I’m a recovering emotional eater. I’m also a recovering emotional non-eater. My relationship with food has pretty much run the gambit of eating habits. When I hated myself, I would eat… and eat…and eat. Cheesecake for breakfast? Yup. Fried string beans as a snack with friends? Yup. I masked my self-loathing with food. But sometimes, I would starve myself. Not on purpose, but because my emotions were so high that I wouldn’t want to eat or would and then throw up from stress or sadness. My relationship with food has grown into an adult relationship, but that’s not to say that when I get stressed out, I don’t think about grabbing a tube of cookie dough and going to town. I may think it, but I don’t let my mind have that kind of control over my eating habits any more. I’ve been able to override those signals to eat my feelings. This took a lot of time, but I also now know the difference between eating our of boredom and eating because I’m actually hungry, as well as, what my junk food cravings actually mean.
Most of the time you just need to tell your mind to ‘shut the fuck up’. Seriously. Why does it come in and tell you that you can’t do something or try and sabotage good eating or make you doubt your life. Shut up, mind. You’re drunk! Emotional eating is not going to fix a broken spirit and junk food cravings aren’t going to fuel my body, so what exactly are you trying to do here? Basically, anything your mind is telling you to do, just do the opposite when it comes to food. ‘You’re bored. You should probably eatcookies’ “No.. I’m going to read a book.” ‘You really want chocolate.’ “Actually, I think my body needs some protein and salt. ” ‘This cookie dough will sooth your aching soul.’ “Bet you the treadmill can do it better!” Those silent conversations happen in my every day life. You think I’m perfect and don’t deal with this any more? Girl, please… I still have that inner fat girl and instead of giving in to her, I throw her ass on a treadmill and show her what’s what. She may not love sweating and eating kale, but I do.
You have the power to control how your mind thinks about food. Don’t give it the power to sabotage your goals or trick you into thinking food can stifle emotions. The only thing food can do is nourish you. Eat to live, not live to eat. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy your food and take your taste buds on a magical culinary journey every so often, but don’t let food run your life, or ruin your life for that matter. It’s way to easy to eat more than you need to or medicate yourself with food. So what I want you to do, is acknowledge these signals from your brain and then flip them the bird! Middle fingers up ladies! You caught on to your mind’s trickery and you’re not falling for it any more. Take control back.
