Feelings are early warning signs

Just because you feel “fine” doesn’t mean you’re unaffected. If you notice you’re struggling with food choices around lifestyle change, it’s prob not just about food. It’s prob about life.

My client calls always start with the formality of “how was your week?” While it is a simple question, it gives a lot of information as the answer is biased towards the client’s interpretation of the question.

“Does he mean food?”

“Does he mean exercise?”

“Or work or family or social stuff?”

In reality, the answer is just what’s important to them.

Oftentimes, they will lead with something happening in their life that’s a struggle emotionally or mentally. Be it familial relationships or challenges with work. And oftentimes will follow up with “but I’m fine.” What comes next is important…

“So I struggled a lot over the weekend. Just couldn’t get it together. I don’t know why…”

When we have an event with family or friends or work, it can bring up a lot of stuff we never even recognize.

Simple things can act as triggers to completely upend our routine. And we turn to the behaviors (such as overeating and drinking in excess) and see them as the cause of our discontent.

But the food and alcohol aren’t the (real) problem. They’re the early warning system that something else is off. They’re the 🚩🚩🚩

If we can better understand the triggering event or emotion behind our behaviors, we can better understand where they originate. And the better we are at getting granular with our description, the better we become at altering said behaviors that aren’t congruent with our current goals.

TLDR; everything is connected. And the “problem” behavior is a 🚩 to let you know something else’s is off.