Emotional eating is my Roman Empire.

I am not shutting up about this until I am *healed* (with star emojis) and that day is *coming* (with clap emojis) my friends mark your calendars we are almost there.

Congruence vs. dissonance

Every time I say I will do something and then I do it I build two things: a habit I want to have in my life and self trust. The latter is arguably more important. This is the muscle I want to be able to flex. I want unshakeable trust in myself. I want to know I can count on myself one hundred percent without any hesitation to keep my own word to myself.

These are the things I want to keep my word to myself about as I heal from a disordered relationship with eating:

1. I will feel my emotions all the way through rather than distracting or numbing with food or scrolling.
2. I will make a plan for what I will eat the day and follow it. If I want something else, that’s great, it’s noted, it’s a yes, and it goes on the plan for the following day or later in the week.
3. I will respond to my hunger by eating. I will not push it off until it “goes away”. I will carry snacks with me if I have to.
4. I will eat mindfully and intentionally. This means I have to create space and time in my life to eat. I can’t hear my own body when I am stressed, extremely emotional, rushed, or trying to listen to or watch something at the same time. This might change when I have more capacity, but right now I need to sit quietly with my food, put my utensils down between each bite, and consider how the food tastes and how my body feels with each bite.
5. I will respond to my fullness by pausing eating. It’s ok to be sad, but also remember to be so grateful for the delicious meal and to know that the very next time I am hungry I will eat again.

To my last point, I am realizing that most times when I am finishing a meal, my brain will start generating ideas and offering me temptations to continue eating. What about dessert? How about a cookie? What about some chocolate? Oh, you could have an orange. This is baffling. Why don’t I get this wild barrage of ideas when I am hungry and a bit perplexed about what would be best to eat? It’s because of the years I spent dieting in the restrict-binge cycle. Being fuller than usual meant that I had failed my diet for that day, that I might as well just use this opportunity to eat whatever I wanted, and I’d start again tomorrow. I’m already over my calories, why not just let off some steam and eat what I really want then get back to it. In this way, a full stomach became a cue to eat more, even binge, rather than to stop eating.

Isn’t the plasticity of the human brain absolutely fascinating? This machine that can learn anything, even backwards things, even unnatural things. That we can reframe anything, absolutely anything, as normal, is wild to me. That people go their whole lives believing abuse from their parents, relatives, religious leaders, is normal. That the way things are done in your family is normal, and therefore proper. That the way things are done in your country is normal, and therefore the only way. That people believe each and every thought they have without questioning it. Where is the center of the universe? In an infinite space, everywhere is the center. Where is normal, center, for your brain? In an infinitely adaptable system, anywhere can be center.

That thought scares me and excites me. In fact, both feelings share the same vibration in my body, and my brain interprets them one or the other depending on what its conditioned response is, what I’ve reinforced it to feel and think. Can we tell I’ve been reading Atomic Habits?

Acceptance vs. release

I’m still overeating. A lot. The same thoughts play out day after day. I’m not happy with my body. This whole intuitive eating thing is only going to make me gain weight. I’m out of control. I should stop with this nonsense and go on a sensible, calorie-restricted diet. Okay, Anna, but after two “successful” rounds of dieting, the last four years and fifteen or so attempts at dieting has backfired quite badly, leading to worse and worse binge eating for me. It has left a emotional eating habit-groove cut deep in my mind that I am still running down to this day in response to every life difficulty and negative emotion. It has led to food obsession. It has taken over my life. It has made me consider suicide, multiple times. Are we totally sure that’s the road you want to steer down again? Would a sixteenth attempt be the charm?

Maybe, instead, I tell myself gently, I should focus on learning to redirect myself down a different pathway, to somehow stop reacting to overwhelm and dysregulation with melted chocolate banana peanut butter toasties.

Then, once I have that down, I can stop overeating meals, stop blowing through my body’s very clear “I’ve had enough” signal (the sigh, the pause, the looking around for best bites of food, the starting to think about other parts of my day, the food not tasting quite as good, the wondering if I’ve had enough). Maybe I can look at each one of my excuses to keep eating one by one:

• But it tastes so good: yes, but it doesn’t taste as good as when you started, because you’ve had enough now. There’s more where that came from and you can have it any time.
• But I’m sad I have to stop eating: yes, but you’ll be sad when you’ve overeaten and are uncomfortable for hours digesting this food. Which sadness would you like? Can we try this sadness this time and see if we can handle feeling it? Let’s just see.
• But eating feels good: yes, it is pleasurable. More is not better, though. What else in my life feels good? Where else can I get pleasure? What pleasures am I lacking, denying myself, not seeking? Gentle movement, dance, self-expression, creativity, art and beauty, experiencing the world through my senses. Can we try? Let’s just see.
• I don’t care how I’ll feel later I want this now: I know this feels so good but you do care. You do. The me that is me now that doesn’t feel safe that doesn’t want her cookie taken away is also the me in five seconds when the cookie is gone and my stomach hurts. The cookie will end either way. Then I’ll either feel physically good and proud of myself or physically sick and disappointed in myself.

How big can my love for myself be? How much space and love can I hold for the little kid who just wants to know she can have what she wants? When big things aren’t happening for me, when I’m not getting the happiness, the body, the pleasure, the joy, the ease that I want in life, at least I can have little pleasures, little joys, little tiny hits of dopamine. Sugar. Chocolate. Candy. What if I could give myself my own rewards? Little awards. “Kept my promise to myself.” “Honoured my body’s needs and didn’t override them.” “Felt my feelings directly instead of numbing with food”.

Then, after all that, if I’m still not where I want to be aesthecially, maybe I can look at my meals. Maybe I can eat slightly smaller portions. Leave one or two bites behind at one meal. Then two. Then I can make a few healthy swaps. Maybe I can increase my intensity in the gym. Maybe I can add in more daily movement. More bike rides, more walks, another run. The whole time, I can see how I feel, if it feels good and juicy and supportive and loving. If I feel energized and fueled and strong and happy.

Nah, though, I can’t trust my body. I can’t trust myself. I need someone, an app even, to tell me exactly what and how much to eat. I should get a meal plan. 1500 calories. 1400 calories. 1300. 1200. I should track my calories again, weigh my food, feel restricted, and binge. No no, better yet, let’s fast. Fasting will help me drop weight so quick. I fantasize about going on a survival show where the contestants always end up losing a bunch of weight. Who cares if they lose all their muscle mass, weaken their metabolisms, and come back with flesh eating bacteria. They’re thin.

I started seeing a binge eating therapist. She told me to eat every 3 hours, to eat snacks between meals. I’m scared. I don’t want to eat snacks. Adults don’t need snacks. Snacks are more food. I’ll gain weight. I breathed through the fear and ate the snacks. Then, fear got the better of me. I decided I knew better. I skipped my snacks yesterday. Last night, I binged. I was too uncomfortably full and hot to sleep. Not being able to sleep for hours triggered more fear and panic, and another binge. I carried my blanket to my balcony and finally slept out there for three hours then went to work. I binged after every meal.

My body is screaming at me. I’m done with you ignoring my needs. I’m done with you disrespecting me. Heard. I’m humbled. I’ll respect my hunger. I’ll kowtow to my hunger. I’ll worship at the alter of my hunger. But when do I get what I want? When do I get free of this prison? When do I get joy from something in life other than food? When do I get to trust, solidly and certainly, that I will never abuse food again?

Food. Food. Fucking food. All this input. Putting it in, stuffing it in, stuffing whatever is already inside me further down where I can’t reach it. When do I get to let everything out that needs to come out? My emotions, my thoughts, my frustrations? When do I get to engage in self expression? I feel so tight, so stiff, so locked in and squeezed and clamped and frozen. I feel it in my body. My shoulders and jaw, tight and clenching. My body curling up into a self defense potato bug formation, head positioned squarely up my own ass.

I’m an only child who grew up playing alone and now lives alone and has been mostly single for four years. My entire life stance has skewed, for lack of a better word, narcissistic. My mother called it selfish. I don’t know what to call it. Self-centered, self-loving, self-important? I actually do really love myself. I am my favorite person, and I would rather be in my own company than really anyone else’s. I choose to travel alone for this very reason. But sometimes too much navel gazing can darken the mind. I need to look outside myself, to remind myself of the bigger world, other people, nature, beauty, spirit.

The violence of Instagram

I’ve been scrolling on social media too much lately. I’ve been deep in social media, reading the comments deep, legs going numb on the toilet deep, losing track of time deep. This is pure freeze response. A way to numb out and escape reality. I get home from work and promise myself a productive night of language study, stretching, foam rolling, artistic and creative craft pursuits, journaling, and blog writing. Instead, I head into the bathroom, sit on the toilet, and scroll. She’s not proud, folks.

There’s almost nothing for me on these apps anymore but self-comparison, despair, and deep sadness for society. How I see social media has changed since I was in my twenties. It used to be a place I felt excited and inspired by, honestly. I was amazed at all the free learning I had access too on every topic of interest. Psychology, recipes, relationships, science, news. Now, In my mid-thirties, I see the way people interact with each other on these platforms, the games they play with each other, the fears playing out, the salesmanship tactics, the same tropes rehashed over and over. People stealing from each other and reposting the same exact material, other people calling them out, and always the comments, over and over, in each video with food even making a small appearance “Can you post the recipe for that?”, “Is it ok if I make it without milk?”, “Can I use almond milk instead?”, “Can I use water?” Is what I’m doing ok? Are my needs valid? Am I worthy? Am I enough? I’m not like you, I’m different, and better. I’m just like you, I’m the same, you should like me.

In the comments on so many posts I’m seeing people asking for the brand name and link to buy whatever item the person has or is wearing. “What shirt is that?” “Can you post a link for that water bottle?” “What’s the cutting board you’re using?” The compulsive need to have what others have. We don’t need to be marketed to anymore, we do it ourselves.

Think it’s gauche to wave around an affiliate marketing code or sell a “masterclass” or constantly invite people to your “live”? People are conditioned for it. They want it. They want everything that beautiful, fit, thin person has. If I have her clothes, her accessories, her exact matcha latte making kit, her glass straw that she slides slowly into her tumbler, then I can be as happy with my life as she is, or claims to be online.

“What I eat in a day” posts are especially virulent. A thin muscular woman poses in athletic wear, she does a small twist of her hips and torso side to side, maybe pulls up her shirt to reveal her abs, maybe even lifts her breasts to show more of her stomach (seriously enough with this move), then proceeds to show meal by meal what she has eaten that day. It’s always the same. A set of hands barely visible under extra-long sweatshirt sleeves with long perfectly manicured gel polish nails comes into view holding a tumbler into which a glass straw is slowly inserted into an iced coffee or matcha oatmilk latte, baked oats with 30 grams of protein, a protein bar, a salad with 40 grams of protein, a high protein greek yogurt with chocolate shell and frozen berries, a beautifully plated dinner with 35 grams of protein, a ninja creami ice protein ice cream. If I eat exactly like her, do everything she does, I’ll have her body, too, and I’ll be beautiful and happy and surrounded by joy and admiration and love. I just need to follow her page, match her every move.

Which comes first, letting it in or letting it out?

A bedtime meditation I listen to often says “release and welcome a quiet breath”. It always struck me as wrong. We breathe in first, then out. Duh. Why does she say it this way? Who breaths out first then in? Who conceptualizes their breathing this way? It strikes me that my entire stance on life, on fixing my problems, on responding to situations, is input. What can I put in? What can I throw at the problem? What can I add? Medicine, food, water, movement? Do more. Be more active. Run the calculations. Go go go. Charge!

Maybe she’s right, maybe I can’t add anything because there’s no space. Maybe I’m already full. Maybe I need to start emptying things out. Taking things off the shelf and looking at them. Unpacking. Releasing. My thoughts. My feelings. My needs. My desires. My dreams. Maybe I need to create some space, some stillness, in which to feel and breathe and move and just be.

How, though? There’s some level of acceptance, of surrender, to the reality of the situation. If I can do something I’m not powerless. I don’t have to just let life happen to me. I can maintain control, or the illusion of it. There is no control. You think you have control then you get a cold that knocks you on your ass for a week. You think you have control, skip your snacks, think you’re doing so good you’re gonna lose all your weight then you binge twice in one night. The tides of life are coming in stronger and stronger, wetting my shoes, roaring into my ear: it’s time to shift. It’s time to take off my battleworn self-beliefs, lay them on the floor next to the bed and stand naked, breathing. Just stand there for a while. Then try on something new, wear it, move in it. I don’t have to be who I’ve always been. It served me once. But I can choose again. I can choose anew.

There’s so many beliefs I’ve been carrying that aren’t even mine. An old philosophy professor said we are all carrying an epistemological apple basket. Each apple is a belief that we picked up or was dropped into our basket by our parents or by society or by someone we encountered along our journey through life. At points, we need to sit down and dump out the apples and look at them one by one, questioning each one’s quality. Is this one still good? Do I want it? Does it still fit? We should feel proud of our apple baskets. We should know exactly what inside.

Here’s some apples I am carrying that I would like to dump on the side of the road unceremoniously:

1. I am a do-er. I am proactive. I fight. I’d rather go down fighting, I’d rather try everything. I don’t just let things happen to me. I’m not helpless, I’m not a victim. Phew — this is an exhausting way to live and not a productive way to frame things. There’s no dichotomy, no binary here to choose. No side to stand on. I am becoming someone who lives mindfully and intentionally, and doesn’t just spin my wheels throwing the kitchen sink at every situation. Responding half-cocked and compulsively is no better than rolling over and accepting everything passively. There is a healthy middle path.
2. Food rules. Any which particular way I should eat. This includes how much protein I need to consume. Look, I get it, more protein more better, but it’s gotten to a point where it’s stressing me out and causing me to overeat, so, yeah, no. Not every meal needs to have a protein. I’ll get enough protein throughout the day one way or another, and if I don’t, I’ll live.
3. Sugar is addictive and the only way to solve it is cut it out. Sweets are stimulating and rewarding. After I eat one bite my brain wants a lot more. This doesn’t happen as much with savory foods. Guess what? I will have sugar again in my life. I will have sugar in my house. I will have a peaceful, neutral, happy relationship with sweets just like every other food. I know this is possible because I had this type of relationship my entire life before I started dieting. It is possible, it is normal, and I am going to create this for myself.
4. Thinner is better. Ok I am going to hold this apple in my hand for a long time but at least it’s out of the basket. Breathe and repeat: thinner is not better. My body can be healthy and strong and happy at a range of sizes. Muscle is protective. Bodyfat is essential for women’s hormonal cycles. The goal is health, function, and feeling good from the inside.
5. There’s one best way to live. Lol. No. There’s so much nonsense conflicting advice on the internet these days that this apple is all but rotten to the core. There is no one best way to do anything and I guarantee anyone telling you this is trying to make money off of you. We are all inviduals and different things will work for different people at different times in our lives. That’s literally why we have specialized high educated medical technicians to look at each other’s unique situations. Nobody, not Daddy Huberman or Joe Rogan or Bella Hadid or the Goop-iverse or any external source knows me better than my own body and my own self.

Games my brain plays

Oh the brain is a clever thing isn’t it. Listen, it just wants to protect me. It wants to keep me alive as long and efficiently as possible. It’s looking at the script that ran the last time this situation happened and running that same script again to save energy (save those calories baby) and keep things going as absolutely smoothly as possible. It’s my job to interrupt. I do this by noticing. Awareness is truly the magic first step. I cannot find awareness if I am distracted, disconnected, rushing around too fast, or constantly listening to or watching media. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. I am learning. I am slowing down. I am letting myself have quiet moments where my body and mind can communicate messages to me that I will actually recieve.

Here’s what I’ve noticed:

• My brain manufacturing excuses to interact with or get closer to food in the hopes that I might slip on a banana peel and eat when I am not at all hungry. “Oh the groceries got delivered, and look there’s peanut butter here. Let’s just open up this jar and mix it up so it’s nice and mixed. I’ve never had this flavor before I better check if I like it, if I don’t like it I’ll know not to pack it or buy this flavor again. Oh that’s nice let’s have another taste just to make sure. You know I never eat straight peanut butter, how about with a square of chocolate. Oh that’s nice, how about another one then? How about a banana and peanut butter that’s the best combination ohh that would taste so good let’s have one. Maybe some more peanut butter on that banana, oh get some salt yesss. How about peanut butter banana toast? How about a toastie with peanut butter banana honey and chocolate?” Yeah. Now I’ve just binged. Now I can see what I’m doing and interrupt much earlier in the process and say “hey, are you sure you want to be doing this? Is this what you want to practice?”
• “Not eating”. I’m “not eating” if I’m standing up. If I’m not using a utensil or a plate. If I’m just licking a bit off my finger. If I didn’t turn the lights on. If I’m doing it quickly without letting myself really taste it or enjoy it. If I’m stressing out about what I’m doing the whole time I’m doing it. If I’m keeping my mind blank and suppressing all thoughts and feelings. If I’m “just tasting”. If I’m “having a bite to be polite”.
• Night time hunger math, aka how to be obsessed about food even when I’m not eating. “If I have to go to bed at 9:30 to wake up at 5:30 but likely I’ll actually be asleep at 10 or 10:30 because I’m not great at getting in bed on time and also then I have to read for a while and pee (always those last 2–3 pees where I only pee like one drop but ok) then I should not eat for 3 hours before bed but at the least 2 hours so I should eat dinner at 6:30 or 7 which is perfect so then I should start cooking at 6 so if I get out of work at 5 and it takes an hour to get home then I need to start as soon as I get there so I should buy groceries while I’m at work so they get to the house when I get there so really I need to plan what I’m going to make by lunchtime or the day before”. I see you. It’s not necessary. I can plan the night ahead for the next day and I can trust that my fridge has enough ingredients prepped that I can assemble a meal whenever I need one.
• Sleep delaying, aka ruining all the hunger math. “Oops I’ve stayed up too late and now I’m a little hungry, or think I am, or maybe I should eat something just in case because afterall I’ve stayed up later than usual and I’ll probably be hungry when I’m trying to sleep and that’ll be hard so I should really have a snack. Let’s forget for a moment all the times I’ve fasted and proven to myself I can go to bed in any state regardless of hunger and treat this as an emergency. And because I don’t have anything planned and wouldn’t normally eat at this time anymore (though I used to every single night — proof that habits can be changed), I’m going to go ahead and use it as an opportunity to eat something I never get to have. What would be the most indulgent, most never get to have it treat for this very special occasion. Yeah, I see you. Go to bed. You don’t need to eat to prevent hunger my friend you’re not going into 12 hour surgery you can just go ahead and eat in response to actual hunger.

It’s never about the food

Food doesn’t fix non-hunger needs, yearnings, desires, or problems. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t sooth, not really. My brain will keep asking for extra food and sweets. This is a conditioned response. I can decondition it. My brain used to ask me to commit suicide, to cut myself, to smoke weed, to shoplift, to scroll tinder for hookups. It doesn’t ask for these things anymore. If I can decondition from these addictive, compulsive responses to stress, I can decondition from emotional eating.

I never do those other things anymore. Well, I think about suicide sometimes, to be very honest, and that may never go away completely, but certainly not in depth or compulsively like I used to. But, I still have to eat everyday, multiple times a day. Yes. But I also still have to shop, and I still engage in dating and sex, even casual sex. So no, I don’t buy the whole “but food is different” argument. I can choose to believe that food and sugar addiction is real, that this is especially different and hard, but does that help me recover? I can choose what I want to think, the meaning I want to make. What would be a more helpful thing to believe? What would help me get to a better place with this? Maybe I can believe, instead, that it’ll be even easier because I get multiple chances a day to practice, and so I’ll get way more reps per day, so I’ll get good at it even faster.

I love food. I believe I can stop emotionally overeating and keep my love of of food. I can be excited about flavors and textures and exploring culture through food. I can enjoy cooking and sharing food with friends.

If it’s not about the food, then what is it about? It’s about emotions, baby. It’s always about emotions. It’s about the fear that I won’t have or find pleasure in my life. It’s about my restlessness and boredom when I haven’t been taking time to feel my feelings and things are piled up and I don’t want to face myself. It’s about the anger and jealousy that someone has something I don’t have and it seems like their life is better than mine because of it. It’s about the disappointment that I haven’t kept my word to myself and am not progressing on my language, gym, and career goals. It’s about the disconnection I feel from others and the worry that I am letting too much time pass without any efforts in dating and finding a partner.

It’s the sadness and fear and anger that I am dealing with a mysterious endocrine disorder that has robbed me of my period, riddled my ovaries with cysts, and that doesn’t seem to be getting any better despite treatment and seems to have been triggered by my binge eating.

It’s getting a cold and feeling angry and sad that I have to spend my weekend resting and in pain rather than doing the things I love. It’s the grief and rage that I let an eating disorder steal years of my life, and am still finding tendrils of it growing in unexpected directions. It’s everything, it’s life, it’s not wanting to face or feel these difficult feelings but knowing I have to, and also knowing that it is my job to create my own joy, my own pleasure, my own peace.

It’s about putting both hands on my heart and saying we are okay I’ve got you you are so safe with me I am not going anywhere breathe with me. I love you. I got you.

P.S. Also, may I add, that there’s no shame in emotional eating. I just learned this from a random video online. This video changed my brain chemistry. I truly was able to let go of the shame. There’s nothing wrong with sitting down with tart cherry pie or an apple or a plate of deviled eggs or a cheeseburger and fries and using it to relax, to unwind, to sooth. It doesn’t hurt anyone else. I am an adult and I can cope with my stresses exactly how I want. The only thing is, it doesn’t make my body feel good. Eating the exact food my body says it wants without diet rules when my body tells me it is hungry and stopping when my body tells me it has had enough — that shit makes me feel electric. It’s concordance vs. discordance. It’s being whole vs. being fractured. It’s harmony vs. dissonance. I can choose exactly the relationship with food, my body, myself, and the world that I want. That’s power. That’s health. That’s life.