Sometimes hunger isn’t physical. It’s an ache for something missing, a lost place we just can’t find, a love we realized too late was true. Food becomes the place we turn for comfort. We eat to fill a longing for something we can’t quite name, and can’t really satisfy. Elizabeth Berg calls it “eating to scratch that itch that won’t get scratched.”
If food is the private language that comforts you, you will recognize every word and taste and feeling in Elizabeth Berg’s newest story. The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted is incredibly funny, and very, very sad. She wrote it for the members of her tribe.
“We who eat asparagus longing for the potatoes… and the pecan pie” dreading the moment we will give in to those potatoes and the pie and the donuts. Giving in to the ache and the longing of emotional eating has always been a weakness we felt was beyond our control. A recent article cites evidence claiming these patterns are “not choice, but habit.” Brain research tells us we are not “unchangeable creatures of habit… we can change, learn something new or develop a new habit.”
Scientists have learned that our behavior patterns wear a groove in our brain, a nice soft path that’s easy and comfortable to follow. We can learn to change by getting in the “stretch zone.” We can add a new path, and our brain will follow with new behavior. The old grooves remain in place, we just “jump our trains of thought onto new tracks…that can bypass those old roads.”
You can learn to change how you eat. You can learn to change what you eat. Little changes in behavior and pattern and choice become healthy and happy new habits. This is a good road to follow. Let your Sensei be your guide. Go scratch that itch!
- Nancy
Labels: Body Image, Book Review, Diet, food for thought, healthy eating, Lifestyle Change, Mind-Body Connection, Mindless Eating, Nancy
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