Fit Fare

This is part of the Healthy Book Club. My mission for the Healthy Book Club is to present you with books that will provide you with the tools and inspiration to live a healthy, balanced and happy life. So pull up a comfy chair and let’s get reading!

Have you ever eaten when you were bored, angry, tired, sad, lonely or even happy – but not hungry?

I haven’t met more than a few people who can honestly say that they haven’t picked up a fork when they really needed to pick up the phone, or who won’t admit to at least once digging into something sweet when they really wanted to dig into their boss. I’d venture to say, most people in this country are emotional eaters.

I think the holidays are an extremely complicated time for emotional eaters. There are holiday parties on the weekends and gift baskets in the office during the week. Opportunities to eat are everywhere, and it can be overwhelming.

And that’s why I wanted to share this powerful book with you: Breaking Free from Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth. Roth, who struggled with food for more than 17 years, has seen the ups and downs of eating for the wrong reasons, and she’s developed a plan to help you manage and overcome this addiction.

Roth’s main assertion is that most people have been dieting or restricting themselves and then subsequently binging for so long that they don’t even know when they’re hungry and they don’t care about being full. The idea is to eat, eat, eat when we’re not dieting and to count, restrain and limit ourselves when we are dieting. It’s a painful and draining cycle.

Whether you binge regularly, or you just have a habit of overeating when you’re stressed, Roth has suggestions. First, she says to reconnect with what it feels like to be hungry. Most of us are so programmed to eat at certain hours that we don’t even consider if we’re hungry when it’s lunchtime. What would happen if you waited to eat until you were hungry?

I once practiced an Ayurvedic technique of not eating after 5pm. The first thing I noticed was how much fear I had around the idea of being hungry. What would happen if I was hungry? Would I get sick? Would I pass out? Nope. The only thing that happened when I was hungry was that I was hungry. It was a feeling like anything other, and if I relaxed into it, drank some hot tea or read a book, it went away.

The next step is to eat exactly what you want. Imagine getting to eat whatever you want, no restrictions. When Roth first did this, she ate nothing but chocolate chip cookies and raw chocolate chip cookie dough for two weeks. Two weeks! After depriving herself for so long, that’s what she craved. Given the freedom to choose, though, she soon began to crave foods that were good for her, too.

Emotional eating is a complex and deep issue, and one that takes constant consciousness and patience to overcome. If you’re struggling with it or know someone who is, check out Roth’s loving guide and tips for getting through it.