Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Becca.

Confession: yesterday I ate most of a box of chocolate frosted mini wheats.  Straight from the box, shoveling them in with my bare hands.  Wait, there’s more.  That’s not the only emotional eating I’ve done this week.  I’m not looking forward to weighing in tomorrow morning!

I had been doing well avoiding emotional eating until a few weeks ago and it’s amazing how slippery and steep that slope is.  I try to stay away from that “well, if I’ve already eaten something terrible today then I mine as well eat what I want for the rest of the day” thinking, but we all fall victim to that train of thought sometimes.

I’ve heard “nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels” more times than I can count, but have a hard time agreeing with that sentiment when I feel a need to binge.

See, it’s not really about how something tastes, at least not entirely.  Sometimes it’s about what that particular food means to you or how the act of over eating makes you feel.

For me sometimes is even about the need to rebel, to resist the control, to be “bad”.  Which is all very silly, of course, since I’m the once enforcing the control in the first place.  Then again, if eating healthy and being fit was easy, we might all look and feel a little differently.

I think what made me snap out of my emotional eating downward spiral was realizing that I really deserve to be treated better.  I may not be able to do much about how other people treat me, so I better treat myself as nicely as I can!

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Monday, August 24, 2009 by Dea.

I am currently fighting the urge to go into the kitchen and eat everything in sight.  I know I’ll regret it, and I know I’ll barely taste everything I stuff into my mouth.

My younger son started Kindergarten today.  He’s my baby, my little guy, and I am happy that he’s excited and growing like he’s supposed to be.  But I am also so very sad that he isn’t my sweet little toddler.  He has always been my buddy, my sidekick.  And I know that school will be a good influence for him.  He’ll also change, and he’s not my little guy anymore.

It is so hard to not quell my sadness with gobs of cheese and handfuls of  candy.  I dislike such self-destructive thoughts, but I also can’t figure out the correlation.  Why should taking my son to school set off this chain reaction of thoughts and urges?

So I sit, fighting the desire to induce a food coma the likes of which have never before been seen.  I know that this is temporary sadness, but I also know a new sadness or upset will come along.  I hope that fighting back these urges today will either make me stronger in the face of future one, or make future urges less powerful.

I’m sad.  But I’m not weak.  I hope…

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009 by Dea.

Hi, I’m Dea, and I am an emotional eater.  It’s one of those things that a lot of people do.  Bad day at work?  Stop and get a cheeseburger and a chocolate bar.  Fight with the spouse?  Raid the pantry.

I have come up with a few things I do to trick myself when I get the urge to eat out of emotional upset.  I’ll share a few, and I’d love to hear everyone else’s ideas!

One thing I do is clean the bathroom or the kitchen.  Bleach is an amazing appetite suppressant.  So is cleaning a toilet, really.  This is one I use more when angry than sad.  I turn the energy that anger brings into a positive force.

Another thing I do is yoga or strength training.  This is one that helps more when I’m sad.  Yoga is calming and it helps you refocus your mind and visualize positive things.  The endorphins released during exercise are an added bonus here.

I like to use spin class and taking a walk, as well.  All three of these things are more mundane.  I do have sillier things I do to try to break the emotional eating cycle.

I like to paint my fingernails when I have a really bad urge to eat.  Nail polish smells so bad, and takes so long to dry, that it can help head off a binge.  Another strange thing I do sometimes is put on music really loud and scream along with the song.  Music is an amazing therapist. There’s a song for every emotion.

Anyone else have tricks to use when the emotional eating urge hits?

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