Eat to Live

Sorry for the short post yesterday. I am sure this one will be long enough to bore you all to tears =)

My brother's fiance Katherine (Congratulations to you both by the way!) reminded me a few days ago of a very important element to how we should view eating and health. She said she reminds herself that she must eat to live. I love that! I am sure most of you have probably heard the phrase before, but have you ever really considered it and what it means? It  is something I have been meditating on ever since she reminded me of it.

What does it mean to "eat to live"? To me it means when you are hungry, you should eat. When you are sad, bored, happy, lonely, angry, frustrated and so on this does not equate to a need to eat. It would be better when you are overcome with some emotion to find a healthy solution, without eating, for the need to lament or celebrate. If you are sad, take a walk (burns calories too) and it will give you time to think and sort things out or mourn away from food. If you are bored, find something to do, there is always something to do if you look hard enough. If you are happy, call a friend and share the joy or go out and celebrate (maybe some dancing?). If you are lonely be with some friends or make some new ones. If you are angry or frustrated take it out on a punching bag, or a keyboard but not on yourself. That's the thing about emotions, they are transitory,they don't last, but the food you might indulge in will last. Even worse, food doesn't get rid of the pain you are feeling nor does it make a happy moment better.

In this world of busyness and technological buzzing I find that our emotions are resting on the back burner. We have forgotten how to listen to our souls. I think the best thing to do about this, is whenever you feel an emotion you should step back an analyze what the emotion is and where it came from. Give the emotion its moment and then let it go. If when you are emotional and you feel the urge to eat, stop and think about how hard you have worked and how over eating will only make you feel worse in the long-run. This is what I have been trying to do. It is not a perfect strategy, or perhaps I am an imperfect compliant, but it definitely helps me to avoid abusing food. I also think learning to listen to our emotions and dealing with them head on helps us to understand who we are and how we cope with life. Knowing this leads to stopping the emotional eating and learning to love yourself for who you are. It is a process not an immediate fix.

Along with this common inability to handle and understand our emotional self comes the inability to understand our physical self. How many of us actually listen to our body on a daily basis? I know I haven't been doing that for a long time. I got so used to emotionally eating that I feel like the thing in my brain that tells me I'm full or I'm hungry shut off because I let my emotional self take control all the time. Not a good thing. Since I have been watching what I eat, logging it consistently, and exercising on a daily basis; I have found that I can hear my body again. It is just a whisper right now but it is there. I am starting to remember what it feels like to be hungry and what it feels like to be satisfied. When I am teetering on the edge of making a big mistake with my eating, I have found myself stopping to take an inventory of my body and questioning if I am really hungry. Much of time I find that I am just bored. I find myself moving from mindless munching to mindful eating and my body and my soul appreciate it. Our body, once we drop the emotion and the desires, really is designed to keep itself alive. It will tell you when you need to eat. The important thing is learning not to ignore it.  Eat when you are hungry and put down the fork when you are satisfied. Usually, if you are at the table and you set down your fork to talk with your friends or family you are satisfied; otherwise, you would still be eating right?

If we can learn to listen, truly listen to ourselves both emotionally and physically, then the world might be a much healthier place. I have heard so many people say that true weight loss, not yo-yo dieting, is not a diet plan or exercise, it is a total transformation. I believe that to be true. I believe that if I continue down this path I will one day stop being a chubby caterpillar and become something else entirely. A butterfly...I just need to remember to eat to live.

 If you like what you are reading feel free to comment subscribe or follow me.

Don't forget to watch what I eat at my food diary:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/sarahbear1981

My thanks to Katherine for reminding me of this simple yet powerful rule to living well.