Hey Sammi :-)

Why do I eat? I actually eat when I'm happy, lol When things are going great, the sun is out, when I'm feeling good... yep, that's when I eat. When I'm depressed or stressed out I actually "forget" to eat. I know, it sounds strange.

I've been brought up in a large family, plenty of relatives and all our gatherings were focused on food. A party here, a BBQ there... Good times = good eats. Grandma was never happy unless our bellies were full. Even now, I still enjoy when I've cooked a great meal and the family just gobbles it up. I've noticed though that when things are going good, I let my "guard" down (aka my own person food police warning alarm). When I'm happy I relax... sometimes too much, leading me to eat without thinking.

But, with that being said, I do not wish to be unhappy or stressed all the time either. I need to learn to work at monitoring myself better. Keeping the food diary is a big help.

hello. I'm Sally. 38 years old and sadly i have hated myself for pretty much the last twenty years. As a kid and teen i was always super thin. I was very active but as i got older, i became more sedentary. A car accident at 21 has left me with a severe whiplash issue which refuses to go away. This has been both excuse and reason as to why i have never successfully been able to work off the weight that has crept on. But truthfully, my weight stems from a much darker place....my body has become a place for me to hide. The last couple of months, i have been working on changing that. This has resulted in some interesting and somewhat painful self discovery. I have lost 10kilos (about 22 pounds) and discovered that I am perhaps not as mentally or emotionally together as i thought. Letting go of the weight (and i have a long ways to go) means that i have to face, well, me. It's been a roller coaster ride and I had about a month with serious detoxing which found me crying most days. i am now out of that phase, but the struggle remains.I think food has been both enemy and friend and the more i work towards changing my eating habits and losing the weight, the more i realize that is more than just weight that i need to let go of.

Anyway, thanks for starting this group. I am hoping that it will help me in those moments when the demons dance and the diva despairs

Hi I'm Becky. My problem is definitly emotional eating not helped by being bipolar.Always turned to food for comfort and am finally trying to overcome it as i get out of a bad relationship. Always been overweight but the past 8yrs have gained over 150 pounds. So far this is dating but am having hard days when depressed.

Hello everyone! I'm Heather.

For me, eating has always been a boredom thing. I got laid off in January and haven't been able to find a job since, so I'm stuck at home most of the time. I get bored, know that the kitchen is only a few feet away, and go find something. And normally, I don't feel like cooking anything until dinner, so it's always snacks that I grab. The most convenient thing is what I will eat. It's always easier to just reach up into a cabinet, grab some cookies, and go back to what you were doing than to, say, go boil a cup of broccoli. Because then you have to sit and wait for the water to boil, then it to cook, and yeah...nobody wants to do that when they're hungry NOW. It's sad, but so so so true.

I also eat when I get upset. Bad breakup? I eat. Got bad news in my family? I eat. Car broke down and no money to fix it? Ahh, grab a candy bar. The car can wait. I don't realize what I'm doing when I'm doing it, but afterwards, I feel like crap and I'm left regretting it.

I'm also a really picky eater. I don't like hardly any vegetables, minus a few cooked one, as result of being force-fed them up until I was 14 years old. I can't stand the crunch of a salad. Or the texture. I tried the other day to eat a small spinach salad, and the stems and "veins" drove me insane. I literally gagged on every bite. It sucks.

So, this weight loss journey is set to be a hard, rough, uphill battle, but I will do it. I'll have everything in moderation, exercise often, and I won't deny myself of anything. Oh, and smalllllllll portions. That helps.

It's amazing the power that FOOD has over us, isn't it? It boggles my mind.

Good luck on your journeys, everyone. And to those of you that have lost ANY amount of weight so far, CONGRATS!

Heather