Emotional eaters often feel enormous guilt about eating – and especially enjoyment of eating. This may seem like a small matter, but in fact guilt-free enjoyment of food is a key factor in recovery. From my book, Normal Eating® for Normal Weight:
Our modern society views enjoyment of eating in much the same way as Victorians viewed enjoyment of sex – dangerous and sinful, something to feel guilty about. It’s considered almost obscene not to be on a diet that restricts what you eat.
Most of us don’t live in isolation. The people closest to you usually know all about your struggles with weight and eating, and can have a profound effect on your Normal Eating journey.
When you’re coming from the diet world, you’re coming from a world in which it’s assumed that you don’t have the self-control or judgment to manage your eating on your own. At one time or another, you may even have recruited friends and family to help you stick to your diet and monitor what you eat.
But in Normal Eating, taking full responsibility for your eating choices is crucial. Normal Eating teaches you to trust yourself – teaches you that you can trust yourself. So when you stop dieting and make the shift to Normal Eating, the "helpful" interjections from family and friends to not eat this or that are no longer welcome – and in fact, interfere with your progress.
The people close to you can sidetrack your efforts in more subtle ways, as well. Whenever someone changes – even when the change is positive – there will be some resistance to the change from those close to the person.
A few days ago, director and comedian Kevin Smith was thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat. He’s been speaking out about it, calling it “humiliating” and “the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” Two days ago on Mardi Gras (aka Fat Tuesday), late night comedian Craig Ferguson made fat prejudice the subject of his monologue. It is hilarious.
Do you eat because it’s time to eat, whether you’re hungry or not? A lot of people do, and then feel crappy afterwards.
If the goal is to eat when you’re hungry, does that mean regular meal times are out? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. But figuring out how to make your hunger coincide with meal times is actually a skill. People trying to stop emotional eating probably won’t be able to do this immediately.
The end of the year is a time to review and take stock. The news media recounts the major events of the last 12 months, and makes lists of the public figures who have died. And we, as individuals, think about our own lives. What happened to us over the last year? What went right? What went wrong? What can we do to make next year better?
Even after good years there is always a little sadness because the passage of time reminds us we are mortal. So resolutions for the new year inevitably involve renewed commitment to healthy habits: quit smoking, exercise more, lose weight. Unsurprisingly, given that the new year comes after a month of heavy holiday eating, a commitment to lose weight is the most common new year resolution of all.
For most people, the commitment doesn’t last. Good intentions translate into a burst of short-term effort followed by discouragement, self-recrimination, and finally giving up. You stop even trying, for a while, anyway.
Are you an emotional eater? If so, what are the reasons you eat? Are you mainly soothing negative emotions, or do you eat primary to distract yourself from the real problems in your life? How does being fat affect your view of yourself, and perhaps even serve you?
Take the test and find out! After you’ve completed the test, you’ll get:
An interpretation of your own answers.
A summary of how others answered, shown separately for men and women.
Men and women both struggle with emotional eating, but they may eat for different reasons – as the summary stats will reveal. (You may have to come back to check the summary stats. The test was just posted so the counts are still low.)
After you take the test, come back here and post a comment saying what you thought of it. Was it informative? Did the interpretation seem right? Were you surprised at the scores of men versus women?
Today is the day after Halloween and candy leftovers abound. Are you locked in a war with yourself about eating it? Here’s how to take the power out of the candy and put it back in you, where it belongs.
The crucial shift is in your attitude. You must know on a deep level – not just intellectually, but emotionally – that you have the right to eat whatever you want. This is true no matter what your current weight. If you feel your rights are constrained by societal mandates – that others can tell you what you should or shouldn’t eat – you’ll stay stuck in a childlike mindset, either doing as you’re told or rebelling against it. Only people with the right to choose can make choices. You can’t freely choose to forego candy or eat a salad unless you understand you have the right to make either choice.
Last night I went to hear Deepak Chopra talk about his new book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul. The book was just released yesterday and we all got copies, so I’ve got it hot off the press. The talk, sponsored by the New York Open Center, was held in the magnificent Riverside Church, which for some reason I’d never been in before. I don’t know how I’ve managed to live in New York City for 30 years without seeing this beautiful church.
I haven’t finished reading the book yet – I only just got it last night – but if it’s anything like Chopra’s talk about the book, then I expect it’s wonderful. His talk was amazing. I particularly noticed one of the last things he said: “Changing one’s diet and lifestyle is a byproduct of shifting consciousness.” I noticed it because I say the same thing in Normal Eating for Normal Weight. When your thinking changes, you become able to change how you eat without fighting with yourself. It just happens as a natural byproduct.
Deepak Chopra Book Launch, Riverside Church, NYC. Taken by someone from the Open Center, standing just behind Chopra. I had taken my own picture - or thought I had - but it disappeared from my camera.
Editing Note: This post and the previous post originally were one long article.
In my previous post I explained why nutrition information has a role in the non-diet approach – not as a rule, but as information. But with all the contradictory nutrition advice out there, is there really such a thing as “good nutrition”? There is not one single nutrition principle that isn’t contested by someone somewhere. Doesn’t this mean that there are no reliable facts about nutrition, and everything is subject to reversal?
Actually, no, though it can feel that way at times. While many details of nutrition are speculative, some principles are backed by voluminous research. So how do you separate proven facts from tentative theories presented as facts, or outright misinformation?
