It may feel good in the process, but this will only result in feeling far worse than you did before eating such garbage. Food is not meant to be used for pain relief!!!

Today, I dedicate this article to one of my dearest clients, who is still just a bit stuck on the roller-coaster of using food to self-medicate. We had a long talk this morning about her day yesterday, and she confessed all the binging she did as a result of feeling a bit lost, sad, and lonely. Unfortunately, many people suffer from this same addiction. Food can very much be used like a drug to suppress our feelings and smother what is really going on. You see, I too have been in that place before, however, I have overcome the addiction and finally have a very healthy relationship with food. It was when I started being present to the feelings underneath my eating habits, that finally lead me to change my actions.

I believe, that there are different types of hunger. Binging, is something we do when we are feeling very hungry for something and when we have cravings beyond our human understanding. For myself, I have realized that what I am hungry for is to experience something much bigger than myself, through my own creativity and self-expression. However, when I am unsure of what it is that longs to be expressed through me and by me, I tend to get very overwhelming feelings of anxiety, stress, and sadness sometimes resulting in an empty feeling in my tummy. In the past, I would eat food for comfort, trying to fill that void I felt so deep inside. The only problem was, that food never could really help me. I felt good while eating, but as soon as I stopped, I was in an even worse place than I was before. This is the same as drugs and alcohol. We use things outside of ourselves to distract us, sooth our pain, and to make us supposedly feel better. In the end, all we wake up with is a big fat hangover, whether its from food, drugs, or alcohol. They are all very much the same.

What my client and I talked about is how important it is for her not to beat herself up when she has a day of eating herself into oblivion. It is a very low energy reaction and has no effective outcome. So we discussed alternative ways of processing what is really happening in the present moment. I asked her if she could start looking at each obstacle as an opportunity instead. Or another way I recently heard this put is “may the detour, instead be the path.” In other words, don’t look at “falling off the wagon” as back tracking, but look at it as just a part of the process, and try to enjoy every part of the learning. Becoming the best version of ourselves takes time, effort, work, and patience. Every time we do something that ultimately feels bad, we have a chance to remember not to take the same actions again and again, only to get the same results. She, however, had to also be reminded that she is already on her way to the next fitness level. She has lost 50 lbs over the last 3 years, but she’s ready to step things up and take off the last 20. Meanwhile, she has stuck to a training program longer than she ever has before, and she is beginning to get to the point of taking it upon herself, when she isn’t seeing me, to get out there and move her body. She is getting her own healthy relationship with exercise, and that is a huge part of being successful in terms of loosing weight and keeping it off. So it’s about shifting her focus to the positive things in her life, rather than wallowing in the negative.

Like I said to her, and now to you, once you change yourself internally, and set your intentions for what you want and see for yourself, your external self and actions will eventually just follow the lead.

Are you struggling with loosing unwanted weight? Do you find yourself on that diet/binging roller-coaster? What types of things are you facing that feel like obstacles in your own life? I would love to be of service and help you work through these things! Just leave your questions/comments here for me on the blog!!! Here’s To Your Health!!!!!