My Name is Jen and I am an emotional eater

Jened13

This is from my blog at www.rejenuvate.com

Over the last couple of days, I have started to write a blog post multiple times. I have been distracted though. One of the things I wanted to do with this blog was to be completely transparent in my thoughts and feelings. That has been hard as of late because I know so many of my followers personally and in that regard, I don’t want all my dirty laundry out to the world. Particularly when it comes to my family life. The last few days have been very challenging for me. It has fueled many emotions and plays right into the very things that have me at the size I am. The need to hold everything in…for my world to appear perfect always. To not have family and friends judge my/our personal life. I bite my tongue and just internalize every thought and emotion, and make myself crazy. All I want to do is eat and take away the pain because I can’t bring myself to really let go and be honest with how I feel about certain areas of my life/relationships. I am finding, that I need the release in order to succeed in this journey. That is a TALL order for me. I know that I am significantly better than I used to be, but I am realizing how much further I have to go. My instincts draw me to the blog to be open and honest, but could I hurt people in the process….is this one area where I can’t go?

I was in a relationship for over 12 years. I know how complex they can be…the ups and downs that you have. The growth that takes place over that period of time. I failed at that relationship…not all on my own, but for many reasons that I don’t even think I fully know yet. I failed. Fortunately, we didn’t have any biological children together. We had fostered for years, but the relationship that we have/had with our foster daughter was far from conventional and wasn’t impacted the way a child of our own would have been. The day-to-day life of not having a mommy and daddy there with her. I now have a biological child with GB. She was a HUGE unplanned surprise, but the MOST AMAZING MIRACLE. She is my greatest achievement, and I am in pure awe of her every day. The immense pressures that come from having a baby is hard for some to take. It’s very hard on a relationship…particularly one that was in it’s infancy at the start of the baby journey. I think that we are feeling the effects of those adjustments now, and it STRESSES me out!!!!

I LOVE my family so much!!! The idea of that ever not being there is too much for me to take sometimes. I am a worst case scenario person too. I can’t seem to have the middle “it’s kind of ****ty” right now mentality. When we have an argument or we are off, I just immediately assume that the end is inevitable. With the baby, that isn’t an option for me anymore. I have to fight to keep us together, but that is SOOO hard for me to do, without completely suppressing my real feelings on a situation. I just don’t know how to open up for fear that I will say something that will push him further away. That it will make the situation worse…that I will sound emotional and needy. Maybe I am just a girl, and we all do this kind of thing, but it seems with GB, when it is off…it’s really off. We try to communicate, but I can tell that both of us are hiding behind our communication issues. I am just not sure how to get past that….what I do know is that I want to EAT…EVERYTHING!!!

I ate a candy bar today, and I found myself on Friday going for a brownie after I got upsetting news. I then was so overwhelmingly frustrated with myself, because I didn’t stop. I didn’t hesitate…I just went for the one thing I knew would make me feel better, and it did for a moment. There was a sweet satisfaction in the taste of the chocolate. With each bite, I would exhale more and more. By the end of the candy bar, and the final exhale, I was crying. I was ashamed that I had failed my body. Ashamed that I am failing my daughter by A) Not fixing what is broken in my relationship with her dad and Making the choices that I know will lead to the pounds coming back on the scale and not being the example that I intend to be for her.

I thought that some serious working out would help….they say it is great for depression and anti-anxiety, and in some ways I think that it did. It forces you to breath…which shockingly is so hard to do when you have heavy thoughts on your mind. On Saturday, we went on a family hike. It was a bit more than I could chew at 7.5 miles and a pretty decent elevation gain to the top. We didn’t quite make it to the top, but finished up with 6 miles under our belts while carrying the baby on our backs. I STRUGGLED and was working for every step forward at certain points. Having the baby strapped to me as the constant reminder of why I am doing this was good. All the emotions were flooding to me of a stressful couple of days….that may have fueled me, or it may have stopped me from reaching the top…I don’t know. I was still proud of 6 miles! That isn’t bad for a big girl. Sunday was a rest day, but I kept myself distracted from thoughts with errands and chores around the house. Today, not only to work off the candy bar, but too also continue to try to work THRU my anxiety, I worked out for 1.5 hours after I got off. I had ZERO motivation though. I forced myself to go down, and thank goodness there was a class, because if I was having to do it alone….I wouldn’t have done well. It is amazing how something can consume your mind so much that you forget all the healthy choices that you were making. It’s terrifying to me, because life is not always going to be perfect. I have GOT TO LEARN how to deal with that.

Now, I am sure that GB and I will be just fine, and that this just a rough patch of emotions for both of us. The one thing I did get from our attempts at communication over the weekend is that we want to make this work and love one another VERY much, and having those 2 things in place is a great foundation for our continued success. I just want to fix it now and take any pain that he or I am feeling and throw it away. I want to be able to trust him enough to be honest with our feelings and have the same in return without this panic attack brewing underneath the surface. I wish I had learned appropriate communication skills thru life. It would have saved me a LOT of heart ache along the way.

Thank you for the vent session. I feel a bit better. I’m sorry I let the “old me” rear her head and cave into the emotional eating. Hopefully as I continue on this journey, I will be able to find the tools to help me cope better. Luckily it was only 1 candy bar, and I just burned about 1000 calories in my workout, so I am good for it To also end the post on a positive note….I did 1 minute of jumping rope on Friday and I was running today!!! I couldn’t do that a month ago and it was a big victory for me last week. The trainer even noticed that I was doing the REAL jumping verses the modified versions I had done in the past. So….GO ME AND MY JUMP ROPING SELF.