How discomfort can mess with your intentional eating
Food is comforting. But is that all you can turn to?
What is the very first thing that you ever found comforting?
Some people claim to have memories of being a baby, of looking up from a crib. Chances are you don’t remember being held and getting fed, the ways you received comfort since shortly after you were born. Taking in nourishment was introduced to you, so long ago you can’t even remember, as something that was soothing and felt good.
(For those who have struggled with restriction, you have experienced how powerful it can feel to defy the most innate of pleasures: eating. Sadly, conquering this greatest of comforts can become a different kind of comfort, for some.)
I have heard women lament that they enjoy eating. What a shame to feel bad about something so innately good! This is akin to scolding a child for laughing as they slide down a slide. Feeling bad because you are comforted by the most original comfort that exists for mammals is like spanking your cat for purring when you pet her.
Finally realizing that it is allowed and wonderful to savor our food can make decisions confusing when it comes to Intuitive Eating. If intuitive eating means eating when I feel like I should, what does it mean to feel like I should eat?
If food is comforting, I should eat anytime I feel discomfort, right? I have seen clients new to welcoming their relationship with eating get it a bit twisted because they are so used to all or nothing thinking. If I told myself NOT to eat when I felt bad before, now I should eat when I’m feeling bad, because I know it helps me feel better?
There are plenty of things that provoke those feel-good hormones of comfort or reward (though none as ingrained as eating): getting a new toy/piece of clothing, winning at something, making love, drinking a glass of wine. And for anything that helps us feel better, there is a point at which it becomes destructive.
Which is why we have to have enough tools in our Comfort Toolbox that we don’t have to rely on one thing to the point that we have no other way to feel good.
Learning the difference between
hunger
and
other sensations and emotions that tell us to find food
is crucial for anyone who wants to sort out her relationship with food.
For example loneliness is not hunger, though eating can relieve both.
What is the most common feeling that you confuse with hunger?
Overall, intentional eating starts with being mindful and aware of what you care about with food, when you’re hungry and when you’re not. While not the goal, intentional eating can lead people to eat more healthfully, and potentially, lose weight. But more importantly, it doesn’t limit the intake of certain foods and can lessen some of the stress that restriction inevitably brings.
~Michael Pollan