The problem? Emotional Eating

I think we've all heard this before. Oprah kinda led the way in talking about it. People eat when they're not hungry because they are trying not to deal with whatever feelings they are having at that moment. I always knew I was an emotional eater. But I kept doing it. I knew I should be asking myself if I was hungry before I ate a whole bag of chips, but I just didn't care enough or I wasn't aware of what I was doing enough. But for some reason, this book really got thru to me. (Not to insinuate that I am magically "cured" or anything, but there has been a definitive change and I really don't turn to food when I'm feeling bad anymore.)

The book is Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth, which talks about emotional eating in a way that has made me really realize why I overeat. It explains just how much compulsive eating is a way to self-medicate and numb bad feelings. Food can be just as much of a drug as alcohol or cocaine.

I first heard about this book on Oprah, and she was going on about how it changed her life. I kinda thought, yeah, yeah, how life changing could it be? But it got to me too!

Since I have really gotten something out of it, I am going to share my favorite quotes from the book with you in hopes that you might get something out of it too.

• Women turn to food when they are not hungry because they are hungry for something they can't name.
• Compulsive eating is an attempt to avoid the absence (of love, comfort, knowing what to do) when we find ourselves in the desert of a particular moment, feeling, situation.
• Weight is what happens when you use food to flatten your life. It's giving up without saying so.
• Staying where you are with what you are feeling or seeing or sensing is the first step in ending the obsession with food.
• If you don't allow a feeling to begin, you also don't allow it to end.
• The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value and possibility.
• Change happens when you understand what you want so deeply that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest.
• When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart.

The book does more than a few quotes can, so I highly recommend it to anyone who feels like they are an emotional eater.