My wife is good at making homemade ice-cream. Too good in fact. Last week, after inviting friends over to our house, she made copious amounts of the stuff. The flavours were chocolate, caramel and pecan, malted chocolate (which tasted like a malteaser that had fallen from heaven.)
But it hadn’t come from heaven. The leftovers from our gathering were in our freezer. A freezer which needed to be defrosted and sold on Facebook marketplace.
Hmm. How do we begin to clear out the freezer without any food waste? Shay to the rescue!
I wasn’t expecting to eat all three flavours which spilled out of the bowl tonight. I first looked in the top cupboard for some salted peanuts, but didn’t have any. I then checked the crisp cupboard, but the multipack choices were not exciting me. That’s the problem when you win a freebie on the Lidl scratch card app. You end up with the beef, roast chicken and prawn cocktail flavours instead of cheese and onion.
It was only when my wife mentioned that the freezer needed clearing out did I remember the ice cream.
After a tough day at work and only getting snippets of information regarding our VISA and business set up in Portugal from my wife’s texts, by the time the evening arrived I was ready to emotionally eat.
I love coming home to my wife and kids, but I can’t pretend that the chaos of our home, with packed boxes piling up and the certain uncertainties that moving house/country brings can be a stressy time in the Durant-Duckworth household. Emotions are running high. I sometimes deal with that with the occasional emotional eat.
I am, of course, following the Never Give Up Personal Training handbook. I have always told my clients to give themselves a break if they make certain food choices during emotional times in their lives. It’s about identifying your needs.
The term ’emotional eating’ is often seen as a bad thing. It’s a weak act. It’s a crux that we need to rid ourselves of. Instead, we should go for a jog or slog it out in the gym. Sod that, tonight I wanted ice cream. Ok, I wanted salted peanuts or cheese and onion crisps but the ice-cream was more than a suitable replacement for giving me a big emotional hug.
We are emotional creatures. And with such complex needs as ours, is it even possible to eat without emotion?!
But the one big, big rule that we must remember is that the slice of cake, the bowl of cheesy pasta or indeed the serving of half of the freezer tasting of malteasers is that you can identify that this is a moment of emotional eating. It is a perfectly acceptable way to ease your emotions as long as you recognise it as your choice.
You have lots of choices when you are faced with an emotional time. For me, I turn to exercise, meditation, talking to others (usually my wife), watching or listening to something funny, watching football, having sex or having a glass of red. But I cannot deny that eating can sometimes trump all of the above. It is an option and sometimes I use it.
And once you can recognise that this is as acceptable as any other coping mechanism then you will begin to improve on your physical and mental wellbeing.
Identifying your needs for every given situation will be different. This is because every situation will pose very different challenges to the next. Just know that you have options. You are in control. You get to choose.
Go to the gym. Have a run. Meditate. By all means do all of those positive things. But never feel guilty about an occasional bowl of ice cream to give you an emotional pick up. And enjoy the whole damn thing!
Never Give Up PT 