Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body

I’ve not been writing since I was getting ready for the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body Workshop. The workshop was amazing and it was a truly great group of women. It’s always so healing for me to have a bunch of women together in a room talking about their relationship with food. For anyone who has a dysfunctional relationship with food, just hearing that someone else has the same issues and does the same things you do is very,very helpful. It’s funny how we all think we’re the only ones and that we’re totally alone in our crazy behavior. Everyone thinks their situation is so unique yet I hear the same things over and over again in every workshop. Certainly there’s no one who has done anything in regards to bingeing that I haven’t already done myself.

I think the tide is finally beginning to turn because more and more women are realizing that if their eating behaviors are out of balance, then there is a deeper issue. It always surprises me when women say things like, “I just need to get to the gym more or I just need to get my food under control.” You can’t compartmentalize your eating behavior. Everything in life is connected.

I always ask the women in my workshops if they hate their jobs. Often the answer is yes, and yet they don’t see the connection between hating what they do all day and then coming home at night and devouring a pint of ice cream or an entire box of cookies. It pains me that they always assume that the behavior is caused by their own weakness or lack of willpower. Of course this is what the diet industry would like us to believe. But I have news for everyone, if you are overeating consistently and feel like you can’t trust yourself around food, there are real reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing. Instead of asking ourselves what’s really going on, we try to get a grip on our food intake which is just addressing the symptom but not the disease. It’s like having a brain tumor and taking pain killers to get rid of your headache--that’s what dieting is for someone who is an emotional eater. It’s not doing anything to address the cause of the issue. I’m hoping that if nothing else all of the lovely ladies who attended the workshop are seeing their issues just a little bit differently and are able to feed their souls. When you feed your soul, you will inherently know how to feed your body.