Happy Friday, babe. Today, I want to chat with you a bit more about FOOD – specifically, your relationship with food.
Many of you know that I struggled with dieting and binge eating for 10 years and after I healed from this, I started my business with the goal of helping women heal from this, too.
While I feel so incredibly free and at ease around food now, I had to work at this for YEARS. I needed to clear out all the external messages and look at all of my food habits head-on and learn what they were trying to show me.
I am fascinated by womens’ relationships with food. Our relationship with food can actually tell us SO much about what is going on within us on a deeper level.
So today I want to break some of that down for you so that you can start to look at your food habits in a way that will provide more self-awareness and understanding.
In today’s post, I share FIVE common scenarios that I see often with the women I work with and I give you a bit of an explanation about what could be going on under the surface for each.
Here goes!
Scenario One: If you find yourself overeating or eating past the point of being full…
Okay, there are a few things that could be going on here. When I work with women intensively in my private coaching practice, I get to really dig in and see what’s actually happening, but here are a few basic things I look at to help you get started:
- You might be overeating because you’re eating a food that you normally don’t allow yourself to have. For instance, if you don’t normally allow yourself to eat pizza, but one day you’re at a party that has pizza, you may overeat / binge because you feel scarcity around it. You love it, but you never allow yourself to have it, so some part of you is thinking, “eat all the pizza! I don’t know when I will be allowed to have it again!”
- You may have a lack of pleasure / enjoyment in your life. I see this a TON. We turn to food for excitement / pleasure / fun because we are so go-go-go in our lives and forget to take care of our “pleasure bucket”.
- Something else is bothering you. We are complex, emotional human beings who experience a plethora of emotions on a daily basis. However, most of us are really out of touch with our feelings. If you find yourself overeating, you could also be using food to escape something that’s bothering you or to fill a void of some sort.
- Slowing down and paying attention to your body may be something for you to look at. Sometimes we get so caught up in the people eating with us or whatever else is going on around us that we forget to consciously check in with ourselves.
Scenario Two: If you find yourself overeating sugar, specifically…
- So many of us think sugar is “bad” so we restrict it. Just like the first scenario, when we restrict, we often end up overdoing it!
- Sugar is also something we turn to when we feel a lack of “sweetness” in our life. We crave it when our lives feel heavy, stressful, or dull. If you’re craving sugar more than usual, look at what might be lacking in your day to day from a pleasure / excitement / wild perspective.
Scenario Three: If you find yourself always craving “something else” after your meal…
- This one is often because your meals aren’t satisfying enough. Are you allowing plenty of carbs? Fats? Foods you TRULY love?
- This could also be an emotional response – is your life as interesting to you as food? Are you avoiding moving on to the next part of your day?
- If the first two reasons don’t really resonate, this one could simply just be a habit. If you feel like want to break that habit (and maybe you don’t which is ok too!), try to do things differently for a few days.
Scenario Four: If you find yourself “overdoing it” on the weekends or at special occasions / holidays…
This is one that I see a ton. Here are a few things to look at:
- This usually also has something to do with feeling restricted. It goes back to our ideas of being “good” or “on track” vs. “bad” or “falling off the wagon”. If you are trying to be “good”, that aligns with a sense of telling yourself what you are allowed and not allowed to eat. It creates this rigid sense of white-knuckling it and willpower, and we only have so much willpower. Then, when the weekend comes along and we let ourselves relax our control, we go overboard. Same goes for when we are at a big event and there’s SO much food — we tend to let our control collapse and go overboard.
- This happens when you are not allowing yourself pleasure and enjoyment EVERY SINGLE DAY, you’re only allowing it sometimes.
Scenario Five: If you find yourself overly controlling your food choices and portion sizes…
- This usually has to do with a deeper issue around body image, self-worth, and your perspective on your lovability. I know, I am getting deep on this one. If we control our food, it’s usually because we are trying to control our bodies / our weight. And we are doing that because we are scared of our bodies / our weight changing. Why? Because we are scared we will lose love / acceptance / belonging / whatever it is that we tie to our body looking a certain way / our weight.
- This might also be about another area in your life (not food related at all) where you feel a lack of control. Maybe you’re in a relationship that feels like it’s spiraling, you feel trapped in your career and can’t see a way out, or you’re experiencing a medical challenge that is limiting and feels beyond your control. Sometimes when we feel like we are lacking control in one area of our lives (or maybe a number of areas), we turn to overly controlling our food choices and/or portion sizes because this is something we feel like we CAN take control of.
- This can be a great opportunity to look at your deepest fears or what else might be going on in your life that could be fueling your controlling relationship with food.
I hope this helps to break some things down for you. There are SO many other scenarios that I could go into, but here is a start for you covering some of the common things I hear from the women I work with.
If you want to further explore your relationship with food and heal many of these areas (and many more!), I would highly recommend my 21 Day Intuitive Eating Challenge. Thousands of women have gone through it and said that it has changed their lives.
I’d love to see you in there and support you further!
In the comments below, I’d love to hear from you… was this helpful? Are there other scenarios you want me to talk about? Maybe I will do a Part Two!
Lots of love and encouraging you from here, always!
Love,
Jamie
P.S. Do you want to explore more of this? If so, I would highly recommend my 21 Day Intuitive Eating Challenge. Thousands of women have gone through it and so many of them have said that it has changed their life. Take a peek here!
Carly says
I love this Jamie! All of these explanations are so dead-on and extremely insightful & helpful. Thank you, thank you! <3