Why do we eat?

Hello dear all,

Today I would like to talk about answering "obvious" question:

Why do we it?

It seems to be an obvious answer, we eat because we are hungry ... but do we always?

Our habits of food choices start when we are still little, when women are pregnant they tend to eat certain food which in the future influence at some point of child's food choices, also when we think about our society we grew up in, we can see similarities and patterns we tend to repeat when we are adults.

For ex. if in our family people eat heavy foods late in the evenings, we tend to do exactly the same things even when we live far away from them

I would like you to now read a few lines below and answer yourself if that sounds familiar:

• When a child is an infant and doesn't have those "Michelin" rounds - means that has a bad mother, who doesn't care for her child.
• Young mother worry about her child constant cry feeds it, as she confuses it's need of being taken care off (attention) with possible hunger cry.
• Young children are often rewarded with  chocolate or cookies for their good behaviors.

Other beliefs brought from our family homes:

• You need to eat everything from your plate (don't waste the food)! 
• You will make your grandma very happy if you eat it all (acceptance)!
• Chubby kids are healthy kids!
• If you don't eat it all, you won't go out! - or watch TV nowdays!
• The best solution to brighten your mood up are sweeties!
• You mustn't waste your food!
• From tummy to the heart!
• You were always chubby child anyway!

When we start your diets, it is crucial for us to have a positive state of mind, as if we start our diet full with anger and disgust towards ourselves, we will shortly start using food as a reward for a good behavior and within short time we will go back to square 1.

People who often struggle with their emotions often use food as a substitute of feeling "in charge". Food becomes their only source of any power. They start obsessively focusing on keeping this "under control" feeling and become bulimic or anorectic.
Those are very dangerous state of minds and need to be treated by specialists, as it is crucial for people's recovery (never try to do it only by yourself, because you are not alone).

Other type of people with emotional needs are ones who use food as a substitute of emotional stability, they feel helpless in their lifes and often feel powerless towards various situations, so they use food as a substitute of happiness, which in the future  might change into "compulsive overeating disorder".

They tend to "eat their problems" and use food as a distraction beacon.

But in those cases before turning to specialists, we can try to help ourselves by for ex. using various types of distractions from food.

Whenever we have a craving for food (even though we just ate our meal) 
we can for ex. go for a walk, go sleep (not after the meal), take a long shower or simply call  relatives for a chat.

To get help to overcome those situations, we need to observe ourselves and notice in which situations we tend to reach for a junk food.

We can use a diary, in which we will be writing down our feelings at those particular moments. It can help us to answer ourselves a few questions:

• What do I fancy to eat right now?
• How I am going to feel after eating it?
• and the most important one - How do I feel at the moment?

It is very important to write down all of the emotions we feel at those moments, even though they might seem not relevant or chaotic.

I tell you, that what you discover about yourself will shock you to the bitses, but it's ok, this is what suppose to happen.

The Important part is NOT TO JUDGE your feelings nor yourselves, you are there to observe those emotions and to realise which of them are triggering your food cravings. 
Once you know them, then you can change them into positive thoughts.

Remember it's not going to happen within few days, our brains often tend to go back into old behaviors and fellings, so we need time and attention to ourselves, and every time those feelings appear, we need to gently to let them go and assure ourselves that everything is alright, and this is only a change.

TIP: To be able to change something in your life, firstly you need to make a peace with it,
 so remember to  always have positive attitude!

In my next post I will talk little bit about meditation and what kind of benefits we can gain by practicing it.

I would like to finish my post with a fantastic quote, which I recently found on the internet:

"It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you are not." - The Law of Attraction