21 Day Emotional Eating Journal Challenge Day 1-Day 7
One of the very first things I help my clients do is to become aware of what they are even thinking or feeling. We are not taught out to think about our thinking. We go about day in and day out just thinking that are feelings are our feelings and we don't have control over our thinking.
One of the most freeing days of my life was when I realized that the way I feel is completely in my control. My feelings are derived from my thoughts and the way I think about circumstances and situations is completely up to me
HOW INCREDIBLE...and terrifying at the same time.
These 21 prompts are meant and designed to help you become aware of your current belief system about the purpose of food, help you identify your emotional triggers, create the desires you have for yourself and your relationship with food, and walk you through the beginning steps of how to change your thoughts and feelings about how you use food as a comfort and emotional escape for your reality.
These 21 prompts are designed to build on top of one another, make sure you do them in the order that they are listed and take adequate time to really dive into each of them. Don't rush yourself into feeling you have to complete one everyday. However, commit to focusing on these prompts daily.
Make a commitment to yourself, give your self this time to dig deep to become aware of how you use food in your life. And then HONOR that commitment. Do it everyday!
If you would like to do this along side other women who are their own journey of freedom from emotional eating click HERE and request access to my private & FREE accountability group.
Day 1 Thoughts:
This is one of the first questions I ask the women I work with. Its a challenging first questions to start this challenge with but it is an important one.
Most of us don't even think about this anymore. We have just accepted where we are at, how we live, what job we currently are in, how we look and feel. We accept it as this is how life is and how it will be going further.
But I'm going to challenge you on this thought. The whole point of this challenge is for you to become aware of the limiting beliefs that you have bought into, believed and have made your TRUTH. When in reality these are NOT TRUTHS of who you are, what you can accomplish, or what you must just accept and move on. These are just thoughts that you have told yourself over and over and over again and they have become a BELIEF. A belief that has been thought so much that it feels like it is a part of you. If feel like who you are. But when you start to realized and call it out for what it truly is. Its just a THOUGHT. And the wonderful news...thoughts can always be changed.
Another observation I have made in my own life and in the women I work with are most of the time they will only list the things that they don't currently have. They think about all the things that they wont, don't have time for, can't do, are not capable of, never have had and they write all of those down. When this happens I have them go back and add to their entry all of the things that they already have in their life that they want and they love.
We are so use to finding, looking, and examining everything that is wrong or that we don't have that we forget about the very things that we have been blessed with. So as you go through this first journal entry I want you to create the life that you want. I want you to create it with things that you don't have and you would like to add into it and I also want you to think about things that you currently have and you want to keep those.
Don't limit yourself in this my friends. Your brain is going to kick in quite quickly in this exercise. It is going to tell you that what is the point of you even writing that down. You will never have it. You don't have enough time, enough money, you are not capable of that. Keep going, keep pushing back on what you have always accepted. This is where we start to pull away the emotional baggage that comes with emotional eating. The thoughts, feelings, dreams that we have shut down, distracted ourselves from, busied ourselves with other things; these are the very things that need to come out into the light in order for you to start moving towards your emotional freedom and to stop using food as a way to cope.
Day 1 Journal Entry:
For Myself: I want to live a life of balance. But of balance that I choose. I want to determine for myself where my priorities should be. I want to participate in this balance without guilt that I'm letting some other area of my life down. When I choose to focus more on work, more on my family, more on a relationship or more on my own personal development; guilt is not there knocking on my thoughts telling I'm not doing enough in the other areas that I am not focusing on. I want to live a life where I'm aware and conscious of my thoughts. I choose to think them, I'm aware that I am in control of changing them. I want to allow emotions and feelings to be present that I want to feel. When those feelings start to not serve me I want to work to change my thoughts that are creating them, realizing at all times I am in control of my feelings because I am in control of my thoughts. For my relationships: I desire to be in deep relationships with people. I desire to know people and be known by others. I want to share my joys, sorrows, excitement and worry with others in my life. I want to make the people that I love and care about a priority to me. But I also want and need to learn how to create boundaries for myself and my family time. Learning that when I say no to someone, something or some opportunity; I"m actually saying yes to to something else. I want to make my relationships a priority become more aware of when I'm taking away time from those relationships by doing things that are really not a priority of mine.
My Health and Fitness: Make myself a priority when it comes to my health and fitness. I ultimately want to live a life that has freedom from my desire to eat and use food the way that I currently do. I want to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. I want to make choice that fuel my body and serves a purpose for my workouts. I want ABS & a BOOTY! I want to see pictures of myself, and look at myself in the mirror and know that I am proud of what I see back. I want to work out 6 days a week. Doing workouts that continue to move me forward to my best self. I want to continue challenging myself with workouts, evolving and gaining strength in areas that I am weaker. I want to continue to show other moms what is possible. That by making themselves a priority that it is actually the least selfish thing they can do and that it is a selfless act because they are becoming the best version of themselves mentally, physically and emotionally for their families.
My Business: I want to continue helping other women and moms to help them realize that they can reach their goals. I want to continue building up my clients helping them get the results that they want by changing their thoughts about what they are capable of doing. I want to trust that I will get to the place in my business that I want to and stop believing the limiting beliefs that I don't have enough time as a busy mom and that I don't have enough money to make it the successful business that I want it to be. I want this to be the reason why I get to stay home after the boys go to school. The reason why I can see them get on and off the bus each day, be a volunteer in the classroom and make the schedule I need.
Day 2 Thoughts:
Most of the women that I work with want to rush through this part. They just want someone to tell them what to change, what to eat, how to workout, how to distract themselves. They want the equation. They want the quick fix. But that is not what I'm going to give you. Because frankly, I know from a lot of experience that none of that works.
The purpose of today is for you to start becoming aware. Aware of your triggers, aware of the emotions that trigger you, and how you respond to those emotions. How do you react or respond to stress, frustration, anxiety, overwhelm, excitement, disappointment? Today is where you take inventory of those feelings and how you respond to them.
There is a key component in this journal entry and really with these next 20 days. You MUST practice grace with yourself. Don't use these journal entries as another way to shame or guilt your way into changing. Use these journal entries as a way to honestly look at where you are coming from, what you believe, and what lies you have started to believe as your truths.
Out of awareness is where you change with start to occur.
On a personal note for my own personal journal entry, you won't see a lot of my responses to my emotions be food anymore. Remember I have been doing this for almost 9 months now; so I have worked through a lot of my emotional eating issues and am on the other side for the most part. I still have my days but know I have a lot of tools I use that allow me to stay present and not check out with food. This doesn't mean the desire to to it is gone (that is my next phase I'm working on) but the action of using food is no longer as strong because I am aware of my thoughts and know how to change them for my benefit.
The great news is you will too! If you stick with me. That is what I'm going to show you over the course of these next 3 weeks.
Day 2 Journal Entry:
Emotion #1: Exhausted
How did I want to respond: skip my workout, make myself waffles and eat them to my hearts content.
How did I respond: I got up, didn't have a choice, boys needed me.
Emotion #2: Panic How did I want to respond: I wanted to treat myself with something delicious after the workout because I had done a hard thing.
How did I respond: Told my workout buddy that I was panicking and she was encouraging and helped me continue even though I seriously thought I was going to die and knew I could quit if I wanted to. By the time I was done with the workout the desire to eat shit was gone.
Emotion #3: Anxious, worried, overwhelmed
How did I want to respond: Eat the left over chewy granola that is my favorite that B didn't finish. It has been sitting on the table all day.
How did I respond: First I started rushing my kids and myself. I was starting to get frustrated with them and was short in my responses and getting upset that they were not moving quickly so we could get though what we needed to get through.
Emotion #4: Annoyed
How did I want to respond: Eat the left over chewy granola that is my favorite that B didn't finish.
How did I respond: I just let it be there, reminded myself that sometimes plans change and that is okay. Reminded myself that I don't need to respond to every emotion I have and just let it be. Then I went and played with the kids out side to just refocus and center myself.
Emotion #5: Tired & entitled
How did I want to respond: Eat the yummy Easter dessert that my mom sent home with us.
How did I respond: I'm writing this blog post.
If you are needing additional accountability join us in my Health and Wellness group over on Facebook. You can request access HERE.
Day 3 Thoughts:
Today is about taking in to the next step. All of our feelings come from a thought. Feelings to not just happen. You have to think something first to create those feelings.
Now your feelings might be so automatic that you don't feel like there was any thought but that is just because whatever the thought is you have been thinking it for so long that it is automatic.
Kind of like how sometimes when you are driving to a familiar location that you go all of the time; and you get there and your like wait a second I literally don't remember driving there. It's like that but with your thinking.
Here is the rule about this journal prompt. You are not allowed to say "I don't know". I don't know is not an option. I don't know is just a cop out for you digging in deeper and really looking to find where the root of these feelings come from.
You take what happened, you inventoried the feelings, now today it is time to figure out what the thought was that made you feel that way.
Word of warning you might not like what your thoughts are. Bringing them into the light is not a fun process. It's not fun realizing that you are trying self-sabotage, or you feel unloved, or you hate the way feel about yourself or that you are resentful towards your spouse. None of these realizations are fun. They are actually uncomfortable. But what you have been doing; ignoring them, distracting yourself, busying yourself. That has caused you to use food in a way that is unhealthy and is not getting you the RESULTS that you want. So it's time to uncover them and change it.
Day 3 Journal Entry:
Emotion #1: Exhausted
Thoughts that created the emotion: I'm tired, I didn't get enough sleep, why can't I go to bed earlier, I always do this; I stay up too late and then am tired, I don't want to get out of bed, I could just skip my workouts, I just want to stay in bed all day.
Emotion #2: Panic
Thoughts that created the emotion: I'm not going to finish, I'm not strong enough, I can't do this, I'm going to die, why is this still so hard after almost 70 days, I still have so far to go, I just want to quit, I could quit, I don't have to keep doing it.
Emotion #3: Anxious, worried, overwhelmed
Thoughts that created the emotion: There is no way I can get everything done that I need to. The boys are taking for ever to eat, I'm running out of time, its is so unprofessional to have them making noise in the background, even if I try to get them in bed they are not going to fall asleep without me, What was I thinking, I can't believe I wasn't paying attention, this is what happens when you have too much going on.
Emotion #4: Annoyed
Thoughts that created the emotion: Why is Kyle (husband) not home yet, doesn't he understand that the days are so long, I just need a break, I need a few minutes to just have to myself, I'm so tired, I have so much going on today, I shouldnt be the one shoveling the driveway: he should be doing this, I always do everything, why is this so important to you, why do I care so much, oh gosh they are eating dirty snow ;)
Emotion #5: Tired & Entitled Thoughts that created the emotion: I have to stay up so late (I had to teach last night), I don't want to have to do this, why is building my business taking so long, it shouldn't be taking this long, if I just worked harder I would be able to stop teaching so much, I would be able to get more sleep, I'm not working enough, I don't want to work so hard, I just want to go to bed.
Day 4 Thoughts:
One thing that can happen when you start becoming aware of your thoughts is that you can become a little overwhelmed by it all. All of a sudden all of these thoughts that you have been trying to stuff come to the surface and you are aware of them.
When we become aware of something we often want to fix them or find a solution right away. But part of the process is just allowing those thoughts and feelings to be there for a period of time. You also can't begin to change years and years of thoughts in a matter of days. Trust me when I first started this process I tried and it didn't end well. It set me back very quickly and it took me a while to get back to being aware and mindful.
So today's journal is all about picking 1-3 thoughts that you would like to change. Obviously we would love to change all of the thoughts that are not serving us; but that would just emotionally drain you so lets take a few at a time to start changing.
Day 4 Journal Entry:
Thoughts I would like to start changing:
#1: "I should {insert anything}." I'm constantly shoulding myself about any task that I think needs to get done. Any to-do list item that I feel like has not been accomplished.
#2: "It's selfish of me to want a break from my kids" I think even deeper than this there is a thought of I'm not enough for my kids or I'm doing doing enough for them.
#3: "I'm never going to reach my goals" These are my fitness goals, my business goals, & my health goals.
Day 5 Thoughts:
The last few days we have been talking about your thoughts and your feelings. We are going to put those aside for a few days and we are know going to focus on the food part of this.
We have been diving into the emotions now we will look deeper into your thoughts about food. These two will merge back together later in the challenge so hang tight.
Today I want you to focus on how you think about food. What does food do for you? How do you use food? How do those actions show you what you think about food. I'm going to be honest this was not a fun one for me to do. I knew what I was suppose to say but I didn't believe those things. I knew I didn't believe them because that was not how I was acting.
Don't be afraid of your thoughts about food. First nobody is going to see them unless of course you share them. You can't even begin to change your thoughts about food if you just bury your head in the sand about them. You can't change without awareness. When you allow yourself to think about your thoughts about food, you can really see where the lies are and what beliefs you hold about food.
From there we change them.
Day 5 Journal Entry:
My current thoughts about food sound like this:
1. Food helps me feel good.
2. Food gives me a break.
3. Food eases my anxiety and stress.
4. I deserve to have what ever I want to eat.
5. Food is a reward.
6. Food is for enjoyment and pleasure.
7. Food should taste good.
8. I should be able to eat anything I want
9. Food either makes me gain weight or lose weight
Day 6 Thoughts:
Back at it today with the Emotional Eating Journal Challenge. Today we are talking about how food makes you feel. Now I want to back up for a second because you might be feeling really uneasy about some of these prompts. That uneasy feeling comes from your brain never having taken the time to think about these things and that makes your brain uncomfortable. And if there is one thing that your brain does not like it is feeling UNCOMFORTABLE.
It literally thinks that there is danger ahead and it will try to convince you that this is silly, a waste of time and that this is not worth doing. It will tell you that this won't help you change anything. And that is because your brain literally DESPISES change. It FEARS change. Change means it has to work more, it has to think more and it has to evolve. And the 2 main jobs of your brain are to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Neither of those things will happen when participating in this challenge.
Day 6 Journal Entry:
Food can be my worst enemy sometimes. I think the biggest feeling I have when it comes to food is control vs. a loss of control. It can make me feel like I have no control in the middle of a binge and can make me feel like I have the most control when I'm following a plan perfectly. It feels sometimes that food has a control over my actions and the way I think.
Food can make me feel so proud and it can make me feel so guilty. When I'm eating food to fuel my body I feel incredibly proud when I am using food as a way to comfort my emotions I feel extremely guilty and ashamed.
Food can make me feel so angry. I get so frustrated at food because I have this desire to just eat when I'm hungry and when my body needs fuel but then the next moment I feel like I could eat my entire pantry and never stop.
Food can make me feel self-righteous. I should be able to eat anything I want. Why do I have to worry so much about what I eat? Why can that person and that person eat whatever they want and not gain any weight?
Follow-Up to Day 6:
So now I want you to take a closer look at your feelings about food and see what additional thoughts you have about food that you are creating these feelings. Remember your feelings are created from your thoughts.
The additional thoughts that come up for me are:
1. Food is meant to be controlled.
2. Food has control over me.
3. In order to feel in control I must be perfect in the way I eat. {This thought backfires every time because we know w can't be perfect so our brains tells us there is no point in even trying}
4. It shouldn't be this hard/it isn't this hard for others...because it is hard for you there must be something wrong with you.
Day 7 Thoughts:
Today is all creating your perfect world when it comes to food. How would you think about food, how would you feel about food, what roll would food play in your life. I know this can be challenging especially when you do not have a healthy relationship with food. And this is the start of it. What would your life look like around food.
Day 7 Journal Entry:
I want to feel mindful when I eat. Aware of the choices I am making and why I am making them. I don't want to have a lot of thoughts about food. My ultimate goal is to get to a place where I desire food less, I don't think about food as much. Food serves a purpose. Whether it is to fuel my workouts, help me reach a weight loss goal or celebrate. I want to have control over what goes into my body and not allow my emotions to have that control. Food is still a conscious thought process for me. I really have to think about why I'm eating. I want that process to become more automatic and not have to be such a process. With time and practice I know this will continue to happen.
Hop on over to days 8-14 to continue with the Emotional Eating Journal Challenge.
Love,
Linds
