When Is Emotional Eating Okay?
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Week of August 22, 2021
Hello Ladies!
How has your week been? If I had to guess, I’m going to guess that it’s been busy. Busy is okay. “Busy” can be good also, depending on the reason you are busy and how you view your business.
This weekend, we dropped my youngest off at Depauw University. We had a busy week leading up to Saturday and dropping him off. It was also an emotional week/weekend, and my emotional pendulum was swinging like crazy! One moment, I was sad and wistful thinking about my son as a baby and toddler, … the next, I was irritated and over all of it because I’d make a suggestion to him about something he will need, or about packing and not taking everything, only to be brushed off or dismissed, in that special dismissive way that only teenagers and young adults can do.
Needless to say, how I ate and how much I ate was impacted by ALL of the fast moving feelings that swirled inside of me all week long. Some of you may be like me with eating my feelings, some of you may have no clue what I am talking about, but food is my “go to” when BIG feelings come up in my life. I soothe with food when I am sad and I celebrate with food when I am happy. It might make you wonder if there is ever a time when emotional eating is okay?
We need food to nourish our bodies and to keep us alive. Food can also be an expression of love and gratitude, it can be celebratory, it can be an outlet for creativity and can be enjoyed simply for no other reason than it’s deliciousness. This week, I think my family and I hit on all of these uses for food. Using food for all of these reasons, even including emotional eating is not bad. When is emotional eating not bad you ask?
Well, I’m glad you asked! Eating yummy food makes us happy. It brings us enjoyment and as mentioned above, it is often tied to sharing space, love and gratitude with people you care about. There is nothing wrong with, or “bad” about that! We can celebrate with food and indulge in food, and not have to feel as though we’ve been “bad”. We don’t need to beat ourselves up about it!
I mentioned above that we dropped my son off this weekend and I shared the array of feelings that came alongside me, leading up to the big day. At the end of Saturday’s on campus events of moving in and the commencement ceremonies, my son walked us to the car and we said our goodbyes. I told him to hug his dad first because I wanted to get the last hug. I reached up and hugged his neck tight and held on for a long while. I whispered some mom things in his ear … I told him to pray every day, be good and to do what he came here for … and if he needs me for anything, call me. As we started to drive away, the largest lump ever in the history of lumps was lodged in my throat, and my eyes quickly filled with tears, as I watched him walk away to his evening orientation. On the drive home I was quiet and thinking back to when he was little and how much he has grown. I thought about the challenges that he’s faced in his young life. I dreamed about his future. I felt myself “not being worried about him”. Yes, I will miss him being here … but I will also not miss him being here. There was and is a true sense of doing my absolute best to raise him, and pour as much as I could into him to help shape who he is and who he is becoming. He’s on his way into this new chapter of his life and it feels good.
Do you want to know what I did when I got home? I ate because I was emotional … I was happy! I ate almost a whole bag of barbecue potato chips with a pork loin sandwich and it was the tastiest meal!! I was very intentional about what I was going to eat. I knew I wanted a sandwich and I knew I wanted those particular chips! Being intentional is important because I didn’t want to waste this celebratory emotional eating on something I didn’t REALLY, REALLY want or something that wasn’t going to satisfy the craving that I had. I wasn’t going to feel bad about it and I talked about my enjoyment of that meal with my bestie which brought even more enjoyment because we spent time sharing the day. It was important to be intentional and share it so that there would not be this sense of keeping it a secret or hiding it, because that’s when shame creeps in and beating yourself up is right on the heels of shame. I also knew that I wasn’t going to let my celebratory emotional eating bleed over into the next day, and the next day, and the next. So my solution for that was to throw away whatever was left over. I had chips left over and so I threw them away that night. This is what emotionally eating looked like for me this weekend … I was conscious that I was doing it. I was intentional about it. I wasn’t trying to hide it. I’m not letting it bleed over into other meals or more days. This is how and when emotional eating can be okay.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on emotional eating.
Do you think you emotionally eat? If so, when and what does that look like?
Can you think of a time when emotional eating was okay and felt planned or contained?
Please share in the comments at the bottom of this blog. Thank you for reading. We are on this journey together … remember to keep going.
Brave not perfect,
Caroline J. Community Manager, Fit Chicks Movement
P.S. … it’s 11:03pm … my son just texted and said that he’s “doing great.”