Food - Lack of Willpower - Stephanie Rogers

August 3, 2015 Stephanie

Have you ever found yourself continuously overeating at meals, mindlessly (or consciously) eating when you aren’t hungry, feeling “out of control” when food is around, feel like the thought of dancing donuts and bacon never leaves your mind, asking yourself what is wrong with you because you can’t turn down the mid-afternoon break room cookies, can’t figure out why you always find yourself rummaging through your fridge before bed and then ultimately feeling like crap about yourself because of the aforementioned happenings. If so, perfect! Perfect because I know exactly how you feel because I was there, and perfect because I can also tell you with 110% confidence that there is nothing wrong with you! Nothing at all. You are not a failure, you are not lacking “will power”, you are not a lost cause, you aren’t weak minded, you are simply using food as a means to fill some sort of void in your life or to manage some sort of uncomfortable feeling or stream of thought.

If you are sitting there reading this and thinking “oh no, not me – that’s not my problem at all, I am just hopelessly addicted to food or I just don’t have any self control” I beg you to reconsider. Do you honestly think that every ‘normal’ or ‘skinny’ person out there was just born with 110x more self control around food than you were?? I mean come on, if you really think about it, you have to agree that that simply cannot be the case.

Your body is so smart, like ridiculously smart – when’s the last time you had to remind your lungs to breathe or your eye-lids to blink, or had to set an alarm to tell your heart to keep beating? That’s what I thought, never. 😉 So where am I going with this? I’m going here: those thoughts and habits you have around food are actually your body screaming at you to pay attention to it’s real needs. They are “red flags” to an inner state of being that our body craves, but that we, as humans, have learned to shut up and ignore so that we can “carry on” with our lives. An example of a couple of red flags in my own life – when I have a sudden urge to eat when I’m clearly not hungry (as in like 10-60 minutes after I just got done shoving my face with food) or a sudden desire for something sweet in the middle of a crazy day when I didn’t sleep well the night before or finding myself elbow deep in a bag of plantain or sweet potato chips after a stressful conversation or day. These things don’t mean that I am a ‘bad person’ or that I have zero self control around food. After over a year of learning to notice and pay attention to these signals, I now know that my body is simply trying to get me to pay attention to it’s needs.

So here is what I’m going to challenge you with today. The next time you find yourself eating when you aren’t hungry, craving sugar during the middle of the afternoon, eating cereal out of the box at 9:00 at night, or reaching for the candy jar as soon as you get home from work I want you to STOP EVERYTHING. I want you to pause and ask yourself the most important question you can ask if you are truly ready to end this cycle for good. And that question is simply this –

‘what do I really need in this moment?’

You might be wondering what a response to this question may look like. Going back to my examples of red flags from above, it could be that I am stressed or overwhelmed, or that I need a mini break to “refresh” my energy or mind, or I am craving social interaction, or I need to process a conversation to see what feelings it really brought up, or that I need transition/down time after a long day, etc. It can and will mean something different every time – but the important part is that you are stopping to notice and ask yourself what it is. Once you create that curiousity you can begin to discover all the ways you “use” food to cope with or mask other feelings or needs. This curiousity is the key to winning your freedom back, to winning your confidence back, and to start LOVING yourself and your life again.

I also want you to know that the first couple of times you ask yourself this question, your response very well may be “I have no idea what I need” and that is totally ok! That is normal. This is a process and it takes a lot of time and patience, but I promise you it works and it is so worth it! If you feel like you need more support, I would love to have a conversation with you! Moving outside of your comfort zone and getting into the “nitty gritty” of your habits is uncomfortable, but it is the most crucial thing you can and must do for self-improvement!

I want to hear your thoughts – post below a way that you can start to become more curious about yourself. Do you have a daily habit that you think may just be a red flag for needing some self-care?