, that's not, that's not a focus that's helpful for me right now. I, what I need is the ability to eat in a free way. Right? Right. To eat in a way that balances my health and what I desire in the moment. And I don't need to be judging myself on what I'm eating. And so I went through a period of time where I switched goals. I wasn't aiming to maintain my weight anymore.

[00:29:05] My goal was very specifically, I would love to be able to eat without, I think it was, I would love to have agency over what I'm eating. I think they were something like that. And involved in that was, you know, giving myself full permission to have this really delightful, sweet thing that I've been craving for a week.

[00:29:28] It was, it was really helpful for me to pause the numbers focus and look more inward and get more comfortable with, because obviously I was, again, soothing something with food. Right. So because I allowed myself full freedom with what I was eating, then I could focus on, well, what is it that I'm not bringing myself? What is it that I'm looking for and trying to change by going for this food?

[00:29:58] And that helped me because I was able to plan in more joy in my life. I was like, I think I want more joy. And so I got myself a Six Flags season pass with my sister and we went every few weeks. I got more massages. You know, I chose to get more things that were fulfilling and relaxing to me. And that was such a help, too. Hmm. Yeah. I know this has been, it's very inspiring.

[00:30:25] You know, being able, no, but it's good because they're real stories and, you know, and people can kind of relate to that. And so our time is actually up. But how, if somebody wanted to work with you, how do they reach you? Sure. So I have a website, which is partakemealplanning.com. And all my information on how to work with me is there.

[00:30:49] But you can also, I update daily on my Instagram with strategies, tips, and stories. So that's partake underscore foodie. And you can chat with me there and you can find the link in bio has all my little free resources. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for your time. Yes, this was wonderful. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us at the Healers Cafe.

[00:31:15] If you haven't already done so, please like, comment, and subscribe with notifications on. As I post a new podcast every Wednesday with tons of useful information and tips for natural healing that you won't want to miss.