This lesson was a hard one to learn and I find a difficult one to remember. More and more articles these days are preaching what is "healthy" and what are the "healthy" ways to exercise and what are the best times to eat "healthy." Most of these articles are based off of what is healthy for the physical body. Yet, the physical body is more complicated than we can ever fully comprehend. Yes, due to science we have a wonderful grasp and understanding of the human body but I'd like to believe there is quite a bit of magic the human body holds that we truly have no knowledge or awareness of quite yet. So how can we truly define what is healthy for us?
With Halloween approaching tomorrow (or rather one hour from now), I want to offer a different way to get through this holiday. First of all, we all affect each other whether we are aware of it or not. Cravings for sugar and chocolate at this time of year are not just yours but they are everyone's. You may be feeling the craving for that 3 musketeers from the person in front of you who is feeling it from the person in front of them waiting in line to check out. We are not islands. A "sugar" issue is not yours, it is also our culture's. I digress. So, with Halloween being tomorrow, which has somehow been misconstrued to be the holiday of slutty outfits and candy, I want to offer that eating that piece of candy that you are desiring may actually be you eating healthy.
When we deny ourselves the basic pleasure of eating, there is a natural stress response in the body. Cortisol (the stress hormone) goes up and we crave that piece of candy even more to try and bring ourselves back into balance. Let's say we breath through the craving and it goes away. Woohoo! And then a couple days later Halloween is over and you have all this extra candy and the craving comes back even stronger. I say in the first or second moment you are allowed to have that candy!! Even if all the articles out there toot how dangerous and awful all this candy is, well so is the stress that is wreaking havoc on your system just by trying to stay away from it all.
Now, if you do finally give yourself permission to eat that piece of candy, really truly allow yourself to have it. No judgment, no voice in your head saying what you have to do later to make up for it, no getting on the ground and doing pushups to try and burn it off. Sit down with your piece of candy, take one bite at a time, roll it around in your mouth, taste it, feel the textures, ask yourself what it is about this moment you are enjoying so much. Sure, it may not be the "healthiest" thing for your body, but you are nourishing some piece of you. Any time you are eating, no matter what it is, you're nourishing your emotional body or your physical body or maybe even some ethereal part of your body we don't even know about. The moment you are giving yourself to allow yourself to receive is nourishing. Plain and simple. So this Halloween, if you feel up to it (unless eating that one piece of sugar sends you down a scary path of not being able to stop then you can totally forgo this experiment) try something different and just allow yourself to enjoy one piece of candy. One piece, pick it out like you would when you were a kid and you got to pick something out of a basket of small plastic toys, treasure that moment, and fully experience what it is like to give yourself love in the form of food.
With Halloween approaching tomorrow (or rather one hour from now), I want to offer a different way to get through this holiday. First of all, we all affect each other whether we are aware of it or not. Cravings for sugar and chocolate at this time of year are not just yours but they are everyone's. You may be feeling the craving for that 3 musketeers from the person in front of you who is feeling it from the person in front of them waiting in line to check out. We are not islands. A "sugar" issue is not yours, it is also our culture's. I digress. So, with Halloween being tomorrow, which has somehow been misconstrued to be the holiday of slutty outfits and candy, I want to offer that eating that piece of candy that you are desiring may actually be you eating healthy.
When we deny ourselves the basic pleasure of eating, there is a natural stress response in the body. Cortisol (the stress hormone) goes up and we crave that piece of candy even more to try and bring ourselves back into balance. Let's say we breath through the craving and it goes away. Woohoo! And then a couple days later Halloween is over and you have all this extra candy and the craving comes back even stronger. I say in the first or second moment you are allowed to have that candy!! Even if all the articles out there toot how dangerous and awful all this candy is, well so is the stress that is wreaking havoc on your system just by trying to stay away from it all.
Now, if you do finally give yourself permission to eat that piece of candy, really truly allow yourself to have it. No judgment, no voice in your head saying what you have to do later to make up for it, no getting on the ground and doing pushups to try and burn it off. Sit down with your piece of candy, take one bite at a time, roll it around in your mouth, taste it, feel the textures, ask yourself what it is about this moment you are enjoying so much. Sure, it may not be the "healthiest" thing for your body, but you are nourishing some piece of you. Any time you are eating, no matter what it is, you're nourishing your emotional body or your physical body or maybe even some ethereal part of your body we don't even know about. The moment you are giving yourself to allow yourself to receive is nourishing. Plain and simple. So this Halloween, if you feel up to it (unless eating that one piece of sugar sends you down a scary path of not being able to stop then you can totally forgo this experiment) try something different and just allow yourself to enjoy one piece of candy. One piece, pick it out like you would when you were a kid and you got to pick something out of a basket of small plastic toys, treasure that moment, and fully experience what it is like to give yourself love in the form of food.
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