Emotional Eating and Showing Kindness to Ourselves
January 5, 2021
Happy New Year! 2020 was so crazy, so I know that everyone is excited to be in 2021 and see where this year takes us. While you’re busy setting goals and making plans for the next 12 months, I have some exciting news! Lisa Lomax is going to be joining our team this year as our Emotional Eating Specialist! I was so excited to talk to Lisa about what she does and what her work means, and I can’t wait to share our interview with you all.
Liza first told me that emotional eating has a tendency to come from one of two extremes: a household of abundance or a household of lack. When you were growing up, if you lived in a home where food was always readily available, you might have learned to go and grab a snack whenever because you’re used to having however much food you want. On the flip side, if you grew up not knowing where your next meal will come from, you might be programmed now to eat anything that you can. Both upbringings (and lots in the middle) can lead to emotional eating.
We’ve all grown up hearing about how our diet impacts our bodies and how our bodies have to look a certain way. That’s why Lisa says the most important step is to change your mindset before you even start working on anything else!
I know this is SO true for me. Growing up Jewish, we used food to celebrate everything! We would celebrate with food, mourn with food, and never show up to someone’s house without food. Eventually, I realized that it’s totally fine to use food to be social and celebrate, but it doesn’t have to be unhealthy--delicious healthy snacks work, too!
As one of our co-coaches in our VIP Community, 365 Days of Healthy Living, Lisa is going to be popping in monthly with a video to help with our mindset and our progress. Her focus will be on emotional eating with nuggets of truth and tips that you can incorporate into your daily life right now! She’s going to be talking about what emotional eating really is, why we eat emotionally, and how to identify emotional eating in yourself or in others.
Lisa recommends that you get started towards healthy progress today by practicing saying “I am” each day. The words we call ourselves have power, so calling ourselves negative words will lead to negative energy and bad days overall. Instead, Lisa wants us to use “I am” with all the positive things about ourselves! Whether it’s powerful, beautiful, strong, or worthy, reminding yourself of all your best traits will help you to feel your very best and have brighter days.