I'm going to ramble a bit to help get some of my thoughts out in front of me. One of the things that I've been working on with my counselor is acceptance. I've been waffling between the 220's-230's for the past few months, and I'm getting really frustrated. It's partially because recently I've noticed a relapse in some of my binge behaviors. I've been feeling particularly frustrated that I recently was able to navigate emotionally intense situations without the use of food, but seem to have gotten rusty.

I've been working on accepting that I am where I am and in this moment that's ok. I'm working on myself, and to expect perfection is to set myself up for failure.

I think that I don't always look at the progress I've made. I started out at 276 pounds. If you had asked me back then, when I stepped on the scale at my heaviest weight (when I was depressed and in a job I hated) if I would ever see the 220's, I would have probably laughed. I had tried and failed a number of times before.

So, I'm working on tolerating uncomfortable emotions, and fighting perfectionism. People don't lose 100 pounds in a few days, and it's ok for me to have a slow weight loss. Reminding myself of that has helped a bit with the binges, too. I can tolerate difficult emotions, and food does not provide me the comfort that it once did!

Even more important than acceptance is kindness. Be kind to yourself, we can be our own worst enemy sometimes. We come down so hard on ourselves.

There is an interesting discussion right now in the Intuitive Eating thread about the role of emotions in binging, the IE principles and Brain Over Binge. Check it out.

Way back, a few days before I even began my new lifestyle's eating plan I had already begun emotional work, I was using EFT and discovered that down deep I felt I wasn't enough. Period. I knew that emotional health was key to being successful this time. I Pulled several things from my "tool box" to help me with this. Being Kind and compassionate towards our selves is key- also key is feeling like we are "enough" exactly as we are. My blog is linked below- you can go to "I am enough" 9/2/2014 and the "tools" section to find several ways to approach emotional eating and cravings as well. I hope this helps.