Note to self: Relax, you are enough!

1st July 2015

Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can!

Isn't being overweight a very emotive thing!  Some people just don't seem to be bothered by it at all, or they act as though they aren't, then others constantly worry about it and struggle with the whole losing weight and keeping it off thing!

So are they worried about the reflection in the mirror, is it purely a visual issue, they don't like the refection they see or are they concerned with the health implications?  Or both! 

I spent far too many years concerned over the reflection in the mirror, obsessed about looking a certain way, being a specific size, instead I decided I actually love me and my reflection whatever size is staring back at me and I can also look good at any size I've been as long as I buy an outfit that fits and suits me. 

I concern myself more with eating healthily now, that way I know I'm eating good, nutritious food the majority of the time, of course there are moments of excess but there not as often as they may once have been and they're always done from a place of enjoyment rather than inner self-loathing and stuffing my face 'just because', 

I enjoy food, I love to eat tasty, delicious food, I'm a sucker for the skin off the chicken or a slice of bread to wipe up the juices out of the pan, that's not an eating issue, that's thanks to incredible taste buds and a satisfaction for good flavours.  I just make sure I'm not in a position where that chicken skin or pan of juices is available too often!   The majority of the food I have in my house is the stuff I know will help to keep my body well not make me feel crappy after I've eaten it.

Would I consume my own body weight in cheese and onion crisps if I had a cupboard full - quite possibly yes!  Why?  Because they're delicious, they're addictive, they are the perfect balance of crunch, fat and salt.  Is that an accident that they have been made that way - is it hell!  Walkers would have paid a lot of money to create and get those ingredients to be that perfect balance, as do so many other food manufacturers.

Some days, those crisps could be there and they wouldn't bother me at all, mom actually had a multipack of them and I resisted them for a good four days, then there was that one day, you know the kind of day, when you wake up SUPER HUNGRY, that's like being normal hungry but I'll be wearing a cape!  Anyway on those days when I'm hungrier, resistance is futile, the crisps are having it.  Does that mean I have no willpower - erm NO!  It means I'm hungry, they're delicious and my super intelligent brain say's 'heck Bev, you're hungry, if you're gonna eat, have something tasty!'  In that moment of hunger, my brain is not thinking 'healthy' or about the fact my body has a fat backside, nope, my brain is thinking one thing "EAT FOOD NOW!"

There's nothing wrong with me, I just like food, I like eating and I like eating delicious food!  Some people don't get it, they never will.  But heck some people grow up wanting to be a dental hygienist - I will NEVER get that either, but I ain't about to judge them, so don't judge me for my greedy gene. 

And folks if you share my greedy gene, my love of food, my amazing acute taste buds, stop judging yourself too please, it's who you are, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

Most of us overeat these days without realising it, for reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. It is so very easy to use food as a usual pastime or social event, when it's everywhere, easily accessible and legal. We all eat to change our emotional state, sometimes to have fun, sometimes to self soothe or block emotions that we just don’t want to feel.

If you're emotionally eating in a negative way, if you're not even enjoying the delicious food you're eating, or if you shoving it down that fast you're not even aware of it, that needs addressing because you're unlikely to even be enjoying it or it's after effects and that's not a good thing.  Where to start, well I'd say start by 'feeling' those emotions you're experiencing instead of trying to drown them with food!  Start by addressing your personal issues that are sending you to that food.

There's a big difference between enjoying a hot doughnut or two when you're out at the garden centre because they smelt lush and you couldn't resist it (I didn't indulge btw) and sitting in the kitchen stuffing a multipack of doughnuts down your neck because your life sucks or you're just not in a happy place.

So today, start by stop beating yourself up, remember we're all a work in progress which means we'll get there a little at a time not all at once, remind yourself YOU ARE ENOUGH and you're BeYOUtiful.   You do not have to 'be better', 'try harder' or 'do more', you're good - honest. xx