Do you find yourself searching from one snack to the next, but you cannot find the one that is going to “do it” for you?  What are you really searching for?  What is driving you to eat a cookie, grab a handful of nuts, get a piece of cheese, try the ice cream . . . . . .   It is like each food seems like the one that will satisfy you, but then you are disappointed in it and go look for another food to try.

One of my clients asked me an interesting question along these lines.  We were talking about “Joy Foods” as opposed to “Fuel Foods.”  She said, “What happens if I plan on a joy food, and then when I get to sit down with it, I take a bite and it is not as good as I expected.  Do I get to go get another joy food?”  I said, “No, of course not!”  She then described how if one food is disappointing, she will look to eat something else, and realized that she often eats out of disappointment.   This cycle is going to continue because if she is trying to fill an emotional need, no food is going to be just right for that.

That is when we got into the fact that if something is disappointing, even just the joy food she was planning on, she wants to eat out of the disappointment.  For example, say something can happen at work that is disappointing, so she gets a piece of pastry.  But eating that was kind of dry and disappointing.  So she goes in search of something else.  Do you see the cycle happening?  How often do you think you eat out of disappointment?

When we are eating foods we have found to be our best fuel, to satisfy our hunger and nurture our body without weighing us down, there is never disappointment.  We are not expecting it to fill an emotional need.  We are taking care of our body.  This is how eating should be.  If you are trying to meet an emotional need, the food will not do the job.  It might distract you from the emotional need while you are chewing.  But once the food is done, the emotional need is still there.  So take a moment and ask yourself what it is you REALLY want that is not food.  What is the yearning really for?  Finding the answer to that is going to be life changing.  So the look into your own mind is well worth the work.