What Happens When You Are No Longer Eating Your Emotions

So in January of this year I started my journey to not only lose weight but to stop binging/emotional eating and cut my emotional ties to food.

And while I am not exactly at the weight I thought I would be at by this time, I am still down 33lbs and very proud of THAT accomplishment!

Even more than the weight loss, I am proud of the fact that I have not had a full on binge in TEN months.

WHAT?!

You guys. This is HUGE for me.

I have had some times where I have snacked a little more in the evening than I should and overate, but it definitely doesn’t qualify as a binge.

Binge eating – When you frequently consume unusually large amounts of food and feel unable to stop eating.

Emotional eating - the practice of consuming large quantities of food -- usually "comfort" or junk foods -- in response to feelings instead of hunger. 

Any time now I think I may start a binge, I have stopped myself very quickly.

I have learned to control my overeating, though it happens and is perfectly normal.

For me, binge eating was tied with my emotions that ranged from happy to sad to stressed to bored to mad to overwhelmed to, well whatever. 

I am learning to NOT eat for comfort but to fuel my body. 

I am learning to not immediately turn to food when I am stressed or happy or sad. Though it happens.

I have started eating whole foods 80% of the time, which allows me to eat healthy food but still have those indulgences.  This also helps to avoid overeating and/or binging on food because I no longer feel deprived with what I am eating.

I believe I have the healthiest relationship with food I have EVER had.

So then, I ask myself regularly, why am I so miserable?  Why am I unhappy?  Why am I SO angry all the time?

Yesterday I was leaving home and said goodbye to my 4 year old.  We said our normal, bye, have a good day, love you’s and then he said:

H: “Don’t come home angry today, ok mom!!”

(Feeling like I got punched in the gut, though this little boy has no idea of his brutal honesty that I needed to hear) 

Me: “Ok buddy, I won’t be angry today.”

H: “You promise?!”

Me: sigh “Yes, I promise…love you.”

Ugh. Tears.

It has been something that I have kept thinking about for the past few months.

I am losing weight. 

I am getting a hold of my binge eating. 

And yet I am ANGRY. 

EVERYTHING annoys or frustrates me.

WHY?!?!?!?!

The other day it came to me.  Now of course, I am not a psychologist, so I could be WAY off on this.  But to me, it makes sense.

For 20 years I have used binge eating as my emotional release.  When I get stressed I turn to food.  I would eat a large amount of food quickly and just to feel this release. I would FEEL better after my binge, even if my stomach hurt or feel guilty for eating all that food.  BUT I was satisfied and whatever those stresses I had before were temporarily gone and forgotten as I sat in a combination of food bliss and regret.

To fully explain those feelings I got when I binged is hard and may not make sense to someone who doesn’t have those ties.  But it is a form of addiction and has similar effects to your body.  Am I comparing myself to a heroin addict? Come on…of course not.  BUT, foods high in fat, sugar and salt (the ones I would normally binge on) are known to release and trigger those same “feel-good” chemicals in the brain that certain drugs do.  And then of course when the sugars and stuff wear off, you come down and don’t feel good about yourself so you eat more to feel better about yourself.

Even now, I think about binging nearly EVERY day.  Even as I write this, I think with a sense of comfort and happiness in eating a big plate of nachos and some cookies without care.  While I know now I shouldn’t do it as I have made so much progress, I still have a part of me that WANTS to do it. Every. Single. Day.  

When it comes to stress, some people write in a journal.  Some workout.  Some talk to a professional.  People have different ways of dealing with stress.  FOR nearly TWO decades MY way of dealing with stress is food.  And now THAT is gone.

I am no longer binging.  I have drastically reduced the amount of high sugar, fat, and salt I consume. So when I am stressed I have no release.  I am not saying food was a healthy release, but I have yet to figure out a way to release my stresses in a HEALTHY way and I think that is part of what is causing these feelings of unhappiness and anger. 

I have never dealt with my stress in a healthy way, but I would temporarily ignore it with something that gave me enjoyment.  Now, I am just not dealing with any of it.  I am holding it in until I literally explode at whoever is around me….usually my husband or son. 

As I am nearing the end of my first year journey to a healthier self, my new goals along with continued weight loss, is to figure out how to handle my stress and emotions in a healthy way.  That most likely will involve speaking to an actual professional which will also help with my OCD, which is worse than ever….but that is an entirely different post!!!

But that is also part of the reason I am a beachbody coach.  It is giving me the opportunity to find a more balanced and healthy lifestyle.  It is allowing me to connect with others and share my feelings and listen to theirs.  It is encouraging to work on myself physically AND mentally and leave the emotional ties to food out of the picture.

I still have a long way to go, but am getting closer.

So how do YOU deal with stress?  Emotional eating?

How are you helping YOU?!?!

Done By 5pm

So after two years we are officially transitioning to a new work/day care schedule.  WOOHOO!!!

You guys, I am absolutely thrilled about this. 

Now believe me, I know people have it so much harder than us when it comes to schedules.  Single parents, parents with one spouse overseas, working third shift or working late at night.  Ours wasn’t the worst schedule out there, but it also wasn’t the best and starting to become draining on both Terry and I.

On the one hand we were really lucky that his job allowed him to work part time and in the evenings….especially since he works retail. It gave Terry the opportunity to be at home with Henry for TWO whole years.  This alone was awesome.  But with that came the fact that Terry was only working part-time and to work part-time he had to work either 3-4 days a week in the evenings and every weekend.  And the past 3-4 months he has been working stretches of 20+ days without a day off, all while watching Henry during the day. 

Our weeks consisted of me rushing home and having a brief conversation with Terry about the day while he was in the shower.  So many important conversations have taken place while I sit on the bathroom floor with henry :-)  Then about 15 minutes after I got home, Terry would leave for work.  Some nights till 11pm and other nights until 8:30pm and then every weekend he works both Saturday and Sunday until about 4pm.  So there was a lot of “solo” parenting done by each of us.    

But folks….it is done.

That schedule is over.

Terry is going back to full-time status at work and though he will still have to work every weekend, he will only have to work three DAYS during the week.  No more evenings!!

Honestly when this first started, two years just seemed like an eternity away.  We always knew we were going to make the transition back to full-time and with Henry in daycare around two years.  But when you have a colicy baby or a one year old starting to get into everything or an 18 month old who can’t communicate and is throwing tantrums or a two year old who thinks it is OK to put things in the microwave and turn it on, having that extra person there can provide much needed help and support!

So now we are transitioning to days!  I say transitioning because this may be hard at first for some in our house *cough cough* Terry and Henry.  The two of them usually get up around 8/8:30 and now everyone will have to be up by 6am!  Even I can no longer sleep until 7 and rush to get only myself ready and leave for work by 7:30.  Nope.  Now we have to get a child up and fed and out of the house by 7:15am three days of the week.  A highly independent and stubborn child who doesn’t like to wake up early and doesn’t want to do things on OUR terms but rather his own.  For instance, today he wanted cheese and only cheese for breakfast. Um, OK.  Not going to pick a fight with you about that!

I am sure this new schedule will come with its own set of frustrations, such is life.  But now…now we can do it all together. We can be there so one parent isn’t trying to do it all.  To stop a child from coloring on the wall when a parent is trying to make his dinner.  To sit down and have a meal together!  To help wrangle a naked child at bedtime.  To give each other good night hugs and kisses that are not done via text.  To spend time together, though after two years spending so much time apart we may have to ease into that one!!!  I kid…sort of :-)  To be together.

Yep, I am ready!

Guess Who is Mobile?!?!

Look who is rolling over now!!!

 The top video was a couple weeks ago when he rolled over from his belly to his back for the first time. Unfortunately Daddy wasn't there so we sent him a video right away.  He has that down but has been working hard to figure out how to get from his back to belly. He did that today for the first time and Daddy was there to see it!! As you can tell in the second video, we are rather proud and excited about his new accomplishment :)  And yes, our son hates wearing pants.

 Way to go Henry!

Holy Crap, We Got A Lot Of CRAP!

Alternative title: Where did all this shit come from?!

Over the past 6 months I have noticed in our house that we have been collecting more and more STUFF. We always had a lot of things, but those things were piled away in boxes and therefore, didn’t exist to us. But this past year I have noticed that the stuff seems to be multiplying and making its way into the living spaces of our house to the point where it is now taking over our house.

1) First we tried the “move one pile of crap to another room” organizational method. This allows the once overfilled room to look great and we don’t have a problem with clutter until the next room is full. Then when that room is full we would move the extra piles to a different room. We continued this until we realized….we had run out of rooms.

2) Next we tried the, “just move it to the storage unit” organizational method. This was great until we went to the storage unit and realized we couldn’t find a damn thing.

3) We also tried the “shove it in a box/put it in a closet/hide it under the bed/place it behind furniture” organizational method. This worked very well, until we needed to find something we had shoved in a box, put in a closet, hid under the bed, or placed behind furniture. Not fun.

4) When it got to the point of complete frustration we considered other options like just selling our house and including all our crap with it or just leaving the stuff in our front yard and letting people go through it…neither of which seemed like the most logical way to solve our problem.

So we decided it was going to have to be done the old fashioned way – take time, go through everything, and throw away what we no longer wanted/needed. sigh

Now I have made it my mission for the past few months to remove ALL excess clutter (excluding my husband of course) from our house in an attempt to re-adjust our feng shui, re-center our Qi, simplify our life, and just get rid of all our extra SHIT!

So I decided the best way to do this was one group of clutter at a time. I started a couple months ago and I decided to go through all my clothes first. I brought over 3 large tubs & 2 big trash bags from the storage unit and a couple smaller bags of clothes from our house. (And to think with all those clothes and still nothing to wear) In the end I filled up two big tubs of clothes I want to sell next year and two bags for the Goodwill. Ahhhhh, more hangers available for new clothes.

Next I hit the big bags of receipts, old check books, past bills, and other documents that I have put in a “need to shred” pile/heap over the last 3 years. After a week and a half of shredding documents Enron style, I ended up shredding everything in the pile and filling up nearly 3 large trash bags. Ahhhhhh, it feels good to shred documents.

This past weekend I decided to conquer the massive amounts of shoes I have. My sister and I took my 64 pairs of shoes (eeek, that is a lot) and all their boxes down to the living room and we laid out all the shoes. I put them in groups: heels, flats, boots, tennis shoes, etc.. I then went through and picked out the shoes I didn’t like anymore, that didn’t fit, or that I had pairs that were very similar and put them in a bag to give to family or to sell* when we have our garage sale next year. (*I didn’t think I could sell them but I heard this was ok, but what is the rule on selling previously worn shoes?!?!) Some of these shoes were circa 1998 and WHY I have never gotten rid of them before is beyond me. But when it was all said and done I got rid of 29 pairs of shoes! I also had enough clear plastic boxes for my shoes and tore up all the original shoeboxes I had kept when I had bought the shoes (22 boxes). Ahhhhh, more room for new shoes!

Then Sunday I continued my cleaning and I went through every old magazine we have kept over the last three years. Normally we just throw them in a basket in the living room or put them in the library aka the bathroom. I divided magazines so each person had theirs and let everyone throw away what they no longer wanted. T & I threw away at least 30 magazines…K. still has to do hers (slacker). Ahhhhhh, goodbye potential fire hazard in our house.

I know by the sounds of it, you might think our house was one big mess…but really we had learned the art of hiding our crap. But now, it just looks great and it has created a lot more room in our house so we can get more stuff! ;) Next on the agenda, organize recipes that are on paper. I am typing out and saving in a word document our stack of recipes we have printed out or have written down over the years that are stacking up in the kitchen.

It seriously feels SO good and almost therapeutic to get rid of all that extra stuff that we obviously don’t need and is just taking up space!

Schools Out For Summer....or Until Summer Classes Start

Big KUDOS to my husband and sister who have finished their current semester of classes! I am so very proud of both of them. T. is working full-time and going to school full-time. This is the first time in about 14 years he has been in school and he did a wonderful job! And K. is working and is going to school full-time and the classes she is taking are these hard math classes I have never even heard of! She too has done an amazing job!

I am truly impressed by these two and so proud of them!! Way to go!

And So It Begins……

So today starts what will be Terry’s 3 year journey into a new career! Yep, today is my hubby’s “first” day of school! YAY! Story Here

So Terry will be working full-time at his current job and then taking 3 evening classes at Owens and one web class. His classes are three days a week for three hours in the evening. Needless to say he is going to be pulling some long-ass days, but I know he will be able to do this….he is very determined to make a change in his life. And in case you were wondering I tried to get a picture of him with his book bag & Iron Maiden shirt on heading off this morning to work!! I think he was a little camera shy at 7 am but no worries, I will try again when I see him before his class!! I am SURE he won't mind at all ;)


Good Luck T, we are VERY proud of you!!