3 Tips to Feed Your True Hungers

I’ll be back next week for my first blog post as a wife!  For now, I’ve got a guest post from one of my favorite teachers for you – Shelley Chapman.  She’s a stellar writer and teacher who I’ve been privileged to work with and get to know this past year.  She is so passionate about helping women to improve their relationship with food and cooks the most gorgeous food I have ever seen. 

Isn’t it cool that making proper food choices in 2012 is so easy?  I mean all you have to do is turn on the television and that steaming hot Olive Garden lasagna dinner is calling your name. Not to mention it comes with unlimited salad and bread sticks! How could you pass that up? 

If unlimited carbs and roughage isn’t your speed then you can simply join Weight Watchers and they have this really cool point system for the mathematically inclined where you can eat whatever you like as long as it adds up to a five pound weight loss by the end of the week.  Who needs Calculus when weekly addition can add up to loss?

Sounds good, right?

Meh…not so much.

One of the major hurdles for women who struggle with food and body issues is that they make limited food choices.

You see, your food choices aren’t only about the tangible foods that you can digest.  Although one would think that all there is to eat is what’s readily available in the supermarket and area restaurant.  No one told us, that there’s an entire source of nutrition in the form of emotional and spiritual food too!

How often have you experienced the pendulum swing of eating “everything-that-tastes-so-good-yet-is-so-‘bad’”  to consuming green juices and big obnoxious bowls of kale salad?  And then somehow convincing yourself that this is a balanced diet?

It’s okay, you can raise your hand. No one is judging you. As a matter of fact, other women reading this are probably chuckling to themselves and nodding their heads in agreement right now.  We’ve all been there at some point in time.

Do you remember the last time you were hungry?

She was relentless wasn’t she? Hunger is a beast!  Once that hunger rears her head, she demands to be fed and nourished. Hunger will literally disrupt your day…. shit, she will disrupt your life until you deal with her! The challenge with hunger is that if you don’t have the proper nutrition on hand you’ll mistakenly feed her “false food” like indulgences or temporary diets in hopes that she will stop her insistence and settle down. 

So how do you begin to feed all your hungers?

Well that depends on how much of yourself you’re willing to bring to the table. When you only bring a part of yourself to the table, the other parts of you will surely continue to experience a deep hunger.  If you’re anything like a lot of the women I have worked with, then you’re probably busy feeding this or that. Put simply, only one part of you is being fed while the other parts are still starving.  You see, as a women of the 21^st century you’re well versed in leaving parts of yourself behind.  In this masculine oriented version of society, you were taught from a young age that some of your “feminine parts” weren’t as important. These included your emotions, intuition, nurturing relationships, curves, etc. Since you weren’t taught to really deal with them, a lot of them are still hungry and they’re using food to get your attention.

 Let’s distinguish your hungers, shall we?

1.      If hunger is not the issue, then food is not the answer. No amount of kale salad nor Weight Watcher approved chocolate chip cookies can truly fill you if your spirit is not #WellFed.  If your instinct is to reach for your change purse and run to the snack machine when your day is out of whack then it’s time to do a hunger check and determine whether or not your belly needs grub or your self needs a hug.

2.      Your cravings are vital to your emotional wellness. That intense burning desire that you have to devour that chocolate cake is a really good thing! Seriously! Your cravings can teach you a lot about your underlying emotional needs.  The key here is to not resist the temptation but to explore it. Mind you this isn’t a “free for all”, the term explore is not the same as eat!

3.      Become your body’s best friend.  When you are your own best friend, you naturally make “food” choices that are nourishing and nurturing.  BFFs know how to be #WellFed and when hungers arise, they make it a point to feed themselves the loving and affectionate “food” that their body craves. 

Earlier this year, I had the honor of consulting with Marla to create The Body Food Freedom Formula.  A revolutionary digital program that I created to help women lose the weight and gain their lives by being their own best friend. Not only does the BFF Formula help you get in touch with your true hungers, it also helps you discover which foods to feed your body, your emotional wellness and your overall life. 

You know that it’s time to start living a #WellFed life, click here and try the 1st module free or buy and dive into the entire program now!

Shelley Chapman is the creator of The Body Food Freedom Formula and EatRelateLove, a website that helps women live #WellFed lives by featuring delicious recipes, emotional wellness articles and wellness events.  She resides in Brooklyn, NY and can be found basking in yum when she’s not cooking, writing or speaking about wellness.