“Food is much more than a bunch of chemicals. Food is energy and information.”
Challenges
- Danitza: “I pack my lunch from home so they are good healthy choices but I know I eat too fast when I’m busy at the office”
- Moving too fast
- Kim: Eating while watching the news (non-nourishing background noises)
- Danitz: I think it’s soothing for me [food] when I’m pissed off sometimes
- We use food to celebrate, mourn, social, our Mom’s feed us to soothe us
- Danitz: I think [food is] also a means of “belonging”. Meaning… if everyone is eating nachos and drinking tequilla shots and you’re not… It won’t be long…
Questions
- artisticdork: To bring it back to last weeks conversation (for those of us that were here) do you think you’re more likely to eat clean and better when youre happy? Enjoying life?
Solutions
- “Giving attention to eating is the most fundamental level of healing we can reach in our relationship to food.”marc
- You have to retrain your brain to teach you the signs of hunger and what your body is actually hungry for
- Hunger Journal
- Sometimes, we only need to listen to our body to actually hear that mindfulness too, I think. like we don’t listen closely enough to our “gut”
- MariaEileene: I pray and I listen to my mind and body. Not my emotions
- Jenn: Listening to my body and mind….My boss looked at my desk one day…I have thoughts all over my desk on different pieces of paper and asked what was up with that…Told him I needed to listen to myself instead of going down to the kitchen and getting a candy bar or chips or a pop….He like it….He is now doing that himself
- Spirit Eagle Meg: I also have recognized that food=fuel. So not all calories are created the same. I mean think about it what is more beneficial.. 300 calories of oreo cookies or 300 calories of avacado, brown rice, mixed veggies, etc.
- Danitza: I put a post in on my monitor saying “are u really hungry ?”
- Holzinger3: sometimes i think it is thirst before hunger and i just dont realize it. really working on my water intake lately
- danitza617: I’m so bored of water , I switch to sparking water and I add lemons or cucumbers
- Jenn: By the time I get the kids up and ready for school …and then get to work realize I forgot to eat….i have oatmeal packages just for those cases.
- danitza617: I have oatmeal at work w almonds and blueberries or dried cherries
- Hamsasya: I find that giving myself permission TO eat, every 3-4 hours was really helpful. There was a time that I felt like going a whole day without eating was something to be proud of, but instead, it just set me up to binge. Basically, it’s like keeping your tank at half or full at all times, but never empty.
Celebrations
- Danitza617 joined a gym!
- Christa: I feel proud to say that I haven’t eaten just to eat in so long I can’t remember the binge.
Goals
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Jenn: I have a 72oz water bottle that is my new bestfriend at work now…My goal is to make sure I go thru 2 at work
How can we actively raise our awareness levels of our body? Our feelings?
- Kim Mari: learning to breath more fully
- Spirit Eagle Meg: i use hypnosis cds to help me sleep
- MariaEileene: For me ….pray….meditate….keep some sort of written record or log
- Jenn Page: Stop ignoring our feelings…and breathe and relax
- MariaEileene: Cry when you are sad….I cry like a fool and its gone
- Kim Marie: Journaling
“I have a hard time reading my body’s hunger signals. How I re-tune my “antennas” to know when and how much I should eat?”
- Create a Hunger Level Food Journal: Your hunger level before eating (on a scale of 1-10), your thoughts, feelings, current actions (what you are doing), food eaten, hunger level after (scale of 1-10)
- Do your best to ——-> SUSPEND JUDGEMENT <——–
- and ——————-> JUST OBSERVE<—————–
- Lt’s say you are at a hunger level of 8 (which means very full)…. and THEN you eat a bunch of pizza…. and now your hunger level is 10+….. that is PERFECTLY OK IN THE JOURNAL WORLD…. WHY? you ask? BECAUSE THE GOAL OF THE FOOD JOURNAL IS NOT TO EAT PERFECTLY, IT IS TO RAISE YOUR LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS about what you’re eating, why and when…. And if you raised your consciousness, then you have succeeded!
