“You may search the universe for someone more worthy of your love and affection than you are yourself, but such a person does not exist.” ~Buddhist Proverb
“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” ~Mother Teresa
As Valentine’s Day approaches, our focus is on the heart of the work — those difficult moments of eating past comfortable fullness. How we treat ourselves in those moments is important. Our thoughts and actions determine if we stay stuck in an overeat-deprive-lose control–overeat cycle or if we find our way back to a confident and satisfying relationship with food.
Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to believe that depriving ourselves is the way to not only fix the overeating problem but also to prevent it from happening again. And so, if we have eaten past comfortable fullness for emotional reasons or we have “indulged” ourselves with an “unhealthy,” “bad” food, we try to not eat what we love, and we attempt to not respond to our body’s hunger signals.
Fortunately, after too many deprivation-driven overeating episodes, many of us are beginning to realize that [private_membership circle]depriving ourselves inevitably backfires. We are starting to see how deprivation generates cravings and intense hunger and, as a result, naturally leads to a body and spirit rebellion of overeating.
So the heart of the work is to avoid deprivation whenever possible and to instead respond to our body’s needs and our spirit’s desires. Doing this work to care for ourselves in this way requires courage. And it is not easy in a diet culture that promotes deprivation and actually praises people who use willpower to ignore hunger. But as we practice eating with attunement and avoiding deprivation, we will come to know in our hearts that feeding ourselves the foods we like and that our bodies ask for is an act of self-care, body-respect, love, and nurturance.
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Nutrition therapists Amy Tuttle, RD, LCSW and Karin Kratina, RD, PhD provide no-diet articles and resources including “Stay Attuned: The E-zine for Nourishing Connections” at their Nourishing Connections website. www.nourishingconnections.com
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