Food and Feelings: September 2007 Archives
All of us as former dieters have experienced guilt while eating, even guilt while eating when hungry. The Food and Feelings message board exists to help us manage our feelings (see below).
Secondary emotions are often the stickler. That is, our feelings about our feelings are often what gets us hung up in our obsessions, compulsions, and excesses.
So let's talk about it. Now that you're learning normal eating, how do you feel about eating delicious food? Guilty? And do you feel guilty about feeling guilty about that? I'm wondering if for some of you it's too tall an order to simply stop feeling guilt about eating. Perhaps the step before that is to allow ourselves the guilt without judging it.
Do you see where I'm going? Plain old feelings are just feelings. We can watch them come and go, and they have little power over us if we would just let them wash over us. But instead, we fight or judge them.
Notice your food guilt today. Did you overeat? Did you feel guilty about that? Did you eat something high-fat, and then feel guilty about that? Just notice it. Try to hold back from judging it as good or bad.
One step at a time.
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This entry is written by a guest writer. It has an edge to it, but I like it. The writer makes a good point about over-pridefulness in healthy eating. Here it is, reprinted with permission from Joanne Press:
I was just hit with this thought after reading Linda’s September 10th blog entry on validation. Linda mentioned that perhaps people who overeat or binge are looking for validation from others or in general and that food gives it to them.
Well, I think there is another kind of validation that food brings about.
Some people get a lot of validation out of the fact that they eat healthy. So much so that they look in other shoppers’ grocery carts and sneer. Then they feel “sanctified” because non of “that garbage” is in their carts.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What’s wrong with eating healthfully? In the age of the obesity epidemic shouldn’t these people be applauded?
Well, there’s nothing wrong with eating healthfully. People SHOULD try to eat healthfully . However, I don’t think they should be applauded, either.
Really, is it THAT important? I mean, the same people may make remarks about how people shouldn’t need food for comfort, etc. etc. or even that food addiction is a pile of BS. Isn’t what they’re doing kind of the same? Are you really better than someone because you have more produce in your cart? What if the “slob with the poor diet” just came off a 2 day shift in the emergency room?
What if the biogeneticist likes to have a cookie from time to time?
What are these people really looking for? Some wee bit of satisfaction or attention that they’re not getting from somewhere else? The need to feel important? Validation, perhaps?
What would these people do in times of disaster? What if the only food at the Red Cross was, gasp! Ramen noodles! What? No organic produce?
Seems kind of similar to what someone who is overweight is accused of using food for?
Now, you might be thinking to yourself reading this. Well. You’re just a jealous fatty who can’t put the Ding Dongs down.
I’m not. As a matter of fact, I’m a recovering from food issues of my own, anorexia, exercise bulimia and the subsequent binge eating from it.
Not that my size should matter. I’m a fit, healthy lady who likes to workout.
I guess I just don’t understand the preoccupation with what others do…
Does the above resonate with you? If so, feel free to discuss it on the Diet Survivors message board. I think this was my favorite line, "What if the biogeneticist likes to have a cookie from time to time? "
Click on the book cover for more information
Free resources: (You'll see after clicking how to subscribe to them)
Diet Survivors meditations
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Food and Feelings message board
Find out more about Linda Moran's book,
How to Survive Your Diet.
Do you seek validation on an ongoing basis?Too sensitive and shaky to be self-accepting? You're not alone.
Diet Survivors members report seeking validation as a reason for their overeating. They're in an endless state of seeking validation, which they get little of, and in the meantime, they eat.
Overeating serves to keep us from facing ourselves, from living with our errors and failures.
This kind of overeating is a distraction, and may not include stuffing to the point of numbness. Rather, it's just something to do.
Does your validation-seeking keep you from doing other productive things? The problem is not that you're not good enough or that you make too many mistakes.
The problem is that you're awfully hard on yourself. If you're a go-getter like me, that means you take social risks. But if you're then seeking affirmation, you might find yourself frustrated much of the time, and want to overeat to district yourself while waiting for the ever-elusive validation.
Validation is fine, and it's good for us to select friends carefully so we get some of that, but is it tolerable not to be affirmed and validated every time you make a move? Have you been believing you can't tolerate lack of validation? It's time to rethink.
Consider this today--decide whether you would like to learn to live with yourself, in the moment, right in the middle of realizing you've possibly made yet another mistake. The fiftieth one this week.
Can living with yourself and without validation become your norm? We all make those fifty mistakes, by the way, but in a day, not a week.
Click on the book cover for more information
Free resources: (You'll see after clicking how to subscribe to them)
Diet Survivors meditations
Diet Survivors newsletter
Diet Survivors message board
Food and Feelings message board
Find out more about Linda Moran's book,
How to Survive Your Diet.
