Does it feel like everything gets more intense during perimenopause and menopause, especially food cravings and the need for edible emotional comfort?
My cravings for chocolate increased significantly in the past year – ironic because my other perimenopause symptoms, especially anxiety and sleeping difficulty get worse when I try to pick myself up off the emotional floor with a tasty square or 4 of Theo’s dark chocolate.
There’s usually a part of me that really wants to eat chocolate. Being thrifty, I recently restocked my chocolate stash anticipating the holiday baking season. I love using chopped dark chocolate bars in my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.
But a part of me says, “you’ll have trouble sleeping, and your perimenopause acne will get worse” And another part of me says, “just finish it all this week you don’t need to save any for cookies. You can buy more later!.“
Parts-thinking is normal. Part of you wants to do this, while part of you says you should/need to do that. You may not realize that parts-thinking is called the Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) created by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s.
IFS helps to explain why different parts of you crave food for emotional coping
My guest on this episode of the Savor Food and Body Podcast, beautifully explains the model using her own personal experience of healing from years of pursuing weight loss for body acceptance.
Agnis J Pena-Toro, MA is a psychotherapist and Body and Food Liberation coach and consultant. After healing from decades of diet culture harm, Agnis combines her personal experience with professional clinical experience to help women discover how to live their lives without restricting food and forcing their bodies to look a certain way.
Here’s what you’ll hear in our conversation:
- How diet culture starts to indoctrinate many women at the age of puberty.
- Agnis shares her personal journey toward body and food liberation by divorcing from diet culture. She’s spent years counseling people using the IFS model. Hear how Agnis combines her personal and professional experience to help other women on the road to understanding their food cravings.
- Agnis explains the importance of becoming aware of the body and food parts in your mind (a part that wants to be skinny so you can be accepted/loved; a part that hates dieting but still believes that’s the only option available; a part that was traumatized as a kid by being criticized for how your body looks, etc.)
- Finally, Agnis shares why it’s important to work with these parts psychologically in your mind so that the parts don’t sabotage your ability to reclaim your intuitive eating skills and deal with emotional food cravings.
Food cravings can help you to cope with your emotions and perimenopause symptoms, but food can’t be the only tool in your emotional coping toolbox
If you always honor the part of you that needs an immediate edible fix, what happens to the other part of you that wants to get a good night’s sleep, wants to enjoy some movement or connection with friends? How do you honor 1 part’s need without short-changing the other part?
After listening to this episode, grab your journal and do some self-nourishing reflection by answering the questions above. Doing so will help you dive deeper into what parts of you are calling the shots and what parts you want to honor at any given moment.
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Internal Family Systems Institute
Are your parts getting in the way of a healthy relationship with food? Take the quiz to find out!
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