Soothing emotions without food
 

I've been on program for a little over a week now and have officially hit my first emotional difficulty. This is usually the time when I would eat all of my favorite sweets and fried foods to soothe me and give up.
The conversation in the lunch room today amongst the women was about having a big butt in size 10 jeans, all the while eating lots of pasta and chocolate cupcakes. This is such a struggle for me. How do you go from soothing emotions with food to something more contstructive and life affirming? I have a long way to go on this weight loss journey and don't want to give up now, but I'm not sure how I'm going to make it.

Hi lola06. I don't know how much I can help you out on this one. I've never really been an emotional eater, my downfall was eating too much in social situations and not exercising enough.

It seems as though you've made it past the biggest step and that's realizing you are an emotional eater. I'm sure someone will be right along to offer much better advice than me.

~Dee

I have a lot of self talk going on in my head all the time. I used to play little mind games with myself such as if I decided to be off program for a day, do it at the beginning of the week - that way I'd have time to get it off by the next weigh in. I had a million of them. But, none of those mind games kept me going for very long.

But, this time, I keep telling myself that I need food only to sustain myself and that there are so many other things more important than food. Some days that takes more self talk than other days. All of my activities don't involve food anymore and I'll avoid all those temptations if I keep that uppermost in my mind. I have also developed many projects that if I start thinking I need to eat, I just go do that and it takes my mind off food. I have the cleanest kitchen and bathroom cabinets in town. :carrot: :carrot:

If I do get the desire to have something I might have trouble with, I buy it when I'm out of my house and I buy a single serving and have it then. That way I don't have a whole box at home that I can get into and eat the whole thing. For instance, last night after work I stopped at the grocery store to get some ingredients for a new recipe. I was by the candy aisle and they had that display all stores have of the Brach's Pick A Mix where you buy the candy in bulk. So, I picked out 2 pieces and that's all I bought - I had them and they were wonderful and I went home and made my healthy dinner. I counted the candy on my WW points and I was satisfied. If I had bought a whole sack, I would have eaten the whole sack - I know myself well enough.

I think there's a lot about getting real with yourself (who knows you better than you) and deciding if you want to do something positive or something that you'll beat yourself up over later. I also don't beat myself up if I do go a little crazy sometimes - I usually get my exercise going to compensate it and in the 12 weeks I've been on the WW program, I have lost every week except for one where I stayed the same. I also go back over those weeks and pull everything positive from them and remind myself that I'm doing a good thing. I've decided I'm a very important person in my own life and that I need to do this for me and only me!

I'm stepping down from my soap box now. I hope everyone has a good weekend and a good start to next week.

WE CAN ALL DO THIS - KEEP THE FAITH IN YOURSELF!!

DNR