We’ve seen a lot of changes over the last 25 years! Now, while we all wait to see whether the GLP1s play out like all the other weight loss medications over the decades, we’re continuing to help you have a joyful, confident, peaceful relationship with food.
Along our 25 year journey of offering mindful eating program, we’ve learned a lot about how to guide people to make the lasting shift from “being good” to “feeling good.”
So now we’re putting together the most comprehensive program we’ve ever offered. But before we announce it, we need to hear from you!
What are the top two issues preventing you from having a joyful, confident, peaceful relationship with food?
Please post your top two issues as a comment on this blog post. Please note: There will be a delay while your comment is reviewed and approved. (If you prefer, you may comment about your challenges with eating on Instagram or our public Am I Hungry? Facebook page instead.)
We really appreciate your input and look forward to hearing from you!
22 thoughts on “What prevents you from having a joyful, peaceful relationship with food?”
Emotional eating
Good vs bad food mentality
Watch for the next two posts and videos Jeanette: Fearless Eating and Why Emotional Eating Feels So Persistent.
I eat whatever I want to, even when I know that I could die of a heart attack. I don’t understand why I overeat. I am going on the treadmill four to five times a week for thirty minutes each. They cancel each other out. Thanks for asking.
Understanding why is the missing link for most people! This is particularly important when you have a chronic health condition. However, using exercise to make up for eating puts you on a metaphorical treadmill too! Stay tuned for more help…
Lack of focus. It is too easy to let distractions and bad habits take over.
That is one of the reasons mindful eating is so helpful Deb! Your “bad habits” are really just mindless patterns that can be changed with awareness. I often tell my clients, you can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar!
It’s like an addiction: you love the way you feel when you consume certain foods and in large quantities and then you hate it and regret it immediately after, hating yourself … so food becomes like a drug and you can’t have a healthy relationship with a drug
EMI, many of my clients feel like they are addicted to food. It’s a big topic (watch my emails and I’ll address this further) but it’s important to know that the drivers are often deprivation/guilt and emotional triggers. (We address these in Transformation Stages 2 and 3.) Amazingly, even people who were sure they were addicted feel liberated and in charge! Don’t give up!
As a child in an alcoholic abusive home, food was my only consolation. Food is all I felt I had to give me comfort, to numb the pain, something sweet and good in an otherwise unhappy world. Now as an adult in my 70s, when I am under a great deal of stress or intense emotions. Food is still my comfort. This is after years and years and years of therapy to heal my childhood wounds.
I’m sorry for that Anna and glad you’re working on addressing those wounds with therapy. You developed a coping skill that helped get you through your difficult childhood. Is it now time to heal your relationship with food?
I identify with EMI and ANNA. I’ve used food for so many years to dull pain, express joy, deal with anger, just any overwhelming emotion, and have consumed it in large quantities, and even recently, was viciously angry with myself for doing so because I am so big and feel so unhealthy! It’s like a blanket that’s too short to cover my feet. It doesn’t bring true comfort, but I find myself trying over and over, to find comfort in it.
My heart goes out to you Deej! In the next two videos, I begin the process of understanding why you get so stuck in behaviors that don’t work. Please don’t give up on yourself! Stay tuned for more help.
What prevents you from having a joyful, peaceful relationship with food?
Food stands for too many things in my life that define a fix and not a relationship. Until I stop seeing food as a means to my end, I will use it in a way that will never serve me. It is hard to look at it as fuel or enjoyment and nourishment when I lack the skill and knowledge to treat it differently. In AA they have a great saying, You take a drunk horse thief and get him sober all you have is a sober horse thief. Your work to take the horse thief out of us is the key. The steps do that for the alcoholic. You can live without alcohol, but you do need to eat. That is why OA is not a solution. They don’t change the relationship with food, they are restrictive eating at the top tier.
I am working on this and thank you with all my heart for the work you are doing!
You are very welcome Suellen. Healing your relationship with food is truly a process so please don’t give up! It is so worth it.
Comfort food for emotions/stress
Food pushing
Kim, emotional and comfort eating is one of the most challenging issues that keep people stuck. But it is possible to learn how to identify, interpret, and manage your emotions to meet your needs better than food does.
“Food pushing” is actually quite a bit easier to deal with once you understand what drives others to do it and take charge of your responses!
Sweets and chocolate were rewards every day as children so grew up with that then emotional eating when stressed bit like having a cigarette now larger and larger portions of sweet stuff to get same effect. And not priorising self care…..no time not true too hard maybe a lithle hard to change self loathing denial umm
I often say you can’t hate yourself healthy so I don’t think self-loathing is motivating you the way you think it is! As I shared with other who posted about feeling addicted, there are drivers that have nothing to do with the food itself. Hang in there Flo! You can heal this!
I am dealing with a lot of stress trying to juggle taking care of my Mom who has cancer, menopause and not sleeping, working full time and being there for my family. I have nervous anxious energy and have always resorted to food for comfort. I need to find an outlet to calm me without food. I have been working out which helps but there are nights when I can’t get a workout in and that’s when I fail.
You have a lot on your plate Sheri so be kind to yourself! Many people I work with care for others before themselves then turn to food to feel better quickly but temporarily. I’m glad you’ve discovered that movement helps. Now let’s start working healing your relationship with food!
Even when eating a healthy meal, still second guessing myself-wondering whether I got it right; and how many calories grams etc, I consumed.
I have 40lbs to lose, and dont knopw if this will work for me,
I get is Lisa! When you live in diet culture your entire life as we have, you are given the message that you can’t trust yourself. However, sustainable change comes from the inside out, so learning to trust yourself is imperative! That is one of the things Am I Hungry? helps you with! Stick with us…