366: How Do I Not Overeat At Night? Nervous System Regulation with Eliza Kingsford

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 366.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host Amber Brueseke. And today on the podcast, we are tackling one of the most common and frustrating struggles that I hear from so many of my clients, and that is the tendency to overeat at night. I think a lot of us can relate. And today my guest, Eliza Kingsford is helping us to understand why that happens. We're digging into the real reasons why nighttime eating is so very common. And the truth is it has zero to do with willpower. And in fact, I'll let you into a little secret. A lot of what it has to do with is your nervous system. Much of that emotional eating, that late night snacking, that overwhelmed feeling of why can't I stop are often rooted in nervous system dysregulation. And during this conversation, you're going to start to learn how to recognize your own personal signs of stress or overwhelm or shutdown, and why it's so hard to make the “right” choice when your system is overwhelmed. And then most importantly, we get to this at the end of the conversation, how do we start to build more flexibility, more awareness, more self-compassion into your health and fitness journey? So if you've ever felt stuck in a cycle of knowing what to do, but consistently not following through, this conversation is a wake up call. You're going to walk away with a totally new lens on cravings, your energy, your emotions, regulation, especially how that all comes together at the end of a very long day. 

Now, if this was something that was interesting to you and it kind of piqued your interest and you want to go deeper with Eliza, I highly recommend her workshop. You can go to bicepsafterbabies.com/MYWL, which stands for Master Your Weight Loss. And I'll also link it up in the show notes, but Eliza is doing a three part class to really take some of the concepts that she started talking about here and really break them down further. So if you're wanting a deeper dive, that's where I recommend you go. And that's bicepsafterbabies.com/MYWL. And that workshop starts April 29th. All right, let's dive into the episode. 

Amber B 03:04 

I am so excited to welcome Eliza Kingsford to the podcast. Welcome Eliza.

Eliza Kingsford 03:09 

Yay! We're here. Thank you. I'm so excited

Amber B 03:11 

I know. I'm so excited to have it. Um, Eliza and I are friends outside of, uh, you know, business world as well. And so I'm so excited to be able to introduce you to one of my friends and all of her expertise because, uh, she has a lot of expertise that we're going to dive into. And I know that you're going to make this really tangible for my audience because I've heard you speak on this before and you do such a great job of making it really actionable and tangible. So with that little introduction, let's have you introduce yourself a little bit about you, what you do and who you serve. 

Eliza Kingsford 03:45 

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm so excited to talk to your audience because we've talked about, you know, we, we sometimes talk about some of the, some similar things, but what I love about this topic that we're about to get into is that I often find that when people do the work around the nervous system and the things that we'll talk about, it propels them in everything else that they've tried to do, like macro counting, like, you know, any number of things, it makes that easier, better, more effective. Um, and so it's just a really nice, I don't know, it feels like jet fuel or, or a propeller that's just going to help them get further along to where they want to go. So I love, I love having the conversation. Um, so my training is in clinical psychology and I was pretty classically trained in clinical psychology through graduate school. I only mentioned that because I was in practice traditionally where you're seeing clients and what people might think of when they think of traditional therapy, I've seen clients and it just wasn't enough. There was something missing from the, that traditional model. And when we're trained in, in clinical psychology, it's very much from a, a, um, at least I was trained in cognitive behavioral therapies and it's, it's just what you might think of in traditional therapy. And so people would come in for a session, we'd have a wonderful session and they go back out to their lives. And then they come in with a session the next week and they were struggling and we just like stay on that merry go round. And while there's some utility there and people would have some breakthroughs and some great sessions, there's always something missing. And I just couldn't let go of what it was that was missing. And the thing for me that was missing is I want people to leave my office and transform and, and change and not come back. Right.

Amber B 05:24

Sure.

Eliza Kingsford 05:25

That, that was my, that was my goal is that we want to change people. And ultimately, fast forward, the thing that I recognized was in the way of that, um, led me to a number of different certifications and trainings and deeper dive into specifically neuroscience, the nervous system, um, and some of the behavior sciences and essentially why we do the things we do, how do we become the people we are? Why do we have the thoughts we have? Why do we make the decisions we make? Um, and especially when it comes to people who are struggling with weight, weight loss, body image, it's the age old story. I know better. Why am I not doing better? And I wanted to answer that question quite literally, we know better, right? But why is it so hard to change and do something differently? And I think diet and exercise is the perfect platform for where that plays out in our lives. So that's what led me down the path that I'm on now. 

Amber B 06:24 

Love it. So we're going to talk a little bit about nervous system, which, you know, I, did you know that I was a neurosurgical intensive care registered nurse? Like that was my field, especially?

Eliza Kingsford 06:35

I didn't know that. No.

Amber B 06:35

Yeah. So like nervous, it means nervous system, neuroscience. My husband is a neuroscience undergrad. Uh, so nervous system is like fun. It's a fun place to play. I'm excited to have a conversation. Um, but I want you, I would love you to give an explanation for someone who's listening,  who maybe they've heard the term nervous system, but like give us a breakdown of that. Cause we're going to talk about nervous system a bunch. And I want us to start all from the same platform of here's what we mean when we say your nervous system. 

Eliza Kingsford 07:03 

Yeah. Well, no pressure coming from, you know, surgical resident nurse and, but I do think that the way that we're taught the nervous system in things, you know, like medical school or medical settings is very different than how we think about utilizing it in our day to day.

Amber B 07:22

Totally. Absolutely. Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 07:23

Which was the same for me. Um, you know, of course I learned about it in biology and, you know, biopsychology and all this stuff that just at the time, which is ironic now, straight over my head going, Oh my God, that's so boring. What am I going to do with that information? And now I can't get enough of it. 

Amber B 07:35

Exactly.

Eliza Kingsford 07:36 

So it's fascinating. So to simplify it, when we're talking about the nervous system, the physiology, the actual place we're talking about in the body is the, what I call the information super highway between your brain, your spinal cord, and the network of nerves and nerve cells, nerve wirings that run throughout the entire body. So brain spinal cord and all those nerve wirings are communicating with each other all day long, moment to moment, micro moment to micro moment, never turns off while you're sleeping every moment of every day. And that communication is in charge of, or essentially directing every single thing your body does. Everything from breathing, heart beating, blood pumping, cellular death and recovery to speaking words, thinking thoughts, making decisions, having emotions,  literally everything that your body does is directed by the nervous system. And that's the oversimplification of it. But I think I emphasize it because it's, it is that important. It is the cruise director of everything we think, feel, say, and do in our lives. So it's a big deal.Yeah. 

Amber B 08:44 

Yeah. Awesome. And then we're going to, cause we're I assume you're going to talk about difference between sympathetic and parasympathetic. So what can we start with just an overview of the breakdown of the two parts of the nervous system? 

Eliza Kingsford 08:55

Yeah. So, so if we think about that communication, that information superhighway, and it's in charge of everything we think, feel, say, and do, well, then we think about, okay, well, how, how do I utilize that? Where is that showing up or impacting my life? And like, how do I, where's the utility in my day to day? Okay. Well we experienced the nervous system and by experience, I mean you will know when your nervous system has shifted into a different nervous system state when we shift into dysregulation. So we call it, you probably heard it in pop culture. It's everywhere right now, nervous system, right? Regulation and dysregulation. So we feel dysregulation. In other words, it shows up as an emotion or a reaction or a physical sensation in the body. That's how we know that we have shifted from a regulated state to a dysregulated state. And there's two main states of dysregulation. I'll save all the blended states and all that stuff for topics that we don't (9:59) need to go down rabbit holes. But two main states of dysregulation are your sympathetic and then your parasympathetic dorsal state. 

And the reason I say that is because most people think of the parasympathetic state as rest and digest. That's not the whole story. And so if we don't recognize, I'll say, it's called parasympathetic dorsal for ease. We'll call it shutdown. We'll call it shutdown state, right? So we all know our sympathetic state as kind of activated that fight or flight that I got to, you know, I'm, I'm irritated, agitated, angry, run from a tiger. People mostly recognize that. But we also have a dysregulated state called shutdown. Now the scientific nomenclature is that dorsal vagus state, but we'll call it shutdown and shutdown shows up as a brain fog, as numbness, as depression, as disconnection as kind of dissociation. And there's a lot of that going on. And so when we start to recognize that that those are signs and signals of a shutdown state, well now we can start to look at what we're experiencing in our life from a different perspective. So we've got two states of dysregulation, activation and shutdown. And the importance of those is when we have moved into one of those protective states, activation or shutdown, it's essentially like we're operating with a totally set different set of instructions. We're not operating from the same brain from the same cognitive skills and abilities as soon as we moved into protection. And that's the biggest piece that impacts all of us every day. 

Amber B 11:43

Yeah. So good. So let's go back because you were saying this idea of I know what to do, but I don't follow through and I don't do it. And we're going to get into some of the nervous system reasons for that. And I think you're kind of starting to lean in that way. So I want to, I want to, I want to keep going down that rabbit hole. Um, why is that? Why, why do we struggle sometimes with, with if we're in that dysregulation state to follow through on the things that we've been telling ourselves that we need to do? 

Eliza Kingsford 12:11

Yeah. I mean, this is the, this is the big thing. Like this is the culmination of it all is that when we are in a dysregulated state, whether that's activation or shutdown, we need to just start associating that with, I don't have access to the same skills, decision-making abilities, even thought processing. And I do when I'm regulated, we need to just start associating it. 

Amber B 12:35

It's like I'm dumber now.

Eliza Kingsford 12:36

Exactly. 

Amber B 12:37

I'm not as smart as I am. 

Eliza Kingsford 12:39

100%. Yes. If we're not sugarcoating it, we're dumber. 

Amber B 12:42

Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 12:43

And, and the thing, I think a lot of people, when I say that are, are sort of go, is that true? Is that really, is that really how it works? But if you think of a toddler, if anybody has kids or grandkids or anything in between, if you, if you think of a toddler and a toddler is throwing a tantrum and in that moment, as a parent, if you were to say to the toddler, just listen to me, listen to me, everything's okay. Just calm down and listen to me. We all sort of get that the toddler has no capacity to listen to you in that moment. And that's an extreme, you know, example of that to, to illustrate the point, but it's not that the toddler doesn't want to listen to you or doesn't want to calm down or doesn't want to feel better. They cannot because the physiology, the state that their nervous system is in has clouded their ability to hear your voice in a certain way, to think through what you're saying and really listen to the love that you're trying to send them. They don't have the capacity for that. So if we extrapolate that out, that is what's happening to our brain and body when we're in a dysregulated state. And, and when people are saying, I know what to do, I just don't do it. If we ask a few questions, you'll very quickly find that that most often happens when we're stressed, overwhelmed, burned out. It usually happens at the end of the day. It usually happens towards dinnertime or bedtime. There's all kinds of things that are leading indicators that let us know that the nervous system has shifted into a dysregulated state or is moving there. And then we have less capacity. Like you said, we're dumber. We are not thinking with the same brain except that we expect ourself to. We add that layer of, I'm supposed to know how to do this. 

Amber B 14:34 

Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 14:34

I should do it differently. Right? So then we add that onto it and it just piles on and makes it worse. 

Amber B 14:41

Yeah. Do you normally find, uh, that it is common for dysregulation to happen in the same way for people? Meaning if somebody is, do people tend to go, I tend to go into activation and that's my, that's my MO or some people tend to go into shutdown. Or do you find that most people kind of live in both can go either way when it comes to dysregulation? 

Eliza Kingsford 15:04

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I find that for most people, they're usually heavily weighted in one or the other. 

Amber B 15:11 

They're more familiar.

Eliza Kingsford 15:12

Yeah. They're more familiar with either activation or shutdown. Um, the way the physiology works is that it's like a ladder. We don't skip it, but we may not recognize that we're there. So usually people are more familiar with one or the other. I personally am more familiar with activation than shutdown. Um, and so it took me a little longer to recognize my cues and signals of shutdown, uh, because I just, when I'm dysregulated, I tend to go to activation quicker. 

Amber B 15:40

So when you said that it's a ladder, are you saying that you, everyone goes through shutdown and then goes to activation or vice versa, but you just may not recognize that you're going through it. Is that what you're saying? 

Eliza Kingsford 15:50

Yeah. Great question. And it's flipped. So from an evolutionary perspective, if you think about it, it makes sense. If you're, let's say you're a, a gazelle eating grass on the whatever, in the desert, um, and you're peaceful. So that's your, that's your parasympathetic ventral state. So that's your regulated state. We'll call it your safe and connected state, but then you hear rustling in the breeze. You're going to go into activation first, right? You're going to, you're going to try and run from the predator. You're going to try and fight whatever it is. That's going to be your first line of defense. And if for some reason your body senses that that's not going to save you, that's when you go into shutdown to try and conserve any leftover energy or anything you have left in the system. So that's the ladder. It's kind of weird on the ladder because it's a back, it's almost like a backwards ladder. You're safe and then you start to move down the ladder through activation, which doesn't, you know, totally make you think you'd be moving up the ladder to activation, but you're actually moving down the ladder. Yeah.

Amber B 16:52

Interesting. So you're saying somebody who maybe they're listening to this and they're like, Oh gosh, I recognize that shutdown. Like that's, that's my way to move. What you're saying is they're going through activation before they can shut down, but they're not even recognizing that they're moving that in that until they get it. 

Eliza Kingsford 17:07

That's right. And so for people who, and that, and that's where it gets really interesting is so that if people are more familiar with shutdown, they actually have the ability to start to bring more awareness to their cues and signals of activation before they get to shut down because even exactly as you're describing it, shutdown is kind of the last resort. It's the place we go to when the body senses like I got nothing left. And so if we can catch it further up the line, that's going to serve them better. Yeah. 

Amber B 17:36

Yeah. That makes sense. So is the solution for whether you're in shutdown or activation is the solution the same or are they different solutions? 

Eliza Kingsford 17:44

You were, you did go through this, right? Like you do know this stuff. Yeah. These are such amazing questions. And that is the thing is because it's so important to recognize the solutions are not the same. And that's one of the places that people get really stuck in nervous system work. And it's one of the pet peeves I have when people are talking about the nervous system. It's so imperative that we know whether or not we're in activation or shutdown and our own specific cues and signals of that. Because if you try and meet an activated state with a tool that's more effective for you when you're in a shutdown state, it's not going to be effective.

Amber B 18:20

Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 18:21

And you're going to think that it's the tool that's not working when in reality we have to under, we have to meet our state with a tool that's appropriate for that state. So yes, a, for example, meditation, if you're in activation and without going down another rabbit hole, if you're, if you're in activation that is an overwhelm, we'll call it like significant activation. It's very possible that your body won't let you sit down to meditate and won't let you sit down to be peaceful or write in your journal or whatever it is. It might be that you need to dispel some of that energy by going for a walk first, or even, you know, a run or gym workout or something to get rid of the energy before your body's going to feel safe enough sitting down. And that doesn't mean meditation is not for you 

Amber B 19:08

Or that's bad or wrong or like, 

Eliza Kingsford 19:10

Exactly. Yeah.

Amber B 19:11

So good. So let's talk about how we relate this understanding of getting to know our nervous system. You know, you said it so beautifully to getting to know your own nervous system and what your triggers are and what your signs and symptoms are of each of the different states. So again, I'm getting to know how you deal with it, but can we come back to like speaking a little bit more in some general terms of how this relates to someone who's like, I just want to lose some weight, Eliza. Like what, why are we talking about nervous system? What does this have to do with the weight loss that I'm trying to accomplish? 

Eliza Kingsford 19:42

Yeah, for sure. I love that. And thank you for swinging it all the way back because that's the hard piece to put together. It's a hard puzzle piece to really understand. Why should I even care about that? Why are we talking about that? It's just not going to lose the way. Right. Well, where we started was you know, people come to me a lot and it sounds like you as well saying, I know what I'm supposed to do. I just can't get myself to do it. Right. Or they'll be in sort of a black and white thinking they're either on a diet and they're doing it perfectly and doing it really well, or they're off the rails and kind of eating whatever they want and feeling out of control. And the thing is, I think, well, our nervous system dictates what we eat, which is the, that's just an oversimplification, oversimplification. But the problem that people will find themselves in, and I'll just give an example of someone from our group that was talking about this a couple of weeks ago. And it was I, you know, she was talking about all the things she's got going on in her life. She's got kids and she's volunteering for things. And she's the, you know, the PTA mom and all this stuff. She's got all this stuff going on. And she's binging at night, right? I'm overeating at night. I have all these best of intentions and I want to eat like this, but I'm overeating at night. And so coming into the group going, how do I not overeat at night? How do I not overeat at night? How do I not overeat at night? I keep telling myself, I'm not going to do this and I will myself and I, you know, take out the sugar and I hide this and I don't buy that and all the tricks to stop overeating. 

Amber B 21:08

Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 21:08

But then when we, when we pick it apart and we tease things apart, what we realize is that by the time she's overeating at night, her nervous system has been overloaded. If she got a good night's sleep, then she's waking up with a full, we call it the nervous system bank account. If she got a good night's sleep, she's waking up with the full nervous system bank account, but she doesn't sleep that well. So she's already waking up with diminished capacity in her nervous system. And all throughout the day, all of the decisions she's making, all of the stress that she's encountering, everything is taking, call it withdrawals out of her nervous system bank account. So that by the time she's binging and overeating, that is a reaction to all of the drain that she's had throughout the day. And then she tries in that moment to fix the reaction. And this is what I'm saying is that we can't fix the problem when we're in dysregulation, because you don't have access to the same skills and the same brain and the same decision-making processes that you had when you were in regulation. 

Amber B 22:16

Sure.

Eliza Kingsford 22:16

So what we all want, and this is a common story is that people want to figure out how to stop binging, how to stop overeating, how to stop eating the sugar when they, you know, eat two cookies and they were supposed to not eat any or whatever it is. But we're trying to make decisions in that moment without access to the brain that makes good decisions. And so we need to address the problem further up the line. And it's a concept that I call the weight loss fundamentals. We have to be able to learn the skills to deal with life's challenges without turning to food, because I'll add one, one more monkey in the wrench here, which is when we're dysregulated, our system doubles down on patterns and habits and behaviors that it already knows.

And so once your nervous system is dysregulated for the day, if you're used to overeating at night, binging, reaching for the second cookie, going through the drive-thru, whatever it is, your brain and body are doubling down on those. In other words, they are increasing your desire for those things. You are fighting your nervous system every time you get into dysregulation and then try and force and willpower your way into different behaviors. And we're going to lose. We lose that battle every time, you know? 

Amber B 23:37

Yeah. I mean, essentially what you're saying is we have a higher brain and we have a lower brain. And when you're dysregulation or dysregulated, you're in your lower brain and that's exactly where habits live. And so you're going to default to just those automatic behaviors. And if you're very used to pulling the cookies out and like, you know, flopping on the couch and eating all the cookies, that's habitual. And it's just going to be so easy to fall into that. And you can't correct it with cognitive thinking or logical thinking. Cause that part of your brain is shut off right now.

Eliza Kingsford 24:05 

That's right. 

Amber B 24:05

What I'm hearing from you is it's, it's about, it's not about correcting it in the moment. It's almost about preventing it from getting to that point. It's like you prevent the toddler. Once a toddler is breaking down. Okay. You know, it's like, we're just going to get through it. But it's like if you prevent the toddler from getting to that point of breakdown is really the solution. Yes.

Eliza Kingsford 24:26

Exactly. And if we'll go with the toddler, if you start to recognize your signs and signals and cue that your toddler is moving towards that, there's so much you can do to correct it ahead of time. That makes everybody's life easier. Same thing happens with food. Once we are in the throes of it is not the time to address it. But if you rec, if you start to recognize your sign signals and cues ahead of time, then not only is it more effective, but it's easier. You feel better. It's a peaceful transition and not a fight, right? 

Amber B 24:59

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about how this relates to emotional eating. Cause that's something that I sure you deal a lot with. I, I hear a lot from my clients and it's, I'm kind of putting it together too. It's, it's interesting. Most emotional eating happens at night, which kind of goes back to that bank ideas. Like most people are not waking up first thing in the morning and emotionally eating when your bank is full. And so I just love to hear your thoughts about emotional eating, why it happens and maybe some of the things that this is a pattern that somebody is stuck in and they're listening to this. What are some ways that they can start to be thinking about this or addressing it so that they are building up their emotional capacity or building up their bank or looking for those signs and symptoms before they get into the throes of the problem? 

Eliza Kingsford 25:39

Yeah. Yeah. Emotional eating is complex and nuanced. So I'll try and give some wide swaths that might, you know, that might hit some of the things that people are struggling with, but know that a lot of emotional eating. If I had to give one sentence to overgeneralize it, emotional eating usually is a coping mechanism for something that at some point was used for dysregulation. That's a broad oversimplification, but if we start from that place and look at dysregulation as the culprit and say, okay, why might my body or when might my body, or what are the circumstances where my body and brain turn to food as a coping mechanism? And in that way, we're taking the onus off of us as an individual. Like, you know, I lack willpower or I'm a failure, or I can't manage this or there's something wrong with me. We look at that. We look at it from a physiology perspective. What are the signs signals and cues that are going on that correlate with me turning to food? And, and it's a wide swath. People talk about boredom. People talk about dissociation, numbness, just a worn out at the end of the day. I had this doctor once that I was working with and she had two different medical practices and her thing, which she'd come home at the end of the day and she'd had this big bowl of fruity cereal or whatever it was because she was exhausted from, you know, her, her day out in the field. And it was like a, it was a positive boost for her. And so every time she tried to take that away and go, don't have that anymore.

You're on a diet. You're not allowed to have that to the nervous system. That was taking away a positive coping strategy for her being tired at the end of the day. That's never going to last very long. Right? And so we have to look at it from the perspective of the physiology. Why might my body and brain want to do this or “need” to do this in that moment. And if we look at it from that perspective, there's a lot of information that can come up. So, you know, she would come home and decompress by eating this bowl of cereal, make her feel good, even though she didn't want to be doing it cognitively to her body. It made her feel good. Not only that, then it's giving her jolts of sugar and quick energy. So we have to understand, like I said, the physiology, why might the body be wanting that? If you're exhausted at the end of the day and you're craving sugar and processed foods, your body's craving quick energy and things that it can use right away. So rather than looking at ourselves from the perspective of a lack of willpower or failure, or I'm addicted to sugar, I can't stop doing this or whatever it is. We're looking at it from the perspective of physiology. That's number one is to look at it from the physiology perspective. Um, and number two, if we can start to recognize patterns or times of day or certain circumstances or, you know, habits that we've had over time, what we have to recognize is so important is that those patterns and habits, they don't go away just because we've committed to a program or a plan, 

Amber B 28:55

Sure. Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 28:56

Right? And I think we make the mistake of going, okay, I don't want to do this anymore. The way I'm going to fix it is to go buy a diet. 

Amber B 29:05

It's by deciding not to do it anymore. And that's just put it.

Eliza Kingsford 29:08

Exactly. And that's not how it works.

Amber B 29:10

Yeah, unfortunately.

Eliza Kingsford 29:11

Fighting our physiology because we can't stick to the diet. But in reality, like we've said, our body's just repeating the pattern and habit that it's been in for so long. And it doesn't matter which plan we've decided to commit to that month. That doesn't change the habit. And so I always tell people, you're better off spending your mental energy because it takes mental energy to think about what we want to eat and how we want to move. That's mental load that we add to our day. You're better off spending your mental load on those habits and patterns and ingrained things that have been there for a while and how to tease those apart or maybe, you know, address them further up the line. Then you are in waiting for a diet or a plan until you're more ready until you have some skills under your belt and not assuming that the diet is going to fix those bad habits and bad patterns, right? 

Amber B 30:07

Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things that you're so eloquently saying is that anytime we have these behaviors that may seem contrary to what it is that we say that we want, it always makes sense in some way. And when we can understand physiologically how it makes sense, then we're much better at not being able to shame ourselves that it's happening and then also be able to work through it in a much more productive manner. I'm curious for the woman who, the doctor who was coming home and eating and right where we're able to logically understand, okay, that made a lot of sense for her physiologically. Once you do that, how do you help her or how did you help her start to change that behavior that she logically wanted to change but was struggling to change on her own? 

Eliza Kingsford 30:46

Yeah. So, so much of the work that is helpful for people is learning to work with our systems and not against it. So obviously the awareness piece is first, but then we go through a whole process of redefining what it is that we're trying to feel and experience. And that's kind of a nebulous thing to say, but in her, in her specific instance, instead of forcing herself to stop having cereal, right? We skipped ahead of all that and said, what do you want to feel? What do you want to experience when you get home after your work day? What is it that you're looking to experience? And for so many people who've been struggling with weight and body image, it's an immediate, well, I got to lose weight, right? Like I got to stick to my plan because I got to lose weight and I have to, you know, weight is the outcome. Weight is never the outcome. You know that I'm sure you talk about that. Weight is never the outcome. Weight is a placeholder for something that we think we want or that we will only experience on the other side of the weight loss. And so we have to skip to it. And that's what we worked on is what is it, what do you want on Wednesday night when you come home from work? She'd never asked that question before. So we started to explore it. And then we start to find other ways to get there. And I'm not talking like we're going to take a bubble bath and go get your nails done. I mean, genuinely, when you get home, you know, after your long work day on a Wednesday night, do you want your family to leave you alone for a minute? Do you want to spend time with them? Do you want to cook? Do you not want to cook? Like what would make you feel like taking this big breath? And she, we figured that out. And then we went about moving her in that direction because once the nerve, you said it so beautifully, and it is absolutely true, both emotionally and from a physiology perspective, there is always a reason it may not make sense to us right away, but in nervous system work, we call these adaptive survival strategies. Your body and brain are always doing something for a reason, even if it doesn't make sense to us. And so if we can move her initial eating all the cereal into something that felt good to the nervous system that led her in a direction that she wanted to go, it feels safe. It feels connected. It feels whatever her words were, then it will go there willingly.

Amber B 33:12

Sure.

Eliza Kingsford 33:12

But the problem is when we try and force ourselves to stop eating the cereal by controlling and enforcing and self-deprecating, it ain't going to go there willingly. That doesn't feel good to the nervous system, right? So we have to start working with and not against. 

Amber B 33:27

It's really good. I love it. Somebody, I'm listening to this. I'll just say, I'm listening to this. I assume other people are listening to this saying, you know, this is something that I don't spend a whole lot of time of my day thinking about. I don't check in with my nervous system very often to like even know where it's at. Right? So if someone's listening and they're thinking, I would like to maybe just even start to become more aware of it, start to recognize my signs and symptoms that I may be tipping into an activated state. What, what can we start to look for or is there a scale? I mean, how do you go through your day? Are you like, okay, I'm at a 10 right now and then you're like using a scale throughout the day. Kind of talk us through, what are some of the actions that we can do to be able to start to integrate this knowledge for us and ourselves and our bodies? 

Eliza Kingsford 34:12

Yeah. Good question. So, uh, for me, having done it so often and it's so second nature for me now, I know my cues and signs and signals that let me know when I'm moving towards an activated or a shutdown state, it's just second nature. And one of the concepts I teach is state first living so that we're, we're living from our nervous system state first and not any circumstances. And so I'll just say another blanket statement. Anytime we are feeling agitation, irritation, anger, frustration, um, you know, depression, anxiety, any of those words that are sort of charged with a negative experience. Those are signs and signals that we're either in or moving towards a dysregulated state. So right off the bat, you can start just taking inventory of, you know, am I irritated? Am I frustrated? 

Amber B 35:02

Or emotional state.

Eliza Kingsford 35:03

Exactly. If you are in an emotional state that doesn't feel good, it's an indicator that you are in or moving towards dysregulation. Now, I say that with the caveat that for example, you can have a uncomfortable discussion with your spouse or partner and still be rooted in safety and connection. 

Amber B 35:22 

Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 35:22

So it's not all the time that we're uncomfortable, but for the most, but without being nitpicky for the most part, when we're feeling those things, those are, those are your, that's your sign, right? So that's one of the things that we, you can easily be aware of. What is the most helpful? And you did some, we did some of this together, when you, when you'd see me speak. There's a mapping sequence that we can map it out and we can, we can really take the time to say, this is what it feels like in my body. These are the emotions that I experience. These are the kinds of things that I say to people. This is what happens to my tone of voice. This is what happens to my food choices when I'm in this state and we flush it out. And when we do that, we take the time to do that. That awareness starts to build and we can go, Oh, you know, this is a sign of this.

It's a signal of that. And to really, it's just awareness and practice. And what most people find, what I found and most of my clients find is that it's, you, you recognize it after the fact first, before you start recognizing it ahead of time. So you'll go through an issue or a frustration or whatever, and you'll go, Oh, I was dysregulated starting at nine this morning. I didn't even realize. And then you'll start seeing the impact of that, how your choices change, how your conversations change, everything like that. You recognize it after the fact, and then you can start thinking about it ahead of time. And those cues and signals will come more readily. So truly, um, it is just a matter of awareness at first. And it sounds so simple, but it's, I mean, it's like one of the most life-changing things for people once they start to become aware. 

Amber B 37:00

Sure. Is the goal, is the ultimate goal to never become dysregulated? Or is the ultimate goal to when it happens to be able to shift out of it faster or shift back into a regulated state faster? 

Eliza Kingsford 37:14

Absolutely not. Let's see. I'm going to say it so emphatically. 

Amber B 37:19

To never feel dysregulated. 

Eliza Kingsford 37:20

Right. It is absolutely not to never feel dysregulated. 

Amber B 37:22

Okay.

Eliza Kingsford 37:23

Not even close because well, it's just not. Um, and you know, our bodies are built that way. We want to maintain. In fact, it would be like your car, not having the check engine light. Like you want your check engine light to tell you that there's something going on with the car. We want dysregulation to show us contrast. If we are, you know, if we're off course, or if we're, if we're getting towards that space. So we, it's never about regulation only. It is exactly what you said. We call it flexibility and capacity. So what happens is as we start to work with the nervous system and you get better at recognizing when you're moving towards dysregulation and you have the tools and skills to move yourself back, you become more flexible, just like you said, but also with that flexibility starts to build the neural wiring for expectation that you're flexible. I know that sounds a little weird, but once you expect that you are flexible and that's all non-conscious, your, your nervous system starts to build what we call capacity. And so you have just more resilience to all of life's challenges, not just the thing that you were working on that you more flexibly attended to. Now it's everything in life. And so it's like it compounds, it builds on each other. The more flexibility you have, the more resilient you feel, the more capacity you have and your nervous system starts to become, they call it anti-fragile. It's sort of, you're just able to deal with life so much more competently, everything in life, which it's pretty cool experience. 

Amber B 39:01

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the ultimate goal, right? 

Eliza Kingsford 39:03

Yeah. 

Amber B 39:04

Yeah. Um, you know, I've heard you say everybody has different signs and symptoms when it comes to dysregulation and paying attention to that is really important because you start to get to know your signs and symptoms when you're moving in that direction. And I have to assume that re-regulation or stopping that is probably unique for people as well. But can you talk to us a little bit about maybe some common trends or things that you've seen that work well in your life or in your client's life too, when you notice yourself tiptoeing towards that regulation to re-regulate? 

Eliza Kingsford 39:33

Yeah. Yeah. So lots of common trends and I'm sure, you know, I'm sure your listeners have heard many of them, but it's, I think it's even more helpful to understand why they're helpful. Um, so certainly breathwork, many forms of breathwork because breathwork actually does help to regulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Um, but again, if you are already deep into shutdown and you're doing this deep breath work, you have the ability to make things even slower and more difficult. So that's why we have to make sure we know which state we're in and meet it with the resource. So yes, it's individual, um, but common ones that seem to work well for most people are, uh, some form of walking and nature when we are overstimulated. And that's not like walking to get my steps in and make sure that I do miles. It's walking to dispel the energy, right? It's, it's I'm agitated, I'm activated and I need to reset my mind so I can think differently. Um, usually that is as a result of the bilateral stimulation of walking and the activity. So, uh, walking seems to help. Nature seems to help. A lot of breath, different types of breathwork seem to help. Um, meditation, of course, if that's accessible to, to folks, because, um, what happens in meditation is that it, it helps get us out of the restricted sort of parasympathetic and sympathetic activation where we are, we are, we've got like this narrow focus and meditation helps to open up the focus and bring in more possibilities, reset the parasympathetic system. Um, there was one other, there was one other that had come. Oh, so a lot of emotional focus, emotional freedom techniques are tapping. People will mostly know it as tapping. Tapping is very effective if people are doing it in this sort of clinically effective way. Well, we have a saying that even bad tapping is good tapping, but, um, if you do it in a, the sort of clinically effective way, tapping is very effective for resetting the nervous system and, and truly, um, music sounds. So, you know, sometimes people will turn on slower music when they're feeling really activated or more upbeat music when they're feeling really low. These are things that just they're, they're simple things that are accessible to everybody and free and easy. And you can do them without a practitioner. These are the things that I love. I'm teaching people to do things without a practitioner is, is what we want. Um, I think those are some good places to start, but I think people will discount them because they're simple. 

Amber B 42:12

Sure. Yeah.

Eliza Kingsford 42:12

So we say, well, that can't work. I'm so depressed. Like that can't work for me. But if we understand the physiological pathway that's going on in the nervous system, sometimes it can help people go, well, maybe I should just try it because it might be my physiology that's responding and not just my emotion. So encouraging people to try it. 

Amber B 42:32 

So good. Uh, I know some people are going to want to go deeper on this and they're listening to this. And this is, I mean, we're just touching the tip of the iceberg of all the stuff that you can help people with. And I know you have a workshop coming up. So you talk about a little bit about what that is and maybe who that would be good for.

Eliza Kingsford 42:46

Yeah. Well, you had one of your earlier questions was about, you know, what does this have to do with weight and why can't I just lose weight? And what if I just want to, you know, what if that's the thing that I'm struggling with? And so the Master Your Weight Loss workshop is for people who feel like they're struggling with stress eating, emotional eating, overeating, binge eating, the people who are saying like, I know what to do. I just can't get myself to do it. Why am I in my own way? What's going on here? And I find that the people who love it are people who know that there's something else. There's something more to this than just, I don't have any willpower and I can't control myself. Like what is going on? And so I dive deeper into the things that we've been talking about for three days and we, you know, it's kind of a big party. And so, yeah. So I would love to invite anybody to come to that, that wants to, that wants to join, it's free. It's three days. We, well, it's three days plus, you know, we, we have a good time. 

Amber B 43:39

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. We'll link that up in the show notes to the, the website to be able to go and register for the workshop. But you can go to bicepsafterbabies.com/MYWL, which stands for..

Eliza Kingsford 43:52

Master Your Weight Loss. 

Amber B 43:53

M Y W L. bicepsafterbabies.com/MYWL for Master Your Weight Loss. And that's where Eliza is going to hang out and you can go even deeper with her. If this is something that is intriguing to you and, and is maybe sparking a curiosity to learn more about yourself, about your nervous system, about how you can be in that more regulated state. Not not never get dysregulated, but live there maybe more frequently and have a better overall experience when it comes to, 

Eliza Kingsford 44:22

Flexibly, like you said, yeah. 

Amber B 44:23

Flexibly love it. Yeah. So good. Awesome. Eliza, this has been so fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to come out and speak to my audience and for helping so, so many women with something that's so important. 

Eliza Kingsford 44:33

Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is great. 

Amber B 44:36

Wasn't that so good? I don't know about you, but I had so many aha moments listening to Eliza speak because again, she mentioned that the goal is not to never get dysregulated. I think that sets us up for failure because that's just part of being human, but it is possible to learn to recognize the dysregulation sooner and then to know how to gently bring yourself back. And I really loved how she mentioned the whole goal is flexibility. The more flexible we are, the less we're going to ever break, which is really the goal. 

Now, if you love this conversation and you want to go deeper, I highly recommend going to Eliza's workshop, which starts April 29th, and you can get there by going to bicepsafterbabies.com/MYWL, which stands for Master Your Weight Loss. And I'll also link that up in the show notes, but this way you can go even deeper on this concept and start to apply it to you and your weight loss and your journey. Thanks for being here. And that wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber. Now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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