How I am healing my relationship with food.

Written by Hali Tsotetsi

Image from Unsplash

About a month ago, I was feeling fatigued, sluggish and bloated. I felt a deep disconnection from my body and, as a former dancer and yoga teacher, this is an odd experience for me.

I felt my clothes getting smaller but I have been active and working out. So, I was confused about why I felt so heavy. This led me to do one of the things that I needed but really didn’t want to, to buy a scale and weigh myself.

I almost cried when I saw the number on the scale because it was way more than I had wanted to see. After I processed the number in my head, I got honest with myself about what I had been putting in my mouth. I was so disappointed in myself because I had been doing so well until I went through something in the past months that led me to overeat.

You see, I have never had substance abuse issues, drinking issues but, my addiction has always been food. Whenever I go though a tough time, I find myself leaning on food to help me get through any emotional issues that I need to process in a healthy way.

Growing up, my weight would yo-yo. I would go months without eating and then go overeat to compensate for the months that I had deprived myself of food. I would notice that when I was skinny, people would treat me differently and were nicer to me. However, when I was overweight, I wouldn’t get the same treatment. I developed a frenemy relationship with food. It made me feel good but would make look heavy, tired and bloated.

As I grew up, into early adulthood, I did a lot of yoga which suppressed my appetite. So, I was skinny and fit into my clothes the way that I had wanted. The worst part of being overweight is not fitting your clothes properly.

Then after, I went through a really bad break-up (in my late twenties) and a miscarriage, I put on a bunch of weight on. Although I subconsciously knew that I had used food as a way to numb my feelings, it wasn’t until three weeks ago when I felt myself feeling a deep emotion and linked that feeling to a craving for potato chips. I had a deep ‘aha’ moment.

I realized that I had leaned on food as a way to help me digest my emotions, instead of just processing it. So, in that moment, I gave myself permission to feel and be upset with the person that I was angry with. I sat with it and the craving went away.

As I have lost some of the weight, I am in the process of healing how I have used food (particularly chips, snacks and large portions of food) to heal what I just needed to feel. My inner child was not given permission to feel my true emotions but, now I am allowing her to do so.

In a respectful manner, I will not push down any feelings, intuition or hunches that I have about someone or something. I deserve to feel the way that I feel. No one can tell me otherwise