Eating Your Way Through Tough Times

With all the tragic events that have taken place over the past few weeks and months, like me, you may be experiencing a wide range of emotions, from disbelief, sadness and despair to helplessness, anger and anxiety.

You may have also noticed yourself more frequently reaching for a pint of ice cream, bag of chips or box of cookies to alleviate these strong emotions.

This is totally okay.

Eating sometimes for emotional reasons is part of normal eating.

It’s simply an attempt to take care of yourself—a coping strategy when times are tough.

The important thing is to not beat yourself up over it. 

It’s much more helpful to view each experience as an opportunity to learn more about yourself—to expand your self-awareness and cultivate more wisdom.

Doing so will help you approach future emotional eating episodes with a greater understanding of your true needs and a larger set of tools for fulfilling them.

Pause and Reflect
When you find yourself turning to food to regulate uncomfortable emotions, hit pause and ask yourself:

What need am I trying to fulfill with this food?

Maybe it’s comfort, pleasure, relief, distraction or connection.

Once you’ve identified what it is you really need, reflect on what will help you get it.

For example, if you discover what you’re really seeking is connection (not cookies), consider how you can meet this deeper need.

Perhaps it’s talking with a loved one, support group or therapist; playing with your dog; spending time with Mother Nature; volunteering in your community; or engaging with like-minded activists.

Whatever you come up with, add it to your toolbox.

Curiosity and Compassion
Sometimes you won’t know what you truly need until after you’ve brushed the chip crumbs off your shirt or washed the chocolate off your fingers. Keep reflecting; the answer will eventually come to you.

The key is to approach your emotional eating with curiosity and compassion, rather than criticism and judgment.

Doing so will enable you to become more aware of what drives your eating decisions, and empower you to have a different relationship with food—not a perfect one, but a more relaxed, trusting and peaceful one.

Screw It!
Even as you become more attuned to your true needs, you may sometimes say, “screw it!” and choose to emotionally eat. Again, this is totally okay and normal.

When you do make this more conscious choice, let go of any negative self-talk.

You know, that voice in your head that says, “I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m breaking the rules and being bad. I’m must make up for this food sin by working out extra hard and skipping breakfast and lunch tomorrow.”

Instead, squash that voice, sit down, and slowly savor every single bite. 

What to Eat When You're Feeling Scattered, Gloomy or Moody

My client Julie once arrived at her session feeling very unsettled and overwhelmed due to her recent apartment move. I sent her away with a seemingly unconventional prescription for sweet potatoes. She ate some that night and immediately felt more grounded.
 
More Than Fuel
Food is far more than just fuel. We tend to think of it in terms of nutrients, calories, good or bad. How often do you consider its energetic quality?
 
All food has unique energetic properties that affect your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. When, where and how it's grown, raised, produced or prepared determines its essential character and the energy it imparts.
 
By understanding food energetics, you can prepare balance-restoring meals based on the energy particular foods create in your body.
 
Let's take a look at vegetables.
 
Plant Prescriptions
The direction a vegetable grows can impart the same qualities in you when consuming it. Here are a few plant prescriptions for when you're feeling...
 
Scattered or Overstimulated
Root Vegetables: Because they grow in the ground, root vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips and beets have a strong downward energy. Eating these hearty vegetables can help you feel more focused, anchored and grounded.
 
Gloomy or Tense
Dark Leafy Greens: Kale, Swiss chard, collard greens, beet greens and other dark leafy greens grow upward collecting energy from the sun. Eating these chlorophyll-rich foods infuses your blood with oxygen, ultimately boosting your mood and spirits.

Light and cleansing, they also supply your body with flexible energy and remove physical and emotional toxins literally helping you lighten up.
 
Moody or Erratic Energy
Squashes and Gourds: To maintain an even keel, eat veggies that grow at ground level like butternut squash, spaghetti squash, pumpkin and edible gourds. These can help steady your mood and energy level.
 
You Are What You Eat
A food's life force directly impacts your quality of life. By selecting foods based on their energetic qualities, you can better nourish not only your body but also your soul.

The Shameful Brownie

Can you relate to this story?

I was a young teen enjoying the fun and excitement of a kitchen full of friends, family and yummy food. As I reached for one of my favorite treats, a homemade dark-chocolate brownie, a young guy standing across the room smirked at me and said loudly:

“Once on your lips, forever on your hips.”

I shrunk back from the counter, brownie in hand, cheeks burning bright red with shame and humiliation. Shoulders slumped, head down, I turned away without saying a word and headed to a quiet corner to eat my brownie alone. Sadly, it didn’t taste as good as it usually did.

Those eight words stung. This is what they meant to my 12-year-old mind:

• I should be worried about my weight.
   

• I should fear gaining weight.
   

• Eating treats, like brownies, will make me gain weight, which makes them bad.
   

• Eating bad foods makes me a bad person.
   

• I will have to pay for my food sins.
   

• People are observing and judging my actions.
   

• If I eat bad food, I better do it while no one is watching. 
   

• If I eat bad food, I will immediately gain weight. 
   

• I need to vigilantly monitor every morsel I eat.
   

• With a body like this, I don’t deserve to eat treats.
   

• I am somehow falling short.

Cemented Core Beliefs
This incident further cemented many core beliefs about food and body that had begun taking root inside my increasingly self-conscious teenage self as I attempted to navigate a culture obsessed with dieting and skinniness. 

These core beliefs led to decades of deprivation and overindulgence, playing Hide and Eat, and making food choices based not on nourishment and pleasure, but rather on how they would impact my weight.

And, they contributed to years of warring with my body and bouncing between good-girl/bad-girl status depending upon whether I ate a big bowl of broccoli or a big bowl of ice cream. Guilt and shame were constant dining companions.

Three Takeaways
While there are many takeaways from my story, there are three key ones I want to emphasize: 

1. The Power of Words
My hope is that this story will remind you of the tremendous power of your words and to be extremely conscientious and thoughtful about the comments you make to others regarding their body, food choices and eating habits.

This is especially important with children, teenagers and young adults, who are so incredibly impressionable, eager to be loved and belong, and struggling to develop a strong sense of self. 

This also includes negative, disempowering comments you make about yourself to yourself and others about your own body and food choices, which come from your own core beliefs and can easily influence other people's core beliefs.

2. You're Not Alone
I shared this story to let you know that if your food choices, eating habits and/or body shape make you feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed or unworthy, you’re not alone and it's not your fault. 

Many of us experience these same feelings. 

Most likely, your beliefs and actions are being driven by a set of core beliefs you adopted at a very young age, that are often influenced by repeated messages you received from others, your environment and diet/weight loss culture.

3. You Can Change
Lastly, may my story reassure you that you have the capacity to change your core beliefs and transform your relationship with food, eating and your body into a more nourishing, loving, relaxed and peaceful one, just as I've done (and continue to do). I don’t have any magical powers. If I can do it, you can do it. 

One of the first places to start is sharing your own stories in a safe and accepting space, whether it’s with a trusted friend, therapist, coach or support group. For most of us, exposing this dark, messy side of ourselves is really scary. 

It wasn't easy when I first started talking about aspects of myself that I had long kept hidden. I still feel a bit of vulnerability and fear every time I share one of my stories.

However, over time, I’ve found doing so has helped me cultivate greater self-acceptance and unconditional self-love. And, it's helped me release my feelings of shame and create deeper connections with others who can relate to my experience.

As shame and vulnerability expert Dr. Brene Brown says:

"If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive."