Is restriction driving you nuts?
This week I wanted to share with you a feeling that I have seen so often in those of us who struggle with emotional eating—and it is that it drives us crazy to be restricted in what we eat.
Yes, I know it is somewhat extreme to say that it drives us crazy, but for many of us, it does!
Whether the restriction is coming from the outside (we have been advised by someone to follow a certain diet) or from our own decision to adhere to a certain eating regimen, deliberately restricting the intake of food or certain specific foods can have a huge toll.
Have you noticed that the moment you set out to not eat sugar for the day or for a week, the more energy subconsciously goes into thinking about food, about the specific restriction, about what substitution we can find, so on and so forth?
Restricting our food intake occupies mental space
Have you ever realized that you may be preoccupied with thinking about food, wanting to eat, telling yourself you cannot (or should not) much more when you, for whatever reason, decided you will restrict your intake in some way? Or even if you have to fast for a medical reason?
We have all sorts of strong reactions to “having” to follow strictly a predetermined plan about how to eat—even if we had chosen it. I think part of the issue is that we want to be free to decide what to eat. That we do not want to pre-commit 5 days in advance that on Thursdays I should eat a cherry, two eggs, and black coffee for breakfast.
This feeling holds true to me. I always wanted to be free to decide what I’ll eat. And, I wanted to find a way to want to choose (for the most part) what was good for me without the need of a preestablished plan—I wanted to have the chance to choose freely, spontaneously, in the moment how I will nourish my body.
Would you like a mini-structured path for your work in this area?
Download my free workbook! In this workbook, you’ll have the opportunity to:
Become more aware of your triggers and their sources
Feel more clarity about your inner world in what respects to food
Be less on automatic pilot
Be more intentional in all what relates to decisions about food
I WANT to WANT to eat in a way that’s right for me
You may laugh at this but what comes to mind is the popular scene in the movie “The Break-up” in which Jennifer Aniston shouts to her boyfriend (Vince Vaughn): “I want you to WANT to do the dishes”! If you haven’t seen it, I am linking the scene below (it happens in the first minute of the clip)—not only it is hilarious but also puts front and center a big truth.
We do not want to do something because someone puts the demand on us.
And, applied it to our journey with food, we don’t want to eat more greens and less sweets because this is what someone else (a doctor, a partner, a parent, society, your sister, the latest issue of Cosmopolitan) says so.
As I see it, the hope is that one day (if it is not the case just yet) we will truly WANT to eat the foods that are good for us, in the amount that are good for us.
And will just naturally have less interest in foods that do not support our eating journey. But not out of willpower or because this is what we SHOULD do.
We will WANT to do it because that is what is emerging for us. It is what we truly desire to do!
Wouldn’t that be so cool? And perhaps many of you are already there. And for some of us this may still sounds like utopia and may feel that we will always crave the chocolate covered donaughts.
This is my approach when I work with women to help them transcend their emotional eating—from the inside out, not the other way around.
To your freedom in choosing the foods that nourish you!
Claudia