Emotional Eating

If there is one thing I need to learn from all this, it’s how to stop emotional eating. Last week was a rough week in that regard.

  

As some of you who follow me know, I was laid off in March due to a company closure. Now, I really hated my job (I had been in the industry way too long and I was burnt out) so the first two weeks of my lay off were nice. I got stuff done AND I finally started my weight loss journey.  I joined a gym and started this blog.  It’s almost 6 months into this layoff now and I’m starting to get really bored and a bit frustrated. To make matters worse I took this opportunity to try and make a career change, so the job hunting has been rough.

The week before last I had a job interview that if I landed it, would have allowed me to move back home to RI (to be with family) and start a great job in the industry I wanted. I was really looking forward to getting that job so my hopes were a bit too high. Last Tuesday I got the call and I didn’t get picked for the job. They decided to give it to someone who had been previously laid off from the position; I guess I can’t blame them for going with that option.  I know I could get a job back in the industry I was in before, but I was extremely unhappy and grumpy most of time. Do I really want to go back to that?

That day started the plunge. I was 1.2 pounds away from hitting my first goal of being less than 300lbs, and that phone call shot it all to hell. Well…to be honest, I shot it all to hell. I went on a huge emotional eating binge. Not as big as it could have been but a binge none the less. I stopped counting calories, I only went to the gym twice (once being the day before I got the bad news), I didn’t blog and I started eating at night again.  All because I was frustrated and just stopped caring. I tried stopping myself a few times, saying to myself come on make better choices, but in the end I just didn’t care. I was mad, depressed and overwhelmed. By the end of the week I was feeling better but I also gained 3 pounds. Last week I should have hit my goal of 299lbs, but instead I was staring at 304 again.

This week I am back on track. Eating better, hitting the gym hard and overall feeling better. That does not however make up for the fact that I let a depressing situation get to me like that. There are going to be many more times in my life where I will be upset, not feeling up to par, or where something doesn’t go my way. So how do I train myself to not overeat emotionally?

Food plays a major part in your life especially when you are overweight. We use food as a reward, we use it as comfort, we use it to entice. We pretty much use food as way to express or suppress all of our emotions. So how do we stop?

What are some ways that you have coped with emotional eating?

By the end of this week I hope to hit my goal. Then after that I can lay off the scale again for a while until I feel I am close to my next goal of 270lbs. I know the weight will come off slower due to weight training but I shouldn't be putting the pounds on anymore.