You may not be aware that if you have binge eating, food addiction or emotional eating, your relationship with food may be a mirror for your relationship with money. If you binge with food, you may also be a binge shopper or spender. My guest, Francine Rogers, says she can easily look at a client’s credit report and identify everything about their relationship with money. Both food and money can be used to self-soothe emotional upset, to celebrate and to numb yourself.
You will learn:
1. How food and money issues have the same root causes.
2. Why a focus on numbers (FICO score or the number on the scale) can never solve either food or money problems.
3. Three steps you can take to heal your relationship with food and money.
Episode guest: Francine Rogers
BIO:
Francine Rogers decided after twenty years of working in the insurance industry, she left her job as a Professional Liability Account Executive, to pursue her passion of becoming a personal finance educator.
While attending the University of San Diego, she had to face her own disastrous finances, so she began the process of changing her “poverty attitude” to a wealth building mindset. She specializes in personal credit repair by helping people leverage their good credit to accumulate assets, so they can provide a financial legacy for their family.
With a new, emerging attitude and armed with a tenacity to conquer her own debt load, she is on a journey to increase her own personal wealth and inspiring people to do the same.
Contact:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/purposefulcredit
Mentioned on the show:
Schedule a free consult to discuss your food and body image issues: https://findingyouranchor.as.me/consult
The Anchor Program is a 12-week non-diet program offering ONLINE group and individual sessions for the treatment of binge eating, emotional eating, food addiction and compulsive overeating. Want to learn more about the Anchor Program?
https://AnchorProgram.com
Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly videos on binge eating disorder, emotional eating and food addiction: https://www.youtube.com/
Hi everyone and welcome to podcast episode number 76 today, we’re going to be talking about, um, food and money. So you may be wondering what does one have to do with the other? I have a special guest who’s going to be telling you all about it. And her name is Francine Rogers and interestingly, she’s been on a journey about dealing with her own food and body image issues, and also, uh, dealing with her money issues. And now she counsels clients on, uh, finances and, uh, financial recovery and all of that kind of stuff, financial repair et cetera. And she’s able to reflect. On how far she’s come in her financial journey and also how far she has or hasn’t come in her food journey. So I think you’ll find it very interesting to know that food and money issues often are very similar and can go hand in hand. So stay tuned.
Hello everyone and welcome. Today I have a special guest with me and we’re going to be talking again about some really important issues around your money. And we’re going to be talking about the relationship between food and money and what’s going on with both of those during the pandemic. So my special guest has been on the show actually twice before, but I think it’s been a few years, maybe a couple years, probably. So she began the process of changing her poverty attitude to a wealth building mindset. She specializes in personal credit repair by helping people leverage their good credit to accumulate assets so they can provide a financial legacy for their family. What a concept.
Francine: I know.
Dr. Carolyn: So welcome. Thanks for joining me again. I really appreciate your being here with us.
Francine: Thank you, Dr. Carolyn, I’m looking forward to it.
Dr. Carolyn: So let’s just talk a little bit about, you know, we talked about this last time, but let’s just kind of catch everybody up on. Why do you say that how you handle your money is often the same as how you handle your food?
Francine: Um, wow. That’s a very good question. Um, for a lot of people, money is the self-soother and for me, money and food has been a self-soother when I feel bad, I eat, when I feel bad, I shop. And so..
Dr. Carolyn: And sometimes when people feel good, they also..
Francine: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, I’m in this whole process of people, you know, I’m dating and you know, and now, um, but I’m still having those same old habits of self-soothing with money, not so much money, but with food and especially with the pandemic, I get bored. I’m like, Oh, I can just eat. And so.
Dr. Carolyn: yeah. Just not much more to do other than eat. Like how many.
Francine: Exactly
Dr. Carolyn: How many Netflix movies can you actually watch.
Francine: Exactly and how many series can you watch and how many books can you read? And so, but yeah.
Dr. Carolyn: What do you think when you see that same tendency in your clients? That if they are binge eaters, they are probably binge benders too, or even binge drinkers.
Francine: Absolutely. You know what I tell people all the time, you can tell people’s habits and patterns, and I can tell just by looking at their credit report. And so, yeah. And so when you think about that, and I had, when I went through my whole transformation, I had to really take a look at not just my money, but how I ate, because those are the two major factors for me when it comes to my mindset.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah.
Francine: Like if I’m in a healthy mindset, I’m eating small meals, five or six times a day, I’m drinking water. You know, I’m drinking my water five or six times a day. I’m not consuming diet Pepsi all day. Um, I’m not like on Amazon website all day trying to shop. So I can really gauge my behavior by looking at two things in my life, by my money and by my food. And it’s an ongoing process. I have to be diligent every day. About my food and my money.
Dr. Carolyn: So when you look at somebody’s credit report, the credit report that we all get, you know, it has that horrible number and it’s kind of a scary to me it’s a scary place to go the credit report because, you know, they’re often things that you don’t even know are on there. Sometimes people who have, you know, have the same name on your credit. Anyway, when you look at that, how, what kind of conclusions can you draw? You said you can tell a lot about a person.
Francine: Well, sometimes people run into financial problems, you know, from unexpected events, like they’re being ill or they lost a job, but yet I can see 10, 15 years of great payment history, and then they run into this disaster. And then for some reason they stopped paying their bills. And they’re trying to get back to where they were. That’s one part. But a lot of times, what I see is people that haven’t even made consistent payments for a year. And I’ll say, Hey, what’s going on here? What happened? So tell me how you got into the situation. And it could be, you know, a disaster, but a lot of times was, well, I have Christmas or you know, I had Thanksgiving. Well, people that are managing their lives responsibly, everyone has Christmas and Thanksgiving and we put money aside. We save money. We saved money for unexpected emergencies. Um, we’re not buying PS5 or Jordans or Louis Vuitton purses. And you know, that’s, that’s what I see on people’s credit reports or when I FaceTime a client and she’s wearing all these designer clothes and she’s struggling to pay her rent that just doesn’t make any sense to me it’s a huge disconnect. Yeah. And you can see those kinds. I see those kinds of disconnects all the time and the one thing I’m not, and I think that’s why I I’m very non-judgemental. Because I was there. I’ve been there. And at some point you get tired of that whole cycle of lack, but yet you’re still trying to fill, fill that lack inside of you with things and it never ha it’ll never, it’ll never satisfy you.
Dr. Carolyn: And it is the same with food. Do you try to fill that go inside of you with food? You know, I’ll just have, I’ll just have something really nice and tasty and that’ll make me feel better. Like you say, self soothing. So, you know, when I talk to clients, we often talk about that same question, which is how did you get to where you are? Like, why did you need to come into the anchor program? And often it’s the same kind of discovery, which is you know, either something happened to me when I was a child or I was neglected as a child, I didn’t feel seen or heard. Uh, and then I started feeling bad about myself and usually they don’t remember what it is that made them feel I’m not worthy. I’m not good enough. And from that, all of the other actions come about. So I’m not good enough to deserve. To take care of my body. I’m not good enough. So I’m going to try to fill that hole with, you know, you know, Louis Vuitton, etc. etc. I’m going to help suit. And also when something happens, there’s emotional dysregulation. So people have trouble regulating those feelings and those thoughts, and that’s where they use food.
Francine: And it’s systematic because you may have those feelings as a kid and it, and if they’re reinforced time and time again, and you go back to the same thing. I, I was sexually assaulted when I was 20 years old and I just saw my life as it was because I was very well-protected. When I was growing up, I, you know, my life was very structured. I played ball and had good grades. I went to college, I had this very carefree lifestyle, but my mother was a working-class woman providing for our kids, but it was very well structured. And then all of a sudden I was assaulted and I just saw everything that I knew my whole life just bottom out. And for years, years, I did not make the connection of my irresponsible spending my irresponsible habits with money. My rapid, rapid wakened. I went to playing basketball where I had probably less than like. I don’t know, 20% body fat. I was very underweight, till I ballooned to 260 pounds in less than two years. And I did not make a connection that my assault was directly related to my eating habits. And I was, and I pushed it all away because my mom says, you gotta get over this. You gotta be strong. And I did. I went back to work and I started, but I was hurting inside and I was eating my way through that pain and spending recklessly
Dr. Carolyn: That’s a really great description of what I see in the anchor program all the time. And what people do is just what you say. It’s like, Oh, just pick myself up. You know, it’s over, it’s in the past. I don’t have to deal with this and there’s no way to get over something like you have to get through it. And that’s what it takes.
Francine: And it’s, it’s very, very difficult to wreck and it took me 25, 30 and I knew in the back of my head, that’s what it was. But I’m thinking, Oh know, it’s been 15, it’s been 20 years. It’s been 25 years. It could not be related to the assault or the rape. It couldn’t. And it always has been. And when I sat down and I said, you just, I personally got tired of living the way that I was living. Unhappy, frustrated. I was working in corporate America, frustrated, you know, I was African-American woman. Well-spoken highly educated and I just, I felt ignored. I felt that my weight was holding me back from advancing and I was always not angry, but just so I knew I could have so much more in life. So I was always frustrated. Yeah, and it wasn’t a frustration from the job. It was a frustration from me, my inability to attain certain things in my life, not material things, but happiness, peace, joy satisfaction. And it all went back to my assault that I really, I, I didn’t go to see any counseling. I didn’t even talk about it. I just pushed it down and ate my way through it and spit my way through it.
Dr. Carolyn: Wow.
Francine: Yeah.
Dr. Carolyn: Well, I know that a lot people listening can identify with your response to that. And even more people who are listening, who have been, you know, either abused or neglected as children, they have, I don’t even remember a lot of what happened or how they came to this place from that, but it’s still all connected. It’s the thing that happened that changed your view of yourself. Right?
Francine: Exactly.
Dr. Carolyn: Did you, did you begin to feel, I mean, did the, uh, the rape lead you to feel kind of out of control or more? Uh, what, what was the, the kind of thoughts that came about, how you saw yourself after the rape? Um, are you vulnerable?
Francine: Vulnerable and I, because I shut myself down, I was very, very lonely. I shut myself off from like male relationships. Um, and then I went through a period probably in early 2000 or so. I got really depressed don’t and I don’t even know where it came from. I will. Yeah, I do.
Dr. Carolyn: I going to say haven’t we been talking about that?
Francine: Yeah, I do. I was working, I worked in the insurance industry and I was working a lot of hours. I was getting really stressed out and all those feelings sort of started coming back and I started getting really depressed and I went and I was talking to my mom and she didn’t understand it. Because I had I suspect that she had some kind of, um, sexual assault in her background too. So it wasn’t fair for me, for her to understand it because she was dealing with the same way I was. So we have these two dis um, these two people dysfunctional trying to deal with this major life trauma. And so I finally went to go see someone and the great thing about therapy. It gives you a very different perspective. You get outside of your own head and those old negative thoughts. And it’s a very simplistic way of looking at things. And I never forgot, I never forgot what she told me. She said you did the best that you can do at the moment. And she said, and now you’re dealing with your mom. You need to go, now it’s time to go to another level. It’s time for you to take stock of your life and go to another level and deal with those feelings. Yeah, that part of your life is over. And she really made me feel better about my mom. I really looked, saw my mom in another way, because she was dealing with the same thing that I was, and I didn’t give her any grace and mercy. And at that moment I forgave my mom and I forgave myself because I just did the best that I could do. And it really started that I didn’t even go on medication. She wanted me to, because my depression was so bad and it really started to lift me out of a fog. And I started to take stock of my life. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to see yourself being in it? And you’re not, it wasn’t overnight, it took me years.
Dr. Carolyn: That’s what it is. It’s a process that does take years. People are always looking for a quick fix. That’s why they go on diets. Well, if I just lose weight, then all that stuff will go away, but it never.
Francine: Yeah.
Dr. Carolyn: Well, let’s get back to the money situation. So what are you seeing in your clients since the quarantine, the pandemic? What have you been seeing that they’re referring to?
Francine: Fear, uncertainty, and what I tell people is your number one priority is to take care of your household. You make sure your rent is paid. Your utilities are paid. Your insurances are paid your health insurance and all that. Um, that’s your priority. If you can pay your credit, your credit card debt, fine make minimum payments. And it’s a change from what I normally say. But at this point you’re not getting any help now. I mean, people are standing in food lines for hours at a time. The priority is to save as much money as you can cover your basic living expenses, make sure your family is secure and..
Dr. Carolyn: Watch your spending, right?
Francine: And watch your spending. And, you know, I think people are under, hopefully people are understanding that you know, it’s okay to cook every night for your family and they have the time to do that. It’s okay to spend time with your family without going anywhere and spending money. How about taking a walk together? And I, hopefully people are making the shift of staying at home and, and, and just providing for your family. And don’t worry about the debt and all that other stuff. You can rectify that, but it’s hard to rectify that when you’re worried about eviction and things are not getting paid. Take care of your basic living expenses. That’s your number one priority at this point?
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah. I, you know, it’s interesting because that’s what I’ve found myself doing as well, which is just kind of hunkering down. And I, I was telling you before we started the show that, you know, I, I found myself getting excited about cooking again.
Francine: Yeah.
Dr. Carolyn: Rather than eating, you know, I always love to eat out I have to admit that’s one of my little things I love to do. I’m an adventurous eater. Um, but now I’m an adventurous cooker and I’m trying new recipe. I have like a stack of recipes and I’m just going through them and trying each one and some successes, um, some, um, but it’s, it’s been fun.
Francine: It’s been fun. I made my first Thanksgiving Turkey. It was so good. I couldn’t believe how good it was. I was so nervous and it was just me. Yeah.
Dr. Carolyn: That’s was your cooking at Thanksgiving for you.
Francine: Yeah. And I had such a good time and this, and that’s, I think what we moved away from is that in the chaos of our lives, pre COVID. Um, we had Door Dash and all these places to deliver food and we didn’t really spend time with our kids. And you know, and so now it’s the perfect opportunity instead of bemoaning the fact that we can’t go anywhere, enjoy the fact that you can spend time as a family, around a meal, talking about your day, getting to know your family, you know, our family zoomed for Thanksgiving. And they all, we all live in the same city and it was so fun and we were laughing so much. And yes, I miss the face-to-face interaction, but I’m just enjoying the fact that we can reconnect again. And I think that’s the lesson that we needed to have living in this COVID era.
Dr. Carolyn: I agree with you. I I’ve said on numerous shows that I feel like COVID has given us a chance to really slow down and re-examine our priorities, because I do think so many, you know, I have a lot of patients who are parents who have ended up having to be teachers. And so many of them have not, you know, they’re normally like get their kids up, get them to school. Then after school, they go to all these events and then they come home at night, do their homework and go to sleep. So they’re not used to really having to entertain their children for long periods of time.
Francine: Exactly.
Dr. Carolyn: Which is very, very different from, you know, maybe when, you know, uh, certainly when I was a parent, that was, you know, I was, I stayed at home for a couple of years with both of my kids. And you were just there all day, every day, you had to bake cookies, come up with games, take them to the park, you know, and I think parents have really struggled with that now because they’re so used to being so busy and feeling like their work is the priority, not their family. So in some ways. I think there are a lot of good things that are going to come out of the pandemic. And I hope one of them is that people will become more financially responsible. So let’s just talk a little bit about the client that clients that you have, who you see are irresponsible with their spending and they’re buying things they can’t afford. And they’ve got a lot of excuses. How do you get them off of that track? I let them stew in it like because of your decisions, what has it cost you? Yeah. A lot of them can get refinanced they, a lot of, a lot of people want to buy homes for their children and to provide that legacy for them and they just can’t. And not because of their credit score, it’s really because of their mindset. I just had a like a conversation with a client today. And she, um, she has some stuff on her credit report and she goes, well, I really want, I have to move in March and I really want to know if I can be, I want to be able to buy a house in March. I’m thinking to myself, we’re still in dealing with a repo and you’re getting sued.
Dr. Carolyn: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re putting, they’re putting the cart before the horse in other words.
Francine: And they haven’t done the work. Yeah. Credit repair really when you see clients, get it, fixing their credit as a manifestation of the change of mindset.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah.
Francine: So credit repair should be, or like changing finances should be down the line because now as you sit in your financial mess, you can’t get finance for a car. You’re paying these high rates for insurance. You can’t get a home. You’re living with your mom and you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, wow, what kind of choices did I make? As I allowed them as I talked to them and I said, well, what got you here? And they’re like, well, you know, I was spending a lot. I was eating out a lot. I wasn’t, um, I wasn’t fixing meals for my kids and I let them sit in that. And you really have to, even with my eating and with my finances, I had to understand how I got to where I was and I had to sit in my mess for a minute. And it is the most uncomfortable feeling ever, but the great thing about it is it really propelled me to make some changes in my life and it was just small changes that I made that I was successful in. And as I started to get better and better, and I started to make more and more changes and I got better at them, my whole life change directly.
Dr. Carolyn: And, and that’s the same that happens when I work with people with food and body image issues. I see the same kind of kind of journey the progression of, you know, first, the thought of, if I could just lose the weight, then everything will be fine. And then the dawning recognition that the years and decades of poor decisions around their health or not being active or, you know, whatever it has been the pattern has cost them so much. And, and it really, really requires that change in mindset. So I really love the way you’re talking about that. And in regarding finances, you know, I confided in you that I’ve gone through the same kind of thing where. You know, I’ve always made a lot of money, but I’ve always spent a lot of money.
Francine: Me too.
Dr. Carolyn: And so, so eventually, and especially during the quarantine, I had this just like a light bulb moment and I just decided, you know what, I’m going to spend this time paying off my credit cards. And I did something that they, they say never to do I closed. An account that I’ve had for 20 years, but it was a huge credit line. And what would happen is I’d run it up and it was so big. I could never really pay it down.
Francine: Wow.
Dr. Carolyn: And so I’d always have to, you know, either, you know, borrow money to pay it down or whatever. So I’ve paid off that credit card, probably five or six or seven times, but could never keep it off. So I just decided, you know, what, whatever ding I get to my credit report. I just don’t want this on my plate anymore. And I just, I paid it off and close the account. And you know, when you go to close an account, they beg you to stay. Oh, we can do, you know, we could increase your limit and we could give you more, you know, we can, we do share it. And then it’s just like, no, don’t even don’t even go there.
Francine: Exactly.
Dr. Carolyn: And I put everything else. And I think the third part is, um, consistency and being able to maintain. So I’ve seen a lot of people with both credit and with food, you know, go through something and they get everything going and they’re doing well, but they can’t sustain it. Do you see that as well?
Francine: Oh yeah. In my life too. I’ll see myself slip.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah.
Francine: I see myself slip a lot, especially with food. We’re all have very like weeks and weeks of I’m doing well and walking every day, I’m eating five or six meals a day and then I’ll slip and I get so hard on myself when I slip. And it’s not the problem that you slipped. It’s a problem that you don’t get back on track again, you just beat yourself up over slipping. I’m thinking I have to tell myself, Francine, you are not perfect. You’re going to slip every once in a while, but, and that’s what happens the same thing with money. And it’s so much easier for me to get back on track with my money than for me to get back on track with my food. And it’s always because food has always been that light. Go to it’s so easy to Sue yourself.
Dr. Carolyn: It’s your default coping mechanism? Yeah.
Francine: My bread is just, Oh my God.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah.
Francine: People talk about sweets. Mine is bread.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah, everybody has something. Mine is cookies, so I have to keep out of the house.
Francine: Oh my god. The butter, the more butter on it, the better.
Dr. Carolyn: I know.
Francine: Oh my gosh. And so, you know, I just, so I have to, so I’m realizing that watching my money and watching how I eat is going to be something I have to do on a daily basis. Not that I have to be fanatical about it. I just have to be aware of it.
Dr. Carolyn: That’s right. you can’t go unconscious. That’s what people do they go unconscious. Then they wake up and realize, Oh my God, I’m off my wagon. And I’ve gained whatever amount of weight or I, you know, my stomach is upset or whatever is the problem. And the, you know, the being able to be consistent takes a lot of practice. And a lot of it does, it’s really a habit. That’s the secret, it’s a habit, you know, I just, I will compare it to my credit card situation. So after I closed out that other account, I froze another two accounts. And the only account I kept open was my business account. And then I put on automatic pilot, all of those payments. So I didn’t even have to think, do I have money to pay for this? Because it was, What do you call it? Um, I will debit auto debit. It was auto automatically debited from my account and that’s what kept me going. And that’s the same kind of mindset.
Francine: Wow.
Dr. Carolyn: That you have to use with food where you don’t think every day. Am I going to have the bread or not? You know, am I going to eat, you know, healthy or not? Am I going to go for a walk or not? You don’t question it. It’s like, it’s on your calendar. So you’re going to do it. And you, you know, the same with meal planning, like now that I’m cooking, you know, I know what I’m going to eat because I have leftovers from this and I have chicken from last night. And so I just wake up in the morning and I know, okay, well for breakfast, I’m going to have eggs for lunch. I’m gonna have leftovers for dinner. I’m going to do this.
Francine: That’s awesome. You said that because I remember there was a time I was really into meal preparation every Sunday night I would take three hours and I would make all these meals and I put them in my little containers and prepare everything, prepare my breakfast and everything. And I did this for like a good part of eight months. And people were like, what are you doing? Why are you losing so much weight? I’m like, what are you talking about? I’m not losing weight. I’m just, you know, I didn’t even realize. And it was like the auto debit of food.
Dr. Carolyn: That’s exactly right.
Francine: Oh my gosh.
Dr. Carolyn: Because, cause what people get caught up in is what you described, you know, you fall, something happens like maybe you have a little stressful day and you fall off the bandwagon and then you, instead of going back on autopilot, you start feeling bad about it. So the first thing is you feel bad because you fell off the bandwagon and then you feel bad. So you have to self-soothe with food, and then you feel bad about self-soothing with food. It’s called the vicious cycle. So you have to put, I call it building, um, exits off the freeway. Cause you know, when we drive, like if I were to drive to your house every day for a year, I would probably use the same road.
Francine: Yeah.
Dr. Carolyn: And that’s the road you get on when you fall off. So you’d have to build exits off the freeway by using your skills to get back on autopilot.
Francine: Wow. That was a revelation that God, that’s huge because for me paying bills, paying, putting money, like to me, it’s automatic putting money in my savings account.
Dr. Carolyn: It should be automatic going to exercise. It should be automatic that you plan what you eat.
Francine: Yes. And it, I haven’t made that connection with connection yet with, for my food yet. And that was such a revelation to me because it’s still, my old food is always, always going to be my like husband, because you know, I’m single, it’s all I treated food like my husband, I get all my satisfaction from food.
Dr. Carolyn: But maybe if you went on autopilot with food, you could get a real husband. That’s what you said. You said you’re dating.
Francine: Yeah, No, like I’m dating and I have to like break up with food, but he has this in its proper place.
Dr. Carolyn: You have to break up with food because food is not your husband and the sooner you acknowledge the easier it will be. Like, for me, I’m not very good at exercising on my own. So I just accepted that some years ago, I accepted it. And I just signed up with a personal trainer and for three years until I was sick this year with COVID, I would go to personal training twice a week and I never stopped to think, Oh, do I have time to go, Oh, am I too busy at work? No, I just it’s on my calendar. I showed up whether I wanted to, or not one day a week, I’d go to Pilates whether I want it to or not. And I never questioned it. And that is the healthiest I’ve ever been. And I never even worried about my weight because I was so fit and energetic.
Francine: Yeah
Dr. Carolyn: On doing that. And you know, people say, well, it’s, it costs a lot of money. Yeah. It cost me a hell of a lot of money, but it was a great investment for me.
Francine: Yes. Like when he was doing the meal prep, it was so much time, but I never had so much energy. Because when I was eating, when I was meal prepping, of course my prep, a bunch of vegetables and, you know, and, and lean foods. And I mean, I didn’t even worry about cards or trying to cut cards. I just use them sparingly. And I just had this energy and my blood pressure plummeted. I remember going to the dentist and she took my blood pressure before I had a root canal. And she goes, Oh my gosh. You never been, it was like 110 over 68.
Dr. Carolyn: Exactly.
Francine: And I’m thinking, wow, really? And so my doctor was like, I don’t know what you’re doing, but you need to keep doing it and know what got me off track. I think it was just not, I don’t think it was anything big. I just think it was a small stressor in a day. And then I moved one step away from it and I kept stepping away from it.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah. Once you move that one step away then your mind starts to think. Oh, should I go back to that? Oh, should I keep doing that? Oh, should I eat this donut again? Why not have another donut? You know, it tastes so. And that’s where, when your mind gets involved, that’s where everything gets screwed up. People think that their minds are helping them with, you know, food and body image issues, but your mind is your worst enemy. Autopilot is your friend.
Francine: Yes, especially when you’ve always had negative mindset patterns.
Dr. Carolyn: Correct.
Francine: Oh, you’ll never get anything because you’re too big. You couldn’t advance in your job because whatever, you’re just, they don’t appreciate it. It was just, they were always telling me these little stories and I always bought into them and you’re right. That negative mindset will always, always sabotage your efforts. And that’s what you with what I re read that you said in your bio, that you were able to change from a poverty mindset. Well, that poverty mindset applies to eating as well. Cause it’s kind of like, Oh, I haven’t had that donut for a long time. I haven’t had that slice of bread for so long. And you forget that you can have bread anytime you want. There’s no, there’s no contra indication for bread. The only contraindication is using bread as your husband.
Francine: Yes. Yes. When you’re on autopilot you just eat the food that you have, which is very, which was very, very good. I didn’t even think about bread or an excessive amount of carbs. So I had just a small, I had just enough and I was so satisfied on that whole autopilot kind of eating. I didn’t even realize I had dropped 50 pounds and I didn’t even, I knew my clothes were starting to, I was starting to feel it in my clothes by still didn’t even think about it. I was just making my food.
Dr. Carolyn: Because you really don’t. That’s the difference in the mindset shift because when you and I talk about this all the time in the anchor program, when your focus is on the number on the scale, you can never win because that number is going to fluctuate up and down. I mean, if you weighed yourself every day for a year, you would see that that number will go up two or three pounds. It’ll go up to three pounds, some days. It’ll go down other days and sometimes you know, it’ll go down even more. But what I learned, because I always tell this story when my scale broke and then I went to the doctor and realized I had lost weight and I hadn’t even been trying. I realized that when I saw that number on the scale and it had gone down, then my mind went into overdrive. Well, what did I do to make it go down? How do I keep going down? And all of that just puts you back in that vicious cycle, that diet mentality. So the change in the mindset is taking your focus off the number on the scale in a way it’s like taking your focus off the credit. Number two, you know, that the Credit Bureau number is very intimidating.
Francine: That’s so good because I tell my clients, it’s not about the FICA, the score.
Dr. Carolyn: Yeah.
Francine: It’s not about the fighter scores. The FICA scores what’s actually on your credit report. The FICA score is just like, that’s just a mathematical algorithm. Yeah. The, the real underwriting. When you’re looking at, when I look at someone’s credit reports, I’m looking at, I can just look at your behaviors. That whole time.
Dr. Carolyn: So that’s really, that’s exactly the same. So the number on the scale is a metabolic ALC algorithm. It has to, it takes in that the number you see on the scale involves like how your blood pressure is that day, how much fluid you’re retaining, how fast your metabolism is, how your liver is functioning. It’s a metabolic algorithm, but it’s not the answer. And so I think it’s very, very similar to how you described the FICA score
Francine: It is. Wow. What a revelation today?
Dr. Carolyn: Oh my goodness. You’re funny. Anyway, we, we should, uh, get on with our lives now, but it’s been great talking to you, Francine Rogers, and I’ll just let everybody know I’ll put a contact information for Francine. If you’re interested in working with her. She’s great. As you can see. Um, in the show notes below. And so please feel free to check in with her and get your money in order. I want to remind everybody, we do have an anchor program starting soon, and the anchor program is a 12 week non diet program for people with binge eating, emotional eating and food addiction. Spend fun talking to you, Francis.
Francine: Oh, thank you so much. You helped me a lot. So I do have a Facebook group, purposeful credit solutions. I invite anyone to join. I always post all kinds of things about personal, personal finance and credit repair. So I invite you to join. Thank you so much, Dr. Carolyn, it has been, Oh my God. It’s been eye-opening. I can’t wait again.
Dr. Carolyn: All right, I’ll talk to you soon.
Francine: Okay. I’ll talk to you later.
I hope you have enjoyed the interview with Francine Rogers. She’s one of my favorite people to talk to because she’s so open and honest, and she has so many insights to share. Um, I really love the fact that she has shared her journey. Both where she’s struggling and where she’s done well, and I can see how her twin knowledge of money issues and food and body image issues, uh, really can be helpful to her clients and hopefully it was helpful to you.
So next podcast coming up, we’ll be, uh, I’ll be talking to you about quarantine resilience. So I know many of us are sick and tired of being quarantined. We’re now at the height of the pandemic in our country, and there’s also the, um, the other issue of the underlying grief and loss that many of us have suffered, whether it be financial losses, losses of people we love, uh, losses of jobs, losses of homes, et cetera. So there’s a lot that we need to talk about, and I’ll be talking to you about how to build resilience during these really difficult times. So stay tuned. Don’t forget to leave us a review so you can help me get the word out about my podcast and increased my audience. Uh, stay tuned for the next one and thank you so much for listening, signing off. This is Dr. Carolyn.
