This time of year you may be thinking about getting the right food and exercise plan to get in shape after the new year. We tend to do this same cycle every year..gain some during the holidays and then go on a strict diet in January to get those pounds off from the last year and then gain some back. But many times we don’t ever get to the root of our yo-yo eating cycle.

What we may miss is what we are really hungering for.  Could it be that it isn’t food we are craving, but rather trying to fill an  emotional void within us? If our needs aren’t being met we tend to go to something physical to get them met. It many times is the way we feel nurtured or loved when we are not feeling that from others.

Over the holidays I viewed a whole day of health experts on Public Television: Depak Chopra, Lissa Rankin, Dr. Fuhrman, and Dr. Perlmutter. They talked about everything you need to possibly know about nutrition and mind/body healing.  Dr. Chopra shared about having yucky and yummy feelings which he discussed can be the root of our eating frenzy. These emotions can literally change the chemistry of the body causing metabolism imbalances which make it increasingly more difficult to lose weight.

In order to get out of this trap we can begin identifying first those yucky feelings such as shame, anger, resentment, hostility, guilt  and depression. Focusing more on Yummy feelings such as love, compassion, joy, and empathy can help us get out of this cycle.

Things you can do to get out of this emotional eating cycle is to first:

• Identify what are you really hungry for… Feeling loved by a partner, having status with your career, feeling like   you’re a good Mom,  or approval from others.

• When having a food urge, feel into your body and notice where you hold in your emotions
• Observe your emotions and allow them to move through your body. I always give the example of what children experience when they have feelings.  They feel them and then they are off and running into the next activity. As adults we are much more repressed with our emotions and tend to stuff them inside until they begin to look for an outlet like that chocolate sundae.
• Learn how Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)- tapping technique to rid yourself of the emotional charges energetically
• Find ways to self-nurture yourself: ie. getting a massage, starting a hobby like painting of what we have always longed for, giving yourself nurturing thoughts.
• Get some coaching to help meet some of these inner needs.
• Find ways to develop healthy behaviors that develop health.

I want to leave you with this heartwarming picture of my dog Tasha (See her beautiful mug in the picture above).  She picked up a label from the trash from a pie we had over the holidays that said Sugar Free.  I thought this was so pertinent to my article on what are we hungry for.  Sometimes we may eat desserts that say Sugar free, but haven’t found to get our sugar urges replenished elsewhere.  So we abstain from eating sugar only to find we are feeling a deficit in other areas.

Make this year a healthy year by discovering what are you really hungry for!