Deal With Your Shit
I have bad news. You will have to deal with your shit, before you have a shot in hell at eating like a normal person. Seriously. If you think you can “make the right choices” around food without addressing the underlying reasons you’re eating, you are in full-blown emotional eating delusion. Don’t even bother addressing the food head on. It’s a waste of your energy. There is no point in trying to figure out how to stop eating, before trying to figure out why you’re eating. By definition, a compulsion is an overwhelming feeling that one must participate in a certain act – the operative word here being “Overwhelming.” Your willpower probably won’t hold out for long against its force.
If you are prone to compulsive eating, telling yourself not to eat a certain way, or planning to “control yourself” around food without actively addressing the reasons you’re eating is kind of a joke. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to beat the compulsion head on. You have no choice, but to identify and resolve what is driving your compulsion, or you will eventually come to the point where the act that you are avoiding is so overwhelming that you cannot help but succumb to its call.
Sooo why again are you still trying to “control yourself” around food? Seriously, stop. You’re just creating more anxiety for yourself that you’ll probably end up eating over. The much more effective way to eat less is to explore what’s driving your compulsion (is it your self-criticism? your stressful work life? The anxiety-provoking 2nd date you’re about to go on?). Deal with THAT head on to the best of your ability (which, like eating, you will never do perfectly – I know, it sucks) and you might find yourself one day become hungry out of nowhere. Just like that, when you weren’t even thinking about it. You won’t even have to try to restrain yourself – it will just happen.
So if you want to stop stress eating, for instance, take one concrete action today to CHILL OUT. Get a massage or make some mocktails and listen to Bob Marley. Do you think you can stop eating without having the uncomfortable break up conversation you need to have with the guy who’s just not right for you? Sorry, but you probably can’t, so just do what you need to do to take care of yourself. Have the uncomfortable conversation. Stop Googling gluten-free bakeries and go figure out what’s making you so uncomfortable that you need to hide in a jar of peanut butter you stole from the office kitchen. Of course there will be circumstances that are out of your control, that you can do nothing about but just sit with and feel (and that’s a whole other blog post for another time), but for now, try making a list of concrete ways you can handle or improve whatever discomfort may be causing you to overeat (or causing you to weigh yourself, hate your body or pretend you have “food allergies” when you don’t). Watch yourself naturally and effortlessly think about food less, by focusing on what’s really going on.
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