Posts filed under 'Emotional Eating'
Commentary: Trust
“Adopt a regimen of health, practice moderate exercise, and take just enough food and drink to restore our strength, not overburden it.”
–Cicero, 44 BC
I just love this quote that my friend Sara once shared. It subscribes to the school of thought that as humans, we need to trust ourselves and our bodies to take just enough, do just enough — but to do nothing to excess. (HA — as Americans, isn’t EVERYTHING we do to excess?!)
Ironically, one of the tenets of the diet/weight loss industry is that we are incapable, as humans, to trust ourselves to just eat enough and exercise just enough.
We fall victim to our cravings, and then we “need” diet plans, diet books, guides, calorie counters, iPhone apps, journals, food scales, regular scales to help normalize ourselves. (more…)
12 comments May 6, 2009
Happy Times
I don’t know what it is about a sexy LBD (little black dress), heels, and fun jewelry … but this weekend I felt good in my own skin. Confident, even.
It doesn’t happen often, but I know that when it does, I ought to embrace it and capitalize on it. I haven’t weighed myself in a really long time, but I don’t really care to, either — especially with my monthly guest, which arrived Monday.
The thing is, I shouldn’t necessarily need a fancy dress or an occasion to spark confidence. That magic can stick in my daily life, if I listen to my body and remember how good it feels to feel good and obey my hunger queues, obey my body’s limits, obey my cravings. (more…)
13 comments May 5, 2009
Weeding the Roots
This weekend my husband and I went to a wedding in Cleveland with a bunch of friends.
We had a truly fabulous time (we laughed so much this weekend that our sides hurt!), and after we got home on Sunday afternoon, we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and warm-ish weather and get to work tending to the dandelions that sprouted up in the past week.
We worked as a team, him using the little digging gadget to get to the root of each ugly weed, and me trailing behind with a bag to collect the dead weeds.
Now, I admittedly don’t have a green thumb and have never really gotten into gardening. Even though my parents are both really into it and can usually be found on a weekend afternoon in the garden, I never joined them as a kid, and honestly don’t know much about it. (more…)
7 comments May 4, 2009
Seeking Solace in Chocolate
One of the joys of understanding anxiety and disordered eating behaviors is that I can now analyze the “whys.”
Before I just did stuff and didn’t know why I was doing it. That drove me insane because everyone always says, “there’s always a trigger; if hunger isn’t the problem, food isn’t the solution.”
Logically, I know this. But sometimes, chocolate IS the solution!
I don’t mean to imply it should be … just that sometimes, for me, it is. (more…)
10 comments April 23, 2009
The Party’s Over … or Just Beginning?
Roughly four weeks ago I decided that I was in control of my chewing and spitting behavior and that I could, indeed, CHOOSE not to do it. That I could be proud of my choices, not feel guilty for them.
In the two weeks that followed, I found myself over-eating on foods I used to chew/spit … and over-exercising. (I don’t share a recap of my days here like some bloggers do, but that’s the honest truth).
This past week, my exercise was more normalized, and I didn’t buy quite as many triggers. I also took a rest day (and will tomorrow, a travel day) … but I have been still eating more than I need to (for someone who still wants to lose weight and get back to where I feel my best).
Mostly, it’s been giving in to that-time-of-the-month cravings (which ends today, phew!), not flexing my resistance muscle, and just plain enjoying more than usual … (which isn’t such a bad thing, if I were able to be happy with my figure as it is … some days I am, other days … I’m not … call me Goldilocks, looking for something that’s juuuuuuuuuuuust right).
But as I’ve noted here, I’ve also eaten chocolate in the privacy of my car or at my work cufice that I know I just don’t need — and the secretive, sneaky way I do it … I wouldn’t want my friends, coworkers, husband, family to see. It’s embarassing.
So it is my hope that this coming week, I’ll finally see growth, evidence of that happy medium. (more…)
10 comments April 10, 2009
How Disordered Do You Want to Be?
I ask this because I, like you, have a choice.
The answer for me is … not at all.
We have a choice. We might tell ourselves our disordered minds are in control, but they’re not. We are.
If we punish ourselves with restriction or over-exercising, or if we punish ourselves with a binge, we’re doing it to ourselves.
It’s not about the food or the exercise; it’s always about something else. Food or exercise (lack of it or over-abundance of it) is a coping mechanism.
And I don’t want to use either as my coping mechanisms any longer.
This weekend, during an Honest.Open.Willing. chat with my husband, he asked me point-blank, “When will the obsession end?”
He sees me more than any of my friends and family, and he sees glimmers of hope, some aspects of behavioral change. He knows I want to be better, to be more fun again, to be the happy girl I was when I was heavy … but he (as well as others close to me) have said, ” … but the obsession is still there.”
He’s right, it is.
I want to turn it off. I don’t want to be disordered, or have disordered thoughts, or to make progress only to fall back. (more…)
19 comments April 9, 2009
More Food For Thought
“If you don’t learn to master your rage, your rage will become your master….”
I can’t take credit for this quote; my brother shared it via e-mail with me this morning, and I just had to share it here because I think it speaks volumes.
Apparently this (to quote my bro) “seemingly intelligent quote is nothing more than a ridiculous quote I learned from the Ben Stiller movie, Mystery Men.”
He suggested just trying replacing the word “rage” with anything I want and make my own sense of it, and encouraged me to give it a shot. (more…)
2 comments March 20, 2009
Slow. It. Down.
Lately I’ve felt as though I’ve been grasping for straws trying to get my life in order after a fall/early winter spent in much disarray.
I’ve noticed a correlation between body happiness and overall happiness/contentment/sense of order. Right now, I’m not in that body-love mode, and so my life feels “chaotic.”
Between my marriage, friendships/family, social life, work, blogging, the gym, and now my Lia Sophia business on the side as well as upcoming personal training sessions, I am going to have quite a bit on my plate — certainly not as much as my friends who are working moms, or those with a new baby, or my husband who is working full-time and getting his MBA part-time. But plenty to keep me occupied, and hopefully distracted from disordered eating behaviors/issues.
On the flipside, I asked for it, have made the strides to do something for me … and I am going to embrace it. (more…)
6 comments February 19, 2009
Candy Hoarder/Sweet Tooth Fiend
If this boy was a girl ... it'd be me, circa 1988
We never fought about the deals being made (even as we got older), and if my mom said, “You can eat just one piece now!” we listened to her.
My brother, 27 now, always let my sister (25 now) and I have the best candy — he’d trade us his chocolate or jelly beans for nasty Sweet-tarts or Bottle Caps or Mary Janes.
To this day, he is like that; an absolute giver. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the more I think about it, I’m a taker. Especially when it comes to candy. (more…)
13 comments February 17, 2009
Is a Cookie Ever Just a Cookie?
There’s a scene in the HBO documentary THIN where Polly, who is in treatment for anorexia and bulimia, can’t eat a piece of pizza. She just can’t do it.
It makes no sense to a rational person: it’s just food, why can’t she eat it? But to Polly, it’s not. It’s “poison.” It’s “fattening.” It’s “weakness.”
Her therapist asks her in a soft, soothing, low voice if she can’t maybe view it as, “A piece of bread, with some tomato sauce and cheese on top”?
Polly shudders. She can’t. She just can’t. And then she leaves the table.
I don’t understand this, personally. Unlike Polly, I can eat a slice of pizza or a cookie, and I do (ok, if the pizza is in NJ being the pizza snob that I am!).
I’m learning to ungroup/uncategorize foods to make life more enjoyable … it’s been a long process but I’m getting there. I don’t look at foods in such stark black and white terms anymore. (more…)
14 comments January 29, 2009
