In the last week, I’ve had two clients reinforce my belief that this is the fundamental issue for so many of us. Both are women, one mid-thirties, one early sixties. One of them is a new client whom I’ve only met with twice and the other is one I’ve been seeing for some time.
The new client, lets’ call her S, had become more aware about her issues with food. So, we shared a mindful meal. The first thing she said to me was roughly “I know what my issue is. I eat too much and I eat too fast. I eat with the family really fast so I can get other things done and then later, like when the kids are asleep, I eat more.” We then talked about food, eating, kids, work, family stuff- you know, all the issues that affect HOW and WHY we eat. She told me about the kinds of foods she was cooking and eating for the family and I realized that she was choosing mostly “good” choices. So, I told her “Don’t worry about WHAT your eating. It’s fine. Try focusing on eating slow so you can be more satisfied with what you ate and eat less”. To say the look on her face was one of relief would be an understatement. She had developed a sort of “paralysis by analysis” over WHAT she thought she should be eating in lieu of focusing on HOW. Within just days, she was feeling better about her whole relationship with food. Sure, it’s hard work to make the change, but she was so happy to be able to stop worrying about everything she put in her mouth.
My longtime client, E, had a similar but different revelation. She was having a particularly difficult week. Emotions were running high and she was realizing over the week that she was eating a little extra chicken, then rice, then fruit, then pb&j… you get the picture. What she realized was that she was overeating to deal with her emotions. The fact that it was “healthy” food didn’t really matter. As she said, “I can eat an extra 1000 calories from good food just as easily as from cake or other junk-it’s still 1000 calories.” Now, the point here isn’t that she was emotional eating (see previous post on this topic), but that WHAT she was eating wasn’t the issue-it was HOW.
I encourage you to soften yourself to the concern over WHAT you’re eating, and focus more on HOW and WHY. I’m not saying throw all you know about food out the window and just let yourself eat all you want of everything you want. I’m simply saying, let the HOW and WHY be more relevant at least for a while. Maybe a meal, a day, a week, maybe just 5 minutes. Let me know how it works out. Your experience will help everyone else.
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Ian,
It felt like you were writing about me–female, mid-thirties, overanalyzing food 24/7, etc. I know I need to slow down, but with how my time is spent during the day (commuting/work (75%), kids/family/fun (10%), other crap that NEEDS to be done (15%)) how do I SLOW DOWN, cut myself some slack, etc.
Thank you for what you are doing–it’s so necessary. Seeing myself mirrored in your client(s) just strengthens the notion that we ALL need to find that balance that eludes us!