(Un) Shrink yourself- break free from emotional eating forever

p.3 Why do you eat?
Food starts off as being not just a source of lige but an expression of love. At the heart of almost every culture, hospitality is shown by feeding people. And a celebration or a time of grief wouldn't be complete without food.
Using food for reasons other than simple sustenance is a normal part of life. It becomes a problem when food becomes so closed linked with feelings that the two overlap and become one. The foundation for this starts in childhood. "When I was good, I got a cookie"; "When I fell down, I was offered food"; "On summer nights, we sent to the lake to get iace cream"; "When I misbehaved, dessert was withheld." Food was trnasformed from a simple source of nutritin to a reward, a diversion, a punishment, a loive object, a friend. Once that happened, food became a way to control your emotions--to deal with your feelings of powerlessness. When you've installed food as a preferred way to cope, you stop developing new ways to deal with stress, your weight becomes increasingly difficult to control, and ultimately you end up reinforcing your feelings of powerlesssness.
In simple terms, when something happens to bother you, it makes you feel badm and you suddenly have the uncontrollable urge to eat. Them when you eat more tahn you know you should, it's always followed by regret, self-hatred, and extra pounds.

p. 21 In noe Native American folk tale, a grandfather explains to his grandson that he has two wolves inside him. One wolf hills him with hope and reminds him how wonderful his life is, and the other fills him with doubt and convinces him that nothing is worth the effort. The grandson asks, concerned for his grandfather, "Which wold will win?" The grandfather replies, "Whichever one I feed."

p.22 You haven't been able to lose the weight you want because eating has become an automatic soothing response to the stresses in your life.

p.26 Lit's face it, there isn't anyone who ewelcomes bad feelings. We look to do something with them--wsh them away, take a nap, go for a jog, talk to a friend, distract ourselves with television or abook, have a drink, smoke a cigarette, have sex, or eat a snack. Ideally you can get to a point where bad feelings are like bad weather--you know they'll pass, and just like when you know it's going to rain so you bringyour umbrella, you know what youneed to get through them. If you haven't yet arrived at this place of acceptance where even bad feelings are a part of you to include rather than to banish, then food will remain your preferred method of medicating yourself.
Food Protects yuo from bad feelings.
Why has food become the thing that you consistently turn to when feelings triggered by people orevents feel unbearable? Food serves two very effective purposes. First, it helps ou avoid feelings. I call the desire to avoid emotions the "feeling phobia." Also, food gives you a way to replace bad feelings with the pkleasurable experience of eating. I call the pleasureble experience that food provides the "food trance." In short, eating protects you from the feelings that you don't want to feel.
Food reinforces your feelings of powerlessness
We talked about how eating takes you to an ealier place in your develop,emt, predominantly because as infants and children, food was often associated with comfor and love. However, childhood is also associated with powerlessness. As a child, you were in fact powerless. You could be mistreated, you couldn't control your impuses, you were subject to abandonment, you were dependent on others to protect and nurture you. ...

p.29 No on elikes feeling angry, lonely, bored, or sad. But most emotional eaters have more than a simple dislike of these feelings, they have an allergic reaction to them. ... Feelings are the doorway you need to pass through.. You have to stop eating mindlessly and automatically when unpleasant feelings arise so that you can draw on your interior wisdom.

(Up to p.35)