No Eating After Dinner Challenge: Day 9

The power of intention can make a night and day difference. As I mentioned, Day 8 was rough and something I didn’t want to repeat. The culprit had to be the amount of time I spent being plugged in that day. Family move night was a success (meaning, I kept my attention on the movie) and so was bedtime. I was able to calmly orchestrate an ideal (for us) bedtime routine.

The difference was that I engaged in the present moment with my surroundings. I plugged my phone in at 4pm and didn’t touch it again till 10am this morning.

That’s got to be a world record for me. 

Having my phone available to me at all hours provides a distraction that proves to be detrimental to the rest of my day. I am coming off of years of multi-tasking to find my single tasking groove. Being on my phone and trying to do anything else is unmanageable. I think I’m being efficient but the opposite is happening. This is where the stress level escalates and the food comes out. Turning to food gives me temporary relief from the problem at hand. It doesn’t solve anything and since I don’t usually choose something healthy, my stomach is screaming obscenities at me for hours afterwards.

Food acts as a cover and not as fuel like it should be. It makes me feel good because it is comforting. What I really need to do is get uncomfortable so I can confront the cause of my eating.

When I am calm and in control of my emotions then I am able to make rational decisions. I never find myself standing in front of the pantry looking for food to be a friend. It is only in moments of stress or boredom.

Since I was ten, I handled my stressful moments with food instead of coming up with a reasonable solution to my issues.   I remember my mom buying a healthy recipe cookbook for overweight kids to help me make better choices. Apparently, there was no sugar coating anything back in 1990.

That is why with my kids, I am very careful with the words we use in our home surrounding food. We are making good decisions for our body and that is it. I know my mom had good intentions but knowing what what that book actually was has stuck with me for decades. Because my relationship with food is rubbing off on my children, our terminology has to be of upmost importance. My hope for them is they think of food as fuel and not as friend to help them solve problems or cure their boredom.

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