A letter from a friend…

Hey Hun,

Loved your newsletter this week.
A couple of questions for you on emotional eating, I think this is a powerful topic that everyone needs to know.

Is it true that if our body is craving something, it needs it?
ie chocolate?

This is a really good question that is fraught with misunderstanding and confusion.  I have come to see cravings as associations in the body between foods and particular states of being. Perhaps we remember feeling happy and eating chocolate cake.  This association can lead us to feel happy when we eat chocolate cake, use chocolate cake to feel happy in the future or crave chocolate cake when we are feeling or want to feel happy.

When we are craving a thing I believe that it is not that thing that we necessarily need but something that we did receive from that thing.  This could be a nutrient, a mouthfeel or texture, an associated benefit, a nutritional component or something else entirely.

What can we do about this? When we have a craving it is great to step back and ask three questions

• What is happening right now and is there anything similar to other times when I have craved this food?
• How am I feeling emotionally right now?
• What might this food be giving me nutritionally that I might need today?

The answers to this last question might simply be salt or healthy fat or magnesium. The first two questions can bring to light patterns that may have been sabotaging us for ages.

I recently had a large mirror fall on my hand when doing a handstand and went into shock. When my body experienced shock, and an overwhelming amount of adrenaline release, I uncharacteristically craved a peanut butter sandwich. I had just eaten a full lunch and I don’t even eat bread. I wondered if it was the pain my body was in that was making me crave food I wouldn’t normally eat. Is that possible?

This is absolutely possible. There are three very likely possibilities here:

Possibility 1: Your body thinks that there are giant mirrors falling from the sky (and it’s right) and it has to get ready to run away, therefor it is craving carbs so that it can get the job done fast. Your body is trying to save you.

Possibility 2: Your arm hurts and you are craving comfort food. Fair enough! Try almond butter with chocolate or straight out of the jar in a pinch. It’ll do the trick.

Possibility 3: Your body is craving the opiates from the Gluten peptides to literally numb the pain. This might not be so likely for you if you’ve been off the bread for a while but then again…

[if anyone else can think of a possibility here please post something in the comments]

Should I then give in to the craving to numb the pain? or what should I do?

Focus on other methods to calm your body down such as deep breathing (seriously) and going to your happy place… but before you do that maybe you can go to the hospital and make sure your arm is ok. Ice…

Would emotional pain have the same effect?

Chronic emotional pain and chronic physical pain can be very similar in the body. Blunt trauma to the wrist, maybe a bit different. Definitely the chronic emotional pain can cause cravings for carbohydrates because the stress will have an effect on blood sugar regulation. Yes, stress does make you fat (not you personally) and it needs carbs to fuel the fire of dysregulated hormones.

If someone was an emotional eater what should they do to curb it?

I think the first thing to do is to witness what is happening.  I think we are all emotional eaters to some extent, to deny this would make you a robot.  Keep a journal of what happened each time you craved a peanut butter sandwich.  Is there a person or situation in your life that is not serving you?  Is there a person that is serving you too many sandwiches?  Just because we are craving something doesn’t make it good for us.

Seriously… There is a still, small voice within each of us that speaks the truth quietly and can only be heard when we are tuned in to the radio station of our authentic selves. It is not the voice screaming for popcorn, ice cream and chips.  It is not the voice urging us to check our emails every five minutes.  It is not screaming anything top-of-mind but it is there when we listen.  Familiar, this voice has been there all along.  The more we can get to know this authentic self the less we will fall prey to the chocolate cake or peanut butter sandwiches and the more we will feel safe.