I am becoming a person who is always curious about myself. I am willing to be kind, patient and compassionate, and will ask for help when needed. I understand the power of stepping outside of my comfort zone and am committed to doing the recommended exercises and practices.
-----Dani Spies (The Don't Diet)
The above statement is what I was required to say to myself as I began The Don't Diet. I will list below some other gems that I am thinking over as I finish out Week 5 of the course:
- Be present while eating.
- Hunger cues reach my brain from my body similar to the signals I might have when in pain from something like cold weather. It is helpful to eat and is enjoyable. I need to eat, food helps my body to feel good and to be healthy. Hunger cues are not the same as Feelings/Emotions.
- Be curious about feelings in general -- the definition of Feeling/Emotion -- the vibration in my body caused by a sentence in your/my mind -Dani Spies
- Stress lowers my body's ability to digest.
- Look for/notice and increase the pleasure of eating while eating.
- Three ways to relax into eating: Breath deliberately/rhythmically, Chew more, Slow down the pace.
- Before eating realize "I'm going to eat soon" and take 5-10 long breaths.
- Make changes slowly start with one meal.
- Emotional eating --celebrating an occasion falls in this category and is not 'wrong' ie: some emotional reasons for eating are encouraged and wonderful.
- Three things to do with feelings: React/Resist or hopefully --- Allow
- Learn to digest and sit with feelings to be present with them, and make room for them
- How to feel feelings: Pause, Identify, Acknowledge, Describe, Allow take deep breaths and think/say to self that (feeling) won't hurt me...eating _____ won't help....slow down, is eating that worth ____ will my feeling still be there when I'm done along with guilt and shame?
Thanks for readig.
Stay well,
Amy BH
I liked this! I've learned to feel emotions and not necessarily label them. It's unimportant to name our emotions thats really not the point.
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I just finished a slow read of Chris Heurertz's "The Sacred Enneagram" (he's the guy from the Sleeping at Last podcast). One really helpful insight for me was to notice that I'm a "Body" type (8-9-1) vs. Head (5-6-7) or Heart (2-3-4). Anyway, as I read this blogpost, I was trying to relate it to how I approach food and noticed that when I overeat or mindlessly eat, it's like I'm watching my body do it and I'm not aware of any feelings, other than numbness. If I can stop and wonder about why my body is literally acting to numb me, then I can often identify feelings but they are not on the surface for me. I.e., feelings are not my signal. Not sure if that makes sense or even applies! But I'm finding it fascinating :)
Wow and yes to what Amy and labf have posted. Mindless eating is such a thing for me too. Yesterday at work I was hungry at 10:00. I sat back, and took time to consider, "Am I really hungry?" The answer was YES! So I ate my cut up vegetables, then my protein, then my nuts.... Guess who was hungry while grocery shopping after work? I admit I did not make a good choice to curb that while in the store because I really just wanted salty. Anyway, it would have been a lot worse without all of the posts that are in this blog and discussions we've had these past 15 months. There is so much work to do, and I love the sharing.
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