Have you been overeating lately?

There have been a lot of changes in the last couple of weeks.  Many of you are working from home, in quarantine, or not working at all.  Your kids are home all of the time.  The house is messier.  It looks like this is will be the new normal for awhile.  You've been dealing with these changes by eating all the things.

Newsflash: The pandemic does not make you eat.  Your children being home do not make you eat.  The house being messy does not make you eat.  The rules about social distancing do not make you eat. These things on their own -- the pandemic, your kids, the house, and rules about social distancing -- are circumstances.  Circumstances are always boring, neutral facts.  It's your thoughts about them that drive you to overeat.

For many of you, there are two clusters of thoughts in the forefront of your mind.  The first is about the "what ifs".  The second is about the severity of the situation, something to the effect of, "this is worse than I thought."  These types of thoughts make you feel stressed out, anxious, uncertain, fearful, and overwhelmed.  Then you eat.

Your brain is placing importance on food as the way to feel better and have control over something.  Your brain may be on information overload.  It's certainly easier to eat than to feel anxiety, fear, and overwhelm, except that overeating has a net negative consequence.  It's time to recalibrate.  Start the recalibration process by committing to feel discomfort as best as you can.  A way to start this is to simply locate the feeling in your body and give it a label.  For example, I feel a fluttering in my upper chest and some tightness in my neck.  For me, that gets the label of "anxiety".

Commit to yourself that you will eat food when you are hungry and not when you are worried.  Do not compound your worry with guilt, regret, and self-loathing from overeating.

Until next time,