Considerations Before Using Food To Cope

Do you have times when you feel unsettled or anxious and rely on food to calm you down? Do you focus on what you can eat rather than on the actual problem at hand? Here are a few thoughts on natural eating to concentrate on when you are about to overeat because of your emotions:

Eat when you are hungry!
Stop when you are full!

When you follow those two steps, you can actually eat anything and not be overweight!

Eat everything in moderation.
When we overeat; eat when we are not hungry and eat more than we are hungry for that is when we have extra weight on our body.
There are no good and bad foods. There are certain foods which are healthier than others, but that is not what we are referring to. We’re talking about judgments of goodness/badness, rightness/wrongness, that make us feel bad and wrong for eating or even thinking of eating certain foods, rather than realizing that when we eat in moderation nothing is “bad.”
The important thing to do is to focus on why we eat. Are we eating because we are hungry or for an emotional reason? The truth is, once you cease needing to use food focus to cope with life, which can only happen once you’ve developed the self-esteem and confidence in yourself to handle life in competent, respectful and dignified ways, you will naturally be drawn to more honoring food choices regarding types of foods and quantities, it happens with no effort, and there is no sense whatsoever of restriction or of “I can’t have…”.
You should not have any guilt about what you are eating. The only reason to feel guilty is because you’re out of integrity with what you believe is good or right for you. “Am I feeling guilty because I’m not hungry and I’m reaching for more food and I know that means I have needs that aren’t being met and I need to take a few minutes to be with myself and identify what’s stressing me and what I can do to resolve the issue?”

If you can identify with this, then spend a few minutes to take three deep breaths and prove how safe it is in that moment to be in your body, in that moment, and learn to identify what’s really going on in your mind and in your life that’s making you feel so overwhelmed and stuck.

Do what you have to do to create opportunities throughout your day for the next week (and beyond as needed) to remind yourself of the above key points of natural eating? You have to know that any time you’re relating to food any way other than the natural eating way, you’re using food to cope which means you’re anxious and/or stressed about something.

You’re not perfect (welcome to my club 6 billion members and counting), and you don’t have to be. You only need to do your best in each moment and be kind to yourself!