In today's episode I talk with one Valerie Root, who reached out to me after listening to the podcast and graciously agreed to share her current struggle with sugar and processed food.  Valerie is a wife, a mom of 4 boys (ages 9, 7, and 4 year old twins), and she works full time as a registered dietitian, so it goes without saying that her life is full! Food, nutrition, and health have always interested her. She was always the "small one" growing up, was even nicknamed “Little Val” by her family, however, she learned at a young age that food tasted amazing and made her feel good, and she found herself wanting more than the socially acceptable amounts.  Somewhere during her teenage years, she started overeating more frequently, sometimes around friends at sleepovers, other times when she was alone, and even though she felt physically ill when she over ate, the behavior persisted. She would take leftovers home from a restaurant because finishing the entire meal felt gluttonous, only to find herself eating the leftovers the minute she walked through the door.  She would stop at rest stops when she was driving by herself to and from college and load up on all the snacks, making sure to dispose of the wrappers before she arrived at school or at home. At the same time, she started restricting her food and over exercising to make up for the overeating in order to keep from gaining too much weight.  When she was 20, her older brother passed away unexpectedly, and that just heightened the binging, and food became even more of a comfort.  Before long, she was using food to grieve, to cure boredom, to procrastinate doing schoolwork, to reward herself after a chaotic day, and to numb any other uncomfortable feeling that came up. Somewhere along the way, Val also came to the conclusion that thinness was synonymous with successful and happy, so therein began her 20+ year journey of overeating and weight gain, and restriction and weight loss, in order to be thin, and therefore successful and happy.  Of course, she never felt any happier at her lowest weight.  Since becoming a dietitian, she's felt an immense amount of pressure to do all the right things nutritionally, but in reality, she knows the power that sugar and highly processed foods have over us, and she faces the same struggles that most of us face. Her goals today are to establish healthy eating habits in her kids, find peace with food and eating, and strive to accept herself as she is but work towards her healthiest self as she approaches 40. 

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