Home Archive by category 'Emotional Eating'

Emotional Eating

  • Anxiety, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery

    The Number One Thing Stopping You From Quitting Emotional Eating For Good

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    I tried to diet so many times.

    I must have started and stopped hundreds, perhaps even thousands of times. Often multiple times in one day. My mind would go from little miss iron will power to f*ck all of this, imma just quit life starting with this diet within seconds.

    Cue emotional eating, bingeing, cripplingly low moods and a feeling that things would simply NEVER EVER get better.

    Let me tell you right now. Things do get better. MUCH BETTER. But in quitting dieting and emotional eating there is a big, some might say monstrous, feeling that awaits when attempting to move through this.

    It’s the reason most of us get lulled back into the cycle and the reason that destructive emotional eating remains our key coping mechanism/best friend.

    In fact, I used to justify my “mini daily binges” as healthy intuitive eating because of this very thing.

    A little thing known as ‘overwhelm’.

    Overwhelm is that feeling where anything becomes ‘too much’. Your to-do list is perpetually too long, you will never have enough time, there are too many things and everything is a priority.

    Battling on in this way is living in a state of crisis.

    That is not an exaggeration. We put our bodies into crisis mode when we live like this. Where the mountain of things we need to do, should do or would like to do is so massive that anything we have accomplished feels pointless or worthless in comparison.

    Feeling overwhelmed often leads us back to emotional eating. If we are eating as a way to escape the feeling of overwhelm then something is not right.

    Overwhelm shouldn’t be our default setting.

    The problem is that most of us don’t even realise we are living in a state of overwhelm because of our reliance on dieting, bingeing, overexercise to get us through.

    So when we try to stop these behaviours, what happens?

    The overwhelm sets in ten times stronger than ever before because we have pulled the rug out from under our own feet.

    Our destructive relationship with food was acting as a support system, a barrier between us and the things we really didn’t want to deal with. If we simply try and stop with no other helpful support system in between we get left with complete and utter overwhelm.

    And guess what?

    We slip back into our old coping mechanisms. For me it started with one chocolate bar in an afternoon when I was feeling tired but also knew that I had ‘too much’ to do to warrant taking a break. It was a ‘treat’ to help me get through. Of course, the overwhelm dissipated. I felt competent again.

    But my old patterns around food very slowly started seeping back in. Before I knew it I was avoiding my to-do list and just heading to the shop every afternoon. Life was unravelling. Again.

    The only way out of this pattern is to recognise the overwhelm for what it is and give ourselves a break.

    Rather than moving from overwhelm to coping mechanism we need to stop and take a look at why the overwhelm has appeared in our lives and whether there are things we can change about our overall lifestyle to reduce it.

    Removing the coping mechanism, i.e. the food/exercise problems, only reveals the underlying problem. We need to be prepared to face what is underneath if we are going to truly change the way we feel about food.

    This takes courage, time and patience. A lot of it. It also takes support and persistence. If you are feeling constantly overwhelmed and using food to cope know that it doesn’t always need to feel this way.

    My email is always open – let me know now – what is the one thing in your life that is causing you the most overwhelm right now? Tell me right here and let’s see if we can change that.

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

    “Come As You Are” – But I Am Not Sick Enough To Need Help? #NEDA

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    Let’s cut to the chase – you don’t need to look a certain way in order to ask for help relating to your relationship with food or body image.

    You don’t need to be “fat” to have a problem with your body image. You don’t need to be skeletal thin to have a serious obsessive problem with dieting.

    There is a common misperception around our emotional and mental health that we need to be diagnosed with a clinical condition in order to be ‘sick enough’ to get help.

    This is certainly the case with eating disorders. We believe we need to look a certain way in order to consider ourselves a candidate to get help.

    This is definitely NOT TRUE.

    When we are struggling and we hide it, if we pretend we are ok when we are living in a mental hell we are denying our own humanness. As humans we live in community, we share stories and we support each other. We share joy and we also share the hard times. This is how we get by. This is how we create society. This is how we heal.

    Helping each other and standing side by side is a crucial part of being human.

    You don’t need to look a certain way, display certain diagnostic criteria or be any type of way in order to qualify for asking for help. All you need to know is that you are finding it difficult to cope and you want to change because you know there is more to life.

    If you feel that you are struggling with dieting, bingeing, any facet of your relationship with food or your body image then send me a message now. Don’t wait. It is unlikely to ‘just get better’. We can change how you’re feeling in a matter of weeks, your life can completely change within months and in years…? well all your dreams can come true.

    Don’t delay the start of living the life you truly deserve.

    Message me here or comment below.

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  • Binge Eating, Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    How Life Has Changed Since Stopping Emotional Eating

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    This morning I woke up naturally, no buzzing sound of alarm calling me to ‘get my ass to the gym’, I rolled over and lay there for a while, took a few breaths and smiled to myself.

    This sounds like the start of a cheesy film…perhaps it is. And I am grateful for that. Because never in a million years did I ever think this could be my life.

    If you’ve been following along this blog for a while and have read ‘my story’ (find it here) then you will know I put myself through absolute hell with my diet and my body. And today all I feel is gratitude for this amazing life I have. This amazing life that I fought for myself to have.

    I was once that girl who appeared to ‘have it all’ – the job, the apartment, the relationship, the money, the clothes, the bags, the holidays…..the body.

    Everything looked amazing on the outside. But what I remember about being that girl wasn’t any of that. What I remember about being that girl were the endless nights I was doubled over in pain after eating a huge takeaway meal, family sized bag of crisps, a packet of biscuits, half a chocolate cake, a tub of ice cream, sharing bags of sweets and taking laxatives on top of that to try and ‘flush’ it out so I didn’t ingest the calories.

    I remember waking up the next day after 2 hours of sleep feeling like I’d been hit by a truck then putting on my gym clothes and my running watch and heading out for an hour long slog down the Thames, dragging my feet along, willing my legs to carry me. I remember wishing away the hours during the day at work or with friends so that I could be at home on my own and eat.

    The only thing I remember enjoying was shopping for my binges. My greatest joy in life was getting to go to the supermarket after work and spending inordinate amounts of money on snacks and treats. I would tell myself that I would only eat half when packets of cakes were on buy one get one free offers. That it was more cost effective for me to buy the biggest packets of crisps because I would eat them at some point anyway…knowing full well I could never stop mid-packet. I would play games with myself that because I had exercised and hadn’t eaten all day it was ok for me to devour 4000 calories worth of chocolate fudge brownie cake and ice cream.

    My emotion-fuelled binges consumed my whole life. The sadness and helplessness that enveloped my entire life was suffocating. I look back and all I remember were hazy moments of peace found mid-binge when the sugar had started to hit and I knew I still had so much more to eat. The rest of my life was covered by a huge black cloud.

    To say my life has changed is the world’s biggest understatement.

    It couldn’t be more different.

    Here’s a few of the ways my life has transformed –

    🌟I eat whatever food whenever I want and NEVER feel guilty

    🌟I enjoy ALL foods – yes, including veggies!

    🌟I exercise because I enjoy it

    🌟I love my body unconditionally

    🌟I am WAY more fun to be around

    🌟I have time to do things I enjoy

    🌟I am the happiest I have ever been

    🌟I LOVE my life

    Tell me you don’t want more of all that for yourself?

    Hand on heart, what do you want for yourself? If you had a fairy godmother who could give you one wish right now what would it be? Tell me honestly that you wouldn’t want to feel happier in your life?

    You don’t need a fairy godmother – you can be your own fairy godmother and grant yourself that wish right now. All you need to do is take one step forward and say ‘I need support to move through this transition, to quit the crazy eating behaviours’. Raise your hand and say ‘I know I can do this, I know what I need to do and I know with someone by my side I will do it’.

    I’ve got your back. I am asking for your permission to be there for you. I can and I will support you through this. All you need to do is say yes…

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  • Binge Eating, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Love

    Emotional Eating As Punishment

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    Have you ever felt like you just ‘need’ to eat that piece of cake?

    You KNOW it’s emotional, you KNOW it has something to do with things other than your hunger but it doesn’t matter, you just ‘need’ it anyway?

    If you’re reading this then I guess you have been there. A. Lot.

    You have felt that urge to ‘treat yourself’ and you are damn well going to go ahead and do just that.

    What is really happening here?

    I have written extensively on how we use food to hide from our feelings, see these blog posts here and here for more. But what is this use of food actually signalling?

    It is not just that we want to hide from our feelings. it can be something a little more sinister and confusing and therefore a little harder to overcome on our own.

    Much of the time our emotional eating stems from the fact that we do not feel worthy or lovable and we seek comfort in food. We also have beliefs that thin people are more worthy, loved and therefore happier than us.

    So when we emotionally eat we actually hitting ourselves with a double dose of self-hatred. We are eating in such a way that we are punishing ourselves for 1) having feelings of unworthiness and 2) not being thin.

    Let’s dive in to this a little deeper.

    First, we are saying to ourselves that we are unworthy and unlovable and that that pain is too much to bear. We do not want to feel these feelings therefore we will eat instead.

    Second, eating more is a surefire way of moving away from the ‘thinness’ we desperately desire therefore relegating us to a place where we will be ‘fat’ and therefore objectively and resolutely not worthy or lovable…

    What…?!!

    What kind of Jedi mind tricks are we playing on ourselves here…

    There is literally so much warped psychology around our eating patterns that it is not only unhealthy but frankly disturbing.

    When we emotionally eat under any circumstance, no matter how it makes us feel, even if we find it ‘comforting’ what we are really doing is eating to punish ourselves for having feelings. We are also eating as a way of keeping ourselves stuck in a scenario we don’t want to be in.

    Eating as punishment frequently trips us up because we aren’t even tuned in to the fact we are doing it. We think we are being kind to ourselves by ‘indulging’ but unless we have truly freed ourselves from all our diet and food related demons then all we are doing is perpetuating a negative cycle.

    If this sounds confusing….trust me I know. Most importantly, does this sound like a minefield you would like to get yourself out of?

    If yes then comment below or send me an email at sasha@sashafardell.com and let’s chat.

    If you haven’t already check out my FREE TRAINING on how to stop Emotional Eating TODAY – just click here

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  • Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    Your Body Is Not A Commodity

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    In order to sell something that thing has to be useful to someone, it has to have some value, it has to look a certain way, perform a certain way or have certain functions that make it attractive to a particular person.

    We understand this and therefore we set our own expectations and judgements around things, we set parameters around what we like and don’t like and what we value or need. Therefore when it comes to buying things or choosing things for our life we know what we are looking for and we can simply pick them out and away we go.

    The thing about ‘things’ is that they have no feelings, thoughts or emotions. They just exist as they are. They don’t care if you pick them or not. They are not reacting to your judgements and expectations. They are just there and they just are.

    Bodies are not like that. And guess why…

    Because bodies are not ‘things’ bodies are HUMANS. Real life human people.

    When we try to make our bodies a certain way in order to ‘sell’ ourselves to the world we are DEHUMANISING ourselves.

    When we mess with our food through excessive dieting, bingeing or over-exercising we are treating our body as a commodity.

    We are saying to ourselves that our body is an object that must be changed to look or function in a certain way in order for it to be ‘sellable’, i.e. acceptable, to the world.

    This is not necessarily our fault. We have been trained to think about our bodies in this way by a lot of mass market media. We are shown that legs should look long, slim, white and tanned, that waists should be slim and trim and breasts perky and perfectly round. We are told we need to make our bodies look like that in order for people to buy into us as women.

    This is disturbing for many reasons and something that might not change in the media for a while. But something we can change is the way we react to this.

    Ladies, we can say no. We can stand up and say I am a woman and my body is my home. My body is perfect exactly the way it looks naturally. I refuse to cause myself harm through unhealthy behaviours to try and make my body look a specific way.

    This is about reasserting ourselves as whole people. Your body is not something to be judged and scrutinised or compared with an unrealistic ideal. Your body is a living, breathing, moving, sentient being, the home of all your hopes, dreams, wishes and future plans. It is not something to be destroyed, trashed, terrorised all in the name of someone else’s beauty ideal.

    We have a right to live freely and happily in our bodies, exactly as they are. Our bodies are not a commodity.

    TW: For another post on our bodies as home related to sexual trauma check out my post here

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

    Emotional Eating is keeping you Invisible

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    For most of my life I was the quiet one. I preferred to observe what was happening rather than let myself join in. My self-criticism was so overwhelming it was debilitating. I didn’t realise that for much of my life I was trying to make myself invisible.

    My relationship with food was my big secret. My personal dieting quests, supermarket binge-food hauls and hours of obsessing over calories were my safe space. These private behaviours were what gave me the confidence to show up in the world. I used them to hide myself so that what I presented was only a very small portion of who I was and how I felt. They helped me create a facade of the person I wanted to be – thin and happy.

    Does any of this feel familiar? Hiding the ‘real’ you behind your eating patterns?

    When we use unhealthy behaviours, when we try to control through obsession and strict adherence to rules it is because we are trying to cope with something. Something in the world has made us feel unsafe – physically, emotionally or mentally – and we are grabbing on to something tangible to bring some semblance of normality to our lives.

    The thing that has made us feel unsafe doesn’t necessarily need to be a massive trauma. But it is something that has shaken us, specifically made us question who we really are and why we are here. Maybe it was a bully in school who told us we were ugly or our parents ignoring us when we asked for help. The result of these experiences though makes us feel like there is something inherently wrong with us. We believe that as a result of who we are we are flawed. This makes us want to be small…for me it made me want to disappear completely. I perfected becoming invisible. I could be in a group with everyone talking for hours and people would not even notice I was standing there. It was exactly what I wanted to achieve but also perpetuated this feeling that I was invisible. I truly believed I wasn’t worthy of taking up space.

    Emotional eating was my refuge, my way of staying visible to one person in the world, myself. Being able to control food and my body was the one way I stayed present in this world.

    Our emotional eating often becomes our sanctuary. This can make it difficult to try and move away from. We know it is hurting us and we know that we are not coping but the alternative feels so scary. Why is this? Because the alternative is living our truth, showing up for ourselves and speaking up for ourselves in our lives. It doesn’t sound terrifying but have you tried it recently? Have you tried really speaking your mind? Have you tried uncovering your deepest darkest secrets to someone? Have you revealed to anyone how you feel so unlovable and so unworthy of friendship or community of any kind? Have you done this with someone who is trustworthy, loving and will listen?

    The only way to stop emotional eating is to accept the fact that we will need to make ourselves visible in this world. Stopping emotional eating means stopping hiding from the world. It means taking a step forward to becoming the person we want to be. The person we truly are…which, please note, is not a depressed, hopeless waste of space. I had this belief for an incredibly long time…that the real me was a waste of space. I couldn’t accept that I had a place here on earth my self-worth was so low. BUT I’m telling you right now this is NOT TRUE.

    I am so grateful everyday that I realised that I could only work on my self-worth and follow my dreams once I stopped using my controlling, obsession with food as a comfort blanket. A different life is possible for you once you step out from behind the shadow of your crazy relationship with food and stop being afraid of being seen.

    But I couldn’t have done it without support. If you know you need to make a change I might be the one to support you through this. I know exactly what you need and when you need it to transition on this journey. Get in touch through the comments below or email me sasha@sashafardell.com

    If you haven’t already check out my FREE Audio Masterclass on Emotional Eating – Why You Do It And How To Stop Today here

    Lots of love and bye for now xx

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  • Binge Eating, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Uncategorized

    First Guest Blog…Deep Dive into 5 Minutes of Delayed Bingeing by Ari Snaevarsson

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    Hi lovely readers,

    Today on the blog we have a special guest post from Ari who is a nutrition coach who works primarily with clients who suffer from disordered eating patterns. He also works as a dietetic technician at a residential eating disorder treatment center. He has also published a fantastic book 100 Days of Food Freedom: A Day-by-Day Journey to Self-Discover, Freedom from Dieting, and Recovery From Your Eating Disorder. You can check him and his book out here

    If you have any comments or questions let us know at the bottom and Ari and I will be happy to answer 🙂 Lots of love, please enjoy this special guest post from Ari.

    “Today I’d like to invite you into a much deeper look into what just 5 minutes of delayed binge-eating looks like. This is going to be an article unlike most others, and if you struggle at all with seemingly permanent binge-eating patterns, this could be what it takes to reorient your thought processes and get into a recovery-oriented mindset. But first, what are we talking about when we say “delayed bingeing”?


    When we “delay” a binge, we are literally giving the brain messages and
    feedback loops time to process, and we are bringing mindful awareness to these sensations as we let them unfold. This way, rather than jumping from one distraction to the next and simply hoping this binge does not overtake us, we are taking an actionable step towards postponing the behavior.
    This is vital for us to grasp. As I had to learn in my own recovery from Binge-Eating Disorder, the problem is not the bingeing. The problem is the mindlessness of the situation (and it’s worth noting the word “problem” in this sense carries no implications of moral wrongdoing, but rather just serves to identify where things go awry and problematic behaviors start popping up). The problem is that we allow these thought patterns and behavior chains to roll on without interruption, and when we do this, the natural endpoint is a binge session.


    So, we use delayed bingeing (whether it be executed in a formal treatment
    setting or on your own) to get in touch with the feelings present during an urge to binge. This allows us to regain control over our symptoms and ultimately reclaim Food Freedom.


    But what does delayed bingeing actually look like and, as an extension of that, how can you start employing it today? First and foremost, it’s important to mention that this is an exercise to undertake at your own risk. If you don’t believe this will be helpful for you, either due to immense fear of your inability to control the situation or else reason to believe this is targeting the wrong aspects of your recovery, please reach out and I’d be happy to help you process this.


    If this does strike you as a potentially important procedure, consider
    implementing it first on a weekly basis. You can scale it up from there, depending on its initial efficacy, but it’s important to start at a small and manageable level. After all, this should only be one small piece of a larger recovery plan.


    A deep look


    To begin, we’ll want to enter the area where bingeing would normally occur. For some, this is the kitchen, but for others, it could be a college dorm common room with a vending machine in it or maybe a convenience store. Granted, if it’s somewhere public and others could potentially spectate, that might not lend itself to the most mindful of exposures, but the priority is to emulate your typical binge environment. You need not necessarily get the food out just yet (the idea with delayed bingeing is to give yourself the option to binge or not binge, and getting the food ready presupposes that you will binge).

    Minute 1


    Start by focusing on the breath. Breathe in on a count of 4, hold for a count of 1, and then release on a count of 5. Do this until it becomes more automatically rhythmic.
    It can help to focus in on a certain anatomical area where the breath feels most apparent. This could be at the level of the stomach, chest, shoulder, or even the nostrils. Find somewhere where it feels apparent and can easily be cued into. When your thoughts start running away from you (i.e. you become distracted), don’t fret. Just bring yourself back to the breath and carry on from where you left off. Remember that any sort of mindfulness endeavor is as much about the returning to the breath as it is
    about the mindful awareness itself.


    Minute 2


    You can now move to thinking about the hunger or binge urges that are present. Notice the difference between these two. Notice whether any true hunger is even present at all.
    This is an important step, as the whole idea of this delayed binge is to consider its validity and which part of you is asking to engage in the behavior. Is it your stomach rumbling and asking for food? Or is it a series of inappropriately wired neural connections that have grown to believe rapidly consuming food is the most efficient way to numb and deal with overwhelming emotions? Often, it’s the latter.


    Minute 3


    By Minute 3, the goal is to start thinking about how harmless this is. You’ve now delayed the binge a full two minutes, and nothing bad is happening. You’re ostensibly not in physical pain (at least, not from this) and your mood and emotions are responding accordingly. This is an extremely important realization to cement: the idea that this comes in waves and you are safe to wait. The binge is not an inevitability.

    Importantly, this is not to invalidate the emotional turmoil you might be
    experiencing right now. I recall nights where the urge to binge was so strong that killing myself seemed a more appropriate response, so that I could finally escape the pain and fear associated with these urges. Sometimes the urges would feel like my soul was leaving my body, and I needed to binge. So, the idea here is not to discount what you’re feeling but rather to properly contextualize it. Understand that the urges might
    feel scary beyond belief, but they are not going to hurt you. You are safe right now.

    Minute 4


    Now shift to some loving kindness (metta) meditation. You are going to grant yourself love and radical self-compassion. As Dr. Kristin Neff teaches in Self-Compassion, there are three elements we want to focus on here: self-kindness, mindfulness, and common humanity. For self-kindness, use statements of compassion to emphasize self-care, such as “I’ve been doing an awesome job so far, and I’m staying super calm and in control.”

    For mindfulness, return to some deep breaths and use a statement or two of objective mindful awareness, such as “I’m feeling a little bit of impatience but also some pride” (of course, keep this true to what you’re actually feeling). And then, finally, for common humanity, we just want some statement that reminds you of the greater picture, like “Binge-eating is a neurological condition that affects millions. Others are going through
    this struggle too; I’m not alone.”


    Minute 5


    To finish the delayed bingeing, by Minute 5, we will implement the two-step process I refer to as “peaceful transitions” in 100 Days of Food Freedom. First, institute a state of “free mind” but letting your mind run rampant. For the next 20-30 seconds, your mind is free to be as “anti-meditation” as it wants, freely ruminating on thoughts, getting distracted without returning to the breath, etc. Then, return to the breath again and maintain a soft gaze (especially important if your eyes were closed prior to this), allowing yourself to peacefully transition back into normal life. This is also where you’ll decide whether to act on the urges or not.

    Remember that, if you do choose to act on them, there’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve now taken a full 5 minutes to consider where these urges are coming from and whether you truly want to eat or not. This is a significantly more informed decision now than it would have been 5 minutes ago.


    Conclusion


    The final decision, as this delayed bingeing protocol ends, is whether to eat. This is something you get to decide, which is the most important point of it all. Nobody gets to tell you when to eat or stop eating. The decision comes from within, and these 5 detailed minutes of mindfulness and self-evaluation serve to help you make a completely informed decision here. The final question to ask yourself before determining whether or not to grab for food now is: Am I hungry for this?

    Delayed bingeing allows for anyone struggling with binge-eating to reclaim some control, if only momentary, and realize the binge is not an inevitability. Binge-eating is often very different than “normal eating,” not only in the speed of consumption and lack of fullness cues, but also in the sense that it is primarily nudged on by psychological thought patterns that have led us astray. For example, maybe the thought is that “this current feeling is uncomfortable and the only way you can fix it is with your binge foods.”

    Rarely is the thought something as grounded in reality as “an ice cream would be nice right now.” As such, taking the time to become intimately connected to these thoughts and truly sift through them to discover their underlying motivations is more important than you might ever realize.

    Remember that this strategy can always be used when you need it, rendering it one of the most accessible therapeutic strategies in recovery. The binge is not an inevitability.

    Your life is your story. Make it amazing.”

    I hope you have enjoyed this guest post from Ari and found something useful in there for you. I personally have used this principle before bingeing many times in my recovery and it has helped me immensely.

    See you next time xx

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  • 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

    • Comments Off on 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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