TRUE / STORIES, or What am I lying to myself about?

I've really focused lately on the mental side of overeating, and in particular what Brooke Castillo (author of "IF I'M SO SMART, WHY CAN'T I LOSE WEIGHT) refers to as the Thinking/ Feeling/ Acting model--e.g., my THOUGHTS create my FEELINGS, which cause my ACTIONS.

She also points out that the ONLY problem/ challenge/ situation that food can solve is hunger. Anything else that I'm FEELING (fear, anger, stress, disappointment, exhaustion, loneliness . . .) can't be fixed with food, so I have to either (a) FEEL the feeling; or (b) find some other fix besides food to address it.

I've found a really helpful question to ask myself is:
"what lie am I telling myself that makes me think food will fix me right now?"

I call this the TRUE/ STORIES question because inevitably there is some "TRUTH" about a situation related to food (e.g., "I'm feeling stressed about work, and in the past, I've dealt with that feeling of stress by grabbing a sugary granola bar and pretending that it's healthy"). That is, in fact, true. But there is also a "STORY" that I am telling myself that is not serving me (e.g., "When I am feeling stress, food helps me deal with that stress.") Food doesn't help me "deal" with anything-- it only displaces what I'm feeling temporarily, and, in fact, sugar actually increases my stress because it makes me more anxious, and it also makes me feel bad about myself because I overeat.

So, I've been trying to be very conscious about trying to focus on the TRUE, and on rewriting the STORIES I tell myself: e.g., "the TRUTH is that I'm feeling stressed about an upcoming work deadline, but the [rewritten] STORY is that food doesn't help me deal with deadline stress, but sitting down and making a quick 'to-do' list DOES help me because I can focus and prioritize on things that will help me meet the deadlin ."


So what lies do you tell yourself about how food will fix you? :-)

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    I don't have stories right off the top of my head, but thanks for posting this. I often say, "If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution." At times that works. Not always.

    Sometimes the thoughts to eat are so fast that it's hard to catch them before the action takes over. I had this happen just the other day, and I even knew it when I was doing it - but I did it anyway.

    It's a survival drive gone rogue. Too much available food to soothe every thought that comes in my head.

    It's better than tequila. I just tell myself that and move on. I'm still at a healthy weight, so I'm getting it right most of the time. :neutral:
  • 2baninja
    2baninja Posts: 518 Member
    Mine is that chocolate will make me feel better, I've very stressed, so that chocolate bar will calm me down.
    Or that candy bar will give a boost of energy, or that Mocha Frappuccino will wake me up in the morning, (which neither one ever does).
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I liked this. I think it's very advanced though :D so I don't know if got it right, but I actually just thought of something. My THOUGHT is "I love food", but the STORY I tell myself can have become that "meal planning is a hobby" while is fact the TRUTH is that "excessive meal planning is both a proxy for overeating AND what I do instead of things I should be doing but don't really wanna do".
  • peggym4640
    peggym4640 Posts: 156 Member
    My emotional eating didn't have a story attached to it anymore because it was such a default for me for such a long time. It was just how I dispelled the feelings I didn't want to feel. The good news is I broke the cycle with a lot of therapy. I do love this approach and believe self awareness is a discipline worth pursuing.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
    peggym4640 wrote: »
    My emotional eating didn't have a story attached to it anymore because it was such a default for me for such a long time. It was just how I dispelled the feelings I didn't want to feel. The good news is I broke the cycle with a lot of therapy. I do love this approach and believe self awareness is a discipline worth pursuing.

    I'm encouraged that you were able to break the cycle--that gives me hope! It's easier sometimes than others, and occasionally, my [revised] STORY is just "this is how I feel. . . .and this is what it feels like to feel like this. So ya just gotta feel it, honey."
  • elsie6hickman
    elsie6hickman Posts: 3,864 Member
    I had a very difficult childhood with an alcoholic mother and very unloving parents. For a long time I would use food to comfort those feelings of emotional abandonment, disapproval, sadness and anger. Stress also caused me to want to eat. I have changed my narrative to now think of myself as a survivor and realize what didn't kill me made me stronger. I no longer want to eat my feelings, because I feel good.
    I had a friend that used to put a sign on the refrigerator that said "it's not in here" to remind herself to think whether she was really hunger or if she was just emotionally eating.