Wednesday, Baby. Wednesday.
A poor, besotted client just suffered an extraordinarily lengthy email by my very own hand. It took me 42 minutes to write. It was followed by an email of apology for the length of the first email.
And who knows, maybe she wants to spend 10 minutes sifting through my prose! But because her juicy question is probably something you’ve wondered before, I’m going to (maintaining my client’s confidential identity) share all my secret answers with you.
To answer to your question: why did I overeat today?!
It’s Wednesday, baby. Wednesday.
Blech. YUCK.
Everything crappy happened today. You ate too much at lunch with your boss because he was stressing you out. You had to deal with a client who is really negative. You felt kind of gross all day. It’s raining. It’s WEDNESDAY.
You get home and you feel like you deserve to have a good dinner and some wine and a lovely piece of chocolate pie. And then, when Lost comes on, you might have another glass and then a tiny sliver… and before you know it, you are seriously stuffed.
Maybe, just maybe, what you did ain’t so bad, doll.
I say this from experience, that overeating *never, ever* feels like a good thing when you’re the one overeating. It feels a little out of control, and we get so mad at ourselves! And we feel physically uncomfortable. None of that sounds very “good.”
But, annoyingly and ironically, if you want to find out WHY you overeat, actually doing the thing (like, actually overeating or experiencing the compulsion to overeat), not restricting your food, is the best way to get permanently skinny.
If we ate whenever we felt hungry, and stopped at moderate fullness, we’d all be at our lowest natural weight. But, we don’t. So, eat past that moderate fullness and we can dissect the true root of the overeating.
What is going on when you feel like you deserve to eat certain food, and a lot of it?
Let’s, first, dissect this.
Feeling that you deserve something means that the something has been earned. You’ve earned overeating, or put in your words, you’re feeling you deserve to overeat.
So, let’s say you have an awful, trying day, and very understandably you feel depleted and frustrated.
Does that mean that, because of enduring a difficult day, you’ve earned yourself the experience of being stuffed with food? Is being stuffed what you really deserve?
I would suggest what you truly deserve is so much greater. Compassion, connectedness with caring people and rest.
When you look at the facts of what is happening, it begins to not make sense: If a child came home after a terrible day, and we force fed her until she was very full, it would be considered cruelty.
But we tend to be doing two things when we overeat:
(1) We are rebelling. Against nothing. We think things like, “I don’t care what anyone says, I’m going to eat as much as I want, drink whatever I want, smoke” when there really isn’t anyone telling us what to do besides a voice in our own head.
(2) We attach a false meaning to food (it’s love, it’s comfort, it makes things better) when food is really just food. In the short term, it may feel comforting to be distracted from the uncomfortable feeling, but it creates a long term problem of not meeting your real needs (of feeling loved, cared for, and safe) and putting on excess weight that your body doesn’t want.
Food is delicious and beautiful. It brings people together. Food carries our heritage and provides an endless creative outlet. Food is lovely. The one thing that food is not, though, is a decent replacement for a real need.
I’ll tell you why: because when we try to use food when we have real needs, we disrespect our bodies’ wants for fullness. And that ends up being the anti-emotion. It just digs that hole where the need is even deeper.
Food is so available, that this is an easy coping mechanism to develop. And I’m not suggesting you stop cold-turkey. I want you to be happy! And part of that happiness is finding your needs and filling them while you learn to enjoy food for being so foodie, instead of trying to turn food into a warm blanket that comforts you (makes couch messy, not recommended).
Three things that you can do today.
(1) Reclaim that naughty word. Let’s say that your thought is, “I deserve this food” and treating food as your reward and source of joy leads you to overeat. But because thought really ends up in feeling crappy because of the overeat, begin creating a new thought around that word, DESERVE:
“I deserve to feel good about myself.”
“I deserveto go to bed feeling proud of myself.”
“My body deserves to be respected.”
“I deserve real joy in my life, not just food.”
Find a thought that makes you feel proud and empowered, and keep in your pocket throughout your day.
(2) Begin identifying TRUE, delicious sources of happiness and comfort.
- Like, a bath (I resisted this one in particular FOREVER because I feel like everyone says it, but a hot bath zaps this need for comfort and soothing for me).
- Like, truly savoring good foods (I also find really savoring my dinner keeps me from feeling like I need more, more, more too — taste each bite like you deserve every bite that your body wants).
- Like, lighting a candle and putting on beautiful music.
- Like, kissing your imaginary dog on his head (you should get one too — they live much longer than real dogs).
What non-food activities feel like love to you? Think of some really indulgent, delicious ones before you are back in the Wednesday, baby. Wednesday. scenario.
(3) Start noticing the pieces of your day that create these feelings for you. Look for when and why that downtrodden feeling comes back. Is it later in the day? Is it around certain patients? Notice exactly what the triggers seem to be.
Know thy enemy, know thyself. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
This piece of wisdom from Sun Tzu, a Chinese general in the 6th century applies perfectly here.
Because when you know the real enemy to your weight loss, what you’ve really done is become intimately acquainted with what’s going on for yourself.
Is it a lack of passion and joy that you are truly hungry for? Do you feel you deserve a better suited career? You know another secret: you can have all of those things.
Once the root of the overeating is exposed, you can be in front of a freezer full of peppermint ice cream and not even want to shove it all in your mouth at once. A thousand times.
You can even be a client receiving tomb-like emails from your coach and see that as the support and comfort you deserve.
