Sometimes you just need a big bag of chips (or a picky platter). In defence of emotional eating.
I’m writing this while watching the latest Bridgerton episodes, feeding my 6 month old to sleep and eating a bag of avocado oil potato chips— Boulder Canyon. These ones:
After throwing my daughter a 7th birthday party at a trampoline park with 20 kids… I need to log off for a minute. You know what I mean?
Sure, I still have a baby to feed and parents to text (thank you for the cards and gifts!) and tennis to take kids to and dinner to organise (Friday night takeaway tonight, praise God for that).
But do you know what an absolute treat it is to relax, watch a show and eat some chips when you’re a mum of three young kids?
Heavenly, is one word for it.
Sometimes it’s a hot chocolate or a matcha.
Sometimes it’s a dirty bag of chips (with avocado oil if possible because, you know, standards).
These moments of zoning out and indulging in pure comfort is medicine for this mamma who is throwing parties, going through an awfully bad sleep stage with my youngest, and running the show that is a busy household as always.
Look.
It’s just where I’m at.
I’m not holier or heal-ier than here, in this moment.
Netflix and chips is God’s gift to me this afternoon.
I’ve been meaning to write in defence of emotional eating for a while— how food and the moments around it can bring such pure comfort.
I’m an emotional eater and I’ve got no problems with it. Sometimes I make food choices based on nutritional composition and physiological appetite and taste and sometimes I make food choices based on my need for comfort.
I rebound for my lymph health
have a sauna in my yard
a biomat in my workout room
I eat mostly organic
cook from scratch most nights
bake sourdough bread twice a week
do colonics
use non toxic everything
have done a lot of liver and intestinal cleansing
whole house water filters
workout regularly
do my best to avoid blue light in the evenings
have lived well over a decade with solid diligence in the realm of wellness….
also… add ‘emotional eating when necessary’ to my list of self care habits.
I’m an emotional person.
I’ve lived with functional anxiety forever.
I’m neurodivergent in more ways than one.
Sensory overload is real.
Eating for comfort sometimes is supportive for me— not bad.
Why do we need to equate ‘emotional eating’ with pigging out on junk food to the point of gluttony? Sometimes it’s just not that.
We can eat emotionally without abusing our bodies.
We can eat for comfort (nostalgia, memories, celebratory moments), in perfectly nourishing ways.
The standards for wellbeing/food etc is high for me and yet I’ve learned that letting myself truly support my complex self is one of the most important things I can do for my vitality.
Sometimes that looks like saying no to a big dessert because I’m full.
Sometimes that looks like a 500mL green juice.
Sometimes that looks like adjusting my protein.
Sometimes that looks like less.
Sometimes that looks like more.
Sometimes that looks like a nice European picnic spread.
Sometimes that looks like a bowl of ice cream (out of the pint, I prefer it this way than in a bowl) snuggled up with my kids on the couch.
I remember when I was on a worldwide tour for my first book, ‘Earth Is Hiring’ (I stopped printing it since my sanctification began, more on that another time). I did 6 cities around the world in Australia, USA and the UK. After each event I was so mentally and emotionally spent that I’d want potatoes and only potatoes. Hot chips. That’s what I wanted. Potatoes, the grounding root vegetable, but also— hot chips are comforting and nostalgic for me because they’re such a big part of the Aussie childhood. At each event, I’d speak for 3/4 hours straight, stay for 3 hours afterwards to sign books and chat, then immediately go to be with and breastfeed my first baby with big, engorged boobs (Sol! She came on the whole tour before her first birthday). I was lit up, but also pooped.
Similarly, when my husband and I went on a speaking tour in 2015 all around Australia (pre kids), it was hot chips I wanted afterwards. Nothing else. Hot, crispy, potatoes. Gimme ‘em.
After any big, stimulating event I attended or spoke at (which was a LOT for a few years), this was my go to afterwards. It helped to regulate me.
Hot chips was my self-regulation.
Not anything fancier than this.
Sometimes it isn’t a certain mineral or vitamin I am craving-- it’s nostalgia. It’s the comfort of a memory. It’s remembering something sweet and beautiful. It’s familiarity. It’s innocence. I craved milo in my last pregnancy because it reminded me of my childhood and I had it with glee. I eat Vegemite for this reason too. Not that ‘healthier’ version, but the real deal. Vegemite is nourishing for me and it’s not because of the vitamin b they reckon it has loads of.
I have had my fair share of binge eating, and eating from less than loving places in my earlier years, trust me. I have learned the difference between eating in an absent and unloving way and eating in a loving, grounded way.
As I’ve learned more about myself (and more importantly God’s love) I have softened my edges. I have stopped believing that all of my natural proclivities are wrong, or that they should look more perfect than they do. I have started noticing all the things in which I have carried, held and stored and just how much extra support I really do need. I have mostly given this to myself through my top tier wellness lifestyle, therapies and lately, prayer. But I have also realised the more innocent and childlike ways I support myself too when disregulated and overwhelmed. When I do ‘emotionally eat’ as we call it, it’s not in a way that challenges my vitality, but in a way that supports it.
When I lived in England, I was so affected by the relentless grey skies that eating rich comfort foods was so natural. Going to the cafe in the afternoon for Vegemite toast and a hot chocolate after a long pregnant rainy day playing with my toddler inside… it was just so delicious in every way and I LOVED that cold British pregnancy. I had a thriving, healthy pregnancy, a ten pound baby, looked and felt vibrant and had a fast slippery slide home birth. The fact that I ate for emotional comfort as well as nutrition was all part of the overall nourishment of mother and baby.
Why do we assume that good-for-you things must always be ‘ughhhh’?
We are so hard on ourselves.
Sometimes we need to try the softer way.
Life can be hard, especially when we have been through stuff and it lives in our bodies.
I won’t pretend I’m ‘fully healed’ from all of my peculiarities, I’m not. But I after so many years of food and wellbeing obsession, I feel in a REALLY good place— a hard earned place, and also a place more resembling the love of God (thank you God, for this). Sure, I have boundaries and standards, but I live in a way that is always prioritising life giving habits, for vitality and wellbeing.
Most of the time this means typically ‘wellness related’ habits.
But sometimes the best way I can do this is Bridgerton and some chippies.
I can hear the hardcore detox or carnivore people in my head saying ‘food isn’t for comfort. You’ve got to face that feeling without food’ etc.
Great. You do that.
And in certain seasons I do too. I’m no stranger to liver and intestinal cleanses, fasting, sitting in the quiet spaces, processing the anger on my liver, the intimacy of those spaces and facing a lot.
Yes I can be there too.
But it’s not always time for that.
Sometimes it’s time for comfort and nostalgia.
Sometimes, we’ve got to take the support we can get and not fight it. We always fight it. At least in our minds.
Last Saturday I was feeling a little mentally zonked as we’ve been in a rough sleeping phase with our bub. I manage it quite well, to be honest— I don’t feel the need to nap during the day and I thank God everyday for the health I enjoy. But Saturday has a certain energy to it you know? It’s a ‘WOOHOO’ kind of energy. I like to ride it. It was a picky platter I wanted. Sundried tomatoes, raw cheese, crackers, dip. This right here reminds me of Christmas Day growing up (although we had much more budget items as a kid. Ritz crackers vibes) and it’s one of my favourite things to eat.
Hilariously, I looked at the back of the dips and chose one without the seed oils. Right after, I went to the deli section and bought sundried tomatoes, knowing they were likely in sunflower oil.
The picky platter mattered more to me than the oil. The cozy Saturday afternoon moment.
Choosing the loving, relaxing thing is not always greens or protein.
I have had many strict seasons.
Perhaps I will again.
I believe it all has its place.
But the question isn’t ‘is this good or bad?’
The question is ‘is this loving or not?’
Sometimes strict is loving.
Sometimes comfort is.
Sometimes what we need is journaling or a long convo or some deeper work and always prayer.
Sometimes we need a picky platter.
Or, some chips.
Some Bridgerton.
Some relaxation. Nostalgia. Comfort.
Maybe they’re gifts from God after all, why do we always assume otherwise?
God is clear that we should not be gluttonous— I’m making sure that is in here so nothing gets taken out of context. But I am quite certain my readers are like me, in that we are not gluttonous at all. We live well, and we are often too hard on ourselves.
Living Body Luxury is recognizing that food is more than food, that we are ALWAYS eating with a belief about whether *insert food here* is nourishing or not.
This bag of chips today is medicine for this overstimulated mum.
Also, I’ll have the most fancy wellness smoothies loaded with colostrum, ashwagandha, moringa, bee pollen etc in the morning and on with my life I go.
I’ll go out on a lunch date with hubs in the afternoon and have scrumptious Thai at my favourite restaurant in town, and on with my life I go.
I’ll walk with my kids, and bop on my rebounder, and maybe even squeeze in some sculpting Pilates… and on with my life I go.
I’ll sit down at my desk, open my draw to my secret box of choccies and write with one beside me (how good)… and on with my life I go.
Pk xx
✍🏼 Scrumptious and delicious writing, PKC….i must agree; Neurospicy humans do often times thrive with an understanding between the duality of our emotion’s & food. As observed, experienced, and personally learned that is. Anxiety, I can feed it, starve it, or work with it. That has stuck with me for 6 years now. xo
Oh my gosh, potato chips are my weakness! They were my favorite in my Halloween trick-or-treat bag, I used to trade other kids my candy for the chips lol The emotional eating label is interesting. I would argue that when we sit down to eat all those perfectly healthy foods, eat at a table (not in front of the TV), eat with mindfulness about being grateful to have access to those foods, and thinking about how they nourish all of our cells and our most miraculous body, is also emotional eating. Really good emotions experienced while eating that food. Let's broaden the term emotional eating to cover all emotions and not just meaning emotional eating when we're out of control. about 10 years ago, I did a weeklong course at the Kolu yoga retreat on the neurobiology of Buddhism and yoga. When we ate in the cafeteria that could seat about 300 people, there was no talking aloud. Everybody was eating mindfully. You would sit down, close your eyes, think of all the farmers who planted the seeds, nurtured them into mature plants, harvested them, got them on the trucks, the people that drove the trucks to the stores, the people in the stores who got them onto the shelves and then happily onto our plates. Then you would open your eyes and look at all the colors and textures and shapes of the food, notice the aromas, then pick up your fork and put some food in your mouth, being aware of the taste and textures. That was a very "emotional eating" experience to me, my spirit, and my cells were rejoicing!