of my message about food. Realize that meals are a chance to feed your
emotions, your intellect, and your spirit when you break bread with the people
closest to you.
Open your mouth. Open your mind. Open your world.
ROLE OF SOUL 2: Redefine Emotional Eating
Recently, my son Oliver and I went on a fishing trip. That day, everybody was
catching a lot of fish except Oliver, even though he tried every kind of tempting
bait and cast it gently and stealthily into the river. A friend who was with us
explained why: At that moment, the fish were swimming upstream to spawn, so
they had no interest in eating. If they took the bait, it was because the fisherman
had slapped his line into the water, causing a ruckus and irritating the fish. The
fish that were biting were doing so because they were annoyed by the distraction
from their journey, not because they were hungry.
Sound familiar?
Emotional eating—the idea that we often nosh because we’re feeling angry or
stressed or sad—is a common theme among those who struggle with diet and
weight. Many people mindlessly chomp away just like those fish did. They get
emotional, so they reach for the first thing they can bite down on. A few seconds
of eating relief comes with long-term consequences.
Eating should be emotional—but I want the emotions tied to food to be
positive and productive, not negative and reactive. Instead of attacking a tub of
ice cream because somebody sent you a snarky text or tucking into a huge bowl
of pasta because life is tough, I want eating to enhance your relationships and
grow your joy.
This is another reason to team up for mealtime as much as you can.
Destructive emotional eating tends to be a solitary affair; add a supportive friend
or partner and you’re less likely to use food for comfort. Wherever we travel,
Lisa and I like to taste the local food and carve out some slowed-down alone
time together. We’ll gather up picnic supplies and head out to a park or a beach
or even a city bench. Salads, cheeses, honey . . . It’s not just about what we’re
eating, but that we’re together. We talk about our kids, our goals, our challenges.
Surely that happens at other times, too, but some of our nicest memories stem
from these simple meals.
Positive emotional eating can happen when you’re one-on-one, or when the
gang’s all there. Every fall, for example, our family travels to an orchard to pick