Tricia Nelson - Emotional Eating Expert - a podcast by Anthony Trucks

In this episode, our guest is Tricia Nelson. Tricia is an internationally acclaimed author, transformational speaker, and emotional eating expert. She has been featured on dozens of radio and television networks, including FOX, NBC, CBS, KTLA, and Discovery Health. After years of experimentation with 12-step programs, therapy, and self-help books, Tricia finally hit a spiritual and emotional bottom. After working with a spiritual healer, Roy Nelson (who would later become her husband) helped her recognize and heal the root causes of her addictions. She has maintained a fifty-pound weight loss for close to 30 years. 

Now, Tricia has successfully helped hundreds of people overcome a variety of eating disorders and addictions. If you want to end your emotional eating and start to feel in control around food and effortlessly lose weight without crazy diet and exercise plans, then this is the perfect episode for you!

[05:15] Why should we listen to you?

Honestly, I will say I lead with my heart. Usually, people can energetically feel my heart, which is pretty full of love. I’m more interested in how you feel than what you know. I like to connect with people at the heart level. Being an emotionally eating expert, I am emotional, and that’s the realm I play in. I find straight-up intellectual conversations to be a little dry. I like it when I can talk with somebody about something meaningful to them, something that’s a passion of theirs, something that comes from their heart. And so that’s where I lead is from the heart.

[06:50] How was this emotional eating experience was before you solve your own problem?

I was really obsessed with food from the get-go as far back as I can remember. I love food, love eating, cooking, and serving other people to go out to dinner. I was just so in the food, but the problem is that I also gained weight quickly. At 21, I was 50 pounds overweight and really unhappy with my weight. It really plagued me, and I would have desperate thoughts about getting the weight off my body. I tried diets and exercise programs and pills and potions and lotions. 

I met somebody more of a spiritual healer who showed me that I don’t have to diet. This is somebody who has been morbidly obese. He really had this way of going deeper and helping people go deeper and deal with the underlying causes. I had things from my past I needed to dig out and heal. It was a rapid and somewhat simple process of just clearing out things that were blocking me from just following through on what I know. When I started facing emotional eating, the connection was made, and I was able to finally make healthier choices do good things for my body. It was happening from the inside out.

[11:16] How did you transition and become an Emotional Eating Expert?

The transition stems from overcoming something as devastating as emotional eating, obesity, and food addiction. Very few people heal to the point where they lose weight and keep it off 90% of all diets fail. The fact that I beat the odds and have been in a thin body for decades, I feel like a walking miracle. I’m so grateful to God for this feeling. But also, it didn’t just spontaneously happen. 

It happened because I had a way out. I had a particular system of steps to take. It worked, and the fact that it worked for me, I just knew it would work for other people. And I spent a lot of time helping other people do this. That’s when I decided to really codify it and put it into an actual system and create a business out of it to heal your hunger.

[14:32] Focusing on the underlying causes of overeating

Being overweight is a symptom of overeating. People should start taking off the diet track and address the underlying causes. It just makes their whole life better. They don’t just lose weight in a way that they don’t have to focus on the weight loss, but the solution is internal, and so it has a ripple effect into every area of your life. It makes you happier, your relationships better, and makes you more joyful.

[15:43] What are the key points that people can learn from your book?

One of my signature things or messages is about the anatomy of the emotional eater, which is a phrase I coined. And the anatomy of the emotional eater consists of 24 personality traits that make up the emotional years of experience of showing up in life. And this has nothing to do with food. Most of the time we think overcoming emotional eating involves diet, getting the right food plan, or whatnot. But it’s about living differently. A telltale sign of one of the 24 personality traits as people-pleasing. Emotional eaters tend to be big people pleasers. We get our validation from outside of ourselves instead of having it for ourselves. 

[22:04] What is the coolest story you can share about a client?

I’ve had a client for about a year, who is just sort of my star, you know, I have many superstars. But this gal really touched my heart because she’s a young mom in her early 30s. She gave birth to two kids, then adopted three kids, and they’re all young. She was 40 – 50 pounds overweight and depressed. She didn’t have the joy or the light in her eyes, and she joined my program. 

And through my program, she really came alive, and she learned how to take care of herself. She is a mom to super young kids, and three of them were adopted from an unhealthy situation. They’ve got baggage and trauma. Now, she’s lost over 40 pounds, but one of the things she talks about now is that she can be present with her kids and really show up for them, and she’s got the joy, creativity, and happiness.

[25:55] What promise did God make to the world when He created you?

I think God just said watch out. There’s a big and bright light coming your way. And it’s going to feel good and warm.

 

Key Quotes

[12:58-13:06] “When your life transforms, you just want to tell people about it. You want to help them have the same experience, especially for something as hard as emotional eating.”

[14:32-14:37] “Overweight is a symptom of overeating, and overeating is a symptom of what is eating me.”

 

Learn more about Tricia Nelson:

Website: https://www.healyourhunger.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HealYourHunger

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healyourhunger/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/triciagreaves

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