Emotional Eating

When you know me, you are aware that I am a huge Gilmore Girls fan. No, not a fan... I inherited their style, their relationships and personal traits. I identify myself and Stars Hollow feels like home. I am madly in love with Logan and I buy clothes Lorelai would wear. It has come to a point where I start craving coffee every time I watch an episode, even at 9 o'clock at night.
A couple of a minutes ago, I had just watched 2 episodes of season 7, there was a short conversation between Rory and Lorelai about Poptarts. Actually I never knew what they were until I tried one this summer in the US. We don't have them here, in fact we don't have most of these convenient, prepared and unhealthy foods they have. I am so not used to eating that (mind you, we do have chocolate bars and muffins, but it's not comparable at all to this craziness in american supermarkets) and I didn't enjoy all these chemicals and just non-natural indegrets. It's not my thing at all. But I tried since the girls told me they loved them and well, when you are in a foreign country you might as well dig in.
So what the conversation between the Gilmore Girls was about: Lorelai sat in front of a Poptart, one of her favorite foods, questioning herself whether she really liked it. Or whether she just liked them because she knew her mother wouldn't approve of them, as part of a rebellion against her parents and their standarts. And it made me think a lot. I believe that we do more things out of emotional reasons than we are aware of. We do them because they comfort us, make us happy or excited, bring back some kind of memory. Sometimes we intentionally listen to an old song which makes us think of our first love, or that one summer, maybe even a concert. We pull the trigger. But how many things do we do out of emotions and aren't even aware of it? Countless probably.
When I hear of emotional eating, I think of giving myself any sort of comfort through food. Like the soothing effects of pudding or the joy of some chocolate. Having an eating disorder, you suddenly 'live' all your emotions through food. Either starving them away, or - in my case - having certain kinds of food which represent feelings. Sweet, salty, spicey, oily, crunchy, sour, soft, creamy. They all seem to "give" me something else. I believe that this is our inner voice talking to us through metaphors. But we don't speak the same language and therefore misinterpret them. Which is a shame because we not only treat our bodies wrong by putting all that stuff inside ourselves, we also oversee our true conflict and longing. Which is a dead end. We believe the reflections are reality but they really aren't. When I try to think of some foods that remind me of a memory, I start to see the connection. Cookies symbolise love and family. My mom and I used to bake them together in our wollen socks, the oven was heating the kitchen, we were covered in flour and sang popsongs. So when I'm craving cookies, I am pretty sure I want that comfort and love and joy from this early childhood memory. It's not my body that really wants some sugar and white flour and fat. We need to seperate this. I don't say never eat cookies. But when you do, be aware of what you are doing. Know that food doesn't really give you that love and joy. It brings you closer to the memory, the reflection of those feelings. So I say eat a cookie if you want to, but also give yourself the love that you're really craving for.