Insatiable with Ali Shapiro, MSOD, CHHC

What happens after you've tried everything? The plans, protocols, cleanses, and tracking apps. The running, the restriction, the attempt to outrun the fork. At some point, the effort becomes its own kind of exhaustion. You're no longer chasing health, you're chasing relief.
In this episode of Insatiable, I sit down with Dee, a graduate of the Truce with Food: Consistency program, to talk about what actually creates lasting change when food has become comfort, numbness, and self-punishment all at once. Dee shares what it was like to move from binging and rigid thinking into something quieter and more powerful: just showing up.
3:51 – Why Dee felt stuck before joining Truce With Food: Consistency 
7:47 – Why Dee had no hesitation about signing up, even after having tried so many things before
11:04 – What changed for Dee when success was defined as simply showing up
13:47 – Having a safe space and the role of compassionate witnesses in ending her isolation 
21:13 – The unexpected power of language in reshaping Dee’s thinking and behavior
27:23 – Where things shifted for Dee and where she is now compared to when she started
30:50 – How Dee’s rigid thinking and perspective on movement and motivation have changed
34:40 – The biggest shift for Dee in her relationship with food and why intensity and duration matter more than perfection
37:19 – The shift from measuring thinness to measuring aliveness
40:32 – What else surprised Dee about the work within the program and her words for anyone considering joining
Mentioned In How Just Showing Up Ended Years of Binging
Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis
Find Your Food Stage Quiz
Send me (Ali) a text message.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. 
Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears at trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency.
⏰ Save $100 through—through midnight (EST) on February 13th—on my Truce with Food: Consistency Group Program. We start on February 25th.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears. Visit: trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency

You tell yourself you're too busy and too tired to focus on yourself. You'll do it when things calm down, when work eases up, when the kids need less, when you finally get a good night's sleep. But food still calls your name at all the wrong times. You've tried to fix it, but the cycle keeps repeating.
You're not lazy. You're not broken. You're trying to solve exhaustion without understanding where it actually comes from.
In this episode of Insatiable, I break down why "too busy and too tired" is often protective resistance in disguise and why waiting for life to calm down costs you more than you think. I walk through how midlife physiology, perfectionism, lack of agency, and how we're conditioned as women all fuel the tired trigger. Plus, why turning to food makes complete sense as a solution, not a character flaw.
1:48 - Why “too busy and too tired” can be protective resistance disguised as practicality
4:48 – Example of how investing in your health earlier creates dividends you can’t see until later
6:33 - Biological shifts in midlife that quietly change hunger, satiety, and energy
9:16 - How perfectionism and over-functioning impact your energy
9:50 - Why sugar and “I deserve this” thinking are solutions before they’re problems
12:03 - Example of the surprising role of agency in chronic exhaustion
15:25 – How investing in the right support for yourself and self-compassion can energize you
19:25 - Final takeaways for this episode and an invitation to you
Mentioned In Why Being Too Tired Is Exactly Why You Need Support
Oura Ring
FREE Workshop on February 10th - ​​Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track
Find Your Food Stage Quiz
Send me (Ali) a text message.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. 
Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears at trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency.
⏰ Save $100 through—through midnight (EST) on February 13th—on my Truce with Food: Consistency Group Program. We start on February 25th.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears. Visit: trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency

You've followed the plans. Upped the discipline. Doubled down on getting back on track. And still, food and taking care of yourself feel harder than they used to.
You're not the problem. The problem is trying to apply the same strategies you relied on in your twenties and thirties to a body and life that have fundamentally changed.
In this episode of Insatiable, I share the five shifts that finally make consistency possible when perfectionism stops working. You'll learn why your resistance to showing up imperfectly is protective, not personal, and how to stay in the game even when it feels like you're barely moving forward.
3:28 - Why old strategies no longer working for you isn’t a sign of your failure
11:06 - Why C-plus effort triggers disgust and why that disgust has nothing to do with laziness
19:52 - How certainty becomes a shield against vulnerability and keeps you repeating the same all-or-nothing loop
24:51 - Why “momentum” sounds like a soft metric but becomes the only measure that compounds into lasting change
28:52 - The protective resistance that shows up the moment you try to break the cycle and why planning for it is non-negotiable
34:25 – Quick recap of the five shifts that redefine what success actually looks like in midlife with food struggles

Mentioned In Five Shifts to Finally Stay Consistent With Food
FREE Workshop on February 10th - ​​Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track
Find Your Food Stage Quiz
Send me (Ali) a text message.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. 
Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears at trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency.
⏰ Save $100 through—through midnight (EST) on February 13th—on my Truce with Food: Consistency Group Program. We start on February 25th.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears. Visit: trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency

You've done the work. Tried the protocols, followed the plans. And yet food still takes up way too much mental space. You're not the problem. Those one-size-fits-all protocols you've been handed were never going to work for where you actually are.
After nearly two decades working with clients, I've watched the wellness space get louder and louder with protocols and plans telling you what to do without knowing who you are or what stage you're in. Frameworks meet you where you actually are and help you figure out why you keep turning to food in the first place. That distinction is everything when it comes to lasting change.
In this episode of Insatiable, I explain why frameworks work when protocols don't, walk you through the four developmental stages most women move through in their relationship with food, and share details about my free Untangle Your Food Triggers workshop coming up in February for those ready to move beyond protocols. 
5:52 - How last year’s “composting phase” reshaped my body of work
9:46 - Why midlife women need frameworks instead of protocols
13:19 - An appetizer for the Truce with Food Consistency program to kickstart your year
15:16 - Stages in the developmental process to a truce with food
17:16 - Why stage two is both the most confusing and the most hopeful place to land (and how to leverage it)

Mentioned In Why Food Plans Fail After 40 and What Works Instead
FREE Workshop on February 10th (not 11th, misspoke in episode) - ​​Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track
Braid Creative and Consulting
How to Better Understand Stress with Andrea Nakayama
Find Your Food Stage Quiz
Send me (Ali) a text message.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. 
Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears at trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency.
⏰ Save $100 through—through midnight (EST) on February 13th—on my Truce with Food: Consistency Group Program. We start on February 25th.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears. Visit: trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency

Happy New Year, Insatiable listeners! Welcome to 2026.
Today I’m resharing my conversation with parenting expert Dr. Deborah MacNamara, where we explore how food connects to our deep need for belonging, how feeling significant plays into belonging and food choices, as well as the many ways we can heal our relationships with food, fullness, and needing other people.
If you want to make real changes with your or your loved ones eating, this episode just might help you make life-changing connections that have been elusive for years and be focused in the right direction for 2026.
Tune in, then make sure to check out my new website trucewithfood.com. 
We discuss:
The difference between attachment and belonging
What Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is missing
How to focus on receptivity in relationships with our kids
Why food is often the place our relationship dynamics play out
The surprising connection between food, fullness, and vulnerability
Self-soothing vs satiation
Why feelings are different than emotions
The problematic invasiveness of “work mode”
Experimenting with being “needy” so we can learn to depend on others
More about our guest: Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the author of two books, Nourished: Connection, food and caring for our kids (and everyone else we love), and Rest, Play, Grow: Making sense of preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She is on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute and the Director of Kid’s Best Bet counselling.
Connect with Dr. Deborah MacNamara:
Website
Books
Facebook
Instagram
Mentioned in this episode:
Dr. Gordon Neufeld & Dr. Gabor Maté
The Religion of Wellness Culture with Anne Helen Petersen (Episode 252)
Send me (Ali) a text message.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. 
Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears at trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency.
⏰ Save $100 through—through midnight (EST) on February 13th—on my Truce with Food: Consistency Group Program. We start on February 25th.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears. Visit: trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency