Habits, Cravings and Emotional Eating

Last Monday night when training with my teacher and the group, I noticed that my teacher was looking like he'd gained some weight.

After class we were talking and he'd mentioned he'd gained back about 8-10 pounds.

He told me he realized it wasn't about the food; he'd not been doing his former habit of binging and throwing up BUT he was overeating. What he did realize, for himself was that it was about having the good. This makes sense because when we reach a certain level of good which is beyond what we think we "should" have or deserve, we become anxious and will do SOMEthing to quel the anxiety. For many of us, it's eat!

Well, last night I was contemplating our conversation and at one level, I do agree, it's not about the food YET, many of us are addicted to certain foods we turn to when we've got emotions we can't handle, rewards we give ourselves, etc. For many, it's chocolate. For me, and others of course, it was starches. Give me pizza, pasta, potatoes.. anything white. At one time it was sugar.

I'd also had problems with cheese.

Before getting married, most of these were not an issue because I didn't have them in my home. After getting married ~ well, he's the original pizza man. He loves his pizza, his pasta, his bread and cheese.

For awhile, I was into the cheese, bread, pasta and pizza myself. Any wonder after eating raw for so long I gained weight?

So, what to do. Oh! btw, it wasn't JUST the food! It was also the fact that I'd gotten married to someone I barely knew (met on the internet and he lived in another country and much of our communication was via email, phone calls, vid cams, etc.) after NEVER having had decent relationship that lasted more than 3 months. Think I wasn't doing some emotional eating? Uh huh!

Well, I tried using willpower. Opened fridge and would ask myself, "fit or fat"? Now, that brought SOME awareness to the issue because most of the time, I'd choose fit and it wasn't cheese! BUT, when I was out of balance, "fit" went out the door and I rationalized... o.k., one slice of cheese wont hurt and, I'll eat a salad. O.k., I'm putting LOTS of tomatoes, lettuce, cukes, etc. between the bread so, that's o.k. Well, it wasn't.

The next morning, I'm feeling mucusy and my eyes are all gummy and yucky, not to mention, the scale either wasn't moving or, it was moving up! Not what I wanted.

So, what was the solution? It's a combination of things. First off, bring more awareness to what I was eating when I ate it. I soon found that, there's not much real taste to cheese. If this is your addiction, sit with a slice of cheese and just be with it. The texture is yucky and the taste? Might as well be eating tofu. Nasty!

Now, bread, pasta, etc. Sit with it; really chew it; savor it.... not much to savor is there? Mostly what these things are are transport vehicles. They transport the things that do taste good, to your mouth.

Think about what you're eating when you eat pasta. Italian name for paste. Flour and water. Remember as a kid we use to make that? Bread? Basically the same thing. Not much flavor, not many nutrients.

O.k., so, that's dealing with the food itself.

What I HAVE found though is, the monkey mind looks in the fridge and the cheese is at eye level so, when IT wants some cheese I basically have to remind myself, I REALLY don't like it! Why eat something I don't like? Where's the satisfaction? Not to mention, how I feel the next day (isn't that the way with addicts? They usually feel crappy the next day after they indulge in their addiction?)

Another thing to look at is, habits. When, where, why, how and what do I eat? Well, even though I've just finished eating not that long ago, I'd often find myself looking in the the fridge or on the counter for something to eat. Because of all the work I've been doing with myself, students and clients, I now, very often, check myself and ask, "wow! Am I even hungry?" Very often the answer is "noooo". So, what is it? Very often I AM thirsty! But also, very often, something emotional has come up ~ and, it can be something very subtle that I'm not aware of ~ I just KNOW, I'm doing something out of balance and, I'm not hungry so there MUST be something going on. What to do? One of my favorite things is to walk. I have nothing much to distract me; I'm getting energy moving and, I'm talking to myself. Another, write. I tell my students and clients to write and do it often. Whenever you're feeling out-of-sorts and reaching for the food, write it out.

Other things are energy therapy. Could be EFT, sentence completions, emcode, etc. Once I find out what's going on, it's easy to eliminate these things without succumbing to food!

For me, having so many tools and awarenesses available has been and is, such a blessing! I no longer just eat out of habit, cravings or due to emotions. I no longer get that "I don't care ~ I'm eating it anyway" desperation.

Oh! One thing I REALLY got last night is when I was working with my teacher well over two decades ago, I had asthma so bad it almost killed me a couple of times. Almost every time we had a session, I'd have an attack. Now, we never did anything specifically with the asthma itself. We changed my food program and, eliminated my future nemisis's (sp) wheat and dairy yet, I was still having issues with asthma so it HAD to be emotional.

Again, we didn't do anything specific with the asthma. We worked in general to bring me fully ~ physically, mentally and emotionally ~ into balance.

I really got that in last night's class. Much of the time we weren't working specifically with weight. What we were working with was our self-esteem, our tendency to sabotage, our fears of success (and failure), etc. As we work together and bring our selves to more and more balance the weight will take care of itself as the asthma did because we wont NEED that crutch anymore!

For those who've read my post about my heart, when I really delved into that, I realized it was retracing from when I had the asthma. Some unconscious part of me was, in it's own way, "trying" to keep me safe and my heart was weakened previously from the asthma. I'm going into new physical and mental/emotional territories and my doing so scared the crap out of parts of myself so, it created the heart stuff. The mental/emotional manifested the physical. Now that all that's resolved mental/emotionally, my heart has stopped scaring itself ~ and me!

If interested in joining my teleclass, I'm beginning a new one Wed., Nov. 4 at 10 a.m. pacific time; 1p.m. eastern. I'm also available for one-on-one sessions. For more information on that, please go to Bodacious Living.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this.

Injoy,

Revvell