Today I welcome good friend to the show, “That Health Chick” – Errin Smith.
Errin is an avid health and fitness fanatic who is expert trained in holistic health for over 10 years, and is the founder host and producer of What We Crave: The Emotional Eating Summit, which Dr. Pompa recently appeared as a speaker.
I asked Errin to join me on the show because emotional eating is such an important topic that gets so overlooked, and yet so many people struggle with it (and really don’t talk about it).
With people spending more time indoors than ever before, and with emotions at an all time high, this could not be more important to listen to , and share with loved ones today.
More about Errin Smith:
Errin Smith, also known as “That Health Chick” is an avid health and fitness fanatic who is expert trained in holistic health for over 10 years, and is a consultant for the top practitioners in the country, such as Dr. Dan Pompa and Dr. Zach Bush MD. She's also the founder host and producer of What We Crave: The Emotional Eating Summit.
- Watch Errin's What We Crave summit by registering for free here.
- Hank Williams Chiropractor, Laguna Beach
- Upgraded Minerals
- CytoDetox: total detoxification support where it matters most – at the cellular level.
- Dr. Pompa's Beyond Fasting – now released!
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Transcript:
Dr. Pompa:
Are you an emotional eater or would you say that you have any type of eating disorder? I would say most of us would say no. In this episode you might find out that you’re wrong. Some of your health problems of not feeling well are actually tied to emotional eating. The woman who I love and adore in this episode, you’re going to hear from Erin Smith that this was her problem. Wait until you hear her discoveries so much so that the solution, she gives us ten things that transformed her life. You’re going to get those ten. Stay tuned for an amazing episode that you’re going to want to share.
Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith. Today we welcome good friend of the show, that health chick, Erin Smith. Erin is an avid health and fitness fanatic who is expert trained in holistic health for over ten years and is the founder, host, and producer of What We Crave: The Emotional Eating Summit, which Dr. Pompa recently appeared on as a speaker.
We wanted to bring Erin on the show because emotional eating is such an important topic that gets so overlooked and yet so many struggle with it and really don’t talk about it. With people spending more time indoors than ever and with emotions at an all-time high, this could not be more important to listen to today. Let’s get started and welcome to the lovely Erin Smith and, of course, Dr. Pompa to the show. Welcome, both of you.
Errin Smith:
Hi, guys. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Pompa:
She’s the lovely Erin Smith. We love you, Erin Smith. You deserve every bit of that. Oh, my gosh. We’re so glad to have you on Cell TV.
Errin Smith:
Thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
I can always talk to you any time on any subject.
Errin Smith:
I know, right? I love you guys so much. Thank you for having me. This is going to be awesome.
Dr. Pompa:
You’ve been a busy girl. We promoted The Summit. I think it’s worth talking about because we didn’t do it on Cell TV in the sense that there is such an important message here. I think when people hear about what we eat or what we crave, food addiction comes up in their mind. They would say that’s not me. Then emotional eating some people might say that’s not me either.
I would argue you need to listen to this whole show because it just might be you. This is broad in this eating disorder. I even hesitate saying that because people would never say I have an eating disorder. What do you crave? That’s a very important question. That was the question in your summit.
I think it really needs to resonate with people because your cravings, your addictions, your emotional eating could play into something you haven’t thought about. Erin, I want you to start with your story. You did this summit for a reason. You interviewed the top experts in the world.
One of the questions we’re going to ask her, folks, is what she learned from it, what she took away. This is an area that she owns because she’s been through it. Let’s start there. You’ve been through it. Tell us how did you get here? How did you acquire all this knowledge that I believe everyone needs? That’s why you’re here today.
Errin Smith:
Thank you. It’s interesting, working with you and all of these amazing experts, you would think I have it all together with ten years of this, learning the protocols and the fasting and biohacking. It just goes to show you that there’s something much deeper like what you said that maybe some of us aren’t looking at. I know I wasn’t. Back then for me I just didn’t have the tools. I didn’t have the emotional resilience.
I could tell you about nutrition and super food and detox protocols. When I get stressed, I’d be the first to eat an entire cauliflower crust pizza and Bulletproof bars and a pint of keto ice cream because it was keto and clean and non-GMO and organic. Honestly, I was using healthy food. I never touched the junk.
Dr. Pompa:
Right, she’s disciplined, folks, very healthy food. That brings me to my point. I want you to go on, but my point is that many people watching this show are already eating healthy. I don’t have an eating problem. I don’t have emotional eating. I don’t have food addiction because I eat healthy. That’s what you thought.
Errin Smith:
Right. I was using health food to numb out, and I wasn’t even aware. I got stuck in the cycle for years. I think too because I had spent all my career learning about health, I became so passionate. I didn’t take the time to learn about the other areas that you need to look at. If you want real health where you have all of these pillars dialed in, that is real health. It’s not just I’m going to eat organic and have a green juice.
Emotional eating kind of sits you down and says honey, you’ve got some blind spots to work on. Pausing on this, just quick back story, this will help make so much sense. First of all, you know me, Dr. Pompa. When I go all in on something, I go all in. I give your wife, Merily, a run for her money when it comes to who eats the most.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely. My wife has been told she eats like a linebacker. Thank God she intermittent fasts and does that in small windows; you as well.
Errin Smith:
That’s why I love her. I also go beast mode on fasting and workouts and being an athlete. I’m kind of just wired like that and not to mention growing up as a kid I was an athlete. My dad was always trying to bulk me up to gain weight for basketball. I was always eating. That will come into play here in a minute.
Just rewinding a little bit, back in my 20s when I first moved down to California, I worked out like a crazy person. It was very South Beach Diet, zero fat, two fat grams a day, working out twice a day, spin, hot yoga, saunas, adrenal failure, working 18 hours a day, totally depleted of minerals and fat. I did this huge colonic detox that I knew nothing about. I wasn’t working with a practitioner. I just whipped up a recipe I found online.
I completely messed everything up. I ended up in the hospital with a grand mal seizure. That’s called doing detox wrong, as you talk about. That’s called the beast mode seizure. I should have died. It was a miracle I didn’t. It took me six months to recover.
That literally changed my life and started working in holistic health. From then on I got into sales. I was so passionate. I had a second chance at life so I was like I’m going into sales. I’m going to work in super food sales or do something. I just want to be part of this industry.
Then I discovered keto. Then I felt so incredible because I’d been so depleted for fat for so long to the point where I was so depleted I’d be on the freeway driving in 90-miles-an-hour traffic. I’d have to pull over to the side of the road and just sleep because my brain would just shut down because I was so depleted in fat. Keto brought me back to life. I remember that first sip of bulletproof coffee. I was like this is glorious. Of course, I got obsessed with keto. I went beast mode with keto.
Dr. Pompa:
I remember that.
Errin Smith:
I’d bring you bulletproof coffees every morning at conferences. Fast forwarding at the peak of my sales career was at the peak of my emotional eating. Even though I was in the Nutraceutical sales holistic health space, that’s where things started to fall apart. For me, starting to work from home, going from outside sales rep, working with doctors out in the field to inside sales rep, sitting all day behind my computer not moving, not connecting with other humans, high stress, sales goals that were completely unattainable, fear of getting fired all the time, the most stressful goals I’ve ever had. You know me. I can handle stress. I’m an athlete. I can handle this.
This was like phone rings, it’s my boss, constant visceral reaction, fight or flight. Your whole body just completely freaks out. I just found myself grabbing for the food. It was healthy food, but I was just like snack all day, bulletproof coffee. Whatever it was, as long as it was healthy, I was just a bottomless pit.
Dr. Pompa:
I have to ask a quick question. If I would have asked you or if I would have said to you at that point Erin, I think you have an emotional eating problem, how would you have responded to me?
Errin Smith:
I would have been like no, I’m not. I just like to eat. I think I would have just been like I work out so much that I just need to eat more.
Dr. Pompa:
I think that would have been your answer. Go on.
Errin Smith:
This was when I was 28. This is ten years later. Not to mention I would have to fly across the country once a week to the East Coast. If you’re over in Florida, 6:00 a.m. Eastern is 3:00 a.m. Pacific. Your sleep is trashed. Hunger hormones are whacked.
I’m needing to eat more because you’re starving and you’re a bottomless pit. Then you eat more, and then your blood sugar spikes. Then you eat all the snacks because you can and it’s keto. Then you’re also working from your desk sitting for 16 to 20 hours a day not moving. You’re too tired to go work out. Then you eat more.
Then you fly home and you have to do it all over again the next week. I did that for six months straight. That’s where I remember, you noticed that I was at my worst. I had gained 25 pounds. That was including multiple fasts because I knew I had to fast. I would shame fast it off.
I gained all this weight, then 14-day bone broth fast just to get the weight off. Then I’d go into keto and feel amazing. I’m like I’ve got to stay in keto, so now I’ve got to eat all the keto. Then I’d gain the weight back. I was stuck in this cycle. You saw me. I was swollen and puffy and inflamed.
Dr. Pompa:
I have to admit too, I feel a little guilty because I saw that. I knew that it was unhealthy. I knew that you were running an unhealthy course. I saw the ups and the downs. I love you. I never wanted to hurt your feelings. I never wanted to approach you and say there’s an issue here.
The reason that you don’t look the way you want to look is because of this issue. I never had the guts to approach you on that. I feel like I should say I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t even know what the lesson is here. Do you approach somebody? I don’t think you would have heard it anyway.
Errin Smith:
I was not going to hear it. I’m so grateful you didn’t say anything because it brought me to where I am now. I put on the summit. It was very pain to purpose. I put on my own summit to figure it out to help other people with this.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s such an amazing summit. The link will be here. If you even feel like this is an issue for you, there’s an answer in this summit. We’re going to talk about that in a minute. Go ahead, finish the story.
Errin Smith:
You should see the people that reached out to me. They were in the same health space. They were like oh, my God. That’s me. If I helped one person, I’m stoked. I was in so much joy and purpose to help bring this. It was all worth it. I even took a picture of one of the worst. I look six months pregnant. I’ll pull it up on my phone.
Dr. Pompa:
No one worked out more. No one ate better, yet she was bloated out to her point. It was this problem that she was talking about. I’ll have to have you tell the story after you show this, the yogurt story. This addicted girl could have bought stock in yogurt. That addiction created another problem, but I’ll let you tell the story. Okay, let me see the picture.
Errin Smith:
I just had it. Of course, my phone is—oh, there we go. This is I don’t know how many years ago. Does Erin look pregnant there? Yes, she does. That’s just bloatedness. Isn’t that crazy?
Dr. Pompa:
That’s crazy.
Errin Smith:
It was like that all the time. I was just thinking it’s just because I had some erythritol. It’s fine. It will go down. Granted, erythritol was part of the problem, which we’ll get to.
It’s just funny because the most ironic thing was I was the most educated I had ever been about health. Somehow I was the most exhausted, not really happy, adrenal fatigued, numbing out, not to mention impulse shopping and retail therapy—that’s another conversation. It was just like it’s healthy. It made me okay. It was okay.
You can just do it. I didn’t care. I had the F-its for six months where I just didn’t care. I became so fascinated. I’m still doing this, and I know better. I repeated it. Here we are with the summit.
Dr. Pompa:
I think so many of my viewers really can relate to that. Many of my viewers are healthy. They do healthy things, but yet they’re still searching and looking for that thing to get where they want to be. They’re going through this. That’s why I think this is such an important show.
Errin Smith:
One more thing, which is so interesting, when I said I’m going to get to the bottom of this and figure this out, if I can just figure out why it’s happening not just what to do when it happens fast, but why is this happening, I can get to the bottom of this and actually change my brain. I started filming these interviews right before COVID. Then COVID lockdown hits, enter the worst emotional eating epidemic of all time, and my summit launches. I was like if this isn’t divinely timed, I don’t know what is. Here we are.
Dr. Pompa:
All right, yogurt story.
Errin Smith:
Oh, the yogurt story!
Dr. Pompa:
I’m not going to let you forget.
Errin Smith:
Being in California, they have the healthiest stuff everywhere. When I was fasting and in keto, there’s people who can do straight-from-the-farm dairy.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m one of them. I’m great with it, no problem.
Errin Smith:
Before, I had cut out dairy a long time ago. I was like I’m keto now, so I can add it back in. These jars of full-fat dairy full of these amazing probiotic fermented—it’s amazing. You feel amazing. All the good chemicals that are made in your gut go up to your brain. You just feel alive.
Of course, I got hooked on that. I would do sometimes three of those a day. Do you know how much full-fat dairy that is for someone that is not supposed to have dairy? It just goes to show you that sometimes certain things are not just because it works.
Dr. Pompa:
I would argue that one of the benefits of that product was that it was a fully fermented product, really fermented. If you let these things sit, the darn tops would blow off. They would pour out. That’s how fermented it was. You had SIBO unknowingly. You were putting all of this probiotic into a SIBO situation, which is an absolute disaster for people.
A little bit of it may have been okay, but you were putting this in and these bacteria were building up in your small intestine. That was even a bigger problem than just the dairy itself, honestly. I watched that happen with other people with fermented foods. This one was a powerhouse. It built up in your small intestine.
Errin Smith:
I was like but it’s good for me, so I can keep eating it. I remember taking that yogurt and eating it because it was the only thing that made me feel good amongst all the stress. It was like I didn’t want to hear it.
Dr. Pompa:
We actually crave the things that are actually oftentimes creating a problem oddly. We crave foods that we have literally become intolerant to. It’s the weirdest thing. Then you just want more of that, whether it’s the xylitol, erythritol sweeteners. Whatever it is, you start doing that and we’re realizing that the addiction is part of this craving. It’s odd.
Errin Smith:
I remember telling you I am addicted to this yogurt. Is it possible to be addicted to yogurt? Yes, it is. I have 35 interviews later a summit with these top takeaways. There’s like 50.
Dr. Pompa:
I asked you to narrow it down to ten. Let’s bring my viewers ten of what you learned that changed your life. Here you are in a totally different place. You’re the best Erin I know. These ten things narrowed down, let’s start. Let’s give a little [18:31].
Errin Smith:
I’m going to keep this as quick as I can. There’s so much to this, so it’s really just the tip of the iceberg. One of the things that hit me the hardest, I interviewed Tricia Nelson. She said, “You don’t have an eating problem, you have a living problem.” That was probably one of the most powerful quotes that hit me. I was like oh, man.
As one of the characteristics of someone that emotionally eats or stress eats is that we have a lack of boundaries and that we’re people pleasers. With myself, with family, with friends, with work, you name it, that was me. I couldn’t stand up to my boss. I couldn’t say no to other people. I’m like I’ll work until 2:00 a.m. on that project, sure. No problem. I don’t have a husband or kids. I can do it.
I would sacrifice my health just to get this approval, this validation that I was seeking, and it drove me into the ground. I was choosing all of it. I was really unaware of the way I was running my life. I had to take some inventory and look at what am I doing and what can I change? Everyone’s different, but we all know that one thing that we’re like I can change that there. I can adjust that here. I can say no to this.
It just takes some time and some self-reflection and some work. This is all internal work stuff. That was one. There were times where I’d be like I don’t have the budget for that snowboard trip, but I’m going anyways. It was the same area in my life where I was overeating and saying F-it and just eating all the food. I would say that with my budget with finances.
Dr. Pompa:
You’ve got a life problem like she said. It wasn’t like I can control this. You had a realization that this was extending into your entire life on everything. That brought it to another level of consciousness.
I know you, Erin. You desire to help people. You desire to be successful in every aspect. You realize I’m going to help nobody. I’m not going to be successful. This is ruining my existence. That was part of it; another one.
Errin Smith:
Another one is the gut, which you talk about a lot. The gut is the center of the universe for health. If our guts aren’t working, which mine clearly was not, enter brain fog, depression, anxiety, exhaustion, emotional eating, all the things. For me, I was like my gut is fine. No, clearly there was a problem.
I interviewed Dr. Zach Bush, who we talk about all the time, about how delicate our lining is where all of those feel-good chemicals are made. When that lining falls apart, which it’s only half of a—take a hair and chop it in half, and that’s how thin our lining is. When that thing falls apart, everything collapses around it from physical, emotional, everything. We talked about glyphosate, toxins, sugar, alcohol, processed foods, anything, including healthy stuff. It can tear the lining, including stress.
Dr. Pompa:
Like the yogurt, when those good bacteria got overbuilt in your small intestine, you’re bloating. SIBO is small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. In that case it was a healthy bacteria, but look at the symptoms it caused.
Errin Smith:
If our gut is supposed to make these feel-good chemicals, our serotonin, dopamine, all these things and we’re not making it in our lining because it’s just destroyed, of course we’re going to reach for the food. We want that dopamine hit from the food because our guts are not making what they’re supposed to be making to get us to feel good. That was major. We have to fix the gut or else we’re going to be stuck in this crappy state of emotional stuckness. You talk about the power of ion biome, which was formerly Restore, as a supplement. It’s a game changer for the leaks and the tears and getting the gut to turn on and function again.
Dr. Pompa:
I use it in every program because you’re right. The leaks and the tears, that’s what it does. I want people to hear this too. Some people go I don’t have a gut issue. I’ve seen this a lot. It’s like they don’t have problems digesting things.
They think they don’t have a gut problem, but a lot of that micro biome is how your brain works. That’s to your point. This can be the symptom, not the digestive problem after you eat. I can eat anything. I’m fine. Meanwhile, the micro biome is off, and it affects this brain. That can be part of this addiction and emotional eating. Okay, third one.
Errin Smith:
I was going to say I think everyone that—we’re exposed to glyphosate every day. No one is escaping it. You have to put up that armor every day if you even want to be out in the world. It’s mandatory now. Then speaking of toxins, I interviewed you, of course. You shared your story of the toxic overload and how toxins are connected to emotional eating, weight gain, weight loss resistance.
If we’re not looking at those like you always talk about, it’s a center point of so many problems. Again, you feel like crap from the toxins. You’re going to need a dopamine hit. You’re going to reach for that food. You’re always going to be stuck in that cycle, which you talked a lot about. You went through it too.
Dr. Pompa:
I did, absolutely.
Errin Smith:
Of course, I’m sure you probably don’t need to speak to that because you’re always talking about it.
Dr. Pompa:
I was encouraging you to continue brain phases because it’s the deep-rooted toxins in the brain that oftentimes lead to the problems. Your pituitary hypothalamus controls your whole hormonal system, your endocrine system. That’s why people end up with cravings. That’s why people have leptin resistance. That can lead to the physiological craving of food as well. Keep going.
Errin Smith:
That’s why we’ve got to get to the cell to get well. The next one is inherited trauma. This is another big one. I interviewed Bobbi Vogel with Etheric Medicine talking about how when we experience trauma, whether that’s physical, mental, emotional, that energy gets stuck. If we don’t release that, that can just lead to stress and anxiety and depression and stuckness.
We’re reaching for the food because we’ve got this trauma that we don’t even realize we have. That actually can carry over from past generations through DNA, which I know you talk a lot about. I actually took a hard look at my parents and their parents and sort of the generational trauma that they experienced. There was so much not feeling safe, abandonment, scarcity.
You have to earn your love. You have to earn everything. You can’t just receive anything, lack of self-love, lack of worthiness. My mom felt that her entire life and she was pregnant with me. No wonder my subconscious needed some work in those areas with those trapped emotions.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m going to ask the question. What I have found—by the way, trapped emotions in traumas is no different than a toxin that gets trapped in the cell. This does as well. It literally is in you like a toxin. Sometimes just the conscious thought of the awareness of I have this is enough to actually let the body let go of it. What else did you do now that you realize I have all these traumas?
Errin Smith:
The awareness for sure, releasing it. There’s several different techniques. One is through breath work kind of like how Hank, your doctor that is one of your [26:24] doctors.
Dr. Pompa:
Dr. Hank helped you do a lot of this too. I love Dr. Hank.
Errin Smith:
Oh, my gosh, so much work where you’re actually thinking of the emotional and pulling it out through the breath, targeting those organs that it’s stored in.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, Ashley, we’ll make sure we put Dr. Hank’s information here. He has a practice in Laguna Beach. He does this emotional work. We’ll give Hank kudos. Let’s send some people to him, but go ahead.
Errin Smith:
He’s amazing. I remember I would just walk in and he would just go bing, bing, bing, and I would just bawl tears. I had dad issues that I didn’t even know about that are just in there that we just are not aware of. When I interviewed Bobbi, she talked about being aware of it and understanding that there is purpose in all of this and that you can go from victim mindset to growth mindset. Your story can help so many other people. It completely changes the way you see your life.
Dr. Pompa:
You have to look back once you realize that this could be a problem at those and then you have to change the way you think about it. You have to change the perception. Your perception becomes your reality. You realize I needed that to become who I am today. Part of that you have to start speaking about it to people that way.
You have to talk about let me tell you why I had abandonment. Let me tell you why I needed that. The thoughts are one thing. You have to change the way you think about it. Then it’s more magical even the way you speak about it to other people, which takes you—it’s like a detox. It’s almost like you have to let it out.
Then you start reprogramming your subconscious. The more you speak at it differently, how important that was. I had to do that with my dyslexia. I thought it made me a dumbass because I couldn’t read until sixth, seventh grade. I had traumas to that.
Unknowingly they were stored in me. It wasn’t until I started realizing this made me be able to do this. I can do this because of this. That made me great. You have to speak that though.
Errin Smith:
[28:34] doing these interviews on the summit and doing these types of things, I look at the summit over and over again. You rewire your brain just listening. [28:45] the power of speaking and listening is amazing. Next one, that sounds basic, but it is everything. I’m not talking about sleeping. I’m talking about the deep, restful REM sleep we’re supposed to be getting.
Even if it’s four hours if you’re a mom that only gets four hours a night, it’s four hours of deep, restful sleep. When I didn’t sleep, I was an emotional eating basket case bottomless pit. For me that was everything. When I was able to just figure out how to get good sleep, which I interviewed Barton Scott who’s got an amazing magnesium supplement, I got the best sleep of my life. It’s from Upgraded Formulas. Literally the eight hours of—
Dr. Pompa:
We’ve interviewed him here as well. You call can go watch that episode on how to test for that. He puts together some great products. I use that magnesium as well.
Errin Smith:
You know how picky we are. We’re picky. I won’t recommend anything unless I am sold for life. I have huge expectations. When I met Barton, I was like okay, let’s try this. Let’s see. I was like oh, my gosh. I was sleeping so well.
There were some days I didn’t even need coffee, which is like you know you’re getting sleep when you feel rested like that. Sleep is the one thing that can either destroy everything or change everything. It’s the one most powerful hack from your mood to cortisol, the ability to burn fat, store fat, hormones, hunger levels, recovery, detox, repair. If you’re not getting sleep, anything you’re doing, your body can’t put the pieces together. You’ve got to get that sleep. Let’s see, let me go through my list here.
Dr. Pompa:
You’ll have to get the summit because in it is all these sleep things that you did to increase your deep sleep. They’re in there. Obviously, we don’t have time on this show, but that’s why you need the summit. Again, the summit link we’re going to put right here so you can get the summit. It’s amazing. Go ahead.
Errin Smith:
Thank you. Just going back to the eating habits and the snacking, I remember when I was sleep deprived I would rage Whole Foods and just be like throw it all in my cart. I would annihilate it.
Dr. Pompa:
I remember at the seminar, I’d see you at the seminar. You came with bags of food. You always were prepared. I wouldn’t even think about it. I’d be like we’re at the seminar.
You’d be like I have this and I have this. I’m like wow. It’s not even in my conscious. I was blessed because you’d give me things. You’d have the drinks. You’d have this. You’d have that.
Errin Smith:
I would have everything. It was my love language for sure. You’re like geez, Erin. I was always thinking about my next meal. I was always like what do I get to eat next? What is happening?
That’s the thing is those damn snack foods, even if it’s healthy. That is part of the problem. I was never satisfied on those snack foods no matter if it’s a Bulletproof bar with whatever. I was always like this is—your body is wired for whole food. Anything else you will never be satisfied.
You want to change the game and just focus on whole foods. When someone told me that—I think it was Meredith. I was like no, that’s too easy. I was like oh, my God. It is so true. You are so nourished with whole foods. It’s such an easy hack. Why do we not do it?
Dr. Pompa:
Everybody wants their addiction. When people come from the addiction of the typical snacks, they find the healthy addictions. What does it do to us as humans? The human goes they feel a little better about it. Our CEO, Roy, who we know, Roy was sitting back on the airplane. We were on the same flight heading to a funeral together.
This huge man sat next to him. They have the whole bag of food. All they did was eat, him and his wife, the whole flight. At the end when the woman came up to ask would you like something to drink, guess what he said? Diet Coke. That makes him feel a little bit better.
The low-fat label makes us feel a little bit better. It’s just a label, but it makes you feel better about your choice. By the way, at the end of that flight, they had to have someone come on the plane and get him out of the chair. This happens every time. They had the special wheelchair. He was eating himself into that obesity.
The point I’m making though is the Diet Coke, the keto label, those snacks, we find them at all the [33:33]. We’ll pay more for them because we feel better when we eat them. It’s still snacks. It’s still raising blood glucose and insulin. It’s still addiction of sweet somehow.
Errin Smith:
I notice when I was wanting those things, it was because of other things. I was stressed out. I wanted to just—I deserve this. We all deserve to live a little. Don’t get me wrong. If I’m with you in New York and Jerry and we’re going out to dinner, I’m going to enjoy myself, but it’s like when it’s all the time. Next one is all things—this seems so easy.
Dr. Pompa:
What number are we on?
Errin Smith:
We’re on number seven. We’ve got a few more. There’s a few in this one, but it’s all things primal in Mother Nature. We have to get outside in nature. We’ve got to ground. We’ve got to get movement, fresh air, sunshine, human connection, love, hugs, and laughter, all the things that are free.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, that seems basic, but even I get caught up in my day. I get caught up. Then I realize my physical body yearns to be outside. It really does. I always go I feel so much better. I fall victim of just getting sucked in and not doing it.
Errin Smith:
I know, right. Hey, you know that you have awareness around that which is good because for me, back then, I—it was sitting in a home with recycled air, disconnected from the earth, my feet not touching the ground, behind my phone, behind my computer, no eye contact, or love or connection with other humans. You wonder why we’re grabbing for food because we are craving to feel.
When we get out into nature, it’s—our soul is like, thank you. This is what I’m built from. We have to be—we just have to have it. We have to be around people. We have to have the connection and the hugs. Because when I didn’t have all of those things, my eating habits were the worst.
You look at COVID lockdowns. What is that doing to us? You look at the suicide rate because it has stripped everything from us as far as all those basic elements that we need; granted, I’m still going out. Every day, I’m out there now. You look at someone that may not be aware of how important that is and you look at what’s happening to people. They’re literally just falling apart, and in more ways than one.
Dr. Pompa:
Yep, absolutely.
Errin Smith:
You think about the happiest times, when you’re on vacation is when you have all those elements: the nature, sunshine, fresh air, people, love, all those things. It’s like, why do we wait until vacation to do this? Why can’t I incorporate this every day? We all have the same 24 hours. We have to just—it’s just priority, right.
For me, I know when I catch myself, I’m like, I haven’t moved today. I haven’t been outside. Like you, we got caught up in like, I got this, this, and this going on. We lose ourselves.
It’s like op, but we can get it back on track. Just literally get out there and get the fresh air, get the sunshine. Because you know when you’re at the beach, your appetite goes away because you’ve got the sunshine on your skin. Your vibes are high. You’re near nature; you’re near the waves. All of a sudden, I’m not really thinking about food, right?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s right, yep.
Errin Smith:
Okay, next one is—and this one, Andrea and Mindy, we talk about this, is we’re going too damn fast. We’re not breathing. We’re not present. We are completely disconnected from our bodies. We call that rushing women syndrome.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly, yeah. Women are more guilty of it than men. I guess that’s why you all refer to that as that.
Errin Smith:
I know, right. This was so me. There’s two pieces to this. Going too fast starts with the fact that we are not slowing down to breathe. That was me.
I remember back in my sales days when I was this young hustler, I would kill the day, crush it, but I would—my practitioners were like, girl, you’re not breathing. I’d walk in, rush around, talk to them, do the things, and just do a million things. They’re like, slow down. What are you doing?
I’m like, what do you mean? I’m breathing. They’re like, girl, you are not breathing. It took me ten years to realize that I was not breathing. That put me into adrenal fatigue because I was in fight or flight.
Dr. Pompa:
Sympathetic, yeah, it puts you in a sympathetic dominant state. Then that wastes the adrenals out. It’s a problem.
Errin Smith:
Yeah, and if I would have just slowed down and took some breaths.
Dr. Pompa:
Where’s Merily at? Merily needs to hear that because she’s got that syndrome. Trust me, she does, rushing women syndrome.
Errin Smith:
Oh, yeah. No wonder your brain is going to reach for food because it’s got to soothe this crazy, chaotic state, and just to get us to calm down and relax. Breathwork is the foundation. Besides sleep, I feel like breathwork, man, that’s the first thing that goes for me. When I get stressed out, my breath goes.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and we probably need to talk about the how to.
Errin Smith:
Yeah, I interviewed Josh on the how to, Josh Trent with Wellness Force. He’s amazing. Man, as much as breathwork is the simplest thing to do, it’s one of my biggest hurdles. I’ll get to the next one on that.
Man, just having a morning routine and adding that in or having—and just taking time to slow down. I interviewed Josephina [Bashout]. She’s like, women are outside of their bodies. Somehow, we get a badge of honor when we do ten million things in a day and we kill ourselves. What is that all about?
We’re not breathing; we’re not prioritizing our joy; we’re not prioritizing the way we feel. What is that all about? Where do we learn this?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s a modern problem; it really is. You’re right, we get badges for being that person. It’s so detrimental to our health.
Errin Smith:
Yeah; and she’s like, hey, I’m all about getting things done and going after your goals, but when we’re too much in the do-do-do-do, and be in the receiving mode, and we’re hustling too much, our vibrations are like, I am stressed out all the time. What we’re putting out into the world is just constant stress. All we’re going to attract is more stress versus if we can change our energy, slow down, and focus on our breathe, and just get into our bodies. Which again, I’m not—moms, most respect for moms ever, but there’s got to be even five minutes in the day where we can just go inward, and put ourselves together, and just slow down.
Again, you slow down, you’re way less likely to reach for the good. For me, I remember when I went to Bali with Meredith right before COVID. Life was so awesome. I was just eating. It was like, no, I’m not even hungry.
I’d have the beautiful, organic meals, vegan amazingness. I’m like, something has changed here. Maybe there’s low EMFs here, but I’m like, I’m breathing, I’m slowing down, and I’m not reaching for the food. This is amazing. It was a great testimony to we have to work at it every day to weave that into our life. Okay, and then the last one, which is toxic perfectionism and worthiness. This one really hit home for me.
Dr. Pompa:
That one plays off the last one in some sense.
Errin Smith:
I know, right; I know. I interviewed Angela Bell on this one. She said, “If you’re a toxic perfectionist, you’re always trying to improve your worth. You will always do everything you can outside of yourself to improve it,” like the badge of honor, always doing more. That was me. I would stay up—wake up at 6 AM and work until midnight just to get that, my star for the day that I did this. I got validation. I was searching for love outside myself versus inside myself.
The interview with Angela was amazing because she goes into just our wiring from childhood, which is something that we didn’t grow up learning. For me, at a young age, I had to earn love. That was the way I interpreted it. That’s why you become a perfectionist is because to be perfect, that equals learning love. I watched my mom sacrifice her whole life, put everything else for her kids, and she took the crumbs. With my dad, it was, well, you need to live your life this way. If you don’t, I’ll withhold love. It was this perfect recipe of perfectionism, and lack of worthiness, and emotional eating to—just to feel the love that I craved.
Granted, my parents were awesome. I had no issues. It was just their parenting style; they didn’t know any different and how it was making me feel. They just didn’t have the tools. We can have grace around our parents instead of blaming and being the victim. To just go, they didn’t know; now, I know. I can make a change.
The way that we can change this is really interesting. This really hit me hard was that we have to understand that our worth never changes. It’s set from the moment that we’re born.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Errin Smith:
We can’t. I was like, yes, we—yes, you can. You can improve your worth. That’s what I was thinking when I heard this. I was like, you can do—no.
Dr. Pompa:
Because God creates us with that worth.
Errin Smith:
Exactly, yes. That is the thing is we are born with it; we don’t have to do anything to earn it. It is ours.
We have to see ourselves—the person that I love the most are my nephews. They don’t have to do anything to earn my love; I love them like they’re my own kids. We have to learn to see ourselves and love ourselves like we love that person that means the most to us. I was like, oh, dang, I’m definitely not doing that.
When our setpoint of worth is planted firmly and we begin to show it differently in our lives, our decisions are—change for the better. We show up differently. We start attracting more things into our life that are better because we finally have changed that inside of us.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, absolutely. I have to ask this. This is what you asked every one of the people you interviewed. I’m going to flip it around on you and ask you.
Errin Smith:
Let’s do it.
Dr. Pompa:
All right, at the end of the day, we crave what we crave, but what do you think we’re actually really craving?
Errin Smith:
Thank you for asking that because, man, I—it took me a while to get here. After doing all of these interviews, I asked everyone on the interview that same question. They all had different answers. I was like, gosh, the common thread in all of this is that we’re craving to feel alive. We are craving to feel alive.
That could mean our physical bodies, our physical health, our connection to ourselves and each other, to love, to movement, to our—to how we feel vibrationally in our purpose, or in peace and connection to faith. If you think about all the common threads, when you are most alive, do you ever crave food? Think about a wedding where you’re dancing your butt off, and you’re just so happy, or you’re at Disneyland on a ride with your family, or you’re watching a football game, you’re at the Super Bowl, or you’re snuggling with your favorite person, or in you’re in gratitude being in nature, or you’re traveling, and you’re just in awe of the magnificent beauty that nature is, all of these things that make us feel alive including our health.
When our health is—we get rid of those toxins, and we fix our gut, and we start putting in those good foods, our whole vibration changes. We feel alive. I think that’s what we’re craving. The key—yeah?
Dr. Pompa:
Go ahead.
Errin Smith:
I was just going to say I think that’s the key is to do all the things that make you feel alive. Fill that cup every day because that’s how we make peace from the inside out. That’s how we can make peace with food because when you have all those things dialed in, you’re like, I don’t really think about food.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, exactly. Just hearing you speak that, I was just trying to boil it down to one thing. You know what I heard you say? Happy, I crave to be happy. I think that’s all of us.
To bring this full circle, something you actually said at the very beginning was that it—there’s pillars to this; meaning, it’s not just—health is not just this. You are good at this, but it’s this, this, this. It’s this balance.
To be happy, it’s this balance because that’s ultimately what you just said is we just—I just want to be happy. How are you happy when you’re addicted to food, emotionally eating? You’re not happy. You’re striving at that point. All those ten things really, you realized, aw, this is helping me create that balance to ultimately crave happiness; we crave happiness.
Errin Smith:
Right, yeah. No, you nailed it. Isn’t it such a beautiful, fascinating thing that this is all of these things and what it comes down to is this? Yet, we have these struggles.
How beautiful it is that we can bring this to people and be like, hey, this [00:47:57] like here you go? It took me ten years to figure this out. It’s such a simple thing, but it’s just the awareness and [00:48:08] it’s not in the fridge; it is something else that you are craving deeply and to figure out what it is.
Dr. Pompa:
I think when we look at happiness, we can be full because those yogurts made you happy, man. I watched those make you happy. You know what I’m saying? It was an addiction; it wasn’t a lasting happiness.
Errin Smith:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
Ultimately, it’s the balance of all of this. It’s brought you happiness. I think that there’s little red flags along the way that realize that temporary happiness, not lasting. I think we have to look at our lives and say temporary might be part of the problem. Lasting, this is lasting; this is good.
I think we literally have to check off the boxes. I think the Summit, just like it changed you, will get people’s—we can check off the box. Get the Summit. Honestly, it was just obviously a blessing to be a part of it, but it blessed so many. Thank you for being here, and doing this, and getting it out to people. Thank you, Errin Smith. We love you.
Errin Smith:
Thank you, guys. Thank you for—
Dr. Pompa:
[00:49:22] know about that.
Errin Smith:
[0:49:23].
Dr. Pompa:
Thank you. I had a little guilt about that. I was like, heck. I saw that. Okay, well, thank you.
Errin Smith:
Yeah, I know. Thank you, guys. Yeah, it starts October 20th. It’s free. Yeah, the links in the notes. Yeah, What We Crave. I’m excited for you guys to watch it. Thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
What We Crave, Emotional Eating Summit, be there.
Ashley Smith:
That’s it for this week. We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. This episode was brought to you by CytoDetox. Please check it out at buycytonow.com. We’ll be back next week and every Friday at 10 AM Eastern.
