Emotional eating always has a psychological or biological reason for showing up in our life. It never just “happens” … it’s almost always an unconscious psychological strategy to regulate difficult emotions.
That’s the case for guest coaching client, Katy, who’s going through a period of massive change – and is struggling to manage her feelings about it all. As a newly-turned 30-year old, Katy is figuring out what’s important to her in life, what sort of career she wants to pursue, and how she wants to earn money. She’s hoping to find a life partner, and would one day like to become a mother.
And all this great change is bringing up major uncertainty, as well as feelings of anxiety, fear, and self-doubt.
Amidst all of this, Katy has been experiencing on-off cycles of emotional eating, overeating, and body judgment. She wishes her food habits didn’t feel like such a roller coaster ride, and that she could just feel consistently joyful and positive about her relationship with food and her body.
But as Marc David explores with Katy, it can be pretty difficult to maintain a consistently positive and joyful relationship with food when the rest of our life is in a state of change and upheaval.
The truth is that our relationship with food is a reflection of the rest of our life. If we find ourselves in an uncertain time of life, it’s natural to feel uncertain and inconsistent with food.
Through self-awareness and self-kindness, we can begin to see food as the powerful and effective emotional regulator that it is – and stop making ourselves wrong for turning to it sometimes when we aren’t feeling so good about life.
As Katy looks to the bigger context of her life, she realizes that her love-hate cycles with food and body, and in particular, with emotional eating, are simply reflecting the cycles of change she’s experiencing in her inner and outer worlds. And with this new awareness, she can bring some much-needed forgiveness and self-compassion to herself – which ironically, can begin to free herself from the very unwanted eating patterns that are weighing her down.
Episode highlights:
✅ Why seeking to be in a constant positive state with food can keep us trapped in our eating patterns.
✅ How to find forgiveness and self-acceptance in your relationship with food – and why times of change call for it more than other times of life.
✅ How to know whether fasting or cleansing is right for your body, or when it might exacerbate yo-yo dieting tendencies.
✅ How to take baby steps with mindful eating.
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Learn more about us at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating: https://psychologyofeating.com/
Ready to call a ceasefire in your battle with eating, and find peace and freedom with food? Learn more about our newest program, The Emotional Eating Breakthrough! https://learn.psychologyofeating.com/
Interested in becoming a certified coach in eating psychology? Then tune in to hear Marc talk about our Mind Body Eating Coach Certification Training, and download a copy of our School Catalog: https://psychologyofeating.com/info-kit/ Learn our powerful, cutting-edge approach, and discover how you can create a unique career helping others find peace and freedom with food.
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