How Feelings are Confused with Hunger & How to Fix it

(1) Body Recomposition Goals: Learn how to stay on your diet plan (for fitness or slimming), especially when your cravings seem overwhelming. 

(2) Increase Your Confidence: My question to you is - especially when it comes to food - are you master over your food or does food master you? Often we numb ourselves to relax or feel safe. Whatever you do, I want you to like your reasons for it.

(3) Improve Your Sleep: Late-night eating habits reliably worsen sleep quality. Suppressed emotions also keep many of my clients awake at night.

(4) Prevent Self-Sabotage & Keep Your Results: If I've learned anything from helping people reach their health dreams, it's that you cannot transform the body without also transforming the mind. At least not if you want to keep your results long-term. Today's recommendation will help you see your deeper needs and resolve your deeper deficiencies/yearnings, like isolation, numbness, sadness, anger, fear, and many others.

(5) Use This Recommendation On Anything You Know Makes You Weaker & Keeps You from Living the Adventure of Your Life: Almost everyone numbs themselves with something. Maybe it's not food for you as it is for many of my clients, but the recommendations described here apply to most of the common addictive habits of today, from gambling to binge-watching TV. Simply apply the recommendation before you give into your habit - and over time, you might not give in anymore. 

I know they say "Don't eat your feelings" but what they really mean is "Don't medicate/suppress/avoid your feelings".

As a nutritional therapy practitioner, I understand that the act of eating requires digestion, assimilation, and a method of elimination. So instead of reaching for your favorite food when you feel hard emotions, I recommend you to eat your feelings. That is, digest them (feel your feelings), absorb what they have to tell you, and let the rest take care of itself. 

Let me explain what I mean, practically.

Next time you feel snacky/cravings/unexplainable hunger ( I like to call it our food-consumption-reflex), try this simple exercise with paper and pen:

C: What am I craving right now? 

F: What am I feeling right now?

W: What do I really want?

How to use: Use a pen and paper (yes, the physical thing makes a difference). Most of my clients keep a small pocketbook-sized journal. When you feel the uncontrollable craving come over you, take a seat with your journal. Set a timer for 5 minutes (might be essential when you start using this practice). Write the date and time of day and the three letters: C, F, and W. Now answer the questions, genuinely. Afterward, do something that you wrote down in the "W" section. Go get that hug, call that friend, or just let yourself take a nap. 

Here's a typical response from my clients:

C: Pre-packaged carby salty snack food

F: bored... tired... and lonely

W: a good laugh, a hug, maybe a nap... also, certainty, comfort, love.

What you might notice, especially if you track the date and time too, is that most cravings (or any of your addictive twitches) happen around the same time of day, around the same few people, or while in certain locations. This information is invaluable to you. Notice the patterns. Solve for them in advance. Learn how to take better care of yourself, one entry at a time. 

Side note: if you are on a diet and you are actually hungry, use these recommendations to help your body resolve those cravings. 

9 times out of 10, our food-consuming reflex has nothing to do with food. 

The CFW Practice reveals your own secrets to yourself, prevents you from numbing yourself to your innumerous creative self-torture practices, and when finally read what you write under "What do I really want?", you might just cry - in awe, and relief, and maybe self-realization.

Yes, all of that feeling & awe within 1 minute. Plus, you'll suddenly no longer feel food-obsessed. 

Instead of seeping in your own self-criticism and self-defeat,

i.e. "Why can I never resist food at this time of day! I'm so weak." 

you will feel self-compassion and perhaps even bewilderment:

i.e. "Wow. How could I not tell that I've been overworking myself, and constantly rushing when I could have taken my time; and isolating myself for weeks instead of reaching out."

Food - especially lab-designed hyper-palatable ultra-processed food - stimulates our feel-good neurochemistry. Many things that would have been hard to find in large amounts a few hundred years ago, are now endlessly abundant. Refined sugar, for example, only made first widely available after the Industrial Revolution, is famously more addictive than opioid drugs like cocaine. 

Really, the studies on sugar vs cocaine are mind-blowing. 

But I'm not here today to demonize any particular food, rather I'm here to help you see your deeper needs and resolve your deeper deficiencies/yearnings, like isolation, numbness, sadness, anger, fear, and many others. 

If I've learned anything from helping people reach their health dreams, it's that you cannot transform the body without also transforming the mind. At least not if you want to keep your results long-term.

New Podcast & Radio Shows for Will to Live Nutrition!

• Radio Show with the one and only Bill of Maine: Hydrate & Heal with Isabella Thor CNTP
• Podcast Interview on Mental Matters with Asekho Toto of South Africa: Isabella Thor - Why painful periods are not normal & how to fix it - what men and women wa...

Previous Nutrition Letter & Free Guides:

1. July 2024 Nutrition Letter: "Your Daily Water Intake Goal and Why You Want One." 
2. The 5 Steps to PainFREE Periods, available to download here (my whole process in 5 steps; I hold nothing back)! Please share with those you love and might not know that periods/ovulation/etc could be pain-free without painkillers (or invasive surgery).
3. Protein Guide, How to Find Your Personalized Optimal Daily Protein Goal, available for free here - enjoy!.

My functional nutrition private practice is currently accepting new clients. Interested new clients are highly recommended to sign up for our complimentary Discovery Call.

Not sure what a Discovery Call is? Here's a video intro - enjoy!

Here are the conditions I help resolve, at isabellathor.com:

 

 

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