Episode 75: Emotional Eating Decoded — FBI Counterintelligence Tactics for Cravings, Pattern Interrupts, and Why Willpower Doesn’t Work, with Holly Bertone
50 min
Get Your Free Episode One Sheet with all the episode takeaways here! What if your cravings have less to do with willpower and more to do with patterns you've been running for years? In this episode of the Inspired Wellness Podcast, Michelle sits down with Holly Bertone, emotional eating profiler and coach and former chief of staff for counterintelligence at the FBI, to talk about what's really driving emotional eating and why so many smart, capable women keep starting over. Holly shares how a lifelong love of puzzles led her to a career analyzing patterns in national security, and how, after her weight changed dramatically at 49, she went back to what she knew best to finally crack her own emotional eating. She explains why your brain predicts your future based on your past, why "same" feels safe even when it isn't serving you, and how to start giving your brain a new assignment. Michelle and Holly walk through the eight predictable points where most women quit, a simple way to tell whether you're belly hungry, brain hungry, or heart hungry, and how the same influence tactics used by marketers can be flipped to support the habits you actually want. If you've ever felt like you know exactly what to do and still can't make it stick, this conversation may change how you see the problem. In This Episode, We Cover: ✓ Holly's path from FBI counterintelligence to emotional eating coaching ✓ Why four nutrition certifications couldn't fix her own emotional eating ✓ The pyramid: food, behaviors, and the safety and identity underneath it all ✓ What predictive patterns are, and why Holly calls them "the glue in the middle" ✓ Why your brain goes back to what's familiar, and how to give it a new assignment ✓ The eight predictable quitting points, from jumping in without a plan to old routines and traditions ✓ Why a sustainable plan has to work on your most chaotic day ✓ Belly, brain, or heart: the three places to look for your hunger ✓ The F.A.T.E. model (focus, authority, tribe,...