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eating, fasting and emotions - a personal journey
28 Dec 2013, 02:59

excited!
04 Dec 2013, 20:10

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eating, fasting and emotions - a personal journey

by jools7 on 28 Dec 2013, 02:59

well, since it's lunch in the cricket, it maybe time for another post!

Rather than just a diary of what I'm eating and what I'm weighing (which I actually love reading about other people), today I'd like to pull out some other things that I've discovered about myself, food and hunger, while on 5/2 fasting.

1. A lot of my overeating is purely emotionally-based - "not surprising" I hear you say - and indeed I've known about it myself for a long time. But I'm having a really interesting time on my fasting days, just noticing what comes up for me emotionally, in the best buddhist tradition (I'm not a buddhist, btw). For starters, I was blaming my often feeling grumpy and irritated on my fast days on the psycho-physiology of fasting, until I worked out that this is one emotional state that I would normally eat to suppress, sometimes without even noticing that I'm feeling that way. Now that I've actually noticed that I'm irritable, I can track it a bit, and work out - is there something or someone I actually should be a bit more irritated with? Well, yes - try the current federal government - am I being true enough to my beliefs, and protesting enough about heartless treatment of asylum seekers, for instance - answer, no, probably not. I could check the possibilities out. And, on another level, do I need to take my own side more, and express my feelings more in my relationships as well? I know I am very good at seeing things from other people's point of view, and even caving in to their opinions - this has cost me at least one relationship in recent times. Which is the perfect answer to my mother's voice in my head, saying,"but if you're more direct with your feelings, people won't like you" - the risk is worth taking I reckon, for the sake of my health, and the health of my relationships.

2. A lot of my overeating is due to a sense of urgency and the fear that I'll miss out. Thanks to @sallyo for pointing this one out! And it's not just the food itself either, it's the whole dynamic around sometimes not feeling that I deserve space on the planet or the right of expression - so then, if I do eat more than just pure hunger would dictate, at least I'll have made some kind of statement, or embodied something, or know that I exist - or so my reasoning sometimes goes. Sort of like, "I eat, therefore I am". Wow, so freeing to write this down, now I'm really laughing at myself! That's really dysfunctional! Bless my little cotton socks! Now that I know this, I can find a more appropriate way to experience existing - as I'm already doing, actually, particularly with moving my body - dance & cycling have been complete godsends for that! I would never give them up, even if my forays into HIIT prove to be useful. So much better ways to embody myself than eating!

3. Exploring hunger. These days, I can usually rely on my own inner parent to allow me to eat when I need to, as well as to provide something yummy & appropriate to eat on my feed days. Gone are the days where I would deny myself food, or stuff myself with complete junk, just because I hated myself, and I believed that I didn't deserve better treatment. One thing I love about 5/2 fasting: for me, it's based on self-love, not self-hatred. Something that I would say is a great asset when fasting is having one of those good internal parents present - and believe me, those of us who had troubled relationships with our real parents have to work quite hard to have a good internal parent! The inner dialogue goes something like this:"oh darling, you're hungry now, how interesting, let's explore that a bit more - oh, you've got an empty feeling on the left side of your solar plexus, have you? - just take the time to really feel what that feels like" - and so on. Some really interesting things can come up when we allow ourselves to really experience things without feeling like we have to shut them down, often (for me) by eating. For me it's a source of real creativity.

4. Neglect and feeling like I don't deserve to eat well, any old junk will do - this one follows on from self-hatred and misguided attempts at embodiment. But I'm abashed to report that this happened last night, and does in fact happen pretty regularly still, mostly when I'm busy and have overdone things and neglected my needs. So last night, instead of cooking myself a beautiful Jamie Oliver pasta pesto with chicken, for which I had all the ingredients, by the time I got around to it at 7.30 I was just too tired. Funny, my son was originally coming over, but got an offer of "female company" and so cancelled at the last minute - I would have made it for both of us, but for me by myself, it just seemed too hard. Instead I grazed - cheese slices, nuts, leftover biscuits, leftover bread - hmmmmm! Not good!! So if I was to learn from this, I would try to keep my future eating needs a bit closer to my awareness, and make more space for myself to make something yummy & appropriate, rather than kowtowing to other people's agendas - hmmm, sounds like a theme emerging!

Okay, I could go on, believe it or not!! But if you've made it this far, I hope it's been helpful for you - it's certainly been extremely useful for me just to be a bit more conscious of what's actually happening for me behind some of these behaviours - a good reason why CBT, although it has its uses, will never be enough for me! I am just the sort of person who always needs to go deeper :wink:

"the band is playing auld lang syne
But the Heart will not Retreat..."
(L. Cohen "a thousand kisses deep")
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Comments

Very interesting, jools7. I wonder about grumpiness on fasting days. I really do think it has to do with low blood sugar and is chemical. Personally, I wouldn't be taking it too seriously. But I could be wrong.
What a fabulous, inspiring and well written post. You have given me real food for thought. Happy New Year Jools7
thanks so much, @rawkaren - reading it again now it seems very dense - but there is a lot going on inside my scone at the moment! So glad you found it interesting! I guess my motivation was just for me to sort things out for myself by writing them down, but fantastic that others might find it useful. I really find 5/2 fasting is a great opportunity for mindfulness around all of this stuff.

And @sallyo - since I have type 2 diabetes I've been able to check my sugars while fasting - for the first month or more they were actually higher than normal, and even now when they've settled down, they never go really low. And since I realized what was happening, I haven't been feeling nearly so grumpy! But maybe it's a combination of the two factors, as you say.

Hope you both have a great New Year! Looking forward to continuing hanging out on the forums with you in 2014!

cheers,
Jools xx
Very interesting, blood sugars didn't go down! So perhaps you are right and it's all about deep unspoken irritations which surface because we're not stuffing down food. I'll think about this next time it happens.
Lovely to read you deep thoughts jools there were many points that struck a chord with me. Let's us not even begin with the treatments of refugees, sigh. Meeting other people's needs first and then only crumbs figuratively left for ourselves so grab any food to fuel. I get where you come from, but nuts cheese and crackers are still scrummy even if there are more nutritious things. I started 5:2 because I am an emotional eater who can binge and ate to have energy as I was so exhausted multitasking so I know what you say about poor self care. Keep up blogging will keep an eye out. Thanks
Oooh this is good good good Jools7! I agree throughout your thoughts - me too on every count.
Perhaps a fasting day should be a 'me' day, spent away from others, doing nice things for yourself, in a perfect world that is :0)
Pip pip old bean
Thank you for a wonderful piece of writing, very insightful

I've read a lot about mindful eating and the simple point of questioning when you reach for the cupboard/fridge asking yourself "why am I doing this". The challenge is even though I know these techniques, sometimes I sabotage my own happiness and success by doing it anyway, by binging.

The grumpiness on fast days was recently acutely highlighted to me when I tried to do a 5 day detox juice fast - by day 3 I was so angry with everything and everyone I actually quit thinking to myself "why the hell am I putting myself through this". But for me emotions and eating are intimately connected; the fact that I resot to food when I am emotional and couldn't this time tipped me over the edge.

The psychology of eating is fascinating; thanks for a great prompt, reminder and food for thought (the best kind ;-))
Thank you so much for your sweet & interesting comments, @jeninboston,@Azureblue and @gillymary &sallyo (meant to thank you before, Sally!)

oh, jeninboston, I so know that sabotage thing! A couple of days ago in the forums, I wrote a post with some thoughts on dealing with bingeing - just search for "how to stop the binge" - sorry, still not sure how to post links!

So maybe time to deal with the emotion? Then we can be free to resort to food, or not!, having learnt something about ourselves & how to parent ourselves well. (talking to myself here as much as anyone - I certainly need more practice in this!!)

Azureblue, love the idea of spending fast day as a "me" day (when possible!!). I think this goes along with the ancient spiritual tradition of fasting too - making it somehow special and "sacred". I'd love to explore that more.

Gillymary, yes, don't let's get started on the treatment of asylum seekers, I might just have to die of shame as an Aussie in an international forum - so torn between pride & shame, being Australian! Really complicated! Yes, I often eat when tired to "get energy" - finding that allowing myself breaks and sleep are also important here. It's better than it used to be for me, I've spent 35 years being on call at night in anaesthetics (not any more thank goodness!) - stress plus sleep deprivation plus eating to try to get through that - it's absolutely no wonder that I have type 2 diabetes! Wish I'd realized it years ago - but of course, there's the lack of self-care thing again!
oh dear! Still didn't thank you properly @sallyo - here's a special thank you for you now!!
Oh Jools - having read your blog, I have come to the conclusion that we may have been separated at birth!!

Talk about striking a chord - inner parenting, self care, mindfulness, sabotage....I could go on! We sooooo need to start that Mountaineers Tent ASAP!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your insights. I really think that it will help so many people & look forward to the chance to "go deep".

:smile:
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