An Honest Molment....

[LittleDudesMom]

One of the reasons I was so excited about starting this forum was the desire to have a group of woman I could be really honest and real with.

So here goes......

Pc and I join WW tonight and I am running scared. Not scared because I am going to be weighed, but because I know my life is going to change. I think I have found some solace in food over the last four years. I never, ever would have classified myself as an emotional eater.

I just plain liked food. I have dealt with weight issues since I was in high school - back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

But when I sat down this weekend and had an honest look at where I had been and where I was going, I realized that food was there when I was lonely, angry, stressed, happy, etc... The emotions centered around the "kitchen table".

So now I realize that I cannot satisfy an emotion with a slice of pizza. So what will I do instead?

Well I am hoping that movement will be apart of it. I'm hoping that the dreaded E word will help.

I hope that my desire to become a healthier me remains uppermost in mind 24/7.

I hope that this enables me to enjoy more the things I have not allowed my weight to take away.

I hope this enables me to do more with my children.

That is one of the reasons I don't look at my weight loss as a resolution but rather a goal. I'm working towards it, I'm working towards it.....

So, I really begin tonight (although I have made some changes over the last week).

Wish me luck.

Sharon

[SRL]

I'm with you Sharon on the food for comfort for all of life's woes. I've struggled on and off since college but never considered myself in the overweight category until a few years after my last PC was born. Not only did I not jump on the post baby weight, I added to it gradually until it was more than just carrying around a few extra pounds. I know some was due to a major change in metabolism around the time I hit 40 but in the end the buck stops with me because I not only didn't discipline myself to the changes, I added to the problem.

[Big Bad Kitty]

I'm right there with both of you.

I struggled with addiction for years. Now I am better than 4 years clean and sober. When I quit the drugs and alcohol, I still had my cigarettes for comfort. Get stressed? Light up. Anxious phone call? Light up. Then I got sick last summer, breathing problems turning out to be COPD. Quit smoking. What did I turn to? The food. What else is there? It is scary. I might actually have to look at *gulp* ME.

Good luck to both of you. To all of us!

[trinityroyal]

Wow. This really hit home.

I've never thought of myself as an emotional eater, but the way you have each described the ways in which you use food for comfort have made me realize that I probably am, in a backward sort of way.

Throughout my pre-teen and teen years, I struggled terribly with eating issues. Any major stress in my life would cause me to stop eating, sometimes for days at a time. I never got to the point where I had to be hospitalized, but in my late teens, my weight had dropped to the point where I looked starved and strangers used to stop me in the street and ask if I needed help.

I have learned to eat a nutritious, healthy diet and for the most part I do okay. But when I'm under stress, I forget to eat, or can't bring myself to put food in my mouth at all, even when I'm starving.

Things are really stressful with work and GFG issues right now, and I am fighting to put food in my mouth every day. I know I have to do it, but I just don't want to. I've never really put that together as emotional eating, but I guess it's the other side of the coin.

Something to put on my list for discussion with my therapist tomorrow. Sigh.

Thanks ladies for this eye-opener.
Trinity

[LittleDudesMom]

I think you hit the nail on the preverbial head, BBK. Now I am forced to look at me. I don't think I've really looked for a while. It's a scary prospect......

Perhaps the look after crossing under the goalpost won't be so scary for us. First down and......

Sharon

[flutterbee]

Like Trinity, when I was younger I just wouldn't eat. Would go days on end without eating when I was upset. Weight was always hard for me to keep ON not lose. I'd literally drop a whole clothing size in a weekend. I weighed 95 pounds when I got pregnant with PC.

Now I'm on the other end of the spectrum and since I never really learned to eat healthy it's a real learning experience. That's why I really like that site I posted because of the menu planner. It's embarrassing to admit at 34 years old that you really don't know what healthy eating is. The menu planner takes a lot of the stress out of what to make. I don't follow it verbatim, but it gives me a lot of ideas and helps me to make better choices. Plus when I put it what I have eaten on days I don't follow it, it's a real eye opener to see the amount of fat intake vs protein, etc.

I do the emotional eating, too. I also eat out of boredom. Since I'm home all the time now and physically limited, there's a lot of that going on. What did Freud call it? Oral fixation? There's always something going from my hand to my mouth. It's probably why I started smoking in the first place.

[mrscatinthehat]

I talked about this with my therapist a couple of weeks ago. When I grew up like most families we had dinner together at the dinner table. That is when all major discussions happened. Good ones, bad ones anything needing discussed. All family occaisions revolved around food. Anything major food was involved. This is how I grew up. Food, talk, food, walk,food, grounded, food, happy, food, sad, food, excited, food, birth, food, death, food, food, food, food. After so many years of that being the case it is hard to change but change I must. So I am with you on this one.


Beth

[Wiped Out]

I remember growing up and never ever having to worry about gaining weight no matter how much I ate (and eat I did). I was very think. Like Beth said everything centered around eating. I never gave it much thought because it didn't seem to matter what I ate (and I ate horribly).

Then in my first year in college I found out I had Addison's Disease. After about 2 or 3 weeks on my meds I was up about 20 pounds. Gone were the days where I didn't have to worry about what I ate. Of course, by that time I was an emotional eater.


I remember that several years later I decided I would go to WW when I got back from my friend's wedding in San Francisco. I remember the pain and embarrassment from all the walking we did and my thighs rubbed together so much they bled.

I got back to Wisconsin and went to my first Weight Watchers meeting. I was really nervous and scared. I had always thought I should be able to lose weight on my own and that I wasn't really that heavy. I knew I needed to get healthy for my daughter (didn't have gfg yet). In the end it was I knew I needed to get healthy for me as well. For me WW was/is great but I really believe that many plans can work.

I went into it looking it as a lifestyle change-I had a lifetime of bad habits to unlearn. I always loved to cook-still do but now enjoy finding tasty low fat recipes.


Wishing everyone well with their weight loss this year-I think this forum will help-this is a great group and I know we can reach our goals.

[SearchingForRainbows]

As some of you already know, I'm also an emotional eater. I never really had to worry about my weight when I was younger. Maybe this is because I always liked to eat healthy foods and was physically active. I don't really know. Unfortunately, I also liked to supplement my healthy eating with lots of chocolate, ice cream and pastries...

I come from a family of emotional eaters. I remember my mother would buy a coffee cake and take slivers of it throughout the day. By bedtime, she usually finished the entire cake. As she got older, the time needed to finish an entire cake got shorter. She could finish an entire cake by lunchtime, then by midmorning... You get the point. My father would do the same thing with ice cream that my mother did with coffee cakes. Food was plentiful while I was growing up, especially junk food. My mother had no idea how to plan healthy meals...

I think one of the reasons I always liked healthy foods is because I saw firsthand what eating lots of junk did to my mother - She was HUGE!!! I didn't want to be like her. My father exercised and managed to maintain a fairly healthy weight even though he pigged out on junk.

I think I learned the emotional eating pattern from my parents. I often found myself grabbing cookies, candy, etc., when I was sad, angry, frustated, etc... Interestingly enough, I never did this when I was happy.

I first noticed that I really had to watch what I ate after I had GFG1. This is when I really became aware of my emotional eating pattern. I gained some weight but managed to take it off.

In fact, once I had my children, I kept repeating the same negative patterns - I'de gain a few, then take them off, etc...Even though I was still at a healthy weight, I realized that I would have to change my ways of relating to food or I could easily become like my mother...

Last year about this time, I posted about this problem. I was going through perimenopause and gaining weight was easier than ever. Once again, I managed to lose the weight, but now, one year later, I'm almost back where I started... Not a good place to be!!!

Anyway, I admit it - I'm an emotional eater from way back... I'm hoping that with all of your support, I'll be able to kick this negative and destructive way of relating to food once and for all!!!

I'm so happy that we have this forum!!! I know all of us can get healthier and stay healthier with support from eachother... We can make this our healthiest year yet!!! WFEN

[LittleDudesMom]

Common theme on this thread -

Age affects our metabalism and it becomes easier to put weight on and harder to take it off.

Well, we aren't getting younger but we are getting better!!!!!

Sharon