Holistic Nutrition | Emotional Constipation |

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When it comes to food, nutrition and weight loss, the equation is not as simple as nutritional numbers.

Yes, we have daily recommended allowances of nutrients, calories, vitamins, cholesterol levels,  ideal body weight , just to name a few. But, It is time to put numbers in its right place and reassess our loyalty to numbers.

So many of us are trying to find our right weight, but what exactly is that?

You might have been told that you shouldn’t have too much carbs in your diet, but how many grams are we talking about? Maybe you’re trying to limit your number of calories to lose weight, but exactly how many calories is a dieter supposed to eat?  Nutritional numbers can be a good starting point, but unfortunately they can take control over our life, and distract us to tune in to our own body’s wisdom, intuition, heart knowing and what it really needs to be well- nourished and balanced.

Let me explain.

There are group of people ( I am one of them) who are unable to lose weight despite their efforts to do everything right on paper. They eat much less. They experiment different types of diets. They exercise much more. But they don’t find lasting results. If you have you tried to lose weight by changing your diet, and added more exercise, but still you are weight- loss resistant, you may have begun to conclude that there’s more to the weight loss story than just mathematical equation “calories in, calories out.” You need to look deeper for the reason.

Weight is a super complex topic .

I have struggled for so many years with weight loss and had numerous attempts to keep the weight off. It has always been a roller coaster ride until I started to dig deeper and listen to my body’s wisdom and embraced  my own individuality. The approach starts from a place of love and a non- judgmental place .The old method of demeaning ourselves(" if only I have more will power’, shame that you have certain body type , blame for not trying hard, etc) into change never works and the only place to start looking for transformation is Love. So I invite you to follow the light , as I highlight some hidden complexities that might reveal a new perspective for your transformation .

Have you wondered about what might be other ‘reasons’ that hinder the weight loss , and cause the body to hang on to excess weight even if you’d like it to let go? 

Do you know that in addition to our digestive system, we also have an emotional metabolism? 

Our emotional nutrients are our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, reactions, attitudes, personal story, history and cultural imprints. All contribute to play a part that affects our metabolism. There is constant flow of experiences around us , and our body cannot be indifferent to what we experience.  Our body needs to process and digest the emotions of those experiences, absorb and nourish what we need, and then let go of whatever is toxic to move on with our lives.

If our emotional metabolism isn’t functioning as it should, our chemistry can become unbalanced, and the body can respond by storing energy as fat (according to eating psychology school founder).  

This describes what "Emotional constipation" is and why giving some awareness to your emotional metabolism can help your body to find its perfect aligned weight.

Have you ever suffered from emotional constipation?

Do you ever run from feelings fast to the fridge ?

Would you rather grab your cellphone than deal with a moment of silence?

If so, you may be unconsciously using self-protection as a way to stay in your comfort zone and limit yourself and your chance of feeling better and expanding to  your higher self. 

I get it , sometimes feelings feel shitty. Like most of you, I tend to avoid the least pleasant ones.

There are times when I’d rather not feel bored( or can't be with myself ), so I instantly scroll through my facebook newsfeed, or find a movie to distract me. That’s Okay if you are consciously making a choice and aware of deep feelings behind this,  but if the intention is to avoid the full range of human emotion and park into a state of denial, then you are denying yourself to live in its fullest range.

Here’s the thing we often forget:

The things we feel are messages.

They tell us things. Whether it’s physical or emotional, it's a valuable piece of information. 

There’s a big difference between saying  “I 'm sad” and going into self-pity mode and saying  “I’m resentful toward her. I feel anger, shame and guilt.”  

Why does decoding our emotions matter?

 It allows us to move away from seeing the world in black and white, from sheltering ourselves to live life to the fullest, from entering a “flight or fight state” (victim mode) and the joy it steals.  It allows us to experience all shades of life , and see that emotions can coexist

Here I quote Khalil Gibran “The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain”.

Feelings are signals to decode our happiness and improve our self-concept and well-being.

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Unless we deal and process our emotions, it would end up clogged and constipated in our system .

When that happens the body enters a “stress state” and declare danger. The symptoms results in increased cortisol, increased insulin, and other stress hormones which when stay elevated over the time , stimulate the body to store weight, store fat , bloat the body , and cause us to retain weight in addition. 

Our  body deals  with emotions the same way it deals with Food.

We take in food. We digest. We assimilate. We excrete what we don’t need. 

Same with emotions.  We are conditioned to reject emotions and have a little bit of a difficult time handling certain emotional experiences in life. For some, It can be difficult to embrace celebrations and accept happy and joyful emotions. It is difficult to take in some experiences so called as  life traumas. It could be a breakup or emotional /physical abuse, failure,  divorce, or abandonment. It’s no different from eating a bad meal,  something you don’t like, or something you’re allergic to. If we can't digest or handle such an emotional meal, the body gets alarmed and declare a sense of ongoing danger or survival. If we don’t give an attention to our inner  world, and make peace with all emotions and experiences , we block our emotional metabolism and become emotionally constipated. 

I truly wish more people realize that weight loss is not about willpower, it is not solely the problem about what you're eating, but "what is eating at you" .

It is often more than just eat less , avoid some food, and exercise more.

We need to become aware of our emotional system and learn how to be an "emotional digester, an emotional  metabolizer" (as Dr.Marc from eating psychology put it nicely). When we start to take in all the challenging experiences and all the beautiful experiences, you enter a state of awareness and face the world “Yeah, I’m going to handle this. I’m going to be present to this,” then your body and metabolism would stop resisting. The E-motion becomes Energy  so the body  recognize its rightful job and place. Your metabolism, your actual nutritional metabolism, your calorie burning metabolism takes its normal course !

So here is my invitation to you, the more skillful you become at decoding your emotions, the more self awareness you develop and your body would stop resisting:

Get over your need to be comfortable all the time.

When you feel something come up, feel it,

decode it,

and then let it go.

Or you can hold onto it and implode like a black hole of sorrow, filling your intestines with mold, agony and toxins .

The choice is yours!

 

 
ghada khalifeh