Getting in Touch With Your Feelings

While eating right and exercising are crucial for getting a healthy body, I have come to realize that neither is sustainable unless we get in touch with our feelings.

I have always been afraid to express how I feel, didn't want to seem like a cry baby or a nagging person, and always wanted to be likeable. I never noticed how it affected my health until the last few years.

When I started getting serious about going back to a healthy BMI, a lot of issues started to emerge, and because I was so motivated to keep up a healthy regime, I finally felt ready to deal with stuff, and I had all these ah-ha moments about my pitfalls.

One recent example- it was a Wednesday. Wednesdays are when I don't have night school and I hit the gym. Because I get to go home after work in a reasonable time, my DH sent me on a quick errand. The errand went wrong. It took an hour. In that hour I got angry, hungry, dehydrated and fatigued.
I got home, and he didn't acknowledge what I went through for him. So, I just went to bed without hitting the gym or talking to him. He used to get mad at me for getting mad at him when a favor he asks of me goes wrong, and I was too tired to fight.
But bottom line- I missed my work out for an emotional reason.

I also found that I was being really stressed out about gaining weight from heavy lifting and I was trying to eat less and count every bite. It drove me crazy, I felt fat and hungry, and started sabotaging everything.

But the thing is, once we take the time to accept the fact that we have feelings, and they require attention we can finally stop hurting our progress. Feelings don't go away on their own, and escaping them with food, TV, and sleep only hinder our success.

I think that everyone should start to look inwards and be verbal about things that upset them. I truly believe that once we accept that our feelings are legitimate, we have a better chance to succeed. Even if it seems petty or wrong, we are stirred up and we need comfort. We must utilize any support we have and not play the blame game, just say what is hurting us in a neutral way. For example, I should have said to my DH that I was hurt that he didn't acknowledge that I was strained by his errand and that he should have appreciated that that's not easy for me. He eventually saw my side and it really helped.

I hope people here read this and start looking at patterns stemming from stifled emotions and break through them so that everyone here can keep eating right and exercising for ever, and not just for 3 weeks.