Healing and eating

[Belle]

I'm struggling with this one - I wouldn't classify myself as having an eating disorder - but I am a very emotional eater.

I would love to be free from this, so that I can be a healthy weight constantly rather than having fluctuating weight (requiring lots of clothes), also food-faddishes are expensive, and unhealthy long term. I would like to enjoy eating and feel positive about eating for nourishment rather than the need to "just eat".

I'm not nearly as bad as I was, and I've tried a couple of healing, I have tried healing myself and nothing, no change. I think about food pretty much constantly.

Does anyone know any tricks of freeing this up, it's such an emotive issue and has been a chain around me from as far as I can remember. I don't know if it is past life, this life, what - but I do know that it is annoying beyond belief and I am concerned for the future.

[SpiritCarrier]

Belle I am sorry to read that you have this struggle.

I would suggest replacing the food thoughts and the action of eating for comfort with something else. For instance, when you catch yourself thinking about food, do some sort of exercise, go outside and cleanse the mind with fresh air, do some gardening, clean something, the point is replace the thought with an activity that requires your attention for a few minutes. At first it will be a battle to keep doing this, but if you replace those thoughts and actions you do not like with other actions and thoughts it becomes easier and easier.

Also making a menu once a week and sticking to a meal plan is helpful. If you do this it only focus your attention once a week on what you will allow yourself to eat for that week all at this one time. You do your shopping only once a week or month depending on your circumstances. It also prevents you from impulse buying while in the store. It helps to have a list of things you need for your predetermined meals and you don't have to think about what you will eat when the time comes you have a menu plan and you already know. When you are doing this plan make sure you allow yourself 2 snacks a day and 3 meals. Keep up with calories and make sure you get between 1000 and 1200 calories a day. This is a normal healthy amount of calories for a woman. Depending on your height and current weight you may need to add a few to maintain a healthy weight but this will allow you to lose weight at a health pace and keep it off. Do not drink alcohol or soda pop. If you must have a soda pop it has to be diet. Drink tea, iced or hot, if you need something more than water buy the stuff you put in water to flavor it. You body needs a lot of water to cleanse itself, try and drink a glass of water before eating anything. These are all tips that will help you maintain a healthy weight.

If you begin to feel better physically because you have made these changes it will become easier and easier. Your confidence level will improve and your skin, hair, and overall health will improve. You will feel, from the inside out, that you are purifying yourself.

If you would like to chat about this further I would be happy to help in anyway I can. Remember that you are not alone in this and that most people despite their weight, struggle with food issues.

I will not wish you good luck because this time you will do it, for you.

Peace and Light be yours,
SC:hug2: :hug3:

[in progress]

This is something I'm struggling with myself currently. It has moved up on my list of things that attract my attention. I know it's about self love. Just about everything is! Or fear. I know from personal experience if I can find the key then weight loss will be easy and effortless as will be eating what my body truly needs.

I have often heard that you have to love what you wish to change or you will not succeed. I guess that's because not wanting it is a form of resistance in itself. Instead you have to see how it has served you up to this point. I know for me it served to comfort me in times of pain, like a nonjudgemental friend. Honestly, when I think of it like that just now it's easier to thank it and love it.

Anyway, beyond those ponderings I'm not really much help. I am sitting at the highest weight I've had in my life. On the plus side (size? Ha!) I am just starting to feel more empowered to make changes, like some shift just occurred. Becoming more able to love myself more fully. Actually, that is the key.

[Belle]

Thanks folk, I know I'm not alone and yes ip - self love is associated with it. And I like the way in progress you mention how comfort eating (or comfort starving which I also engage in) is somewhat a friend. It has indeed been a solace.

SpiritCarrier - menu plans, distractions don't help. I just over-rule them. Distractions - well I then think I "deserve more" or eat twice as quick. There are all sorts of wonderful things that could be done which, quite simply, don't work. Your input is not invalid, I think I need to be further along the line in order to be able to grasp those points as at the moment they are papering over a crack. Maybe I want too much, but I want eating to be a joy and a servant to me, not me a servant to my calorific intake and getting vitamins and minerals - and the rest ! Maybe when I am slightly freer of what is hindering me then those ideas will help - and I think they will as they are with merit and I'm not throwing them out. Thank you for your thoughts.

I wonder if there is a shift that is encouraging a number of us to address this issue at the moment - I guess self-love manifests itself in people in different ways.

Anyway it's something that a lot of us will want to address. I wish it were a simple one, and I truly pray that it won't be with me til my dying day.

[7luminaries]

Belle :smile: I would strongly encourage you to look into ayurveda for some clear dietary guidance for your constitution, so you can eat normally and healthily of whatever foods nourish your body type and general constitution.

I would also really encourage you to have a chinese traditional medical doctor evaluate your overall health and energy levels for any imbalances or blockages which may be impeding your digestion or absorption and thus your overall wellbeing. They are able to detect imbalances long before they rise to the level of serious physical ailments.

And I would check out low-impact forms of exercise like yoga and swimming -- and even walking is still acceptably low-impact in my book...exercise should aid our stamina and health, IMO...it shouldn't have to exhaust or injure or drain us. What I love about all these I mentioned is that, like foods that supports us...they encourage a very contemplative and rhythmic state of mind...peaceful and centred :hug3:

AND I completely agree that YES there is a shift encouraging us to address a number of fundamental things that we need or want to see brought to fruition...generally all having to do with being whole and healed :hug:

Peace & blessings,
7L

[Belle]

Thanks 7luminaries.

I walk mostly - no other exercise for me these days.

But what will stop me eating slice after slice of toast, or bowls of yummy pasta when i'm not hungry?

I'll certainly look into Ayurveda and Chinese medicine tho - they are good thoughts.

[love9]

Hmm!, you have a difficult problem on your hands, have you ever thought of using hypnosis?

The hypnotist would guide you to reprogrammed your subsconscient in such a way that this emotional blockage would dissipate.

[Belle]

I have tried hypnosis.

It didn't work.

The problem is, the problem is deeper rooted, so deep rooted that hypnosis can only paper over the cracks.

[love9]

I have tried hypnosis.

It didn't work.

The problem is, the problem is deeper rooted, so deep rooted that hypnosis can only paper over the cracks.

Ah, how unfortunate!

May you tell, ''the problem is deeper rooted'', is it rooted in the subsconcient mind, the emotional body, or else?

Wherever your problem stand, do you still have a way out of this?

All the best to you!

[IsleWalker]

Belle--

There is a book by Matt Cooper called Diet Recovery. It is a "diet" designed for people who have (a) eating disorders (b) have done constant dieting their whole lives, (c) suffer from metabolic disorders or (d) suffer from thyroid or other problems.

I'm still in the middle of it. It is not for the feint of heart because basically, you throw away all the "rules"-- about "bad" foods, about what not to eat. In fact, you go through a "refeeding phase" (which varies for everyone) where you intentionally eat to raise your temperatures. You eat 4S--Salt, Sugar, Starch, Saturated fat--all the things we've been taught not to eat. You eat what it is you crave and eventually get some clues about what your body has been craving.

The signposts of whether you need this diet are whether you frequently have cold hands and feet, if you urinate frequently and your urine is not very yellow (we've been taught the opposite), if you can't sleep through the night. So you track your temps at first. Being between 98 and 99 degrees is optimal, and toward the high side is better.

It also talks about exercise and how you do it. I have always walked or run. He points out that what runners do to improve, is to add more running time. Since I don't push myself, but I do add more and more consecutive days, I was essentially training my body's metabolism to downgrade, so I could go longer on less. I didn't ever feel tired when I got home. But I never had energy to burn either, and did have "dead spots" during the day when I crashed.

He points out that we can actually decrease the size of our organs by the diets we practice along with the exercise, or extreme exercise.

I caution that I am still not certain how good an idea this "diet" was since you almost inevitably "step back" for a while while you are refeeding.

I did learn some interesting things. What seemed to help me the most--and was a surprise to me--was dairy fats. I've eaten non-fat milk, yogurts, everything my whole life--not even as a diet thing, but just as a health thing. But when I began to eat dairy fats, I saw my skin finally start to look healthier and to heal--spots that appeared from nowhere and never went away.

But now I see that changing too. I had a hard time knowing when to start back up with exercise since I was still cold at night. I kept eating later and later to see if I could change that pattern. I never did solve it.

But maybe just the reading of the book might give you a new way to look at the issue. It should be fun. We should have energy to burn. We should be able to enjoy food without worry.

I don't know if this will help you, but it might. There is also a related forum where lots and lots of people on his diet (and others) talk to him and each other.

What I felt this diet was, was a training in getting rid of all the fears associated with food, eating, chemicals, studies about foods, etc. In this forum, we know that fears are the biggest impediment to growing. It may be as true with food.

Good luck. This isn't for everyone. If the symptoms seem to fit, you might check it out.

Lora

P.S. Oh--it also began to cause me to look at the spiritual causes behind particular kinds of eating. I have a little dictionary of the emotional/spiritual reasons behind illnesses. It had said that people with fat around the stomach area "don't experience enough of the sweetness in life". That requires a spiritual cure rather than a dietary one. But I realized that the lack of fats --was a resistance to the smoothness, the frictionlessness of life. For me that made sense.

[Nameless]

Abraham has a CD and a video called Think and Get Slim. I have played it in my car many times, and I haven't moved my weight an inch yet.

Seth also had some helpful advice I channeled - I'll see if I can insert it here.

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=565751&postcount=5

I think you have to get to a place where you love eating whatever it is you are eating, and you stop telling yourself the things you are telling yourself when you eat whatever it is you eat. It's all about what we are telling ourselves about food - and trying to catch yourself thinking, for me anyway on this subject, is a challenge - it is so ingrained, I don't even *hear* myself telling myself those things, but I know I do - darn it.

Because you can be a fat person who eats icecream, or a thin person who enjoys eating icecream, it is not about the icecream LOL, it is what you are thinking when you eat the icecream. The thin person doesn't think negative thoughts about eating the icecream, they are just enjoying eating it. The fat person makes deals with the icecream LOL.

[SoftKittyLover]

Maybe you had some issue with food in a past life????


I always comfort eat and went to a medium who told me in a past life that I died of starvation...it actually made a lot of sense to me....and I find when Im hungry now I keep thinking you can wait an hour you are not going to die of starvation in this life lol

Hope this helps a little :)

Jenny
xxx

[Belle]

Thank you all

Nameless I will look up the CD.

I'm convinced there is an emotional and spiritual issue at stake. I'm "managing it" at the moment by 3 rigid meals a day. But it feels "managed", not that I'm loving myself.

I'm intrigued about the idea of bringing in creamy fats, the sweetness of life. That's an interesting expression and I fully get it, it resonates deeply as the sweetness of life is missing from my life. Sure, I do it, and it's not without joy but the deep full joy is not there.

[IsleWalker]

I'm intrigued about the idea of bringing in creamy fats, the sweetness of life. That's an interesting expression and I fully get it, it resonates deeply as the sweetness of life is missing from my life. Sure, I do it, and it's not without joy but the deep full joy is not there.

Yes, so for me, the next question is: What things make me feel the sweetness/joy in life? What do I need to change?

Sometimes these things resolve just with the recognition of the problem. I haven't recognized it all that long yet, so we'll see.

Lora

P.S. I also noticed my own reluctance to eat enough proteins--or I eat the "easy" ones like beans, nuts, yogurt, etc. I think it might tie to reluctance in the "DO" part or life. I'm great at the Thinking part! But do and muscle seem to go together and I find myself resistant. All very interesting.

[Belle]

IsleWalker - you've hit the nail on the head in many respects. Because engaging with the sweetness and joy in life - that's about engagement with the heart.

And isn't that what it's all about. Finding your heart, releasing your heart, engaging your heart. Lovely.

And poor relationship with food, it's a way of not looking at your heart. In some shape or form. And sure, it can be deep rooted, it can be past life, it can be other things but surely there is a heart issue connected?

[IsleWalker]

IsleWalker - you've hit the nail on the head in many respects. Because engaging with the sweetness and joy in life - that's about engagement with the heart.

And isn't that what it's all about. Finding your heart, releasing your heart, engaging your heart. Lovely.

And poor relationship with food, it's a way of not looking at your heart. In some shape or form. And sure, it can be deep rooted, it can be past life, it can be other things but surely there is a heart issue connected?

Yes, Belle, either not looking at your heart, not allowing yourself to give of your heart or not allowing the feeling in your heart. For me, that is my core/where I feel the most in the most balanced way. And it is the key to the eating (and many other) of my own issues.

Sounds like you have good insight already into where you want to head with this. Carry on! :hug:

Lora

[7luminaries]

Hey this is a great discussion all...someone wrote a book on eating and mindfulness and love from a woman's perspective...can't recall but can probably find it. I didn't read it but I skimmed it and thought it had a lot of insight for people generally about loving the self...body and soul.

I personally feel it is very important to get good quality protein (like eggs, poultry, fish, cheese, kefir, yoghurt) nearly every day...and a bit of organic, grass fed red meat like lamb a handful of times a year).

I also think it's very important to get a few tablespoons of good fat every day (organic butter/cream, olive oil, and coconut oil...and a bit of chocolate :wink:...that's pretty much it), along with veggies and just small bits of carbs like rice, bread or most fruits.

Food hell for me is a bad tummy and being forced to eat only say, eggs (fine) and loads of rice & bread (groan...ick)....LOL.

Definitely, I think we should love the temple of the soul (=the body) and nurture it lovingly with good, substantial foods, herbs, and teas...don't deprive yourself of those things and remember you and your temple deserve them :hug3:

Peace & blessings,
7L

[shone]

I think you have something else you stressed about and then you are hiding your stress in food. To fight this you need to look into what is bothering you and fix it instead of hiding in food.

[Kupava]

I use to eat emotionally,everyone does but I have to say having a spiritual life,a soulful life closed that gap,it fulfils me more than food does.

[Belle]

shone that's what I'm trying to address

Kupava - I'm a spiritual being but I'm trying to find the healing so I eat well, and joyfully, and in a way that nourishes me.

[Gem]

shone that's what I'm trying to address

Kupava - I'm a spiritual being but I'm trying to find the healing so I eat well, and joyfully, and in a way that nourishes me.

Hey Belle,

Have you read much about comfort eating?

[Belle]

Gem - a little. This is what I'm looking to address. But I am not sure what comes first with it, the need for comfort or what.

I'm also aware that when I'm presented with gorgeous food, I can't enjoy it, even if it is nourishing and bursting with goodness and a sensory heaven. And I would love to be able to go out and really enjoy a meal, or cook some nourishing and delicious food and eat with the freedom of not worrying about overeating / undereating etc. Just sufficient to what my body wants and needs.

There are two separate issues I think.

[in progress]

Besides what I mentioned earlier, I find myself doing a lot of mindless eating. I don't just eat. I eat while surfing on the computer, eat while watching television etc.

I'm guessing if I paid attention to eating while I did it (be in the moment and totally grounded) I would probably eat less. I've been thinking about giving it a try first w/o any huge dietary changes just as an experiment.

[Belle]

Besides what I mentioned earlier, I find myself doing a lot of mindless eating. I don't just eat. I eat while surfing on the computer, eat while watching television etc.

I'm guessing if I paid attention to eating while I did it (be in the moment and totally grounded) I would probably eat less. I've been thinking about giving it a try first w/o any huge dietary changes just as an experiment.

I tried that, and I mindfully chomped my way through the same amount of rubbish, and I mindfully considered being more mindful the next day.

I know that I'm pretty negative and resistant on this subject, it's just I've looked at so many different things.

[Gem]

Gem - a little. This is what I'm looking to address. But I am not sure what comes first with it, the need for comfort or what.

I'm also aware that when I'm presented with gorgeous food, I can't enjoy it, even if it is nourishing and bursting with goodness and a sensory heaven. And I would love to be able to go out and really enjoy a meal, or cook some nourishing and delicious food and eat with the freedom of not worrying about overeating / undereating etc. Just sufficient to what my body wants and needs.

There are two separate issues I think.

I think it's normal to be unsure about it, and that could be a bit unsettling, but there are two clear things as I see it. You acknowledge the problem is there and you are looking to address it... maybe how to address it is not so certain.

Ok... so even though it's comfort eating, it's not actually an enjoyment of food, and there's some worrying involved in it too.

I don't know much about it, so what can I say... but I think it's good to read up on comfort eating and learn about it, so at least you are well informed (unlike me who knows next to nothing on it). That would help to understand it better I'd imagine... and bring a little bit more certainty on it.

[Belle]

Thanks Gem, I do appreciate you taking the time and trouble to post.

This sort of behaviour is, in my mind (and in my channelling) a form of rejection of self. A lack of full engagement with the heart. When the heart sings, then things filter into place. It's an issue that is beset with layers of complexity and a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and so on.