March 30th - Emotional Eating II Well here we go for installment two of the emotional eating stuff.  I know it's taken me a while to get it up, but I think I'd rather make sure it's of adequate quality than rush it. So I left off after mentioning that we need to get better at managing our feelings.  There are an absolute gazillion books about this stuff, so I'm just going to talk about my own journey to dealing with difficult feelings and how it's impacted on my eating and weight. I guess the major thing is something I've mentioned before.  I really had some major emotional upheaval in my life, and I didn't try to deal with my weight at that time because I didn't have the resources for it then.  I figured that it's an inside out job - no point in putting a coat of paint on the outside of a condemned house.  Better fix the structure first, then work on the trimmings. Now I realise that my health is more than trimmings and don't want to make light of it - but I needed to make major changes to my eating to lose weight, and I was in no emotional space to make major changes.  The energy I had needed to go into more pressing and immediate issues.  That's only my story though - other people may feel able to handle multiple areas at once.  I guess my point is, though, that if you're struggling with your weight and got a lot else going on, don't be too hard on yourself that you don't have your weight under control.  This is not blind permission to eat yourself into oblivion though.  I think I have a responsibility to myself and to those who care about me to look after myself, and the same goes for others.  So prioritise what needs to be done and then get onto the problem solving of how to do it. The nuts and bolts of how I dealt with the bigger issues of a destructive relationship doesn't need to be discussed - you just need to know that I took quite a bit of time, effort and support to get there. Having built what I thought was a more stable emotional base was a foundation for me.  It hasn't stopped me having strong emotions though (being a bit of a drama queen at times) and so I've still had to work on dealing with triggers for emotional eating on a day to day basis. To start with, I am trying to use the same principle that WW suggests for going to a party.  I recognise that in the same way that a party is a high risk time, so is an emotional situation.  So, why not plan for it?  Quite often we KNOW what is going to be a stressful time.  So, make sure you are eating lots of healthy food (how many people are guilty of not doing that when under stress).  Don't go into stressful situations hungry so you won't be as tempted to eat crap food afterward.  Have low point food (soups etc) ready to go so you have healthy stuff readily available.  You probably won't have energy when you're stressed to be cooking, so pre-preparing will be a great help.  Have some of these in the freezer or fridge regularly "just in case" - often these emotional situations come without warning and you need to be prepared. OK, so that covers some ideas of how to try and manage eating better around stress.  However, there are a bunch of non-food related things you can do to manage your feelings.  If you know something upsetting or stressful is coming up, get some support from someone who knows about the situation AND about your weight loss journey.  Plan a pleasant event for yourself after a stressful situation.  Use methods like breathing and relaxation, exercise, positive self-talk and positive visualisation to minimise the negative emotions you're experiencing.  Have friends you can call any time of the day or night if you are feeling really bad.  Get on the internet and email or post! All of these sound obvious I know - yet for some reason we often don't use them.  I think it's probably because people revert to what they know under stress.  That means we have to try and plan ahead as much as possible, so that when these situations come up unexpectedly we know the drill.  Think of it as an emergency procedure like evacuating a building, or doing CPR.  That means having a clear plan ahead of time and practising it.  Practising might just mean going through it in your head or even writing down your emergency plan for how to deal with difficult feelings. Anyway - these are my ideas.  Not new, not fabulous, but worth writing down in black and white.  I would be VERY interested to hear from other people about how they've dealt or not dealt with their emotional eating - so please post a message on my board or email me if you're interested in sharing. Anyway, see y'all soon... <<Back    Home    Next>>