Did I Just Finish the Whole Bag of Potato Chips? by Amy Reissner Holistic RN, Energy Medicine Practitioner

I attended a women’s wellness group yesterday whose focus was on eating healthy, weight loss, and optimizing health. It seemed to me that every mother that was in attendance had issues with stress, time management, and pressure to get their to-do list completed before 3 o’clock pick up time at school.

I marveled at one mother, who hopped off a red-eye and came straight to the group. Another mother was finishing up a cell phone call about a charity event she is co-chairing. Other moms spoke about how busy they are managing their young families and their homes.

It is not easy being a parent in the 21st century. Much more seems to be expected of us then in the 1960’s (oops my growing up years!) when there were more traditional roles fulfilled by men and women. Today, many more women work either full or part-time. With difficult economic times, some women have taken over as the main bread-winners and Dad has become a stay-at-home variation on house-wife...as a house-Dad.

In two-income families, many moms often come home from work to pick up children after-school, juggle meal preparation, HW supervision, car pooling, laundry, play-dates, community or civic meetings, and aging or ill grandparents. Family fun time and spousal relationships are left for weekend catch-up after sports, religious attendance, and chores like laundry or grocery shopping are completed.

This way of life is almost 365 days a year of being on a tread-mill and not often at the gym. Is it surprising that dipping into the potato chip bag, or grabbing a hand-full of M&M’s, or 2-3 or more chocolate chip cookies becomes a way of coping?

This type A life-style, where time is of the essence and stress is what is making us run can result in dysfunctional eating. Emotional eating happens when you are upset, confused, unhappy, angry or stressed out. Comfort food is like receiving a reward or a hug and can console us when we are low emotionally.

The after-math of emotional eating, which often leads to over-eating and unconscious eating is usually guilt, repugnance, disgust, or blame. You might look at the empty potato chip bag, cookie bag, or ice cream carton and groan, “Why did I do that?” It is unconscious because you are unaware that your hand/fork/spoon is even filling your mouth, as it is on auto-pilot. 

Would you like to learn how to stop this endless cycle of over-eating, dieting, comfort eating and self-condemnation? Are you tired of losing weight, and gaining it back within a month? Taking a look at why we overeat, or go unconscious, or ‘fall off the heathy eating wagon’ is an important aspect of ending this cycle. Energy Medicine tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique or Meridian Tapping can really help. It is something I do with my clients in person, on the phone or on Skype!

In addition, learning how to manage our stress is a huge factor in ending the cycle of overeating, binge eating, comfort eating, and feeling bad about ourselves. See my article on Rye Patch. http://rye.patch.com/articles/stress-and-weight-gain-does-stress-tip-the...

Meditation is a wonderful stress-relieving tool that I teach to my clients. I have also written about meditation for Rye Patch. You might take a look at my Rye Patch blog.  http://rye.patch.com/blog_posts/reasons-people-have-trouble-meditating-w...

Check out my website www.VitalEssenceHealing.com to learn about how Energy Medicine can reduce your stress, balance your energy and release habits like over-eating!

Best,

Amy