Speaker A [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone. Today I want to talk about emotional eating and the I deserve it mentality. When it comes to emotional eating, a lot of us are using food as a reward, and we may not even recognize what we’re doing and how it is affecting our body and our health in the long term. So let’s get to it.
Speaker B [00:00:26]:
Welcome to the Paralysis Nutrition Podcast, where changing your eating habits is the key to losing weight, improving bowel health, and feeling your best. I’m your host, Fatima Fakouri. I’m a registered dietitian who’s married to a quadriplegic and specializes in nutrition for paralysis. Get ready to be inspired, educated, and motivated so you can take control of your health using the power of food.
Speaker A [00:00:49]:
Let’s get started. This is the Paralysis Nutrition podcast for people living with paralysis. It’s really interesting how almost everything about life changes when you have a spinal cord injury. For example, my husband was 24 when he was in a car accident and he was injured. So after that, he had to learn how to live as a quadriplegic. That meant a lot of changes in where he lived, what he did for work, how he basically operated in this world. Everything really changed. Relationships shifted, family relationships.
Speaker A [00:01:34]:
You know, some got stronger. Everything changed. But what’s really interesting, and of course, I hear this every day from my clients because all of my clients are living with paralysis, whether it’s spinal cord injury or transverse myelitis or spina bifida. Any diagnosis, right. That results in being a wheelchair user. So I hear a lot of this is how it was before, and this is how it was now. And the one thing, maybe not the only thing, but one of the really big things in life that doesn’t tend to change that much after injury is food. You probably have a similar taste preference.
Speaker A [00:02:23]:
You probably, you know, like the same stuff. You probably eat relatively the same way as you did prior to injury. And so food is kind of like something that remains the same. There might be other things that remain the same, but for the purposes of this podcast, right? And of what I do as a registered dietitian, obviously talk about food all day. So we’re gonna focus on that today. Food is often one of the pleasures that you can still have, even right after injury, even when you’re in the hospital and you’re, you know, you don’t even. You haven’t even sat up in a wheelchair yet, right? You’re still. You’re even still at that point.
Speaker A [00:03:10]:
You’re eating. So food is something that is a continuous thing. Now, of course, I don’t want to be insensitive and leave out people who do things like tube feeding or other stuff, but I just want to acknowledge that that can change. Of course, my husband was on a feeding tube. I don’t know for how long, but he was on a feeding tube when he was newly injured. But soon after, he started eating food again. And all of my clients eat by mouth. Most of them can feed themselves.
Speaker A [00:03:45]:
Some of them require help. But other than the feeding part of the eating, like the physical, like picking up your fork, that might change, but taste and all of that stays the same for most people. So when it comes to the experience of food after having a spinal cord injury, there’s a lot of things going on. You’ve got family probably involved. The way that you prepare meals changes, you know, changes because maybe you don’t have an accessible kitchen. Maybe like my husband, you’re a quad. You’re still learning how to do some of those things now. I mean, for years now, he’s able to chop stuff.
Speaker A [00:04:28]:
Not perfectly, but it took a long time to do that. So eating becomes a form of, I think, comfort for a lot of people because a lot of things that maybe you used to do, you’re still figuring out how to adapt. Like if you used to exercise in a specific way, like say you used to swim, it’s going to take you some time to figure out how you can swim. So a lot of things, I think, feel so different, right? Everything is so different. But food seems the same in many ways. Food is the same. Food is the constant. And I have heard this specific phrase so many times that I’m literally recording an entire podcast episode on it.
Speaker A [00:05:17]:
And the phrase is, I feel like I deserve it. I deserve it. My life is hard. I deserve it. I can’t do so many things that I want to do, so I deserve it. And what is it? It is foods that feel comforting. And this will really vary person to person. For a lot of people, it’s sweets, cakes, candies, chocolate, baked goods, cookies.
Speaker A [00:05:46]:
For other people, it’ll be like salty, high fat things like fast food, French fries. For some people, it’ll just be like snacks, you know, like all kinds of. So not like meal foods, but like chips and pretzels and, you know, things like that. So whatever it is, it’s like, I deserve it. Oh, another it is eating out. I deserve it. It’s hard for me to prepare meals, so I deserve it. Meaning I deserve to order out or go to the drive through or order takeout.
Speaker A [00:06:21]:
I deserve it. And I totally get it because whether you have paralysis or not, people have this thought process. I had a hard day. I’m going to reward myself for getting through this day by ordering something or having, you know, sweets or whatever it is. A couple of weeks ago, I had a very. I mean, we as a family had a rough day. My husband wasn’t feeling well. He went to the er.
Speaker A [00:06:48]:
He’s okay now, but at the time, it’s like I was home. The kids were getting ready for bed. I had given them a normal, nice healthy dinner. But then it was like my time to kind of decompress. They’re in bed, my husband’s in the hospital. Yes, I ordered takeout. It was nothing, you know, crazy, but it was out of the ordinary. Out of the ordinary because it was an out of the ordinary, difficult day.
Speaker A [00:07:14]:
So I ordered sushi and like these fried dumplings and I drank soda. I love soda. I don’t drink it very often. Few times a year. But you know what I mean, I was having a rough day and I certainly didn’t feel like cooking anything. And let’s be honest, most takeout options are not. I mean, unless you live in a really well served area where you can. You have like a huge variety of foods.
Speaker A [00:07:41]:
Like if you live in a city or something around us, I mean, we live in a suburb, you can get Mexican food, you can get Chinese food, you can get sushi, you can get pizza. But you’re not really going to get some like, nice healthy cafe to deliver to you. Not in the suburbs of New York where I live. So what was I thinking at that time? I was thinking, today sucks. I don’t have it in me to do anything and I deserve it. So let me try to get a. Eek. A little bit of cheap pleasure out of this otherwise stressful and somewhat scary day.
Speaker A [00:08:18]:
Every once in a while. It’s fine. Food is not the same as, like, illicit substance. Right? It’s not that bad to eat emotionally when you have a rough day. It’s a human thing. It is normal to try to comfort yourself and bring a little small bit of relief, release, happiness, whatever. In tough situations, which is what I did. Had myself a Coca Cola, had myself some fried dumplings.
Speaker A [00:08:51]:
Definitely did not have. Oh, I was going to say I didn’t have enough protein, but I did have, like fish because it was salmon. Not enough. It was not a balanced meal. It was just like a. Whatever. I felt fine. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped it to be.
Speaker A [00:09:04]:
But then I moved on. Right. Like next day, back to normal. Regular breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever. That’s actually, I think, a healthy thing to do. It’s healthy to allow yourself some of these, you know, less than healthy things every once in a while because it feels good. All foods can fit into a healthy diet and that includes emotional eating. I’m not one to like get into the chocolates or anything.
Speaker A [00:09:30]:
I like salty stuff usually. But indulging when you are not having a great day, indulging one meal every once in a while, this is not really a problem. This is totally normal human behavior. And to be honest, I think it would be a little bit weird for me and my personality at least to. After my husband goes to the ER and I take care of my kids and I make them a nice dinner and I bathe them and I put them to bed and I, you know, now finally have some time for myself. I think it would be for my personality type at least a little weird if I was like, oh, I’m going to make myself a wonderful, you know, delicious balanced meal. No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t there.
Speaker A [00:10:16]:
In my mind. I wasn’t there. I was in a. I’m so drained from this day. I just want something easy that’s gonna like, potentially perk me up a little and make me happy and comforted. There was no way I was going to feel happy and comfortable with my husband in the er, but I was using my takeout to kind of fill a little void. Okay, once in a while. It’s okay, it’s fine.
Speaker A [00:10:39]:
This is normal. The problem that I see with my clients is that this is happening really frequently. Sometimes it’s happening every day, and in some cases it’s happening multiple times a day. So the I deserve it mentality, this is what it can look like. It can look like you woke up, you skipped breakfast because you didn’t sleep well, you got into work, you haven’t eaten, you’ve just drank coffee, lunchtime rolls around, you have like, I don’t know, an hour to eat. So you maybe go through the driveway, the drive through and you just get fast food and you just deserve it because it’s too hard to meal prep because you’re not in the mood. Then you may start to feel like, well, that wasn’t the best choice, but whatever, I deserve it. I didn’t sleep well and I had a rough day.
Speaker A [00:11:41]:
Okay, then you go back to work, then it’s dinner time. It’s like 5:30, you’re hungry, you get home, you’re tired from the day you don’t want to cook anything because you’re not used to cooking anything. It’s not a habit of yours. So then you get on your phone and you order doordash and it’s like, well, I worked today. I was frustrated at times, and so I deserve it. This is very common where people, especially, I think people who do work outside of the home, people who do have, like, full lives and things to do, because these things are harder for you, because we don’t live in a fully accessible or even remotely accessible world. So if you feel like, hey, I get up every day, I get dressed, I go to work, I do my thing, you know, I deserve it. I hear you, but where is that getting you? And how do you feel when I, a few times a year, get fast food? Oh, I am the happiest person, because to me, it’s like a once in a blue moon thing.
Speaker A [00:12:49]:
I probably eat fast food for maybe five times in a year. Okay, Sometimes maybe less than that. I had it in February because I had Covid and I felt terrible, and I hadn’t really eaten much in days. And then all of a sudden, the second I felt a little bit better, I was like, oh, I want McDonald’s. And so I got it. And it was glorious. Really enjoyed every moment of that experience and then moved on and ate a normal, you know, next meal and the meal after that. Didn’t feel any guilt because I don’t eat it very often.
Speaker A [00:13:28]:
And it was a big success for me. Now, if you told me you should eat fast food every week, two, three times a week, I’d say, oh, absolutely not, because I don’t enjoy it that much. And I know that the reason I like it is because I don’t have it that often. But I have clients who eat fast food almost every day because the drive through. So on the way to work or back home from work, sometimes both, because those places are serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, so you could go anytime you want. And it’s so convenient because you don’t have to get out of your car. But I’ll ask this. How does it feel when you’re eating it? I have a client who told me that, you know, she’s struggling with having.
Speaker A [00:14:15]:
With dealing with emotional eating. And a lot of it comes from this rhetoric of, my life is hard. I deserve it, I get it. But it was so fascinating to me. She said that sometimes she feels regret and guilt while she’s ordering it. And that is so interesting to me because I would always think that the Feeling of guilt comes after you eat it and you’re feeling overstuffed and you’re just kind of like, ugh, you know, that feeling. But she said she does it so often that she actually starts to feel these. These kind of negative feelings while she’s ordering before she even starts eating.
Speaker A [00:15:03]:
And I think that that is something to think about. How are you feeling not just after you eat it, but how are you feeling like as you’re preparing, like, every Friday night? I’m recording this on a Friday where my husband is out picking up the food. Every Friday night, our family does take out. It’s like the. It’s like a tradition, okay. And we order it from a restaurant. And every Friday around like 2 or 3 o’clock after lunch, I start thinking like, oh, what am I gonna get? What am I gonna order for the kids? Oh, I wonder what Ray’s gonna get. And I get excited and I’m like, looking forward to it.
Speaker A [00:15:43]:
It kind of signals the end of the work week. I don’t have to cook. And we feel so happy and good about it. So look at that. You know the difference where some of my clients say before they even order, you know, they’re starting to feel like, oh, well, I’m just going to do this because this is what I do and it’s easy and whatever, I’m just going to do it. That’s a very different thing than me being excited and happy about our takeout that we’re going to be getting because I’m excited about it. So when it comes to emotional eating and this, I deserve it. You know, emotional eating is.
Speaker A [00:16:22]:
I could do five episodes on emotional eating because there’s so many different emotions. How do you eat when you feel sad? How do you feel when you feel anxious? How do you eat when you feel nervous? Like, all these. These different emotions, it’s probably like you behave differently. For me, if I’m feeling down and glum, I definitely want to eat stuff that I don’t typically eat. If I’m anxious, I don’t want to eat anything I can’t eat. So it depends on, you know, we have all experienced things very differently. But I challenge you to think about this. I deserve it.
Speaker A [00:16:57]:
Sentiment that so many people share. And that’s like humans in general, not just people with paralysis. Everyone feels a certain way after they eat different foods. How do you feel after you eat a beautiful pasta dish? How do you feel after you eat roast chicken? How do you feel after you eat strawberries? How do you feel after you eat Three slices of pizza. They’re different feelings, right? After one slice of pizza, I feel fabulous. After three, I feel not good. So I invite you to challenge this narrative of I deserve it. Because what’s going to happen is that your feelings of I deserve it are going to translate into making unhealthy food choices.
Speaker A [00:17:52]:
We’re not talking about the occasional I want to get a brownie or the occasional, let’s order pizza. That’s normal stuff. All of that can fit into a healthy diet. And you can lose weight doing all that stuff. All foods can fit into a healthy diet. But if your go to everyday mantra is I deserve it, and that results in eating out, overeating, poor food choices, then it’s, you know, it’s not really. You don’t actually deserve that. And something that I recently figured out.
Speaker A [00:18:30]:
Now I’m a dietitian, okay? I’m going to be 40 this year. And it has taken me a long time to understand that if I’m feeling blah or I’m feeling down or if I’m not feeling that great, I should not, in most cases, throw in the towel because that will further sink me. Sink me down. This might sound a little crazy, but I do like to cook, okay? So that maybe will explain this. When I don’t feel well and I’m a person who likes to cook, I start to chop up an onion and garlic and saute it in olive oil. I have no idea what I’m making. All I know is that most good things in my kitchen start with onions and garlic. And now my husband will make fun.
Speaker A [00:19:14]:
When he sees me just in the middle of the afternoon sauteing onions, he’ll be like, what are you doing there? I was like, I have no idea. I have no idea. I’m just. I’m starting something. I’m doing something positive. I’m going to take better care of myself in this moment. I’m going to, because I deserve it. See that? I deserve it.
Speaker A [00:19:37]:
I deserve to eat healthy meals. I deserve. My body deserves the time and attention that gently sauteing onions right takes some attention. You can’t burn them, right. You gotta tend to it. So I want you to think about what does I deserve it really mean? And where is it taking you? Because if it’s happening more than, you know, a couple times a month that you’re telling yourself today was a really rough day and I deserve it, and you’re making an unhealthy food choice, this is going to lead to overall poor health. This is going to lead to more weight gain. This is going to lead to bloating, constipation, bowel issues.
Speaker A [00:20:22]:
This is going to lead to perhaps other medical complications. Like in the paralysis community, we have a higher incidence of metabolic disease, of diabetes, of heart disease than the general population. Right. And these are nutrition related diseases. Like, you can work on your blood sugar levels using food, you can work on your cholesterol levels using food and of course medicine too, when you know, when you get to that point. But what does I deserve it mean to you? Gonna give you a little homework. What does I deserve it mean to you? When you are having a bad day and you make a decision, you know, like to order out or whatever, are you thinking I deserve it? And if you are, where do you think that’s going to lead you? In my case, every once in a while making a decision like this, it’s not going to impact my health because it’s really not that frequently. But if you’re doing this multiple times a week, you are going to start seeing the negative consequences sooner than later.
Speaker A [00:21:32]:
And so that’s today’s episode. I want you to think about how you behave when you’re having a hard day. How do you behave around food? What choices do you make when it’s not the best time or the best you’re not in the best mood? Are your food choices bringing you closer or taking you farther away from your weight goals? From good bowels, from longevity, from living eight, from full, bright, vibrant life? What does I deserve it mean to you? And if you don’t like the meaning that you’re giving it right now, you can turn it around. You know, for me, it’s like I deserve it, is I owe it to myself to feed myself well and to feed my family well, to feed my husband well. In my house, I’m in charge of the groceries and of the cooking and things like that. So that’s just us putting in the effort and keeping in mind the long term consequences of our actions. That’s what’s going to get us closer to our health goals. Until next time, you guys.
Speaker B [00:22:44]:
That’s our episode for today. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new. Remember, if you want to lose weight with paralysis, improve your bowel health and feel your best you can. It’s possible you just have to change your eating habits. If you need inspiration on how to get started, check out The Paralysis Nutrition Cookbook 101 Recipes to Help you lose weight and improve bowel health. The cookbook comes with a bonus 30 day meal plan and is the perfect way to start eating healthier. You can find it online at paralysisnutrition.com cookbook I’ll talk to you again soon.
