emotional eating Archive - Stefanie-Grace

How To Overcome Toxic Limiting Beliefs Around Food and Body

Stefanie Grace with a doughnut and salad - diet culture, toxic limiting beliefs around food and body

What Beliefs Do You Have When It Comes to Food and Body?

Food is the enemy! My appetite is bad! I hate my body!

For many years I lived my life being guided with these negative, limiting and toxic beliefs around my body and the food I eat. I would not say it out loud, because I was ashamed, but I constantly was accompanied with the thoughts.

These thoughts were limiting my life to a degree I was not aware of at the time. It sounds very hard, but it’s true:
I secretly wished I would not have a sense of taste, because then I would not crave for so much food. I truly believed my appetite was the reason for my binge eating, comfort eating…

It was very clear to me, if I did not know how something tastes I could not have the cravings for it, which means I would eat less, which means I would lose weight and losing weight was the only way to reach happiness.

And in my reality everything would be ok if only I would have the perfect body. I would find peace and ease in life, as soon as I reached a certain weight and fitted in a certain size.

“If only I would have the perfect body, everything would be ok forever!”

That was a very toxic belief!

The trick with our belief system is, the more power we give them, the more they become our reality. So in order to change the relationship with food we first have to become aware of our toxic beliefs.

So ask yourself on this point:

What beliefs do I have when it comes to food and body?
Do they lead to a relaxed relationship, to freedom?
Or do they always bring me to a point where I restrict eating?

How Toxic Beliefs Can Affect Our Body:

Here’s a little secret: Toxic negative beliefs can cause greater damage to body, mind and soul than any low quality food!!!

Despite the fact that our beliefs become our reality, they do affect our body on a physiological level. Whenever we fear, get anxious, angry or fulfilled with hate our body reacts in a stress response and the sympathetic nervous system gets activated and dominates. We breathe more shallowly and faster (oftentimes without being consciously aware of it), our heart rate gets faster, blood pressure rises and insulin and cortisol in our body increases.

When the body is in this survival mode the metabolism shuts down.
When you’re being chased by a lion, you don’t have time to think about rest and digestion.

The majority of the blood gets pumped into the limbs, because they need to be ready and active in case we need to run away or fight.
Cortisol inhibits muscle growth and high insulin can cause dysregulation of the appetite,
and because the body fears for life it strongly holds on to every single calorie.

Imagine now you are eating/ not eating/ training/ resting in a constant fight or flight (survival response) mode.

No wonder why it seems so hard to lose weight, why we think we have a slow metabolism and an appetite which is out of control… It’s NOT your fault, it’s not because you are weak, or have less willpower than others. No, it’s the constant stress response you are in BECAUSE OF the toxic beliefs you have about your body and the food you eat.

“I am learning to take care and nourish
my body in a loving way.”

What Can We Do Now in Order To Change?

Simple. Get out of the stress response, activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the “rest & digest” mode of the body. When the body does not have to fear for survival, it can relax.

The heart rate and blood pressure regulate themselves, the breath is deep and slow and the metabolism runs at full speed. The body happily uses the calories and nutrients because it does not have to fear starving.

Using the BREATHE is the easiest way to get your body into a relaxed mode and out of stress response. Once you breathe like a relaxed person your body will notice and your brain will think “Oh I am breathing like a relaxed person I must be relaxed then”, and switches into relaxed mode, the parasympathetic nervous system dominates and your whole body physiology changes.

As mentioned before, first you have to become aware of this pattern, then catch yourself in these moments and decide to breathe deep and slow as long as you can/want/need.

BUT this has not yet solved the root cause of the stress response: the toxic negative beliefs.

Again, become aware of the beliefs, and then CHANGE them.

On a certain point, when we have ingrained some beliefs for many years, it is hard to just swap them into a positive statement. For example, if you have told yourself your whole life: “I hate my body”, it will be tricky to just change from one day to another into: “I love my body.” Because you just won’t BELIEVE it.

BUT you can start with a step in between and change “I hate my body” to ”I am learning to take care and nourish my body in a loving way.”

Instead of “Food is the enemy” let’s say: “Food is nourishing me” and instead of “My appetite is bad”, let’s try: “I am learning to regulate my appetite.”

******************************

And always remember: if you don’t change anything – nothing will change.
It’s a practice and you just can not fail.

Thank yourself for taking the time to read, as I do.

Love & Light, yours Grace.

When Your Eating Disorder Becomes Real

Diagnosis: Bulimia With Anorexic Features

*** TRIGGER WARNING ***

This blog post is a very personal story.
The reason why I still want to share it here, is to encourage you to reach out for support, for help, for guidance, in case you need, because you deserve to heal and you don’t have to go through it on your own!

I will start the story at the pit point of my life, when I reached the peak of my pain. The moment where the emotional leverage was big enough to make the decision to change. It was on a holiday in Thailand, where I’ve been traveling with my younger brother for a month. At this point of my life, I had no self-worth left for myself and overplayed my lack of self-confidence with a cute smile and acting happy all the time.

After years of dieting and telling my body, my self terrible things in the mirror, I reached a moment where I had no respect left for myself and felt like a complete failure. To still get these short moments of positive validation I literally gave my body away and met a lot of men during this time.

On these holidays I got sick after too much partying (including overnight stays). I got a severe bladder infection, but even then, I did not listen to the signs of my body. I did not care about this body anymore. I was craving for validation – for the feeling of being someone worthy for a short moment, I was craving for a quick fix. And so I continued with the life-style I was living, while ignoring the pain and the blood in my urine.

After some days I got some rest on an island, gave in and went to the hospital. My infection has gone very bad, I had to do a lot of tests and stayed in bed in the hotel for some days. One day my brother motivated me to go out to the beach restaurant in the afternoon to get some sun in my face. We didn’t talk much, we were just sitting there in silence slurping the fresh mango juices and watching the waves.
Without any expression I said to him: “Once I’m back in Vienna I will start therapy”.
“That’s a good idea”, he replied.

The picture shows me on the day I decided to start a therapy. I had a high fever and was suffering from a severe bladder infection due to my disrespectful lifestyle towards my body.

I really knew it was now or never - but something has to change.

Back in Austria I had to go to hospital again for more check ups and thanks good – everything was fine. I decided to go to a yoga class in a studio – until that point, I mostly practiced on YouTube from home. The teacher advised us to lay down on the mat and to close our eyes. “Watch your thoughts”, she said and so did I, but I could not hold them shut. It was so noisy in my mind and tears just came out of my eyes, I felt so much pain and so vulnerable.

I did not know where to go to get some help, but I knew I couldn’t do it on my own.
I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, so I googled in incognito mode “first help psychotherapy Vienna”. Thanks to Austria’s amazing health system – I got a lot of options with free first consultation – which was very important for me as a poor student.

On the day of my first appointment, I was very excited and scared at the same time.
I was afraid they wouldn’t take me or my problems seriously and send me away again. But at the same time, I was afraid that they would confirm I had a problem, whatever that problem might be. However, I went there, sitting in front of a stranger, who asked me what brought me here. I started to talk. Shared the story of my life, my feelings, my worries, with this woman I never met before and I remember it felt surprisingly good. To finally be able to speak out loud what was in my head and ingrained in my body. I felt anonymous and not judged at all. Of course, we have been talking a lot about my nutrition and the way I see myself as well and in the end I had to fill out an exercise sheet, where you could see women in different body shapes and had to select the body I thought was most likely mine.

Finally she told me that I made a huge step already to have called this practice, but they can’t keep me. They have to forward me to an Institute for People with Eating Disorders. For a moment my whole world stood still. I felt sick and wanted to vomit. The woman gave me some contacts from different institutes in Vienna where I could call and she sent me away.

So, another first consultation, another time sharing my whole story and many more tests to go through in the “Institute for People with Eating Disorder”. The psychotherapist told me at the end of the consultation the diagnosis: Bulimia with Anorexic features. BOOOOM – Again, the world was on hold. But this time, I felt a huge relief as well.

It felt so good to finally know what was “wrong” with me. To finally feeling seen, feeling felt and understood.

Of course it was not the first time that I had thought that I might have an eating disorder. I knew my eating patterns were different from others, but I just couldn’t fit myself into a box. I studied nutrition and knew all the symptoms of the different eating disorders, but none of them fit my profile. My therapist then explained to me: we are all different, symptoms are different and you can have traits from several eating disorders at the same time. Well… that made sense. And there I was, diagnosed with an official eating disorder. I felt like someone put a stamp on my forehead.

I always thought Bulimia is when you vomit, but I did “only” vomit maybe 5 to 10 times, so I thought I’m not bulimic. BUT bulimia describes as well the fact of compensating calories, however you do that. And that was something I mastered in life: if I ate dinner, I didn’t allow myself breakfast, if I had cake I had to go for an extra run, if I overeat I took laxatives and so on…
I also had the idea in my mind that you have to be life-threateningly skinny to be anorexic. BUT anorexia also describes the constant habit of seeing yourself in a very different way, mostly as too fat, being incredibly afraid of gaining weight, hating your body and no longer having a connection to one’s own body.

I felt relieved because I knew I finally would get help.

Healing

I was proud of myself, that I took the step to ask for help, to overcome my fear of not being taken seriously and finally would receive professional help. My healing journey began and I went to therapy once a week. Added Yoga classes in my schedule again and learned to take care of myself in a respectful way. This also meant taking a step back from party life and social contacts.

The journey was tough, with lots of highs and lows, sometimes I doubted my way and a lot of times, I doubted myself – but I never quit.

Healing needs time and you have to be ready for it.

You need to allow yourself to feel vulnerable and reach out for help, because you don’t have to do this on your own. When your car is broken, or you put the wrong fuel in – you are also reaching out for an expert or to someone who knows how to fix it. Same goes for your computer, the electricity, and the water system in your house. There is an expert for every field. So why do you think you have to solve your mental and physical problems on your own then?

After years of healing, getting to know and to love myself, I made it my mission to help others on their journey to find peace in their bodies and create a loving relationship with food.
Life can be good and enjoyable! – You deserve to heal.
And you deserve to feel good in your skin, that’s your f***ing birthright!!!!

I really hope I could emphasize a little bit more, how important it is to speak out and reach out for help you need. Thank you for taking the time to read and thank yourself for taking the actions that are required. If you feel the need to talk to someone – I am here to listen.

Body image eating disorder eating disorder recovery emotional eating healthy eating selflove

Is There Such Thing As The “Right” Diet?

Stefanie Grace, confused about the right diet

What’s the Right Diet To Follow?

Which is the RIGHT nutrition to follow?
What does it really look like? Is there such a thing as the RIGHT diet?

A topic about which I could write a book and will do so one day. But let me start with this post and my own experience.

For years, especially during my studies, I was clearly of the opinion: YES, absolutely there is the right diet.
A food pyramid exists. For example, here are the 10 rules for a healthy diet from the German Nutrition Society (DGE), according to these rules you should live your life and eat.
However, they still didn’t work for me, FOR YEARS.

For example, I couldn’t do anything with the “5 per day” rule – I often felt too full. The rule says, “Eat fruits and vegetables 5 times a day.” This would mean that we should eat a total of 5 meals a day, three main meals and two snacks in between. I realized that my body didn’t need five meals. Many times I felt best when I ate only two times a day. This always made me wonder, “What is wrong with me?” The answer is: Nothing!!!

My body simply appreciates longer pauses between meals and that leads to the fact that there are no five meals.
I just don’t feel hungry right away in the morning after I get up, it takes me 1-2 or even 3 hours before I feel hungry enough to eat something. It took me some time to understand that these rules and regulations about “correct nutrition” should be considered more as guidelines, because they do not deal with people on an individual level.
However, we are all individuals, we all have different daily structures, energy consumption etc, consequently we cannot all live by the same nutrition rules.

Today I know there is not the “right diet” for everyone, but there is the right diet for everyone personally and that is the one that suits your body best.

And even on an individual level, YOUR right nutrition changes through life.

Nobody says to an infant: the milk is too rich in fat. No. At this age, this is EXACTLY the right nutrition.

Your age alone changes the need for the nutrients that you require at that moment.

Similarly, your right diet changes with the seasons. In winter, your body needs more calories to deal with the lower temperatures. Accordingly, your cravings for calorie rich foods will increase. Whereas in the summer, you may not feel as much like a cheese fondue, cookies, or whatever your winter food is.

Not to mention age and season, your calorie and nutrient needs change based on your lifestyle. Are you a marathon runner or do you lift weights? Do you have a sedentary job in the office or do you work on a construction site?

Depending on what health condition you are in, the right diet changes just as much. A diabetic needs a different diet than someone who has cardiovascular, kidney or liver disease.

So you see, it’s not so easy to find the one perfect diet and say: That’ s it, I’ll stick with it for life. But there is something you can do.

There is THE right diet and that is the one that suits YOUR body best.

How Do I Find My Right Diet?

So the exercise is first and foremost to find out what that means for you and for that we need to put aside the analytical thinking for a moment, and find our way back into our body to be able to feel more.

We are constantly judging – good food or bad food and this has lead to a point where we feel guilty or ashamed when we eat sweets or fast food. Or we allow ourselves a “cheat day” once a week, where we eat everything we don’t usually allow ourselves (be honest with yourself – do you recognize yourself here?).

Often times with the diet mindset, we have formed a negative body image, and therefore are usually at a point where we no longer feel connected to our body. We find it very difficult to listen to the body’s signals, interpret them, and most importantly, respect and honour them.

After all, according to our analytical thinking, we would know exactly what we should eat, based on various rules. Intuitive Eating, however, is about perceiving the body’s signals and feeling when and what we should eat, so that there are no more questions to the analytical brain, just an instinct – we FEEL it.

In Intuitive Eating there are no rules we can break, we can only learn and get to know ourselves better.I often get asked, “Yes, but if I can eat anything I want, won’t I just eat “unhealthy” foods, like too much sweets for example?”. That’s a valid question, and that was one of my biggest fears as well. The point is, your body doesn’t ONLY ask for sweets, sugar, chocolate or fast food. Your body is asking for crunchy veggies, fresh fruit, and good protein just as much.

Think for a moment about the last time you had the flu or didn’t feel fit in some way: can you remember that maybe deep down you knew exactly that you wanted a warm soup with root vegetables right now. In moments when we are not in our normal state, we often find it easier to eat intuitively. Likewise, there are many mamas who lived vegan before pregnancy and couldn’t stop thinking about meat during pregnancy until they gave in to the craving.

That’s the body asking for a specific nutrient.

The more you experience intuitive eating, the more you notice: that Nutella is actually way too sweet for me, or that instant pizza tastes way too artificial and greasy. I don’t really want or need that at all.

So the practice is all about listening to your own intuition and trusting it. This requires first and foremost, as is so many cases, being more mindful and getting to know yourself better. .

How mindful do I eat?
How aware am I of how my food make me feel?
What effects do certain foods have on MY body?
How much does my body need and when?

Questioning and reflecting yourself is the step you have to make and that a journey towards your beautiful self.

If you are looking for support on this journey, feel free to contact me.
Thank you for taking your time to read.

emotional eating healthy eating Healthy Lifestyle nutrition

How To Overcome Emotional Eating?

What Is Emotional Eating and Why Is It Happening?

Let me answer this question with a practical example with a short story about Sarah (could be any other name!), a woman in her mid-30s who is actually quite content with her life if it weren’t for this one BIG thing that weighs on her every day.

Sarah works in an office. She likes her job and enjoys working overtime sometimes. She is very mindful of healthy, freshly prepared food and takes food to work every day, but every night when she gets home she finds herself snacking on sweets in front of the fridge.

Every evening when she comes into the apartment she immediately heads for the kitchen as if remote controlled. She is not hungry, she knows that, but still she can’t help it. The desire is too great.

She has often tried to trick herself, to change the habit by trying to hide the chocolate in another drawer, or to eat an apple instead, but none of her attempts have succeeded. Each time she gives in at the end and runs back to the fridge. Even the attempt to buy no chocolate at all failed. As she even took the effort to run to the store again.

When Guilt and Shame Kicks In, the Vicious Cycle Begins

Sarah does not understand what’s “wrong” with her. She feels weak and undisciplined.
“Others can do it, can’t they?”
“I just don’t have enough control over myself.”

She begins to verbally beat up on herself more and more. As a failure, as a loser who can’t manage to simply do without. The feelings of guilt increase more and more and she feels incredibly ashamed of herself.

Every night she goes to bed with the same good resolution: “Tomorrow I’ll start all over again. Tomorrow night I’ll make it, it’s too late for today, but tomorrow I’ll start the new diet.”

And every day the same game starts all over again. Sarah is caught in the vicious cycle.

The reason why Sarah’s diets don’t work is because they don’t treat the cause of her problem, but only the symptoms.

She tries to control her eating by forbidding herself to eat – that requires a lot of energy and always puts her in the same position of giving in and overeating on sweets.

The root cause is not that she is too undisciplined, has no control over herself, or doesn’t have enough willpower…. The root cause lies in an emotion that is not given space. And this is it:

Emotional eating is when we use eating to cope with feelings.

And this is where it is important to start. Sarah tries to satisfy an emotional hunger with chocolate every evening. To fill an emotional hole that hasn’t gotten enough attention.

Only after Sarah starts to look more into herself, tries to find out with curiosity and compassion which feelings need more space and how she can take care of these emotions, she is able to not even think about the chocolate anymore.

Sarah might feel lonely because she lives alone in the apartement, she might be overwhelmed at work, she might just need more self care in any way…

Emotional eating is when we use eating to cope with feelings.

Practical Tips to Break Out of the Vicious Circle

Observe yourself: When do you eat emotionally?
When do you eat remotely, without feeling that you can’t stop?
When do you eat even though you are not hungry?
When do you not eat at all?
When do you feel guilty and ashamed after eating?
Stay curious and in compassion with yourself.
As soon as you become aware of these moments, ask yourself the question:
“Why did I reach for food? How do I feel right now? Is there a feeling that I didn’t want to allow?”
Ask yourself what you are really hungry for.
If it’s not physical hunger, maybe you’re hungry for rest, hungry for connection, for sports, for nature, for love, for a warm bath,….

Make it a habit: every time you catch yourself eating emotionally. To pause briefly, breathe deeply, and ask yourself:

What am I REALLY hungry for?

Take care of yourself and the emotions that need space:

Maybe you are stressed – then take some time out.
Maybe you feel alone – then call a friend
Maybe you feel sad – then cry
Maybe you are angry – then scream or do some exercise, or dance
Whats on your list?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read the article.

I hope I was able to give you a brief and practical overview of what emotional eating is all about.

I could write a book about it, because there is so much to say, and will do so. But until then – here are easy to digest blog posts on the topics.

And whenever you’d like some support along the way, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

All the love!

emotional eating selflove bodypositivity negativeselftalk

Why Only Losing Weight Will Not Make You Happy

As soons as I have lost weight, I will be happier.

Losing Weight Will Not Fix Your Problems

“As soon as I have lost 7 kg, I will be happier.”
“I only need to fit into my skinny jeans again and I will be more social again!”
“I will love myself more as soon as I’m back under 60 kg.”
“After I completed this diet I will have a better relationship with food again.

Maybe you will find yourself in one of these statements again… if not, I’m truely happy for you. These were all thoughts of mine I had during the time I was dealing with an eating disorder (even though I didn’t even knew I had one). I have always counted on huge changes in my life and was always hoping to change the way I see myself, as soon as I lost a certain amount of kilograms, as soon as I’m back to the weight I wanted to, as soon as I fit into jeans again, which not even weren’t my size,… and this list is even longer.

If you can relate to those thoughts, please take the time now to reflect:

When you were at your lowest weight:

– have you been as happy as you thought you’d be?
– has the relationship with your partner/ your friends changed? Have you been more social again?
– has the relationship with food changed? Could you enjoy food again? Were you able to stop dieting?
– did you have the feeling you lost enough weight? Could you stop the obsession of losing weight?
– did you liked your body more? Did you liked, respected and appreciated your body more?
– did you started loving yourself again? Did you have the feeling of being enough?

My Experience

During the time of the diet in which I starved myself and forced myself to do excessive sports, I isolated myself. Mostly, because I was afraid that a friend could have offered some cake when I visit for coffee and I knew I wouldn’t be able to say no to that cake – in fact I probably could have, but it would have triggered an binge eating attack after. Going out for dinner together was something I always tried to avoid. Of course I found ways to socialize, even though there was food involved or alcohol in a night out. Cancelling breakfast and lunch on the same day and the day after and burning calories in sports would have balanced it out again – but as you can imagine, that required a lot of planning before and after.

The truth is, whenever I have lost weight, whenever I have starved myself with a diet and would actually have reached a number on the scale I thought I would be happy with – I would still find myself in self-doubt again. Of course on one point, mostly in the beginning, I was happy, because I have managed to reach the goal I was aiming for, even though that would have cost me a lot of hustle and fighting against me – against food, but in the end I never changed the way I see myself. I didn’t liked myself more than before. I still had the feeling of being too fat, not good enough, I still was avoiding eating together with friends, shifting and cancelling meals. In the end the relationship to food has never changed.

Every bite had the taste of unnecessary calorine, the bad conscience of not being allowed to eat and the question of how I could make up for it.

What Actually Will Make You Happy Again...

I would never say that losing weight will not make you happy – in fact this will always depend on everyone individually. But when it comes to abnormal eating behaviours, like emotional eating, or even eating disorders, losing weight alone will not do it, because it will not fix your problems. It will not change the way you see yourself. It will never change the relationship to food! There will still be the questions of “What can I eat?” “When can I eat?” “Am I actually allowed to eat this?”… There will always be the feeling of not being good enough.
It’s not the weight which is the actual problem, it’s a deeper emotion behind the surface.
Only after I understood my eating habits and after I got to know my triggers, I was able to detect the hidden emotions behind it and could solve the problem. Losing weight went automatically after that point!

What really made me happy in the end was the freedom to eat what and when I wanted, to do exercises, going for a run when I felt like it and not because I had to.

Find Happiness In Being You.

Please remember at this point – you are not alone with this, is not a shame to have thoughts like this, and most important – it is NOT your fault.
Let me know in comments or in a message how you feel about this and if I can support you in any way.

dieting eating disorder emotional eating Fitness losing weight mental health nutrition