a thought on emotional eating

[Guest guest]

Hi, All .

I had an insight about my own emotional eating that I wanted to share and ask if anyone else resonates with it. I realized that I've been trying too hard to do IE "right", that is, to give up emotional eating and just eat according to my internal signals. It's left me feeling like a bit of a failure for the ways in which I'm still eating emotionally (and still not losing weight - or even gaining some).

What I realized is that I'm jumping some steps in the process. I seem to actually need to say, "Yes, I'm eating emotionally right now" - noticing that I'm tired or sad or frustrated or bored or feeling sorry for myself - "and eating to soothe myself is the best I can do at the moment so it's okay." I feel like I really need to give myself permission - unconditional permission - to comfort myself with food when I need to. I need to stop telling myself that I have to "give it up" and instead reassure myself that I don't have to give it up until I'm ready to and until I can find other ways to handle those feelings.

I've done this a few times over the last week and it's had a very calming effect on me. Knowing and acknowledging that I'm eating to soothe myself seems also to allow me to eat just enough to soothe me, and not make me feel like I have to keep eating in an out of control way. The reality, for me, is that food is in fact soothing to some degree. And it seems that giving myself full permission to use food this way if I have to also allows me to stay in my body and remember that I don't actually enjoy the feeling of being stuffed and uncomfortable.

Anyone else have this experience or relate to it? April