Since I was young, I could eat anything and everything I wanted without a care in the world - aka heaven on earth. I always had the constant remark “enjoy this while you can” from anyone who witnessed my garbage can eating style. Growing up having chocolate waffle tacos which included chocolate chips, topped with whipped cream for breakfast is probably the reason I wake up always excited for breakfast - only now, a lot has changed.
During summer before my first year of college, my Mom’s health took a turn for the worse and my sister and I turned to food for comfort. As her conditioned worsened until her untimely passing, my habits continued to worsen into my freshman year of college.
Throughout college I tried everything from eating as little as possible to working out two times a day, seven days a week. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until I started logging in a food journal that I could really get a grasp on the ultimate issue.
It wasn't an obsession with food that was the issue, it was the constant search of feeling something other than sadness, other than grief, and other than the realization that my Mom was not going to win the battle against cancer. I would eat so much to the point of having to lie down otherwise I would get sick from the pressure of sitting upright. This terrible feeling of nausea would overtake the emotions that were trying to make their way to the forefront of my brain - emotions that have taken a long time to confront and control.
Today, I love to cook, eat, and drink wine. After years of struggling to find a happy medium between extreme limitations or not giving a f*ck, I have found a system that works for me along with so many others I have passed this along to.
I came up with a simple food log template in order to track my daily intake of food and to force myself to face the reason as to why I was turning to food in the first place.
First off, the first two column include the date and what meal is being recorded. It’s up to you how to name your eating times - I use standard, “Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack, and Dessert.” Often times when I train a client a 6am I’ll include a label like “Early” so that it is an early morning snack before my breakfast which comes about 2 hours later.
The next three categories are food, exercise, and feeling. I like to keep track of how much food I eat by including portion sizes - this give me an idea of how many servings of something I was eating rather than focusing on calories.
The exercise category can be anything from a boot camp, lifting weights, cardio exercise, walking the dogs, etc. As long as you are active, count it.
Now I consider one of the most important categories the feeling. This allows me to not just track the difference in the intake of how much I am eating based on my emotions, but if I feel that I have overdone it, I include why. For example “stressed about work,” “fight with John,” “sad.” All of these types of emotions can evoke an overeating situation. And although it can be hard to control it, at least I know that the next time I feel a certain way, I know why I am divulging into a pint of ben & jerry’s rather than feeling unable to control my eating.
So please try it for just a couple days and see if you can pinpoint any time in which you may be eating just because you’re bored or if you really are hungry.
Written by Maddy Swertfager