I can tell you what’s eating me. Or rather what I am eating. Or when I am eating. Or why I am eating. See, I can be a stress eater. It was really cool a few years ago when I was at a meditation and one person there said “Don’t stuff your feelings/words/stresses back down your throat.”
Wow. Talk about serious stuff? So much made sense to me at that point and it is something I have worked with and through with many people since then. As a ‘stress eater’ myself, I know what it is like. I also know how it doesn’t solve anything and how horribel oyu feel and look after consuming the items that are your go to. Because nine times out of ten, the first go to item leads to at least one or two other items since that one just didn’t quite “fix” the problem at hand.
What am I talking about? Well, typically you start out salty and then go to sweet or you stat out sweet and then go to salty. Or start out liquid and then go to solids. See in the food universe, foods are contractive (salty) or expansive (sweet), which means once you have one, your body wants the other to balance itself out if you go overboard. So, if instead of going to the ingestion of something to solve a problem (has it ever worked?), why not journal, exercise, verbalize, work through the issue.
Now, I am not saying chewing out someone right at that time is the answer. Sometimes we need to acknowledge the issue, accept it, then work through it. I know my initial reactions are typically harsh, so I have to take time out before I respond. When I catch myself going to the fridge, or the cabinets, or the pantry right after a meal, I stop and ask myself ‘what is wrong?’. Sometimes I don’t know, in which case I ask myself why I am eating when I am not hungry. What will it solve? If I cannot come up with an answer, I know there’s an issue. So I try to keep busy, take a walk, get into a different area than I am in to keep me occupied. It is not an easy task. Especially with 10 and 11 year old boys.
I found out my stress eating weaknesses while doing a cleanse. Of course during a cleanse, you cannot eat any of the ‘go to’ foods (chocolate, salty foods, ice cream, etc), so I had to get creative. I found hearts of romaine and bags of baby spinach to be my best friends. Crunchy. They keep my mouth moving and my gut flowing. Much better than choices than chocolate and potato chips. And when you get down to it, when you are eating a balanced program, you don’t crave any more because your body has the proper nutrition to balance itself when stressed. so it works two ways.
Having a balanced eating protocol stops nutritional imbalances AND you no longer crave foods that are “bad” for you.
Start enjoying your food and enjoying your life. Don’t demonize one of the finer things meant to be enjoyed. Food.
