The Keys to Success in Health and Fitness Week 3: Learning to Feel

I started this series by inviting you to take a health and fitness journey with me, and you’ve probably noticed we haven't talked specifically about what you should eat, how much you should exercise, or very many nuts-and-bolts kinds of topics at all.

There's a reason for this. While much of our culture comes at health and fitness, particularly weight loss, as a cut and dried matter of calories in (eating) and calories out (exercise), the fact is that the vast majority of human bodies are genetically programed to keep themselves healthy.

Our bodies are built to metabolize the calories they need, and they are built to move regularly. If we were able to just listen to and follow our bodies' normal urgings, the vast majority of us would never carry an unhealthy level of weight.

But the fact is that there are a lot of things standing between us and our bodies' wisdom – cultural expectations, advertising, family traditions, and our own ideas and emotions about how we “should” look and what we “should” or “shouldn't” be doing or eating. That's why you and I are on this road together, and that's why I'm taking you through what may seem like side roads instead of what most people think of as the straight and narrow path to health, fitness, and weight loss.

And that's why, today, I'm going to talk about a subject that might be a challenge for you – the way your emotions may be contributing to your issues with health, fitness, and weight loss. More specifically, I want to talk about how our own inability to fully experience our emotions frequently creates an emotional hole down which we stuff very physical food.

Now, we all know there's a whole lot of cultural baggage about how both men and women “should” and “should not” feel and express our emotions. The families we're raised by have also taught us about our emotions, and not all of us were given healthy training in this area. But another factor that I don't think gets enough attention is that, in our hyper-busy culture, we frequently don't even give ourselves time to feel anything fully.

When was the last time you needed a good cry but you shut yourself down because you had to get to that meeting/pick up your kids/pay the bills? When was the last time you allowed something to strike your funny bone so hard you rocked with laughter for five or more minutes? Or the last time you allowed yourself to feel deeply moved by a piece of music or work of art or a sunset – so moved you let yourself stay in that moment rather than almost immediately going on to the next thing on your list?

But how are health, fitness, and weight connected to whether or not we have that cry, that laugh, or that moving moment? Besides the obvious – unexpressed or repressed emotions cause stress in the body which can lead to a host of health issues – please take just a minute and think about what you do when you're avoiding feeling something because you don't think you “should,” or because it's uncomfortable, or because you don't think you have the time.

If you're like most people – if you're like I used to be – you eat something. There's a reason we call fried foods, potatoes, and rich desserts “comfort foods,” after all. Or, if you don't eat something, maybe you smoke, or drink alcohol, or use other drugs that may or may not be the best thing for your body.

Food has been a comfort to most of us since we were infants. What's the first thing you do when a baby cries? Most people start by giving the baby a bottle – and only go on to try other things to soothe the baby if the bottle doesn't work. What do we do at celebrations? We lay on the food. At funerals? Again, we lay on the food. We use food not just to enhance, but more frequently to distract, from our experiences, and either way, we are frequently taking in calories and unhealthy foods that we don't need.

If overeating or regularly eating less-than-healthy foods is one of your health and fitness challenges, I urge you to become more conscious of the conditions that trigger you. Use your food journal to keep track of your emotions – did you have an extra piece of pizza after your performance review, or reach for the ice cream when you realized you were feeling irked with your spouse? As you gather this information you can start using it to empower yourself to consciously decide if you'll have that pizza,  that ice cream, or that second drink.

The other thing I urge you to do is to take time for your feelings. Make time for that good cry after the meeting. Seek out experiences that draw laughter out of you like a geyser. Drink in that sunset or painting or book or whatever it is that makes your heart feel full. Trust me on this – the more full you are with your own feelings and experiences, the less hunger you'll have for food.

Brigid Lossing is co-owner of RydeOnSaline, located at 450 E. Michigan Ave. in Saline.