Rebuilding Body Trust After Decades of Dieting
Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your somatic nutritional counselor. In the hundreds of conversations I've had with others about their history with food and dieting, there is a common theme that this didn't start with them. They saw their mothers or fathers diet and their grandparents also dieted and their grandparents also dieted. There is a long history of diet culture passed down from generation to generation and expressed differently in the trendiest, most common diet of the time. This isn't about the food, but that nervous system states, traumas, and lack of safety is being expressed through food in family lineages. Creating a safer and more stabilizing relationship with food can also be engaging in the healing of past generations who never got a chance to feel safe in their bodies and future generations to have that groundwork that you had to create for yourself. Today I talk about this and more with Amber Caudle. Amber is a chef, author, speaker, and coach devoted to helping women heal their relationship with food, their bodies, and themselves. With more than two decades in the culinary world, and as the founder of The Source Café, a thriving health-focused restaurant in Southern California, she has built her life around nourishment. Though, Amber struggled behind closed doors with cycles of bingeing, restriction, and food obsession. Her turning point came when she realized food was never the real problem, but a reflection of deeper unmet needs. Today, Amber’s work is centered on her coaching practice, Nourish Your Power, where she helps women uncover and release the patterns keeping them stuck. Drawing on her training from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, she integrates nutrition, mindset, and somatic, body-based work to support deep, sustainable healing. Her approach is holistic, addressing the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of nourishment so women can reconnect with their inner selves and feel safe in their bodies. Coming this summer is her book, Hungry: Reclaiming Food Freedom and Finding Peace in Your Body. Hungry shares her personal journey from food obsession to freedom and offers readers a new path to come back into trust with their bodies. We chat about what a journey to food freedom actually look like, how the nervous system plays a role in food recovery, the importance of self compassion, curiosity and creativity, the work of True Body Intelligence for trauma recovery, the impact of generational trauma on food behaviors, and steps to build trust in your body. Ways you can support the Satiated podcast include: please consider leaving a review anywhere that you listen to podcasts to help others find the show. You can also check out all of my affiliate links, join Satiated+, donate a few dollars to the show, and be able to Ask Me Anything each month, or check out working with me 1:1 or in any of my programs. I have self paced programs and my three month live Somatic Eating® Program which you can join the waitlist for now. The next class will be in October. All links are in the show notes. Now welcome Amber! I am so excited that you are here, and really excited for our conversation today. And as we get started here, I would just first love for you to introduce yourself and how did you get into the work that you're doing today?
Amber Caudle 04:08
Yes, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Hello, everyone. I'm Amber. So before I get into sharing how I do work with women and helping them find food freedom and body peace, a little backstory about myself. So I'm 50. I just turned 50. For three decades, I thought something was seriously wrong with me, and I thought I had a serious problem when it came to food. And I blamed food my whole life. My metabolism, my thyroid, my willpower-I was completely out of control. And I-I hid it. I hid my binging and restricting for 38 years, and I carried so much shame and so much guilt. And in fact, I didn't come out to my family until I was 38, and I I was suffering in silence. Like they knew that I was compulsively dieting and loved exercising and obsessed with the scale, but they didn't really know how much I was suffering underneath. And binging, restricting, people called me an exercise bulimic. I was purging through laxatives, colonics, addicted to diet pills. I tried every diet in the book. We could talk for hours on that, right? And I was really disconnected from my body. And so, at the end of my journey, before I found recovery and started my healing journey, I was like, There's got to be a deeper reason for this pain. And my therapist at the time said, "You know what? You're going to write a book. You're going to help other women." And at that time, I was like, That sounds insane because I feel like so deep in my crap right now. I don't know how I would be ever able to help someone else. And so fast forward to covid, a little bit before 40, I did find a therapist in support that helped me start to really unravel really decades of shame and where I had been really using food to numb and blaming food, and that really opened up a door, and a light bulb went out inside my head of saying, "Wow, I'd been blaming food. It was never about the food, and I was using food as the language for that hunger that I was craving. And I didn't realize that, and that my book, Hungry, just came out, but that I was craving to feel safe and connected and love and find joy in life, and so fast forward to covid. One of my other teachers that now I'm trained in a modality called True Body Intelligence that helps remove a lifetime of generational stress and trauma from the body and nervous system. And I did not really know any but anything about dysregulated nervous system until I met him about eight years ago, and he said, "You live in fight or flight, 24/7 and you're always in a stress state." And I went down the rabbit hole about how that really then was really impacting my relationship with food. And now, fast forward to now, I work with women on creating food freedom, body peace, feeling embodied. I help women unravel decades of shame and guilt and survival patterns, and help them start to rebuild trust and courage to stop fighting themselves in their body, and really help them feel this sense of worth that they have in life, and know that they're inherently worthy of physical nourishment, emotional nourishment, and really start to dive into the mental, physical, spiritual aspects of health-not just our physical body-and that's what I do now. And here I am. Yes, I also back story really quick is because I got I get so excited around talking about my book Hungry that just came out, but I am everyone knows me as a holistic chef, so I have a restaurant. And when I was growing up, I was I had this deep love affair for food, and therefore god blessed me this amazing, successful career in the restaurant business since I've been 15 years old. It's the only business I've ever known, and at the same time, I had this other shadow side and this unhealthy emotional relationship with food, and so I lived those parallel lives for for 30 years. And when I opened up my restaurant 14 years ago, and it's called the Source Cafe, it's an organic, healthy cafe. I wanted to start to take my power back from food, heal my relationship with food, and at the same time, before I found my recovery, people looked at me as this healthy, quote unquote, coach and chef, and I was suffering in silence, and so that really propelled me into my healing journey, knowing that I could help people. So I use the physical aspect of our health and our bodies, along with the emotional health.
Stephanie Mara 08:10
Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. I mean, wow, it just sounds like it has been quite a journey for you to get to where you are today, where it sounds like you're feeling more of everything that you're trying to do for other women of feeling more embodied and peaceful in your body and in relationship with food. You know what's really interesting, something you spoke to was just the experience of blaming yourself. I find that that happens for so many people that I sense there's some wisdom to that of like when it feels like everything's out of control in food and body, what's in my control is what I do with myself and how I blame myself or how I judge myself. I'm curious about like as you started to learn maybe more about like body trust and the nervous system and all the things that you started to learn. Like what shifted that for you to maybe stop blaming yourself and see that there was actually like some wisdom here in what had been playing out with food?
Amber Caudle 09:08
I love this. So it took me 30 years to finally stop blaming myself. Right? I was like, Wow, okay. So what really helped me was this concept of getting curious. I love curiosity, and first I had to slow down, which was probably the hard, one of the hardest teachings. Slow down and start to listen to my body. Just starting that awareness of like, ooh, starting that witness observation. I was like, ooh, there I go again. This is interesting, and starting to get curious. And the curiosity of witnessing myself, even if I still decided to binge, at least I was aware and awake of like, wow, why is this happening? This is so fascinating. What's underneath the binge? And then from that curiosity helped me start to build self compassion, which that was a word that was completely foreign to me. And that self compassion helped with the acceptance and helped me to stop blaming myself and stop judging myself from something that was much deeper and when I finally I had more teachings and healing that I started to realize, like, well, my weight gain, my chronic fatigue, my physical injuries, my depression, my binging, my restricting, my over exercising, over caffeinating myself to starve myself. These are all symptoms. These are beautiful messages from my body, from god that are trying to basically wake me up. My body has been was trying to get my attention for 30 years, and I I wouldn't listen until I was physically on the ground with torn hip labrums and and physically ill. And I was like, okay, now it's time to listen. And so stopping to blame my body enough to listen and get still and get curious.
Stephanie Mara 10:41
Yeah, I completely and utterly agree with that. I feel like people who listen to this podcast probably hear me at nauseum talk about curiosity and compassion, and so I completely am on the same page with you. I'm wondering, you know, you put out a great post recently about how it was never about the food; it was really about a lack of trust. I'm curious if you can say more about that experience of lack of trust and like what that means to you, what you've seen in the people that you've worked with, and why was building trust so important in the process?
Amber Caudle 11:11
Yeah, I did not have any self trust. I didn't trust anything. I thought I had a a willpower problem, a lack of control problem, and what really helped me start to build self trust is when I started to listen to my body, and I started to override her with more fixing, more doing, more urgency because I was overriding my body's wisdom. I could not hear her, and really slowing down, tuning in, and listening, and I would hear, oh, you know what? Maybe you need to rest instead of go run. Maybe you do need to eat. Maybe you're not hungry. Maybe you need a nap. And when I started to listen, I could start to pause in those moments, even though it was really hard. But I would start to listen to her, and that's where the trust started. And then all of a sudden, the next day, I'd wake up and I was like, Wow, I actually have more energy because I either ate more, or I did not over exercise, or I didn't over caffeinate. And I started to listen to her wisdom because she holds all the answers, and that really helped me slowly, slowly build on trusting myself and my body, and allowing her to start to let go because I was blaming the carbs, the sugar, the fat, the bread, the whatever it was, and it was never about the food. It was not this. It was because I was primarily in a sympathetic state, and I was so heightened up with trying to control and fix, and there was so much urgency, and I was bypassing her wisdom, and so when I slowed down and listened, and actually when I really slowed down and I would rest, my body would start to let go. I took my fingernails out of life. She was like, "Hey, sis I, got you", and that's when trust started and realized, Wow, this is I can eat really all the food I want if I'm in a parasympathetic state.
Stephanie Mara 12:59
Yeah, you know, I love what you're pointing out here is how much when we start to, I always sense it like an experience of trust. It's also like I'm not gonna hear sometimes something right away, but trusting that like eventually, if I slow down and continue to check in with myself, because I know for a lot of individuals, like they're still kind of what we've talked about here, building their interoception of knowing the felt sense of their body, and so initially you're not going to hear anything. Like this whole idea of like, oh, I just need to receive what my body's saying. Sometimes it's like I'm not getting the message.
Amber Caudle 13:35
Yeah.
Stephanie Mara 13:36
I'm curious what helped you start to get the message because it sounds like you landed at this wonderful place with your body, where it's like, okay, I'm trusting you. I'm relaxing into you. I see that you've got me. I see that I can digest food differently when I'm eating more from that safety and connected place. I'm curious what you started to hear and what helped you hear that.
Amber Caudle 13:56
Okay, so for me, I have to go through a lot of pain. Like I have a high pain tolerance emotionally and physically, and I had to get to a place to really start to slow down and listen to really wake up, and this is what really sparked it. So, and my physical body, I would exercise until I couldn't move and tore two hip labrums, and finally, when I started to tune in, and I would hear what I would just hear like, Wow, I'm really tired. I would constantly hear like, God, you're tired. You're tired. I'm so tired. And so when I would, I was like, Wow, maybe you are tired. Maybe you could just like sit down and like let go of like, but I'm not feeling worthy. I'm feeling lazy. I'm feeling like a failure. If I if and it felt there was also a sense for me to slow down, a feeling of danger in my body of unsafetyness, like it felt unsafe to really sit with my feelings, and so that's when I got into meditation. And through meditation and breath work, it did help me start to trust that voice that I had been like ignoring. And sometimes it was painful. Some of those times, my voice was, "Hey, you haven't eaten enough today. We're craving carbs." Like okay, is this a physical hunger, emotional? Oh, you know what? I am physically hungry, and sometimes it would be scary, but I would sit down, I would eat it slowly, I would try it, and sometimes if I felt better, then I knew I was listening to my intuition. If I was second guessing myself, and I would do the thing anyways, then I started to really realize, oh, I would gauge on how I felt. So I would do the action, either it was a physical action, or I would eat the thing or not eat the thing, and afterwards I would gauge how I felt in my body. I was like, Oh wow, I actually feel amazing. I have energy. I slept better, right? Versus, Wow, okay, I feel drained, and so I would just go by that. And sometimes my voice was wrong, maybe, and maybe it was me bypassing it or trying to over rationalize, or maybe I was being a little dishonest, and that was clouding my intuition. So it takes a practice.
Stephanie Mara 15:44
Yeah, I mean, what I hear you started to listen and receive from your body was just how tired you are, and I see that so much too. That when we do start to slow down and listen, especially for anyone who's listening, who senses they're more in that sympathetic go go go can't slow down have so much to do even like you were pointing to like if I slow down I feel guilty so even when you do slow down it's not actually restful you know that your body saying I'm so tired like bone tired sometimes needed to start there what I hear for you is like just to allow yourself to slow down, as uncomfortable and maybe scary as it felt. I hear you found ways to maybe move through the discomfort.
Amber Caudle 16:28
Yes
Stephanie Mara 16:29
But that it needed to start there of like, it's okay for me to slow down, and like it sometimes takes time to get used to that felt sense that being still is safe.
Amber Caudle 16:40
And I would start with five minutes because that was like. Then I would start with 10. Then I would start with 20. And one of my first teachers years ago that helped me with this, he was like, I need you just sit down for 15 minutes a day. And I was like, I work 80 hours a week. I'm in the restaurant business. I can't do that. It was terrifying. So it's and when I work with clients, it's starting small. I don't say, Hey, I need you to take a 30 minute break. It's too scary. And for me, I would feel so much after I did take the break. I'd either get like an intuitive download. I would be able to sit with my feelings, but then the next day or that night, I would feel better. And also, I had a lot of physical pain in my body, so I didn't have a choice. I mean, I was to the point where I was so inflamed and in physical pain that when I did start to listen and rest, that I would actually feel lighter in my body, and I started to see it. My body started to let go, so that's how I knew I was listening. I was like, Wow! If I will just sit down and rest and chill out, my body's actually responding versus go go go go go and compulsively counting my macros and my calories, and with all the cortisol that created so much inflammation in my body, so I started to get physical results also by listening to myself.
Stephanie Mara 17:45
Yeah, I mean, how was that for you? What did it change in regards to your pain, but also your work life as a person who owns a restaurant?
Amber Caudle 17:53
Oh my gosh! So the yeah, I mean, I could write a write a book on
Stephanie Mara 17:58
A second book!
Amber Caudle 18:00
As an entrepreneur, and the feeling of feeling like I had to do everything by myself, and I was in this hyper vigilant survival state, and was a martyr. And what I learned from that was I started to create so many inner boundaries with myself. I started to say no more. I brought on a full new team. I started to hire more. I started to delegate, and honestly, my sleep improved, my mood improved, my hormones, everything improved when I slowed down. I did not realize I was living in a fight or flight survival state. And for my business, I mean, one of my teachers always reminds me, Amber dear, slow down to speed up, and she would constantly say, Do less to do more. And I still preach that to some of my guys, and we and I have to remind myself that when I take more time off and I allow more rest in my life, that I actually come back more rejuvenated, creative. I get intuitive downloads. I am actually my in more of a receptive feminine energy, and I get more opportunities, and I have more connections, and so that's really how when my business really started to take off, and other projects started to came. When I stopped thinking, like, Hey, I have to do everything in life alone. That's two. This was it was about 12 years ago when this started, and I really built strong faith with God, the universe, and I knew like, Wow, okay, I don't have to control everything and everything started to open up when I slowed down yeah not easy.
Stephanie Mara 19:28
Not easy! I was just thinking that of like you know it's such an interesting place I talk about this as a lot here as well of like where I feel like I'm at now but I find that when you're still in it, when you hear someone talk about what the other side could look like, it's like mind blowing. Like how? Like how is that even possible? And so I appreciate you naming just how many steps and explorations and different people you had to work with, and time and practice and repetition it actually took to get to where you are today, and I agree with you that it needs to start so small. Like I always think of it as like finding wiggle room in your nervous system, where it says, Okay, yeah, that feels uncomfortable, but sure, we could navigate that. But the moment that you're like starts spinning and feeling panic and shallow breathing, it's like that step might be too much. Even if it's like, can I be still for 15 minutes? And then you feel panic about that. Sometimes I feel like there's a lot of self-judgment or criticism or shame that shows up in that, rather than like, okay, that was too much. That makes a lot of sense. That 15 minutes of stillness would be too much. Can I start with five?
Amber Caudle 20:41
Exactly. I love that because it needs to be digestible. Like I said, when my coach said take a 15 minute break, I mean it caused me so much panic. Probably honestly, my first time trying it was probably less than five minutes, just to sit down and quiet and not feel like I had to do anything or do anything for anyone. And it starts small. And right, you don't want to cause the opposite reaction, right, in our nervous system and and feel unsafe in our nervous system will register that as danger. So yeah, definitely takes a lot of compassion to sit into the slowing down process because all the things for me would come up of feeling unworthy, not deserving rest. Am I a failure? I have to work hard. I have to suffer to make money. All the old programming would come up.
Stephanie Mara 21:24
Yeah, I'm curious with some of the embodiment work that you've incorporated, how that helped you maybe start to update those beliefs that your naming were kind of really internalized.
Amber Caudle 21:35
The modality that I'm trained in is called True Body Intelligence, and it's based off of Chinese medicine. It's based on the 60 meridians, and we walk on the body, and we stretch the body, and it works on a lot of generational and lineage stress. So one thing that helped me is I come from a long line of women that are people pleasers and overcompensating and overgivers, and that lives in our spleen and our inner thigh. And so when my coach started to get into my inner thigh and really start to pull out that tension and those old energies. We started to realize that I was living these old beliefs. They were subconscious around money and overgiving and scarcity for both of my parents, so I would stay loyal to them and loyal to their beliefs, and this was all very subconscious. And so, when we brought it to the conscious level, and I started to realize, wow, I don't have to perform like that, live like that. That is not mine. That is theirs. A lot of the work too is spiritual, energetic, where we do a lot of meditations that clear karmic projections from when our souls came to this lifetime. It's big work, and so I do believe that whatever shows up in our life shows up in our body. And I never even realized that. So I know now to this day that if my lower back is hurting, I might be in a little bit of survival fear or scarcity fear because it can show up in the kidney. I know if my inner thigh or groin or hip starts to hurt on my left side, that I might be people pleasing or over giving to a woman in my life. So the body holds all the answers, and then I have exercises now that I do with my clients that we can get in there. I work with a lot of obviously with wanting healthy relationship with food, and so we get into the stomach meridian, the sexual meridian, and start to unravel the control and the fear that have is so tight, yeah, and the old beliefs and the patterns that are so ingrained, and it can be decades. You know, it's not necessarily Amber right now, 2026. This can be Amber at 3, 4, 5, 6. These patterns, these behaviors, these moods that we've picked up from our parents and our grandparents that we don't even know that we're still out living that are in our body, yeah.
Stephanie Mara 23:41
Yeah. I love that you're bringing in just how important the work of generational trauma is, because yeah, I mean, there's things, all sorts of things, but you know, like the issues are in our tissues. But you know, I think of it from a somatic perspective of so much of somatics is like the way that we hold ourselves, our posture, our muscular tension. That that is all based off of what we came into this life with, what our mothers' bodies were communicating to our bodies even before we came Earthside. You know, when there's so much there that if we can see even that the wisdom of food behaviors is even a reaction to not knowing whether it's safe to be here or not, based off of our lineage and our ancestry and what we came here with, and so it's kind of fascinating to hear you talk about how you started to associate specific bodily tension or pain with certain histories in your family, or what you were given and passed down to you, it makes me think of the work of Gerda Boyesen. She was a somatic therapist more in Europe. She created something called biodynamic massage, and she would listen to people's guts with a stethoscope and associate certain like stomach gurgles with certain emotional releases.
Amber Caudle 25:03
I love this!
Stephanie Mara 25:03
Yeah, it kind of makes me think of that work.
Amber Caudle 25:06
Beautiful. Yeah.
Stephanie Mara 25:07
That like, yeah, we can meet our aches, our pains, our tension, habitual body patterns with a lot of as we're talking about curiosity of like, what might this be trying to communicate with me?
Amber Caudle 25:19
I felt once I did my first seven day or five day series with my coach eight years ago, I mean, my whole body physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, because that's what the work does. And I did not realize that at the time, it's like it's not just about our physical health. So we have to integrate our emotional and our spiritual and mental worlds. And I mean, we can be eating the right at the time, I wasn't binging, but I was still in the survival state, and I wasn't restricting, but I was still over exercise, and I was still over caffeinating. I was still trying to keep my body safe. It's just fascinating of how much stress that we hold in the body, and underneath the stress is deep, deep fatigue, and underneath the fatigue, I started to be able to be honest and confront years of rage, anger, sadness that I had suppressed my whole life, and I was walking around. My hips were in pain. I had back pain. I mean, it was the whole thing, and I was like, Wow, this is interesting. My diet, quote unquote, on paper, looked great. I'm not binging anymore, but now it's time to get into the body and really on a somatic level, and for me to step into this, what I love working with women is the concept of receiving and getting into our yin energy, which I struggled for years. I mean, I am always in the yang mode, entrepreneur, own multiple businesses, and to slow down is and like we've been talking, and so stepping into the receptivity too helped me with not only my relationship with food, but really feeling embodied and start to really listening to listen to her and where the pain was showing up.
Stephanie Mara 26:48
Yeah, I'm wondering if you've experienced this as well too, because I definitely entrepreneur, go go go, like like to do a lot of things, and I think there came a point where there was like some ownership of just how much I love to do in a day, and there was a different felt sense because I know a lot of women listening to this might be in the same place where I think there's some fear that it's like, oh, if I slow down, I'm going to do less, or I'm not going to be me anymore. And what I found is that something you were naming as well is that actually when I started to own who I am and what I need and how to actually ebb and flow in between wanting to contribute and do things and create things and make things and find how much rest does my unique body need? I think you named this before. Like I actually found, I then got more creative, more in my flow, able to do more in a more embodied and clear sense of what I'm trying to create. Rather than it took me away from me, it gave me more space to be myself and what I wanted to create. If that makes sense.
Amber Caudle 27:56
It's perfect. I completely relate. And so what I try to do now is I try to have a yin morning, non-negotiable mindfulness, all the things. I go during the day, and then I have a yin night before prioritizing my sleep. That was foreign also, so I have a lot of things now that like I create a container so I can produce during the day and then rest, and then I take rest days, I take quiet days off my phone, and I always now I crave quiet time. I have a back trail I walk on. I pray out loud, and I sometimes I just drive in quiet. I listen to so much less music in the car now because now I can listen and receive downloads. But those days of rest where it doesn't feel forceful anymore, I come back feeling so creative. There's usually like some sort of opportunity or something opens up where it felt very constricted. Because for me, when I'm going, I've got a forcing urgency energy, and that energy comes from lack. Does it come from a faithful energy? And so for me, the slowing down helps me get into the receptivity of feeling. All right, show me. I let go. I surrender. And surrendering and letting go sounds so easy, but I can't do it when I'm running a mile a minute. And being able to slow down and open up, it's also like the trusting of like you know what I'm going to hire this person to help. I'm going to delegate here. I'm going to delegate this, and surround myself with people that see my vision. And let's go. Like this is how expansion happens. This is how I want to continue to make the most impact. And I can't do it by myself, and I can't do it if I am exhausted and depleted. And now my body is okay. I'm tired. We're reaching for carbs. We're reaching for sugar. We're craving caffeine. We're underslept. You know, we're undernourished. We're not sleeping. So yeah, for somebody that's listening, you know, it can feel for me. I felt like I was a failure. I was going to be judged. I was judging myself. What happens if people think I'm lazy? And I would have so much guilt. But the thing is, is like the over giving physically to like giving to people was a thing of mine. But also over giving my time when I stopped and really created those inner self boundaries and put myself first and the non negotiables. In the morning, and people would think I was selfish. I can't believe you take that time. Yeah, I'm going to because I have to take care of myself first, and then finally realize like it's more selfish for me to go go go, especially when I have a team that relies on me. It's more selfish for me to do that than take care of myself. Then I can show up with all of my humans in my life 100 and all of my projects.
Stephanie Mara 30:21
Yeah, thanks for naming all that. You know, something that I am also curious about is how food played a role in this. Because I hear you've kind of been like navigating both worlds, which I so resonate with as well. Where it's like it's addressing both the biological, physical of my body needs food. It's never going to not need food. How do I take care of itself with food and find a peaceful relationship with that, while also seeing that it's never been about food and all of these other things you're doing about self trust and generational trauma and creating boundaries and believing new things about yourself. That is kind of both. Where I'm curious as you started to maybe update how you were interacting and navigating your world. What also changed with your food to feel like that felt more connecting, or embodying, or peaceful there?
Amber Caudle 31:12
When I started this journey, this embodiment journey, and the the really the incorporating the body work is I stopped really counting my macros and counting my calories, even though I wasn't binging, I felt healthy. I mean, I looked, you know, I was like, let me start not intuitive eating because that can be a very triggering conversation for us past bingers, right? This was in my 40s, and so in my 20s and my 30s, my body needed different needs in terms of food, and right, and I would intermittent fasting and doing all these things, and I stopped all of that pre recovery, and some days I want more carbs, and I might need some. And I'm gluten free just because of certain things for my body. So maybe I want some gluten free bread today. Right, years ago that would have paralyzed me, or maybe I do want some more fruit, or I want a grain salad, or whatever. And so, starting to really listen to how my body was feeling and what, based on my cycle and my energy, and I know if I had a really big day to produce at my restaurant or other projects, like I know that I need to fuel my body with more food. And sometimes going through perimenopause and aging, like I get hungrier. And not to judge that, and to really sit down and wow, is this physical hunger or emotion? No, I'm actually physically hungry, and I'm not gonna track the calories. It's like I'm just really gonna listen and honor the fact that I need another snack right now. Like I'm gonna eat. I'm not binging. I'm not compulsively overeating. And so, just like honoring with, like you said, like we've been talking about, without the judgment, if we eat it in the right way, you know, there's nothing wrong with craving a certain beautiful whatever that is for you, sitting down and eating it in the right way, if that's what your body needs at the time, and learning to find the pleasure and really enjoy food. Because I was pleasure deprived for I don't know 40 something years, and I taught it, and I and I had beautiful restaurants that served it, and I was depriving myself. So yeah, I think even still, as I navigate this new season of midlife. My food continues to change, and I know I have to eat 45 minutes as soon as I wake up, right? I need high protein. I need fat. I'm going to exercise. You know, I need to fuel up before I lift weights. It's everything that I never would have done, even eight years ago, seven years ago, and so it's constantly changing and listening.
Stephanie Mara 33:19
Yeah, I hear just that piece of trust that maybe you started to put into yourself of like I can delegate. I don't have to do this journey alone. I can trust myself in what I need and how to navigate my world started to also show up with food where it was like I can trust that one day I may need more carbohydrates and another day I may need more protein, and another day I need more fun foods. And just to be able to say this is just a single day, I hear you kind of continue to like ebb and flow with. Well, what does my body need now? What does my body need now? What does my body need now?
Amber Caudle 33:53
It's constant, especially like when I was 40, it wasn't as changed. But now my body's changing. She needs different foods. I mean, I just yeah, more different fuel at different times, and I just I listen. I eat early before I go to bed. Like it's just and without the judgment, maybe all of a sudden I'm about to go to bed, but I'm like I'm so hungry. There's no way I can lay down before I'd be like. I just listen. It sounds like probably really scary for someone that might be at the beginning of it because if I would have been me 10 years ago listening to this. Like that's not possible, but it's really trusting that it's like you said, it's just a day. That's it. Like you know what? It's just a day, and it's just whatever a piece of whatever it is. And sit down, eat it, be done with it, and let's move on. Like...
Stephanie Mara 34:36
Yeah. I mean, I'm curious what helped you get to that point because I remember looking back to also what got myself to that point as well was I had to kind of like experiment, notice, and observe. So it was like, okay, I totally understand that situation you're talking about. Where in the past, when you were like in diet culture, it's like, oh, you're not allowed to eat before you go to bed, and you have to have this many hours before you go to sleep, and all of this nonsense. And it was like, okay, I am legitimately physically hungry. Yes, I was gonna go to bed. Let's just see what happens. Let me have a snack, and let's just see how I feel through the night, how my sleep is, how I am the next morning, and then just kind of noticing and observing that. And I think there were times where I was like, no, I really just want to go to bed. I feel like this is like quote unquote bad for me to eat before bed. My sleep was horrible, couldn't rest. Finally, got up probably at like midnight or one in the morning. It was like I have to eat something if I'm going to sleep. And I think in experimenting and noticing those things, I now know if I feel physical hunger before I go to bed, I'm like, just eat. It's way better than not doing it because I've seen and noticed enough times how detrimental it actually is if I tell myself this is the quote unquote wrong thing to do because actually it's the best thing that I could possibly do for myself to get quality rest.
Amber Caudle 35:59
I love that. I completely agree. I it's like the getting curious, tuning in. It's like, oh, how does this feel? Let me just try it. Testing. I mean, literally, I throw spaghetti hit the wall every day with all kinds of things for my body and going through perimenopause. And so again, like even in the morning, I used to fight eating because for years I wouldn't eat before I would like starve myself before I exercise. And I was like, so what if it's 5:30 in the morning? I'm eating something big. Like I'm hungry. I wake up hungry, and so now I know that the more that I like hear the, like before, it was like if I was fighting it, like you said, don't eat it. It's bad for you. Go to bed. It's like no, just eat the thing. I'm gonna feel better. I'm causing myself more stress now. And so when I would catch myself in that loop of like the should I or should I not? It's like why don't you just go get the thing and sit down, eat it, and then move on. And so that's what helped me. And then like you said, assess did it did it bloat me out? Did I sleep better? Did I still have great elimination in the morning? Like were my levels, did I feel energized when I woke up? And if I did, then great. That's good information. Or maybe it's even what I ate before I went to bed that will give me information. Well, I saw that when I had some hard-boiled eggs and some hummus versus when I had the berries and the yogurt, like this didn't work, but this did or whatever. And it's just kind of tuning in. It's like how I knew that gluten didn't work for me. It's the same thing. It's just starting to get just tuning with the body. Like, how do you feel?
Stephanie Mara 37:18
Yeah, I feel like there's so much noise because even you know in you just naming like Hey, I'm gluten free because that's what works for my body. Like there's so much noise both from diet culture and anti diet culture that's like even if you are trying to do something that is what feels best to you, you know. So many people then get questioned. Well, why are you doing that? Like, oh, does that mean you're dieting if you are eating in a specific way? Rather than no one lives in your body, and what I hear you even talking about is, it's we have to experiment and play with food a lot to be like, okay, even trying out, can I eat something different for breakfast or lunch or dinner every single day for like a week, and then just notice how it makes a change every single day because you will start to observe and collect what I like to call body data around what works for you and what doesn't. Like, oh, I was hungry 30 minutes later after I ate this thing, but wow, I could last 2, 3, 4, hours after I ate this thing, and then it's not like one's better than the other. It's just information.
Amber Caudle 38:25
I love it. It's information, and this is exactly how a person can start to build body trust. This is what I did. This is a perfect example of like this is where that you let go of judgment if you want to start building body trust is like the experimentation. It's like I love what you were saying. Like oh, I ate this, but I was starving 30 minutes later, well, this is really good information. Or you know what? I was really bloated, and I had a lot of gas. Really good information. And you know, I think that that too. When for me speaking personally, when I was stuck, my decades of restricting and binging, and so disconnected from my body and my wisdom, like I couldn't tune into her needs. But I couldn't even tune into like I didn't know how bad I felt. I didn't know that I was bloated and fatigued. Like I couldn't tell. I didn't know how bad I felt until you get a taste of what good feels like for your body. And so I don't eat gluten free because I'm restricting. I'm eating gluten free because it physically doesn't make me feel good, right? And like you said, everyone is different. I think it's so easy in diet culture to somebody's pitching the new supplement, the new diet, the new biohacking tool, and peptide, and we're like, well, maybe I need to do that. Or I follow women that are my age and older that are completely crushing it, and they drink a ton of caffeine. I can't drink caffeine, but for a minute, I was like, you know what? She's 50. I'm 50. I'm going to do it. I'm going to try my cold brew with MCT oil, and I'm going to do the thing, and it does not work for me. And I wish I could metabolize caffeine, but it was something that I finally had to let go of. But that was just a good example of no, I can't just get up and have this for breakfast and feel good the rest of the day without crashing. And so everybody's body's different. Some people can handle more carb at this time, more sugar this time, caffeine at this time, and and we're all so different. And so I love it. It's like the body data is huge. And when I was starting my recovery with Body Trust, I kept a food journal not in a perfectionistic controlling way. It's because I was getting blood work, and I was working with a doctor, and we were trying to really figure out what the heck is causing me so much, like at that time, it was a lot of gut stuff I was working on, and so I needed to keep data, not to be compulsive and to be perfect. Yeah, if that makes sense.
Stephanie Mara 40:30
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, thanks for sharing just a little bit of also just how you found your own discoveries of like here's what works for me, and I wish that that was more of the mainstream thing. I mean, so often just you referencing all the biohacking and everything, like everyone's giving suggestions to other people's bodies without the full story of what that body is navigating, what that body's life is like, and that there are some things that may feel safety-producing and regulating to one person's body and completely not for another's. I'm curious in your process of writing your book was there anything surprising that you wrote about or discovered? Because I had a lot of people on the podcast recently who are coming out with their own books, which I'm so excited about because it's like birthing a child into the world, and so I know it's such a process. I'm wondering if there was anything surprising in your journey of birthing that.
Amber Caudle 41:24
I love that. So I wrote, my mom ended up being my co-author, and it was very much of a mother-daughter healing for us. And that there's a long story behind that. But what started to be uncovered was more of some of the generational food beliefs that were uncovered and that were surprising as I was writing it, and realized like how early it started with calorie counting from my grandfather, and he would count my grandmother's calories also, and carry the book around in his pocket, and and also there was just a lot of honesty that was shared with my mother, and I didn't realize some of the other nutritional toxic beliefs I had that were passed down. How much also that other people in my family had been suffering. So those were like surprises as I was writing it, and it was really interesting to start to like look back and really like dive into that.
Stephanie Mara 42:12
Yeah, that sounds really powerful. Just to be able to have that experience with your mom. I'm wondering, did it change anything in your relationship with her?
Amber Caudle 42:21
It did. So I, like I said, so I was 38, and I came out. She did not know how sick I was. I mean, I was at a point where I didn't want to live. I was so sick, and so nobody believed me. And so that when she was helping me edit and co-write the book, I had to tell her all my binging stories. I mean, the whole book she was like, Really? Did Grandpa call you fat? Really? Did that really happen? That really happened? So that alone, we had a lot of tears. We had a lot of, I would say, apologizing and acknowledging. But we would go in these 10-day portals that it felt like were years. It was like this very deep spiritual experience. And yeah, my mom has always been my best friend, but we got to clean a lot of old, old energy between us, things left unsaid through decades that I didn't know I was holding on to some hurt around my body. We got to really dive in there, so it's created like she, yeah, it was such a powerful gift. And we wrote the book also hoping that mothers with younger daughters or teenagers can spot the symptoms sooner, or if there's a woman, even my age or 20s or 30s, that's suffering in silence, that now they can go to a friend or a parent, say, Hey, I'm really struggling because I was almost 40 before I came out.
Stephanie Mara 43:32
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's really powerful and really important to also, you know, sometimes, especially with the day and age that we're living in now of just like we're seeing celebrities struggle in their bodies, and it's not being really talked about. You know, I know recently just all the headlines of people saying, Oh, she has toned arms, and people being like, No, she's stick thin. Those are her bones. Like, what are you talking about? So that's really really important that you know we talk more about of like how do we tell when someone's struggling, how can we make it also a safe space for someone to speak up because there is still so much shame and so much stigma around struggling with food and body image that you know, if we can at least normalize that, that more individuals might feel safer to reach out for support.
Amber Caudle 44:26
That's why I love these conversations we're having in the work that you're doing because there's so much shame. It's so scary, and it can feel so alone. I think it's easier to spot certain disordered eating behaviors versus others, like because I over exercise, but I also was binging on 5000 calories at one time, multiple times a week, and I did that in private. But because of my exercising from the outside, I look like I quote unquote had it together, right? So I can really hide my pain, you know. But if I work with somebody that's more so under eating, like I can really spot that energy. Be a little bit more. I think just in terms of being able to have this conversation is a big deal. When I had my book release party, I had multiple women come up. That's like I, you know, that are my age or older. They're like, Thank you for sharing, because I've been able to talk to anybody about this, and I'm still in my, I'm in my 50s. And I was like, Wow, like we just need safe spaces where it's okay. We all love food, you know. Everyone has a version of some sort of emotional eating. We come into this world being comforted by food. It's when we cry, we're fed, right? And you know, you we don't have to have this like complete disordered or eating disorder or whatever. I like to say disordered eating, right? Or binging or restricting or intense purging, but wanting to go celebrate something with your family to your favorite restaurant and having your favorite pasta dish and dessert-that is a form of emotional eating, and it's there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it, and it's part of being a human and this, it just is.
Stephanie Mara 45:53
Yeah, I think that what you're also pointing to-I put out a post on this like a really long time ago about the stigma within what we call things itself, like I wish that when the term emotional eating-I don't know who created that-I'll have to look that up. But when that was being created, I wish that there was a different term because what that became was that eating out of emotions is bad, and that is not the case. Like we eat out of what you're talking about, celebration. We eat out of joy. We eat out of happiness, out of connection, tradition, ritual. There are plenty of pleasurable experiences that we can have with food that may not be solely based off of physical hunger, but still is a very nourishing experience with food because of the emotional experience we're having with the food, and so you know, thank you for naming also that, like, yeah, we have to continue to have these conversations that say, Hey, what you're doing is not wrong; it's not bad, and let's create these safe spaces for people to be like, Hey, I kind of do this thing with food, and I don't know how to feel about it, and I just kind of maybe want to talk to connect with other people about it. It's so important, so that even I find that these food behaviors they breed in the darkness, and we need to bring so much more light to them, so that people can start to feel connected in their food experiences, and even maybe laugh at them or cry with other people, with them, so that you just don't feel so alone in the experience.
Amber Caudle 47:24
Yeah, because it can feel very lonely, and you can feel like you're the only person that's suffering with it. Like I was like, oh, I'm the only one that binges and hides my trash and throws my trash and hides my food from my roommates and steals food from my roommate. I mean, I was like doing all the things, you know, and I was like, Wow, I'm like hiding in the closet eating. I'm like probably the only person in the world that's ever done this. And it's like, Yeah, no, girl, you know. But there's so much shame around it. So yeah, and bringing, like you said, laughing, crying. It's like, yeah, it's just food. If somebody's, you know, there's nothing wrong with with soothing with food. It's at the time like the only thing that can help nourish us in that moment, when we don't know what else to do.
Stephanie Mara 48:03
Yeah. Well, we've explored so much today. I'm curious with everything that maybe we've touched on, or even something we haven't, if you were going to offer someone a baby step in their own kind of binge or restrict food recovery journey, what baby step might you offer them?
Amber Caudle 48:18
I think the first thing that I would say is, I know you speak a lot about the curiosity, compassion. That's always something that was really, really helpful for me. Is this piece of slowing down to start to help just become aware? Because just building awareness is progress and is recovery. Even if you still binge or restrict or do the thing you're going to do, it will start to help to remove that self judgment because it's hard to build a path of recovery and build self trust. We're so just swamped and consumed by shame and self judgment, and so really stepping out, pausing, doing witness observation, know that you're doing the best that you can, and just getting curious. Like, well, that's interesting. Look at me right now. I'm about to go reach for the food. What's this? Is interesting. What's I don't know. Maybe there's something here to uncover, and from there, it can help start to build that self trust. So that's what I would say. Yeah, because I think it takes so much patience and courage this journey. And when somebody says self love, it's like I couldn't get to loving myself until I could bring on the awareness and the compassion and the acceptance, and so that's like really the first piece I would say.
Stephanie Mara 49:26
Yeah, I love that baby step because it is kind of an initial baby step of we can't hate ourselves into change. We can't. And so just starting with that curiosity and that compassion piece is so important. So even every time you experiment, every time you try something new, every time you engage in something familiar, there's still this lens of curiosity and compassion. I love that.
Amber Caudle 49:47
So beautiful.
Stephanie Mara 49:48
Well, how can individuals keep in touch with you in the work that you're doing?
Amber Caudle 49:53
Okay, so I am @AmberCaudleLA on Instagram. If you want to read Hungry: Reclaiming Food, Freedom, Finding Peace in Your Body, it is available on GetHungryBook.com, and there it has all the ways that you can connect. I offer a one-on-one, complimentary clarity call to see if one-on-one Zoom coaching is in alignment. And I work in person doing my nervous system somatic body work in Redondo Beach. So I have a home office in Redondo, and I love getting DMs and messages and having these conversations with everyone and meet. That's one thing I love about Instagram community is really meeting strangers and making new friends and building this community with all this, knowing that you don't have to feel alone. And so I love connecting through there. And yeah, so that is how you can work with me and stay connected.
Stephanie Mara 50:44
Awesome. Well, I will put all of those links in the show notes. And just thank you so much for being here for sharing your journey and your wisdom. And yeah, I love the work you're doing in the world. So thank you for sharing everything you did today.
Amber Caudle 50:56
So much appreciate you.
Stephanie Mara 50:58
Yeah, absolutely. Well, to everyone who is listening, if you have any insights or aha moments from today's episode, email me at support@stephaniemera.com and I hope you all have a safety-producing and satiating rest of the day. Bye!
Keep in touch with Amber:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ambercaudlela/
Book: Hungry: https://amzn.to/4vYeW3T
Website: https://www.nourishyourpowers.com/