Struggling with food is never easy. How many nights will it take of going to bed resolving to be “better” or go on a diet the next day? Then, the next day comes, and the first grumble sends anxiety through your body. What should you eat? What could you eat? Maybe you should join a weight loss group – Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig? They plan all your meals for you – you won’t have to think. Should you be exercising? How much, what type? Then, the grumbling gets louder – the anxiety grows, and you turn to what you know to be comforting – food. Maybe you can keep it under control for one meal, but you know this pattern all too well – sometimes a full belly is the only thing that makes you feel whole, feel relief – or feel anything. For others, it’s the purging.
Struggling with food is hard – it’s not like struggling with other abused substances, like alcohol. Alcoholics need to cut alcohol out completely. It’s different with food – people have to eat to survive. We are not plants – we cannot photosynthesize our energy. We have to eat. So where does the healing begin?
I named my company B3yond Nutrition because most often issues with food are not only about food, but about our lives – our experiences, and our interpretations of those experiences. Sometimes when a person explains these experiences, hearing them out loud, allows them the opportunity to change perspective. Within that window, where perspective alters, there is opportunity for healing.
It’s important to eat nourishing foods, and in the right quantity. We know this – it is the platform for the slogan: Energy in and Energy out. Finding this balance, though, is personal, and often not always apparent. Finding this balance often does not happen overnight – but one failed effort does not predict future failed efforts. Failure is the opportunity to learn what works, and what doesn’t. Allowing yourself the freedom to forgive yourself, wether it be with food, past or present life experiences or choices, and/or all of the above, allows you to move forward positively. It is within this movement forward that you become stronger, building brick by brick, little by little, tiny habit by tiny habit, a lifetime of healthy choices. Here, in this “area under construction”, you learn what it is that you really need – emotionally, socially, physically, and spiritually. And it’s okay to have these needs – they make you, you. Accepting yourself, and what you need, with love and kindness, helps create another opportunity – one where you truly learn how to feed yourself.
If you find yourself searching on how to take some positive steps forward, let’s talk. You can reach me at 973.852.3335.
