Overdone: with open arms
“Everything in moderation.”
“It’s okay, as long as you don’t overdo it!”
But what about when you do “overdo it”?
I have reached a point in my mindset moving journey where I can deal with my emotions around eating previous fear foods, so long as I feel like I have kept things “under control”, whether this means that I only take a bite of it, or whether I only “allow myself to indulge” at one meal during the week.
I still find it hard to deal with my mind when I feel like I have “lost control” - when that uncomfortable fullness sets in after an unusually big meal, when I eat a fear food for the second day in a row, when I feel that I cannot justify my eating by claiming that I have been “moderate” in the past, when my behaviors would undoubtedly be frowned upon by Instagram fitness gurus. It’s hard, because allowing myself to fully relax and enjoy without restriction (oh the taboo!) is no longer an exception that I can "forgive".
I am not suggesting that we should all just allow ourselves to go completely wild here - I know and believe that discipline and self-control is what allows us to pursue our goals in all facets of our lives. But at least for myself, I do want to learn to re-conceptualize what it means to “lose control” over food, specifically (and what that supposedly suggests about the person that I am), and learn to compassionately manage the emotions that come with it, so that they don’t completely cripple me.
Here are some thought tracks that I took during this mindset move:
“Yes I’m full. So?” - After some journaling and feeling my feelings, I realized that it really wasn’t the physical sensation of fullness that was bothering me. It was the ingrained, automatic onset of anxiety that I had learned to feel whenever I felt that feeling of fullness. So I’m feeling full, or even feeling more than full. That physical sensation doesn’t need to be attached to any emotion or mentality! Being able to ask, “so what?” or “what is really so bad about feeling this physical sensation?” has allowed me to step back and realize that it really isn’t so bad and that there are (far) worse things than feeling overly full! I’m not saying that feeling overly full is comfortable. But think about it this way - there are plenty of times where we push our bodies past comfort, but are not conditioned to feel guilty about them. Did you immediately consider yourself a “bad” person when you stood in the sun on a summer day and felt uncomfortably hot? Or when you fell and scraped your knee? Of course not.
It’s helpful here to realize that emotional anxiety is something we attach to physical discomfort - they do not automatically go hand in hand.
Who the heck cares? - Who the HECK truly cares what I eat at each and every meal? I’m speaking for myself here - I know that there are certainly some of you who are gearing up for a physique competition or otherwise need to monitor your nutrition more closely in order to reach your goals, and I have nothing against that. We’re all chasing different goals. For me, my current goals are to pursue a more holistic understanding of my health - to feel good physically, mentally and emotionally. To eat to nourish my body but also to taste good food and to make memories with friends over food that I can’t necessarily monitor. If there’s something that my loved ones WILL care about, it is that I spend quality time with them and be responsible for my own wellbeing so that I can be that person that they love. NOT what I eat at each meal, NOT how those meals might change my body.
Here, it's helpful to remember that the people that I truly care about, who have my best interests in mind, are never judging me by the fluctuations in my physicality.
Every day is a new day. Sometimes I won’t be able to get over my feelings no matter how hard I try. Some days I’ll just sit down and have a good cry. But it does help to remember that this feeling of over-fullness and the associated feelings of guilt and anxiety will pass, after a magical thing called sleep. Your body is cool and smart - it WILL digest the food, it WILL restore balance after a good night’s rest. When it’s just too taxing to try and analyze your feelings, just let them out (cry, talk to a friend/family member).
Prop up your positive mindset the next day. Feeling like you’ve lost control the day before does NOT translate to compensation and restriction the following day. Again, step back from your emotions and realize that all you’ve really “done” is push your body past a state in which it’s normally comfortable - no correlation whatsoever with how good of a person you are or how capable you are or whatever internal aspect diet culture has taught us to correlate our physical sensations with. You are still the same worthy person who deserves to feel good - to nourish and love themselves. On the “after” days, I like to start my day with a breakfast that satisfies my hunger and my tooth. If I have a training session that day, I make it a point to remind myself more than usual to stay present in this session - to see it as “me time” and feeling good throughout, rather than a method of compensation.