#74: Root Causes of Sugar Addiction with Danielle Daem

Danielle Daem is a Certified Holistic Nutrition Coach, Sugar Freedom Expert, and Somatic Embodiment Coach with a deep passion for helping women ditch the shame and guilt around food while stepping fully into their power so sugar cravings no longer rule them. She hosts the Beyond Sugar Freedom Podcast, focused on helping women dive deep into the root causes and healing their relationship with food/sugar from the inside out.
This interview with Dani was enlightening and so much fun! We talk about what inspired her to become a sugar freedom expert and the root causes of sugar addiction. We dive into topics such as self-confidence,  what we believe about ourselves, and how to heal our bodies through internal work. I loved this interview and I hope you do too! Enjoy!

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Transcript

Roni: [00:00:00] to the Plan to Eat podcast. Where I interview industry experts about meal planning, food and wellness. To help you answer the question. What's for dinner. 

Hello. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the Plan to Eat Podcast today. I have Danielle Daem with me on the podcast. She is a certified holistic nutrition coach and a sugar freedom expert, as well as a somatic embodiment coach. And she has a deep passion for helping women ditch their shame and guilt that they experience around food 

We had a absolutely wonderful conversation today. I'm really excited for you to listen to this interview. We talk a lot about these deep kind of internal reasons why we might experience issues with food and sugar, such as sugar addiction, um, or just kind of dependencies.

And Dani is incredibly [00:01:00] knowledgeable. She has so much to share. And I, I got a lot from this conversation and

she shares more about these root causes of, sugar addiction, food addiction, and some of the ways that, uh, we can learn to heal from that. And unfortunately it's not super simple and easy, but, she is very encouraging to let everybody know that it is. Absolutely possible. And that they're actually really beautiful things on the other side of, you know, working through some of these internal issues that we might have that, cause different eating patterns that we might have.

So let's get into the episode. I hope you enjoy. I really loved this interview.

Hi, Danny. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

Dani: Hey, Roni, thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited for our conversation.

Roni: Yeah, me too. Let's get started by having you, just say who you are and what you do.

Dani: Yeah. Hello everybody listening. Um, my name is Dani. I am a sugar freedom expert and a somatic embodiment coach. And what that essentially means is that [00:02:00] I help women step fully into and uncovering and healing the root causes that are keeping them in the binging addictive patterns with food so that they can create this life of.

Peace and freedom and ultimately what we all want, you know, to make eating healthy, effortless, which I know so many of you obviously listen to this podcast, use meal planning to help with that, which is a powerful tool, but it's just one of many things that we need to really uncover and heal and create a lasting, healthy relationship with food.

Roni: That's great. I love it. Uh, I have things that I want to go into related to that, but first I'm interested to know how you, how'd you get started doing this?

Dani: Yeah, totally. Okay, so I'll keep this as short as I can because it's a it's a long story right and it really starts in childhood for me and for all of us when I look back at sort of my relationship with sugar my relationship essentially with processed food. I mean they kind of go hand in hand most processed food is sugar.

And, you know, I grew up in a pretty regular nuclear home but sugar was always a big part of it right we [00:03:00] finished dinner with. treats. I got rewarded with treats. Like I've always had a big sweet tooth and nobody knew that it was a problem. My mom didn't know it was a problem. Like we didn't know it was a problem until now we know it's a problem.

Um, and I went on to a university and then onto my career actually Finance industry. And that was really the point those two years that I worked at one of the biggest banks here in Canada were really when I look back now my rock bottom when it comes to my addictive patterns and my emotional eating and my binge eating because I was miserable.

Absolutely miserable. And this is where, you know, I can look back and see what was going on at the surface for me that I was using food to cope and escape and numb out of this horrible existence and job that I was, I was in. And that was really a catalyst both my husband and I were were quite miserable at our jobs and we took the first of many leaps of faith and we just said there's more to life and we actually quit our jobs and went and traveled South America for a year.

And that was a journey that not only helped me connect to. my [00:04:00] spirituality and learn to meditate and learned all these really cool things, but it really helped me understand how backwards our relationship with food here is in North America. And, you know, it's shocking to see people cooking their own meals.

Like, what do you mean you're not getting takeout or like a, you know, taking big pizza from the store? Like why you're going to the market and buying fresh produce and then you're cooking it? Like, are you weird? And just being around that, like seeing how people were connected with their food was huge.

But None of that really clicked for me until the end of our trip. Well, we were actually eating like junk the whole time. We're, you know, backpacking on a shoestring. We were fresh out, you know, almost out of a couple of years out of university. Uh, didn't have a lot of money and we're just eating junk. You know, we're eating cheap.

We're eating what we can access. There's a lot of potatoes in the Andes mountains in Peru. We're eating a lot of carbs and a lot of cakes and cookies and things that could come with us on long, long bus rides and not go bad. So. Almost towards the end of that trip, around the nine month mark, my body started like craving vegetables like I've never craved in my [00:05:00] life.

And that was the first time I've actually experienced that. So we, we've switched our plan and started eating at places that we could, or staying at hostels and places that we had a kitchen and we could cook for ourselves. But that was really the start of like my body talking to me about like, Hey, we need nutrients, right?

Hey, you're not actually feeding me good food. And to make a really long story short, the very end of that trip, we actually ended up living completely off the land at a yoga center in the middle of the Colombian jungle. Like literally the middle, we had to hike in three hours to get there. No electricity, no like raw living.

And we like harvested all of our own food from the land, mostly, um, cooked all her own meals. And that was where I went through my accidental sugar detox. That was the first time in my life. It was about two weeks or just under two weeks. That I haven't had access to processed food, and I haven't been eating it every day.

And that was so eye opening for me. I remember my body, like, I didn't know what was happening at the time. It was like weeks later that I figured out that that's what happened. Because I had no reference for like, what is happening? I just thought I was sick, [00:06:00] or something going on. I remember waking up in the middle of the night being really hungry, even though I'd eaten lots of food.

I was really tired. Um, I had headaches. I had like, issues with my digestive system. Um, and I remember my body was just like, out of sorts. Right for and I know now that those were the withdrawal symptoms from crappy food that I was eating. Um, so a couple of weeks after that coming home to Canada, that really woke my husband and I both woke up to how much processed food had always been calling to us.

And like our cravings have been driving our decisions around food. And I started really putting two and two together in my brain that my mom has been addicted to sugar her whole life. And I am now I am addicted to it. It controls me. Like it was this control dynamic that I became really I don't know if you're aware of because when I've been off of it for two weeks, I didn't really need a cookie anymore.

Like my cravings had changed and that, that change in my body and in my palate and my mouth, my cravings really woke me up to how [00:07:00] much I was out of control with what I was eating and how what I was eating was going to slowly kill me. And, you know, I say that kind of dramatically, but, uh, my, both my, Um, mom and father side of my family are riddled with every chronic disease.

Um, my mom is still to this day quite like obese and unhealthy and you know, I don't have any grandparents anymore. They've all died from cancer and heart disease and heart attacks and all the things that I'm genetically predisposed to diabetes, Alzheimer's, like all the stuff. So I really like started putting that together and understanding that the way that I'm eating Will either contribute to me getting all of those diseases or, or not.

And that was a big catalyst for me and wanting to take control back of my health and my life so I can live as long and healthy and vibrant as I can. I want to be hiking and traveling when I'm 90. And I really just, you know, really connected with that and knowing that what I put in my body is going to be one of the biggest factors in, in, you know, [00:08:00] deciding which fork I take in that road.

So that's. The quick version.

Roni: I love the story. I love that there. It was this big transformational period for you. That's like exciting to hear about. Like, I'm excited listening to your story. I'm curious what you define as like eating a lot of sugar and being addicted to sugar, because I can just, I'm just even thinking of myself and my own eating habits.

And I'm like, am I addicted to sugar? Like what qualifies I'm eating like a normal average individual and what qualifies I'm addicted to sugar or are they the same thing?

Dani: Yeah, such a good question. So first of all, eating like a normal average human being is. The last thing that you want to do because the average normal human being is overdosing on Coca Cola and sugar and processed food and making themselves sick. I mean, look at the world around us, right? We're not eating healthy.

So we don't want to be average. I do not want to be eating like the standard American diet and being one of those average people. But yes, that's a good question. So there's a [00:09:00] lot of different definitions of addiction in general. So taking the word sugar out of it, really understanding that any addictive pattern is engaging in either a behavior or ingesting a substance that we know is harming us, but we can't seem to stop.

So even though there might be negative effects showing up, so even though we might be gaining weight or we might be riddled with guilt and shame every morning when we wake up and we know we're doing something wrong, but we can't stop. We know that we're harming ourselves in some sort of way, but we can't seem to stop.

So that's kind of like really. Simple way of maybe describing addiction. So it would be for, you know, to answer your question. It really would depend on how you're using that sugar. And most people have no clue because we're so mindlessly eating, right? Or we're so disconnected from, we might think, well, no, I'm I'm not using sugar for any reason.

It's just, I'm just having it as part of my day. I've always had sugar, but when we actually start looking under it, 99 percent of the time, we're reaching for processed [00:10:00] food or something sweet to either escape or enhance an emotional state in our body. or an experience in our body. And that's where, you know, we, we can dive into that more next, right?

And talking about like the actual deeper rooted reasons why we eat crap food when we know we shouldn't. So, you know, for you and thinking about your own patterns and anyone listening, you know, it would just be that invitation to be aware of when you sit down and you're having some sugar. You know, first of all, how much are you having?

And often that's a place where people get just absolutely shocked and a wonderful place that meal planning can help with as you're starting to like actually read labels and maybe curate some healthier meals for yourself. You'll be surprised what they add sugar to. Uh, but then I don't really agree with this baseline, but it is at least a baseline.

It's the best one that we have. The World Health Organization says a healthy adult woman should have no more than 24 grams of sugar a day, which is six teaspoons and a bowl of granola. with flavored yogurt is like 30 grams of sugar. So it's [00:11:00] very easy to eat more than our body can handle. And, you know, so that's, that's a good place to start as well.

Like, am I, am I eating too much? Is this an unhealthy level of, of sugar? And then paying attention to how you're using it, right? Am I eating sugar too? To alter my state or to, um, finish off my day or to reward myself or starting getting curious about that relationship and, and how you're using it.

Roni: Right. Yeah. That's just me thinking so many things about I have so many questions to ask you. Uh, I guess first I want to ask now that you have experienced your freedom from sugar and you've done your detox and now you've been doing this for years. What does your sugar consumption look like? Do you eat sugar at all?

Do you only eat? Like, do you, are you okay with sugar? Uh, what's the word for like alternatives, like erythritol and monk fruit, things like that. Like honey, maple syrup. Like, tell me about those things.

Dani: Tell me about the logistics. Okay, that's good. There's a couple of [00:12:00] questions in there. So the first one, yes, I do eat sugar. A lot of people are really surprised by that. This is probably a whole podcast episode we could do on just this topic and why I choose to do that. So what I call sugar freedom, and that's why I call myself a sugar freedom expert, is, is understanding that, and we haven't really talked about this yet, so we can go into it a bit later, but understanding that the root of our addictive patterns actually is, is inside.

It's what's going on in our nervous system. It's what's going in on our belief systems in our brain and our thoughts about ourselves. Um, there's a lot of sort of these foundational pieces that lie at the root of any addiction. So I believe that when we do that inner work and we do that healing, we can get to a place where we can have a relationship with sugar that is a loving relationship.

So that's what I call sugar freedom is this place where I do choose to have sugar. I actually just made my annual batch of gingerbread cookies the other day, because it's the holidays. And, um, you know, and I can allow myself. to do those things within a, with a healthy approach of knowing [00:13:00] my body and knowing how much sugar my body can handle and if I've had too much or not enough, um, and.

Like playing within those boundaries for, for myself and I've, I've, I've, that's continually changing, but that's continually changing. So yeah, I allow myself, you know, I, I make a couple batches of cookies at Christmas every year and I do love a good glass of wine, you know, on occasion. And so I do definitely let, let sugar, I make my own sourdough bread.

I mean, technically flour is sugar, right? And that's a simple carbohydrate, but I love making my own bread. So these are some of the places that sugar comes into my life. And I really. For me, the freedom piece is more around understanding what is too much for my body and my health and my goals, and then releasing the, the guilt and the shame and the control and the attachment that many of us have around food.

I mean, this is deeper levels of sort of our relationship with our food, right? Why I don't necessarily believe in complete abstinence forever from sugar. It is absolutely mandatory for a [00:14:00] period of time. And for some people that might be a year or two years while they do the inner work, we definitely need to be off sugar.

So I'm not saying that's not important, but I think there's, there's a, um, There's a massive detriment to our relationship with ourselves when we start to say things like, I can't have that. Right. Or, um, you know, everyone else at the birthday is having cake and we want a piece of cake. So where does this freedom come in?

And for all of my clients, it's very different. Like, what does that look like for you? Right. Is it cake at birthday parties? Is it no sugar ever? Um, and for everyone, it, like I said, it's very, it's a very unique journey to pick, figure out what that freedom looks like for you and your body. But it's kind of playing within those those realms and really building trust with yourself in a way that you are approaching sugar and food, not to, not for addictive reasons, but for loving reasons.

Oh, I really want to enjoy like my best friend just made this amazing chocolate cake and I really want to enjoy a piece with her, not oh my god I had a horrible day and I need to eat a chocolate [00:15:00] cake. Right, so it's, you know, is it. Is it being used for some sort of internal purpose or is it a loving choice?

You're like, I'm going to lovingly, slowly enjoy and, and cherish this piece of cake just because, not because I need a treat or because I deserved it or because I'm stressed, but because I just want to choose this right now for myself. So it's that, that, that choice piece, which is a very fine line internally, and it's quite a, can be a difficult journey to kind of, um, uncover.

So that's the piece on, on that. And then when it comes to alternative sweeteners, it's funny that you just asked that because I just released an episode of my podcast. All my thoughts about that. So I definitely encourage everyone to go listen. Um, it's the beyond sugar freedom podcast and you can hear more, but essentially, um, and I actually posted this on my Instagram as well.

Like the, the four reasons that artificial sweeteners are not good for, for sugar addicts. So I don't use them personally. Um, obviously there's a lot of I'm just gonna use the word alternative sweeteners because I know [00:16:00] there's stevia and that's not, um, artificial, right? But I mean, I would argue that it is.

And there's monk fruit and there's urethritol and there's, there's all these, um, you know, then there's aspartame and there's all these sweeteners that we know about. try to sum up all my thoughts on it. The one thing that is really important for all of us to recognize is that most of these substances are not natural.

Even stevia, the stevia, the white powder stevia that you buy in the store is not a plant anymore. It has been heavily chemically processed and it is now a chemical and That's a chemical in the body. So there's there's that. I just want people to not fool themselves unless you're putting stevia leaves in your tea, right, you're not really getting a natural product.

Most of the things that you're buying in the store that are cheap are heavily processed, heavily full of chemicals and no longer resemble the plant that they once came from. So that is an important piece to understand that our body doesn't really know those molecules. It's like it's a stranger having them.

[00:17:00] Like a monk fruit that's been heavily, you know, refined and processed versus a teaspoon of honey is very different. Our body, our body knows what honey is made up of. It's like fructose and glucose. It's regular molecules. And we don't really know what's in this other thing. So for me, that, um, that's a big factor in like trying to keep a heavily processed.

Things out of my life that are not really from the earth that are not like really, really far removed. The other thing that I want people to understand is that we just don't know with a lot of these, the long term effects. I mean, a lot of us have heard now of the, um, the. The horrible stories around aspartame with children, children developing like seizures.

And, I actually have a, someone who was posting on my Facebook page the other day, sharing that, when she was younger, whenever she would have aspartame, she would start getting like blurry eyes. Um, like her eyes would start going blurry. So anyway. There's some, there's some, we don't know, that's the bottom line, and ultimately we're, you know, in, in my opinion, we're being guinea [00:18:00] pigs, right?

We just don't have long term studies properly done because the food industry doesn't want to do those studies, right? They, they do want us to, to be hooked on the sweet taste. The last thing that I'll say here that's one of the most important pieces, if you are relating with any of this or know that you have sort of like, cravings for sugar or dependency issues.

I mean, you might not want to use the word addiction, right? Not everybody's like at that level, maybe with, with food, but if you have that craving for sweet taste, artificial sweeteners, just amplify that. They're not solving the problem. You're just, it's a band aid approach. It's switching being addicted to alcohol to being now addicted to cocaine, right?

You're not actually changing the root problem of that need to use something sweet in order to get through your day. You're still perpetuating those neural pathways and those patterns in your body and in your blood. A lot of people don't realize that when we have something sweet in our mouth, our pancreas still releases insulin into the blood because it thinks we had sugar.

But then there's no glucose for it to [00:19:00] uptake. So it's. confused. And now there's insulin floating around. And what actually a lot of studies have now started showing is that that that free floating insulin is now causing us to crave more sugar because our body wants glucose to deal with the insulin. So it's increasing our cravings and actually increasing our fat storage in our body as well.

So there's a there's just a lot of things when it comes to our metabolism and our blood sugar that Um, are not as pretty as the food manufacturers want you to think they are. You know, diabetic friendly doesn't mean healthy, right? And it just is really important for everybody who's listening to think about that for themselves and come to an empowered decision of what works for you, right?

I'm, I'm not saying don't use any of those things. I'm just saying, understand all the pieces and, and feel into what really feels like the right choice for you. And for me personally, that is using sugars that my body knows how to handle. So sugars that are fructose and glucose and minimal fructose at most.

So in my [00:20:00] house, I do, uh, if, if, and when I do bake, I even sometimes do use white sugar. It's really simple. My body knows how to flush it out. My body knows what to do with it, as long as I'm not overdosing with it and, and storing it up. I use honey. I use maple syrup. I have some coconut sugar as well. I think those are the only sugars that I have in my house, but, um, yeah, so that's the quick notes.

There's more to that. So definitely go listen to that episode, but I appreciate you asking that question.

Roni: Yeah, it's super, it's all very interesting. First I want to say, I like that your approach does not feel intimidating because you allow people to eventually at some point, once they've worked through some of their things to be able to continue to eat sugar in, you know, like a mindful, healthy way. I, I have a feeling that there's probably.

People who first when they heard like sugar freedom, they're like, it's like didn't like at first that probably was like, Oh, I don't know, because I, you know, don't want to give up sugar or something, you know, that feels like an intimidating process to go through, particularly if you do realize that you have some sort of an addiction or [00:21:00] dependency on it.

Dani: Yeah, I was gonna, I want to stop you there because you just said something really important, right? If anybody is listening and noticing that like, ooh, I could not live without sugar or I'm never doing that. That's a sign that you have an unhealthy relationship with sugar, right? If there's ever something in our life that we're like, not willing to give up, whether it's coffee or sugar, there is a codependent relationship there.

There's some sort of like internal need, right? To, to that substance, because technically we don't need sugar to stay alive, right? Like it's so. Just noticing if you're really resistant to this conversation, that probably means that there's some big stuff for you to reflect on and to, to work through.

Roni: right. Yeah. So I'm interested earlier. I think when you were talking just about what you do and who you are, you mentioned the ideas that you mentioned both sugar and binging like multiple times, like kind of around each other. And so I'm interested with the connection between those two are like, does more sugar [00:22:00] lead to binging does binging lead to more sugar.

What's that connection. Um,

Dani: Yeah. Well, so it's not a clear line and everybody's so different. I know there are a lot of women who, um, you know, really struggle with those, those, uh, you know, food, disorders, right. And eating disorders versus addiction. And there's a whole like. There's a whole conflict around that. There's a lot of different ideas, a lot of different theories.

Of course, there's no one right way, but ultimately, you know, I use those kind of interchangeably because they, they can show up really similarly for people. And, um, you know, so. And as someone who's addicted to sugar can absolutely binge on sugar. And that, that was kind of my MO was like, okay, I'm, I'm maybe good all week and I'm not having sugar.

And then on Friday night, I'm going to eat a ton of sugar. Right. So that was kind of that binging pattern. Then there's obviously people who also just every day have a little bit of sugar, right? It's like, okay, every day I have dessert after dinner and they wouldn't consider that maybe binging, but that is still probably an addictive pattern when like, you can't end your day without [00:23:00] having a piece of cake, right?

There's some sort of dependency there. So there's a massive spectrum. In terms of like what our relationship with processed food looks like, right? And, you know, everybody listening, you're going to fall somewhere in that spectrum because we all have a complicated relationship with food. So just noticing for you, you know, how does the unhealthy eating patterns we'll call them.

Show up for you. Is it more the like, be clean and binge or is it the binge and purge? Right? Is it the like, there's so many different ways that eating disorders or sugar addiction can show up for us. And I don't think they're really like black and white. I think there's a lot of gray and there's a lot of middle ground for, um, and they can change.

Hey, like, you know, one month it might show up one way and another month, another way. Right. And it's, um, yeah. Yeah, it's really person specific and sometimes situation specific. Maybe on a day to day basis to handle stress, you're, you know, just having, having sweets at your desk, right? And then maybe there's a death in the family and all of a sudden you notice that you're in more of a deep dive binging pattern and [00:24:00] having more in one sitting than you normally would and usually feeling really sick after waking up, feeling riddled with guilt and shame.

All those, like all those cues that really show up there. Yeah.

Roni: I like that you mentioned that it's kind of a spectrum that we can fall across that because I think we all have a tendency to want to label ourselves, you know, as either I am definitely an addict. Usually people don't want to have that one, but they want to be on the other. You know, it's like we either want to be one or the other.

And, but it really is this kind of gray area in between where everybody falls just depending on yeah, day to day, month to month, you know, life circumstances can change those things. I think that's really important to remember that, even as you mentioned earlier, there are, uh, the word addiction might not be comfortable for very many people.

But realizing that it's a spectrum, like it just because we're using the word addiction, doesn't mean that you don't fall on that spectrum.

Dani: Yeah, you, you, you made a really important, uh, comment there that I want to elaborate on is [00:25:00] labeling ourselves. So this is a big thing that I like really advocate for. I know there's a lot of, a lot of people working in this like sugar space, we'll call it. Uh, there's a lot of sugar addiction coaches and specialists out there helping people, um, in like a very strict addiction mindset around, um, really owning that you're an addict and that you are completely out of control with sugar and that you have to abstain for the rest of your life.

And for some people that might work. I, I don't agree. Um, I think as soon as we label ourselves, like I'm really fascinated about like the deep root causes when it comes to how we live our lives. And what I found in my life and with the hundreds of clients that I've worked with over the years is when, as soon as we label ourselves, we put ourselves in a box that we can never get out of.

So even if we, for example, like, I'm blonde, you know, I'm labeling myself as I am blonde. And as soon as I say I am, and then something, I'm claiming it as my identity. And my subconscious ego [00:26:00] is not going to want that to change. It's going to claim that on as, as a part of who I am. And then the day that maybe my hair turns brown or I lose all my hair, all of a sudden I'm having an identity crisis because I don't know who I am because my, I am statements have shifted.

This happens a lot with say mothers, right? I am a mother. And then as soon as maybe the kids pass away, heaven forbid, or go off to college, and they're no longer like that kind of mom, they're like, well, who am I? Right? So whenever we label ourselves, we do really put ourselves in a tricky situation. And in a way, especially around sugar, we co create at the same time we label and I am addicted to sugar, or I'm a sugar addict, we create the belief that I'm never not going to be that I, this is who I am.

This is who I am. We plant our flag in the sand. This is who I am. I'm a sugar addict on. I am never going to change. So it really robs us of our power. It robs us of our ability to change the way we think, [00:27:00] change the way that we heal and the work that we do to think that we could be anything. Right? I'm a sugar addict and that's what it is.

That's what I'm going to be my whole life. And that's that. And it, you know, I've, I've seen so many women, myself included, break through that, right? Break through and no longer be in addictive patterns with sugar. So it's possible to change. I've seen it and it takes time. It takes dedication. It takes a lot of really deep, uncomfortable work, especially when we get into some emotions and trauma and nervous system stuff.

Um, but it's possible. So when we use language around the way that we eat, I really encourage people to use language that invites a subconscious, um, you know, continuation or journey of the possibility that one day you may not be addicted to sugar. One day you may not be blunt, right? one day you may not be, uh, really good at running.

You know? And then if those things change, which. they do, inevitably, we're humans, it's less of a jarring experience on who you are, right? Um, [00:28:00] so using language like, you know, I, right now I, I'm having, noticing addictive tendencies with sugar, or I'm currently working through some sugar addiction tendencies, or some dependencies with food, right?

So using language that's more open to like, right now this is an experience I'm having, but it may change in the future. And that's something that I, that I love, um, you know, talking about, and I'm glad that you kind of mentioned that because I think that identity piece is, is huge. And that is also one of the root causes that I see for a lot of people is this deep identity of lots of things, right?

You know, I'm, I'm lazy, I'm useless, I'm fat, I'm worthless. Um, I'm a bad mom. Like all of these self beliefs are, um, yeah, really toxic. And no wonder we're like in this internal turmoil and we're trying to just find something to soothe with, right. And, and turning to. to sugar food for that.

Roni: Right. Yeah. The, the words that we use are so important, obviously. And it is so interesting just listening to you say those things. I'm like envisioning like a stamp, you know, [00:29:00] like stamping yourself, like I'm addicted or I'm, I'm bad at this thing. And like really having that hold us back from, you know, future possibilities and future transitions.

And I also liked that your alternative was instead of giving yourself a label, that's like a noun, the label. Well, I guess it's not a label, but the term that you use is more of a verb. Like this is something I'm actively doing. Like I'm working on overcoming, I like the activeness of that as somebody who really likes words.

Um, you know, like I'm thinking about using that verb as like a, it's, it's forward movement to something different, even if it's, you know, slow or not linear, there's still the movement there in the words that you're using.

Dani: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's so powerful when we get into like, understanding the mindset and how much our thoughts on a daily basis actually create a reality. And if we believe, I mean, we kind of talking about beliefs a little bit here, right? If we believe that, and I actually have a fun story recently, I, I've told myself my whole [00:30:00] life that I don't know how to play instruments.

I'm bad at music. I have no rhythm. I have no melody. I was always into sports. Like I didn't play instruments. I don't, I don't know how to do that. I suck at singing. I have a bad voice. I'm bad at music. Like these are self beliefs that were like identities slash beliefs that I made up about myself. Um, and actually just last month, my husband, my husband and I bought a hand pan.

Some of you may know what that is. Some don't. Um, and I've been playing it and I'm really good. Like, I'm, I'm really, I'm like, wow, I thought I sucked at playing instruments. And here I am, like, just, I'm having so much fun learning, picking up some songs that I'm watching on YouTube. And, um, I'm pretty good for a beginner and I'm, I'm getting to repattern that, that belief and really kind of reflect on why have I been telling myself that my whole life?

And so those stories that we tell ourselves, like, and it's prevented me so many times in the past from. Singing, you know, at events, right? Cause I have a bad voice, right? Or I suck at singing or even trying new instruments. Like I just never tried because I'm bad at [00:31:00] them. And I just accepted that as truth.

And it's not truth. I'm proving to myself now that it's not true. So I'm working on kind of shifting those beliefs and we can do that with anything in our life. It's, it's so powerful. What we're, what we're telling ourselves and it's usually lies. It's usually lies. Yeah.

Roni: Yeah. So I feel like beliefs, this idea of beliefs that we're talking about is one form of a root cause of issues with sugar and sugar addiction. What are some other, what are some other of these root causes that you see come up with people?

Dani: Yeah. Yeah. This is amazing. Um, I actually just created a quiz. I'll make sure that you have the link for that. So you can put it in the show notes, um, that helps women uncover the four top root causes that I talk about. Um, and I just put this quiz together to help you identify which are yours. So I'll start with sort of the, the, the biggest, the big kahuna, the big one that really stems into all the other ones is, is trauma.

Is trauma. It's and for many listening, I used to think, Oh, I don't have trauma. Um, and there's a very big difference between like big T [00:32:00] trauma and little T trauma. And I will boldly say we all have trauma. We have all been raised in some sort of society or way where we haven't fully gotten all of our mental emotional needs met.

And even on the, the emotional needs met. the smallest level, we all have some sort of patterning around even our emotions, right? Not being, it's not okay to feel emotions. It's not safe to express them. Um, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of patterning there that started in childhood for most of us, let alone, obviously, if you have bigger T trauma, but, uh, understanding here that we all carry this imprint of the first like seven to 10 years of life where we.

Created our beliefs and our stories and our identities about how the world works and how we are to stay safe in it. So our survival in those first years were dependent on our parents and our family. So there's a lot of conflicting sort of survival needs that show up. And the moment that we don't get, um, our needs met around sort of attachment, unconditional love, attunement, [00:33:00] uh, you know, many of us might have abandonment wounds or just not being validated.

I mean, that was mine. Um, my mom just never knew how to validate my emotions. So I started hiding my emotions. I started stuffing them down. They weren't welcome here. That was the message I got intuitively. Um, so there's, there's a lot of things that we don't realize are actually traumas to a young child who is trying to make sense of the world and.

Essentially trying to stay alive, right? A lot of this is just our survival mechanism. So this is a really big topic, but I'm trying to simplify it. And just understanding that these adverse, you know, these childhood experiences that we all had in one shape or another, we all had something, even if it was one experience.

Um, I can think back to even a high school when I got kicked out of my girlfriend group, they abandoned me. And that was a massive wound that I'm even still working through in belonging, right. And needing to be liked and. Like, you know, trying to be someone that I'm, that I'm not so. There's a lot of things that show up there.

I'm really quickly glossing over a lot of them, but what this does is stores [00:34:00] a memory in our nervous system, which is our sort of the system in our body. It's kind of like our home alarm system, right? That tells us when we're in danger, when our life's in threat or when we're safe, right? So there's this conflict constantly going on in our nervous system of feeling Not safe feeling, it's not safe to feel emotions.

It's not safe to be myself because people will judge me and then I'll get kicked out of the group. And there's a lot of, um, really fascinating dynamics that essentially gets stored in our system. And we learn how to be this different version of ourselves at quite a young age to fit in. And most of the times that that involves not being ourselves.

And stuffing down our emotions. So this is where the emotional component comes in as a massive root cause, is that we are all carrying around a lifetime of emotional baggage that we have not been allowed to express. I actually just hosted a workshop in one of my communities around anger, around really embracing anger.

That's one for women that we're never allowed to feel. And it's so important to feel! So all emotions are welcome, and that's not the message that we get growing up. So we've learned [00:35:00] In various, again, capacities to not feel our emotions and to sometimes disassociate from our body. And this is all stored in our, in our nervous system that then from our body and what our body went through and what it is remembers about how to feel safe, gets sent to our brain to create stories and beliefs.

So it actually starts in our body. It's not the other way around. Um, this was something that I just really recently understood in my somatic embodiment training and the work that I've been doing around understanding the power of what our nervous system and actually what's being stored in the body. And it creates these patterns in our brain, right?

That, that become our mindset or our belief systems about who we are, right. And how we show up in the world and beliefs about, you know, well, it's impossible to give up sugar, or if I give up sugar, I'll never have any more fun in my life. Like, these are all beliefs that come from. These deeper rooted senses of safety and identity that's actually first starts in our body.

So trauma, nervous system [00:36:00] dysregulation, like the emotional component is a massive, uh, root cause. This, this really big discomfort in feeling any difficult emotions, because we have no reference for it. And this is, this is a big part of my work that I'm so passionate about. And. Love helping women like learn how to tune back in to even feeling emotions.

Most of us don't even feel them. We just feel flat all the time, feeling emotions and, and learning that it's good. And it's a part of our, our life to feel and feel the grief and feel the sadness and be okay in that. We need a reference in our body, in our nervous system to actually feel safe doing those things and setting ourselves up obviously with the right people in the right situations to do that.

But if we don't. Right? These difficult things come up in our life, whether it's grief or anger or sadness or just stress from hating your job. I mean, that was my situation. I would come home and just binge on everything because I didn't want to feel it. It wasn't safe to feel those emotions. Right? If I really allowed myself to feel the pain, [00:37:00] then I would fall apart and I would never get back up again.

That was the belief and it's not true. So there's, there's a ton of emotional work that needs to be done when, when we're learning how to stop. Stuffing ourselves with food and re re relating to our physical body and our emotional body is a massive, a massive journey, and it's painful and it's scary. And it's why most people never do it.

And it is, in my opinion, the only way that we can write the the only way to the other side is through right, whatever that that quote or that saying is, it's very true. We've got to walk through and process let go of the energetic charge that these emotions have in our body and start unpacking the emotional baggage to get to this place of peace and calm and groundedness and connection with ourselves.

And that's a, that's a big part. And then of course the beliefs, that's a big part of like our root causes. And then the physical addiction is the fourth biggest cause. And there's a bunch of little ones under that. Um, but a lot of [00:38:00] these things, especially with the trauma, develop into these various coping techniques that we have.

And I know a lot of my clients really resonate with being a people pleaser, right? Or being a perfectionist. Right. And then obviously emotional eater, like these are just coping mechanisms that are coming from a place of trying to develop a, a grounded sense of safety in our body that we just have no reference for, because we've probably never experienced it, right?

We live in a crazy world and we're not supported in those emotional ways because we didn't know, right? Our parents didn't know. We're not blaming anybody here, but it's just this understanding of the deeper root causes that a lot of people ignore, right? And they jump right into meal planning, which is a very important.

habit and, and piece to have in this journey, but it's not the root, right? We can meal plan all we want. And as soon as somebody dies in our family and we throw our meal plan out the window and we're binge eating again, because we haven't actually built a relationship with grief with actually allowing ourselves to feel it.

So [00:39:00] there's lots there. I know I just threw a lot at you, but that's kind of the quick overview.

Roni: So do you find with the people that you work with, that once particularly related to this, like stuffing down emotions and not allowing yourself to feel things, uh, once people feel. I guess like liberated in some sense to actually feel their emotions, even if it's just, you know, in minute ways, is there an aspect of their cravings that will automatically start to change, or do you really need the abstinence from sugar plus the emotional work to really notice the, the change in your, in your cravings and your emotional eating habits?

Dani: Yeah, such a good question. Um, so again, I'm going to answer it vaguely because we're all different. Everybody's different. Um, when I work with my clients, uh, we definitely start doing a lot of this deeper work and, and connecting with our emotions before we even do our detox from sugar and then keep that going.

So it's going to depend on the person. I mean, [00:40:00] and what's going to be most attainable for you. So I'd say, Okay. You can definitely, you know, get that started right away. And you will notice absolutely. So the more, if you are using sugar to stuff down and cope emotions, as soon as you stop needing to stuff down emotions, you're not going to need the sugar in theory, right?

It'd be like, okay, instead I'm feeling very sad today or feeling very heavy today. And I'm going to go out for a walk and I'm going to sit and cry. And then I'm going to have a journal. And before you know it, you're like, wait, I didn't go and eat a bag of chips, right? So as soon as you start, uh, finding new, what we call resources in the somatic world, when you're, when you're resourced internally, and you can start leaning on these other tools to help you be with yourself and those emotions, whether it's journaling or sitting in nature or meditating and like just.

Crying being with yourself in that sadness, for example, um, you're no longer needing to escape it right when you're actually allowing it and you're building this reference, which [00:41:00] takes a lot of time. Anyone listening to this? This is not an overnight journey, and I know that's why it can seem intimidating, but I don't want to lie to anybody.

This takes a lot of time, especially if this is new to you. It's like learning. You're learning, learning a brand new skill. That we've never learned, right? How to actually sit with yourself in heavy emotions and how to actually feel them and, and re pattern that it's safe to feel those. And that takes a lot of repetition and a lot of time.

And absolutely, the more you do that, your cravings, you know, if that was where most of your cravings were coming from, you'll notice a gradual decline. And then on the other side, um, you know, I absolutely love when we detox from sugar, when we, when we go abstinent and we take it out and we do our detox, whether it's four weeks or eight weeks or however long.

It really is like the ultimate way to see your patterns that are going on because your crutch is gone. It's like you, you've removed your crutch and now, oh my goodness, you're with yourself. And you have no, like that escape isn't there. Right? And you're [00:42:00] now you're having a stressful day and you actually have to be with it.

So it is it and, um, definitely a easier journey to be aware of your emotions and to do that work while you are abstinent. Because it also. Obviously, your body starts being clean, your brain starts working better, you're sleeping better, I mean, all the benefits when we get off processed food, right, are going to support you and being more in tune with your body, right?

The sugar is definitely creating a fuzz, right? It's creating a, even a physical disconnection. So when we take that away, We can, I think we can get in a bit deeper, but not everybody's ready to do that right away, right? So you can definitely get started with the emotional piece and see if that shifts your cravings.

Um, but I do always encourage, you know, going a period of time where the crutch is completely gone, because that will take you, like, Next level depth into sort of what's going on under the surface.

Roni: I'm thinking about well, I guess your most recent example was about like heavier emotions, like feeling sadness and using food as a crutch to maybe not feel those emotions quite so much. [00:43:00] But I also could, I'm also imagining that there are instances where. Like there's emotional eating related to happiness.

So like, how do you find the balance between like, I'm having a great day. I want a piece of cake. Like, I almost feel like you, it's like the happiness, there's like a leveling up of your happiness when you're like, I had my piece of cake and everything was great. Uh, so like, how do you balance that? Like, I feel like it's really easy to see the connection between the heavier emotions and emotional eating.

But what about the happier emotions?

Dani: Totally. Thank you for bringing that in because it's absolutely a thing. Um, I know for me, a lot of my triggers are around celebration. Like, how do I celebrate without a glass of champagne and some, like, some cake or something, right? Um, and we do that at birthdays. Like, we get that. really pounded into us, like in our societies, like celebrations or joy, or you've got a promotion at work, like it's alcohol and cake, right?

And sugar. So that is absolutely a connection that we all have in some way. And I encourage everybody to, to get really clear on what your emotional triggers are. It's [00:44:00] different for everybody. Um, so yeah, I think again, coming back to just understanding that. When we ingest sugar, we get a dopamine hit. So if you're sad, and you're wanting sugar, you're usually trying to, like, stuff the sadness down and have a dopamine hit.

You want to feel better. And that's the problem, is we think we're not allowed to feel bad, right? We want to feel better. And this can show up As you said, in those more higher vibration emotions as well with joy and happiness, I'm having a great day. I want to have a piece of cake. It's, it's this deep desire in us to like amplify that pleasure, right?

Or amplify. So we're still seeking something more. And there's this like subconscious belief that I see a lot of, of, of not really knowing that to be okay with like what we have, right? Like there's never, it's never enough. And it really comes down to, I'm never enough. There's a very deep, uh, rooted belief that we all carry, is I'm not enough.

[00:45:00] And this happiness that I'm feeling is not enough, right? Or this raise that I, the promotion I just got at work is not enough. I need, it needs to be more. How can we really amp this up, right? Oh, we can do that with a glass of champagne. We can do that with, with some cake, right? We're just trained as well, like habitually through the movies, through advertising, through food marketing, through our whole life, right?

That we. need to have something extra to celebrate. Um, and the work that I do, you know, a big part of breaking that cycle is learning how to feel celebration and joy and happiness without needing something else to amplify it. And I think we all just, My, my personal beliefs and what I've seen is that we all have a lot of blocks to feeling happiness and joy, like there is also a lot of underlying beliefs in our culture that you're not allowed to be too happy.

You're not allowed to be too joyous or too loud. Right. You're not allowed to dance around in the grocery store if you're having a great day. Right. So it's almost this way that we can use food in a socially [00:46:00] acceptable way to, like, Express or experience our happiness because we don't have a reference for doing that without right and we actually don't we have internal blocks to even feeling that happiness without having cake, right?

So the invitation there is to again building that relationship with can you let yourself feel fully happy, or can you actually let yourself feel pleasure. I mean, how often do we I mean this is a side tangent but guilty pleasure. Why are we guilty about feeling pleasure. Why are we guilty about, like, watching that cheesy, you know, reality TV show on Netflix, right?

Or eating that, that, you know, having that fancy coffee drink that has, you know, it's your guilty pleasure. So we just, we use that a lot in our culture, right? We have a lot of blocks around our ability to, to feel happy or to feel pleasure, to feel like we should be guilty about it, right? And we shouldn't show it off.

We shouldn't be too happy, especially if people around us are not happy, right? So there's a lot of, yeah, there's just a lot of blocks there that we have. And I think food comes in as like the socially acceptable thing that we can use to [00:47:00] like amp it up and learning how to like fully embrace joy and happiness.

In your own body without needing something else or needing someone else is, is another piece of the work. It's another challenging, uh, journey, but a really rewarding one as well to learn how to celebrate, um, yourself without, right?

Roni: That makes me think about something that Brene Brown said in one of her books, which is that we often, I think, particularly she's particularly referencing women, we often will sabotage our joy because we will think, Oh, something like, I can't feel too good right now because something bad's going to happen and it's going to, you know, everything's going to come crumbling down in five minutes from now.

So like, don't feel too good because you know, the, the ball's about to drop. You know, and we, we constantly, and I think that, you know, that's kind of anxiety overall, you know, but, uh, but there's this constant idea of like, don't feel too much joy because it's a fleeting emotion.

Dani: Yeah, and to add to that, there's [00:48:00] also a big, big underlying fear of the pain that comes when we lose it. So I'll speak this. A great example is love and grief, right? They're two sides of the same coin. I'm very familiar with both sides of those coins. I've been through a lot of grief in the last couple of years myself.

And notice how quickly we close our ability to fully love with an open heart, because at any minute. Someone could die and we could lose it, right? And the, we know that that pain comes with love, right? And whether it's somebody dies or someone leaves or, right? Like we lose something, right? So if I fully allow myself to love, this person or this job that I have, it equally means that we could lose it.

We're always at risk of losing that job or that person or, I mean, things come and go in life. And I think it's, it's a subconscious survival mechanism where we don't fully allow ourselves to go all in, because if we do, the pain is going to be multiplied by a hundred. And I've even noticed that myself, you know, as the grief [00:49:00] comes, I'm like, okay, and I'm closing my heart again.

And I don't want to do that. I want to love fully and, and accept that that also is going to come with grieving fully. if, if and when I do lose that thing. So I think there's also that, right? It's like, if I fully allow myself to feel so fricking happy and joyous, if that goes away, right? Or if that thing it's going to hurt exponentially more, right?

So I think it's a protective mechanism that we all carry as well as like trying to stay in this like middle ground of like, Being even keeled. So we don't have to experience the, the ups and the downs in such a drastic way. And my argument is that that's no way to live life. Like we're, we're feeling human beings.

We're meant to feel a wide array of emotions. And for me, that is like fully experiencing life. I don't want to live life in this like kind of blah zone where I like kind of feel happy. And then I kind of feel sad. Like I would rather feel really happy. And I'm really sad, you know, and, and learn how to support myself.

In, in both, both of those [00:50:00] spots, but getting out of this like boring zone, right? When emotions and living, like for me, it's just living fully, like living fully expressed. I get to really, and I also get to experience the beauty of grief, the depth of the ability that I can feel all of that and still survive and be okay and love myself through it and support my lean on my community.

Cause we're not meant to grieve alone. Um, it's actually beautiful as well. So it's kind of embracing all of that is. It's a, it's a, it's a big journey. Yeah.

Roni: And there's a big aspect of that, of just kind of what you said, realizing your own strength in those times and being able to be like, I went through this thing that was really difficult and I made it to the other side and I can be really proud of myself for that. Yeah.

Dani: Yeah. Yeah. And when we go through that and, and realize that, Hey, we didn't just binge on sugar every night or get drunk every night to cope like, wow, I actually like support. I went out for a walk. I let myself sleep. I went and had a bath. Like I talked to people that, you know, I reached out to my therapist, like I really supported myself through that.

[00:51:00] And I think that that is a big piece. The more we do that, the more we build, rebuild love and trust with ourselves, which. Most of us have completely broken, right? We don't trust our bodies. We don't trust ourselves. And we hate ourselves, you know, in general. And, you know, the more we can like show up for ourselves, like we would a loving friend, right?

We would show up if that person was struggling, we would show up, we'd be on the couch, we'd sit with them, you know, we'd make them soup. Like, you know, we would, we would go for a walk, like we'd hang out. And when we do that with ourselves, it really starts to repair that relationship, um, that we've broken with ourselves.

And it, it's a really beautiful journey.

Roni: Well, I think we should, I think we should end there because that was really lovely. I also don't want to take up your, I know I don't want to take up your whole day. I feel like we've uh, covered a wide, a wide range of topics. Um, and it has been really wonderful. Unless there's anything else that you feel like we missed that you really wanted to talk about before we stop.

Dani: Yeah, this has been so great. Thank you for your amazing questions. Um, [00:52:00] really, really insightful and I hope everybody's, you know, really taking this in. I guess, I mean, we didn't talk a lot about meal planning, but you know, ultimately, that is a really important habit to have when we want to be eating healthy.

And, you know, one of the things that meal planning has helped. You know, in this realm is when we remove that crutch and when we're eating whole real foods again and being consistent with that for ourselves, it really, again, changes that relationship with ourselves right changes that those temptations, you know, the end of a really busy day I know a lot of women.

that I work with, the end of the day is the worst time they get home. They're exhausted. They don't know what's for dinner. They're just going to binge on sugar, right? So when you actually have some healthy foods ready for you, it gives you a moment to like eat something nourishing, balance your blood sugar, hopefully with some healthy fats and protein, and then take a minute to actually be grounded in noticing your cravings that might be showing up for like a late night snack or something like that.

So it's a really important part of the process for [00:53:00] many, many reasons, but. I just wanted to bring that in because obviously that's what plan to eat is all about. And that is a massively important habit that really comes in on top of all of these deeper pieces that we've talked about and, um, you know, can obviously be worked at coinciding, you know, as you're, as you're doing some of this deeper work.

Roni: Yeah, I love it. Well, why don't you let everybody know where they can connect with you, your podcast and anywhere else. Excellent.

Dani: which is so fun to have. I just had you on the podcast. I'm so excited for that episode. Um, yeah, you can come definitely soak in a lot more of what we just touched on today on the Beyond Sugar Freedom podcast. That's my podcast. Um, also that brand new quiz that's going to help you identify the root causes of your sugar addiction and give you some actionable tools to, to take the next steps there.

Um, so you can come and check that out. I'll make sure that, uh, you have the link and then I'm on Instagram and Facebook, Danielle Daem as well, and we'd love to hear from you. So just. Reach out, send me a DM and we can keep the conversation going.

Roni: Well, thank you so much for [00:54:00] joining me today. This has been amazing. I loved it.

Dani: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's so much fun.

Roni: As always, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. There will be links in the show notes to connect with Dani, to listen to her podcast, connect with her online, as well as a link to a free workshop that she is running just at the end of this week. So she is running it. January 21st, 23rd and 25th.

Um, there is a link in the show notes. It is a free workshop to help you get more information from her to help start to work through some of these issues. And if you found this conversation compelling, I really encourage you to go, do that three day workshop with her and learn more about what she does, uh, and maybe start to process some of the things.

So you'll find that in the show notes as well. And please support the Plan to Eat podcast by subscribing, wherever you get your podcasts, [00:55:00] and I will see you again in two weeks.