Gosh, I knew I was an emotional eater—Ive always used food as comfort, eating for every stinking emotion: happy, sad, celebratory, anxious, stressed, mournful, whatever—but this week put “Emotional Eater” out in lights on a billboard!
I realized it as I was digging into my five-year-olds goodie bag and stuffing Tootsie Rolls down my throat. Now, as I am typing this, I want to jump head-first into the chocolate birthday cake that I made my husband—and I dont even go for cake or chocolate. (I actually had to remind myself of that!) So, um, yeah, this emotional eating is a problem for me. I finally asked myself why I was doing this, and came up with the answer: I am super-stressed over my career and the lack of a job after being laid off in late April.
This has all resulted in quite a few lapses this week—Ive stumbled so much after vacation. I even went food shopping, so I had a great selection of food in my house and packed snacks for myself wherever I went. I still struggled.
I think I may be eating too much fruit and too few veggies, and lunch is still throwing me for a loop. This week, I vow to meet my emotional eating head on, and figure out another outlet to replace using food to fill a emotional hole. I plan to dance around silly with my boys, go for a run, call a friend…any lifeline other than eating. It will be a challenge, but it is one that I am up for!!
This weeks goal
- Work out six days: Mission accomplished!!! I worked out hard this week, and I am hoping that it helped with my food lapses. I did over 50 minutes of intense cardio (ran over 3 miles, and then ran-walked at least 20 minutes after) four days this week. On the days I weight trained, I did less cardio (as suggested by Jessica, my trainer). Plus, I did a Spin class on Saturday that I absolutely loved—and cant wait to do again! So exercising is going awesomely.
This weeks challenge
- Lunch: I never know what to eat. Lunch choices were the biggest challenge for me this past week. But I will figure it out this coming week, and I will find out what works for me. I am going to go back to my first weeks food journal to get some ideas.