EE (Emotional Eating) Observations and Update

Since my last blog I've been doing a little bit better. I have decided to stay off the scale for a while so I can concentrate on getting my eating habits to be more the way I want them to be and I'll worry about the scale later.


I am still figuring out what I would like to change and try. I read an interesting article in Self magazine about why crash diets work, not recommending crash diets pre se, but some of the elements that work that could be applied to a sensible diet. I'd like to think about that some more and may post a link to it at some point.


This month I have tried 2 things that I will probably try to continue. One is that several times during the past couple weeks I have gone to bed between 9:30pm-10:00pm instead of between 10:30-11:00 (or even worse, between 11:00-11:30) I think that the first time I did this it was to avoid eating. But I have found that when I do this, even if I wake up in the middle of the night due to a hot flash or my SO getting up, the quality of my sleep seems to be better, I have more energy and feel like I have "woken up" sooner, and am even less tired in mid afternoon. The other thing is that I have been getting up about 30 minutes earlier to give me more time in the gym, so I can do my 40-45 minutes on the bike which gives me a good calorie burn, then still time to do 20-30 minutes of walking on the treadmill which makes it easier to get all my steps for the day in. I originally tried that because it was too snowy or cold to walk outside, but then just continued it. If I still have time for a walk at lunch at work and the weather is ok, I still will do that, but this makes it easier to get at least 10000 steps in before late in the day. I will be teaching a class in a couple of weeks at work and I don't have time to walk at lunch when I do that, but this way I will not have to make up for it at night.


I still really struggle with emotional eating. That is a big part of what is keeping me from losing the last 10-15 lbs. In some ways I have definitely gotten better, especially with anger, venting, (even if it is just on paper) but there are other feelings that I still need to work on. I had 3 situations come up this week, some I handled well, some I didn't.


LONELINESS EATING: I sit near a group of women (two departments) at work that I like but I do not really feel like I am part of their "group". If I approach them they are cordial but I don't feel like they go out of their way to include me in their conversations and other activities. (We are all in cubettes) Sometimes I feel foolish for even caring about this, it is so high school. Anyway, I have some theories about why this is and if I am correct, (I won't get into it) there is nothing I can do about it. It probably also bothers me because I am not part of a team at work, I am the only one in my department at my site, and while I get along with everyone, I am not close to anyone at work. (I have been in the past, but all of those people are gone, and socially it is not as good a fit for me now) Anyway, I brought this up because one day last week it drove me to eat too much at work. After I did it, it was the weirdest thing, but I had a flashback to the 14-15 year old girl (me, when I first started having weight issues) who used to come home and eat too many cookies at night probably because she felt like she didn't fit in and was not part of the group at school, (Only I didn't know that was why I was doing it at the time) I realized last week that I really have to find a better way of dealing with this. It's not appropriate for me to write in my journal at work, but maybe I could take a walk. On Friday I was about to do this again (Eat too much) and went for a walk instead.


AVOIDANCE/PROCRASTINATION EATING: Another reason why I eat. I had one bad time with this last week but also a MAJOR success yesterday. Wednesday night I ate a bag (330 cal) of mini rice chips because I was avoiding paying bills. One helping would have been OK,but I just KEPT GOING! I finally did pay the bills that night, but wish I would have just done it BEFORE I ate the rice cakes. Anyway, keeping this in mind, something else came up that I REALLY DID NOT WANT TO DO, but I forced myself to jump in and do it, and it felt SO GOOD! My apartment building has let us store items in the basement, and over 20 years, I have taken a LOT of stuff down there because I no longer have room for it here. Believe me, I have had many NIGHTMARES about this stuff down there and having to move it, etc. Then, last year, the building made it much harder to be able to go down to the storage room....you have to make an appointment to be let in and you can only go at certain times, etc. I went down one day last summer and spent several hours trying to throw stuff out, etc. It was quite overwhelming, physically and emotionally. Well, on Thursday there was a letter telling us that there would be a spring cleanout and also that they would soon start CHARGING us for storage! Well, I forced myself to call up and make an appointment to go down yesterday and work in the *&^ @@$$ storage room. I threw away a TON of stuff, and pared down to 8 plastic storage tubs, which I may just move up here next week. (And can probably still get rid of some more stuff once I do) It was hard to throw some of the stuff away, but I just do not have room for it. But I felt wonderful after I did that...I just KNOW if I had put it off I would have just worried and worried about it and it would have driven me to eat. But it did drive me to another emotional eating pitfall......


CELEBRATION/RELIEF EATING! I told myself that when I got done in the storage room I could do something I love, cooking, and make my SO and I a nice dinner. We also had a lot of extra apples that we needed to use up, so I was going to bake a healthier apple crisp. Well, long story short, I ate too much of that, AND probably too many extra calories at dinner. I DID burn off a TON of extra calories yesterday with all the storage room work and over 21000 steps, but it's the principle of the thing....it would have been better to eat in range. So I have to watch out for relief/celebration eating, too.

Anyway, it is always a work in progress, isn't it?