Category: Building emotional resilience

How Do You Handle Setbacks?

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy® ~ 8 Comments

“It was going really well and now it’s not and I’m just so annoyed and angry with myself.”

This is something I hear a lot.

I understand.

You’ve been doing really well listening to your body about when you’re hungry, what you feel like eating and when you’ve had enough. You’ve been leaving food on your plate (something you thought you’d never do); you’ve turned down ice-cream because you didn’t feel like it (unheard of) and you ate just one brownie rather than devouring the whole batch (say whaaat?!).

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What Are You Waiting For?

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy® ~ 11 Comments

We can spend so much of our lives waiting.

Waiting for something to happen.
Waiting for things to get better.
Waiting for the ideal moment.

I know I did (and sometimes still do).

There was an awful lot of time between acknowledging to myself that I had a binge eating problem and healing my relationship with food.

Most of that time I spent waiting.

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How Can Fear Make Us Fat?

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy® ~ 16 Comments

Trigger warning: abuse, trauma.

Let’s say you’ve managed to heal your relationship with food and have found autonomy.

You’ve been eating in tune with your body for a while – you’re eating when you’re hungry, you’re eating exactly what you feel like, and you’re stopping when you’re satisfied. In addition, you’re getting better at acknowledging your feelings and you’re finding ways to meet your emotional needs directly. Now that you’re no longer overeating, you’re really beginning to work with your metabolism and, whaddaya know, you’re starting to lose some weight.

All good.

Or is it?

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Why Are We Rebellious with Food?

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy® ~ 2 Comments

It’s my experience that people with emotion-driven overeating issues don’t like being told what to do.

Maybe a work colleague asks “should you really be eating that?”
Maybe your partner is putting pressure on you to lose weight.
Maybe a “well-meaning” friend is always suggesting a new fad diet.
Maybe your parent says “don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

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Why Should We Make Friends with Our Feelings?

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy® ~ 2 Comments

Feelings. Yuck. Murky things that make us feel really uncomfortable.

To people with overeating issues, feelings are about as welcome as a porcupine at a nudist colony.

Our natural inclination is to run from our emotions, to avoid them like the plague. They’re so unsettling and uncertain. And we don’t like uncertainty. We like to be in control and know what to expect.

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Why Does Being Mean to Yourself Matter?

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy®

One of the traits that people with emotion-driven overeating tend to have in common is that they speak to themselves extremely unkindly. In fact, they speak to themselves in a way that they would never speak to another human being.

“You stupid, fat cow.”
“I hate myself.”
“I’m so disgusting.”

These are just some of the abuse-bombs that people typically launch at themselves. If you do the same thing, please don’t beat yourself up (about beating yourself up).

It’s not your fault.

You may have received a plethora of negative messages in childhood and, consequently, are treating yourself the way you think you deserve. Or years of failing diets, bingeing and weight gain may have decimated your self-esteem. Or both.

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