Home Archive by category 'Blogvember'

Blogvember

  • Blogvember, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Love

    30 – The good thing about emotional eating

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    Just a short note to wrap up Blogvember!

    A lot of the things we have covered over the course of the month have been around stopping emotional eating.

    While as a coach that is what I help women do, I also help clients to realise that emotional eating is actually not all bad.

    As soon as we become aware that we are eating for emotional reasons we have actually unlocked a doorway for learning how to better handle our emotions. From that place we become more conscious of the choices we are making and ultimately more in control of how we are choosing to look after ourselves. Therefore sometimes we might feel down or low and actually in that moment choosing to soothe ourselves with a cup of tea and biscuit might be exactly what is best for us.

    The point is that we want to be conscious of the choices we are making and how we choose to enjoy food and practice self-care.

    I hope you have found the blogs this month informative and helpful. They will continue on but a little less frequently 🙂

    Do remember if you ever feel like the struggle is too much just drop me an email or you can reach me on social media. I am always happy to hear from you.

    Lots of love xxx

     

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  • Anxiety, Blogvember, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Self Love

    29 – The only time you shouldn’t listen to your body

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    Now I say that tongue-in-cheek because my true philosophy in life is to always in every moment listen to our body and act intuitively from that space.

    However sometimes in life there are times where we don’t ‘feel’ like eating but we need to eat and vice versa, where we feel like eating but it’s actually not the best time.

    An example of the first scenario would be grief, where someone close to us dies and we completely lose our appetite. We know we should be eating, our body might even feel tired and hungry but we just don’t want to. We don’t feel like it and feel as though we really can’t.

    Let’s delve a little deeper, in the case of the second scenario let’s use the example where our normal hunger and urge to eat arises but we are also going through an emotional period.

    When we are going through a tricky period, where things are getting on top of us and we feel overwhelmed and stressed normally we switch to auto-pilot with our routine and just ‘keep calm and carry on’. However we are missing a really excellent opportunity to learn here.

    This is also the case with our eating, we just fall into whatever pattern is easiest when things get stressful. Maybe we switch to take-out more than cooking at home, perhaps we treat ourselves with more snacks or desserts, maybe we go out for dinner and order the richest, creamiest pasta dish. Whatever it looks like, our body is sending us signals to retreat, to comfort ourselves, to eat more, and we are unconsciously following these signals. We just suddenly find ourselves eating more or eating differently.

    It can be so subtle and hard to pick up but we do begin to notice, because those are the times where we start feeling ‘fat’. We feel more lethargic, and less enthusiastic about life. These are the times where it seems like your body just wants more more more.

    These are the times we need to stop and take notice. Our body is super clever and attentive, it is trying to give your brain what it wants to make it happy. Your brain is sending out stress signals so your body is telling you it wants comfort to make your brain happy.

    This is a malfunction, the cravings are actually not coming from your body’s signals at all. This is where we need to take some time to do some self-reflection. So that our minds can relax and so can our bodies so we stop this auto-pilot of comfort eating in its tracks.

    In that moment where we decide to have a take-away meal rather than cooking for the fifth time that week instead we need to just take a pause. Stop and ask yourself how you are feeling, this is the time to not eat. This is the time to be in a quiet place with yourself, to stop the auto-pilot.

    When we do this we begin to tap in to what is really going on and stop using food as a way of escaping….even though we didn’t necessarily know we were doing it in the first place!

    In order to really understand ourselves and the optimal way of eating for our bodies we need to do a lot of self-reflection. We need to become more conscious of all the ways our eating habits and patterns are formed. This will allow us to see where and when we slip into habits that aren’t actually based on what is best for our body even though it could feel like it.

    If you’re feeling confused or struggling please reach out, comment below or email me, hope to hear from you.

    Lots of love xx

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  • Blogvember, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery

    28 – The fear of the never-ending sugar binge

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    When chronic dieters first hear about the idea of food freedom, intuitive eating and allowing ourselves to eat ‘whatever we want’ we panic.

    We think that there is absolutely no way on earth this could ever turn out ok. We think that we will start eating and literally NEVER STOP. As though we will go into our local supermarket shovel the whole sweets and cake aisle into our trolley and then consume the whole lot without taking a breath. We believe that with no rules in place we will do that day after day for the rest of our lives.

    We believe food freedom means being on a never-ending junk food feeding fest.

    This is categorically not true.

    I can tell you now for 100% of people I have been in contact with where they have successfully shifted from dieting/bingeing/emotional eating to true intuitive eating this has not happened.

    Why is this? Because your body would hate it. And the key rule of intuitive eating is listen to your body.

    If you are TRULY eating intuitively your body will simply not allow you to fall down that trap. After a few more biscuits or extra slices of cake than normal you will start to feel sick, your stomach will be full and uncomfortable, you will feel tired and lethargic. These are all signs that you will listen to in your body as see them as the signals they are to stop eating. As an intuitive eater, that’s what you will do.

    Intuitive eating means saying to ourselves in those situations ‘oh maybe I’ve had too much chocolate tonight I feel a bit sick, never mind, I won’t eat anymore now and just pay attention to how I feel tomorrow’. Simple. No judgement, no wild emotional reaction. We just respond to the situation as it is.

    As we are able to stay more present with our bodies and feel how food is affecting us we will naturally make better choices. Those that feel good to our bodies and nourish us healthfully.

    Perhaps you are stuck in this trap right now and you are finding it hard to believe me. Its difficult to say “trust me, I have been there”…the number of times we read that, of how others have moved through the struggle we find ourselves stuck in. It can actually feel disheartening. Like there is something wrong with us that we haven’t figured it out yet. But there is no trick here. Listening to your body and learning to eat what your body wants and not from any other crazy rules you have made up is a practice. It is something we develop over time.

    Making the decision to start can sometimes be the hardest thing. But at least now you are safe in the knowledge that if you commit and follow through with intuitive eating you won’t end up in a never-ending food fest.

    If you are looking for someone to talk to about how you’re feeling around food just drop me an email and book in for a free clarity call where we can discuss where you are at now and some strategies to get you where you would like to be.

    Lots of love xxx

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  • Blogvember, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery

    27 – Giving up emotional eating is not all or nothing – Backwards is always an option

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    Stepping on the path to stop emotional eating can feel like an absolutely ginormous leap into the unknown. A massive step filled with hesitancy and fear.

    To stop emotional eating means relinquishing the control we believe we have over ourselves, our bodies and our food. It means letting go of the reins we hold on to so tightly in order to get our lives and our bodies to look or feel a certain way.

    Emotional eating is eating in a way which has nothing to do with our physical hunger or physical needs. It is not all bad (!), neither is it all binge eating. The problem is that we so often eat unconsciously, in line with work schedules, kids schedules, the latest fad diet, that we have lost the ability to actually eat in alignment with our bodies and our natural physical needs. We’re dieting, bingeing, fasting, detoxing but without any real clue as to how this is affecting our bodies and what it is really doing to us or for us. We are so out of touch with our own physical needs that our eating patterns have become fabricated by the mind.

    When we eat in line with a certain strategy and forgo listening to our bodies we are giving all the control to our mind. This is when emotional eating happens. Instead of eating when we feel hungry and stopping when we feel full our minds give us other instructions, like ‘you must eat 1 banana for breakfast at 7am’. These instructions or rules are usually pretty random and are generated from years of conditioning by our parents, friends, diet books, celebrities…you get the idea. They are not normally based on our physical needs and wants. The problem with this type of eating with our minds rather than our bodies is that we create other rules with our minds that have nothing to do with using food for nourishment like ‘I eat ice-cream when I’m sad’.

    Because we already know food tastes good, our mind conjures up ways to use that to our advantage for hiding from emotions we don’t want to feel.

    So our mind is controlling when and how we eat and not our bodies, which is the thing that actually should be in control of how and what we eat.

    Stopping emotional eating means letting this go.

    It feels tough because we live in our minds for pretty much our whole lives.

    To let go of that control takes courage. It often feels like too big a leap for most people.

    But the amazing thing is you can actually try before you buy.

    You can try letting go of control slowly, maybe for a day or two. If it’s too much, if you can’t handle it, if a barrage of emotions fly at you and you simply can’t deal then you can let your mind get back in the driving seat. We always forget this when it comes to scary decisions. We think that it is all or nothing, or we convince ourselves that once you move forward you can never go back. But luckily life knows that is not a great plan for success. So often in life we take a step and then keep moving forward on a path that is not meant for us simply because we have this belief we can’t move backwards.

    Well guess what, you absolutely can. And when it comes to relinquishing control over our eating habits slowly but surely is the best way.

    The path to food freedom is rarely a straight line, you will find you go back on yourself, ‘slip-up’ or take a wrong-turn multiple times. The beautiful thing is you can start again at any time. This is your personal journey and it will be exactly what it is.

    If you find yourself failing more than you’re succeeding it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily doing anything wrong but it could mean you’d really benefit from a little nudge in the right direction. If you’ve tried on your own to break out of your emotional eating patterns and can’t quite seem to hack it please get in touch and let’s figure this out together, drop me an email here

    Lots of love xxx

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  • Binge Eating, Blogvember, Dieting, Intuitive Eating, Restriction

    26 – Appetite, depression, bingeing – what’s the common thread

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    Did you know that when we feel depressed we are more likely to lose our appetite than to want to binge?

    Surprised? I was too.

    I always believed that feeling unhappy and depressed was what made me binge eat. I thought I binged because I felt down, hated my life and hated my body.

    Biologically speaking bingeing actually has little to do with feeling low, sad or depressed.

    The reason we believe that we want to eat when we are depressed is, paradoxically, because we diet. So many of us chronically under eat (a lot of the time on purpose) on a day to day basis using our will-power, hiding behind our busy schedules or over-exercising. Many of us don’t even believe we are under eating because we are so desperate to be slimmer and completely consumed with our mission to eat less.

    Then when the emotional shit hits the fan and something happens in our lives that really throws us off, that sinks us into depression, our mind is suddenly not able to use all of its normal control tactics to keep us eating less. All bets are off and our body begins screaming for food.

    Suddenly we are ravenous and all we want to do is eat high calorie snacks and comfort food. Our mind has moved into a different mode – into the ‘IDGAF, couldn’t care less about anything, about who I am, I don’t ever want to get out of bed’ zone. Suddenly the normally oppressive controlling voice of our minds has been switched off and cravings are allowed back in.

    When your mind shuts down your body actually starts waking up. This allows it to start self-regulating again after you have spent days, weeks, months trying to force it to survive on less than it requires for optimal functioning. Your mind’s depressed state and inability to maintain control any longer frees your body and you binge, or you find yourself eating way more than you do on a ‘normal’ day.

    The most important point here is that it is NOT the low mood or depression that causes bingeing, it is the restriction beforehand.

    What does it look like then for someone who is feeling down but who doesn’t normally control their food?

    When we eat normally, following our intuition, cravings and natural appetite fluctuations we are feeding our body exactly what it needs. When something difficult happens in our lives and we find ourselves in a low mood or in a depressed state, we become disconnected from our bodies. Very simply put depression is a form of disconnection. When feel low, sad, depressed we feel disconnected from life. Our mind becomes disconnected from our body and the normal messages that go back and forth telling us when and what to eat are no longer being received clearly. We lose interest in life and we lose interest in eating. Think of this example – what do you give to people when a loved one has died? You go round with food, right. You take them food because more often than not they are so overwhelmed with grief they forget to eat.

    If you are chronically under eating then trust me you will not be forgetting to eat any time soon.

    As I often like to say this blog is more personal and practical rather than scientific but there is a whole heap of research around this topic, so go ahead and do a deep dive online.

    But when we think about it logically from an emotional standpoint doesn’t it make so much more sense that if you are in a place where you are less interested in life and feeling disconnected then you would also be less interested in food and eating?

    So next time you feel down and you reach for the biscuit tin and then feel even worse…why not ask yourself whether you have really been nourishing your body adequately recently. Ask yourself whether this could be your natural hunger showing up after having been repressed for so long?

    Any time we feel the need to over-eat or binge there is something else going on for us. The only time humans really binge is when we have been restricting our food. So if you really want to stop bingeing when you feel down then you need to start eating when you’re up…

    Sending you lots of love xxx

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  • Binge Eating, Blogvember, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    25 – How to feel what you feel when eating when you’re NOT eating

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    I hope this title was cryptic enough…

    The reason so many of us turn to food is because it gives us pleasure, it gives us satisfaction, soothes us, comforts us or otherwise makes us feel a certain way. We use food to bring up a particular sensation. We want food to heal us, to take away our pain, to stop us feeling something or to get us to feel anything. We binge and we restrict all to change how we are feeling.

    Whatever method we choose what we are really searching for is that ‘ahhh’ moment when all of our worries and stresses slip away. When we feel that calm, peaceful wave move through our body. Where time seems to stop and we are not here any more. We are enveloped in that warm, comfortable place where nothing can touch us or hurt us. We feel safe, we feel supported. We feel secure and for that tiny fleeting moment we feel loved and accepted.

    This is the feeling we go searching for when we sit down to binge, or when we embark on a new punishingly restrictive diet. That feeling of undeniable acceptance. That moment where we are ok. We spend our days feeling like we are not good enough, not acceptable, too much of this or not enough of that. We crave some peace, so we go looking for it in food or in punishing ourselves through food.

    What if you could feel that peace, that safety, that security all the time? What if in every moment of every day, whatever you were doing, wherever you were going, you were able to feel secure, accepted, supported, comforted? What if you were able to have all that without manipulating your food or exercise? What if you were able to have all that while eating exactly what you wanted whenever you wanted?

    I’m here to tell you that you absolutely can.

    In fact the only thing that is stopping you from having that inner peace is the battle you are currently in with food and your body.

    The very thing that stops us from having peace is ourselves. We are the masters of torturing ourselves. We criticise, chastise and compare ourselves negatively to those around us, those online (more on how to stop that here). We are just straight unkind to ourselves. We starve ourselves or stuff ourselves to make us feel like somehow we fit into this imaginary box some ‘society’ out there has created.

    This does not need to be the case. The reality is there is no-one out there putting you in a box apart from you. Every single person is totally unique and different. There really is no ‘box’ that we need to get in. There simply can’t be because what the hell would that box look like?

    The only person you need to be like is yourself. And guess what, you already are that.

    We don’t need to ‘try’, we don’t need to force or battle or change to be more ourselves. We simply are. As soon as we realise that we instantly get that ‘ahh’ moment. Suddenly we relax when we realise that all we need to be and all we are is who we are right now. You do not need to change for anybody, for any rules, for any reason. Who you are deep inside is absolutely perfect.

    The hard part is getting to believe that though, right?…well here is the only tip you need.

    The only way to see that is for us to open ourselves to the possibility of not trying to be someone different.

    Stop searching for that ‘ahh’ moment in food or in punishment and instead let go and relax in the gloriousness that is you exactly as you are.

    If this speaks to you and you are right there with me that this is the answer and you just need a little help to get there then book in a completely free clarity session with me where we discuss where you’re at right now and give you a strategy to get to work on right away. Just drop me an email now – what are you waiting for?

    Lots of love xx

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  • Blogvember, Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Restriction

    24 – Find Flexibility – Find Food Freedom

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    A huge shift has taken place in the diet/health industry. People have woken up to the fact that being skinny does not necessarily equate to being happy and healthy, that fat loss is not the be all and end all. Size zero is definitely not as ‘in’ as it once was.

    However this has given rise to a new obsession with finding what ‘healthy’ really is. In comes the race to find the most super superfood, the ‘best’ balance of macro and micronutrients, the best time to eat. It’s not just about counting calories anymore. The diet industry is morphing into a health and wellness industry focused on ‘healthy’ eating and with that a growing number of us falling into orthorexic tendencies.

    As you know I like to keep this blog pretty practical and personal rather than going into the factual minutiae but for background orthorexia has been defined by NEDA as “an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating”. It is not clinically diagnosable at the time of this blog but it feels like it’s only a matter of time.

    Not only is there a general push towards finding the ‘healthiest’ diet people have also become more conscious of the environmental implications of the food industry. This has led to a shift towards more people choosing veganism and claiming that it is the healthiest way to eat not only for your body but for the planet as well.

    As a coach supporting absolute food freedom for all I don’t actively support any particular way of eating or trends in the wellness industry. I remain neutral not because I don’t have an opinion but because we are all totally unique and different and therefore what looks and feels like food freedom for me will be different to what looks and feels like food freedom to you.

    I also focus on the emotional basis of our crazy eating habits, binges and fad diets because if we don’t dig deep and look at the real reasons WHY we get so obsessed with particular dogma around food we won’t be able to heal it and find a healthy food freedom that will last a lifetime.

    With this move towards healthy eating now being equated with clean eating, i.e. eating in the most nutrient efficient, unprocessed way, and people getting confused with the all too nebulous term ‘balance’ I want to broaden your minds as to what ‘healthy’ could mean in reality for you.

    Health and balance when it comes to food and your body is not just about what you eat and what you look like, it’s not even just about what you feel like. Having a healthy and balanced relationship with food and your body means eating in a way that not only feels good to you and your body but that also slots into your life with the proper priority level.

    Eating well and caring for our bodies is super important. I am a huge advocate of taking care of ourselves in every way we can so that we can show up in the world and give our true and best selves. However sometimes this doesn’t look like waking up naturally at 7am sipping on a lemon water and eating overnight oats then eating our carefully planned, prepped meals every 2-3 hours.

    Sometimes this means getting up super early in the morning to go and pick our family up from the airport, grabbing a coffee and croissant there even though we know that’s not the best for our energy levels, spending the day running around doing chores to get ready for a work event, having an impromptu pizza lunch date, then collapsing onto the sofa with random leftovers we have put together from our fridge.

    Even though that day didn’t look like a perfect ‘healthy eating’ day, we still fuelled ourselves, we were able to get on with what we wanted to do that day and we showed up in our lives without letting the food options available stop us.

    The magic thing is that after a few days like this, if you are truly seeking health and balance and are able to listen to your body, it will naturally start craving more variety, more fresh foods, different proteins and vegetables. You will find yourself reaching for different foods if your follow your body’s intuition. You don’t need to reverse engineer or restrict your daily activities thinking that you need to eat in a certain perfect way to be healthy. Your body is constantly working on the subconscious level to keep you alive and healthy. When you start allowing your mind to dictate everything you are actually fighting against your body. When you are trying to second-guess what your body needs all the time you are trying to predict the future.

    The only way to find food freedom and be healthy is to listen to your body in the moment. To be aware and use your knowledge to support the choices you are making but not to be bound by this knowledge if your day does not go exactly to plan.

    I encourage you before you say no to things because of the food options available to remember that your body is an incredible, amazing thing that is able to self-regulate and is always looking to bring you back to balance. Knowing what is healthiest for your own body doesn’t mean you have to be dogmatic about sticking to those exact things.

    Life is really just about how well we can adapt to constant change, you’ve heard it before and I will say it again, the only thing we can be certain of in this life is uncertainty!

    Be careful when you are saying no to things because of food choices that you are not actually saying no to life.

    If this resonated check out this blog on how to cope with body change; this one on change in our daily food requirements;
    and this one on finding freedom outside of control

    Lots of love xxx

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  • Blogvember, Body Image, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    23 – Are you really not your body?

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    There are a lot of messages around self-love that tell you that “you are not your body”; that there is so much more to life than your body, hence don’t waste your time focusing on it or getting so obsessed with it.

    I took this approach when I first stopped dieting and tried to get a hold of my emotional eating. I stopped looking in the mirror, stopped caring what I looked like and how I felt in my body. Instead I shut all of those things off and just tried to eat ‘normally’.

    It was a disaster. Within a few months my health had deteriorated to the point I was suffering from chronic headaches, fatigue, debilitating periods. I thought that when you stopped bingeing and dieting your health and body would improve, or at least stay the same…I was completely shocked.

    So why am I sharing this with you?

    It is a myth that you are not your body. If you are wanting to get a hold of your emotional eating and change your relationship with food the key part is not to start ignoring your body and what it feels like but actually to get deeper into relationship with it than ever before. Every single day of your life you will live inside this body you have. It is as much you as your mind. It is not a part of you to just forget sometimes. This body is your home, it is your life.

    When we diet and emotionally eat we are attempting to separate our basic needs as humans from what we think we should need based on society’s expectations. We deny our own reality when we try to make our body something that it is not.

    If you are not your body then how do you expect to live in this world? How do you expect to show up and be the best version of you if you don’t focus on your body, the very vessel that allows you to experience this planet..?

    Our body’s are to be respected, to be loved, to be cared for. You are your body. Your body is you.

    Internalise this concept, take it to heart and healing your relationship with food will come naturally.

    Lots of love xx

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  • Anxiety, Blogvember, Emotional Abuse, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love, Spirituality

    22 – How to feel your feelings for real

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    This is one of my all-time favourite topics, firstly because I think it is just so incredible that we as humans who have this beautiful ability to sense the wonders of the world around us purposefully numb ourselves to its beauty so that we can avoid any hint of unpleasantness. I could talk for days about how we are taught to numb ourselves and how society is created on the foundations that in our life we should seek to live a life with only pleasure and any pain is bad and dissonant with our purpose here on earth. But this is not the purpose of this blog post!

    You want the action steps right? You want to know how to really get into your feelings. You know you numb yourself. You know that you don’t cry when you’re sad, you don’t speak out when you’re angry, you pretend you’re ok when inside you are slowly shrivelling up silently wishing you could hibernate forever…

    So how do we get past this, how do we get into our real feelings?

    As a disclaimer, read through the exercise first and if you have never done anything like this before I strongly suggest you do it in the presence of someone you trust, a therapist, coach or close friend or family member. If we have been detached from our feelings for a long time it can sometimes be quite overwhelming when we begin to explore them.

    The first thing to know is that feelings are bodily sensations. The way we experience feelings is visceral, it is felt physically. You can’t have an emotion just in your head (I will use the words emotion and feeling interchangeably in this post). If you think you can feel your feelings only in your mind then this is a surefire way to tell you are numbed to or have repressed your own emotions.

    Lets take a look at an example. An obvious one we all can identify with…fear. When we feel fear our heart rate increases, our palms get sweaty, we might need to go to the toilet, our hunger evaporates, we may feel our muscles tense and our senses become heightened. This is an extreme bodily response as when we feel fear our body sends around a massive amount of hormones in preparation to take action to save its own life, survival becomes our priority when we feel fear.

    What about other more subtle emotions? Every individual will experience their emotions in a way that is unique to them, they will have their own flavour but the way to identify them is the same.

    As a human you will have an emotional reaction to pretty much every change in circumstance around you whether you are aware of it or not, for example you will automatically respond when someone has said something kind (or mean) to you, if someone has offered to help you or you have solved a problem you have been working on for a while. In our ever-changing world we are constantly responding to evolving circumstances around us.

    In that moment where you sense a change in yourself, or if you don’t sense a change but something has happened and you think you ‘should’ have reacted then take a second to stop. Stay still. Sitting or standing. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out a couple of times. Bring your attention first to the breath coming in through your nose and feel it track down through your windpipe and into your lungs, filling them, then trace the air moving back out, feeling your lungs empty and the air coming out through your nostrils. Once you feel comfortable with this bring your attention to any sensations in your body that are acute, for example any pain, pressure or tightness. Move around your body and explore what is happening. Keep moving your attention around your body remaining curious and non-judgemental the whole time, take a few minutes. As you are doing this you will sense your mind making sense of your bodily sensations and it will start to give you potential answers to what you’re feeling. For example you might close your eyes and breathe and feel your legs become tingly, you might feel a tightness in your chest and the back of your eyes might begin to burn, your mind will spontaneously provide you with answers for how to make sense of what is happening. It might offer you heartache, grief, sorrow. Your intuition will know when you have the right answer. Remember that your body has felt this many many times in your life it is just that you haven’t been aware of what has been going on.

    When you first start doing this, especially if you have numbed yourself or repressed your feelings for a long time, the most common responses are likely to be anxiety, fear and emptiness or loneliness. That is ok. Remember we are doing this exercise with no-judgement.

    It might take you some practice to get answers on what you’re feeling, to start with you might not be able to tune in to your body. But this is all the more reason to keep trying.

    Reconnecting our mind and our body is absolutely vital to improving our well-being, spirit and happiness within ourselves.

    The amazing thing is that you have literally hundreds of opportunities to practice this throughout the day as you are constantly responding and reacting to the environment around you. If you are not sure where to start do this exercise in a scenario where you already know the feeling. For example, if you get angry when someone cuts in front of you in a line, next time it happens take a moment to check in with how your body is feeling. By reverse engineering it you will see how your body responds in different scenarios.

    At the other end of the spectrum, feeling huge emotions fly through your body taking you on a rollercoaster ride on a daily basis is a very different matter. This often disproportionate emotional response to what is going on around you can signify that there is something deep you are repressing and it is trying to be released any way it can, like a pressure cooker needing to let off steam. The exercise described above can still be very useful as you may notice that your body is actually telling you of the ‘real’ emotion that is lurking beneath the intensity of the one you think is being shown. For example often under intense anger there is actually a lot of pain and sadness

    If you would like to explore this exercise or go deeper with me please just book in for a free clarity session where we can discuss how to feel your feelings in more depth, just email me here to book a time.

    Lots of love xx

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  • Blogvember, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating

    21 – Find your optimal way of eating – three simple steps

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    What is your optimal way of eating?

    This is one of my favourite most frequently asked questions, but also one of the toughest to answer.

    This is because there really is no answer.

    The honest truth is that there is no single optimal way of eating that will suit everybody. Each person is an individual, completely unique and therefore the way of eating that is optimal for them is going to be totally unique and individual to them. Not only that but for each of us our optimal way of eating is going to change depending on what our life situation is, for example how our general health is, what type of work we are doing, our stress levels etc.

    This makes this question tough to answer.
    However there are some things we can do to help us discover what our personal optimal way of eating is.

    1. Listen to your body

    This is absolutely key for all areas of our lives but in particular when it comes to how we eat. Really take time to sit with yourself and your body and take notice of how it feels when you eat certain things at certain times and in certain ways. Your body is amazing, it will give you signals over and over again about what it likes and what it needs. It will also tell you when it doesn’t like something, for example if you have a minor intolerance you might get itchy eyes or a swollen mouth. If you can do this off the bat you will have a great chance of finding your optimal way of eating.

    2. Experiment – try new things

    If you are not sure how to read the messages from your body then start experimenting. Eat different mixes of foods for breakfast and see how your energy changes through the day, eat at different times and different quantities. Try raw food and cooked food, meat and meat-free. Mix and match as much as you can but stay consistent over the course of at least a week before changing to see how your body responds. Your energy levels and feelings of vitality should respond to how you are eating. You know when you have spent the weekend eating a tonne of junk food and drinking heavily, you feel crappy and lethargic right? You can easily see the effect this food and drink has had on you. This is what we are trying to see through experimentation, what foods make us feel great and what foods don’t feel good to us.

    3. Just do you – don’t get sucked into someone else’s way of eating

    Now this is a bit of a trick one – what I’m saying is don’t fall for fad diets or dogma. Don’t fall for quick fixes or superfood diets. Yes there are more nutrient dense foods out there and less nutritionally valuable foods BUT finding your optimal way of eating doesn’t necessarily mean how many superfoods can you pack into a smoothie, or never eating anything with sugar again. Don’t be fooled by dogma. There is no right or wrong when it comes to your way of eating. Your optimal way of eating for your health, vitality and life is yours and yours alone so don’t let anyone tell you how you should or shouldn’t eat.

    There really is no right or wrong, your body will tell you how it feels best. If you are not sure what feeling good in your body is or feels like then please get in touch. This is one of the key struggles my clients face when trying to stop emotional eating and find their optimal way of eating. Drop me a comment below or send me an email sasha@sashafardell.com

    The optimal way of eating for you is the way you feel happiest, healthiest and most full of life, and that is something only you can truly know.

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