The Fire Burning Your Consistency House Down

Food is not the problem, and overeating is not the problem. 

Alcohol is not the problem and overdrinking is not the problem. 

Smartphones are not the problem and excessive screen time is not the problem.

I could say the same for shopping, drugs, porn, gambling, video games, internet use, or anything else that gets used as a form of escape.

None of these substances or behaviors are the problems themselves.

Food, for example, is perfectly neutral.

Whether someone puts a bowl of Kit-Kats or a plate of turkey in front of you, the food isn’t what’s causing you problems. Your reaction to the food, on the other hand, may feel problematic to you.

Overeating also isn’t a problem. Again, it can feel problematic, but if you’re overeating, that’s not the problem. Overeating is a symptom.

Overeating, drinking, drug abuse, and so on are all symptoms.

These are all forms of numbing, of escapism.

Escape from what?

Your life and your feelings about it.

If you want to stop emotional eating, you’re going to have to do more than just get trigger foods out of your house.

Trust me.

When I was struggling with binge eating, I got the trigger foods out of my house. Bye-bye cookies, ice cream, Nutella... What happened? I went for abnormally large amounts of whatever was left. Chicken breast, rice, oats. These are not tempting foods—but I overate them anyway because food was not the problem.

Changing my environment alone didn’t solve my binge eating because the trigger foods weren’t the problem.

We use food and alcohol and other numbing agents because we can’t tolerate our emotions. So when you remove the numbing agent from your life, you’re still left with the deep discomfort of your feelings.

But that’s actually a good thing. Because when you can see what the real problem is, then you can begin to fix it.

Even your emotions themselves aren’t the problem. They’re just the smoke signals.

For example, if you’re dealing with intolerable loneliness (the smoke signal) that drives you to drink away the feelings at night, then the root issue (the fire) may be your low self-worth, or that you’re lacking healthy, intimate relationships with family, friends, and/or a significant other. 

The solution, therefore, is not to simply quit drinking. Quitting will be next to impossible unless you address the underlying causes. If you’re still feeling alone every night, the desire to drink to quell those feelings is going to rage until you will eventually run out of willpower.

The solution to your “drinking problem”, or rather in this example, loneliness problem, is to go as deep as you can and find out what you need to do to feel less lonely.

Maybe that means improving your self-worth so you find it easier to connect with others. Or maybe it’s to spend more of your time seeking out connection—cultivating friendships or going on dates or checking in with family members—whatever your personal situation calls for.

Apply the above to whatever your numbing agent of choice is and ask yourself what feelings you’re running from, and spend the necessary time to ask yourself what you really need.

In the meantime, you can work on your mindset to learn how to sit with the feelings you find intolerable—rather than slapping a band-aid on them.

Consider this:

People can see cake and not feel a desire to eat it.

People can use drugs without becoming addicted.

People can budget and shop without impulse buying.

People don’t crave going overboard unless they have a hole somewhere they’re trying to fill. Or, to use my earlier analogy, they have a fire they’re trying to put out.

Furthermore, the people for whom habits become problematic are not broken. They simply have different life circumstances and coping mechanisms.

The good news is, these can both be changed.

But to find healthy ways of coping you first need to realize you can’t willpower yourself out of a numbing habit.

If the underlying issue remains, the desire for the numbing agent will continue to build until you eventually crack.

That’s why you need to do the work to solve the underlying problems.

Rather than trying to breathe smoke, you need to put the fire out.

In order to put the fire out, you must address the root causes: your thoughts and feelings.

That’s why the foundations of Food Body Self® are mindfulness and mindset. Food Body Self® is a personalized mindset coaching program designed to teach you both how to process difficult emotions and how to rewire your thoughts so you can make flexible, balanced, healthy choices.

The result of which is a thoughtful, peaceful, and healthy relationship with food without overeating, excessive restriction, or food preoccupation.

No smoke, no fire. Just a strong house built on a strong foundation.