fbpx
Menu

My Relationship to Food

Home→Forums→Emotional Mastery→My Relationship to Food

New Reply
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • November 25, 2020 at 9:57 am #369861
    Francesca
    Participant

    It’s working!  Finally I am becoming free of overeating and night time binging!  I didn’t think it was possible until I began to use techniques I can use anywhere I am and anytime.

    I have had such a struggle with my relationship to food.  If you were inside my head until recently, you would have heard only critical and shaming messages.  I knew I had to change things but nothing had worked…diets, exercise programs, etc. etc.  We all know the roads we take in an effort to simply eat healthfully and maintaining a healthy weight for our height and age.  With extra weight and blood sugar in the prediabetic range I finally got scared enough to try something different.  I decided I was gonna love myself to health and change what I said to myself and did when my cravings came on.  I am educated in what are healthy foods, superfoods, and good nutrition but I was still abusing food…I was still  binging on (now)  healthy foods, and it was happening  when I wasn’t hungry, but I had become habituated to eating when already full, and sneaky at sabotaging my good eating during the daytime with tons of unnecessary calories added at night after dinner and between bedtime.

    I’m using all my mindfulness practices and am beginning to realize I have found my way to heal my food nightmare.  After so many years, I am finally in touch with how my body actually feels, how to ride out cravings without white knuckling it, and already have new, positive and very kind messages that I listen to.

    If you have struggled with food like I have, you know how powerless you can feel, right?  It sucks! But, I found a way when every other way failed me, so I’m very, very grateful to be on a better path.

     

     

     

    November 25, 2020 at 10:37 am #369879
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Francesca:

    “It’s working! Finally I am becoming free of overeating and night time binging!”-

    – C O N G R A T U L A T  I O N S !!!

    “I didn’t think it was possible until I began to use techniques I can use anywhere I am and anytime… I’m using all my mindfulness practices and am beginning to realize I have found my way to heal my food nightmare. After so may years, I am finally in touch with how my body actually feels, how to ride out craving without white knuckling it”-

    – please share any specifics you are willing to share about your techniques and mindful practices.

    anita

    November 25, 2020 at 11:29 pm #369919
    Francesca
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    So, I began by admitting I was binging and that it wasn’t feeling good to me physically or mentally….So, I was simply ready to face it and be honest about what I was doing and that it wasn’t making me happy.  Then, I started to notice what was happening when I was being triggered to binge after dinner…So, I was simply starting with trying to be more mindful…more conscious instead of living on automatic and being completely unaware.  Then, when I felt a craving, I would sit down and breathe…just make myself sit and go from my head to may heart and pay attention to my body and notice what sensations I had and what thoughts were coming to mind.  I would get scared a little sometimes, which is common for me when I start to pay attention, and would tell myself…”I can allow this and it will be ok, I can do this!” So, that helps me stay with just noticing what is going on physically while breathing and riding the “waves” of craving….As I start to allow whatever is happening in the moment to happen without resisting it, I ask myself questions…ie: “how would my body feel if I gave into this craving?” My answer, from experience is, “I would feel miserable, bloated, uncomfortable and defeated mentally.”  As I reflect on remembering how it really feels when I give into my cravings…the reality actually…my desire to act out diminishes and my response changes.  I recognize that I am comfortably full and that I really rather feel comfortable than miserable.  So, when I get to this place mentally, I just sit with the good feeling of the having ridden the temporary wave I was initially scared of and tempted to act out on, and enjoy that feeling of success.  It’s basically the mindful practice RAIN just written here in how it usually plays out for me.  Thanks for asking!

     

    November 26, 2020 at 8:47 am #369929
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Francesca:

    You are welcome, and thank you for answering on the night before Thanksgiving. I am reading your answer on Thanksgiving Day, and I can’t think of a more appropriate time to read about not overeating/ bingeing. I have a long history of over-eating and I struggled with bingeing as well, for way too long.

    You wrote that you have been healing your relationship to food by first admitting that you were bingeing and that it harmed you physically and mentally. You noticed what was happening when you were triggered to binge, becoming conscious and aware instead of “living on automatic.. unaware”.

    When you felt a craving, you didn’t automatically rush to fulfill it, but instead- you sat down and breathed. You paid attention to the sensations in your body, the “‘waves’ of cravings”, not resisting those waves while not acting on them.

    You talked to yourself, being your own cheer leader, “I can do this!”. You continued to talk to yourself about the consequences of the possible action of bingeing-  question:  “how would my body feel if I gave into this craving?”, answer: “I would feel miserable, bloated, uncomfortable and defeated mentally.. remembering how it really feels when I give into my cravings.. the reality actually”.

    As a result of this practice, your “desire to act out diminishes”. You mentioned the acronym RAIN: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture: recognize what is happening; Allow the experience to be there, just as it is; Investigate with interest and care; Nurture with self-compassion.

    In a reply to another member on a different issue, you wrote that you “overthink things a great deal” and the only thing that helped you has been “to get out of my head and obsessing over something… and to put my focus on sensations and trying to describe them to myself in detail.. I come out of my head and start to feel calmer and balanced and then I find I can approach something using both my head and heart and not just one or the other”- I am quoting your words because you state it so well. Mindfulness is a practice that can be applied to.. everything in life, a healthful practice.

    Also appropriate to this time of year is the lovely Mindfulness Kit launched recently by the founder of Tiny Buddha, Lori Deschene- available on the Home page.

    For anyone reading this on one of the biggest food day of the year, any one of the many people who struggle with overeating and/ or bingeing- I hope Francesca’s thread is helpful to you. And Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.

    anita

     

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Please log in OR register.