Your relationship with food

When we begin to unpack our relationship with food, we realize that there is so much more to it and it actually has little to do with food. We have created a pattern of behaviour to help soothe our emotions, have our needs met and create safety in our body through the use of food.

Many emotional eaters feel that a diet is the way to go to gain back control of their binging. But it often does the opposite. I truly believe that when you stop restricting and actually learn WHY you self sabotage and where your emotional eating comes from you start to create a safe environment for your body to reside in. When we are on a diet and restricting we are in a constant state of deprivation, maybe it’s in food or in our mind but our needs are usually not being met. Once your body knows it’s safe, the weight will fall off.

Let’s meet Sally, she’s been on a diet for as long as she can remember. She heard of her brother’s sisters friend who was really successful on a diet and now wants to jump in and be just as successful. Unfortunately every single diet Sally has signed up for, she has quit before it ended. She usually gets to about the three week mark and on a Friday night after a hard week at work, she heads to the grocery store and fills her cart with all of her favourite things.

She deserves it, she’s had a hard week.

Between the hard week at work and the fact that she has been restricting for the past three weeks she is done and needs to feel comforted and is finding that in her food. I call this the temper tantrumer. We all have this inner child inside of us and when that child has had enough of being restricted it is like a temper tantrum brewing inside of us that finally says they have had enough and heads to the grocery store to buy whatever they want.

Do you resonate with Sally? I definitely have and so many of my clients have as well.

I want you to remember that

1) You are not alone

2) Your body is amazing it has been through a lot, give it compassion

3) Restriction does not make your body feel safe

4) Having your needs met doesn’t need to mean you grab food

5) You are loved, I hope you feel the love I am sending your way

Emotional Eating is a pattern of behaviour that so many of us fall into. We continue on this cycle and we will keep repeating it until the pattern is interrupted. The only way to do that is to look inside and tune in. There will always be a trigger that will send you into a reaction and in Sally’s case the reaction is emotional eating.

What we do in my 8 Week Tune In course is create a pause in between the trigger and reaction so that you can learn to make an informed decision. (Notice how I didn’t say better decision) it’s not about making a better decision. It’s actually about taking labels like good or bad out and creating a neutral thought pattern around food. If you want a cupcake, have one but make sure that you are pausing and choosing before reacting. Also making sure that your decision does not bring on shame or guilt afterwards, but that’s for another blog post. ;)