http://www.shambhala.org/oryoki.php

It’s almost that time of the year: the season of resolutions. New Year, new beginning, a slimmer and healthier new you… Undoubtedly, many of us will, on impulse, make unrealistic weight and fitness goals that will be abandoned guiltily just a few weeks later.

As we once again turn over a new leaf in this seasonal book of self-change, we sooner or later come to realize that this story of resolve and willpower has no happy ending.

In pondering this circular narrative of our lives, it appears that we’ve embraced the wrong meaning of the right word. Let me explain.

Here’s a recent sample of participants’ thoughts and comments:

November 6, 2010 | Participant wrote: “Sweet, tart, warm with memories. Apple pie. The season expressed in a food that is tied to now and the past. Such an “Ahhh” moment.”

I am still getting a good bit of correspondence regarding my harm-reduction, moderation-focused, Middle Way approach to dealing with emotional eating.  While the idea is beginning to sink in, there are still lingering questions about how to cultivate mindful emotional eating partnerships and whether doing so would be a form of enabling.  So, I am re-posting this essay (with a section on “enabling”).  Be well.

EMOTIONAL EATING ISN’T A PROBLEM, MINDLESS EMOTIONAL EATING IS

As you might recall from the “Eating the Moment” self-help program for overcoming overeating, there are 3 reasons we eat:  just because, mindlessly; to satisfy biological/physiological hunger; and to change how we feel/for emotional reasons.  Emotional eating is extremely common.  In fact, it is pretty much hard-wired into our eating culture.  Take the concept of dessert, for example.  What is dessert?  Dessert is something yummy, tasty.  Does your body need dessert?  Of course, not.  So, why do we eat desserts?  Because we want to enjoy the taste of what we are eating.  That’s an emotional reason.  Dessert is for the mind, not for the body.

Same goes for any kind of taste-focused cooking.  As a culture, we spend endless hours pursuing various gustatory highlights.  Why?  Once again, because we want to enjoy what we are eating.  That’s emotional eating.  Why?  Because your body doesn’t really need for the food to taste good.  What your body needs is the right amount of food and a certain combination of nutritional value.  Our obsession with the taste of food is nothing other than an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: to fill up our stomach and to caress the palate of your sensation-seeking mind.  Nothing’s wrong with that!  Let cosmonauts eat spam!  The point I am making is that emotional eating is pretty much hard-wired into all of our eating.  If you want for your food to have a nice taste, let alone if you want a dessert, you are looking at food to satisfy your emotional desires for pleasures.  Once again: there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!