News

Emotional Eating. This Is The Real Reason You Do It.

"overcome binge eating"

The thing with your eating, your emotional eating, is that it is serving you in some way. Whether you realize it or not, you are benefiting from it. It’s allowing you to escape, to push down the stress and anxiety about not just your busy day but about how your life is turning out.

How you are turning out.

And at the same time, it is allowing you to perpetuate beliefs about yourself, beliefs that often go way back.

Most women who struggle with emotional eating and self-sabotage do so not because they are weak-willed or simply stuck in a bad pattern, but because they are lost for true direction and purpose, for life satisfaction really, and because they are bound by a myriad of beliefs and expectations about who they are and who they are allowed to be.

The eating is not about the food, it’s not about the heady rush of sugar or comfort starch, but rather it’s about creating a sense of fullness emotionally. Spiritually even.

And this is the reason why you can go from feeling ‘fine’, from being certain that you’ll go to bed proud and light of stomach, to “what the frick did I just do?” And “I can’t believe I did it again. I can’t believe I’m so weak.” And to “I’m such a loser. There must be something wrong with me.”

And when it happens, after it happens, there truly is an element of surprise in there isn’t there? A faint wonder that you could suddenly just slide into that other world when you really thought you’d be able to power through this time. Wonder mixed with irritation at yourself, as well as with despair, resignation, guilt, shame and perhaps even hopelessness.

And you ask yourself, somewhere deep within you, if you will ever escape this cycle, this thing you consider so ridiculous about yourself and that nobody but you knows the full truth of or would ever understand.

i understand

I spent 10 years battling bulimia and binge eating.

Even though it is now behind me I still know what it’s like to walk past the pantry thinking you’re fine and then to ‘wake up’ an hour or more later after gorging yourself in a frenzy, feeling powerless to stop.

I know what it’s like to go into the store for a few dinner items and come out with blocks of sweet chocolate, packets of biscuits or donuts or frozen cheesecake.

I know what it’s like to tell yourself you’re not actually going to do the binge, at least not tonight. But to know deep down that of course you are, that you were always going to, that it was planned in your sub-conscious from early on in the day. Perhaps from earlier on than that even. Perhaps, you may wonder, from so far back that you truly don’t have any power over it.

I know what it’s like to discipline yourself to be good, strict, to eat well and train hard, but with every day that you do so to feel the urge, the pressure building within. The knowledge that each additional day, in fact each minute that passes is just bringing you one step closer to the inevitable. The feeling that you may as well just get it over with so that you can start afresh.

And of course the fear that you’ll never truly be able to start afresh, that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, that you just don’t have what it takes or you’re somehow not good enough to be naturally healthy, clean, confident. That you somehow don’t deserve to live in true freedom.

I know what it’s like to go out for dinner or to someone’s house, to be feeling pretty good about yourself and in control until you somehow – and in less than a moment – pass ‘that’ point. And you then make a conscious decision to write off the rest of the night, maybe even the rest of the weekend.

I know what it’s like to present a healthy, fit, energized, successful exterior to the world, to be admired and looked up to for who you are and all that you manage and yet to feel like an absolute and complete mess and failure, to feel as though your heart and soul are clenched in fear and as though you’ll never truly break free, never truly be that girl.

Yes. I’ve been there. Done that. Too many times to possibly try and count.

To say it sucks is to say being hit by a bus would hurt.

This thing eats you alive. It robs you of the right to be you. It beguiles you, convinces you, and then rips out any last vestige of self-belief or confidence. It consumes you, and you truly start to believe you are powerless to escape. And you start to wonder if you really want to, need to, if it’s that much of a big deal after all.

So listen up.

It is a big deal. It is something to want to overcome. But not through discipline or self-will, or by finding the perfect diet or trainer.

Me, I’ve escaped. Finally, and for a good few years now but it took a good few of back and forth before that. I wish I had have had the insight into the ‘why’ of it all, the insight I can now share with you so that you too can break free.

Because I have broken free, and you know what? It’s as good as you think it will be on the other side 🙂

I now have a great relationship with food and my body. I not only feel and look good, but I know that I am good and that, perhaps, is the greatest win of all.

And if I’ve been able to break free, even after 10 years of being bound by food and myself, even after using it – needing it – as a crutch to help me through some seriously tough times then, well then –

 

So too can you.

you are not alone. and – how is this serving you?

You think you’re alone in turning a meal out into a binge? In not being able to stop eating from dinner through to bed? In mindless grazing of food you don’t need or even enjoy? In binges either planned or spontaneous?

Not true.

I work with successful and driven women and a shockingly percentage of them have issues with food. Sometimes dating back decades. Often a complete secret from everyone around them. Always accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness but also a desire to believe that one day they could leave it all behind them.

The thing with your eating, your emotional eating, is that it is serving you in some way. Whether you realize it or not, you are benefiting from it. It’s allowing you to escape, to push down the stress and anxiety about not just your busy day but about how your life is turning out. How you are turning out.

And at the same time, it is allowing you to perpetuate beliefs about yourself, beliefs that often go way back.

I’m not good enough.

I’m not cool.

I’m just not that attractive.

I’m unloveable.

There is something fundamentally wrong with me.

I’ve broken some sort of rule and therefore deserve to be punished.

If I had the body or life I wanted I would draw too much attention to myself, or make other people in my life feel bad.

So here is what it comes down to.

You are not weak-willed.

Your are not simply stuck in a bad rut.

And unless you make a conscious choice, unless something changes about the way you see yourself and your future, then no, you are not going to escape one day simply because you’ll find yourself able to say no, to no longer need it.

Now is the time to stop trying to will yourself out of this thing, stop trying to force yourself to just ‘be good’. Now is the time to press play.

To really listen in to what this pressure, this never-ending hunger or urge inside you is all about.

Like finding and living your life purpose perhaps, like finally being true to yourself, true to do the things you dream of even if they are freaking scary and even if you might fail.

Like daring to try doing, being and having the things that you would love most, even if it means letting go of the shoulds, the things you are naturally good or even great at.

Like living every day in a way that seriously meets your inner needs and values, and to hell with what anyone else – even that voice in your head – might have to say about the matter.

Like letting go of the beliefs that have pushed you into this behaviour. This behaviour which you try to shrug off by calling it ‘ridiculous’ or by telling yourself you’ll get it under control. This behaviour that is as powerful as you make it, and as powerful as you’ve allowed it to be.

I have had great success helping women break free of emotional eating. Helping them to stop the cycle of self-sabotage, to finally understand exactly what they want and why they want it, as well as what has held them back so far.

“Working with Kat is not about eat this, train this way, voila you have your dream body. It goes deeper than that and makes you look at WHY you want certain things and why despite working really hard you feel like you are not achieving the things you want to achieve. I have had a number of “breakthroughs”  purely because Kat has, through her coaching and her Transformation Worksheets, encouraged me to delve deeper and think about things differently.Tanya de Pasquale, Tanya de Pasquale Personal Training

The success I’ve had doing this – often transformational in more areas than just the physical – has shaken me to my core. The realisation that so many of the things I truly thought were unique to me about how I viewed my body and about my relationship with food were in fact not unique at all. And it’s been possibly the most important thing I’ve done, the thing that has really made me go –

“Oh my God. This, THIS is it. This is MY purpose, my place of flow, the place where work and life just feels effortless and right and where the need to try and fill myself with food or just to escape not only is gone but has absolutely ZERO hold over me”

Because yeah, even though I was able to break free several years ago, I definitely have still battled that old urge many times since. And it’s always always when I’m not being true to myself, when I’m giving in to old patterns, beliefs, old thoughts about who I can be and what I am worthy of.

“All I say is that I wish I found Kat 10 years ago! Kat is one of those amazing people that CHANGE your life! She will challenge and test everything you think you already know about yourself and I can honestly say it (working with her) is the best gift I have ever given myself.”

Jenna Brockmuller

\