Emotional Eaters: Give Your Body What It Wants

Just recently I’ve been thinking about Nantucket. I don’t know why, except my life is in the in-between dream state where one phase is ending and the next phase hasn’t yet begun. So in a way, anything is possible, and I set myself the task of day-dreaming about what I might like.

Which, when you are stuck in no-man’s land and you don’t know what you’d like, is very difficult. But I allowed myself to relax and asked myself what do you really want?

And the answer popped out. Nantucket.

Now I have to say I don’t even know where Nantucket is… well I do now because I looked it up for this article. But when Nantucket popped into my head I just had a vague New England feeling of painted clapboard houses, beaches and seagulls. And it felt good.

So I don’t know why, but Nantucket is saying something to me.

Oh, and I found out it’s an island (yes all you New Englanders, you can laugh, bet you don’t know where the original Boston is!) and my vision of painted clapboard houses with seagulls and beaches is reasonably accurate.

Now the same day that the vision of the north-eastern seaboard of the United States came to me, I also thought about avocadoes. And cream and salmon and olive oil. Every meal I had, for several days, had to be oil rich. With cream on the breakfast cereal, avocado salad for lunch and grilled salmon for supper I craved fatty foods. Then the fat yearning went away just as suddenly as it had arrived.

But for a few days, that’s what my body wanted. And as I am trying to be kind to myself this month, I decided to go with the flow and give my body what it wanted. I do like avocado and oily fish, though the cream craving was a bit of a surprise. But while I was feeding myself this way my body felt loved and cared for and I didn’t crave a lot of food, I just wanted those particular flavours.

And it was right. The avocado was right just as, in a way I really don’t understand, Nantucket is right. I’m going to follow my instincts on this one and keep Nantucket in mind, in a one-day-I-might-get-there sort of a way. Heck, I don’t even know if I like chowder, but I’m willing to give it a go!

So, what are your dreams? And can you listen to your body when it is telling you what to eat?

Try this exercise to get to the heart of what you want:

1.