✨Get in touch with your emotional eating✨.
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🤷🏼♀️If it isn’t physical/stomach hunger that is driving you to eat, what is?.
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💭As a reminder, below are some clues that can help differentiate physical, stomach rumbling hunger from emotional hunger:.
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🧠Physical Hunger🧠.
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✨Develops slowly following a meal or snack.
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✨Desire a variety of foods.
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✨Fullness sensation is the cue to stop eating.
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✨No negative thoughts or emotions following eating.
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👅Emotional Hunger👃.
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✨Develops suddenly, usually in the absence of physical hunger.
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✨Desire certain foods (i.e. craving).
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✨May result in a binge or eating past/ignoring fullness cues.
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✨Guilt, shame or other negative thoughts/emotions MAY follow eating.
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✋🏾Just to be clear, the goal isn’t to ONLY eat when you are physically hungry. Food is more than just fuel for our daily activities. Similar to the discussion around black, white and grey with the “All-or-Nothing” versus “For the Most Part” mentalities, the discussion around emotional eating is grey.
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💭As you can tell by the above characteristics of emotional eating, our experiences can be placed along a continuum, for example...
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🅰️Binge → Guilt, shame → Restriction begins again.
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VERSUS.
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🅱️Cravings → Overly full/uncomfortable → Continues eating normally.
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The goal is to learn WHEN you are eating in response to emotions rather than hunger and HOW. Ask yourself the following key questions:.
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🤷🏻♀️What is the frequency?.
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🤷🏼What is the intensity of my eating?.
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💭Reflect on what thoughts and feelings come up during/after the eating experience. When it is a REGULAR response to life stressors and leaves you feeling DOWN, it is time to seek professional support for coping with triggers or identifying new coping mechanisms. .
Where can you start?👇🏼👇🏼.
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👉🏽Pay attention to how and when your hunger develops (Gradually versus suddenly).
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👉🏽Consider your thoughts/ feelings during and after eating (Guilt? Shame? Nauseous).
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👉🏽Connect with a loved one to fill your void with emotional support rather than emotional eating.
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👉🏽Work with an RD &/or therapist to fill up your coping mechanism toolkit and improve your relationship with food!
Warm Spinach and Mushroom🍄 Salad with Caramelized Onions and Balsamic Reduction 😍.
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For 2 large salads.
Ingredients:
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 package mushrooms, washed and sliced
1/2 small white onion, sliced
6 cups baby spinach
4 tbsp hemp hearts ( I used @manitobaharvest Chipotle, Onion and Garlic Hemp Heart Toppers!)
1/2 cup shaved Asiago cheese
4 tbsp pine nuts
1/4 cup balsamic glaze/ Reduction
Salt and pepper to taste .
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Directions:
1. In a large frying pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil. Once heated, add onions and balsamic vinegar to pan. Cook on medium high heat until tender and caramelized. Transfer cooked onions to a separate dish and set aside. .
2. In the same skillet, heat another 2 tbsp olive oil and add the sliced mushrooms. Cook on medium high heat until mushrooms reduce in size and are tender. Remove from heat and set aside. .
3. On 2 large plates or in 2 large bowls add the spinach and top with warm caramelized onions, mushrooms and remaining ingredients. Drizzle with balsamic glaze and season with salt/ pepper to taste. Enjoy! .
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Photo & Recipe By: Brittaney Berendsen RD, P.H.Ec.
How often do these (or similar) thoughts come up for you? 🤔
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💭“I cannot have that [insert food] today, I save that for my cheat days!”.
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💭 “I try to be good after I’ve eaten something bad.”.
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💭 “Seeing a [new/ higher/ unchanged] number on the scale makes me feel like a failure.”.
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💭 “I have tried to cut out [insert food], only to binge on it later.” .
These are examples of all-or-nothing thought patterns, which ultimately translate into feelings about food and behaviours around food. I (Syd) like the visual of a pendulum when it comes to describing these thought patterns as they relate to food. ⚖️ On one side of the extremes we have our internal food police 👮🏾♂️ and on the other, our internal food rebel🦹.
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👮🏻♂️Our inner food police👮🏽♀️:
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👉🏼Inflicts strong feelings of guilt and regret related to making certain food decisions.
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👉🏼Tells us we will never reach our health goals if we eat (let alone enjoy) “x food”.
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👉🏼Places strong labels such as “good” and “bad” on certain foods which affect how we view ourselves if we do or do not eat them.
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🦹Our inner food rebel🤺:
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👉🏼Brings up feelings of hopelessness when we do not follow all the rules set out by the police.
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👉🏼Tells us to give up and give into the temptations.
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👉🏼Contributes to feelings of losing control if/when "rules are broken".
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Through working with a Registered Dietitian, it can become much clearer how to work through these dysfunctional tendencies 💚.
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👌🏼A good end goal is to strive for a “for the most part” mentality.
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✨When you can✨:.
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☝🏾Identify and dismantle the dichotomous thought patterns and;
✌🏿Learn that nutrition is in fact, not black & white- but grey...
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👉🏻This will lead you to view food and the act of eating as more flexible🧘🏾♀️.
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✨When you aren’t✨:.
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😳Fixated on perfectly following rules, guidelines or external cues to food selection and eating...
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👉🏻This allows you to adopt a more self-compassionate and curious attitude about eating. .
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❓Have you had a visit with the food police or food rebel recently? Share below!
Anyone here play 4-square at school growing up? 🙋🏼♀️🏀.
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These days, 4-square refers more to a social media post mosaic than it does a ball game 😅💁🏻♀️.
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Which squares do you tend to hang out in more when it comes to eating? 🤷🏼♀️.
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✨PERMISSION✨.
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Refers to the act of choosing foods to eat that you know you will enjoy, not because you feel you have to (and don't really enjoy the food), and consuming them in amounts that are satisfying. .
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✨RESTRICTION✨.
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If you have to count, weigh or measure when choosing or serving yourself food, this is an indication that you are restricted in your eating. When food and the act of eating is dictated by an external source (see our previous post on “control”), this takes the joy out of eating. .
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✨INTENTIONAL✨.
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Means providing yourself with regular and reliable eating occasions (meals + snacks) and being present when eating your food (as distraction-free as you can be!). Essentially, it refers to being a trustworthy provider and consumer of food. When your body has access to food at regular times (whatever this looks like for you: i.e. larger or smaller meals, 2-3hrs or 3-5hrs apart) and your attention is on the food and act of eating, this lends to a positive mealtime experience. .
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✨MINDLESSNESS✨.
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Refers to both lack of planning/preparedness when it comes to providing yourself with access to regular meals ➕ lack of attentiveness toward your food and/or act of eating when you have food in front of you.
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👩🏼💼👩🏻💼Ideally, if we can work our way toward the PERMISSION and INTENTION squares most often, this lends to an improved ability for our bodies to be in tune with the WHAT, WHEN, HOW MUCH, WHERE and WHY of eating. .
💭💭What are your thoughts? Where do you place your bets in this 4-square game?
