Let’s talk about the reason you reach for food when you’re not even hungry. It isn’t about willpower, and it isn’t a flaw in you. There’s a real reason we overeat, and once you understand it, you can change it. In this episode I sit down with Marla Mervis-Hartmann, creator of Love Your Body Love Yourself, and we get honest about food, body image, and what it takes to feel at home in your own skin again.
Overeating isn’t the problem, it’s the message
Most of us have been taught to fight our cravings, to white-knuckle our way past the fridge, to treat our own hunger like an enemy. Marla flips that on its head. The overeating is information, it’s your body and your heart asking for something they haven’t been given. When you stop shaming the behaviour and start listening to it, everything begins to shift.
Taking care of your body as devotion
Marla calls caring for your body a spiritual practice, and I love that. It’s not a punishment plan, it’s not another diet, it’s a daily act of coming back to yourself. When you feel cherished by your own attention, food loses its grip. You eat because your body is hungry, not because your heart is starving.
What we cover in this episode
- Why the struggle with food is almost never really about food
- How years of body-shaming messages get stored in the body, and how to release them
- The moment devotion to yourself becomes possible, and how to reach it
- Marla’s own path from a painful relationship with her body to helping women love theirs
About Marla
Marla Mervis-Hartmann has been featured at TEDx Salinas and served as the leading body image expert and Reiki Master at Journey Malibu. Her work weaves together women’s sexual wellness, postpartum care, tantra, yoga, and massage therapy into her offerings at Love Your Body Love Yourself. She lives in Maui with her husband and son. You can find her at LoveYourBodyLoveYourself.com and watch her TEDx talk here.
If you’re tired of the fight with food and you’re ready to feel free in your body, this conversation is for you. Press play, and let it land.
