From Emotional Eating to Empowerment: Reinventing Your Relationship with Food

In this inspiring episode, host Emily Bron explores the art of turning life’s midlife chapters into new beginnings with guest Emma Murphy, founder of Eating Freely. Emma shares her personal journey of reinvention after 50 and provides valuable insights on addressing emotional and binge eating. They discuss how Emma’s groundbreaking program is transforming lives by helping people find balance and wellness, particularly in the 50-plus demographic. The conversation delves into the psychological and emotional aspects of eating, practical advice to improve relationship with food, and how to navigate midlife transitions effectively. Join us as we embrace the wisdom and opportunities that come with experience.

TIMESTAMPS:

02:50 Meet Emma Murphy: A Journey of Reinvention
03:57 The Emotional Toll of Disordered Eating
05:40 From Therapist to Trainer: Emma’s Transformation
08:15 The Impact of Midlife Changes on Eating Habits
10:41 The Unique Challenges of Emotional Eating
21:57 The Comprehensive Approach to Healing
27:29 Balancing Motherhood and Career Ambitions
29:17 Personal Health Journey and Menopause
30:28 Mission to Impact 1 Million Lives
31:22 Challenges in the Healthcare System
34:53 Practical Tips for Healthy Eating
39:18 Advice for Midlife Reinvention and Relocation
42:22 Myths About Emotional Eating
47:50 Stories of Transformation
51:31 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Emily Bron: Welcome to the age of reinvention, where we explore the art of turning midlife life’s chapters into the new beginnings. Whether you are seeking personal growth, lifestyle changes, or a complete career transformation, Our show is here to inspire and empower your journey. I’m your host, Emily Bron, and today it’s all about nourishment of the body, mind, and soul.

We delve into the heart of emotional eating and discover pathway to wellness and fulfillment beyond 50. In this episode, we will be joined by Emma Murphy, the founder of Eating Freely, a groundbreaking program that is changing lives by addressing emotional and binge eating. Emma will share her insights on finding balance pursuing a passion and reinventing our relationship with food at any age, especially after 50.

Let’s embrace the wisdom and opportunities that come with experience. Dear Emma, welcome to the show. I’m happy to meet you again and speak with you today.

Emma Murphy: I’m very happy to be here, Emily. Thank you for having me.

Emily Bron: Thank you. And I believe that many followers, listeners will benefit from the conversation because the topic that you are working on, it’s actually your professional life.

It’s very important for many people, for members of family, especially as we are living in time of tremendous changes which affect emotional state of people. And for many of our listeners, which are in their midlife or golden years, Looking to embrace the change. Could you share the personal story of when you reinvented yourself?

Emma Murphy: Sure. So I was coming up to my 50th birthday. I have to say I was perimenopausal as well at the time, which I suppose I didn’t realize until later. And I was feeling very frustrated in my work. So even though my work is very fulfilling and always has been as a therapist, working with clients, struggling with disordered eating when you work on your own and a lot of people would envy, a self employed working on your own, flexibility, people think that being a therapist or a coach is easy and, it gives you this lifestyle balance, but actually it’s pretty difficult because you have to do everything yourself.

And the area that I specialized in disordered eating is quite a heavy area. There’s a lot of trauma for the clients. So you’re carrying quite a heavy emotional load in your work. And also in therapy and particularly in Ireland, there’s very much a ceiling of what you can charge per session to clients.

It just is the way it is. So I was feeling very frustrated that I had been, over 12 years specializing in this area. My take home salary wasn’t really growing, which actually meant I was getting paid less, as inflation and other things affected me. And I was sitting in supervision one day with my supervisor and I was complaining about this.

I was saying, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m thinking of giving up therapy I, I just want to go and get a job that’s less stressful and that pays me better at this time of my life, I feel I should be further along. And he said, if you were working in a company if you’d stayed in the rehabilitation hospital, which is where I started, he said, where would you be now?

Because you would have been promoted. We get promoted. As we go along and when I realized where I would be, if I’d stayed in the hospital and what I’d be getting paid, I was shocked to realize how far behind that I was in my practice. And he said, as a solopreneur, you have to promote yourself, you have to give yourself a promotion.

So if you were going to promote yourself and move into a different role in your own work, what would it be? And he sent me away to think about that. So I realized that the one thing that I love and I always have loved to do and the one thing I love about therapy and coaching really is I love teaching.

I’ve always loved teaching. I’ve always loved sharing my knowledge with other people. And I decided I would train two of my colleagues in the program that I had developed for adults with autism. Longstanding emotional binge eating. They really enjoyed the training. They found the program very easy to follow.

And then they started seeing clients and they really loved seeing the results that the clients were getting. And so I started training more therapists here in Ireland. So I did that for about a year and a half. That was 2018 to just the end of 2019. 50, 51 years of age. And then, At the end of 2019, I was taking it a bit more seriously and I was realizing actually there’s a lot of practitioners out here who want this training.

So we were going to go to London for training and we were going to go to Australia to Brisbane to do a training in 2020. And of course COVID hit. So that was the end of that because we delivered our training online in person back in those days. But then I managed to get a small grant from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland who I’ve been involved with for over well over 10, 12 years now.

We put our first training online. It was very ugly, but it did what it was meant to do. And then we started getting attention from health professionals all around the world. And we have now trained over 300 health care professionals in 10 countries. We are the world’s leading network of emotional eating and binge eating disorder specialists.

And we’ve helped thousands of clients break free from emotional eating and binge eating. I don’t see clients myself anymore. I retired as a therapist in 2020. I run the business full time. I teach and train the practitioners. And in fact, I’m not even doing much of that anymore. Myself.

I have trainers now, and I actually, when I look back, I can’t believe what’s happened in my business in six years. It’s been an incredible, I’m 56 now, and I literally can’t believe what’s happened in the last six years. It’s been, it has been a total reinvention of what I do and how I spend every day at work.

Emily Bron: So you’re actually after 50, which is coincide with a COVID times pivoted and created new structure, new business new teaching facility, which benefit a lot of people. And I really commend you for this. Like it’s amazing. So transformation, reinvention and change, it’s not new for you because you’re living and breathing this.

So I believe from this position, you, even your teaching benefited and adapting to the change. It’s a topic which are very relevant today, and I believe will be relevant for years to come. And Emma, as someone who has worked extensively with emotional and binge eating disorders, how might these challenges of change and transformation uniquely affect individuals in the 50 plus demographic?

Particularly those undergoing significant life changes, like loss of work, reinvention, looking for the new role in midlife, looking for the life purpose, or relocation, which some of the people really need.

Emma Murphy: Yeah. So one of the key transition points in life that brings people into our service is actually turning 50.

We find that on the decade birthdays, the 40, the 50, and even the 60 people will come and finally look for specialist support. To resolve the relationship with food. Unfortunately, as Emily and every person listening, we have been in a very damaging and destructive toxic diet culture for many years.

People are being told that you need to be a certain size, that you need to fit into a certain body, that you need to look a certain way in order to succeed. And, to do well in life. That’s completely untrue. That’s a marketing message from, weight loss industry. And so a lot of women in particular will come in around the age of 50, because of course, with the body changes that we experienced, the hormonal changes, perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause um, even the yoyo dieting doesn’t work anymore.

The clients don’t even get the temporary weight loss that they used to get when they went on a quick starvation diet to lose a stone before their holiday or whatever it was. So you’ve got the menopause for women. It’s certainly that’s a big issue in midlife as well. For men, you would find a lot of men, maybe would be having heart issues or they might be experiencing type two diabetes.

So they are, later health issues. But of course, a lot of both men and women with any of those three issues or challenges may also have been emotionally eating or binge eating for a long time in secret and may not have ever been offered any specialist support for it. And even when they go for medical support around diabetes or heart disease, they will not be asked about the relationship with food from an emotional perspective.

So there’s a big gap in the treatment that people are getting. Our program, and when you talk about life changes and stages empty nest syndrome is a big one. We’re stepping into that at the minute. Our daughter is 18. She’s just left school. We’re all adjusting to this in our household.

Suddenly she’s an adult. She’s allowed to do what she wants. It’s a whole new level for us. And when the kids leave the house, that’s another big stage. And what I have found over the years, Emily, and a lot of our practitioners will talk about this too. A lot of people, Ignore problems in the relationship and they’re able to hide the problems in the relationship by focusing on the children.

So it’s all about the kids. It’s all about the children. It’s getting the kids through school, getting them through university, getting them. They’re driving tests, whatever it is, and then suddenly the kids are independent there. There may be in the house, but they’re no longer under your constant care, so to speak.

They’re adults or they’ve moved out and suddenly, a couple in their fifties are left looking at each other and going, yeah. What’s actually going on in this relationship. So that can be a very challenging time for people as well, looking at their relationship. But if you’ve also, again, struggled with, most eating or binge eating, usually that means that it’s not easy for you to share how you feel about things.

It’s not easy to talk to somebody else about what’s going on in your life. It’s, and it’s very hard to actually talk to your partner about what’s going on. So couples like that tend to need. Obviously help and support to decide if they’re going to actually work on it and try and stay together and rediscover each other.

Or if it’s better for them to part ways and, give each of them a chance at happiness in the second half of their life, maybe with somebody else, or maybe even in just on their own, that’s absolutely fine. But a large part of our program is not just helping people the relationship with food is important and that’s something that we have to focus on, but actually the much bigger picture is that our clients tend to be perfectionistic, higher achieving, all or nothing thinkers.

They’re either doing it all right or all wrong. They find it very difficult to share any vulnerability or what they would see as a weakness with other people. So they tend to be the person that everybody comes to in their life for help and support, but they find it very difficult to ask for help and support from friends or family members.

It’s very common for, as I say, midlife adults to have issues in the relationship and there, those issues may be longstanding. They may have been there for a long time. And you also then have the impact of trauma. So a lot of clients may have experienced something in their past, in their childhood, and that, that triggered their self soothing eating behavior or their self regulating eating.

So if you had, for example, a very common example would be Mary, a parent. Who had a mental illness or a parent who was an alcoholic, for example, they are two very common scenarios that we hear about as a child, it’s very difficult to to know how to cope with that, to understand what’s really going on in the house and what you learn to do, though, is, to put somebody else’s needs ahead of your own. So if somebody was a drinker and also maybe violent or unpredictable or chaotic, you’re very quickly going to learn to stay quiet, keep the peace, say nothing, don’t bother mom or dad, don’t burden mom or dad with my little problems. And you turn to food as your comfort blanket.

And that may never have been dealt with. That client may never have actually dealt with what their experience as a child. So that comes up again for a lot of people. At this time in their lives in their fifties, because of course, this is when our parents start passing away. And often the death of a parent brings up a lot of old issues for clients that they are then finally able to deal with because a lot of clients will not actually.

Try and deal with what happened in their family until one or both of their parents have passed away because it can feel disloyal to the family or feel like a betrayal of the family to talk about what went on in the family because of course in those families there was very often a rule of What happens in this house stays in this house and we don’t talk about it outside of the house.

So there’s a, there’s an awful lot of triggers for people to come in and look for help from us at around this time in their lives. And I can tell you, Emily, when I was in private practice, the most common age group for clients coming into me were between 45 and 60. That was by far the most common age group that I had as a client in my practice.

Emily Bron: And it’s not diabetic, so this kind of diseases. If they

Emma Murphy: have, if somebody has diabetes or a heart issue or something else, that’s usually partly to do with their unhelpful relationship with food. So maybe clients would have type 2 diabetes or gut issues or heart issues. But the emotional eating and the binge eating is the piece that I’m dealing with.

And when that’s dealt with, everything else changes and everything else usually improves. The client’s health will normally improve as a result of dealing with the psychological issue, which is the actual relationship with food.

Emily Bron: But I believe the program the process of therapy might be very long.

Yeah, I don’t know it’s one to one or group or in what format it’s coming, but, un dig and treat all old problems and to learn how to reinvent yourself. Under new circumstances, it’s very unique as well, probably. Yes,

Emma Murphy: so our program is very unique. I think we’re really, that’s why we are able to call ourselves the world’s leading network of specialists in this area.

It is unique and it’s, and it doesn’t take that long. Our program, normally you would work with a practitioner. Maybe for about six months, you’re going to do a lot of work during those six months. And then afterwards, you’re going to keep just tipping away at your work after that. No, you don’t stop.

You never stop doing the work you’re continually working on yourself, as we all are as people in the world. If you’re not growing, you’re dying, so to speak, but. If you’re, even if you’re trying to undo decades and most of our clients are trying to undo decades of faulty thinking and unhelpful eating and whatever it is.

It’s still six months is a really good time frame for us to be able to do a lot of good, deep work and for, to help the client. Unpack and disentangle everything and then they have a way forward. So there is a pathway forward and then you can go into what we would call maybe a maintenance program where you might just check in once a month.

You might just make sure that you’re staying on track or you may take a break and go back again just to see your practitioner every now and again. There are some clients, Emily, who might need long term therapy depending on the nature of the trauma or whatever happened in their past. That is true. But for most clients who are struggling with emotiating and binge eating disorder.

Even if there is trauma in the past, committing to just doing six months of work on yourself, if you’re looking at the context of another 30 or 40 years of healthy living, which I think we should all easily be able to make it to 90 nowadays six months is nothing. It’s nothing. And it’s going to, if it’s going to transform the second half of your life, surely that’s a worthwhile investment to make.

How

Emily Bron: you provide your training online? What, how it works in real life now?

Emma Murphy: So for practitioners, our training is all online. So healthcare professionals who want to train with us and be able to work with clients, that’s all online. However, for our clients then who see our practitioners. That can happen in person or online depending on where you’re based and if there’s somebody nearby or whether they offer in person or online support.

And we also offer we have an online group support program as well for adults. So some people would prefer to work in a group and to be part of a community and take it more slowly and just, have that support in their lives for a longer period of time. Where other people would prefer to just go one to one to a practitioner and get very specific information.

individual support for themselves. So we’ve tried to meet people where they’re at regardless of what sort of support that they want. So there are options. Great.

Emily Bron: And I believe like how affordable it, and I’m speaking about people from different countries where, the different budget or different standards even for therapy exists, how it’s taking into account.

Are you working only for English speaking countries or for people who speak English? Yes.

Emma Murphy: Interestingly, Emily, we have, we’ve one practitioner actually, who is originally from Iran. She lives in Turkey now, and she has translated our program entirely into Farsi and works almost exclusively with Iranian clients, expatriates usually.

But she works with them in Farsi and she has translated the program into Farsi for them. We have a German practitioner on our program at the moment. We have a native Italian speaker. We have the practitioners, our training is delivered through English, but our practitioners then can actually work with clients in whatever language the client speaks in their own country.

We also take into account. The financial differences in countries. So for example, I happen to have a very strong connection with South Africa. And my brother in law lives there. He’s lived there for 30 years since he emigrated from Ireland here 30 years ago. And so I felt very strongly about having practitioners in South Africa trained.

Now, the economic situation in South Africa is very different to here in Ireland. So our training for South African practitioners. The fee is adjusted down so that they can afford to do our training, and then they deliver the program at the fees that they would normally charge in their own country. So we don’t impose any minimum level of fee for clients or for practitioners.

It’s entirely up to the practitioner to decide what they should charge, Based on where they are and what client population that they’re working with. And we want to have more diversity in our program. We want to have more diverse cultures, more diverse backgrounds, more diverse ethnicities. So we’re very open to practitioners from other cultures joining our program.

And we actually have a scholarship program for that also, where one place on every training group is made available to a practitioner who is working with the disadvantaged community and wants to be able to offer that support to a different disadvantaged community. So we were doing as much as we can to make it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

Emily Bron: And I believe it’s wonderful and excellent initiative because from my perspective, I see more and more people will be relocating or already landed to the new kind of environment country and even, new food type and all the stresses which are connected with relocation and adaptation. We’ll bring issues and to have online source or to find somebody, I believe speaking local language or English, it’s a big deal.

And I believe this way you can really reach your Very ambitious goal to help one billion, one million people, maybe one million, one million anyway, yeah, but it will be progressing because with the changes happening in society and people being on the stress or change as a result of it, it’s it’s would be, it’s already needed as an error because many people are speaking or not speaking, but feeling stress and the relationship with food are not healthy.

And by the way, a lot of diet, a lot of different, I would say, a marketing, whatever campaign, and even doctors promoting this or as a discipline. So treatment, it’s very hard. To find and navigate and all this. By the way, I don’t know exactly how your doctors from your programs are working, I believe.

And you will tell, they include like CBD. Yes, what kind of therapies or what kind of treatments?

Emma Murphy: So the program is built around four pillars of intervention. So CBT, as you mentioned, cognitive behavior therapy, that’s really designed to help somebody get control over their emotion or binge eating sooner rather than later.

So they’re very practical tools that help reduce the episodes of emotion or binge eating. Let me look at, of course, nutritional rehabilitation, and there’s a lot of, there’s a lot in that where we just have to help people forget about all the food rules and all the competing messages that they have from all the different diets that they’ve tried over 20 or 30 years.

And really it’s like doing a factory reset on your brain and just saying, forget about all the food rules and just. Start again from scratch with just very simple, easy to follow, an eating plan for life is really what we want people to adopt as opposed to fad diets and doing a bit of this and a bit of that and getting on the wagon and falling off the wagon.

So that’s very important, but also the nutritional rehabilitation piece, that’s, that really contributes to. To getting people’s gut function back in order balancing hormones reducing cortisol, which is our stress hormone, increasing serotonin, which is our feel good hormone. So that’s going to help reduce anxiety and improve mood improve your sleep.

And then you have more energy. The brain fog lifts, and then you’re able to start doing the deeper work. So the deeper work then is the neuroscience, what’s going on in your mind, the autopilot, the fight or flight, the fear, all of that. We explain and unpack all of that for people. A lot of emotion eating and binge eating feels completely out of your control.

That’s one of the criteria for binge eating disorder. In, as part of the diagnosis is that you actually feel like you’re having an out of body experience that it happens out of your control. That’s very real, but you can actually learn what’s going on in your brain and take back control of it.

So that’s a really important part of the program. You do have the power to take back control. And then finally, the second half of the program does the deeper work. So that’s mindfulness and self compassion, but we’re going to look at the family of origin. We’re going to look at maybe the barriers to change the payoffs for not changing body image and all sorts of other sort of, the inner work that you’re going to have to do on yourself.

So it’s very comprehensive and it covers every aspect of emotional and binge eating from every different angle.

Emily Bron: Interesting. And lately I came across several actually big researchers and articles about connection between food and dementia. It’s new trend now. And it’s I believe if it can work at least to push away this disease that many people after 50 really afraid of, especially if they have some family members, genetic predisposition as they think. So are you addressing this one? What is your stance between like connection between food diet, as we say, and dementia or this kind of, group of disease.

Emma Murphy: So while we don’t focus specifically on dementia or we don’t actually focus specifically on any particular health issue, one of the things that I think is very important is that we all have a, we all have the power to make a choice at the age of 50 or at any age, really.

But really at this age, we have to make a conscious decision whether we are going to choose. to take action and age well or, continue what we’re doing and then run the risk of aging badly, which to me would include heart disease, type two diabetes, dementia, and all of those other things. So there are a lot of very simple protective factors.

And I think this is, that’s a really great question, Emily, because what it brings up is, If you can let go of weight loss as the goal, and that is the goal that so many people are attached to. I need to lose weight. I need to lose weight. A lot of what you’ve been told to do in order to lose weight is actually damaging.

Dieting is actually damaging to your health. It is dangerous for your health. You’re cutting out important foods, important food groups, particularly fat. We need good fat in our diet every day to protect our brains. Our brain is actually a big lump of fat. That is actually what it is. So we must eat good fats.

We must eat more protein as we get older. And again, you’re being told by some areas that, meat is bad and red meat is bad and protein is, you should be eating more vegetables and less protein. That’s not true for somebody who’s older. We actually need more protein to keep our bones healthy, to keep our brains healthy.

And then we also need to exercise, but we need to be exercising for again, our bone density for our flexibility. It’s not about running 10 miles or, being on the treadmill in the gym for two hours a day. Actually, we need to be lifting weights. We need to be walking. We need to be swimming. And so there’s a lot of things that actually In our lifestyle that we can change that are actually easier for us to do as maybe, somebody who’s a bit older, but actually provide a lot of protective factors against those diseases that we see people developing in the second half of their lives and Alzheimer’s and dementia will be included in that.

Very interesting.

Emily Bron: Tell me, please do you feel yourselves that your professional and personal pivot after 50 influenced your personal growth? How did you change over the years that you started this new program activity?

Emma Murphy: Yeah, I think it’s, so this is a really interesting one. Like many women who has, who have children and I have one child and three pets and a husband.

I’ve got various different, beings that I have to look after in my life every day. I wanted to be a good mother and I wanted to be there for my daughter. And that meant that I put my own ambition on my career on the back burner to an extent. And I suppose when I turned 50, then I started realizing maybe the potential that my business had as a training organization and helping other professionals do better work.

And we support our professionals in many different ways. It’s not just around teaching them how to work with emotion, binge eating. But as you mentioned earlier on, Emily, a lot of what I learned how to do for myself, We teach other practitioners to do, because it is difficult to be in business on your own as a health coach or a psycho, a psychologist or a therapist or a nutritionist.

And so we give them a lot of business support as well. And I’m able to share all of the things that I learned in order to build my business to what it is. And so I really do love sharing with other people, but it also made me realize that I have a lot more. Capacity within me than I was ever really able to recognize in myself, when I was younger, I grew up in the, sorry, I was born in the 60s.

I, went to high school in the 80s in Ireland, where really, when I left school, it was quite unusual for a girl to go to college. In Ireland, that was still unusual. We had to pay to go to college and so only people who could afford to send their children to college could go to college. I was lucky.

We were able to afford to send me to college. My family sent me to college, but a lot of career guidance around that time would have been you can become a nurse, a teacher, I don’t know. A band garden, which is a female police officer or a secretary. And that was really about it. That was, there was no ambition for you to become, the CEO of a global organization or, to go into anything, fancy.

So I suppose it, it took a while for me to realize that actually. I could do anything like I’m here now and I’m 50 and I’m fit and I’m healthy. I didn’t feel very fit and healthy coming up to 50 with the menopause that took a lot out of me. I will be honest, but I went and I got help and support. So I went to somebody and I got help and support with the menopause and I was given some good guidance.

I made some lifestyle changes. I made a conscious choice that I was not going to live like that. And I put the changes in place and they were hard but I want to live a long life and I want to live a happy life and I want to sleep seven hours every night. So that I can get up and do my work.

So that’s what motivates me to look after myself in, in, in my, in my fifties. Because I want to wake up every day feeling energized and feeling ready to hit the computer and, do what I need to do. Yeah, it, there was a bit of an awakening for me around that time where it’s, the sky is actually the limit and I’m still young and I can do whatever I want to do.

And as I say, I look back now and I go, wow, I actually have built the world’s leading network of motion bigies and specials, but I only feel like I’m starting now. I’m only starting now. I’m only getting started.

Emily Bron: Absolutely. You have 30 plus years. No, of active life, if you’re healthy, full of experience, gaining new knowledge and experiences, and you feel able to do it.

And actually, my question, you have this mission to impact one million lives with this ambitious goal. How do you plan to specifically address this need? How are you going to do it? If

Emma Murphy: it’s not secret we keep training professionals we’re getting more professionals onto our training. Every time we run a training group, we have what we now have where we would have started off struggling to get 10 professionals onto one training group.

And we only take 10, a maximum of 10 people on each training group because we want to make sure everybody gets a really personalized training. Support and experience. We’ve gone from struggling to fill 10 places to now. We’ve just launched our September training and we have three groups running simultaneously.

Our numbers improve every time. But the real area that we’re focusing on targeting now is training healthcare professionals. who are working with adults with type two diabetes or heart disease. And really it’s going into a B2B. So business to business model, where we would actually go in and train teams who are working in healthcare organizations.

And I think that’s going to bring us to a place where we can really make big impact. Because if you train a team in a large hospital, They’re going to be able to touch a lot more lives than one individual practitioner working, on their own, one person at a time or in small groups. So that’s how we hope to do it, to get into, to integrate specialist support for motion binge eating into every area of weight related health and make sure that anybody who is struggling with the relationship with food, their weight, or their body image is getting that support as part of their.

medical health care journey.

Emily Bron: So if I understand correctly, you are working together, or you’re trying to connect with team of professionals like family doctors psychiatry, psychologists, nutritionists. Who’s this group of professionals,

Emma Murphy: so mainly practice diabetes educators in particular, and organizations, hospitals and healthcare settings who are providing support to adults with type 2 diabetes or with heart disease.

They would be our two main categories, but there are other areas of healthcare as well that are impacted. If you think of any area of health that has a connection to higher weight, we don’t like to use the word obesity anymore. We were trying to, that’s quite a stigmatizing word for people and it’s not a very nice word.

If you’re in a larger body or you have, higher weight, that’s absolutely fine. You may be struggling with healthcare issue as a result. And again it’s, it might be orthopedic. You may need to get a new knee or a new hip. It could be heart disease. You may have had to get a stent or you may be, your doctor may have said that you’re at risk of a heart attack.

Or as I say, you may have developed type two diabetes and type two diabetes is on such an increasing trajectory right now because of the levels of higher weight across the Western world. This is to do with the poor diet. And the low quality of food that has been pushed at us by big food. And, then the pharmaceutical industry just wants you to take a medication, but they’re not doing the inner work, the psychological work that’s needed for that mind shift to happen, that you’re able to let go of food as your source of comfort.

So there’s a lot of work for us to do to educate the medical community. around the importance of integrating psychological support into the health care pathway so that people are getting a truly holistic support when they enter into the doors of a hospital or health care setting.

Emily Bron: It’s very hard for people to get out of this meal of, food that we’re buying from our grocery stores.

Not everyone is in able to grow your own farm or fruit and vegetables. For some people it’s even impossible and even I tried to do. It’s not enough. It’s somewhere like small Peace. How what you would recommend and not all people are able actually to buy food in organic stores, which not always 100 percent organic.

But what, how to find this, balance in real life even, this understanding and we are following kind of our food. We are coming from Eastern Europe. We were very surprised. When we came, like how different and without even knowledge of processed food and all this and we try to prepare all our food at home.

But I understand it’s not so easy. And again, you buy products, produce. Whatever you, it’s available in your store. What to do in this regard?

Emma Murphy: Yeah. Emily, we always talk about the gold standard, and not expecting people to live to a gold standard. Of course, we’d all love to be able to shop in Whole Foods every day and buy organic everything and, spend all the money on organic food.

I don’t buy all organic food. I couldn’t afford to buy all organic food. That’s just unrealistic. But it is just about making as many small changes as you can and just choosing to eat unprocessed fresh food as much as possible over something that has been processed or is in a package or has a label.

And the rules around food have actually not changed. It can feel very confusing out there. With all of the messages around keto and paleo and low GI and low and FODMAP and, whole food and whole 360 and blah, blah, so many different diet names, but actually the rules have not changed.

We eat fresh. where possible, fresh and unprocessed meat and vegetables and have some good fat in our diet. That’s, extra virgin olive oil. It’s maybe an avocado. It’s maybe some nuts. It’s, you only need a small amount, but you do just need to have those good fats in your diet. And it’s just making small, Changes if you can’t afford to buy everything from scratch and make all your own food from scratch.

That’s fine. But there could be a deli down the road where they sell high quality ready prepared meals. That’s a better choice than a takeaway. We talk, I talk about this all the time. I buy ready prepared meals from a place called Avoca here in Ireland. It’s just up the road from where I live.

And maybe it’s 13 euro. For a portion for two people. So that’s myself and my husband, been able to eat for 13 euro. A takeaway for the two of us costs 25 euro. I’ve worked it out, so if I go to the Indian takeaway on a Friday night for takeaway, it costs twice. What a home cooked. Ready prepared meal costs, so there are small changes that people can make buying a high quality ready made soup, buying a a freshly made smoothie or juice, just little small changes wherever you can just swap out a processed product for something that’s a little bit nearer to what it looked like in nature.

Emily Bron: Absolutely agree. And cook it yourself, find the joy and even inspiration in cooking and creating your own recipe.

Emma Murphy: And that can be hard too, Emily, by the way, and I’m glad you said that because, and we again totally understand that some people actually can’t cook. And that’s fine because again, the changes in our society so schools don’t teach home economics as a standard subject anymore.

We’re not taught how to cook in school the way we would have been, back I was taught how to cook in school. My, my mother actually had to go, my mother went and did a cookery course when she got married so that she’d be able to cook for my dad because in the, whenever they got married, the sixties but a lot of people can’t cook.

A lot of food is designed to be convenient, but you can assemble ingredients and make a meal that way. So what I would say to people who are just wanting to make small changes, as I said, just start maybe swapping out, buying a high quality, soup or smoothie or juice or a ready made meal, of a good quality, that’s a start.

The next step might be thinking about getting something like a crock pot or a slow cooker. And then honestly, Go on to Pinterest and look up crockpot and slow cooker recipes and literally it is a matter of assembling ingredients. You have to do very little, just put the stuff into the crockpot, put it on a timer plug and let it come on while you’re at work or going out about your day.

You come home and there’s a meal made. And that’s, if you only did that once a week to replace maybe a takeaway or a processed meal that’s a change. And that’s a change for the better. And you just slowly and incrementally build up over time. I, there is no quick fix here and there’s no point in saying to somebody you need to start from scratch and change everything and do this and do that and breakfast and lunch and dinner and snacks, blah, blah, blah.

That’s the gold standard plan. And your average person is going to be completely overwhelmed. If you try and make that happen, but start just with breakfasts, what can you do at breakfast time? That’s just a little change that would make your breakfast that little bit healthier and less processed and just start there.

Emily Bron: Very practical. And yes, thank you very much for all these advices. And still reinvention and relocation in midlife might be uncertain and stressful. What advice do you have for our listeners? looking to scale their passions or business ideas into impactful ventures or to relocate in this stage of life, after 50.

Emma Murphy: So there’s two completely different questions there. First of all, the business on the business side, I would say, you may have ambitions, big global ambitions. And, I didn’t start with having big global ambitions. I realized that I had the potential to, to go global with what I do, over time, but it’s starting small.

So whatever you’re doing right now, if you feel that you can pivot into something different, if you can repackage it in some way, if you can start as a side hustle, I started with a side hustle. I was training therapists on the side. While I was still working as a therapist in my practice, and it was only after three years of doing that, that I then decided to step into it full time.

So I was three years doing it as a side hustle, building it up slowly, learning, changing, tweaking, the second thing is to invest in support and help. I did invest in my business and I invested in myself. I spent money with other people who were ahead of me. I did marketing programs. I did a whole program on licensing a program.

So my program is a lot. You can become a licensed eating freely practitioner, and that gives you the permission that I get. We give you permission to use the eating freely program and resources. But I invested in working with a mentor who taught me how to do that and turn it into a licensing program and all of the ins and outs of that.

There’s legal and, insurance and all sorts of different things. So be prepared to invest in yourself, but don’t spend too much money too soon on the wrong thing. I would be very careful. Do your research before you spend any big money on anything and just step by step. It’s not going to happen overnight, but You will realize over time that you have really moved a long way.

So I have a vision board sitting in front of me, Emily. You can’t see it, but I’m looking at it right now because I keep it on my wall and I absolutely live and breathe by this. And I know it’s true because it’s happened so many times in my life. We always. overestimate what we can achieve in a short time, but we underestimate what we can achieve in a long time.

So it’s starting slowly and doing it step by step. That’s what’s going to get you where you need to go with regard to relocation, actually. And I know that’s obviously your area. And you and I spoke years ago about the fact that myself and my husband were thinking of relocating to Malta. We are still looking to relocate.

We are still looking to retire abroad outside of Ireland. But again, I would say the same thing. Thank you. Start now doing your research, just looking at your possibilities, looking at your choices speak to people, maybe pay people like you, Emily, to help them, do the research and get the information that they need the latest updates on, should I go to this country or that country?

And again, just start small and maybe, in terms of relocation, starting small, it’s just going on a couple of holidays to the places that you think you want to move to just to get a taste of what it’s like. And then when you do move, I would say, and I have lived abroad several times in my life.

I’ve lived in different countries. I lived in the middle East back in the nineties. It was there during the Gulf war. That was fun. And I, I’ve traveled to New Zealand. I’ve traveled to Australia. I’ve traveled all around the world and I lived in the UK and I lived in the U S I’ve been around For me, one of the most important things to do is obviously, you do want to immerse yourself in the local culture, the local language and meet local people, but actually one of the best things that you can do is try and get plugged into your expatriate community of other people from where you’re from.

So I, the first thing I would be doing is looking for the Irish club or the Irish rugby team or the Irish foot soccer or whoever it is, the Irish something or other in, and there is, there’s an Irish community in every country or the Irish club. Now the only thing is, there’s a lot of fake Irish pubs that aren’t real Irish pubs.

I’d be looking for the real Irish pub, but I would be looking for my Irish community in, in, in where I am, because that’s going to help me. And then you’ll meet people who’ve done it and have been there longer than you, and we’ll be able to give you that advice. So I’m a great believer in community and collaboration.

So that’s where I come from all of the time. And the same with our network of practitioners. Yes, I am the leader. I’m the chief executive, but we’re very collaborative network and we, a lot of our practitioners, I trained them and now they are my trainers and now they’re working with me to help co develop new trainings.

So community is so important and being a part of a group who are there to support you and lift you up. The high tide lifts all the boats and that’s always been another favorite saying of mine, you’ll get a lot further with other people than you ever will on your own. So don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help.

Yeah. But also as our perfectionistic high achieving all or nothing, clients will always try and do 10, 000 things all at the one time, start small, one step at a time, and you will get there.

Emily Bron: You like, took my speech as a topic. Thank you. The same point, but coming back to your area of expertise there are many myths, about emotional eating.

What are the specific misconceptions you’ve encountered that our demographic after 50 should be aware of as they work towards a healthier life? better lifestyle.

Emma Murphy: So the first one, and I’ve said it already, is you have to let go of weight loss as the goal. Weight loss is not the goal. Weight loss is actually going to bring you down a bad path in terms of health and longevity.

So really at our age, weight is not your issue. If you’re doing the right things and you’re focusing on healthy exercise, bone density exercise, weight lifting, walking, swimming, as I said, the activities that work for our bodies at our age your body will change. It will change, but when you’re focusing on weight loss and cutting out food groups, that’s, you’re only going to do damage to yourself.

So you have to we talk about the free, the three Fs all the time feed yourself properly, forgive yourself quickly because of that critical inner voice and that perfectionistic mindset and then focus on health and wellbeing, not weight loss as the goal. And that’s really important. The second myth that I see is that.

If you are a longstanding emotional eater or binge eater, it is not about willpower. So it is not that you are weak or that you have no willpower. It has nothing to do with willpower. Emotional eating is a coping strategy. It is a safety mechanism that your brain learned, worked to calm you down at periods of high stress.

So if I can just explain, Emily, when you’re binge eating, if somebody’s binge eating or emotional eating, they are not binge eating on purpose. What is the difference, by the way, what is the difference? It’s just on a spectrum. We all emotionally eat. Everybody emotionally eats. We eat when we’re happy, we eat when we’re sad.

And in society, we celebrate and commiserate with food and, so there’s a very strong connection between food and our feelings. We all emotionally eat. The difference between maybe emotionally eating and binge eating can be like, if I go downstairs tonight and I decide, okay, yes, I’ve got a really nice dinner.

They are ready to be made in the fridge, but actually I’m going to have a takeaway and then I’m going to have a bar of chocolate and then I’m going to have a glass of wine. That is emotionally eating because I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling tired and cranky, and I can’t be bothered to cook. The difference between emotion eating and binge eating is yes, I may not feel great physically after it, but I can usually get up the next day, draw a line under it, and just move on and not feel, I’m not going to be disgusted with myself.

I’m not gonna feel remorse and guilt and shame, like very deep, nasty emotions with binge eating disorder. One key thing about binge eating disorder is that you often have that out of control experience or like an out of body experience when it’s happening. That is one of the criteria and one of the other, and you’re normally doing it in secret.

It’s, it’s a secret. Nobody knows about it. Eating on your own. Eating while you’re hiding in a room, eating while you’re in your car and nobody else knows about it. So again, if I’m emotionally eating my takeaway in my bar of chocolate, I’m doing it on the sofa with my family. I’m not hiding it.

And then the third criteria that’s very important for binge eating disorder is people really do feel very strong feelings of disgust, shame, anger, guilt, and sometimes even self hatred. So they are the emotions, but those emotions. Aren’t always connected to what just happened in terms of what they ate.

They’re very often connected back to an old trauma. The eating triggers the old feelings that are connected to the trauma. So that’s why our program works on separating food from feelings, but we also need to separate the past from the present. Which then leaves the person free to move on with their life.

So the the third myth, let me see. So there’s weight loss, let go of weight loss. Willpower is not the problem. It is not that you have no willpower. Your brain is hijacking you all day long. You might consciously want to stop this with all your heart. But if you do not get special support like our program to help you understand the autopilot and break that autopilot and break that safety mechanism that your brain internalized a long time ago as an autopilot, nothing is going to help.

And then the third one is to really understand the importance of self care. So a lot of our clients, again, putting other people ahead of themselves, being perfectionistic and holding themselves very high standards. They find it very hard to be self compassionate or to engage in proper self care. And actually for us, you really have to be able to Fully and authentically understand that treating yourself better in your mind, the way you talk to yourself and how you look after yourself will lead you to eat better.

Better. As long as you’re constantly criticizing yourself in your mind, always striving for perfection and then failing because perfection doesn’t exist, you’re going to stay stuck in that cycle of emotion eating and binge eating to cope with your feeling of failure. So being able to offer yourself self compassion and for it to be okay for you not to be perfect and to really like or even love yourself enough.

to nourish instead of punish yourself with food. That’s actually where the real magic happens in our program. That’s where transformation happens.

Emily Bron: Thank you very much. Thank you. Lastly we all love stories of transformation in the age of reinvention specifically without naming names. Could you share a story of someone into the 50 plus age group who has successfully transformed the relationship with food thanks to your Eating Freely company?

Emma Murphy: Yeah. So we, I can give you two stories actually. So I had a client who came in to me at 60 years of age. She had been an emotional eater all her life. She had experienced trauma in her past. Her father was an alcoholic and there had been violence in the home. And, she’d had a hard upbringing with a large Catholic family in Ireland in poverty.

All of ticked all of the trauma boxes, really. And I worked with she was a client of mine and I worked with her individually. And she’s still in contact today on social media and, drops me a line every now and again. Her entire life changed as a result of doing our program. She was able to let go of all of the guilt and shame that she felt about her past.

She was able to fully let go of emotional eating and embrace just living for herself and living healthily. Her marriage broke up, but that was by her choice. She had been in a bad marriage. And again, I’ve spoken about relationships already on this podcast. It’s very interesting. If you grow up in a dysfunctional household, you’re far more likely to enter into a dysfunctional marriage because, We stick to what we know and so by addressing the trauma in your past, that may also mean that you have to release yourself from certain situations in the present.

And in this case, this client, it was the right thing for her. It was a choice that she made to leave her marriage and she has literally never looked back and she must be, I’d say she might be 68 maybe by now and she is the healthiest, fittest version of herself I have ever seen. She moved counties. She completely just reinvented herself and started a new life and she will say that it was as a result of doing the program with me.

That’s what she would say. I’ll also say that currently I’m aware that one of our practitioners is working with a client who is, I want to say she’s 76, but she’s in her 70s. She is a well known psychologist. So in our area and yet has never actually had the courage to do the deep work that needs, that’s needed to be done on her relationship with food.

But she’s doing it now. And it’s going very well for herself and her practitioner. That’s literally I just had a call with that practitioner last week and we discussed that client as part of a supervision call. And yeah, it’s never too late, Emily. And that’s the most important thing.

She’s not the oldest client we’ve ever had. We’ve one other client who was older when she came forward for help for the first time. And actually that was during COVID and she was 78. And she had never spoken to anybody about her unhelpful relationship with food before that. But COVID. Finally, she was locked in her house, she couldn’t get out, she couldn’t contact anybody.

And that was when she finally went online and found us and paired her up with a practitioner and she did the work.

Emily Bron: It’s very inspiring. It’s never too late to get rid of some things that get you bad. And actually to start your healthy new life and enjoy the life and look around with different outlook actually.

Yes, very inspiring. Thank you very much for your insights. Which abound to inspire and guide our listeners, Emma, and I believe some of them might even connect with you. And I’ll include link to your company and I’m always happy to promote my guests, meaning to help my listeners connect with connecting them when they needed and to have this repository of professionals, which actually my second season is about to introduce.

Different kind of professionals who are guides and coaches for the life of people after 50. Thanks a lot for bringing your wealth of knowledge to our community. And I’m personally was enjoying our conversation. Thank you, Emma.

Emma Murphy: I really appreciate it, Emily. for having me. Thank you.

Emily Bron: What an enlightening conversation with Emma Murphy today. Thank you for joining us and sharing such powerful guidance on nourishing ourselves more profoundly. We hope today’s talk inspired you and provided valuable information, sparkling your desire for healthy lifestyle, life balance, and personal reinvention.

Remember, there is always time to rewrite your story, and there’s no time like the present to embrace a healthy lifestyle. and embark on a transformation journey. To learn more about Emma and the Eating Freely program, check out our show notes for details and links. For more stories like Emma’s, keep tuning in to the Age of Reinvention.

This is Emily Braun reminding you that every moment is an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Until next time, stay curious, be brave, and continue to write your extraordinary story.

Emma Murphy

CEO Eating Freely – Trainers and Service Providers in Emotional Eating & Binge Eating Disorder I Healthcare Partners

Emma Murphy is a leading expert in Emotional and Binge Eating Disorder and the creator of Eating Freely™, an evidence-based program designed to help individuals break free from long-standing emotional eating patterns. Since launching her award-winning online program in 2011, Emma has helped clients worldwide transform their relationship with food.

In 2016, she expanded her impact by developing a CEU/CPD-approved training program, equipping health professionals to specialize in emotional eating and binge eating disorder. Today, Eating Freely™ is a global specialist network, offering training and licensing opportunities in the UK, USA, Australia, and Canada.

With a mission to impact 1 million lives in the next three years, Emma is dedicated to bridging the gap in mental health, weight management, and medical fields by empowering professionals with the tools to support those struggling with binge eating disorder.

In this podcast episode, we explore emotional eating and its impact on wellness and fulfillment beyond 50. Joining us is Emma Murphy, the founder of Eating Freely, a pioneering program that addresses emotional and binge eating. Emma shares her personal journey, a compelling narrative of transformation and balance. Having achieved significant professional success after 50, she demonstrates how change and reinvention can lead to a healthier relationship with food and a more fulfilling life.

Emma Murphy’s Story of Reinvention

Emma candidly recounts reaching a critical point as she approaches her 50th birthday. Despite a successful career as a therapist specializing in disordered eating, she faced professional and personal frustrations. Emma’s transformative journey began after a pivotal discussion with her supervisor, which led her to realize her passion for teaching. Overcoming challenges and the unforeseen events of COVID-19, Emma shifted her business to an online model, expanding her impact globally. Her story is a testament to how one can significantly pivot and reinvent one’s professional endeavors at any stage in life.

The Impact of Change on Mental and Physical Health

Changes such as emotional eating, menopause, and midlife transitions are significant for individuals over 50. The challenges associated with these changes can affect one’s emotional state and relationship with food. Emma’s insights emphasize the potential for positive transformation, even amidst trying circumstances. She highlights the importance of addressing underlying emotional issues and provides strategies to overcome them and thrive.

Emma Murphy’s Eating Freely Program

The Eating Freely program is founded on four pillars: cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), nutritional rehabilitation, mental wellness, and mindfulness. These pillars aim to help individuals resolve their relationship with food by addressing emotional and binge eating from multiple angles. The program leverages simple, profound lifestyle changes that provide protection against conditions like heart disease and dementia, emphasizing the importance of letting go of weight loss goals and focusing instead on overall well-being.

Bridging the Gap in Healthcare

Emma’s ambition is to train more healthcare professionals to offer comprehensive support for emotional eating. By integrating specialist support into the existing healthcare framework, particularly in treating conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, Emma’s team can extend their reach and make a broader impact.

Embracing Life’s Second Half

Reinvention and relocation in midlife can be daunting but are also growth opportunities. Emma advises those looking to scale their passions or transform their lives to start small and remain patient, invest in themselves, and seek community support to lift and support their journey.

Conclusion: Never Too Late to Transform

Emma’s stories of clients who have successfully transformed their relationships with food illustrate that it’s never too late to seek help and improve one’s life. Whether starting at 50 or 70, these transformations prove that significant personal growth and wellness are attainable with the proper support and mindset.

Emma Murphy’s work with Eating Freely inspires a holistic approach to life after 50, where individuals are empowered to reinvent themselves, turning challenges into new opportunities for growth, wellness, and fulfillment.

In the modern age, reinvention has become essential, especially as we explore the opportunities that arise with time. This is particularly meaningful for those in their midlife years, embarking on new beginnings in personal growth, career transformation, and lifestyle changes. Our exploration today delves into the art of turning life’s chapters into exciting new ventures focused on the holistic nourishment of the body, mind, and soul.