I made the executive decision to forego doing keto while I am figuring out my emotional eating. I will eat the keto meals that are nutritious and that I enjoy, such as my egg and veggie brunches, and I will continue to make food choices that benefit my health, but I feel it’s more important to not put restrictions on my self-learning. Restrictions induce stress when it comes to food for me, so let’s get that barrier out of the way while I get my learn on.

I am starting with taking note of how I am feeling throughout the day. I am putting a name to my feelings and differentiating between a physical sensation and an emotion. I’m not labeling anything as good or bad, each thought or emotion is simply something that’s going on in my body or in my head. It is what it is, yo. It is me and I am ok. I take a few moments to do a check-in with myself, and I am being deliberate about doing this frequently. I share these things throughout the day with my husband as well. That serves two purposes: 1) it helps me practice my marital communication skills, sharing with my companion because he is not a mind reader, 2) I remember when I first started on my anti-depressant and my provider suggested that my husband be my “barometer”. I can enlist his observation and intuitive skills to help show me the progress I am making or to bring something to my attention that I may not be seeing.

I have to slow down a little bit to take this mental “pause”. I am so used to being busy all the time that I always felt like this would be more hindrance than helpful. Like, “I got no time to be introspective!!!” But feeling compelled to be busy all the time is also stressful. Aaaahhhhhh, see what I just learned about myself there??? I’ve found that taking that pause takes less than a minute. And the more deliberate I am about practicing this, the better I will get at it and more comfortable I will feel with it.

When I was cooking dinner last night (my mom’s chili recipe), Joe B asked me if I was learning if I had any trigger foods (foods that set off a binge once I start in), or if I had identified the foods I most frequently crave when I’m stressed. I promptly responded “Popcorn, chips, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and butter pecan ice cream.” They are salty, crunchy, and in the case of cookies and ice cream, they have a salty-sweet combo, where if they are available and once I start in, then that’s all I want to eat. Now that I think about it and reflect back on yesterday, I also discovered that I have the same response to my homemade kale chips. They are salty, crunchy, and once I start in I will knock out a whole plate. But I’m not going to put the stamp of approval on this choice because it’s simply swapping one trigger food for a nutritionally-dense trigger food. That’s still emotional eating. Another “Ah-ha” moment for me there.

This path I’m on is already very interesting. I have to remind myself frequently that this is a J.O.U.R.N.E.Y. And I can take my time to take note of and enjoy all the new discoveries.