NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM IN RECOVERY

When we’re working towards healing our relationship with food, meaning we’re letting go of restriction, our body might change. And all the painful thoughts and feelings we tried to avoid by controlling our food & weight are going to surface.

The fear monkeys, the shame monsters, the “not-good-enough” ghouls.

The limiting beliefs, uncomfortable feelings, and trauma we’ve tried to “diet away” will come up when we’re no longer using food and weight as a coping mechanism, an avoidance strategy.

It’s common to think that all these thoughts and feelings mean we’re not doing well in recovery, that we’re faltering or failing, which is not the case.

Recovery does not mean the absence of negative thoughts or difficult feelings, rather having them through the process is normal, understandable, to be expected, when you’ve grown up in Diet Culture and a fatphobic environment.

The marker of growth, what influences your well-being in the long-run, is how you respond and relate to the thoughts and feelings -- how do you treat yourself, how do you engage in self-care when the storm is arising inside?

Are you responding to them with restriction, punishing exercise, and other disordered behaviors?

Or are you responding to your fear, shame, and anxiety with compassion, kindness, and love...taking care of yourself in the most gentle of ways?

The goal of recovery is not to be free from negative thoughts or feelings; the goal is to change how we respond and to treat ourselves differently...with care, not punishment.

And discover new ways of being with the internal intensity of negative thoughts and feelings without going back to our disordered ways of food and weight control.

xo C

If this resonates and you need help learning how to change the way you respond, check out my online course Food Body Soul.

Additional Binge Eating Recovery Resources

To learn more about the non-diet approach to healing your relationship with food, check out my free video training series HERE.

You can also check out my podcast, Love Your Bod Pod, on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Lastly, you can also check out my books, or online course.

CRAVINGS GOT YOU SCARED? READ THIS!

I was craving an ice cream cookie sandwich so I had an ice cream cookie sandwich.

Not fruit, not oatmeal with cinnamon, not granola.

A MF ice cream cookie sandwich. Have you ever had the experience where you get a craving for something sweet and you immediately fear it? (sugar, carbs oh my!). You decide to *try* to curb the craving with something "healthy" or "clean." Back in the day I always tried to get rid of a craving for ice cream with sugar-free yogurt. (BTW it doesn't work). I'd eat the yogurt, not feel satisfied, and keep snacking on things until I was stuffed. Yet... I'd still have ice cream on the brain. I was full but not satisfied. (more on this here) Now I just eat the ice cream. I enjoy it, bite by bite, and really let myself savor it (not inhaling it quickly out of shame). When you resist cravings they persist.

When you honor them, you satisfy them, so they go away.

And then you can move on with your life instead of obsessing over the food!

xo

Cara P.S. Pictured is the Tahitian Vanilla by @coolhaus. 10/10 recommend. Seriously is so f-ing good.

Binge Eating Recovery Resources

To learn more about the non-diet approach to healing your relationship with food, check out my free video training series HERE.

You can also check out my podcast, Love Your Bod Pod, on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Lastly, you can also check out my books, or online course.

A FREEING WAY TO WITNESS WOMEN - A POEM

Sitting at the pool in a beautiful resort, spacing out, then spacing in.

I start to notice the group of young ladies who are around age 18, laughing and enjoying slushees.

across the pool a group of bubbly blondes in their 30’s drinking rosé, and to my right, a group of women in their 40’s, mojito’s in hand.

And then other women splashed about, all different ages, ethnicity's and body sizes. Different hats, sunglasses and swim suits.

I scan the pool deck and I watch them interact and move about.

my body softens as I breathe in and out, just to witness how beautiful they all are. How attractive each one is in their own way.

Cellulite, stretch marks, scars. flat tummies, round tummies, jiggly booties and tight ones, too. Straight hair, frizzy hair, curly hair and fabulously blown out hair.

What I realize is that all the work I’ve done over the years to deprogram myself from the arbitrary beauty standard of the time, all the work to rid myself of internalized fatphobia, and to no longer see one shape of a woman as better than another had worked.

There was no longer a hierarchy of bodies. No need to compare mine to theirs.

Just a sea of radiant souls, glowing in their own unique ways.

What a freeing way to witness women.

For more poetry like this, check out my book One Day at a Time

xo C

Binge Eating Recovery Resources

To learn more about the non-diet approach to healing your relationship with food, check out my free video training series HERE.

You can also check out my podcast, Love Your Bod Pod, on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Lastly, you can also check out my books, or online course.