How many times have you been in the middle of a habit challenge and quietly given up? You make it to day 19 of 21, then your kid gets sick, your period starts, or life blows up and you don’t have the time or energy to do the habit that day. The problem is that so much popular habit advice teaches consistency as doing the same thing, the same way, day after day. As Monica Packer puts it, what we’ve actually learned is perfectionism, not habit change.

Monica is a recovering perfectionist and the author of Sticky Habits. Her work looks at something most habit advice misses. Women often have less predictable time and energy because of caregiving, invisible labor, hormones, and the million moving pieces they’re managing. That doesn’t mean habits can’t work. It means we need a model for lasting change that accounts for how our lives actually work.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Monica to talk about how rethinking consistency can help you build habits that actually stick. She explains what she calls gentle diligence, why doing your best isn’t the same as doing something perfectly, and how creating a baseline gives you a version of your habit you can maintain when life doesn’t go according to plan. We also get into what long-term social change can teach us about our obsession with quick results and why sustainable change requires measuring something different than speed.

3:36 – A short overview of Monica’s background

6:33 – Why the habit advice that works for men can quietly set women up to fail

12:37 – A solo trip that revealed how much invisible work it takes to keep a family running

15:17 – Male-centered authority and leadership in the habit change industry

18:49 – Why a habit challenge stalls out right around day 19, and the redefinition of consistency that has nothing to do with perfection

24:07 – How to establish a baseline version of your habits for less-than-ideal days, and what shifts when you start to believe in it

30:00 – An example of how showing up matters more than doing it right, and how Monica’s perfectionism inspired her book

36:17 – The point of habits and the flexibility to renegotiate them when circumstances come up

39:48 – Reframing what "fast enough" means for your own change, and being sold the lie of overnight success

44:47 – Two things Monica often says to her clients who are worried about consistency and doing things right

46:27 – Monica’s hopes for how she wants her book to impact both women who read it and the self-help and wellness industry overall

47:28 – Monica’s message for you if you fear you can’t change

Mentioned In How to Make Habits Stick When Your Life Is Unpredictable with Monica Packer

Sticky Habits by Monica Packer

About Progress podcast | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon

Truce with Food: Consistency

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

Jenny first learned to connect thinness with acceptance when she lost 30 pounds before eighth grade and returned to school getting attention she hadn’t received before. That connection shaped the next four decades of restriction, bingeing, bulimia, treatment, and trying to make peace with food.

By the time Jenny found Truce with Food, she already knew her struggle wasn’t really about food. What she didn’t understand was what kept pulling her back into the same patterns. Identifying loneliness as one of her eating triggers and recognizing the deeper need for belonging underneath it gave her a completely different place to start.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Jenny, a client who completed Truce with Food: Consistency, to talk about how her urge to binge fell away without more food rules or another plan to follow. We also get into the role perfectionism played in keeping her stuck, what helped her close the gap between knowing and doing, and what changed when she started building a life she genuinely wanted to be part of.

6:35 – Jenny’s history with disordered eating and body image

9:55 – Loneliness as Jenny’s emotional trigger for bingeing

19:22 – Valuing peace above thinness in our culture

21:18 – "C plus effort" in the group breaking Jenny’s perfectionism cycle

25:56 – Attuning to yourself to satisfy the emotional trigger underneath the food struggle

28:47 – The "knowing" but not "doing" gap that kept Jenny stuck for years

31:49 – Shrinking the gap by learning how to set up for success or for opting out

41:25 – Movement as a door opener to new friendships and more fun

46:01 – Bingeing as betrayal and Jenny’s refusal to let restriction run her life

50:16 – Why the urge to binge can disappear without explanation

55:23 – Bringing your body online to notice what feels good and what triggers you

Mentioned In How Jenny Stopped Binge Eating Without More Food Rules

Truce with Food: Consistency

Free Workshop: Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

You know you’re not hungry, but there’s still this urgent, buzzy energy around food. You find yourself standing in front of the fridge needing something, even though you can’t say what you’re looking for. Maybe you wait until you’re alone to eat, or decide the diet starts tomorrow. You know what to do, so why can’t you do it?

The problem isn’t that you need more information or haven’t tried hard enough. When that knowing and doing gap shows up, your survivor self is in the room. Its job is to protect you from a change that feels too risky, and food almost works. It soothes you and makes you feel less alone without asking you to risk failure, rejection, criticism, or looking bad.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I’m sharing a masterclass I taught inside my client Diana Feinstein’s community about why eating when you’re not hungry makes so much sense. We talk about why starting habits and stopping habits require different strategies, why the survivor self can’t be coached or white-knuckled into changing, and how growing your healthy adult self helps food become obsolete as a coping strategy. Diana also shares how these patterns showed up in her own life and what changed when she finally understood what was happening underneath the food.

1:42 – How this masterclass supports everyday eaters and the coaches helping them

7:30 – Why health coach Diana Feinstein turned to Ali despite knowing what to do

10:05 – Why what looks like self-sabotage may actually be self-protection

12:27 – How the hidden “why not” can outweigh your reasons for changing

18:33 – Why hearing other people name the same food patterns helped Diana feel less alone

20:28 – Why starting a new habit and stopping an unwanted habit require different strategies

23:50 – Why the knowing and doing gap isn’t a character flaw or personal failure

26:43 – How the survivor self creates resistance to change and why it can’t be coached

31:41 – Why food is such a powerful coping strategy and the deeper need it almost meets

35:26 – How hustling and overworking show up in your patterns with food

42:22 – How growing your healthy adult self helps close the knowing and doing gap

45:29 – The four stages of closing the gap between knowing and doing

51:16 – How compassionate witnessing helped Diana stop fighting her feelings

55:17 – What compassionate witnessing looks like and why it isn’t the same as fixing someone

1:00:08 – How food noise can signal that your survivor self is active

Mentioned In How to Close the Knowing-Doing Gap with Food

MaxPact Health | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn

Diana Feinstein on LinkedIn

What Your Food Stage Reveals About Why Nothing Has Worked Long Term

Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track

Get Clients Unstuck and Why Another Tool Isn’t the Answer

Truce Coaching Certification

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

You can know exactly what to do and still find yourself repeating the same behavior. You make the plan, feel motivated, and get going, only to hit that point where the novelty wears off and the old pattern comes right back. Then the question becomes whether you need more discipline, a better tool, or someone else to finally tell you what you’re missing.

That confusion is the messy middle of change, and it’s where both clients and coaches can start to lose the plot. What gets you started isn’t always what gets you through this part, especially when shame, identity, and old protective patterns get involved. It’s also where coaches can start wondering if they don’t know enough, if the client isn’t ready, or if they should be doing more to fix what’s happening.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Christen Conly, a yoga teacher, holistic health and embodiment coach, and graduate of my Truce Coaching Certification, to talk about what changed when she stopped relying on more tips and tools. We get into why falling off track can make sense, how the urge to fix clients creates its own problems, and what becomes possible when change is treated as a process to navigate rather than something to eradicate.

6:34 – What led Christen Conly to Truce Coaching Certification

12:48 – Why starting and stopping behaviors require different coaching skills

16:17 – The client Christen wishes she could support with what she knows now

17:58 – When helping clients becomes entangled with approval

20:20 – Reframing self-sabotage as a protective response

23:10 – Shame-based motivation versus sustainable motivation

27:12 – Letting go of the responsibility to fix clients

32:21 – How Truce Coaching Certification helped Christen coach with more confidence

37:04 – The difference between mindset, identity, and story

39:26 – Technical versus adaptive change and creating safety to experiment

41:41 – How Christen’s coaching changed after certification

44:45 – Using the emotional immune system with clients

Mentioned In When Tips and Tools Aren’t Enough to Create Lasting Change with Christen Conly

Christen Conly | Instagram

Get Clients Unstuck and Why Another Tool Isn’t the Answer

Truce Coaching Certification

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

You find yourself standing in front of the kitchen counter, not knowing why you’re there. Or you’re out at a work event already thinking about when you’ll be able to get home and be alone with food. You’re not actually hungry, but you feel pulled there anyway. It’s urgent, buzzy, and hard to talk yourself out of, even when some part of you knows this isn’t really about the food.

What we often call emotional eating is usually a message from your nervous system. Food can soothe. It can give you the almost-feeling of being comforted, supported, and cared for. But as Dr. Deborah MacNamara says, “There’s nothing as addictive as something that almost works.” When the deeper need is safety or belonging, managing the behavior without understanding what it’s protecting only keeps you stuck in the same loop.

In this episode of the Truce with Food podcast, I’m sharing my conversation with dietitian Tara Schmidt from Mayo Clinic’s On Nutrition podcast to walk through the first step of my Truce with Food framework and what it reveals about emotional eating. We talk about why food noise can feel so urgent, the patterns that keep people from getting their needs met, what our food memories reveal about belonging, and how to begin breaking the cycle without turning it into another perfectionist project.

4:00 – How Ali’s interview on Tara’s podcast came together, and why I wanted to re-air it on Truce with Food

10:07 – The next best step you can take after listening to this episode

14:03 – What inspired Ali to specialize in helping people heal their relationship with food

17:15 – Four main triggers (and the unmet needs within) behind emotional eating

22:11 – How your physiology and psychology can influence each other due to the tiredness trigger

23:41 – The types of food emotional eaters go to, and the relationship between food noise and emotional eating

30:02 – Three behavioral patterns of comfort eating and how they serve as protection strategies

35:25 – Those who don’t eat based on their emotions, and why some people mindlessly overeat

37:36 – How to support someone who you think struggles with emotional eating without making them feel uncomfortable

39:28 – How to pause the reflex of emotional eating (and the one time you shouldn’t)

42:37 – How one client went from decades on medication to selling her business and feeling at home in her own body by ending her emotional eating cycle

Mentioned In Mayo Clinic on Nutrition: The Four Triggers Behind Emotional Eating

A Holistic Approach to GLP-1s with Mayo Clinic Dietitian Tara Schmidt

Mayo Clinic on Nutrition Podcast with Tara Schmidt, RDN

Institute for Integrative Nutrition | Dr. Mark Hyman

Dr. Deborah MacNamara | Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for Our Kids (And Everyone Else We Love) by Dr. Deborah MacNamara

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

Women are hearing a lot right now about eating more, building muscle, healing their metabolism, and using GLP-1s for weight loss. But so much of the conversation still skips over what actually matters for women’s bodies, especially in perimenopause and menopause. If you’ve ever tried to nourish yourself more and immediately watched the scale go up, it can feel like your body is broken. It’s not, but your metabolism may need repair before it’s ready for fat loss.

That’s why I wanted to talk with Ashley Fillmore, founder and president of Metabolic Fix. Ashley is a leading expert in sustainable weight and fat loss with over 20 years of experience helping women heal their metabolism, balance their hormones, and change their body composition without staying stuck in chronic dieting. She also brings something I always appreciate, real client data, real lived experience, and a clear-eyed take on the online muscle-building and GLP-1 claims that don’t match what actually happens in women’s bodies.

In this episode of the Truce with Food podcast, I sit down with Ashley to talk about how to use GLP-1s without losing the muscle you need, and why they can support weight loss but can’t replace metabolic repair. We get into her Repair, Rebuild, Results framework, why eating more can feel so scary when your body has adapted to under-eating, and what sustainable fat loss actually requires if you want results that last.

6:27 – Defining metabolism, what the repair phase does, and the impact of hormones on your metabolic health

12:57 – Why you might be stuck even if you’re doing many of the right things

17:25 – How the reverse diet in the repair phase helps your metabolism safely adapt to more calories

25:28 – How long the repair phase lasts, and why Ashley’s took longer than average

32:03 – What happens during the rebuild stage, and why it’s crucial before entering fat loss

36:19 – Debunking media claims and setting realistic expectations about muscle gain

47:02 – Why lean muscle is the body’s currency for longevity, not just an aesthetic bodily upgrade

50:06 – Why GLP-1s should be a supplement, not your primary weight loss strategy

53:22 – The importance of careful GLP-1 microdosing usage and greater metabolic health knowledge among doctors

1:03:19 – Why not all weight loss is a good thing, and the problem with overfocusing on protein alone in your diet

1:06:25 – Ashley’s free tool for estimating a healthy calorie target based on your weight loss goals

Mentioned In How to Use GLP-1s Without Losing the Muscle You Need with Ashley Fillmore

Dr. Stacy Sims

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Metabolic Fix | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube

Metabolic Fix Weight Loss Calculator

Cheers to Your Success Podcast

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

"What's wrong with me?" You've probably asked yourself this after another night of eating when you weren't hungry, scrolling when you meant to go to bed, or saying yes to something you had no energy for. The late-night sugar, the people-pleasing, the crashing after weeks of overdoing everything. You're not lazy and you're not broken, but you are asking the wrong question.

The real question is what's happening in your body because so much of what we chalk up to bad habits or weak willpower is actually driven by biology. Your nervous system is keeping you in familiar patterns because familiar feels safe, even when it's not working. Your cortisol is spiking your hunger and blunting your fullness signals, and if you're in perimenopause, all of it hits harder because the hormonal buffer you used to have is disappearing.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Amber Romaniuk, an expert in emotional eating, digestive health, and hormonal balance with over 12 years of clinical and lived experience, to discuss the biology behind the behaviors we call self-sabotage. We get into how chronic stress and cortisol reshape your hunger and cravings, why everything from sugar to people-pleasing hits differently in perimenopause, and what it actually looks like to stop fighting your body and start understanding what it's telling you.

7:16 – Why mindset work fails when you ignore your body's role in behavior

9:27 – Why your nervous system keeps you stuck in familiar patterns even when you want to change

15:22 – How cortisol changes your hunger, cravings, and capacity to handle stress

21:55 – Why everything from sugar to stress hits differently in perimenopause and menopause

28:34 – How low progesterone drives people-pleasing, overworking, and chasing the next accomplishment

34:19 – Getting off the addiction to intensity and what to do instead of chasing cheap dopamine

41:17 – Amber's cortisol test recommendations and what to actually do with the results

48:19 – What guilt does to your amygdala and why it keeps you from prioritizing yourself

Mentioned In Your Sugar Cravings Make Sense When You Understand Your Hormones with Amber Romaniuk

Amber Approved | TikTok | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn

Book a Body Freedom Consultation with Amber

Hormone Imbalance Quiz

No Sugarcoating Podcast

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

For many of us, the body has long felt like an inconvenient, separate entity. Our intellect does the heavy lifting while our physical selves get relegated to the background. You know how to think your way through problems, build a career, figure things out. But when it comes to looking down and asking your body what it actually needs, there's a tight ball of feelings most of us would rather not touch.

My dear friend and developmental coach Sas Petherick used to live that way. Over the past year, through a process she describes as one of the most vulnerable experiences of her life, Sas has gone through a complete identity shift in how she relates to her body, her marriage, and herself. She's lost 52 pounds and built her most developed muscle mass as an adult. But what surprised her most wasn't the physical change. It was that figuring out her body stuff required more growing up than changing careers, getting sober, or losing a parent.

Sas returns to close out a year-long conversation about what it actually takes to change your relationship with your body. We get into why body image lives in the brain and not the mirror, how the padding she carried was protection against vulnerability she wasn't ready to feel, and what it means when your insides finally match your outsides. This is what it looks like to move from self-monitoring to true self-awareness and become more fully yourself.

7:21 – Why Sas ranks this body journey alongside sobriety, grief, and career change as one of the most identity-altering experiences of her life

13:00 – Difficulties of the journey and how much Sas’s relationship with her body has impacted her nearly 20-year-old relationship with her partner

19:08 – Highlights of the journey and what Sas noticed while watching a stranger at dinner that revealed just how far she's come

32:50 – Why maintenance (which everyone says is the hardest part of this journey) has actually become easier for Sas

46:23 – Why Sas’s relationship with food is more difficult than her relationship with exercise, and how she’s learning to work through it

50:11 – Why body dysmorphia might have a root emotion that doesn't get talked about enough

1:00:07 – Defining body image, embracing the body positivity movement, and why grief isn’t just about loss

1:02:37 – Sas's honest take on GLP-1s: what’s missing from the conversation, what she'd do if she were taking them, and what everyone should be asking before they decide

1:09:12 – How exploring her relationships with food, movement, and her body are no longer tied to the scale for Sas

How to Lose Weight and Love Yourself (because you can do both!)

“We’re the Brave Ones” – Discipline vs Devotion, Macros & Being Sporty

Emotions & Embodiment for Sustainable Weight Loss

How to Hold Your Weight Loss Goals Loosely (for better results)

How to Finally Stop White-Knuckling Your Weight-Loss Journey

Sas Petherick

Find Your Food Stage Quiz