***Writer’s Note: This posts touches on eating disorders, if discussing such issues is hard for you and triggers things in your past/present that brings out an eating disorder, please pass over this post. We want you to stay healthy and get the help you may need***
The past few weeks I’ve touched on a few things that I believe fall into the “healthy living” category. But not in the “this is organic, eat it, yum yum!” category. More so, the emotional side.
First, I talked about a concept I hadn’t heard of, Vanity Sizing – how retailers play with our emotions to make us fall in love with that size 2 pair of jeans. Because they FIT!!!
Second, I talked about Being Good Enough – knowing that its OK to take a hard look at yourself and see where you can do better, and also realizing when to say “I’m doing great”!!
Today, I wanted to talk about two things, they have a common thread: Food.
I searched “Define: Emotional Eating” and came up with this:
Emotional Eating, was linked to compulsive overeating. I had to agree. I don’t know about you, but I think most people associate “Emotional eating” with “Depressed/Sad eating“. Which I don’t think is always the case. I think you can use any of your emotions as an excuse to over eat. Go with me here…
“I’m completely happy!! I’ll have two cupcakes instead of one.”
“I’m so mad! Give me that bag of M&M’s!”
“I’m really lonely. Guess its just Ben & Jerry… and myself tonight!”
“I’m so worried about ______. I need another frappuccino!”
You see where I’m going with this? It’s easy to take any emotions we have and turn it into an excuse to binge, and somewhere along the line lose control again and the cycle keeps repeating. Such a mess.
But what about the opposite?
I heard a friend say the other day, “I’ve been so stressed, I just can’t eat.“
I don’t know about you, but I just don’t fall into this category. When I’m stressed, I reach for food to soothe the soul. It’s a battle that has to be fought, or a pound of cake later, I’ll be in a sugar coma. So it completely struck me deep when I heard my friend say that. What a new concept to me. Not eating, when stressed, or angry, or whatever. I know there are hard core eating disorders out there that involve not eating at all. Those are beyond me. I have no experience or advice in any of that area.
Now, do I think my friend never eats? No, this situation was a rare occurrence and definitely a stressful one. But it got me thinking… how many people don’t eat because of something going on in their lives? And what would cause you to not want to eat? Is it just stress? Feeling overwhelmed and your stomach is in knots, so eating doesn’t sound appealing? I have no answers for you here. Again, this (non-eating) is beyond me. I know all about overeating, been there, done that. But this, I’ve never experienced. Feel free to chine in, if this is you.
So I turned once again to wikipedia, (we’re friends)…
I searched “emotional non-eating“… and “Eating Disorders” came up. What I find interesting, is an “eating disorder” is categorized this way: “Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions defined by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the detriment of an individual’s physical and mental health.”
I read this and thought, it all points back to:
“Abnormal eating habits”
Overeating, not eating, that’s abnormal. So what is “normal?” Some of us (myself including), have had to learn what “normal eating” is. For me it has revolved around a very important word:
some of webster’s definitions of balance…
“a means of judging or deciding”
“mental and emotional steadiness”
“the ability to retain one’s balance”
“a counterbalancing weight, force, or influence”
“equality between the totals of the two sides of an account”
“with all things considered <the meeting went well on balance>”
“with the fate or outcome about to be determined <our future hangs in the balance as we await his decision>”
Finding the balance between, letting my emotions dictate what I was going to consume has helped me control what would turn into an over-eating nightmare of insanity, into making one healthy decision after another.
Healthy Choices: Made Daily.
It’s my motto here, not because its catchy, but because its true. Just because you made a healthy choice today, does not mean that tomorrow is going to be blissfully easy. You want to live a healthy life? These choices have to made daily. One of my favorite quotes is by Heather from Then Heather Said…
“Make one healthy decision, now make another.”
Finding my balance in learning how to eat my way to a healthy lifestyle has been to make healthy choices, every day. Learning what emotions trigger me to want to eat my life away and dealing with those emotions head on. Its not easy. But its worth it.
What has helped you maintain your healthy lifestyle? Do you find yourself having to fight emotional eating/non-eating? What helps you maintain balance?
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a) thanks for the shout out lady!
b) i blogged about emotional eating yesterday afternoon! I love how in sync we are without even trying to be
c) xoxoxoxox
Heather recently posted..Delmar Dash 5 Mile Recap
Another great post, Lauren!
I fall into both ends of the emotional eating spectrum. I completely associate happiness and fun times with food – it’s not always bad food or too much food but when I want to celebrate I always think about what will be eaten. If I got a new job I would certainly celebrate with sushi – food is a major reward for me.
If I’m super stressed I have no appetite at all. If I try to eat I’ll feel physically sick. I went through a really hard time a few years ago and I could not eat anything. It was horrible, I lost a lot of weight and it was getting dangerous. Even when I got out of that bad time I just didn’t eat as much as I used to so I was still really underweight and got sick all the time. When I met my boyfriend and we started dating I gained like 15 pounds, which was great because it all came from eating 3 actual meals per day. I’m way less stressed and am at a much healthier weight.
Sorry for the long comment but you had a good post and I wanted to show examples of both sides
Carly D. @ CarlyBananas recently posted..Crystal Run 5K Friday Week 3 Recap- Not Too Proud To Walk
I always wonder how people just don’t eat because I like to eat when I’m happy, sad, stressed, all of the above. I think either side is equally as unhealthy becuase you’re dealing with your emotions the wrong way (in my opinion). I really struggle with this because I’ve gained like 4 pounds since the middle of February. My boyfriend deployed to Afghanistan then and I found comfort in my pajamas and girl scout cookies. I want major comfort food and no exercise what-so-ever. It’s really hard to find a balance but I’m working on it. I loved this post
i’m definitely an emotional non-eater….i fight with it all the time!
Lindsay @ The Lean Green Bean recently posted..Granola Salmon
My whole life, never an emotional eater. Food has never been something I particularlly enjoyed. I never saw it as a treat.
And then my life crashed and I realized that I’m an emotional NON eater. Oh good golly Pete it scared me. I could go for days, not eat and not be hungry. As an endurance athlete, I KNOW the importance of nutrition. I would force myself to have a spoonful of peanut butter, a glass of milk, SOMETHING with calories and some sort of nutrition. But I had NO desire to eat.
This is a pretty normal reaction to stress, to anxiety, but I was worried that it would become a habit. That withholding food would become a way I could CONTROL some aspect of my life that is so out of control. I’m still very concious of that.
Eating. It’s tough because you HAVE to eat. And if you don’t have a good relationship with food, either way, it can spell disaster.
You tackled a tough issue in a well written post. Great job Lauren1
I’ve never been the ohh i’m too upset to eat person, nope just not me. I actually just posted today about finding my balance by learning to just eat when I’m hungry and not think about food the rest of the time! I’m tired of thinking about food so much!
RunToTheFinish recently posted..Workouts and Goals- April 18
thank you for this post Lauren. after having Dylan 2 months ago, “emotions” are running amuck, and i can’t seem to find my balance again. hopefully, through trial & error, i will find it again, and get back on the track to health and fitness.
cher recently posted..Dylan Gets to Come Home!!
Hey Lauren, I’m 17 years old… and sadly i fall in the category “Emotional Non-Eating.” Everyone is different, we control our body in different ways. It may be hard to believe that there are people who don’t “Eat their feelings.” I’m actually considered “Healthy” i’m not over weight or under. I always ate my breakfast, during lunch have small meals (fruit, veg, ect), and go home for some dinner. I can be a total fatty but i know my limit. I don’t starve myself or any of that. Lately, this year.. everything was/is going wrong. My manager said that at my age I worry about things that i shouldn’t even worry about. I believe it’s true but somehow it still brings me down. I have family problems (divorce, bills, and all sorts of problems when you’re parents are divorcing), school problems (looking for colleges, trying to keep up from everything i blew off because of all this, ect), and of course… the boyfriend problems. I know, I know.. i’m young i shouldn’t even let a guy bring me down but for some reason EVERYTHING gets to me and i’m super emotional/sentimental and even mood swings, it totally sucks. It’s as simple as this.. One day I got a text that ruined my entire month! I was starving, my tummy was even growling. hah I had a delicious pizza w. cheese fries AND a sweet tea on the side. PLUS, i was going to go for my smoothie. I had lost my apetite. -.- I guess it is true about the knots in your stomach. Wanting to cry but not able to and you have that hard feeling right in your throat that it makes it even hard to swallow food. Once you swallow those knots in your tummy makes you want to throw it back out. The headaches, most of all the pain in your heart. :/ hah For some reason i’m that girl who is not able to “Eat her feelings” My friends would be like, “Come on, I’ll take you out for ice cream or your favorite restaurant” It’s like your depressed as heck! It’s like those feelings take over the feeling of being hungry. It’s soooo confusin but i hope it makes somewhat sense. I know it’s not healthy… because if you keep letting your emotions take over it’ll only get worse and fall into an eating disorder of some other kind. (Which i think i’m at now) :/ I’m still going through all these problems. All this is recent.. and it only gets worse too. As crazy as it seems, I went 2 weeks without eating an actual meal. I’ve been eating very little. I eat and i have the feeling of vomiting. This whole “Emotional Non-Eating Disorder” pisses me off and is soooo stupid. So, i’m guessing i need that app. for the doctor. Hope it answered some questions of yours.