Living the Lifestyle-Wednesday October 23,2019

GavinFlynn1

We meet here to explore, share, celebrate and (sometimes) agonize over how we do (or don't) incorporate weight loss guidelines into our daily lives. "It's a lifestyle, not a diet" is easily and often said, but sometimes not so simply put into practice.

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion. Thread starters for September are below:

Monday - whathapnd (Emmie)
Tuesday - Imastar2 (Derrick)
Wednesday - gavinflynn1 (Gavin)
Thursday - misterhub (Greg)
Friday - goldenfrisbee (Chris)

Today’s topic: if I am not eating my emotions, what am I doing with them?

Emotional eating is a trap for many of us in our journey to a healthy lifestyle. Do you have any particular emotions that lead to emotional eating for you? Do you have a plan for dealing with problematic emotions?

GavinFlynn1

Speaking only for myself, I have recently realized that I do not allow myself to feel, much less express, anger. I do believe that all emotions can be healthy, even the “bad emotions“ like sadness, grief, anger, and frustration. In my opinion, how I deal with the emotions decides whether it is a healthy or unhealthy experience for me.

Long ago, I heard someone say “I thought I was burying my problems, but it turned out I was planting them. I thought I was drowning my sorrows, and it turned out I was irrigating them.“ I am starting to realize that I have been burying any emotions of anger for a long time.

I have gotten so good at “burying“ my anger that I am rarely in touch with feeling angry at all. A mentor once told me “if you cannot feel something, that is not a good sign. If someone stabbed you in the arm and you don’t feel pain, that is a very bad sign.“

This past Saturday, I have decided to start addressing the emotion of anger in my life. I believe that unexpressed anger has been at the core of struggles with depression and a lot of my unhealthy behaviors, whether it be emotional eating, emotional Internet surfing, anything that blocks emotions…

What I have decided to do is to start progressively uncovering and dealing with the emotion of anger in a (hopefully) healthy way.

First, I am going to start making a daily “anger list“. This is my own twist on a tool of recovery I learned a long time ago: a gratitude list. Early in recovery, I did not feel very grateful for almost anything. By making a list of things that I could be grateful for, I began slowly to feel more gratitude and see things in a more positive light. Right now, knowing that I am numb to the emotion of anger, I am just going to focus on making a list of things that I could be angry about, even if I don’t feel the emotion yet.

Second, I am going to begin brainstorming healthy ways of dealing with the circumstances that caused the anger in the first place. Personally, I believe that not addressing the root causes is a core problem for me. Hopefully, with greater emotional awareness, coupled with a solution focused attitude, I can begin to let go of the unhealthy coping habits that challenge me.

cakeman21k

Yeah emotional eating! How many times have or do I have some issue in life that I end up "taking it out" on the refrigerator door! The only good thing I can say right now is that I recognize the behavior and its normally a 1 to 1 issue, not a 1 to many. That means when there is a moment of great upset I will have 1 meal or snack not an unlimited number of them, it does not always work but I like to tell myself its better than nothing.

88olds

I think I’ve done pretty well decoupling eating from emotions. When I started it was pretty much good day? Eat. Bad day? Eat. Any kind feeling at all could be twisted into a reason to eat.

I still turn to food for what I think of as its soothing effects. Agitated and angry- I’ll go looking for something to chomp on.

What helps? Go to a quiet place and sit.

Al_Howard

cakeman21k wrote: »

Yeah emotional eating! How many times have or do I have some issue in life that I end up "taking it out" on the refrigerator door! The only good thing I can say right now is that I recognize the behavior and its normally a 1 to 1 issue, not a 1 to many. That means when there is a moment of great upset I will have 1 meal or snack not an unlimited number of them, it does not always work but I like to tell myself its better than nothing.

And that's the "B" in MTBC. You make the better choice (one meal or snack) than the worst choice (a total pig out), but we know that we're NOT perfect, and that's OK.

myallforjcbill

Depression was the biggest for me. As my back situation deteriorated and the chronic pain became worse I would put on a good 10+ lbs or so each major downturn. Not much in my life was going right so I comforted myself with food. I was getting close to making a final push to goal but ending up putting on 50lbs in 2 years. I finally got help which stopped the climb. I am have also made progress on the health issues. The weight is coming off slowly.

Boredom can still be a subtle trap, but I am doing better with that

imastar2

I believe for me the emotion of stress or eating during stressful times has been a problem for me for years. I just recently gave come to grips with this. I either decided or gave up and figured out that during stressful situations usually brought on by work sometimes family that this was a culprit.

So I have decided that no matter what I would get away from that emotion as a reason and get to work on the real problem and that is putting too much in my mouth and swallowing eat ie; eating too much and too much of the wrong things.

Afterall it's really not rocket science but I seem to have to make it difficult when it's not.

So I have decided once again ro get on the plan track, keep up with calories and move on with this thing. So far working thre plan is working and why not? Less in than you burn somethings got ro give and that's weight reduction.

steve0mania

GavinFlynn1 wrote: »

... I believe that not addressing the root causes is a core problem for me.

Ha ha, that's such a key issue, for sure!

I grew up in a home that never dealt with core issues. Instead, we were supposed to simply "move on" with no further discussion. Over the past few years I've come to realize how that allows so many emotions to become bottled-up and fester. At some point, those emotions burst forth, like a balloon burst or something. I've tried to become more introspective and to try to work though core issues more and more.

Thankfully, Mrs. 0mania is a good partner for that! I am incredibly grateful to have found someone who is always willing to talk through things.

The problem is that my folks have never (and presumably will never) changed. There have been so many core issues that never got worked through that I'm estranged from them at this point. I've given up on trying to reconnect with them as I've decided that having high-levels of toxicity in my relationships is not healthy.

That has clearly led to eating (or really, drinking/drowning) many emotions away. I can't say I've got a great answer at this moment, except to say that it's important for me to recognize that I can only control myself. No one can "make" me feel a certain way, instead many feelings are a result of a mismatch between expectations and reality. I can't change certain aspects of reality, so I work to change my expectations. I'm not particularly good at it, but at least it's a way forward that doesn't involve eating and drinking!

podkey

In general not really an emotional eater but more of a hedonic or craving eater. I hypothesize that one reason I was in the over 220 LB range and not 320 LB range or more was that I wasn't driven as much by emotions to eat. Like many folks (think widows here) I can lose appetite during periods of extreme loss facing a death in the family and the like. Having said that I am craving sweets more lately and also facing some depressing issues that came our way.

myallforjcbill

GavinFlynn1 wrote: »

I believe that not addressing the root causes is a core problem for me.

I missed this at the end of Gavin's post earlier somehow.

For me this was critical. I found in WW they taught you tricks for dealing with emotional eating that was often to distract yourself. Go for a walk etc. Sometimes, when it is an ongoing issue, you need to deal with it and not just cope. In my case, I needed some help to get to the root of it and which not surprisingly was not as simple as I thought. Coping techniques can be good but they are not a solution to some issues that drive our unhealthy habits.

Al_Howard

I think, like @podkey, that I'm a hedonistic eater. I really enjoy food, and drink (way too much, way too often). Still working on training these into my plan.