A dear friend of mine, Frieda (we met in junior high school), is reading all of the A Weigh Out Empowerment Tools. She’s up to Week #20 and says she’s learning a lot, including the fact that she is not really an emotional eater. I just received an email from her that made that clear…and also made me chuckle. She wrote,
“My new favorite food item is chopped kale and watercress, I know I’m not normal. The kale has a salty taste to it .Oh, I am also having a serious relationship with mango….and I can buy 8 of them at Costco!!!!!! Will you address that in Week #40?”
Frieda, I know you’re not eating all 8 mangos at once, so I’ll address it right now. You’re eating what your appetite desires. How cool is that? I like to think THAT is the new “normal”.
Now that I’m not eating a lot of processed, chemical filled, nutrient-empty foods, I taste my food, too. Right now I’m totally into grape tomatoes with a little hummas…and fresh blueberries mixed with red seedless grapes. I often have a bowl right after dinner. Based on my appetite, some nights I find that to be a totally satisfying dessert. On another night, I might want a piece of chocolate cake…and that’s what my appetite wants. And I was an emotional eater, to say the least! With some work, even emotional eaters can change their relationship with food and can learn to eat healthfully, based on appetite and pleasure.
That’s what a former coaching client of mine, Tara, is doing these days. Here’s a note she wrote to me a while after she wrapped up our sessions.
“The most important thing you ever said to me in a session is, [private_membership circle]’it doesn’t have to be this hard’. That will never leave me. Whenever I wanted to quit, whenever I slipped back into my old ways, whenever I felt like there was no hope for me and my relationship with food, I could hear you say those words to me and it would snap me back to reality. I am the one making it hard. Food doesn’t have to be the enemy. It can be my friend and something I enjoy. No longer do I attach feelings of guilt, shame, control, chaos, or any other emotion to food. Food just is. It isn’t anything more or less.
I choose to use food to nourish my body and I also choose to use food to pleasure my senses but both are mindful acts now. I can eat a brownie and taste the brownie. Before, I used to eat a brownie and never know what it really tasted like because I was so disconnected from the act that I couldn’t find the true joy in eating a wonderfully dense, thick, chewy, chocolaty brownie. My senses are more heightened now and I realize that things I was sure I couldn’t live without in the past are things I can’t even stand to eat now that I know what they taste like. An Oreo tastes like chemicals – yuck. Yet, I used to eat them by the bagful. I find myself wanting to eat healthy things to nourish my body and because they taste refreshing and delightful. I enjoy cooking more because I cook whatever I want, without rules, and enjoy the bites until I’ve had enough.”
Wow! How cool is that?
______________________________
Ellen Shuman is a Life Coach who specializes in emotional and binge eating issues. She is the founder of A Weigh Out & Acoria Eating Disorder Treatment, Vice President of the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA), and Co-Chair of the Academy for Eating Disorders Special Interest Group on “Health at Every Size”, ellen@aweighout.com
[/private_membership circle]
