Emotional Eating

[Guanabana]

I was just reading Flossie's wonderful Don't Look Back In Anger post (hats off to you, Flossie, what an inspiration you are!) and something she wrote really resonated, about eating when one doesn't feel too great. I have lived with fairly extreme anxiety since I was 4 years old (52 years, grrr!) and I know that the main reason I am overweight is that when I went to boarding school food became my go-to (non-) solution to feeling frightened and comfortless... and I haven't really looked back (in Anger or anything else) since. Now, not eating is an effort on two fronts - one, because I love delicacies as much as anyone else and have about 1 milligram of self control to every 100 kilos of greed, and two, because filling my mouth and stomach gives me a misplaced sense of security. I find it almost intolerable to stop eating before I'm seriously full, and tend to gravitate towards sweet and creamy things, so the effect on my weight is catastrophic! Not to say my gall bladder, which had to be whipped out and was found to be bursting with gravel which had caused me so much pain that twice I thought I was having a heart attack. Now it's just the op scar that hurts as I get larger and larger... I have been feeling much calmer lately, so had high hopes for resistance, but last night my housemate suggested that I should write the book that I've been contemplating on and off for ages, and both my anxiety and my desire to stuff myself with multiple cream teas shot off the scale. All I've done so far is stuff myself with nectarines, but... does anyone else have this sort of reaction, and please, how do you handle it?

[saltseakate]

Thanks for the inspirational words. I have been off the diet, visiting relatives in North America for a month, splurging on childhood memories (our household relished meals and now that the older generation is gone we siblings revive their spirits with wines and remembered holiday meals, albeit too frequently).

The saving grace was plenty of exercise: painting my parents' house, gardening, swimming in the pool everyday, walking to the shops. So I haven't really lost any lbs, nor have I gained. Apart from that there is one trick that (kind of) works: saving the cream teas, the fancy desserts, the good wines for the weekends.

You are writing a book! A marvelous project that means that you have discipline. Why not accompany the writing with a really good and expensive straight black tea, or new herbal tea and save the goodies for the weekend. Reward yourself for your writing and your strength, but only on Saturday and Sunday. Let's see if I can live up to my own advice as well, and keep us posted on your writing progress...

[Guanabana]

Gosh that's fascinating about bypassing our satiating hormones, that explains why I can demolish whole fruitbowls in a few hours!