hey ladies,

i'm back. i've been on and off of here for quite some time. things in my life have just been getting more stressful, and it's having a terrible impact on me. but that's for another thread.

i realize i've been turning to eating, and shopping when i feel stressed and depressed. shopping isn't terrible. i shop mostly clearance, but it's been a lot lately. i have a mini-shopping trip coming friday, and i want it to be the last for a while. i'm looking for ideas to occupy myself, so i won't eat or shop (too much) when i'm bored, stressed and depressed.

exercise is obvious. but how about any others? i can't exercise 24/7 my body wouldn't be very happy with me.

what do you ladies do when you're feeling down, or like you're hanging by a string? what calms you down, diverts your attention from your troubles?

I immerse myself in a knitting project. I love scarves, and I come up with all sorts of different patterns for them.

I shop clearance, too. I just bought a gorgeous pair of dark denim jeans for $9.97 at Old Navy

Laneyy,
thanks for the idea. I don't know how to knit but I can crochet. Its cool that you can do all sorts of patterns. My crocheting skills are limited. Lol.


I was at old navy today lol. I got this adorable shirt for 7 dollars. I couldn't pass it up!!

My old roommate taught me how to knit in college.

I think you ladies are on the right track, I think you need to find something you enjoy that does not cut into your wallet or your weight loss goals. Maybe you could take a free class at a community center, I have done that before and it was great to meet some new friends. Maybe join sometime of rec sport club, with summer comming up sand volleyball could be fun. Just anything that you might enjoy.

Sometimes I start a project, like cleaning or reorganizing. On the darkest days of course I can barely get out of bed let alone work on anything productive.

Music, movies, TV series, escapist media. Sometimes I watch travel videos on YouTube or plan a fantasy vacation. Getting "away" is the best medicine for feeling trapped/bored with life.

I like to watch TV, play video games on the Wii/DS, & do graphics on photoshop. A lot of times I'm so engrossed in doing these things that I don't notice the time or ever really get hungry. If worst comes to worst (if it's just one of those days), I just sleep more than usual. Those are just days that I don't feel motivated to do ANYTHING though.

This is also my first day back on these threads for a couple months now, so you're definitely not alone!

Read, listen to music, clean the house... those are my stay busy tactics.

read! play games, you could even just window shop! I know that would be tempting but look at clothes that are too small and think about how you will be able to fit into them soon .

For me, reading is the one thing I never get tired of. I ALWAYS have a good book (preferably in a series) that I can turn to when I have nothing else to do, or if I want to just distract myself. I also clean when I'm bored lol. It seems like there's always SOMETHING to clean in my townhome, so if I need to distract myself I vacuum, dust, clean my bathroom, w/e. It burns calories too! Playing video games is fun too if you're into that. I have an old-school Super Nintendo so I break out Donkey Kong or Super Mario if I'm bored sometimes. It passes the time pretty quickly too!

thanks ladies for all of your wonderful ideas. i'm definitely going to put some of them to trial. i know part of my problem is i have difficulty getting up and going. i have no energy or motivation for much of anything. that's what i really need to find.

I find I go in these sort of manic spurts... they are sometimes eating or shopping. Lately I've been trying to channel that energy in more productive ways. Today I went on a crazy cleaning/ catching up on errands rampage and I feel AMAZING for getting so much done. BUT I know that actually getting started can be the hard part for me, too.

This might sound silly but I'm putting my entire list of accomplishments on my blog. It is totally motivating that I get to brag to the internet and my (few) readers!