Food & Feelings...

4^th August 2014

Be a fountain, not a drain.  BeYOUtiful

I did have a lovely chilled out day yesterday, it’s never completely Weight Watcher free but I don’t mind that, it did however involve a lot of garden time, a little bit of physical gardening and an awful lot of sitting enjoying the garden.  I also managed to get my college course finished, that’s made me realise I just don’t have the time or inclination for studying at this moment in time, too much other stuff going on in my life.

Part of the course work talked about the connection between food and feeling and suggested keeping a diary to identify eating and feelings, I haven’t done this for a long time, but it does work.  It helps to identify what feelings trigger you to eat, by keeping a food diary for a week or longer and recording what and when you eat together with what feelings, thoughts or emotions you identify as you eat.

When I read this I’d already had my breakfast so I thought about why I chose the breakfast I’d had which was a cooked breakfast, a filling & healthy one of course containing, toasted low calorie bread, dry fried egg, bacon medallions, tomatoes & mushrooms.  So why did I choose that meal?  Well after some thought, not too much obviously as it was Sunday, I realised that I’d already decided that Sunday was going to be an extremely chilled out one, as I’d been working crazy hours and hadn’t had a day off since the previous Saturday so I was shattered.  To me cooked breakfast signifies indulgence and relaxation, it’s something I do when I have time and I’m not having to get somewhere by a certain time, my morning are normally busy and start very early.  I opted for a healthier version of course because the finished plate still had the desired emotionally effect and still tasted amazing.  I opted for tomatoes instead of beans as they are lower in ProPoint and would still provide taste and fibre, low calorie bread, spray light oil, bacon medallions instead of fatty bacon, missed off the sausage as I’m not that fussed about them and dry fried my egg.  I sat and enjoyed every mouthful, revelling in the fact I hadn’t got to be anywhere or do anything I didn’t want to that day – bliss!

Of course part of the reason I chose it was because it was delicious, but I actually think 98% of food is delicious so there’s always other reasons why we choose the foods we choose.  There’s something for you to think about this week, why do you choose the foods you eat, what are you thinking and feeling when you eat, start to notice you emotions. 

Emotional eating can be caused by so many things and one of the best ways to understand your triggers is to keep a daily food dairy.  Notice how you behave towards food when you’re angry, upset, bored, frustrated, sad or lonely.  By keeping a record we start to build up a picture of why we emotionally eat – knowledge is always power.  Once you know how, where and why etc, you can start to learn to cope with our common emotions that cause us to emotionally eat when we’re not physically hungry.  

I write my food diary like a diary but you can do it like a form like this example I found on Pinterest.  

Right I’m off, we’re at the dentist this morning, that’ll be fun, then I need to get ready for my week ahead, if the suns shining I can’t see the house getting tidied, not today!

Have a great day BeYOUtiful. x