What Is A Feeling Anyway?

From Why Can't I Lose Weight? blog by Brooke Castillo

You have heard me say it often: "The only reason you eat is a feeling." Your thoughts cause your feelings which cause your actions. So you have a negative thought that causes you to feel a negative feeling which causes you to fog eat.

My advice is to feel the feeling instead of eating. But what is a feeling? What does it really mean to feel instead of eat?

Here is my simplified answer. "A feeling is an experience in the body, caused by a thought in the mind." Here are some examples of what I mean by an experience in the body:

Fear is felt as a heightened heartbeat, increased “flinch” response, and increased muscle tension.

Anger, based on sensation, seems indistinguishable from fear except for heat.

Happiness is often felt as an expansive or swelling feeling in the chest and the sensation of lightness or buoyancy, as if standing underwater.

Sadness is often experienced as a feeling of tightness in the throat and eyes, and relaxation in the arms and legs.

Shame can be felt as heat in the upper chest and face.

Desire can be accompanied by a dry throat, heavy breathing, and increased heart rate.

Ultimately the reason we fog eat is to distract ourselves from the current physical sensations, caused by our thoughts, to instead focus on the physical sensations caused by eating.

If we can learn how to experience the physical sensations caused by our thoughts long enough to change the thoughts- we will no longer have the need for the distraction of eating when we aren't hungry.

So next time you want to fog eat- sit down and document the physical sensations in your body; see if you can identify the feeling and name it; then try to access the thought and change it.

If you repeat this process enough, you will never be fat again.