Chasing comfort foods

Hope you are your loved ones are safe and sound. All of the things we were “use to” to feel good may not be as available to us as before. Whether it was meeting friends for dinner, volunteering, stopping at the park to sit by a tree, celebratory functions, swimming in the pool or ocean and cooking for friends. All of these activities plus more offered us comfort and connection. How are we receiving comfort now?

Currently, I am feeling weepy, empowered, wishing I could do more, grateful, ANGRY and lonely. So for me, your basic giant wave of emotions combined with stress. I am hungry and at the same time, tired from not sleeping well, needing to sit with all of these feelings and not wanting a big meal to distract me. This jicama (Spanish potato) jumped in my cart on my last visit to the store and now the crunch is what I craved for breakfast while feeling all of these feels.

In the Conscious Cravings book, I spotlight how cravings ARE supporting you. Instead of being in a power struggle with them, try to work with them both physically and emotionally. Here is crunchy and no wonder this craving is apparent, overwhelm is one of the main feelings we are all experiencing.

Being present with our feelings takes a lot of focus and compassion, especially if your nervous system is in fight, flight, freeze or fawn. If this craving took you over, how would you respond?

Would you judge it? Manipulate it? Obsess over it? Ignore it? Nurture it? 

I use to be and still get to practice my ongoing relationship with food and my emotions. On a scale of 1-10 on how dysfunctional my love/dislike relationship with food and acknowledging my “gut” feelings was a 30 on dysfunction scale. The constant state of bloating and digestive discomfort disconnected me from my true feelings and how I was relating to myself along with others. I was in a constant state of punishing myself over whatever I chose to eat and fighting the truth of what I was feeling. A very very unhealthy relationship to be in.

After my a-ha moment in my early 30’s, I BE-FRIENDED food for the first time. Being in a healthy and balanced relationship with food will also help us be more understanding with our emotions.

Review the difference characteristics between a healthy and unhealthy relationship below.

Have you ever depended on something so much and you feel constantly disappointed? This is what causes us to be in complicated relationships. With food we may have tried a diet or structured eating plan that worked for us the first time and now we are chasing that feeling. But each time we try to re-create it, we are left feeling disappointed again and again. 

There is a REASON for this. It is called “the principle of favorability“. 

Also known as beginner’s luck or being in the right place at the right time. One of my all time favorite books and that I can’t put down right now is “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. This book speaks of this principle regarding following your heart and living your Personal Legend. For example, when you play a card game for the first time, you have no attachment to the outcome because you are learning it and open to the experience. Another example is going fishing for the first, you are just so excited to be in the elements and on the boat you are enjoying the process and completely detached from the result. 

In the book the Alchemist shares why there is such a thing as beginner’s luck: 

“Because there is a force that wants you to realize your Personal Legend; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.”

However, it’s not easy to be detached from an outcome that felt so good. After you win the card game or catch the fish, this becomes an attachment to an outcome that felt good in the past. 

Chasing the past inhibits us from being in the present. ​And now with all that is going on, this is more important than ever. 

​All of those first time diets caused this ATTACHMENT. And now we are chasing the feel good feeling again. 

Here is how the brain is effected by this Principle of Favorability: 

Look how strong the connection is between the Amygdala and the Hippocampus. The brain and nervous system is leading how we make choices and try to recreate the “good feelings”.This means the your brain is triggering your nervous system to go in and out of an overload of adrenaline, oxygen and cortisol in a low to high intensity way during your day. 

This can hold us back from trying foods that we love and that have healing properties because we are too busy judging them from our past conditioning. I am so grateful for my nutrition science knowledge and now believe our nervous system, subconscious conditioning and psyche are also the PRIORITY! 

If you are craving a different mindset around how you choose food, check out my Upcoming Course! 

The Appetizer course. This isn’t another “program” for you to follow, instead it is learning how to FOLLOW your body, untangle your past conditioning and support your true choices. For one week we practice and observe how your mind and body relates to food. It is time for us shift not being in charge of our relationship with food, body and our COMPLICATED and super stressed mind. The course is scheduled to begin on April 21st, Click here to learn more and sign up!

Love from your nourishment leader,

Heather Fleming, C.C.N.