Eat Your Heart Out

I get so emotional baby
Every time I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do

I've mentioned before that I have a love/hate relationship with food.  I love to cook it.  I love to eat it.  I hate how it makes me look and feel.

I've eaten like crap for the past three weeks.  A combination of what feels like continual PMS, stress from work and other assorted issues all rolled into one.  I haven't been to the rec center in three weeks either.

A ring that I bought myself years ago to remind me of attaining goals started to fit again about a month ago.  Now, it's tight again.

My stomach is touching the steering wheel again.

My clothing is feeling tight again.

I'm not feeling so perky and confident.

I need to get back on track.

Have you ever noticed that whenever anyone wants to celebrate something, they usually suggest going out to eat?  Birthdays -- let's go out to eat.  Company visiting - let's go out to eat.  Having a crappy day?  Let's go out to eat. 

I am an emotional eater.  If I'm upset about something, I eat.  If I'm happy, I eat.  If I'm bored, I eat.  I try to not keep "bad" stuff around the house for this reason alone.  However, incidents from the past few weeks have been on my last nerve, and whenever I hit a downward spiral, instead of fighting my way out, I tend to close my eyes and go along for the ride until I hit rock bottom.

I feel sick and bloated and tired. I'm grumpy and unhappy. I don't feel attractive or interesting.  I feel like everyone can see by the size of my bloated ankles, face and fingers that I'm not taking care of myself.  Again.

I think I've hit rock bottom.  Again.

When I was a kid, my mom used to soothe my hurt feelings with food.  She also rewarded me with food.  I've continued those traditions with myself.  Sadly, I've also noticed that I do it with my friends, too.  I didn't realize it until I wrote the blog last week about practically force-feeding my friend Gordon chocolate on a regular basis to satisfy a craving I had but couldn't act on. I know he was joking about me trying to kill him but it made me take a step back and realize I can't transfer my bad habits to others.

Food is my nemesis.  My kryptonite.   I wish I could live without it but I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  I need it.  Like an addict needs drugs.

I know what I should eat, when I should eat it, and how much.  However, my heart doesn't listen to my brain.

Luckily, I still have some fire inside of me that wants to do better and be better.

As soon as I put my friend on the airplane today, I'm doing a massive cleaning out of the cupboards, fridge and freezer and "restarting" the whole healthy eating thing again.  I'm going to try to get in more exercise this week.  Luckily, one of the perks of having a super-healthy friend stay for a few days is that when she leaves, there are all sorts of healthy foods that can't fit into a carry-on bag that get left behind.

I wish there was an easy way to do this.  A button I could push to turn off the "need" to eat crap when I'm feeling badly about things.

I realized this weekend that the things that have been bothering me are things I can conquer.  I may not be totally happy with work, but in the grand scheme of things, it could be worse.  I get along with my co-workers.  My job is not hard.  When I'm not training, I get to leave at 4:00 p.m.  I get to meet people. I get to help people.  I just need to learn how to tune out the "negative" people who don't appreciate what I am trying to do for them and focus on the positive people and things that DO happen.  Now, does that mean I won't get antsy and want to be distracted or that I won't get frustrated with management decisions?  No.  But, as long as I keep reminding myself that it could be worse (and HAS been worse), I can soldier through this.  As for the other "things" going on in my life (and I can't really talk about them here), I'm going to have to deal with them on my own.  But, not with food. 

I saw a therapist once.  She said the over-eating was a self-destruction thing.  I blame myself for crappy things in my life and then punish myself by eating unhealthy things which then makes me feel less attractive, less desirable.  

Some people turn to alcohol, drugs or sex.  I choose food.

Hmmm....  maybe I should try one of the other three.  ;)