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Maybe it’s cuz I’m listening to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis right now.
Maybe it’s cuz I got laid last night — in the really really sexy way, that happens like twice a year.
or maybe that raw chocolate I just ate got me high.
Who gives a shit?
I don’t know why I FEEL AWESOME… and I don’t care.
IT’S HAPPENING. EMBRACE IT.
This is a super important distinction for anyone who struggles with compulsive eating.
Compulsive Eaters React To Food
They eat with a desperate urgency, shoving food into their mouths as if the Kitchen was on fire. They don’t think, they don’t taste, they don’t feel. They act on instinct, and impulse; they react. And they’re often “reacting” to a very painful and harsh history of deprivation, if not a slew of other emotional triggers.
“Normal” Eaters Respond To Food
They notice the way their bodies feel at any given moment and make rational decisions in accordance with their needs. They are present to basic sensation — like taste (just curious, when was the last time you thoroughly chewed and tasted your food?) And they don’t need to hold themselves back with the force of willpower. Eating is a peaceful conversation between their bodies and what’s on their plate.
Movement between the two is really just a matter of awareness, which usually requires slowing the f down.
Tweet this: The difference between a Reaction and a Response is Time.
As we take time to taste our food and get present to the sensations of our body during a meal (or a snack or a “binge”), it becomes more and more difficult to overeat.
We don’t need to “resist” anything. And thank God, because Willpower is not a thing, in case you haven’t heard.
And if you missed this little burp of a blog post, I really don’t care if you eat your feelings…
I just care that you address them.
A client recently told me she was struggling not to eat over being tired. She had a new job and was running on 4-5 hours of sleep each night, when she really needs 8. She said, “I can’t help it, I just can’t stop eating when I’m tired.”
I asked her if she ever tried sleeping more.
See…
We think that ending emotional eating is about finding ways to “not eat” over things.
but the thing is…
Whether or not you eat a cookie when you’re lonely doesn’t fucking matter — what matters is that you’re lonely.
Deal with that.
(And those are actual bags of clothes I’m throwing out this year).
I used to have drawers filled with clothes that didn’t fit me. Jeans, shirts, dresses, you name it. I would diet, work-out, or some days just pray to God that one day each piece would fit me again, that one day, things would be thinner (I mean better).
“Tomorrow, life will be great. Today, I’m just waiting around for tomorrow.”
Do you get it? Why this is a problem?
And if you have articles of clothing in your bedroom that encourage this mentality, BURN THEM. Or give them to a Goodwill.
On a secondary note, every day you deny yourself of what you really want, because you’re not “thin enough,” is likely a day you’ll eat mass quantities of Macaroni and Cheese for no reason. SO FOR GOD’S SAKES GO ON THAT OKC DATE YOU’VE BEEN AVOIDING.
And I get it, Sometimes You Just Have a FAT Day…
I’ve written in the past about how to stop “feeling” fat, but sometimes ya just do, and ain’t no affirmation gonna change that in a red hot second.
In these instances, the best thing we can say to ourselves is, “Okay, so I’m having a Fat Day…no biggie…this too shall pass.”
Don’t make it wrong. Don’t make it mean anything. Don’t give it too much power.
EVERYONE has fat days. It’s not a big deal.
and other ways to stop shoveling stale cookies in your mouth for no reason…they’re not even good.
(featuring thoughts and suggestions by Amy E. Smith, aka The Joy Junkie).
If food is your Everest and your body is your greatest scapegoat, You Will Explain Rejection By Thinking You’re Too Fat. In fact, you’re probably making a lot of totally unrelated events in your life mean that you’re fat without any evidential basis for that conclusion (i.e. my boyfriend dumped me = I’m too fat; sound familiar?)
Now what’s the fastest way to end up bingeing on ice cream and Netflix alone in your bedroom? All together now… FEELING BADLY ABOUT YOUR BODY. SO STOP IT NOW!
I brought in Relationship Expert, Amy E. Smith to help, so we can stop making every rejection into a reason we need to lose 10lbs and finally get back into living our lives without all the food and weight noise cramping our style.
1. “Commit to Letting Go of the WHY.” Up there on the list of Amy’s suggestions for getting over the rejection blues is to stop trying to figure out why you were rejected and just accept the rejection for what it is, a loss.
2. When that’s really hard (because it’s really hard to accept things that SUCK without trying to make sense of them), she suggests softening the dialogue in your head and opening yourself up to a more loving perception of reality. Ex: “He dumped me because I’m fat,” becomes “it didn’t work out, because he’s not the right guy for me.” Or ANY other more compassionate reason that you can manage to believe. Amy rocked out this awesome Vlog, “Rejection is God’s Protection,” which discusses a whole buncha great strategies for this.
3. “Give Yourself Permission to Feel Shitty” (Tweet it!) Sometimes our faulty explanations are just arbitrary distractions from feeling real pain. Getting rejected is NOT fun — it generally means we lost something we really really want for ourselves. Unfortunately, displacing real pain (by blaming it on our love handles and starting a new diet) doesn’t make it go away. 9 times out of 10, displacing real feelings involves picking up a compulsive behavior, soooo if I were you, I would cry that shit out instead.
If all else fails, remember that believing you’re too fat for X, Y, or Z reason is not rational. It does NOT generally motivate people to lose weight for any substantial period, and usually encourages pity-bingeing. Check yourself, before you wreck yourself.
Amy E. Smith (a.k.a The Joy Junkie) is a certified and credentialed personal and couples life coach, masterful speaker, and relationship and personal empowerment expert. Owner and founder of Joy Junkie Enterprises, Amy uses her roles as coach, writer, and speaker to move individuals beyond limiting beliefs and sabotaging mindsets to a place of radical personal empowerment and self-love.
My New Years resolution every year from ages 11 to 22 revolved around dieting and losing weight. I had few (if any) aspirations as seemingly important as getting thin — and any “real dreams” I had were put totally on hold until I reached some arbitrary (or imaginary) size.
The thing is…
I never got “there,” and I continued to hold myself back from life in hopes that one day I would be thin enough.
This year, I DARE YOU, to flip it. Go for the real goal now.
What is the real goal anyway? What exactly are you losing weight for?
Whatever that is, GO FOR IT THIS YEAR. I guarantee that whatever it is you’re dieting for, can be achieved at your current weight.
and feel free to write yours in the comments 
Wardobe compliments of The Vanity Project.
Special Thanks!
Clara Goldfarb - Visual Branding & Photography; Liz Theresa – Web Development; Annie Rosen – Graphic Design; Christie Craft – Copy Editor
Emotional eaters rarely know how to relax. We make no time to just chill on a regular basis — a part of the day where we can slow down and zone out of energy-bunny mode.
Energy-bunny mode is a definite trigger. Your body can’t stay there for too long before it wants relief. And when we don’t get it, we end up at the refrigerator scraping goat cheese off of Saran Wrap. Remember: Lack of Self-Care = Goat Cheese Off Of Saran Wrap (tweet it!)
TV chills me out really well. I’m down with The X Factor, Girls, Portlandia, and nothing works faster than a Friends rerun. It gets me out of my head and calms me down (and bonus points for making me laugh). I’m not a TV junkie, and I don’t associate TV with food (another article, for another time), so it’s an appropriate way for me to wind down without ordering Chinese food for no reason.
If TV causes it’s own problems for you, think of other ways to get that “zoned out, chilled out” feeling that do not involve food. Magazines? Music? Books? (although, enough with the self-help; it’s great when needed, but be weary of trying too hard or thinking too much food). A little fiction never hurt anyone. I think I lost 5 lbs when I discovered Twilight.