Explore every episode of the podcast Truce with Food: The Psychology of Emotional Eating and Your Relationship with Food
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What Makes a Good Health Coach with Precision Nutrition’s Kate Solovieva (333) | 07 Oct 2026 | 01:07:36 | |
You can know what to eat, understand what would support your health, and still find yourself stress eating at night, skipping meals and then overeating, or falling back into old patterns. That’s frustrating when you’re the person living it, especially when you’ve already gotten plenty of information about what you “should” be doing. It can also be frustrating for the health coach sitting across from you, because caring deeply about helping someone can make it really tempting to rush in with another suggestion, another tool, or something from the latest training. That’s where the difference between knowing a lot and actually being able to coach starts to matter. Some health problems are technical and have a relatively clear answer. Others are adaptive challenges, where the person already knows what to do and the harder question is why they aren’t doing it. Those situations require slowing down enough to get specific about what’s happening, asking why the behavior makes sense, and looking at what feels hard about changing it instead of immediately assuming the answer is more information. For coaches, that can also mean noticing what a stuck client brings up in you and whether your own urge to fix is helping or adding more pressure. In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Kate Solovieva, a master coach and Director of Community Engagement at Precision Nutrition, to talk about what makes a good health coach from both sides of the coaching relationship. We talk about what to do when another tip or tool isn’t helping, why coaching real people is different from studying case examples, and how to tell when more training is actually needed versus when it’s time to stop collecting information and practice the craft. We also get into what to look for when you’re hiring a coach, how scope of practice comes into play with questions about GLP-1s, and what AI may change about coaching without changing the human part of the work. This episode is the third stop on the For Coaches Path in the Truce with Food Podcast Library, a set of conversations meant to be heard in order. Start the Path here: For Coaches Path. 1:53 – Who this episode is for and how to recognize a good health coach 2:10 – What happens when a client knows what to do but still isn’t doing it 4:21 – Why coaches need to notice their own urge to rush in and fix 6:59 – Why the health and wellness industry still feels like the Wild West 8:31 – Where health coaching has matured, from strength training to a more holistic view of health 14:37 – Where the industry still falls short on fatphobia, morality, and personal autonomy 16:43 – The gap between being good at coaching and being good at selling 20:32 – The difference between technical problems and adaptive challenges in behavior change 25:58 – Why coaches have to manage their own discomfort when a client is stuck 29:26 – How compassion and support help when old food patterns keep repeating 34:14 – How to know when more training will actually make you a better coach 36:35 – When learning becomes anxiety instead of professional growth 40:11 – Why you can’t become a great coach without actually coaching 44:30 – What separates a great coach from a really good student 45:57 – What to look for when choosing a health coach 50:51 – How to identify the specific skill gap you actually need to train 54:10 – GLP-1 questions, scope of practice, and the role of a health coach 58:53 – What AI, GLP-1s, and industry changes may mean for the future of coaching
Precision Nutrition | Coaches Connect Pros and Cons of Health Coaching with Courtney Townley Hailey Rowe on Building a Sustainable Coaching Business When Tips and Tools Aren’t Enough to Create Lasting Change with Christen Conly How to Close the Knowing-Doing Gap with Food Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Your GLP-1 Plateau Doesn’t Mean You’re Failing with Jessica Brown (332) | 23 Sep 2026 | 01:17:23 | |
A GLP-1 can quiet the food noise and give you hope again. Then you hit a plateau, the food noise starts creeping back in, or you see someone else having a completely different experience. That’s when the old thoughts can show up fast. Here we go again. I’m failing. What’s wrong? Why isn’t this working for me like everyone else? We’ve put GLP-1s into the same magic bullet fantasy we tend to put everything else into. We want the straight line forward and the happily ever after. When that isn’t what happens, it can be easy to make the plateau mean something about you instead of separating what’s happening from what you’re making it mean about yourself. In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with clinical nutritionist Jessica Brown, author of Beyond the Shot, to talk about what happens emotionally when GLP-1 progress stalls or the food noise comes back. Jessica is also a certified compassion teacher, and she has used a GLP-1 herself for more than two years, mostly for reasons beyond weight loss. We talk about the difference between feelings and beliefs, how comparison and self-judgment can shape the way you see yourself, and why self-compassion matters when the old story says you’re the problem. She also shares NICE, her practice for meeting that moment with kindness, especially if part of you worries that going easier on yourself means you’ll just give up. This episode is the fourth stop on the GLP-1 Path in the Truce with Food Podcast Library, a set of conversations meant to be heard in order. Start the Path here: GLP-1 Path 7:47 – Why GLP-1 plateaus can feel so unexpected and what happens when progress stops being linear 9:05 – Jessica Brown’s reasons for using a GLP-1 beyond weight loss 15:35 – What can come up emotionally when food noise returns on a GLP-1 18:08 – The difference between feelings and beliefs and why it matters when you start blaming yourself 24:35 – How comparing your GLP-1 experience to other people can make you feel worse 28:52 – What makes support actually supportive when judgment is everywhere 34:40 – How to know when returning food noise needs emotional support, a medical conversation, or both 45:35 – Why the old story that you’re failing can come back so quickly during a plateau 50:56 – Jessica’s NICE practice for responding to old beliefs with self-compassion 52:38 – Jessica’s personal story of using NICE to change a belief she’d carried since infancy 59:19 – What emotional plateaus can reveal when food is no longer doing the same job 1:02:13 – Redefining progress when success is no longer just about weight or avoiding regain 1:11:00 – When to seek more support and what to know about GLP-1 microdosing claims
The Loving Diet | Instagram | YouTube Truce with Food Podcast Library Truce with Food Podcast Library: GLP-1 Path A Holistic Approach to GLP-1s with Mayo Clinic Dietician Tara Schmidt How to Use GLP-1s Without Losing the Muscle You Need with Ashley Fillmore The Body You Were Always Meant to Have with Sas Petherick [Body Stories Series #6] Episode 77: Your Green Juice Doesn’t Make You Worthy Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why You Keep Feeling Like You’re Starting Over With Food (331) | 09 Sep 2026 | 00:55:38 | |
You finally understand what’s been driving your food struggles. You change how you eat, you feel better, maybe you even think, okay, I’ve got this now. Then months or years later, the cravings come back, your body changes, or you find yourself eating when you’re not hungry again. It can feel like all that progress disappeared and you’re somehow back at the beginning. After more than 10 years of this podcast and 330 episodes, what I keep seeing is that you may not need another answer. You may already have the right information, just at the wrong point in your own change process. The blood sugar episode that feels life-changing when you’re first realizing your cravings aren’t a willpower problem may not help two years later when you already understand the physiology and what you’re wrestling with is why you still want cookies when you’re alone on a Thursday night. Same information, completely different need. In this episode of Truce with Food, I explain why timing and sequencing matter so much when you’re changing your relationship with food, and why feeling like you’re starting over doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve lost your progress. I’m also introducing the new free Truce with Food podcast library, built from more than a decade of episodes and organized around the problem you’re actually trying to solve now, so you can find the right next conversation for where you are. 2:42 – Reflections on the good and bad of what happened during the summer season 8:06 – Disillusionment with what’s currently happening in the wellness world 11:19 – The pitfalls of relying heavily on AI for written content 19:28 – The inferior-superior cycle that keeps you ping-ponging between all-or-nothing thinking 23:09 – What I mean by “right information, wrong timing” and why the order of things really matters 31:00 – A newly organized, decade-in-the-making tool designed to guide you toward solutions based on your situation 35:20 – Demonstration of how the new podcast library works using three people as examples 45:54 – How to use the library (including curated paths, how to search, and how it links with your food quiz) 50:38 – Asking for two favors when you use the beta version of the podcast library
Truce with Food Podcast Library Email: Ali@alishapiro.com Episode 233: Quitting Alcohol and Managing Sugar Cravings with Laura McKowen | Books by Laura McKowen Episode 330: How to Make Habits Stick When Your Life Is Unpredictable with Monica Packer Episode 321: Why Intuitive Functional Medicine Works When Protocols Don’t with Erin Holt Episode 267: Esther Blum Demystifies Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for Perimenopause and Menopause Relief Episode 266: Dr. Stacy Sims on How “Women Are Not Small Men” (especially at midlife & with exercise) Episode 188: The 4 Weight Loss Willpower Myths Sabotaging Your Results Body Story Series with Sas Petherick: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Make Habits Stick When Your Life Is Unpredictable with Monica Packer (330) | 26 Aug 2026 | 00:50:28 | |
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
Sticky Habits by Monica Packer About Progress podcast | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How Jenny Stopped Binge Eating Without More Food Rules (329) | 12 Aug 2026 | 01:01:27 | |
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
Free Workshop: Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Close the Knowing-Doing Gap with Food (328) | 29 Jul 2026 | 01:07:30 | |
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
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 Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| When Tips and Tools Aren’t Enough to Create Lasting Change with Christen Conly (327) | 15 Jul 2026 | 00:53:24 | |
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
Get Clients Unstuck and Why Another Tool Isn’t the Answer Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Mayo Clinic on Nutrition: The Four Triggers Behind Emotional Eating (326) | 01 Jul 2026 | 00:45:47 | |
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
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 with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Use GLP-1s Without Losing the Muscle You Need with Ashley Fillmore (325) | 17 Jun 2026 | 01:11:03 | |
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 Metabolic Fix | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube Metabolic Fix Weight Loss Calculator Cheers to Your Success Podcast Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Your Sugar Cravings Make Sense When You Understand Your Hormones with Amber Romaniuk (324) | 03 Jun 2026 | 00:57:11 | |
"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 Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| The Body You Were Always Meant to Have with Sas Petherick [Body Stories Series #6] (323) | 20 May 2026 | 01:19:29 | |
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 Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Healing Your Relationship With Food Is a Rebellious Act (322) | 06 May 2026 | 00:42:36 | |
The world is a lot right now. Globally, personally, often both. And when things are this intense, it can be easy to feel like your relationship with food is a first world problem, or that nothing matters, you're just going to eat. To dismiss the battle as something to deal with later, when things calm down. But this is exactly when it matters most. We can't all collapse at the same time. If you're hungry, depleted, or consumed by overriding your cravings, you don't have the energy for your own life, let alone for showing up with the values you want to see ripple out into the world. And the conditioning that tells you investing in yourself takes from others, that you should be able to power through, that your needs are too much, is the same conditioning that keeps the cycle going. In this episode of Truce with Food, I walk through three reasons your food battle matters more in hard times, not less. I cover why you need to be physically nourished to show up for what you care about, why the all-or-nothing thinking that says investing in yourself takes from others is the same conditioning we need to change, and why most weight and food struggles are really about a complicated relationship with power. Healing your relationship with food isn't a distraction from the work of this moment. It's part of it. 5:47 – Why overriding your hunger actually robs you of the rebelliousness and energy needed for your life 11:17 – Why learning to connect how you eat to how your body works is revolutionary 13:52 – The cultural conditioning that makes you believe investing in your own health must come at the expense of your family or work 17:23 – How this zero-sum cultural conditioning trap exists on every level 19:55 – How a client learned the emotional work of tending to her needs, instead of trying to fix issues for her daughter 21:13 – Your food battle as a doorway to examine where you’re still sacrificing yourself to unsustainable norms 24:01 – How that guilty feeling you get for overeating or not working out is often a symptom of internalized capitalist productivity 26:42 – Backlash as a sign of actual progress and how “slow and steady” keeps you in the game 31:41 – How stubborn weight issues are often linked to an unconscious resistance to dominative power, and the need to redefine power as collaborative 36:03 – The yin archetype’s association with food and body issues (including eating disorders)
Why Intuitive Functional Medicine Works When Protocols Don’t with Erin Holt What Your Food Stage Reveals About Why Nothing Has Worked Long Term Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why Intuitive Functional Medicine Works When Protocols Don't with Erin Holt (321) | 22 Apr 2026 | 01:06:43 | |
Twenty years ago, functional medicine changed everything for me. My IBS cleared. My skin cleared. My depression lifted. And for the first time, I understood food as medicine instead of just calories. But somewhere in the last five years, functional medicine started looking a lot like what it was railing against. A supplement for every lab marker. A protocol for every person. A business model that profits from making you feel more broken than when you walked in. So I stopped talking about it much here. But I still believe in root cause resolution. And I wanted to bring on someone who practices it the way it was meant to be practiced. That's why I brought Erin Holt on the show. Erin is a seasoned clinician, clinic founder, and trainer of other practitioners who has been vocal about what's gone wrong in this industry while still believing fiercely in what it can be. She practices what she calls intuitive functional medicine, a framework that starts with the physical body and refuses to stop there. In this episode of Truce with Food, Erin and I get into what's actually broken in functional medicine right now, why data can never replace discernment or lived experience, and how her five-phase formula bridges the physical, mental, emotional, and energetic aspects of healing. We also talk about why you can't rewire an inflamed brain with mindset work, and what it really means to self-source your health instead of outsourcing it to someone in a white coat. 2:48 – Introduction to Erin and how she and her trainees help one-on-one clients 7:56 – The shift in functional medicine over the last five years that’s recreating the exact problem it was designed to solve 11:25 – Defining functional medicine and comparing it to more conventional medicine 16:46 – What intuitive functional medicine is and what it looks like in Erin’s practice (and her training of other practitioners) 24:08 – Self-sourcing vs. outsourcing your health and the long, underexamined history of the loss of self-trust in so many people 34:09 – A basic example of how Erin helps her clients rebuild their self-trust (without forcing it) 39:55 – Why too many choices in the name of empowerment can actually cause someone to freeze in response (and what skilled practitioners do differently) 44:11 – The real point of fear-based marketing and how to spot it before it sells you something you don't need 47:00 – Why the nocebo effect, medical hexing, and the labels a practitioner puts on you can quietly become the ceiling on your healing 49:15 – Functional labs that are actually worth it and the very contextual, individualized way Erin administers them as a practitioner 51:43 – Erin’s framework for whole-person healing, why the starting point doesn’t matter, and what needs to happen before you can rewire your brain using mindset work 1:00:42 – The importance and meaning of self-compassion and why you must only work with those who see your potential to heal Mentioned In Why Intuitive Functional Medicine Works When Protocols Don't with Erin Holt The Funk’tional Nutrition | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest Funk’tional Nutrition Academy (FNA) Funk’tional Nutrition: How Belonging, Not Willpower, Shapes Your Eating Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| What Your Food Stage Reveals About Why Nothing Has Worked Long Term (320) | 08 Apr 2026 | 00:37:11 | |
You've tried the plans. The protocols. Maybe therapy, journaling, intuitive eating. And food still feels like a battle. The problem isn't that you haven't tried hard enough. It's that no one has ever shown you where you actually are. I've spent 19 years working with women who've tried everything and nothing's worked long term. What I keep finding is that the approach mismatches the stage. And you can't know what to do next until you know where you're starting from. In this episode of Truce with Food, I walk through I walk through the four developmental stages of resolving your food battle and introduce my free Food Stage Finder Assessment. If you've ever wondered why you're still struggling despite everything you've done, this is where to start. 1:40 – How women's healthcare concerns get dismissed and what led Ali to this work Mentioned In What Your Food Stage Reveals About Why Nothing Has Worked Long Term Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| What a Truce with Food Taught Me About Redefining Success (319) | 18 Mar 2026 | 00:40:23 | |
After nearly a decade of conversations about food, culture, and psychology, this podcast has a new name. What was Insatiable is now the Truce with Food Podcast. What started as a rebrand turned into an honest look at how success, ambition, and identity shift over time. Ten years ago, metrics like downloads and productivity felt like the scorecard. Then motherhood happened. Menopause happened. The realities of limited time and energy became impossible to ignore. I had to ask what actually feels like success now. In this episode of Truce with Food, I share how hustle culture quietly shaped my definition of success and how I used my own framework to work through overworking. Because creating a truce with food often means creating a truce with the relentless pursuit of success itself. 4:26 – How a decade of podcasting quietly reveals how cultural definitions of success shape our goals and habits 9:57 – When things began to shift in my energy and capacity regarding hustle culture 13:13 – What the rebrand is about and why a years-long evolving framework involving work with real people matters now more than ever 16:48 – The Truce with Food framework as a way to take back your power and how I used it to stop overworking 23:32 – Re-evaluation of time, energy, and capacity as a result of hustle culture limits in midlife 32:54 – What is and isn’t changing about the podcast Mentioned In What a Truce with Food Taught Me About Redefining Success How Just Showing Up Ended Years of Binging Content with Carlos | my husband, who designed my new website and content strategy Braid Creative | Kathleen Shannon on Skipping One-Size-Fits-All and Experimenting Instead Health, Body, and Business with Ali Shapiro (Being Boss Podcast) Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Funk’tional Nutrition: How Belonging, Not Willpower, Shapes Your Eating (318) | 04 Mar 2026 | 00:57:35 | |
Diet culture, anti-diet rhetoric, and functional medicine all live in a messy middle ground. Our culture trains us to outsource authority, chase gold stars, and equate thinness with worth. We're taught to live by someone else's food rules, health rules, weight rules. So if you're still struggling to figure food out, it's not a failure of discipline. It's a misunderstanding of safety and belonging. In this episode of Insatiable, I join Erin Holt on The Funk'tional Nutritionist podcast to talk about how functional medicine, adult development, and lived experience create pendulum swings in eating patterns. We get into why food feels like both the problem and the solution, and what it means to author your own choices around health and weight without shame, dogma, or perfectionism. 6:28 – How Ali’s history with cancer, functional medicine, and adult development work led her to see “falling off track” with food as a symptom instead of a core issue 10:15 – Erin’s history with eating disorders and how her story overlaps with Ali’s 14:00 – How the “good girl” (or socialized) mindset influences your thinking with food, weight, and health (even after you’ve rejected diet culture on the surface) 18:10 – Example of how seeing yourself (not others) as the author of your story changes what “success” looks like. 22:54 – Why people “go off track” with food and how it has nothing to do with willpower 27:45 – Erin’s food memories that illustrate the clash between the need for rest and resourcefulness vs. the need for approval and belonging 34:34 – How tools like GLP‑1s aren’t inherently good or bad and can help or harm 38:32 – Why weight loss alone can never deliver belonging, purpose, or a meaningful life 42:37 – Why it’s okay if you still feel like weight loss should be your focus right now 46:56 – Where to start if you don’t even know what emotional needs you have that need to be met 52:26 – Seeing the inner critic as protection, not self-sabotage, and an example of how healing doesn’t always have to be difficult
The Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast Next Level by Stacy Sims Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How Just Showing Up Ended Years of Binging (317) | 11 Feb 2026 | 00:44:28 | |
What happens after you've tried everything? The plans, protocols, cleanses, and tracking apps. The running, the restriction, the attempt to outrun the fork. At some point, the effort becomes its own kind of exhaustion. You're no longer chasing health, you're chasing relief. In this episode of Insatiable, I sit down with Dee, a graduate of the Truce with Food: Consistency program, to talk about what actually creates lasting change when food has become comfort, numbness, and self-punishment all at once. Dee shares what it was like to move from binging and rigid thinking into something quieter and more powerful: just showing up. 3:51 – Why Dee felt stuck before joining Truce With Food: Consistency 7:47 – Why Dee had no hesitation about signing up, even after having tried so many things before 11:04 – What changed for Dee when success was defined as simply showing up 13:47 – Having a safe space and the role of compassionate witnesses in ending her isolation 21:13 – The unexpected power of language in reshaping Dee’s thinking and behavior 27:23 – Where things shifted for Dee and where she is now compared to when she started 30:50 – How Dee’s rigid thinking and perspective on movement and motivation have changed 34:40 – The biggest shift for Dee in her relationship with food and why intensity and duration matter more than perfection 37:19 – The shift from measuring thinness to measuring aliveness 40:32 – What else surprised Dee about the work within the program and her words for anyone considering joining Mentioned In How Just Showing Up Ended Years of Binging Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why Being Too Tired Is Exactly Why You Need Support (316) | 04 Feb 2026 | 00:23:21 | |
You tell yourself you're too busy and too tired to focus on yourself. You'll do it when things calm down, when work eases up, when the kids need less, when you finally get a good night's sleep. But food still calls your name at all the wrong times. You've tried to fix it, but the cycle keeps repeating. You're not lazy. You're not broken. You're trying to solve exhaustion without understanding where it actually comes from. In this episode of Insatiable, I break down why "too busy and too tired" is often protective resistance in disguise and why waiting for life to calm down costs you more than you think. I walk through how midlife physiology, perfectionism, lack of agency, and how we're conditioned as women all fuel the tired trigger. Plus, why turning to food makes complete sense as a solution, not a character flaw. 1:48 - Why “too busy and too tired” can be protective resistance disguised as practicality 4:48 – Example of how investing in your health earlier creates dividends you can’t see until later 6:33 - Biological shifts in midlife that quietly change hunger, satiety, and energy 9:16 - How perfectionism and over-functioning impact your energy 9:50 - Why sugar and “I deserve this” thinking are solutions before they’re problems 12:03 - Example of the surprising role of agency in chronic exhaustion 15:25 – How investing in the right support for yourself and self-compassion can energize you 19:25 - Final takeaways for this episode and an invitation to you Mentioned In Why Being Too Tired Is Exactly Why You Need Support FREE Workshop on February 10th - Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Five Shifts to Finally Stay Consistent With Food (315) | 28 Jan 2026 | 00:37:30 | |
You've followed the plans. Upped the discipline. Doubled down on getting back on track. And still, food and taking care of yourself feel harder than they used to. You're not the problem. The problem is trying to apply the same strategies you relied on in your twenties and thirties to a body and life that have fundamentally changed. In this episode of Insatiable, I share the five shifts that finally make consistency possible when perfectionism stops working. You'll learn why your resistance to showing up imperfectly is protective, not personal, and how to stay in the game even when it feels like you're barely moving forward. 3:28 - Why old strategies no longer working for you isn’t a sign of your failure 11:06 - Why C-plus effort triggers disgust and why that disgust has nothing to do with laziness 19:52 - How certainty becomes a shield against vulnerability and keeps you repeating the same all-or-nothing loop 24:51 - Why “momentum” sounds like a soft metric but becomes the only measure that compounds into lasting change 28:52 - The protective resistance that shows up the moment you try to break the cycle and why planning for it is non-negotiable 34:25 – Quick recap of the five shifts that redefine what success actually looks like in midlife with food struggles
FREE Workshop on February 10th - Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why Food Plans Fail After 40 and What Works Instead (314) | 21 Jan 2026 | 00:21:16 | |
You've done the work. Tried the protocols, followed the plans. And yet food still takes up way too much mental space. You're not the problem. Those one-size-fits-all protocols you've been handed were never going to work for where you actually are. After nearly two decades working with clients, I've watched the wellness space get louder and louder with protocols and plans telling you what to do without knowing who you are or what stage you're in. Frameworks meet you where you actually are and help you figure out why you keep turning to food in the first place. That distinction is everything when it comes to lasting change. In this episode of Insatiable, I explain why frameworks work when protocols don't, walk you through the four developmental stages most women move through in their relationship with food, and share details about my free Untangle Your Food Triggers workshop coming up in February for those ready to move beyond protocols. 5:52 - How last year’s “composting phase” reshaped my body of work 9:46 - Why midlife women need frameworks instead of protocols 13:19 - An appetizer for the Truce with Food Consistency program to kickstart your year 15:16 - Stages in the developmental process to a truce with food 17:16 - Why stage two is both the most confusing and the most hopeful place to land (and how to leverage it)
FREE Workshop on February 10th (not 11th, misspoke in episode) - Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track How to Better Understand Stress with Andrea Nakayama Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| What’s Still Missing From the “Emotional Eating” Conversation with Dr. Deborah MacNamara [Best Of] (313) | 07 Jan 2026 | 01:11:03 | |
Happy New Year, Insatiable listeners! Welcome to 2026. Today I’m resharing my conversation with parenting expert Dr. Deborah MacNamara, where we explore how food connects to our deep need for belonging, how feeling significant plays into belonging and food choices, as well as the many ways we can heal our relationships with food, fullness, and needing other people. If you want to make real changes with your or your loved ones eating, this episode just might help you make life-changing connections that have been elusive for years and be focused in the right direction for 2026. Tune in, then make sure to check out my new website trucewithfood.com. We discuss:
More about our guest: Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the author of two books, Nourished: Connection, food and caring for our kids (and everyone else we love), and Rest, Play, Grow: Making sense of preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She is on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute and the Director of Kid’s Best Bet counselling. Connect with Dr. Deborah MacNamara: Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why Willpower Isn’t the Problem: The Truth About the Knowing–Doing Gap [Courageous Pivot Podcast] (312) | 24 Dec 2025 | 01:28:02 | |
What if your inability to change isn't a failure of willpower, but your heart's way of protecting you from something you're not ready to face? Today I’m sharing a conversation I had with Meghan Telpner for the Courageous Pivot podcast about how my journey from overworking addiction to radical life redesign began with a simple question: "Why does this make sense?" I reveals how addressing my relationship with food became the gateway to confronting deeper questions about worth, identity, and what success actually means—and why healing often requires becoming a beginner all over again. From my journey through cancer, infertility, and postpartum menopause to finally redefining wealth as "freedom over my time," we get into how having the courage to slow down and listen to your body's wisdom can unlock transformations you never imagined possible. Essential listening for anyone measuring busyness instead of impact, struggling to make changes they know they need, or ready to understand why their body might be wiser than their ambition. We discuss:
Connect with Meghan: Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Finally Stop White-Knuckling Your Weight-Loss Journey with Sas Petherick [Body Stories #5] (311) | 10 Dec 2025 | 01:02:11 | |
Today, Sas Petherick returns for the fifth installment of our Body Stories series — and she’s nearly a year into her holistic weight-loss journey! In this conversation, Sas shares what’s become unmistakably clear along the way: true change happens at the pace of your body, and all-or-nothing thinking around food and movement is far more pervasive (and sneaky) than we realize. Together, we discuss:
Make sure to check out Ali’s new website trucewithfood.com, and take the new Find Your Food Stage assessment! Connect with Sas Petherick: Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Feel our Feelings with Mary Tilson (310) | 26 Nov 2025 | 01:13:54 | |
You’ve probably heard the advice: “Feel your emotions.” But what does that actually mean in everyday life? Especially when so many of us believe we’re feeling our feelings when we’re actually thinking our feelings. And thus, not feeling better or resolving our stubborn bad habits. In this episode, Mary Tilson joins me to explore how we’ve each learned to stay with and move through our emotions. Mary also opens up about her journey with addiction and anorexia, offering an honest look at how activation, dysregulation, and stress show up in our bodies and minds. We discuss:
More about our guest: Mary Tilson is a Certified Professional Recovery Coach and Somatic Practitioner with a Master’s Degree in the Psychology & Neuroscience of Mental Health. She draws on a holistic background, which includes Somatic Experiencing, a body-based approach to healing trauma and stress-related disorders and over a decade of experience as a Yoga & Mindfulness Teacher. Having experienced drug and alcohol addiction firsthand, Mary's approach to coaching is rooted in compassion and understanding. She has been sober for over 12 years and is passionate about helping others build fulfilling lives substance-free. She supports clients through 1:1 Coaching and Retreats. Connect with Mary:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| What Feels Good Right Now: Ending Emotional Outsourcing with Beatriz Victoria Albina [Part 2] (309) | 19 Nov 2025 | 00:41:13 | |
This week, Beatriz Victoria Albina returns to Insatiable for part two of our conversation on ending emotional outsourcing — the habit of looking outside ourselves for validation, safety, and worth. In this episode, we explore the practices that help you come back home to yourself: tuning into your needs, regulating your nervous system, returning to your body, and reclaiming your center. It all begins with one simple but powerful question: What feels good right now? Join us as we explore what it means to live from that place of connection and self-trust. We discuss:
More about our guest: Beatriz (Béa) Victoria Albina, NP, MPH, SEP (she/her) is a UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Master Certified Somatic Life Coach, author of End Emotional Outsourcing: a Guide to Overcoming Codependent, Perfectionist and People Pleasing Habits and Breathwork Meditation Guide with a passion for helping humans socialized as women to reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous systems and rewire their minds, so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism and people pleasing and reclaim their joy. She is the host of the Feminist Wellness Podcast, holds a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Béa grew up in the great state of Rhode Island. She has been working in health & wellness for over 20 years and lives with her wife, Billey Albina and their handsome all-black cat Wade. Connect with Béa:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Maybe You’re Not Actually Gluten Sensitive: Ending Emotional Outsourcing with Beatriz Victoria Albina [Part 1] (308) | 12 Nov 2025 | 00:50:32 | |
Today, I’m joined by Beatriz Victoria Albina for a conversation about the emotions that often hide beneath common gut issues—and why codependency isn’t the real problem (and boundaries aren’t the full solution). We also dive into her new book, End Emotional Outsourcing: A Guide to Overcoming Codependent, Perfectionist, and People-Pleasing Habits, where Beatriz offers powerful reframes on parenting, community, and self-trust. This episode feels like a deep exhale—a reminder that healing isn’t about fixing yourself, but coming home to yourself. Join us for part one today, and come back next week for part two. We discuss:
More about our guest: Beatriz (Béa) Victoria Albina, NP, MPH, SEP (she/her) is a UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Master Certified Somatic Life Coach, author of End Emotional Outsourcing: a Guide to Overcoming Codependent, Perfectionist and People Pleasing Habits and Breathwork Meditation Guide with a passion for helping humans socialized as women to reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous systems and rewire their minds, so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism and people pleasing and reclaim their joy. She is the host of the Feminist Wellness Podcast, holds a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Béa grew up in the great state of Rhode Island. She has been working in health & wellness for over 20 years and lives with her wife, Billey Albina and their handsome all-black cat Wade.
Connect with Béa:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How About Now with Kate Baer (307) | 29 Oct 2025 | 01:04:14 | |
Today I’m joined by everyone’s favorite poet, Kate Baer, for a tender conversation about midlife transitions, medical anxiety, and the power of female friendship. We talk about how to orient around ideas instead of problems, and we share a few poems from Kate’s forthcoming collection, How About Now, out November 4th. If you’ve been feeling a little lonely, uncertain, or in-between — or all three — this one is for you. We discuss:
More about our guest: Kate Baer is the 3x New York Times bestselling author of What Kind Of Woman, I Hope This Finds You Well, and And Yet. Her work has also been published in The New Yorker, Literary Hub, Huffington Post and The New York Times. Her next book, How About Now, is out November 4, 2025. Connect with Kate:
Mentioned in this episode: Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| 3 Perimenopause and Menopause Fitness Myths Debunked with Liz Wolfe (306) | 16 Oct 2025 | 01:18:48 | |
This week Liz Wolfe returns to the show for a candid conversation about all the fitness myths we’re seeing around the wild world of wellness in 2025. Together, we get into why people are slapping the word “perimenopause” on everything, how to focus on agility as much as strength training, and everyone’s favorite fall purchase: weighted vests. We also discuss:
More about our guest: Liz Wolfe is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Certified Personal Trainer, best-selling author and award-winning podcaster. She’s also a mom, a military spouse, and an Enneagram 6 (with a STRONG 5 wing). When it comes to wellness, Liz has always been curious about where the truth actually lies. She’s wrote the Wall Street Journal best-seller Eat the Yolks, which tackles many of the lies we’ve been told about nutrition over the last 50 years. She’s also the founder of supplement company IdealAge and the host of the Ideal Age podcast. Connect with Liz:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| 5 Things I Changed My Mind About This Year (305) | 02 Oct 2025 | 00:55:46 | |
This week, I’m joined by my former cohost Juliet Root for a fun, truth-seeking conversation about how our perspectives on food, body, and movement have shifted in 2025. Together, we share the biggest things we’ve changed our minds about—what no longer feels true, what surprised us, and what new possibilities opened up when we let old beliefs go. We discuss:
More about Juliet: Juliet Root is the co-founder of Ultralife, an online coaching platform, where she has spent nearly two decades helping people achieve lasting health, fitness, and longevity. As a certified personal trainer, board-certified nutritionist, and health coach, Juliet has worked with thousands of clients ranging from busy parents to high-performing executives and celebrities. Her mission is to cut through the noise of fitness fads and give people clear, sustainable strategies to feel and perform their best. Juliet has been featured in Shape Magazine, NBC, ABC, and Fox News, and is known for making complex training and nutrition science practical and actionable. At her company Ultralife she and here team help adults 35+ build strength, energy, and resilience so they can thrive in every season of life Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Rethinking Weight Loss, Willpower, and Emotional Eating with Ali Shapiro [Well-Fed Woman Podcast] (304) | 18 Sep 2025 | 01:25:45 | |
If you’ve ever thought “Why can’t I just stick with it?”, this episode is for you. Today I’m resharing a conversation I had with Noelle Tarr of Coconuts & Kettlebells for her podcast, Well-Fed Women. We discuss why willpower isn’t the problem, how shame hijacks true behavior change, and what it really takes to heal your relationship with food and your body. We also dive into emotional eating, weight loss without diet culture, and the mindset shifts that actually work—no guilt trips included. Questions we explore:
Mentioned in this episode: Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Before You Try Another Reset: 3 Things I Hear When People Are Considering ‘Why Am I Eating This Now?’ (303) | 03 Sep 2025 | 00:31:44 | |
It’s officially back-to-school season! Which means you might be thinking it’s time for a new nutrition plan, exercise routine, or self-improvement challenge. But before you set out once again, I want you to ask yourself: “Will I just end up back here in six months if I don’t get to the root of what’s really going on with my relationship to food?” In this episode, I share the three most common things I hear when people are wrestling with “Why am I eating this now?” — and how each one points to deeper truths about your health and habits. Tune in for insights that go beyond quick fixes. And if you’re ready to create lasting change, join me in Why Am I Eating This Now. Doors close September 10th! I discuss:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| A Holistic Approach to GLP-1s with Mayo Clinic Dietician Tara Schmidt (302) | 28 Aug 2025 | 01:13:58 | |
Tara Schmidt, M.Ed., RDN, LD is the lead dietitian for the Mayo Clinic Diet, host of the Mayo Clinic On Nutrition podcast, and Medical Editor of the Nutrition & Fitness channel. Today she joins me for a holistic, evidence-based conversation about GLP-1s, where we cut through the misinformation around these drugs and offer information you can really trust. If you’re already taking Ozempic or Wegovy, you want to start so you can lose weight, or maybe your doctor’s recommending it — this episode is for you. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, RSVP for my FREE Workshop on September 3rd, Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track. We discuss:
More about our guest: Tara Schmidt, M.Ed., RDN, LD is a registered dietitian and an instructor of nutrition at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. As the lead dietitian for the Mayo Clinic Diet, she provides guidance rooted in evidence-based principles, helping individuals develop sustainable and realistic strategies for long-term health. She also hosts Mayo Clinic On Nutrition, a podcast that dives into current nutrition research and practical weight management tips, and she lends her expertise as the Medical Editor of the Nutrition & Fitness channel. In addition, Tara co-authored The Mayo Clinic Diet: Weight Loss Medications Edition, highlighting her commitment to thoroughly researched and medically sound advice. Beyond her professional endeavors, Tara is devoted to reducing weight bias and ensuring that everyone, regardless of size or background, has access to accurate, empathetic dietary information. She balances her busy career with family life, staying active with her husband, two children, and a golden retriever who—just like the rest of the family—enjoys a healthy serving of vegetables. Connect with Tara and Mayo Clinic:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| You Don’t Have to Feel Powerless Around Food with Ginny and Isis (301) | 21 Aug 2025 | 00:54:31 | |
Why Am I Eating This Now? is open for registration! Today I’m resharing a great conversation — and a powerful “Where are they now?” update — with two past Why Am I Eating This Now?: The Courage for Consistency participants who tell their powerful stories of going from “failing” at every program they tried to address the root issues of why they were falling off track with food. Tune in to hear Ginny and Isis talk about the diets they’ve been on, the health concerns they’re navigating, and how our work together transformed their eating habits, including food no longer being their go-to. We discuss:
⭐️ Ready to catch yourself before you fall off track? RSVP for my free workshop on September 3rd. Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| What Really Works for Women Over 40: Three Essential Lessons (300) | 14 Aug 2025 | 00:48:56 | |
Welcome to the 300th episode of Insatiable! To celebrate this milestone, I’m sharing three essential lessons every woman over 40 should know about health, weight loss, and nutrition in midlife. After years of making this show and working with real life clients, I’ve seen what actually works for women in perimenopause and menopause—and it’s not counting calories, cutting carbs, or blaming yourself when your body doesn’t respond the way it used to. Instead, we need to improve the quality of our food, quit punishing ourselves with exercise, and learn how to pivot without triggering our inner-perfectionist. Want to know more? Tune in and share this one with your friends. These insights will save you so much time, energy, and (maybe even) digestive distress. Learn about:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Hold Your Weight Loss Goals Loosely (for better results) with Sas Petherick [Body Stories #4] (299) | 07 Aug 2025 | 01:08:56 | |
Body Stories is back — and we’re halfway through the journey. Sas Petherick returns to share what she’s learning six months into her year-long holistic weight loss experiment. She opens up about how her relationship with food is evolving, what strength feels like in her body now, and how all of it is reshaping her work as a coach. Together, we explore what it means to approach weight loss as an act of care — not punishment — especially in midlife, when everything from metabolism to motivation starts to shift. If you’re tired of all-or-nothing thinking about your health, this one’s for you. And if you're ready to untangle your own food triggers, RSVP for my free workshop on September 3rd. We discuss:
More about our guest: Sas Petherick believes that healing our self-doubt is one of the most important contributions we can make to ourselves, our families, our work, and the world. Sas holds a Master's degree from Oxford, and her research on self-doubt was published in the International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring. She has developed an evidence-based, trauma-informed, ICF-accredited coaching methodology for cultivating self-belief. For over a decade, Sas has coached with hundreds of women experiencing self-doubt in their professional and personal lives. Sas hosts the top 1% rated self-doubt podcast Courage & Spice which has enjoyed over half a million downloads. She is also an accomplished speaker and has developed coaching workshops and programmes for clients like BBC Worldwide and Pinterest. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines. After 25 years in the UK, Sas currently lives by the beach in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, with her partner Ash and pooch Bohdi, imagining a post-capitalist world, exploring consciousness, and listening to obscure UFO podcasts. Connect with Sas Petherick:
⭐️ Ready to catch yourself before you fall off track? RSVP for my free workshop on September 3rd. Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why Wholeness Beats “Being Good” with Elise Loehnen (298) | 31 Jul 2025 | 01:13:03 | |
Today Elise Loehnen returns to Insatiable for a much-needed reminder that you don’t have to be good. And in fact, focusing on being “good” or “nice” might perpetuate your battle with food and leave you feeling deeply unfulfilled. In this conversation, we unpack what it means to be whole, why it’s fine if some people don’t like you, and how to stop seeking external approval. We also tap into how the stories we tell about goodness impact our relationship to food and our body (including what the deepest layer of body image is really about). Tune in for a huge permission slip to rest and replenish — even when you’d rather push through (and learn how this supports staying on track with your food). And stick around until the end for a great reframe for envy! We discuss:
More about our guest: Elise Loehnen Fissmer is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their sons, Max and Sam. She is the host of *Pulling the Thread* where she interviews cultural luminaries on the big questions of the day. While she’s co-written 12 books, including five New York Times Best Sellers, her first book under her own name, *On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good* (Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House), was also an instant New York Times bestseller. Previously, she was the chief content officer of goop, where she co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix, and led the brand’s content strategy and programming, including the launch of a magazine with Condé Nast and a book imprint. Connect with Elise:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why I Joined Orange Theory (even though it’s “Bad” if you’re over 40) (297) | 17 Jul 2025 | 00:44:43 | |
A few months ago, my exercise routine stopped working for me. I’d been focusing on strength training for years, but I just didn’t want to go to the gym anymore. I felt super apathetic. At first, I chalked it up to bad sleep and low energy. But then I realized that some sneaky Menopause 101 messaging was actually holding me back from doing what felt right for my body. In this episode, I take you behind-the-scenes on how I noticed I was falling off track and the method that helped me return to movement again. Tune in to hear about:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Emotions & Embodiment for Sustainable Weight Loss with Sas Petherick [Body Stories Series #3] (296) | 29 May 2025 | 00:59:23 | |
Our Body Stories series is back with another installment of my friend Sas Petherick’s intentional weight loss journey. We’re three months in now, and she’s discovering how her new routines are integrating into her daily life and reshaping her identity in the process. Tune in to hear us unpack the emotional body, the power of habits, and how to actually stop treating food as an escape. We discuss:
More about our guest: Sas Petherick believes that healing our self-doubt is one of the most important contributions we can make to ourselves, our families, our work, and the world. Sas holds a Master's degree from Oxford, and her research on self-doubt was published in the International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring. She has developed an evidence-based, trauma-informed, ICF-accredited coaching methodology for cultivating self-belief. For over a decade, Sas has coached with hundreds of women experiencing self-doubt in their professional and personal lives. Sas hosts the top 1% rated self-doubt podcast Courage & Spice which has enjoyed over half a million downloads. She is also an accomplished speaker and has developed coaching workshops and programmes for clients like BBC Worldwide and Pinterest. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines. After 25 years in the UK, Sas currently lives by the beach in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, with her partner Ash and pooch Bohdi, imagining a post-capitalist world, exploring consciousness, and listening to obscure UFO podcasts. Connect with Sas Petherick:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| “We’re the Brave Ones” — Discipline vs Devotion, Macros & Being “Sporty” with Sas Petherick [Body Stories Series #2] (295) | 24 Apr 2025 | 01:05:16 | |
Today we continue our Body Stories series with Sas Petherick! She joined me on Insatiable last month (listen here!) to talk about her intentional weight loss journey. This week she returns so we can catch up on how things are going one month in. Tune in as we explore public weight loss, before and after photos, psychological flexibility, how it feels to eat more calories, healing our childhood wounds around sports, and more. And if you relate to anything in this episode, join me (Ali) for Your Emotional Eating Blueprint this spring! You can enroll or sign-up for a free sneak peek here: https://alishapiro.com/blueprint/ We discuss:
More about our guest: Sas Petherick believes that healing our self-doubt is one of the most important contributions we can make to ourselves, our families, our work, and the world. Sas holds a Master's degree from Oxford, and her research on self-doubt was published in the International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring. She has developed an evidence-based, trauma-informed, ICF-accredited coaching methodology for cultivating self-belief. For over a decade, Sas has coached with hundreds of women experiencing self-doubt in their professional and personal lives. Sas hosts the top 1% rated self-doubt podcast Courage & Spice which has enjoyed over half a million downloads. She is also an accomplished speaker and has developed coaching workshops and programmes for clients like BBC Worldwide and Pinterest. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines. After 25 years in the UK, Sas currently lives by the beach in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, with her partner Ash and pooch Bohdi, imagining a post-capitalist world, exploring consciousness, and listening to obscure UFO podcasts. Connect with Sas Petherick:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Why Food is NOT the Problem When Your Diet Falls Off Track [Wits & Weights Podcast] (294) | 17 Apr 2025 | 00:58:51 | |
Do you feel trapped in a cycle of dieting and frustration? Why do your best efforts with food seem to fail when it matters most? Is it possible that your food struggles are about something deeper than food itself? In this episode of Wits & Weights Podcast, host Philip Pape explores the deeper roots of food consistency with Insatiable’s own Ali Shapiro! Tune in to learn all about:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Is Your Eating a Problem or a Portal? (293) | 10 Apr 2025 | 00:20:58 | |
Here at Insatiable, we’re all about providing the education you need for perimenopause, menopause and aging. I mean, we did a whole season on it, and it's obviously been my own focus since going through early menopause a couple of years ago. But I'm starting to notice something alarming in terms of what we're not talking about — which is what these hormonal shifts mean for our stress and how this changes what works for our energy after 40. So this week, we’re diving into the often-overlooked topic of how hormonal shifts in perimenopause and menopause impact our emotional stress resilience. Because, did you know that the drop in estrogen and progesterone as we age removes a physiological stress buffer for cortisol? This means that the stress we're used to handling might now leave a mark on our energy, mood, and food choices. So if you’re experiencing stress and food struggles in midlife, tune in to this episode to learn about:
And if you appreciate this episode, get on my list to be the first to know when my Your Emotional Eating Blueprint: Why Am I Eating This Now? course is open for registration in early April! Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Fat Loss vs Weight Loss and Health Over 40 with Philip Pape (292) | 03 Apr 2025 | 01:14:48 | |
I love Philip Pape’s approach to health, because everything he teaches is evidence-based. So today he’s joining me on the podcast to unpack a few “trendy” nutrition and fitness topics like fat loss, muscle building, protein, calorie-counting, satiety, GLP-1s and more! Join us a we explore what’s really going on with health and weight loss — especially for women over forty. And don’t forget that this spring I’m teaching the first and only live round of Your Emotional Eating Blueprint: Why Am I Eating This Now? course, which you can hear more about by getting on my email list here We discuss:
More about our guest: Philip Pape is the host of Wits & Weights, a top 1% nutrition podcast where complex science meets real-world results. Known as the Physique Engineer, he combines his engineering background with evidence-based nutrition expertise to help people build stronger, leaner, and healthier bodies without the usual fitness industry confusion. Through his work, Philip proves that transforming your physique doesn't require endless hours in the gym, cardio, or extreme dieting—it just requires working smarter. Connect with Philip Pape:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Lose Weight AND Love Yourself (because you can do both!) with Sas Petherick [Body Stories Series #1] (291) | 20 Mar 2025 | 00:56:01 | |
Today’s episode is with my long-time friend and colleague Sas Petherick. It’s about those times when you want to lose weight… but you also want to love your body. This is also the beginning of our new Body Series: ongoing conversations about the nuances of being in relationship with our bodies. And today I'm announcing the first live round of my Your Emotional Eating Blueprint: Why Am I Eating This Now? course, which you can hear more about by getting on my email list! We discuss:
More about our guest: Sas Petherick believes that healing our self-doubt is one of the most important contributions we can make to ourselves, our families, our work, and the world. Sas holds a Master's degree from Oxford, and her research on self-doubt was published in the International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring. She has developed an evidence-based, trauma-informed, ICF-accredited coaching methodology for cultivating self-belief. For over a decade, Sas has coached with hundreds of women experiencing self-doubt in their professional and personal lives. Sas hosts the top 1% rated self-doubt podcast Courage & Spice which has enjoyed over half a million downloads. She is also an accomplished speaker and has developed coaching workshops and programmes for clients like BBC Worldwide and Pinterest. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines. After 25 years in the UK, Sas currently lives by the beach in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, with her partner Ash and pooch Bohdi, imagining a post-capitalist world, exploring consciousness, and listening to obscure UFO podcasts. Connect with Sas Petherick:
Mentioned in this episode:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Insatiable Is Back! with episodes on body stories, midlife weight loss, emotional eating & more (290) | 13 Mar 2025 | 00:05:21 | |
2025 has been the longest year ever (already), hasn’t it? My sleep issues are back. I’m working on HRT shifts. The political climate is chaos. And I just needed to take February to rest. But the podcast is coming back! I’m here today to let you know that we have a lot of exciting episodes coming up — including a new Body Stories series, an interview with a personal trainer about how to lose weight in mid-life, and minisodes from me about emotional eating and belonging. Plus! In mid-April I’m launching a Why Am I Eating This Now? mini-course for only $97. Get on my email list to be the first to know when registration opens. And tune back in next week for a new episode! Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Three Things I Most Often Hear from You When Considering Truce with Food & FREE BREAKTHROUGH SESSION THIS WED. (Jan. 8th)! (289) | 06 Jan 2025 | 00:28:21 | |
After nearly 300 episodes of the Insatiable Podcast, I know you likely understand food challenges intellectually—now it's time for real change. This Wednesday (Jan. 8th) at noon EST, I'm hosting Stop the Quick Fix Cycle: Why Band-Aid Solutions Make Emotional Eating Worse (and How to Actually Get Results). 1) "I've tried everything" – Learn why emotional safety and belonging are the missing pieces. At this free breakthrough session, we'll dive deeper into these three beliefs and you'll hear direcly from past participants who've achieved sustainable and lasting transformation with their relationship to food. Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Enjoying Food and Staying Balanced During the Holidays [Sisters in Sobriety Podcast] (288) | 19 Dec 2024 | 00:33:38 | |
Hey, Insatiable listeners. Today I’m sharing a conversation I had with Sonia and Kathleen for their podcast Sisters in Sobriety all about food, belonging, and self-awareness during the holiday season. In this episode, I answer big questions, like:
We also discuss actionable strategies for balancing blood sugar, managing holiday expectations, and identifying emotional triggers that lead to overeating. I hope this episode can be your a roadmap for mindful eating and resilience during this festive yet often challenging time. Happy holidays! Hear me on Sisters in Sobriety:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Food Freedom: Sugar Rehab [Best Of] (287) | 07 Nov 2024 | 00:52:29 | |
Ah, sugar…referred to as the sugar dragon, sugar siren, and sugar addiction. There are physical and emotional root causes and solutions of how to reduce sugar in your life. In this episode, we will discuss:
For more support, I recommend my self-study course Freedom from Cravings: https://alishapiro.com/freedom-from-cravings/ Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Beyond the Candy Bowl: My 3 Rules for Halloween (286) | 24 Oct 2024 | 00:24:43 | |
Happy Halloween season, dear Insatiable listeners! As we move toward this sweet-and-spooky holiday, I wanted to share how we approach candy in my household — before, during, and after trick-or-treating. In this episode, I'll explain the three flexible, biology-rooted rules that guide how I handle sweets for my almost five-year-old son, Eça. I also talk about how I approach candy for myself. Because it isn’t just for kids, and the idea that there’s food for kids and food for adults is just a marketing strategy. Tune in to hear about:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| How to Stop the Sugar-Anxiety Feedback Loop with Dr. Ellen Vora [Best Of] (285) | 10 Oct 2024 | 00:58:35 | |
Not eating the right foods for our unique bodies creates anxiety. This anxiety shows up as a felt sense of anxiety AND also “needing something more” to eat but not knowing what that is or a general feeling of being unsatisfied with what they just ate. To help us go into depth and teach us about this sugar-anxiety feedback loop, I’ve invited a holistic psychiatrist and my friend Dr. Ellen Vora onto the show. In this episode, we will discuss:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||
| Rethinking Menopause, Hormones and HRT with Kristin Johnson and Maria Claps of Wise and Well (284) | 26 Sep 2024 | 01:20:17 | |
I’ve shared on the show before that starting menopause radically changed my body. And we’ve talked about how hard it is to find smart, supportive, and true information about health, hormones, and HRT in midlife. But now there is finally a book that shares everything I wish I knew five years ago! And I’m thrilled to talk about it with the authors today. In this episode, I’m joined by Kristin Johnson and Maria Claps of Wise and Well, who wrote The Great Menopause Myth: The Truth on Mastering Midlife Hormonal Mayhem, Beating Uncomfortable Symptoms, and Aging to Thrive. We discuss:
More about our guests: Maria, an FDN practitioner, and Kristin, an NTP Board Certified in Holistic Nutrition, are plainspoken friends and practitioners who share a passion for women's health, especially women's health at midlife. They are the authors of the widely acclaimed book "The Great Menopause Myth", a comprehensive, science based, yet easy to read guide for women who want their best chances at healthy longevity. As both are themselves menopausal, they've refined the art and science of thriving as a midlife woman based on both clinical and personal experience. They combine individualized nutrition and lifestyle changes tailored to midlife women's needs with mindset coaching, lab testing and hormone replacement therapy education to help women thrive so that they can stop or prevent their health from spinning out of control. Connect with Kristin & Maria:
Find your Food Stage with Ali’s free assessment: Take the Food Stages assessment | |||