Hi everyone,

Going_down commented that losing weight is 90% mental and 10% diet and exercise.  I think I agree with her.

My biggest struggle throughout my life has been emotional binge eating.  I remember doing that even as a child.  I have to think about the type of situations that I'm going to be in throughout the day or the next day and plan what I'm going to eat.  I have to be aware of my emotions and recognize the signs of an impending binge.  I went to a group counseling with women for over 2 years to learn to recognize emotions.  It took alot of practice.  If you are used to squishing emotions with food it becomes a habit and you don't take the time to stop and recognize that something is wrong.  You just eat until it passes.

Now I can tell that I'm having  a problem when I find that I'm thinking about food at a non-mealtime.  It is so strange - I start thinking about different foods one by one.  Almost like you are trying to match your current emotional distress with a food that will calm it.  You think potato chips?  No.  Ice Cream?  No.  Cookies?  No.  Candy bars?  Yes!  Then you become fixated on candy bars and how if you can have some candy bars you'd feel SO MUCH BETTER.  LIE!!!!!!!!  Then you have to think about what is bothering you that is making you want to eat candy bars.  It can be something that happened that day, the day before, the month before, the year before, 20 years before, or it could be something that is coming up in the future.

We have lots of squished memories that pop up at different times.  Think of your brain as a big computer that holds all of your memories.  Just because the memory isn't in your consciousness doesn't mean it's not in the computer somewhere.  Sometimes these things pop up at weird times.  Something that someone says, a smell, a taste, a situation, something you see can all cause a lost memory to pop up.  All of a sudden you start feeling the need to eat.  You are agitated, sad, bothered in some way.  But you can't figure out why.  That's a sign you need to stop and think about what is bothering you.  It can be easy if it was a pretty recent event - maybe you had an argument with your daughter and at first it didn't bother you so much but now it is.  Or you are stressed out about an upcoming event.  Sometimes it can be hard - your divorce 5 years ago, someone was mean to you in high school, you suffered some abuse.  I'm not saying to dwell on these past events, but if you recognize the hurt you can let it go and not eat to push it back down. 

Writing in a journal can help let out the thing that is bothering you.  Start with "I don't like..." and just start writing.  Just write whatever comes to your mind.  5 minutes is plenty of time.  You will see things that will amaze you.  Some things you write will be significant and some will be dumb.  Then after 5 minutes you can just stop and decide if you need to look at anything further or just move on with your day.  If you find a recurring theme you may have to do something to solve a problem or seek counseling, but alot of times it's just normal stuff that bothers everyone.

Have a happy day everyone!
TGIF
Shelly