So Emotional

There are some people that eat when they are stressed.  Others may eat when they are bored. And yet others eat when they are sad or tired.

There are also those that eat to celebrate everything.  "It's my half-birthday.  I guess we should go out to dinner."

And then there are people like me that fit under all of those categories.

My name is Eric and I am an emotional eater.

Basically, with "emotional eating", you are eating to fill a void that has nothing to do with being hungry, but has everything to do with how you're feeling.

This has been one of the hardest things for me to overcome in my new trek to health.  So often I use food as a crutch.  When I was stressed out, I would scarf down a cheeseburger and fries in less time than it took to order, pay and receive the fast food.  When I was bored at work, I would take a walk down to the machines and get a packaged cheese danish.  (Which are never as good as they look.)

And don't even get me started on "celebratory food".  ("I lost a pound this week, let's go to the pizza buffet.")

Let me stop here for a second and state that I'm not saying that it's wrong to celebrate with food.  All I am saying is that it's okay to celebrate something without involving food.

Anyway, back to the point of this post.

I have really been struggling lately with everything.  School is stressing me out to a point that I am ready to drop out. (Again.)  I work at a job where I haven't received a raise in almost six years, yet my insurance costs have gone up significantly every one of those years, meaning I am making less today than I did six years ago.  I worry about my children daily and hope that I am doing everything I can to give them the best life they can.

And the list goes on and on and on and...

Needless to say, I am not fighting the stresses of life by hitting my punching bag or lifting weights.  Instead, I am finding my old friends Dolly Madison and Sara Lee more often than I should.  (Not to mention Cadbury's tempting Easter creations like creme eggs and Royal Dark mini eggs.)

This weekend was the worst.  I ate so poorly this weekend that I gained 2.2 pounds since Friday.

And "springing forward" didn't help things.  Instead of getting up to exercise and do homework, I reset my alarm to the latest possible time where I could still shower and get ready without disrupting anyone else's morning schedule in the home.

Tomorrow is a brand new day and I plan to get out of this funk soon, but I really need to do better at eating only when I'm hungry.