Cityrie

The other aspect that isn’t spoken about is the fact that many of us are addicted to food. There is a significant body of research that looks at how repressed emotions drive physical disease and addictions. 90% of families are judged to have dysfunctional patterns. Just think of how girls and women are taught to not show anger and to never set boundaries and say no. As for men and boys ‘Big boys don’t cry’. When emotions are pushed to the bottom something else takes their place - alcohol, cigarettes, computer games, smartphones, food - the list carries on and on. Most of us have multiple addictions that we go to when we don’t want to feel those emotions. ‘Comfort’ eating - I feel bad so rather than sitting with myself and feel whatever uncomfortable emotion that wants to talk to me - I eat something instead and now my focus is on the food. For me I notice that my stop button goes away - I stop listening to my stomach saying ‘enough’. What I eat changes as well - I stray into sweeter territory and maybe even bread. This is the biggest learning for me. I can do the healthy eating ( I have a lot of training in nutrition) - but if the mental and emotional work isn’t being done, I sabotage myself. My biggest fear: going through all of this and STILL effing it up...

I am 10 days post surgery and had a hernia repair at the same time which severely restricted my intake. What I finally figured out was to give up on the idea of meals. I make my own protein shake with protein powder, goats milk kefir and frozen fruit. I run it through the blender and then I sieve it to get any bits out of it. This then becomes my job to drink. I eat it with a teaspoon, keep it in my hand at all times and just trickle it in. Once that is in I move on to coffee diluted massively with Almond milk (I am allergic to dairy) and sip that in the same way (usually an espresso cup size). Then I take soup or bone broth and sit down again with my teaspoon. This has been the only way I have found that I can avoid dehydration. Once I am into puréed foods, I will eat those at meal times and then start to switch my fluids back to just tea, water and coffee.