You're making me hungry, Pipstar. But then I've only had orange juice so far. Late night with the kids last night and slept in until 9am. Kids and grand kids still here. I think I'm going to need a nap this afternoon. I have a son who needs to lose weight and I've been trying to help him. He doesn't believe it will work, IE that is.

Full blown snowstorm here today........April 19th........seems like Jan. ha! Nice thing is it will probably be melted in a couple days. The grass is green underneath it all. I used to get so many emails from IE sites but not lately. Nothing to pass on. Sorry.

IE can be a tough sell, Carol. Especially since the weight loss is not fast. Things still going well here.

I'm at 149 lb right now. I want to get to 144. Then, even with clothes on I can keep my balance beam scale on 100 and not 150. Isn't that funny? But considering a few years ago I was at 195 at the doctors, I'm feeling pretty good. Shay, do you get any news from IE people who email there blogs to you? I used to get so many . Now nothing. I'll have to check them out on the internet soon.

This is an old post off Peer Trainer website that I thought was interesting.

The book is called Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. I have really been helped by this book. One of the first things I read was something to the effect of Look where dieting has gotten you. Most people are bigger than they have ever been.
That was definately me. I'm at 230 now and that is the biggest I have ever been. My last diet I lost 30 lbs. and when I couldn't do it any more, I gained 40.
Mentally I was whipped. I just COULD NOT face trying again to lose weight and failing again. Who can stand to fail over and over again?
The first couple of chapters talk about why dieting fails us and how to dump the dieting mentality forever. After I got through that part I just stopped binging. I didn't really have to try I just did. Now after that I haven't progressed very far because I have been so busy I haven't paid attention to my eating at all. I have lost about 5 lbs though and am ready to start taking the time to listen to my body and nurturing it.
The basic premis is that if we get rid of the dieting mentality, learn to listen to our bodies, and only exercise because we know how good it will feel to our bodies, that our body will naturally regulate itsself and our weight will decrease to a healthy level.
Challenges for me include the business so that I don't listen to my body. I slam food down so I can get back to work. When I do eat smaller meals I have to carry snacks with me (which is in itsself a healthy habit) because I get hungry more often. But a small snack with some staying power does the trick. I get to eat what ever sounds good to me, and stop when I'm no longer hungry. I know that I can have some more later if I'm hungry again. Even if it doesn't qualify as a "healthy" snack.
Well, those are some of the highlights of what I have read so far. I got my book at the library and just keep renewing it. I may just buy it, we'll see.
If someone will tell me how to start this as a group I will, but I am terribly technically challlenged.
Think about it. The freedom from guilt is FABULOUS!!! It takes retraining yourself, but once you are done, you are done. You don't ever have to obsess about what when how much etc etc etc you are going to eat.

From Michelle May, M.D.

At 5’11" and slender, Jeannette was known as Twiggy throughout high school. “I know now that I truly ate instinctively and had very high energy. I danced, played volleyball, and swam,” Jeannette explained.
“I remember the moment I began my struggle with emotional eating. I received some very traumatic news and it felt like a switch was flipped,” said Jeannette. “I began using food for comfort. But I ate when I was happy too. I’d eat two rows of cookies and feel so ashamed. I even started hiding my food.”

She gained 75 pounds and tried one diet and exercise program after another to try to fix it. Her weight swung down then back up in a 20-30 pound range, apparently related to stress. She and her family moved 14 times and as Jeannette explains, “whether out of state or across town, moving was very stressful for me. Every time we moved, I lost close friendships. Women need other women.” In addition, she was raising two children and going to college full time. Like many women, Jeannette also struggled with her body image. “My son finally had to tell me, ‘You’re are not allowed to ask me if you look fat.’”

Jeannette is grateful for her supportive husband, Steve. “We’ve been married for 33 years and during that time, it’s like he has been with four different women—all me—but at different weights. But he never treated me differently; he said I was always the same on the inside."

Ten years ago Jeannette started meeting with a dietitian. “She was a young girl right out of college and we were both gung ho. She asked me to write down what I was eating and the feelings associated with it.” Jeannette soon noticed a pattern of eating related to her emotions but, “instead of recording that I had eaten three servings of something, I’d record the food’s components to hide the amount I was actually eating.”

Jeannette describes herself as a really honest person so when she saw herself lying and hiding wrappers, she said, “It really pained me. The next time I saw my dietitian I said, ‘I have a problem—I think I might be an emotional eater.’” Her dietitian agreed but admitted that she wasn’t equipped to help her with that. She continued to see her for nutrition advice, which Jeannette says was very helpful, but they didn’t get to the core of the problem.

It took all courage she had to look for a counselor on her insurance plan. “When I finally called, the receptionist said, ‘You want to talk to him about emotional eating? He doesn’t deal with that!’” Jeannette felt humiliated and hung up the phone. She lived another two years with awareness of her emotional eating. Jeannette said, “It was actually a little better because I didn’t have as much shame. At least I understood why I was doing it.” She was able to be more compassionate toward herself and that led to modest weight loss. "I could verbalize to myself, I’m stressed about the exam so I’ll eat.”

When both of her kids were in college, her husband was relocated again. She felt like she was abandoning her kids. “They wouldn’t even know how to get home!” This led to a small break-through for her. Jeannette describes the experience:

“Before the movers came, I decided to pack the kids’ rooms myself. For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to feel grief instead of using food to not feel. I cried, not because I was sad, but because a beautiful part of my life—raising my children—was coming to an end. I realized then that feeling bad can almost feel good - because at least I was feeling something.”

Once in their new home, Jeannette tried to keep herself busy. Then, as Jeannette says with her keen sense of humor, “I put on my ‘big girl pants’ and reached out for help again. My new counselor told me that people cope in different ways—alcohol, work, food—they were all the same thing: a way to push away the feelings.” Her first step was to go into her basement every day to do chores and turn up her Christian music and cry when she felt like it. “My favorite song was about how healing comes through the rain. I had always been empathetic toward other people but I just needed to learn how to cry for myself again.”

Jeannette met with another dietitian who helped her eat healthier. Then a year ago she saw a flyer for a workshop offered by a local hospital,. During the introductory session, Jeannette felt like she had finally discovered the missing puzzle piece.

“During the workshop, I felt like my facilitator (Jennifer Morse) was speaking my language. My soul was sucking in everything she said. I felt like I was standing naked in a room with other naked people who finally had nothing to hide because we were truly understood."

Jeannette approached the workshop like one of her college classes. She read, did the “homework,” and used all the tools provided for her in the Participant Portal. “It all just made so much sense.”

For example, Jeannette realized that although she was eating healthy foods, she was eating too much at one sitting. "The balloon demonstration during one of the workshops was the eye opener for me. I began feeling better almost right away after cutting back. I assume it's because my body doesn’t have to work so hard to digest so much so often."

Jeannette also experienced a significant change in her emotional eating. She explains that "at home, I would literally do a circle. I’d walk into the kitchen and suddenly realize the real reason I wanted red licorice. I'd turn around and walk back out again. It's almost as if I have out of body experiences now. I can step back and look at what I’m doing and see what my patterns are.”

Before doing the workshop, Jeannette says she was in a “dysfunctional dance with food. Emotional eating worked for me, but only temporarily.” Now that she feels physically and emotionally healthier, people constantly ask her what has changed. “When I try to explain it to them, many don’t identify with emotional eating at first. They don’t understand that emotional eating can be eating for any emotion. I know that now.”

Jeannette says she has no interest in trying to get back to her high school "Twiggy" weight. She just wants to feel good. And she does—and so does Steve. They've lost a total of 53 pounds together. They are so enthusiastic about sharing their new approach to eating that they were photographed for an article.

She says she is now “purging” – donating a lot of household items that they had accumulated through all of their moves. Symbolically she says, “I was always afraid to throw anything out for fear I might need it someday.” Not anymore. “I feel fully alive because I have been able to take charge of my journey. I know what I really need.”

I'll save more on emotional eating for tomorrowl

Carol, Thanks for posting Jeanette's story. Very interesting.

Thanks for the great posts on emotional eating. I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow, I really hate doing it, because, I never know what I want, what would sound good, and end up wasting food. I go out a lot, as a result. I must develop a better system. For me, being afraid of getting hungry is always the hardest part of the ie process.

More from Michelle May, M.D.

Do you eat for emotional reasons? Of course you do—everybody does! Soon after birth we develop powerful emotional connections to feeding, eating, and food. We eat to socialize, nurture, express love, have fun, soothe a hurt, and reward ourselves for a job well done. In our food abundant environment, eating is a readily accessible way to add pleasure to our lives.

Emotional eating only becomes a problem when it’s over-used to cope with or avoid feelings.

If you feel your emotional connection to food is causing problems for you, these suggestions may help you bring emotional eating back into balance.
From Emotional Eating to Emotional Understanding

Avoid labeling yourself “an emotional eater.” Labels become self-fulfilling prophecies. Instead, identify the behavior since unlike personality characteristics, behaviors can be explored and changed. Examples: emotional eating, eating when I feel stressed, using food for comfort, eating as a form of entertainment, etc. .
Get back to the basics. To identify emotional triggers, ask “Am I hungry?” whenever you feel like eating. If there are no physical signs of hunger, it’s likely that the urge to eat was triggered by environmental or emotional cues.
Leave judgment at the door. Guilt and shame feed the eat-repent-repeat cycle and close the door on learning.
Have compassion for yourself. When you eat for emotional reasons, you are simply trying to take care of yourself. What could you do that might work better?
Respond instead of react. Realize that a “trigger” is just that—a coping mechanism that you can choose to pull or not. Choose how you'll respond to your triggers instead of reacting automatically.
Read the need. Your desire to eat when you aren't hungry is a doorway into your underlying feelings and needs.
Cravings can be clues. The food you crave may give you insight into the underlying emotion or need, i.e. comfort food.
Avoid labeling emotions as good or bad, or positive or negative. All emotions are information that you can use to better understand your interpretation of an experience and help you recognize your true needs.
This too shall pass. Ride your emotional waves as if you were floating on a raft. All emotions come and go. It is futile to resist the ones that feel unpleasant; resistance only adds to your discomfort. Likewise, it is pointless to cling to the emotions that feel pleasant; just enjoy them while they last.
Create a self-care buffer zone. Caring for your body, mind, heart, and spirit builds resilience to the stresses of life. When you practice regular self-care, you will be less likely to turn to food to manage your emotions.


Healthy Emotional Connections to Food

Over the years, I’ve learned to heal the emotional connection to food that wasn't serving my highest good. I've also learned to embrace my healthy emotional relationship with food. When I’m craving chocolate even though I’m not hungry (and sometimes when I am!), I’m probably bored of working at my desk or I'm feeling overwhelmed and in need of a break. I also love the emotional connection of cooking with my chef-husband, dining with my friends and family, and savoring a fabulous piece of chocolate—simply for pleasure!

I had an interesting thing happen last night. I wanted to get a birthday gift for my GD but my DH was playing racquet ball until 8 pm. So we headed out for supper with my son and his wife and kids at about 9. I had a small soup, salad, and ice tea. I had so much energy that we shopped until almost midnight. That hasn't happened in a long time.

How was your weekend? Mine was rather quiet except company for dinner today and kids and friends here for basketball last night. My Dd comes home tonight after 2 weeks at her fiancee's. She is getting married June 25th at the farm here. We did this for Ds 3 years ago. This is the last one of ten kids to get married. Time flies.

I still get e-mails from Geneen Roth and one more person. I can't remember the name. The problem is I'm not reading them. I just keep leaving them in my e-mail box bc I will get to them one day. I need to make a goal for these. Maybe reading at least one a day to allow me to catch up.

This will be a quick one, but I'm just dropping in to say that I'm back. I haven't been here in a while because I've been counting calories to learn my portions etc as I've been working to get my fasting blood glucose down and evened out. I think I'm ready today to get back to IE with the way I have to eat. I've got to go back and catch up on reading since I was here last. So I'll catch up with y'all later.

:welcome3: back Patty. We miss you when you are gone. Just wondering what Becky is doing. She hasn't been here for a long time. Obi, Too. Miss you all.