SPECIAL FEATURE
DON’T EAT YOUR HEART OUT!
Healthy Ways to Deal With Your Feelings
For years you may have rewarded, comforted and medicated yourself with the very thing that has brought you so much incessant long-term pain – junk food. I overcame this vicious habit by recognizing that it wasn’t the food I desired, but the feeling I thought it gave me. The next time you’re about to reach for an unhealthy snack, put your focus on the feeling you’re looking to get from eating and then remind yourself that food can’t fix it. Then you can replace your negative behaviors with positive ones. Below you will find some common reasons my clients give for eating the wrong foods, followed by suggestions that will help you get the feelings you’re seeking in positive, healthy and often fun ways!
“I eat to experience love.”
When you are looking to feel love from food, recognize that you can give yourself that love without the calories! Take up the hobby of gathering mementos of times you’ve felt most appreciated and happy. Put together scrapbooks to review when you’re looking to cure your blues. If you have a partner, doing something intimate together can bring about the loving feelings you desire as well. This doesn’t have to be sexual – simply going for a walk together can bring about these intense feelings of love.
“Eating helps relieve my stress.”
The next time you’re feeling stressed treat yourself to a massage. Relax and enjoy the feeling of nurturing yourself. Let all your tension slip away. Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles discovered that just one deep-tissue massage significantly reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol and increased the level of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system.1
“I use food as a distraction.”
Using food as a distraction is a surefire way to blow a week’s worth of hard work! Ask yourself why you need distraction. What’s bothering you? If it’s on your mind then you should handle it now! Don’t procrastinate. Remedying the situation will immediately relieve the need to distract yourself with food. If you are eating to distract yourself from something you have absolutely no control over, why worry? You have no control over it! Seek out books or courses on meditation and start practicing – even if it’s just 10 minutes a day to start with. Meditation will help you focus on what really matters.
“Food helps me feel safe and certain.”
If you are longing to feel secure, open an investment account and commit to saving a certain percentage of every dollar you earn. If possible, put away 10 percent of your income. Financial experts say this is the minimum amount you should save. If this seems too intimidating, even three or five percent is a good start. Arrange for the money to automatically come out of your paycheck or account. Watching your savings accumulate and grow is a great feeling! Whenever you are longing to get a sense of certainty and security, log onto your bank account and take a look at the tangible result your positive habits have brought about.
“It’s not a celebration without food!”
Unhealthy food is used to celebrate so many occasions, from birthdays to retirement parties to holidays to family reunions. Recognize that you’re not at the party for the cake – you’re there to enjoy the company of your friends and family. Consciously making yourself aware of the distinction is the first step in transforming your mindset and enjoying social situations without feeling the need for unhealthy food. Besides, true celebration emerges from charting your path and fulfilling your destiny, not in a brief moment’s enjoyment of chocolate cake and ice cream.
“I eat because I’m afraid of reaching my goals.”
Wow! Weird to think we would actually sabotage our own efforts, but sometimes we do. The thought of reaching a goal can bring about anxiety for a number of reasons: fear of the work necessary to maintain your success, fear of losing the “self” you’ve associated with your fat, fear of failure. It doesn’t make any sense, but some people feel that if they don’t really try, then they won’t have failed.
The way to combat these anxieties is to follow the advice I give in this book: Believe that you have already reached your goals! As the pioneering American psychologist William James said, “Belief creates the actual fact.” If you believe you are already a thin person, then you don’t need to fear becoming a thin person – you’re already there! You will experience a tremendous breakthrough when you finally realize that all you desire is within and you can have it at any moment you choose to give it to yourself.
1. Mark Hyman Rapaport et al. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 16(10): 1079-1088. October 2010.