Habits of Highly Ineffective People 7/30

aakaakaak

Today's challenge comes to us directly because of some of the folks right here in this "A Challenge A Day" community. A few of us, and I won't name drop, have a problem with emotional eating. Others have adherence problems. We all have our issues. Mine tends to be bad math while tracking. All of these things cause you to have what are normally considered "bad days".

So today, what I want you to do is take a look at that time where you got mad at your husband and ate a tub of Ben & Jerry's "Chubby Hubby". Take note of how you were nervous at the party and ended up eating half a cheesecake. Or in my case, why didn't you plan out your calories BEFORE you stuffed your face? Pay attention to how you were feeling at the time, or whatever triggered your "bad day". Think about how it happened, how you spiralled out of control of yourself, and what you can do to prevent it from happening, or limiting its destructiveness in the future.

WarriorCupcakeBlydnsr

For me it tends to be that I just want to not care for once. No hubby to make me mad (the male population seems to be afraid or me... either that or I need to start going out with a bag over my head... but this is another story, another day, another challenge), no parties to stuff myself with cheesecake at, and I don't plan ahead very well when it comes to food in the first place, but some times (and often more often than I want to admit) it just gets to that point of the day where I'm tired, frustrated, feeling blue and just want to give up on watching what I eat and not care how many calories I'm eating, how many fat grams are in it, (some days I don't even care if it has wheat in it and will trigger my wheat allergy... not a good thing, I know, but there it is), how much I will have gained when I step on the scale next ( this is a frequent trigger of this not wanting to care anymore event) I just want to eat "bad", if you will, whether it's the lonely single girl's special at the local pizza place, or the I'm such a loser I'll never find I guy quart of ben and jerry's or the dreaded combination of both (this usually takes place after my sister decides to call me)

verdemujer

Thanks for reading Aakaakaak! :laugh: Well - I've been fighting this battle of emotional eating for a very long time. I learned it as a kid - didn't even know I was learning that habit from my mom until in my late twenties. The 30's - don't even go there - that was when I wanted to commit suicide all because someone had me convinced I was worthless as a human let alone able to handle being a mom. Well - ditched that relationship. God help the man (current husband included) who dares suggest negative criticism - the back edge of my wit can be very sharp and that anger just fuels a lot of activity when it happens. But I still emotionally eat – I just don’t tend to binge eat anymore. And it’s usually in response to something else like my girls going home or frustration with my son. And I am currently learning to break the family habit of using food as a reward. :drinker: That is a habit my husband likes to do and I’m being gentle to break away from that with him. He gets defensive if I point things out to him. I find it’s much easier to suggest exercise or a healthier food alternative now than it was previously. And I have learned that it is true – going for some exercise does help those chemical blues my mind likes to turn on and churn out the more 'up' chemicals. Pre-planning meals is a next step; one that I’ve toyed with off and on for the last year. I having my girls here to cook. Now I just have to get my routine together and cook those meals on the weekends that will work for us during the hectic week. School is right around the corner. Where did summer go? :sad:

garlic7girl

Well, in general I am greedy. Sad but true. So if it taste good I want more if it is nasty I don't. LOL! I don't emotional eat all the time but I DO KNOW when I do and I get so mad at myself. Like the other day. Hey, it happened all I can do is learn which I did...I CANNOT control nothing but me! I cannot control traffic, other people in traffice, the fact I NEED a job that makes me commute, I like to eat so need a job so....I need to stop complaining and do what I can...which is not take classes that are far away. Do the best with my exercise plan at home and wait for my new gym to open in September.
I need to learn to flow with life. I find like my friends said that a quick walk usually help. Sometimes going to talk with a coworker too helps. Music too. Of course prayer....it is just putting into PRACTICE all the things you know work! DOING what you say not just saying it. Practice makes healthy living REAL!

aakaakaak

The 30's - don't even go there - that was when I wanted to commit suicide all because someone had me convinced I was worthless as a human.

When did you date my current wife?

Pre-planning meals is a next step; one that I’ve toyed with off and on for the last year. Now I just have to get my routine together and cook those meals on the weekends that will work for us during the hectic week.

I don't know about you, but we usually have a bunch of time to do things on Sundays. We'll usually make two "large family" meals, have some of it for dinner, then separate everything into leftover containers. That usually covers most/all of the week for lunches. I know single people who make homemade frozen meals using this method because one night of cooking can last a couple weeks or more. The other great thing about doing it is you can plan out how many calories each meal is going to have. Just knowing how many calories are in one meal can give you a foothold on your entire day.

My problem? I'm married to a woman who won't let me adhere to a soundly structured plan, as suggested above. :grumble:

aakaakaak

For me it tends to be that I just want to not care for once. No hubby to make me mad (the male population seems to be afraid or me... either that or I need to start going out with a bag over my head... but this is another story, another day, another challenge), no parties to stuff myself with cheesecake at, and I don't plan ahead very well when it comes to food in the first place, but some times (and often more often than I want to admit) it just gets to that point of the day where I'm tired, frustrated, feeling blue and just want to give up on watching what I eat and not care how many calories I'm eating, how many fat grams are in it, (some days I don't even care if it has wheat in it and will trigger my wheat allergy... not a good thing, I know, but there it is), how much I will have gained when I step on the scale next ( this is a frequent trigger of this not wanting to care anymore event) I just want to eat "bad", if you will, whether it's the lonely single girl's special at the local pizza place, or the I'm such a loser I'll never find I guy quart of ben and jerry's or the dreaded combination of both (this usually takes place after my sister decides to call me)

You're letting yourself lose control, which makes you feel worse, which makes you lose control even further, which begins a spiral. Skipping a day of tracking isn't always a bad thing, but plan it out ahead of time. Don't just go "eff it! I'm having a bad day! Scale me damned!" Learn to incrementally lose only little bits of control. Have a "serving" of ice cream. Meter it out. Track it, don't eff it. For example, I had the munchies this morning so I had exactly 0.98Oz off chips. They were great. Enjoyed the heck out of them. The time it took to do the measuring, logging, etc. prevented me from eating the whole bag.

rms922

I don't really ever tend to "emotionally eat". I don't really ever get upset or anything that would perhaps tempt me to eat based on an external factor. The one thing I do have a problem with at times is eating at night because I'm restless and can't sleep. That one's tough although I have cut back on it tremendously. If I do fall pray to this it's usually only with some carrot sticks, or a piece of fruit, something that won't negate my entire day. I look at myself now and then remember what I looked like last year. That visual is enough to keep me in check

anorangie

When I first began MFP and tracking food more diligently, I couldn’t help but notice an eating habit that was so obvious it’s a wonder I didn’t notice it before. Whenever a certain person would call, as soon as I hung up the phone I would have an urge to binge—and I often did binge.

I had to accept that my interactions with this person were emotionally challenging for me and created a lot of emotional chaos. And that response was as dependable as clockwork.

I needed a healthier way to cope, which means I am in the process of learning to acknowledge my feelings directly instead of trying to avoid them. I mean, feelings are meant to be felt, right? (My back just tensed up thinking about this, btw!)

I’m learning to sit with what I have considered negative emotions—anger, sadness, and most significantly, powerlessness—that this relationship currently evokes. The feelings eventually pass. And so do the binge urges. And now that I am aware of my former habitual response, I am not so blindsided by emotional eating urges that occur in certain situations. I can say, “Oh, look. Yes, that is that binge-y feeling I get whenever I talk to so-and-so. It will pass.”

MFP friend lisaissasa has a particular personal policy that I have found very helpful, too. She once told us that whenever she makes an unhealthy choice (which for me would be binging, or eating too much processed sugar), she immediately follows it up with a healthy choice, something that shows she is taking care of herself. For me, that could be taking a walk, managing portions or eating veggies at the next meal, writing in a journal, calling a friend, watching a funny/cute youtube video, doing some stretches, praying…anything that interrupts the tendency to let one “bad” choice bring me down so much that I give up the whole day (or next days) to bad choices, too.

I saw this on an MFPer's profile (tagline), and I thought it was awesome: "A setback will only derail you if you use it as an excuse to stop taking care of yourself."

verdemujer

The 30's - don't even go there - that was when I wanted to commit suicide all because someone had me convinced I was worthless as a human.

When did you date my current wife?

My problem? I'm married to a woman who won't let me adhere to a soundly structured plan, as suggested above. :grumble:

Oh Aakx3! I don't swing that way. :laugh:

I do tend to cook bigger meals on the weekend but man, we eat them up too fast if we like it. My problem is I need to be able to have meals for 5 days. M/W/F with karate just suck my life up and he wonder's why I don't eat enough. Silly Sensei. Some people, unlike him, have other jobs. I like to cook a 25 pound pork roast or turkey and bag it up. Its then making it into other edidble meals that I fail at sometimes. We really like your chicken recipe in our family. The girls took it home with them as well as the Orange chicken.

And I forgot that one thing I had to conquor was the "I'm reading so I must eat!" habit. It was logging at a similar site a long time ago that taught me that. These sites are good at pointing out the habits we have - many without thought. Like the phone call issue. Yeah - sometimes we don't know until we start looking at the patterns.

I changed my picture just to keep me mindful for a while. :flowerforyou:

anorangie

I like your new avi, verdemujer. Good quote.

eta Verde, you may want to check out Once A Month Mom @ http://onceamonthmom.com/ to see if it prompts any creative ideas for you. (Not that I'm suggesting that you cook a month's worth of meals at one time. Heavens! I had a friend who did that, though. But she worked with a small group of women...they had an assembly line set up to prepare meals one Saturday each month.)

WarriorCupcakeBlydnsr

For me it tends to be that I just want to not care for once. No hubby to make me mad (the male population seems to be afraid or me... either that or I need to start going out with a bag over my head... but this is another story, another day, another challenge), no parties to stuff myself with cheesecake at, and I don't plan ahead very well when it comes to food in the first place, but some times (and often more often than I want to admit) it just gets to that point of the day where I'm tired, frustrated, feeling blue and just want to give up on watching what I eat and not care how many calories I'm eating, how many fat grams are in it, (some days I don't even care if it has wheat in it and will trigger my wheat allergy... not a good thing, I know, but there it is), how much I will have gained when I step on the scale next ( this is a frequent trigger of this not wanting to care anymore event) I just want to eat "bad", if you will, whether it's the lonely single girl's special at the local pizza place, or the I'm such a loser I'll never find I guy quart of ben and jerry's or the dreaded combination of both (this usually takes place after my sister decides to call me)

You're letting yourself lose control, which makes you feel worse, which makes you lose control even further, which begins a spiral. Skipping a day of tracking isn't always a bad thing, but plan it out ahead of time. Don't just go "eff it! I'm having a bad day! Scale me damned!" Learn to incrementally lose only little bits of control. Have a "serving" of ice cream. Meter it out. Track it, don't eff it. For example, I had the munchies this morning so I had exactly 0.98Oz off chips. They were great. Enjoyed the heck out of them. The time it took to do the measuring, logging, etc. prevented me from eating the whole bag.

Not really, it's that I get depressed (sometimes to the point of suicide) and I can't plan it: something as simple as hearing a song on the radio or getting a phone call or even just a bunch of little things that go wrong during the day on a day my hormones have gone whacko can send me down into that hole and it's not a matter of having a bad day so to hell with it all, its a matter of the depression getting me to the point that I don't care, and it doesn't matter and it's not even a matter that whatever it is I'm eating tastes good or not, it's a matter of that is the one thing at the moment that makes me feel better to do it because for once I'm choosing to do it (thus putting me in control of it). I actually don't enjoy the food, I don't think I really taste it at all.

If it was just that I had a bad day and didn't want to deal with it, I tend to cling to routine and eat the things I don't have to log because I know it will fit my calories, ect because with these foods I don't have to think about them, they are just there and I will feel better because I stayed within my plan instead of going outside it and in these instances I can plan it better to say to myself that if I do want something treat like, if I have my planned meal and I still want this that or the other thing, then, if it's in the house (which it never is, since I don't tend to by treat things to save myself the angst of hearing it call me when I really don't need/want it, I'm more likely to eat it just because it's there) I can have a serving of it, if its not in the house, then if I still want it in two days then I can get it at the store and have some.