EP 199 How is your relationship with food with guest Melissa Rohlfs
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello, bold gold crushers. I'm super excited about the topic today. I think it's one that you are really going to enjoy. So let me introduce you to my guests. Melissa is a holistic health and life coach, helping teen girls and women break free from the food struggle. Melissa, I'm so excited to have you on the show and to discuss this much needed
Melissa Rohlfs: topic.
Melissa Rohlfs: Thank you, sir. I'm excited to be here and to share.
Sara Mayer: Yeah I know that [00:01:00] we are coming up on the holidays pretty soon, and this is such a good topic for all year round, but especially during this time when I don't know about everyone else, but I'm invited to so many things, and it always includes food and scrumptious cookies.
Sara Mayer: So I'd love to just learn more about You and what you do, but how you got into this, because I'm sure there's a story there.
Melissa Rohlfs: Of course there's a story. And it's so funny because I never thought I would be doing this. If you would have told me like, 20 years ago that this is what I would be doing, I probably would have laughed in your face because I wasn't like a secret sugar Avenger.
Melissa Rohlfs: A little girl hiding food in her room when she was eight because there was so much stress and anxiety and just unknown and it became my coping mechanism. And so that carried with me through high school and to college and to marriage and having kids and then finally having kids and really what changed everything for me, Sarah, was we had a newborn baby who [00:02:00] was not sleeping through the night, so I was exhausted.
Melissa Rohlfs: Our daughter was two and a half, and she had some undiagnosed food allergies and sensory processing disorder. My husband was traveling for work, and on top of all that, I had just gotten diagnosed with PTSD from childhood trauma. My journey included meeting with a naturopath, learning about nutrition and supplementation, holistic health, and that changed everything for me.
Melissa Rohlfs: That's a little bit of my story and why I
Sara Mayer: do what I do. Yeah. And there's so much in that, when a lot of people out there are dealing with children, stressful jobs, all these things, and they're all intertwined, like our eating habits, our health habits, our emotional wellbeing being is all tied together.
Sara Mayer: And then you also have our, how we were brought up as well. And I think so many times, especially women don't know how to address those things. So how do you go about if you're looking at your life and you're like, Ooh, I'm stressed out. How do you go about,[00:03:00] taking the first step for you?
Sara Mayer: You went and saw a holistic health coach, right? Yeah.
Melissa Rohlfs: Yeah. It started with life coaching actually. So because I was overwhelmed and stressed as that mom, like you described, I started meeting with a life coach cause I just felt unfulfilled. I felt like something was missing. Seeing here, I have this college degree.
Melissa Rohlfs: I didn't feel like I was using it. So my thought was I'm going to meet with a life coach and maybe she can help me like figure out what's going on and how I can feel more fulfilled as a mom and she was also a licensed clinical social worker who had her own trauma from childhood. who actually diagnosed me with the PTSD.
Melissa Rohlfs: So my first step was the life coach. That resulted in therapy and then holistic health went from there. But that's how it started because it's exactly, as you said, I didn't know how to handle the overwhelm, the stress, the pressure, everything that I felt like I had to do and be at that time.
Sara Mayer: And you had kids pulling on you like all day, like I need this, I need that.
Sara Mayer: And I think sometimes [00:04:00] when I've worked with some clients, I don't have any biological children, but they've described how they lost themselves. Or they felt like they lost themselves because they had this career and next thing, they're like, I used to manage millions of dollars and now I'm changing poopy diapers
Melissa Rohlfs: and you're covered in puke and spit up and all sorts of delightful
Sara Mayer: things.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And you can't fire them. They're not doing their job. You can't just let them go.
Melissa Rohlfs: And you can't give a pink slip for that matter
Sara Mayer: yeah, I think that's hard, and all the things we go through just on a daily basis, even when we don't add something to our plate, it's hard to manage. Now, you talked a little bit about when you were younger, that you were hiding. food. And so for those of you listening, for the people listening who aren't sure, like what that's tied to or what that comes from, can you talk a little bit more about that?
Melissa Rohlfs: Yeah. So I would put cookies and pop tarts and like all sorts of sugary treats in [00:05:00] my room. So that like when. Things were unsettled at home, or if there was arguing, or I didn't feel like I was in a good place, I would go to my room and just eat. I think eating was what I needed to do to settle myself.
Melissa Rohlfs: It calmed me temporarily and it just started and became my coping mechanism at a young age.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And I think that also is nature too, because that's what we do to babies, as soon as they start crying, we try and shove a bottle in their mouth or, do something like that. So maybe we learn that I'm not a child psychologist, but maybe we learn
Melissa Rohlfs: that.
Melissa Rohlfs: I think you're exactly right. And I think too, if you think about like when kids are little and we're like playing the airplane game, one more bite and their mouth is closed there, that's their way of saying, no, my body is full, but we force it in. There's so many correlations to that and childhood and just exactly as you've described.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And many people know who've listened to the show that I do have two foster daughters. They're both grown. They have their own [00:06:00] apartments and all that stuff. But that was one of the things that they struggled with too, was that there was so much restriction on what they could and couldn't have that when they could have something, it was like they hoarded it away in their room.
Sara Mayer: And My older daughter, it was very interesting because for her, it was the fear of not having food. And it's a, it's a funny story. She never listens to my podcast and she probably wouldn't be mad if I shared this, but One day I came home and there was like a crisis van in front of my house.
Sara Mayer: And it was because she called the crisis center because she thought we were going to run out of food. And so she just wanted food. And it was simply, honestly, simply because she ran out of Mac and cheese, which was like her favorite. And they were so great. Like I walked in, I was like, what is going on?
Sara Mayer: And they were so great. They had all the food in the house piled up on the kitchen table. And they're like, [00:07:00] Okay. You're not going to run out of food, she was like we hadn't been grocery shop. I thought we were going to run out of money. And she had hoarded all this stuff in her room.
Sara Mayer: And so it was like a fear of, we're going to run out of food and this is going to be the cycle. And then next thing I know we're going to lose the house because that's what happened in her world. And so that. Made sense where I was like, Oh my gosh, now I understand why she hides food in her room.
Sara Mayer: She's afraid it's going to be gone.
Melissa Rohlfs: Yeah. That makes total sense.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. So you do work with teens as well. You work with women and teens. And so often those relationships are tied. How do you work with teens? How do we create these healthy relationships with our
Melissa Rohlfs: teens? Yeah, so I think it goes back to the biggest thing I've seen there is that modeling more is caught than taught and part of my reason for hiding food in my room was because I saw my mom do that.
Melissa Rohlfs: Like she would go, we'd go to my grandparents house and she got cookies. And so that was very much modeled. And [00:08:00] so I think part of it is just. Acknowledging where you're at as a parent and where your relationship is with food and kind of doing the work on that and then modeling that for your kids.
Melissa Rohlfs: So teaching them things like how to listen to and honor their bodies when they're hungry and when they're full. We talked earlier about sometimes we just keep feeding the kids and maybe they're not hungry. So just letting them listen to their own bodies. I think it's really powerful instead of forcing them to eat lunch at noon because that's what time we eat lunch at.
Melissa Rohlfs: Maybe they're not hungry for lunch at noon. I think it's a lot of kind of displaying what culture has told us to
Sara Mayer: do. And I grew up, my parents would be like, you have to finish your plate or you can't leave. Is that something we should be doing anymore? I don't know. I
Melissa Rohlfs: don't think so.
Melissa Rohlfs: I think let them listen to and honor their bodies. And the thing I like to do with our kids is, okay, you're not hungry right now. We'll save this for later. When you are hungry, you can come back to it. So A, we're not wasting it. And B, we're letting them honor their hunger and fullness. [00:09:00] And C, we're not becoming a short order cook and making them something totally
Sara Mayer: different.
Sara Mayer: Yeah, we're not becoming the restaurant. Welcome to the drive through. How can I help you today? Why would you like me to cook you? Yeah. I actually worked with the client who was like, I cook four different meals for my family. And I was like, how did that start? Yes.
Melissa Rohlfs: How did
Sara Mayer: it start? One, it started with one had an allergy.
Sara Mayer: And then so that child couldn't have, I don't remember what it was eggs or something. And so then the other children like learn okay they get special meals. So she's I just didn't have the boundary to say no, this is. And she's at first I couldn't reason with them.
Sara Mayer: They were young. And then I just became accommodating, but she had four children. So she was making, it was special orders all day long. Wow. She was in
Melissa Rohlfs: the kitchen a lot. I bet.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And the other thing that she moved to, this isn't the purpose [00:10:00] of what I worked with her on, but she was like having healthy snacks in the fridge that they could just grab.
Sara Mayer: Was the way that she was able to give them the ability to choose because she didn't want to take that part away, like the ability to choose, but she also didn't want. To have the cheesecake factory menu makes total sense. Yeah. Yeah. So you are a holistic, now you're a holistic health coach. So what is that all about?
Sara Mayer: What are the things that if somebody is feeling frustrated, stressed, or just know they need to do something different, are the things that they should be looking for or doing right away?
Melissa Rohlfs: Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is to become aware and really get curious. So many times we're so quick to judge ourselves of, oh my goodness, I can't believe that I've let myself get this far or, oh, I can't believe I just ate the whole package of Oreos and we start the shame spiral.
Melissa Rohlfs: But if we can stop that and just get curious and maybe ask, okay, what was I [00:11:00] looking for in the moment? What motivated me to eat the whole sleeve of Oreos? Is there something? That I'm missing that I feel like I'm craving or I'm hungry for and I recognize it as a physical hunger or craving. Maybe it wasn't for the Oreos, maybe it was for more connection, or maybe I need more alone time, or maybe I need less time in the kitchen like your client or whatever that is.
Melissa Rohlfs: I think it's really, getting. Curious and getting aware can be a really great starting
Sara Mayer: point. Yeah. And that shame cycle is so easy to get into because we want to be good at things. We want to, do the right thing for our family. So the first step is to really get curious and stop that.
Sara Mayer: Shame cycle. So once somebody jots down, what they learn from that exercise, what's next?
Melissa Rohlfs: I think it's to figure out what you need and what you're lacking and find a way to integrate more of that in your life. Cause again, a craving can be a messenger. It [00:12:00] might not necessarily be a hunger. Craving it might again be for more alone time.
Melissa Rohlfs: It might be you need more time in nature, whatever that is. We all have needs. There's this wheel of life that I love to share of different areas of our life that so many of us have, maybe we need more nourishment and whether it's home cooking or exercise or finances or relationships, whatever that is usually there's an area that we're deficient in and so we'll recognize that as a craving and we'll turn to the food.
Melissa Rohlfs: I think really identifying. What is it you're craving for and add more of that into your schedule or maybe you're chronic overcommitter like me and you need to take things off. You need to start saying no. So figure out what exactly do I need here instead of turning to the food.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And you mentioned that it was like a signal.
Sara Mayer: And so that message sometimes is a whisper that we don't hear. It's not very loud and clear. So I love the idea of really getting clear and then that wheel of what am I missing? Maybe it's you're [00:13:00] missing alone time, as you mentioned, or maybe it's you're missing that connection with another person and how to actually go in and get that.
Melissa Rohlfs: Absolutely. And I think too, to your point earlier about we feel like we fail or that shame cycle. We have a whole diet industry screaming at us, telling us the A plus B equals C. And if you do X, Y, Z, you'll get this result. And that's. Not the case. And so I think we need to take some of that pressure and some of that expectation off of ourself that it's a one size fits all because it's not.
Melissa Rohlfs: We're all different. We're all unique. We have different seasons. We have different phases. And it's not going to be exactly what works for me works for you. So I think it's really important to honor our uniqueness and our bio individuality.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And some people get so focused on the number on the scale too.
Sara Mayer: And that is really a result. We talk about this in one of my goal setting courses. It's really a result of eating healthy and exercise. And [00:14:00] we're measuring kind of something we can't control. It's if I said, I want to be I want to win more Olympic medals than Michael Phelps. It's a very smart goal, but I'm probably not going to get there.
Melissa Rohlfs: Yeah. And I think, too, that whole idea of weighing yourself and letting that number define you, that puts stress on your body. And when our bodies are in stress, it releases the hormone cortisol, which can cause us to retain weight around our belly. So it really has the opposite effect. Like we think we're doing this really, maybe healthful, healthy, conscious thing for ourselves.
Melissa Rohlfs: And if it's putting more stress on you, it's defeating the purpose.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. You talked about how that puts stress on us.
Melissa Rohlfs: A lot of things put stress on us and I don't think we're aware of how it shows up in our body.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head when you said sometimes we need to take things off our plate, but that's sometimes easier said than done.
Sara Mayer: So how do you. How do you guide somebody through really [00:15:00] looking at their priorities and thinking about what needs to stay and what needs to go? I think the
Melissa Rohlfs: biggest thing is to look at, okay, what is my purpose right now in this season? What is my mission? What is my vision? And if it doesn't align with that, then it really doesn't have a place.
Melissa Rohlfs: That sounds harsh, but I feel if you don't know your vision, if you don't know your purpose, if you don't know your mission, you're always going to be swaying and looking for things, but that piece is foundational. And then you can look at things through that lens of, okay, this is my purpose.
Melissa Rohlfs: This is my season. These are my commitments, this is what I'm gonna honor right now. Does it line up with that? Yes. Okay, great. Then I'll make it work. If not, then I'm sorry. I need to put this on the back burner for now and come back to it later.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. I love the idea of seasons because so many times we think we have to do everything right now.
Sara Mayer: And that's not necessarily the case. I have on my task it's like a task tracker, a sauna, but I have a board that's called someday maybe for all the things [00:16:00] that I'm interested in maybe someday doing. And there's all this random stuff like how to create a Koi pond and there's articles on there and how to do it.
Sara Mayer: But I realized that was not the time for me to do it or, serve on certain boards. And so I collect a lot of information there, but I may do it. Someday. Maybe. And if
Melissa Rohlfs: it happens, you've got the resources and you're ready to go. I love
Sara Mayer: it. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the greatest things I've ever created because it allowed me to not forget those things or those ideas.
Sara Mayer: And every once in a while I go in there and sort through them. And my podcast was originally a someday, maybe a task. I don't want to call it a task. It's like an idea collector, but it was on that little board. And now it's a reality. We're almost 200 episodes in and, that started that way, but going back to the seasons, when I put it on there, that was not the season for it.[00:17:00]
Melissa Rohlfs: Yeah. And I think there's something to be said about honoring the season you're in. A lesson in that we maybe don't look for or we don't tune into or we ignore, but I think there's something about
Sara Mayer: that. Yeah. Yeah. So now that you've had a life changing experience, how do you feel like what's different?
Melissa Rohlfs: Everything. I feel like everything is different. I. It's so funny because everybody thinks so much of it is about food, and it is about food, that's a piece of the puzzle, but like, how you do one thing is how you do most things, and so the lessons I've learned in my relationship with food and my body carried over into life, and so I think that I'm less judgmental, I'm more curious I used to be super judgmental and just really critique everything, and now I've learned how to approach it with curiosity, that started Because of my cravings and my sugar and we know why am I going for this?
Melissa Rohlfs: That's trickled over. I think I'm more patient. I'm more calm and more [00:18:00] confident. I think that I'm really able to show up as who I want to be instead of who I thought that I should be or needed to be or was striving to be. And now I can just be my authentic self. And there's a lot of freedom and like a breath of relief around
Sara Mayer: that.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that It's so refreshing when we can just show up in our true skin and be who we were meant to be. Now, I have maybe a more complicated question. If, you work with teens as well, how do we raise children with These healthy habits and this approach so that we don't continue that cycle of, you have to stay at the dinner table until it's all gone.
Melissa Rohlfs: I think it's acknowledging, what do I want my family to look like? What do I want my kids relationship with food and their bodies to look like, and maybe looking harshly at how. You were raised and what you want to carry forward and what you don't want to carry forward. I knew [00:19:00] for me, I didn't want to be that mom that was going for cookies in the cookie jar, just because they were there.
Melissa Rohlfs: So for me, it was about really getting mindful and learning to listen to my body and ask, am I hungry? What am I hungry for? What will nourish me? Really teaching them how foods make them feel, I think is powerful because we're so quick to judge foods as good or bad or healthy or unhealthy, but really. If we can pivot that and say, okay, how does this food make you feel?
Melissa Rohlfs: Does it give you energy? Does it make you feel good? Does it help you stay focused in school? Or is it a food that makes you feel really good and your blood sugar goes up and then you come crashing down and you're moody and you're tired and you have a hard time focusing? So I think helping them identify their own relationship with food can be really powerful.
Melissa Rohlfs: I think also another thing I've become aware of as our kids have gotten older is what is the culture? Sure, around the table is dinner a happy time. So they're having happy associations with food. Or is there a lot of bickering and complaining and it's negative and stressful and they don't want to have dinner together.
Melissa Rohlfs: So I think [00:20:00] those are some things that we can do as parents to help our kids have those healthy habits.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And for my daughter, the mac and cheese, she actually didn't really like cheese, which was interesting that was what she was obsessed with. It made her feel like home because her grandmother made that.
Sara Mayer: And so sometimes there's a lot of connections to feelings about people and spaces and, We are coming to the holidays. And so that can happen too. Like pumpkin pie for me is always Thanksgiving and a time when my whole family was together. And so while I probably wouldn't go out on a random Tuesday in February to get pumpkin pie, if I did, it still brings those feelings of family
Melissa Rohlfs: back.
Melissa Rohlfs: It's so interesting you say that because just yesterday And I made a video on that. And the day before I posted about how most of our food cravings are associated with childhood memories. And so you're either going to have a love for a [00:21:00] food, like you said, pumpkin pie, because it reminds you of your family, your memories, your daughter, the Mac and cheese.
Melissa Rohlfs: It feels like home, or you might have an aversion to. Because it made you sick. I think there's so much psychology around food and what that does to us that we might not even be aware of. So I love that you pointed that out.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. So funny story, though. We actually got in a fight on Thanksgiving, our family, because my cousin and I like the Ocean spray cranberry sauce.
Sara Mayer: Yes. That's just jelly. Yes. And he married into a family where this lady made cranberry sauce from like real cranberries. Oh no. And there were like sticks and berries in it and he was like I can't. I can't do this. And she brought it to our family dinner. I didn't know that her family had made it.
Sara Mayer: And I was like, what is this? Who made this? No, it was like horrible. And then afterwards they got in a fight over it, but it was how we grew up. That's the sauce that we're used to. And my poor [00:22:00] mom felt horrible. Cause she's the one who went and got it out of the pantry. And this woman had I don't know how long it takes to make that sauce, but apparently it takes a long time.
Sara Mayer: Oh, my goodness. We weren't having it. So
Melissa Rohlfs: what do you do now at Thanksgiving? I have to
Sara Mayer: know. Yeah. Same thing. My family comes over, food, everybody brings a different dish, but we always have that jelly cranberry sauce. Okay. So you stick to it. Yeah. What about you? What are your family traditions around the holidays?
Melissa Rohlfs: We've changed now that we've moved away from family and it's been interesting. Like I remember the first year we were just like, my goodness, it's just the four of us. And we didn't quite know what to do, but now we like love it. We make, the traditional meals. We do what we grew up with.
Melissa Rohlfs: I've adjusted them for our food allergies and to helpify them if you will. And then we go and we spend the day at the park because it's lovely in Arizona in November and you can do that. And yeah.
Sara Mayer: Oh, I love it. Yeah, I love Thanksgiving in the Midwest, but[00:23:00] it's different when you can sit outside and watch football in Arizona.
Sara Mayer: So it's a whole different vibe and ride your bike to
Melissa Rohlfs: the park. Your kids can play basketball. It's a lovely, and the same thing over Christmas break too. That's just. Wow.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. I've just loved this conversation. I think it's been very eye opening and I know some of the listeners are probably sitting here and they've resignated with some of the things that you've shared.
Sara Mayer: So if they wanted to work with you, how could they get in touch and maybe what could they expect? Yeah,
Melissa Rohlfs: they can go to my website, free to be coaching dot com. I've got some freebies there. I have an opportunity for us to chat on a call. I have a free personalized food struggle assessment call so we can figure out like where exactly you're getting stuck in your relationship with food and over.
Melissa Rohlfs: Like some things you can do to overcome that. So that's an option. I'm on social media. All my links are there, but yeah, I just love to help women and teen girls find freedom from that struggle. Cause the thing with food is that we need it, right? It's not [00:24:00] like drugs or alcohol or cigarettes or something we don't need, like food is a necessity.
Melissa Rohlfs: And so I think it's really important to look at our relationship to it and how we relate to it and what we use it for.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah, because it's not something you can really avoid. But I like that you bring up that it is a relationship with food because so many times we think of it as a transactional relationship, but it's so much more.
Sara Mayer: Absolutely.
Melissa Rohlfs: And it affects everything.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. I really enjoyed this conversation and I want to thank you for being on the show. I just love connecting with you and bold goal crushers. It's time to get out there and crush your goals and everything that gets in the way. So you don't have to work double time.
Sara Mayer: So let's get to it.
Melissa Rohlfs: Thank you, Sara. I've enjoyed being here.
Sara Mayer: Oh, thanks. It was great having you. Thank you.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and [00:25:00] everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
Sara Mayer: I look forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
