What if your food isn't the problem?

What if your food isn't the problem?

This is a question I pose to all my clients who come seeking help with their eating choices and behaviors.

They arrive believing they have a sugar problem, a bread problem, a midnight munching problem. Either they can’t stay away from the chocolate bowl at work, feel guilty about eating if they haven’t exercise, beat themselves up for an ice cream sundae or find themselves going crazy on a bag of yogurt covered pretzels after a “healthy” dinner.

They’re confused as to why they’re so wound-up around food and why they have no sustained willpower when they try so hard. They come wide-eyed, pen and paper at the ready, hoping I’ll give them the secret to changing their “bad” habits.

“I should probably pack chopped veggies and a hard boiled egg,” they say. “Or maybe I should drink tea when I get snacky?,” they question.

“Here’s what I really want to know,” I ask. “How do you feel before you grabbed a guilt-inducing food?”

The answers are often the same; some combination of anxiety, worry, fear, sadness, loneliness, stress and overwhelm.

I explain that going for food isn’t evidence of being an out-of-control, lazy asshole who needs to get “back on track” but rather a sign that something inside needs attention. The food is not the concern; the unacknowledged feelings are.

In other words, none of them have a food problem. They have an unacknowledged feelings and low self- compassion problem.

Being present to your current state of emotions is never an easy thing. In fact, it’s often quite painful, which is why we ALL do little avoidance dances to make the feelings go away. Some of us eat. Some of us withhold eating. Some of us obsess about eating. Each is a different face of the same coin where we use food as a scapegoat to avoid the discomfort in the present moment.

And yet, our feelings are rarely asking to be fed. They're asking to be heard. Tweet this.

That said, I have no problem with my clients using food to feed or avoid their feelings. There are certainly times when food is the only thing that’s going to make someone feel better. Comfort eating a real self care tool that is helpful. However, we often lean too hard on food, refusing to give ourselves other options for productive self soothing. And when we munch or purge or deny eating to avoid what we’re truly feeling, we feel worse than we did before, now having to deal with both the original feeling and the new guilt or yearning caused by our eating behavior.

So where do we begin?

It starts with presence. What might it look like for you to be present with your feelings rather than ignoring or suppressing them?

The next step is offering yourself a giant heap of compassion, acknowledging that this new behavior of being with your feelings is far from easy and you’re doing the best you can.

Finally we remember that feeling into our emotional needs and offering true nourishment is a radical act. Our patriarchal culture has no model for women taking care of themselves in a sustainable way. Every time you take a moment to tap in and listen to what you need, you’re breaking the cycle of women silently suffering and losing their lives to a battle with their food and body that keeps them too busy to focus on cultivating the lives they truly want.

The next time you find yourself about to knee-jerk to food (or a restrictive behavior) because you’re having a feeling, do this instead: Breathe. Feel in. Ask. Offer.

Breathe into your body.

Feel in to what true for you in this moment.

Ask yourself what you/your body need?

Offer yourself what’s needed.

All my love,

Jamie