Love Food, Lose Weight: How to End Emotional Eating Without Dieting with Molly Zemek | ANEW EP 79

 Do you love food but feel trapped in a cycle of overeating, guilt, and failed diets? You’re not alone—and you’re not broken.

In this powerful episode of the ANEW Insight Podcast, Dr. Supatra Tovar sits down with Molly Zemek—former chef, certified life coach, and host of the wildly popular Weight Loss for Food Lovers podcast—to unpack how food became our go-to for comfort, how diets keep us stuck, and what it really takes to lose weight without giving up the joy of eating.

Molly’s story is raw, relatable, and refreshing. Raised in a food-loving Italian family, she built a career around gourmet cooking and fine wine. But by her 40s, motherhood, emotional stress, and exhaustion were taking a toll. She found herself reaching for food and wine not just out of love, but out of habit—seeking relief from overwhelm, boredom, and self-doubt.

What followed wasn’t another round of dieting—it was a radical shift in self-awareness.

In this episode, Molly shares how she:

• Lost 40 pounds without restriction or shame
• Identified emotional triggers like perfectionism, people-pleasing, and “not good enough” beliefs
• Used mindfulness to separate physical hunger from emotional cravings
• Transformed her relationship with food, her body, and her emotions

Dr. Tovar and Molly are perfectly aligned in their mission to deprogram diet culture and help people rebuild body trust. They explore:

• Why deprivation always backfires (and makes cravings worse)
• How your body actually tells you what it needs—if you listen
• The difference between true satisfaction and emotional “stuffing”
• How to indulge without guilt by finding your “pleasure sweet spot”
• Why dieting triggers fat storage and burnout—not sustainable weight loss
  
  

You’ll also learn how to reframe emotional eating not as a failure—but as a signal. When you pause and ask, “What am I really needing?”—you begin to break the cycle.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who:

• Feels defeated by yo-yo dieting
• Wants to enjoy food without losing control
• Struggles with late-night cravings, emotional snacking, or perfectionism
• Is ready to finally feel good in their body—without punishing it
  
  

Molly’s approach is practical, compassionate, and backed by deep personal transformation. If you’re tired of chasing “clean eating” perfection or counting calories like a math equation, this conversation will shift your mindset—and possibly your life.

🔥 Get ready to reconnect with your body, your hunger, and your happiness.

🎧 Listen now—and don’t miss Part 2 for even more real talk and powerful strategies.

Want to know more about Molly Zemek, here are her social media channels : https://www.mollyzemek.com/,  https://www.instagram.com/mollyzemek/?hl=en,  http

Thank you for joining us on this journey to wellness. Remember, the insights and advice shared on the ANEW Body Insight Podcast are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making any changes to your health routine. To learn more about the podcast and stay updated on new episodes, visit ANEW Body Insight Podcast at anew-insight.com. To watch this episode on YouTube, visit @my.anew.insight. Follow us on social media at @my.anew.insight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads for more updates and insights. Thank you for tuning in! Stay connected with us for more empowering stories and expert guidance. Until next time, stay well and keep evolving with ANEW Body Insight!

Transcript

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:01

I'm excited. We are pod swapping. I was on Molly's podcast and was just so impressed with her skills and what she has to offer that I invited her onto mine. And so I am so excited to be able to pick her brain. Before I do that, I am going to read you just a little bit about Molly, and then I'm going to get right into my questions for her. Molly Zemek is a certified life coach and weight loss expert who helps people end emotional eating and transform their relationship with food. Drawing on her own journey of losing 40 pounds and her deep understanding of the psychological ties to eating habits, Molly developed a proven framework to guide individuals towards sustainable weight loss without restrictive dieting. Thank you. Well, I would love to dig in to your personal story. You did find a way to lose 40 pounds, but just tell us what led to the weight gain and how did you lose 40 pounds and then learn how to help people overcome emotional eating.

Molly Zemek: 0:03

We prioritized eating well I, I understood from an early age, the importance of food and how good it could taste when you cooked with the right type of ingredients. And so it just became a passion of mine from an early age, and I really started to equate eating with love. I mean, it certainly was a love language in my house when I was growing up as a child. I enjoyed every minute of it and then continued on working as a private chef. And it wasn't until I was in my thirties and late forties. As a new mom that my habits of overeating and also over drinking, because I'm also a certified sommelier and as I mean, there, there is a real relationship between good wine and good food. Yes. And so it was actually a blessing in disguise because I started to become a lot more in touch with my body first, just by listening to a lot of the biofeedback that I was receiving, just increased anxiety, indigestion low mood, low energy. And as a new mom, It was just really taking its toll on me. And so I just knew that something needed to change. I just didn't know how to change it. And I just began really seeking solutions. I really was just open to trying something different. And it was around that time that I discovered life coaching and I started asking some deeper questions. What were some of the reasons why I was so motivated to eat the way I did? I mean, I was sort of, I grew up hearing that I was just too sensitive, and never really had the language or the process of working through my feelings, which I'm sure probably many of your listeners can relate to. I think that it's a common experience. So all of a sudden I was presented with this opportunity when I wasn't eating more than I needed to, or drinking wine every night to really come face to face with my feelings. And this wasn't an overnight process and it's still not a process that's complete. It's an ongoing process of understanding yourself but, I was so inspired by this journey and just how different it was from previous diets that I had been on that I just thought I have to share this with other food lovers, with other people who are like me, who think they just love good food too much to be able to control themselves. Yeah, and there are a number of things that it was linked to one of the things that I discovered is that when I was fatigued, when I often in situations, if I was taking on more than really I could handle. Which I mean other moms listening to this podcast I'm sure can relate to this It's not just moms But any time we sort of take on more out of obligation to be available to other people We have to take it from somewhere. And a desire to eat as a way to escape that feeling. Now, this is my unique experience and it's not the same for everybody. But those were feelings that I needed to identify and figure out new ways of coping with. And so I think sometimes the disappointment might come, and it's, it could be having a high standard for myself as a mom and thinking I'm not good enough. And that if I had a craving or an urge to eat and I wasn't physically hungry, then that was something to investigate. So that was sort of the premise of it. And as I started down that path, if I had a craving and of course, this was not a perfect process and none of us are perfect eaters, nor do we need to be perfect eaters. I think I was just like disappointed in myself. I was disappointed that this is how I handled the situation or I was disappointed because of this. And then I would try and piece it together. I would try and think, okay, why was I feeling disappointed? And through my background as a life coach, I understand kind of the relationship between my thinking and the feelings that are generated by my thoughts.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:14

It's really about a journey into self awareness, really understanding the difference between emotional hunger, physical hunger, that self awareness of, am I physically hungry or

Molly Zemek: 0:15

Well, it begins with really listening to your body. And really tapping into to that true physical hunger, like you mentioned, because there's nothing more satisfying than eating from a place of hunger. It just makes the meal that much more pleasurable and when you get good at listening to your body, not only are you able to eat more in alignment with your body, but you're also able to identify This does take a lot of mindfulness. So my recommendation to people is that as you are going through this process of maybe changing your relationship with food and being more intentional and more mindful that at first you decide in advance when you're going to have some of these foods so that you're not responding to urges so that you're not giving into a craving. And so I think the best foods to do this with our foods that are highly flavorful that are things that, that you just absolutely love that you can say, when I have a bite of this just is like my absolute favorite and when I have a couple of bites, I'm really getting the full experience of eating it.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:18

I think it's so important we have a food neutral mindset. We tend to moralize food as good or bad, and when we actually say that there's all foods that are open to us, it gives us permission to actually truly taste them as opposed to, just stuffing it down our faces as fast as we can, because, we're really not supposed to eat this bad food and we can't actually enjoy it. Making it neutral where it's not moralized, I think has been really revolutionary for my clients.

Molly Zemek: 0:19

It becomes the coping mechanism because many of us grow up learning that food is an easy source of comfort, right? We're rewarded with food or it's just easily available. We live in a culture where it's normalized to eat very large portions and to eat a lot of processed food, right? And, when we do that, it really does provide some momentary relief. If you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling angry, right? All of that energy from your nervous system gets redirected towards your digestion, and you feel kind of relief, and you feel some momentary pleasure. So I think that it's a very easy and convenient thing for people to fall into. Well, I mean, the big one that I talk about all of the time is that you have to give up the food you love to, to be at your ideal weight, that there are right and wrong foods. That there are set rules. I mean, just if we want to create an umbrella misconception is that there are set rules that you have to follow. Understanding, my, my thinking and thoughts like, I shouldn't be eating this thoughts like, oh, I deserve this. A lot of those unconscious thoughts that actually fuel overeating that many of us aren't aware of. A lot of that plays into the overeating. And so for me, learning, like shifting the focus back to my body and learning how to listen to, to, my physical body, learning how to listen to my mind, learning how to pay attention to my emotions

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:23

on your activity. And if you ascribe yourself a 1200 calorie diet, which is not enough to fuel a toddler, you're not going to have the energy that you need to get through your day. You're not going to be able to sustain that longterm. So it's so important not to think about think in calories because you just don't know how much you're going to need in a day. The only way that you're going to know is by listening to your body and honoring your hunger, because your hunger, a lot of people think is a bad thing. you're not losing fat because your body's in that stressed state. Well, I want to be mindful of the time because we're out of time for this half of this podcast episode, but we're going to be coming back very shortly for the second half, because I have a ton more questions for you, Molly, but thank you so much for joining me for this half. And thank you all for joining us.