Here’s a question: when you have to do hard things, do you find yourself wanting to eat?
This can look like a number of different things:
You just finished up a tiring, challenging meeting. Everyone was kind of annoying, and the meeting went on longer than you wished it would. Afterwards, you feel yourself reaching for a muffin from the break room…
It’s the middle of the afternoon, and you’re at work. You’d not in the mood to deal with these emails or finish up that project. You find yourself reaching for some mini candy bars…
You’re at a party filled with people. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but something or someone is making you feel jumpy. You find yourself reaching for a handful of tortilla chips…
You’re wrangling your kids. They’re being loud and difficult. You find yourself reaching for some cookies from the cabinet…
If you frequently find yourself in situations like that, you may begin to believe you have a food problem. As in: I keep eating even though I know I’m not hungry! I have a food problem!
And yet, is it really a food problem? Because it sounds like a life problem to me.
It sounds like your life is tiring or stressful or anxious-making, and for whatever reason — hey, it happens to the best of us — you reach for food in those moments.
I’m not saying that food isn’t causing problems for you. Eating too much in those times might make you feel uncomfortable or unhappy. In the long term, it might affect your health or weight in ways you don’t prefer.
But, if we didn’t reach for food in those moments — which is one thing we gradually explore doing in the Dessert Club — you might find yourself in an even more challenging situation. Your body might feel extremely stressed or angry or tired. You might want to scream or cry. You might feel like you’re about to jump out of your skin, or explode.
(This might sound extreme, but it’s what Dessert Club participants tell me all the time. For most of us, that situation is only hypothetical. They are the brave ones who actually try it.)
Ironically, “removing the food” is actually one of the easier parts. It’s actually dealing with the life problems underneath, and our deepest reactions to them, that can get very, very tricky. Those life problems can be dealt with through experimentation, patience, and kindness.
But you’re never going to get there if you keep thinking that it’s all about the food.
…
Ultimately, if you’re someone who reaches for pita chips or an Oreo when life gets tough, you need an approach that integrates (1) figuring out how to relate to food in a way that serves you better with (2) figuring out how to relate to your life in a way that doesn’t require you to turn to food all the time.
(Oh, and if you’re interested in the Dessert Club, I recently posted the next round of groups, which start in March.)