Prior to being a Dieter in Recovery I saw food as my biggest comfort. If I was sad I would often feel the need to have some wine and treats.
I also used food as a reward for losing weight. Yes, isn’t that a strange concept? But how often do we do this, and it quickly turns in to overeating, which goes in to shame and self abuse?
Now I see food as enjoyment and pleasure, but it is not tied to my emotional state. Taking away the association in this way stops making food the enemy. It neutralizes it.
We can celebrate our birthday with cake or whatever we choose, but we don’t have to eat the whole cake.
During my early days of this journey if I felt hungry, I would eat, even if I felt full. Fighting it proved too hard and would often set me up to binge. Instead, I satisfied this need.
But only with fruits and vegetables, and never with processed foods.
Gradually I recognized the triggers for emotional hunger and chose to comfort myself in a different way. A walk with my dog, tea and a cuddle with my hubbie, a chat with a friend, some beach time?
There is a difference between comforting yourself with food and eating comfort foods. The latter is often the foods from our childhood, our specific cultural ones, or the memory of how our family dealt with food.
So much baggage around this?
My comfort foods are the cultural ones I grew up with, but I have adapted them. I love my British breakfast, but often it is too rich for me with the bacon, sausage, fried tomatoes, fried eggs, and fried bread. Instead, I adapt it to my Californian culture making a spicy tomato sauce topped with poached eggs, wilted greens and a sausage on a bed of creamy polenta. Cultural comfort blending at its best!
When we don’t use food as our emotional comfort tool it makes us look deeper, instead of stuffing those feelings we get to explore them. That leads to change.
At the beginning of COVID I remember coming home from work and having food treats. A week later I felt sluggish and tired. I knew I had to change the routine. A little shift to a pot of tea and time with my husband and my dog as soon as I came home proved to hit that comfort spot. It proved key to my thriving as a front-line worker in Health Care.
Food is nourishing and wonderful. Let’s enjoy it, but find our comfort in other ways.