Earlier this year, I found myself with no option than to pack up the last two years of my life in New York City and permanently return to Melbourne. It was such a hard and fast decision, I barely had time to breathe, let alone feel the sadness and mourn the loss of the life I built for myself. The thing is eventually, emotions always seem to have their way of catching up with us.
Once I landed in melbourne, and the adrenaline wore away, it became apparent how sad I actually felt. Loss is loss afterall.
During this pandemic, we’ve all lost something and we’re all struggling a little, physically, and mentally.
This being said, I’ve seen the strength in so many people whether that be in their personal lives or in their business. IIt’s reminded me of the physical and emotional strength I have built for myself over the years. The ability to adapt and change, to not cave under stress and keep my mind and body strong.
From a young age we are taught that feeling sad or angry is a bad thing, that we should feel grateful for what we have, and always be high spirited. Rarely do we offer ourselves the luxury of experiencing difficult feelings and learning how to deal with them. To be okay with feeling upset, to feel comfortable enough to communicate this to the people we love, and to spend time in our own mind coming to terms with it.
We avoid the bad things, in some cases we develop a crutch to help us cope, this can be different for everyone. For me, once upon a time it was emotional eating but addiction in general has a plethora of other forms.
So wait, you might be wondering, how do you tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger?
Physical hunger comes on slowly and you’ll have a desire for a complete meal. You will generally stop eating when you feel full and are content and happy. Emotional eating comes on quickly, you may not even have time to realise it’s stress related. You might binge on food, or lose track of how much you’ve consumed. The worst part is, afterward you feel like shit as the guilt comes rushing in.
4 Ways To Tackle Emotional Eating
1. Be conscious of what/when you’re eating.
Eat mindfully. This involves eating slowly and without distraction, listening to your physical hunger cues and only eating until you feel full.
Snacking, it’s not a crime but If you can’t remember how to managed to finish a whole block of chocolate, this is what’s called mindless snacking. Instead of waiting till you’re sad, try factoring in your treats when you deserve it, like these gooey tahini brownies.
For me, Intermittent fasting taught me how to eat with purpose. Besides all the health benefits of fasting, it fundamentally allows me to control what food goes into my body and how frequently, and overtime it becomes easier to control snacking. I’m not telling all of my readers to employ fasting, but simply what works for me.
At the end of the day, emotional eating is a game you play with your mind, eating with purpose is how you train your mind to win the game.
2. Don’t make food your only pleasure.
This will be tough, especially for Victorians as we are well into stage 4 of lockdowns. There is a real truth to the saying, “it’s all in the mind”. Fried chicken feels good when you’re stressed right? Why? Eating fats and sugars release opioids in our brains, this is strangely the same effect that crack or heroin would have.
Try eating something that you know is good for your body but also taste like comfort food. Spend the time making healthy food pleasurable. Feel like fried chicken, try this instead.
3. Dig deep and find the root cause.
Let yourself feel and experience different negative feelings and build up alternative reactions to them, rather than reaching for the Nutella jar. Get to the source of why you need comfort, this may take longer than you think.
4. Take care of your body and mind.
If you let yourself get tired and hungry, you best be sure the receptors in your brain will only want pleasure and comfort. Eat several meals throughout the day, not just coffee and dinner folks. It also may seem obvious but get plenty of sleep, it’s your brain’s most powerful defence for cravings amongst so many other things.
The second wave of lockdown, and now Stage 4 restrictions for Victorian’s are upon us, and it’s been a challenge. This time around as the severity increases so do the thoughts of this new reality (inconvenience) becoming a permanent part of our lives.
Sometimes it feels like my patience is wearing thin as my naturally free spirited nature tends to feel caged in. I’ve definitely found myself saying “wake me up in December” more times than I’d care to admit.
But for me, my daily routine of walks, tasty food and plenty of sleep helps keep my mind and body strong. So that when I feel sad I can allow myself to feel it, that way when I feel truly happy, which luckily is most of the time, I appreciate it so much more.
