It is currently winter as I write this. I love a good salad yet crave more warmth in the winter months. I also love feeling cozy and hate sacrificing needlessly. Instead of forcing myself to eat a salad so that the greens in my fridge don't go bad, I found an alternative way to cook greens that I fell in love with. This approach turned cooked greens into a favorite comfort food for me.
 
My love for comfort, and comfort foods, is why I decided decades ago to fire dieting and learn how to eat intuitively and intentionally. It was one of the best, most freeing decisions I've ever made on behalf of my future self. 
 
Along my journey to healing with food, I've learned much about myself, true hunger, false hunger, and the body's extraordinary communication system.
 
I also discovered myths that society and dieting companies perpetuate. Those that know me well know I LOVE myth-busting. So, let's bust a myth today!
 
For years I harbored an unconscious belief that "healthy eating requires sacrifice and is a bummer." As a health consultant, I learned I was not alone. This myth was widespread and kept people from reaching their health potentials.
 
While this myth can ironically be true, the good news is that it doesn't have to be true at all. In fact, those of us who LOVE food can embrace the thousands of recipes, flavors, and food combinations that we have available to us in the modern world. No sacrificing is needed!
 
For example, here is a list of foods hated:

• Kale! – gross, dense, too hard to stomach 
• Wilted greens – slimy, looks gross
• Almond butter- I want to like you, but peanut butter wins
• Cauliflower – too thick
• Broccoli - yuck
• Black Licorice and anise – yicky

 
Yet, the more I openly explored different recipes and was open to trying new things, I found ways to absolutely love the foods listed above. Yep, not tolerate… love them! Different food combinations bring foods to life in completely unique ways!
 
For example, I discovered:

• If I hand crunch kale with sea salt for 3 minutes, and add sesame oil, then I can't get enough!
• Wilted greens? Just add pepper, and I'm all in! Yep, I can't explain it.
• Almond butter melted over sautéed apples, and I'm in heaven.
• Cauliflower baked with goat cheese and lemon, sprinkled with pine nuts. Delicious! 
• Broccoli, add lemon, butter, and parmesan. Yum!
• Black licorice root in teas or cooked fennel are two of my favorite things now! 

 
Of course, my examples won't necessarily be yours, so I invite you to expand your love of food into finding more and more delicious healthy recipes that are fun to make and leave you feeling amazing!

The next time you come across a "health food" that you don't like, consider "Maybe I just haven't found the right recipe yet?"
 
We don't have to sacrifice or force ourselves to eat things we don't like. We can be adventurous explorers and find the healthy recipes and food combinations that WE love. 
 
I wish you happy and fun adventures in the kitchen!

Below is a picture of the greens sitting in my fridge that I wilted with cracked pepper and thoroughly enjoyed with dinner tonight! I added some yellow squash for color and extra veggies for fun variety. After discovering a way to cook greens that I loved, I often eat them on their own for breakfast with a side of poached eggs. Nom nom!  #FindYourHappy

If you are like me, you "overdid" it over the holidays. Extra cookies, rich foods, and lots of festivities. What was different for me this year about overdoing it this year and the past decade? I choose to overeat. Yes, that is right, I decided to. I know that very sounds odd! But I cannot tell you how amazing it feels to be in choice. You see, before I healed my relationship with food, I didn't have a choice. I was a compulsive eater. I didn't have a choice because I didn't allow myself to have one. I lived in reaction to food. Like a puppet, I felt helpless to any and all temptation.

Now, after healing, I am in choice. There are times I check-in with my body and say no to the extra holiday cookies. There are times I check-in, and I say yes to the cookies. I am in choice.

Before I healed my relationship to food, it felt like an ant staring up at the top of Mount Everest. Healing seemed impossible, and even as I moved towards healing, I was a super skeptic. 

What I discovered and learned shocked me... and then it healed me. Healing was possible. Healing is possible. There are solutions, and they don't include diet fads. Quite the opposite, actually. It includes healing the divide within our hearts—a divide between what we want, what we believe we want, and what we need. 

If you want to start healing your relationship with food, I can happily walk you through the entire five-step process. I've placed everything you need into an e-book to give as many women as possible direct access. My goal is to give my support, expertise, research, and love to help women trapped in emotional eating cycles break free, heal their relationship to food and gain freedom for life. 

I offer a money-back guarantee for two reasons. 1) There are so many online scams out there, I want you to experience the healing path obligation-free. 2) If you try out all five steps and walk away with zero insights or benefits, I want to offer you the option to get your money back. Not many companies or coaches do that, but to me, that is fair. No questions asked. 

If you are hurting and tired of feeling like food owns you, I invite you to begin your healing journey with my support, encouragement, and love. 

Before I broke free from emotional eating, my relationship with my body was a mess. I confused true physical hunger with emotional hunger and blood sugar issues. I ate unconsciously and then wondered why I never felt satiated. The moment I felt a twinge of stress, I'd run the refrigerator. 

There are many reasons we eat. Some are healthy, and some are not so healthy. The healthy reason to eat is to refuel and nourish our bodies based on actual physical hunger. The unhealthy reasons we eat do not stem from physical hunger. These are the hungers that throw us off... until we become conscious of them, that is. This is because we can't fix what we don't see. Once we are aware, we can choose differently. 

There are nine primary false hungers. These are: 

• Stress
• Obligation
• Boredom
• Tiredness
• Specializing
• Habit
• Distraction
• Fun
• Blood sugar dips

Which one's trip you up? For me, it was the entire list. I ate any chance I got for any reason. I lived to eat. After reaching my heaviest weight and hearing Dr. Phil say, "Don't live to eat. Eat to live.", I knew I had to wake up. The minute you are tired of the rollercoaster is the perfect time to get off. It is possible to learn how to eat to live and to live well. 

As a personal trainer and health consultant, I had the opportunity to observe trial and error in my clients. I also observed trial and successes too. Those were my favorites. 

One success that I loved to watch were the little shifts that people made that led to more significant, longer-lasting results. 

Think about it this way. If I eat a 300 calorie snack out of habit, boredom, or because my energy dips every day at about 3pm, then after one week, I've eaten 2100 EXTRA calories that my body can't use and didn't need. Wow.

So by making this one simple change of choosing a different habit that elevates my afternoon energy, I will have removed 8,400 excess calories from my diet in one month. I also did this without having to starve myself! 

Remember, I wasn't even physically hungry at that time, to begin with. I was mentally hungry. It was a habit due to boredom, and since my energy dips in the afternoon, it makes sense I'd try to eat to combat those things. 

Let me introduce you to a better way!

Once I became aware of my unconscious eating, I decided to do afternoon yoga to pick myself up. I also examined what I was eating for lunch. Dips in blood sugar mean I'm not eating foods that leave me satiated. I upped my protein intake at lunch and eliminated the drop in energy. 

I also bought some orange and peppermint essential oils. I put those in a diffusor and took a few moments to breathe in the vibrant scents that refresh me, body, mind, and Spirit. 

Not only that, this new routine is ten times more soul-satisfying than the excess weight from unconscious snacking ever could be. 

Remember, emotional eating is an overemphasis on food being our savior. The truth is food can only do so much. The truth is a truly fulfilling life comes from a well-nourished heart. 

​What is one slight shift that you can make this week? 

When we eat to distract our mind, we end up starving our heart. 
The first step in breaking free is to learn true physical hunger from false. Before I knew the difference, I thought I was always hungry. I was so mistaken. The true hunger was in my heart. 
When we start to recognize what our needs are, we can begin to meet those needs. That is, we begin to nourish our heart. As we do this, the pull to eat when we are emotionally hungry begins to lose its grip on us. 

Laurel Elders is a Professionally Certified Coach, Certified Executive Coach, educator, and author. She wrote Eating With Heart in 2012 to help women break free from emotional eating, take their power back, and gain lasting peace with food. Her Five Step process places women back in touch with themselves and invites a permanent healthy transformation. Laurel and her husband reside in Tucson, AZ, have four grown children, and appreciate life’s blessings above the challenges.