Sunday, June 20, 2010

Emotional Eating

Since I have had nothing much to post about recently, I haven't been on here a whole lot. Have had a grizzly, teething baby with a cold and now an upset tummy to contend with, along with a cold myself and hideous weather, so not much walking has been done by me lately.
I did manage a 13km walk early in the week so at least that's something!

The weigh ins' were getting me down. I cut out chocolate, I'm walking further than ever, downsized my portion sizes and yet the weight is still either staying the same, or in some cases, going up again. So I decided not to weigh myself for a few weeks. One can get pretty obsessed with      the scales, as I have found in the past

It has been 2 weeks today since I have had any chocolate, which I must say, makes me damn proud of myself. However it does bring me to discuss one thing. Emotional Eating. This is something that I have struggled with ever since I was 11. I remember the exact moment my "eating issues" started. I was at a demonstration for "Clogging" (Mock away, I don't care) and my Nana, who was my teacher, lifted up my skirt in front of everybody, to pull my top down so it was tidy, told me I have gained too much weight and needed to lose it again.

Now this is something that no one wants to hear, but especially not an 11 year old already impressionable girl. And even more so, not from your own Nana!!! It wasn't the first, or last, time she said something to this accord, but it was the time that affected me the most.

From then I was always convinced that I was fat. Even though at a lot of the time when I was younger, I was nothing of the sort. But there you go. So for the following 17 years to now, if I am sad, I eat. If I am angry, I eat. You get the idea. There is the obvious suggestions, don't have the bad food in the house, do something to distract yourself. But I have had days where (pre-baby) I decide I want a burger and chips, and it doesn't matter what anyone says, I will have my burger and chips. I even recall having fights with my hubby, who while would never tell me I need to lose weight or anything, will very nicely tell me that "WE" shouldn't really have takeaways for a 3rd time that week, but it didn't matter, I would have my takeaways, enjoy it for all of 5 minutes then spend the rest of the day feeling like crap and very disappointed in myself.

Having a baby changes a lot of this though. It's not so easy to just drop everything and drive to get some fatty goodness. And I have to say I have found that it hasn't been too hard to just not have naughty food in the house. So now I think the main time I am going to have to watch myself is buying naughty food when I am out, eg at lunchtime while in town. And if I am being totally honest with myself, this is not an "emotional" kind of eating rather than a habit. Something I am going to have to break if I am going to lose weight.

Cutting out chocolate has to be a good start. From here I am going to aim to start cutting down my sugar intake in general, but chocolate was definitely the biggest problem for me at the moment.

So that is enough of my rambling for one day. The sun has just come out and so I might make the most of it and get out for a walk while my baby is still sleeping. Any feedback/pointers regarding emotional eating are most welcome :)

Happy SUNday :)
Nikki

2 comments:

  1. Hi Nikki
    Emotional eating is a very real issue with a lot of women. You are on the right track setting some realistic goals. From here maybe try and watch your portion size with what you do eat too much of anything can be a bad thing. Goodluck!
    Le Webb
    PT @ Form Health

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  2. Hi Nikki, I just randomly found your blog, it's funny how that happens. I have the same problem, especially with chocolate. I was doing really well for a few months at the start of the year, but with winter, have gone back to bad habbits, which means gaining weight. It definitely helps to not have the bad stuff in the house, and to have healthy alternatives to munch on, so if you have to eat, let it be good for you. If you are an icecream junkie, have frozen fruit like grapes or berries to munch on, nuts are a good alternative to chocolate (hahaha, really nothing is a good alternative to chocolate, but you know what I mean). The one thing I have to keep enforcing in my house is NO FIZZY DRINKS, because they are evil :)

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