Thinking About Food

Do you wish you could stop obsessing about food? You may think the opposite of obsessing about food, is not thinking about food at all. Wrong!

What is the difference between obsessing about food and thinking about food?

This topic came up in group just the other day, and when you’ve spent years obsessing about every bite you take, and every bite you shouldn’t take, you may think  you do a lot of thinking about food. But there’s a difference between obsessive thinking that winds  you tighter and tighter into a downward spiral, and giving real thought to food.

If you don’t obsess about food, you probably think people who eat compulsively think about food all of the time. But you would be surprised at how little time compulsive eaters really take to think about and plan what they are going to eat.

If  you eat compulsively you may plan your binge, but most of the planning is around procuring the food without being seen, and sneaking it to wherever it is you’re going to hold up and eat. So much of your eating is impulsive and avoidance driven, and very little time is given to thinking about what would truly satisfy you. What’s easy? What’s quick? What will fill me?

Most people who struggle with food and weight don’t believe they have a right to eat or get pleasure from food. When you don’t believe you have the right to eat, you are always avoiding eating, and then when you do eat, the guilt is overwhelming.

The antidote to this is Intuitive eating, but that requires you to tune in and think about what food will really satisfy you, and then plan, shop and take the time to prepare that  food for yourself.

Learning to eat intuitively means learning you are worth the time and energy it takes to make a beautiful meal or snack. You are worth the highest quality and most pleasurable and satisfying food. When you are learning to eat intuitively nothing short of that should cross your lips whenever possible.

When you think about food remember:

• Think about what is wholesome, satisfying and fresh, because those are the qualities of really delicious food.
• If you get home without having given any thought to what you’re going to eat, you will be grabbing stuff out of the cupboards or the freezer.
• If you wait too long to eat you will be overly hungry, once again be grabbing whatever is around without any thought to what will truly satisfy you.
• You’ll also find it more challenging to stop when you feel sated, because you have gotten too hungry and you’re in a panicky.

So let’s take some time to think about food.