Dear gut:
Yesterday I was overeating again, which made you feel uncomfortable for a long time. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I felt the stomach was still twisting. A plethora of guilt suddenly stroke me, and I decided to tell you sincerely this time:
Sorry, my gut. I've outrageously ignored your needs and treated you like a tool I could simply grab and use. I promise you that from now on, I will take good care of you, respect your needs, and not use you as my emotional trash can.
I can still see that scene vividly from yesterday, Saturday afternoon. As I wandered in the kitchen like a lost dog, looking for food to soothe me without feeling too guilty, I knew clearly I was not hungry. I was just a bit down, and I didn’t know what to do. That emotional state was so uncomfortable that I felt like stuffing my mouth was the only thing I could and wanted to do. The more I ate, the worse I felt, but the stimulating information on my phone allowed me to ignore the discomfort (mentally and physically) so that I could continue to be absorbed into the screen while looking for the next thing to eat.
Yes, I know this is an unhealthy habit. But I have never fully understood what kind of problem this is. At first, I thought the biggest problem was just gaining weight and a wider body shape, so I tried to exercise more to compensate for the excessive consumption of calories. Later on, I found out that there are deeper emotional problems behind it, that I had so much sadness and I just kept searching and searching for any outlet but didn’t succeed, so my only solution was eating. Realizing this, I tried to be more aware of my emotions and practice more constructive coping methods. But sometimes I also think: do I have to be positive and productive all the time? What’s wrong with being down and lost sometimes, which is just part of being human? See, I’m so good at critical thinking that I can easily find excuses for myself.
But now I have come to a new realization: every time I binge eat when I'm not hungry, I'm also harming my gut.
Sorry, my gut, I always thought that you are very healthy. I rarely have stomach pains, my appetite is good (maybe too good), and my bowel movements are regular. But for at least six or seven years, I've been prone to farting, much more often than average. But it really took me a long time to realize this was a problem, because after all the internet says[cite..], it is normal for a person to fart 5 to 15 times a day. Then, it took me a long time to search for the cause of the problem, that there may be no food allergies, there is no imbalanced diet, there is no IBS, and mouth breathing is not the biggest cause either... …The most obvious statistical correlation for me is that when I eat more, I fart more. I could just come to this conclusion by observing my daily life.
But this didn't even bother me: yes, farting is a bit embarrassing, but mature adults should take it easy and not make a fuss about such normal physiological phenomena, right? As long as I'm not embarrassed, it's just others who are embarrassed, right?
I don't know why, probably because of the increased body awareness overall. For the last few weeks, I began to be able to distinguish the feelings of my stomach in a much finer way. For a long time, I thought that there were only three or four states of my stomach: hungry, not hungry not full, stuffed to death, and menstrual stomach pain (is that really "stomach", anyways?). But now I can feel the different reactions of my stomach if I drink cold water, sparkling water or hot tea; I can feel the difference between "I can eat something even though I’m not hungry", or "clearly I don’t need anything now even if I’m not full".
Oh, the most important thing is that when I started to feel some kind of tangling and twisting in my stomach, after a while, the gas would go through the intestines toward the anus. Farting is no longer a mysterious phenomenon that occurs randomly at any moment; it becomes a story with a motivation, a beginning, and an end — and I can track this whole process.
Then I realized that my hyper-frequent farting was actually a signal from you, my gut: I am not hungry, you are eating too much! I can’t deal with this! Stop right now!
Sorry my gut, I'm so retarded that it took me so long to understand your signals.
Looking back, my binge eating started almost a decade ago, and I've had countless ridiculous overeating episodes. It's much better now, but it still happens a few times a week. I've been torturing you for so long, yet you have only had this slightest protest so far. I'm so thankful but feeling so guilty.
As for the action, what should I do? A very simple rule: don't eat when I don’t need to eat, and stop when I'm full. When eating, do it slowly and pay attention to the feeling of the stomach at any time. I’ve heard people saying that the signal of satiation will take a while to reach consciousness, so I will just continue to observe to learn what kind of feeling is the signal to stop.
Especially, when I am in a state of emotionally pressed food craving, but my gut really doesn’t need food at all, I will tell my emotions: Sorry, I can’t eat, I have to take care of my gut. Give me some time, and I will take care of you too.
love you,
Me
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Afterword:
I have been on my way to understanding and tackling my emotional eating problem for a long time. If people are interested, I am happy to talk more about it. On the other hand, the concern about my gut health is pretty recent, which gave me a fresh perspective and motivation to make changes. I do feel that taking care of my own body is much more motivating than external goals like "lose weight / be self-disciplined / be productive". Taking good care of my body is not out of fear of getting sick either, but more of a direct feedback loop between body and mind: the more comfortable my body is, the happier I am.