Hello Ladies (and gents)--

WARNING! This is a LONG post.. TONS of Emotional VENTING..

I am really struggling the past couple days. I tire of the blah weather outside, as litterally, a blizzard is approaching and set to hit Home tonight through the beginning of next week. The weather makes me want to eat and stay inside. I find I am very affected by the weather.

I find myself in an interesting place in my life because it feels like I am standing there watching this storm coming at me and my Emergency programming is telling me to eat, eat, eat.

I read an intersting post today: Bob Greene- Why are you fat?.. or something like that. It made me think about why I am fat. How did I get here??? I am a total emotional eater. Everytime anything happens, I eat and gain weight. I read that post and tried to think of when it began.. but I can't recall. It has always been that way.

I never had a time in my life, not even as a small child when I was thin, where I wasn't worried about my appearance. That's insane!

I can blame being fat on my life and yet it is my choices that still led me to where I am. So how do I change it? Restricting my food and exercising may help me look better, if I can sustain them.. but will it help in the long run?? Can you maintain physical health without mental health?

It's like the eye of the storm.. a pausing moment before the tornado hits. My mom has said she worries more about me when something traumatic happens because unlike some others who cry and let it out.. I go mute. I internalize. I bury it in myself and ignore it until it comes bursting back out. (I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic..)

My worry is if I start to delve into the emotional stuff that encouraged me to eat and depressed me.. won't that just make me more emotional and cause me to want to eat more???

Thanks!!... whew!.. nice to purge the words from my body time and again!

sometimes what you need is just to write your thoughts down. It can do wonders for your soul.
Just know that we are here and always listening.

ps. I can't wait for the snow this weekend!! I'm in Green Bay.. and don't have ANY snow right now!! What a weird winter it's been.

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate your thoughts.

Yr Crazy though ;-) ... I have a lot of commuting to do with my jobs so snow annoys me.. I still have snow in my yard.. I'm from MN so 'howdy neighbor.'

Hi Kae!

I guess I'm curious...you said you were exploring trying to figure out your "Why?" and then later in your post you mentioned being diagnosed with traumatic stress disorder. I'm assuming as you were diagnosed with that, that you must have had something traumatic happen in your life. Could that "event" be part of your "Why?"?

I love cold weather. I use it to experiment with soups. This winter has been so odd, 70 degrees 1 day, 12 the next day, so I've played around with some of my favorite recipes. Soup is my numero uno comfort food, but it's usually made with stew meat, egg noodles etc, so I've started using reduced sodium beef broths, whole wheat pasta, brown rice and LOADS of veggies. I still get my comfort food, but 1/3 of the calories.

You could use this time to experiment with recipes. Make and freeze next weeks lunches and dinners so you don't have to worry about it after sloshing through all the muck, which would give you time to work out. Prechop veggies and fruit and lightly toss with lemon juice so it doesn't turn that appetizing brown color. Try out new workout dvd's from the library, catch up on reading, try new hot tea flavors, clean out your closet of things that are to big now, bag them for goodwill. There's all kinds of things you can do that don't require eating. You'll pull through honey!

If you use food and eating to help you deal with your feelings, as so many of us do, then thinking about all of this emotional stuff may trigger a desire to eat more. So a common suggestion may be to find a different coping strategy - a healthier one that will help you relieve the anxiety you feel. Common ones include talking to someone, turning to a comforting person/people, writing/journaling, engaging in a hobby, exercising (for some people it works), watching a movie, reading a book, going for a walk, knitting, taking a bath, anything under the moon that helps you to feel better. It may be hard to not eat and instead do something else but with practice, you can strengthen your coping methods and it can become easier to not eat your feelings away.

The other point that just came to me is that thinking about all this stuff won't necessarily cause you to feel upset. It depends on what the issues are and how resolved they are. If for example, you overeat because you are terrified of stepping outside of your house and eating calms you, then thinking about stepping out of your house may lead you to feel very anxious (since it terrifies you so much). However, if you overeat for reasons that are less intense or relevant to your life at the moment, then you may have an easier time dealing with whatever it is. Some thoughts don't have those raw emotions attached to them - we may know some things sucked, but we made peace with them and case closed. Other things may continue to eat away at us and that's when we may overeat.

I hope that makes sense.

Hi Kae!

You are NOT alone in this! I TOTALLY understand where you are coming from about this! I spent a couple hours this morning after my workout just reading over the journals I have written in the last few years. Emotional eating is ALL OVER those pages! As I look at it all now I KNOW why I was unable to lose weight...I was trying to eat to calm myself, help myself, de-stress myself, make myself feel more relaxed, strength myself... You name it, I was using EATING to solve EVERYTHING in my life!

I think that it is VERY easy to keep doing something and VERY hard to make a change. I think that you have made a HUGE STEP in NAMING the problem in your life! Now that you are truly aware of what is happening to you it is easier to FIGHT the feelings that make you want to use food as THE SOLUTION!

I've read a bunch of books about weight loss. The things that have helped me the most are:

1) Food is to nourish your body. It is NOT a solution to any emotional issue. This was a VERY NEW concept to me! I never even REALIZED that I was using food as a solution to my stress!

2) YOU are more important than any food that goes into your body for any reason. I don't think I really loved myself before! I spent so much time loving everyone else that I had no time left FOR MYSELF!

3) Nothing/nobody should make you feel that even a morsel of food should enter your body. No emotion (happy, sad, depressed etc.) should control you to the point of causing you to put food into your body. You should eat because your body needs that food and you are PHYSICALLY hungry. I used to eat because it was dinnertime or lunchtime or because the food looked yummy or (insert ANY reason here!)

4) Writing down your thoughts and feelings REALLY HELPS to allow you to begin feeling control over your life. It is also VERY helpful to read over what you've written in the past to see the progress you have made in your journey.

I don't know whether you are a believer in the power of prayer, but if you are, I encourage you to give your problems to God. Once I let Him in I found so much more strength than I had had before. I will pray for you, Kae. It WILL be OK!

Cheryl

Thank you all for your throughts. I appreciate everyone's responses. I've been trying to sort through some things in my mind this past weekend. I guess I had been finding myself in a real state of depression. I haven't done a lot of the things I really enjoy in a long time.. started hanging out with friends less.. and so on. I need to start a journal I think. Thanks again!!!

Kae, I hope you feel better Keep us posted

There isn't much I can add to what has already been said, so I am just sending you some {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

cindy