Can you soften sugar cravings with kindness? When we crave sugar, we tend to have 1 of 2 reactions: we either try to control, white knuckle, suppress, shut up, or cut out the feeling of wanting. Or we act out the craving by eating the … [Read more]
How I walked away from sugar (when I was really, really tempted)
What happens when you open the door to the emotions underneath a sugar craving? For most of my life, I’ve been an emotional eater, soothing myself with sugar and food. I’m highly sensitive, which means I feel everything – both the … [Read more]
Overeating is healed in relationship
We typically approach diet, health and weight loss as a science: eat less, lose weight. Exercise more, lose weight. In this mechanistic view, we view the body as a machine, where we do X to get Y. We focus on fixing the behavior (eating less junk … [Read more]
Stop a binge in its tracks with empathy
We tend to judge and blame ourselves when we do something "wrong" or "messy" like bingeing. But I see it differently - if you're bingeing, overeating or fixating on sugar, there's a valid, honest to good reason. Binges don't occur in a vaccuum. … [Read more]
Letting go and finding faith
I was just traveling, visiting family in Ohio. Normally when I travel, I plan extensively in advance: cooking and packing food to take with me, searching for gyms, scoping out the health food stores in the area. Preparation has its value. But my … [Read more]
Caring for our ‘survival machinery’
We all have ways of caring for ourselves - coping mechanisms - that look really, really messy on the outside. This may include overeating or sugar bingeing. It's easy to label and judge them as bad or wrong - "I should know better. I should be able … [Read more]
What to do when you’re bingeing and gaining weight
The healing path out of overeating is an unwinding path, a spiral of healing and growth. I got several emails this week from women who feel utterly discouraged. They’ve been doing lots of powerful healing work, and while they see internal shifts in … [Read more]
The link between “wavy” boundaries and overeating
How to release inner tension without food Overeating is often triggered by a build up of anxiety, inner stress, and tension. Chronic anxiety and tension feels tight, hot, and pressured in our bodies - like we're going to scream, hit something or … [Read more]
How safety helps you grow out of overeating
Safety is the single, most important, most crucial ingredient for healing, whether it's healing the body, overeating, food addiction, sugar addiction, weight loss, or any painful food pattern. According to developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon … [Read more]
Core emotions that can feed overeating
Like an iceberg, what drives overeating lies below the surface. Overeating is often an attempt to feel safe and connected in the face of isolation, fear, overwhelm, or pain that feels too much to bear. When our nervous systems feel overwhelmed and … [Read more]
Softening the resistance that arises when you want to change
One of the most frustrating aspects of healing food "stuff" is how we get stuck in resistance. We recognize something that would help us - for example, eating less sugar - and yet as soon as we recognize the benefit of acting in this way we … [Read more]
Where’s your craving “emergency kit?”
As emotional eating expert Melissa McCreery says, we need a mix of "quick and dirty" strategies and long term strategies to shift a pattern of overeating or sugar bingeing. Quick and dirty strategies are so crucial because, as Viktor Frankl … [Read more]