As Summer weather approaches and we expose our bodies in more revealing clothing, the anxiety level particularly amongst women increases. The media swings into overdrive with stories of weight loss and body transformation that further diminish the esteem of readers who are then susceptible to the 'quick fix' promises of the dieting industry. 
The subject of body image, the perfect body in society plays right into our emotions. 

The reasons we eat are rarely ever linked with true hunger. I would suspect that very few people reading this actually know what that is.  Most of us eat according to the time of day never thinking that skipping the meal would serve us better. Here we are eating because that is what we believe we should be doing because everyone else is and it provides a sense of belonging.  

If you then make a lifestyle choice that greatly differs from your peers it will incite reactions that astound you. In my own personal experience when I announced that I was choosing vegan eating some people became very defensive about the way they were feeding themselves. My choice became about them when I had not mentioned it at all. It was as if they felt judged by my decision. 

I have just started reading Women Food & God by Genenne Roth a book that looks at the deep connection food has with emotions and self worth.  

This is the truth about food that the diet industry never addresses for if they did the industry would become an advisory service and therefore loose the billions generated. Now I am not against business and making money but to see millions of people led down the garden path year after year. That makes me uneasy especially when the lone voices that have the guts to voice the truth are shut down and the very people who would benefit think they are crazy.  

The real issue to address is self worth and not knowing  how to handle and process our emotions. Instead we are sold legal narcotics to numb ourselves. Junk foods without nutritional value that provide a temporary high and still leave us empty but then emotionally and nutritionally addicted. And so the cycle of eating, weight gain, and dieting begins and carries on for a lifetime.  

As well as I do eat it is still possible to find health foods that are 'junky'. When I am subconsciously drawn to them it is because I am attempting to avoid feeling a certain way but this book has brought new awareness about why I eat that way sometimes and I am committed to change. 

It is a new way of facing life's uncomfortable moments when emotions are charging through my body and I am convinced they will be my undoing. 

But these moments pass.

The emotions transmute into memories that then become lessons to guide us forward into stronger, wiser versions  of ourselves.  

If you starve the ego you feed the soul. 

Love Yourself

Cx

Thanks for reading

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