What if the reason you are struggling with food in menopause is not actually hunger?
In this episode of The Real Dish, Mareya sits down with Dr. Deb Butler — Certified Master Weight Loss and Life Coach and host of the ThINNER Peace in Menopause and Beyond podcast — to talk about something so many women experience after 40 and 50: emotional eating, weight gain, yo-yo dieting, and feeling like they can no longer trust their own bodies.
Before becoming a coach, Dr. Deb spent 30 years as a board-certified chiropractor, nutritionist, and acupuncturist — and decades fighting her own battle with weight and dieting. At age 50, she went on what would become her last diet and began developing a completely different approach to food, hunger, and her body.
Listen to Episode 168
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music
"Your Power Era should not be spent counting every bite, fighting your body, or starting another Monday morning diet. It is time to learn how to listen to your body instead of trying to control it."
— Mareya Ibrahim, EP 168
In This Episode, You Will Learn
- How to tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger
- Why menopause can change your relationship with food
- How decades of dieting disconnect us from our natural hunger and fullness cues
- Why willpower and restriction often backfire
- Learning to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are satisfied
- Emotional eating, boundaries, and learning to actually feel your feelings
- How to finally step off the yo-yo dieting roller coaster
- What true food freedom can look like after 40, 50, and beyond
Emotional Hunger vs. Physical Hunger
Dr. Deb explains that the heightened emotions accompanying perimenopause and menopause are easily confused with physical hunger — and that this confusion is at the root of so much of the struggle women experience with food during this season. When we feel anxious, overwhelmed, lonely, or bored, the body sends signals that can feel identical to genuine hunger.
The key is learning to pause and ask: what am I actually feeling right now? Not to judge it, not to suppress it — but to feel it. Because the food was never going to fix the feeling. It was only ever going to delay it.
Why Decades of Dieting Backfire
One of the most powerful insights in this conversation is how years of restrictive eating actually disconnect us from our body's natural signals. Every time we follow an external set of rules about what and when to eat, we override our internal cues a little more. Over time, we stop trusting ourselves entirely.
Dr. Deb's approach flips the script: instead of another plan to follow, she teaches women to rebuild the relationship with their own hunger and fullness. Eat when you are hungry. Stop when you are satisfied. Simple in concept — and genuinely transformative in practice.
About Dr. Deb Butler
Dr. Deb Butler is a Certified Master Weight Loss and Life Coach and the host of the ThINNER Peace in Menopause and Beyond podcast. With 30 years as a board-certified chiropractor, nutritionist, and acupuncturist, she brings a uniquely integrated perspective to the conversation around food, body, and midlife wellness.
Her work is rooted in her own experience — decades of dieting, followed by a complete transformation in how she relates to food and her body. She now helps women do the same: step off the roller coaster for good and find the peace with food they have been searching for.
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