Appetite for Destruction

Ok… I had to do it. For all you GNR fans, I hope you appreciate the title. When I got home last night from a very good time with Casey, I started a blog post. But upon waking this morning, I realized that wasn’t the topic I really needed to address from the evening. Instead I am going to write about something that I struggle with talking about and even more I struggle with accepting and changing the behavior. I’m good at lying to myself and I woke up this morning and knew I had to write about it. I need to talk about it because to keep hiding it is like holding onto a dirty little secret.

Ok… deep breath, here it goes… I am an emotional eater. I know what you’re thinking, who isn’t? But I am an emotional “binge eating” eater. Food is like a warm blanket to me. I use it to hide, cope, enjoy, wallow or celebrate my emotions. I grew up like this. Food was a main focus in my childhood and life. Like most people, it’s was used in a multitude of ways. When we did well in school or had a big event, there was a nice dinner or big party where mom would spend hours preparing food. When I was sad or depressed, my buddy Jacqui and I would hit our favorite Chinese restaurant and converse over fried rice and fortune cookies. When I was sick, mom would comfort us with soup and ice cream.

In the summer when I would stay with grandma there was always a candy basket. A skinned knee or a fight with my brother would be made better with a snickers bar. As I got older and struggled through high school with my weight, I would turn to food to provide companionship, comfort. It’s kind of backwards to think that way. Most people would think that struggling to fit in as the fat girl would motivate you to lose the weight but in my case it only made it worse. My coping mechanism was the food.

When I hit adulthood and eventually moved out on my own, my eating really became a problem. It was easier to eat in secret. To stand at the refrigerator at 2am and consume ice cream from the carton. Peanut butter from the jar. There was no one there to watch me self destruct as a means to deal with whatever emotional situation was headed my way.

When I joined WW and started losing this weight, I told myself that I got better at this. I refused birthday cake from others for the first two years. I was selective on which events and celebrations I attended and in many cases; I would bring my own food. I was determined. But (I hate the buts) I never dealt with my emotional eating. I avoided it. It was always there and at times would rear its ugly head. I would lie about it to everyone and more importantly to myself.

Since I started the plateau last year, my emotional eating has been completely out of control. I have become the little girl in high school who masked a variety of emotions in food. Middle of the night binges that would leave me feeling even worse the next morning. Last night, I had one of those moments. As I headed home from my evening with Casey, I was struggling with my emotions. What set those feelings off isn’t as important as what my response was to them. Instead of dealing with the loneliness, anger, and “fatness” I felt, I stopped at my local Harris Teeter. My drug of choice for the evening was a bag of marshmallows, a jar of peanut butter (it was reduced fat) and a package of cookies (shortbread variety- not bad nutritional information- I compared). Before I left the parking lot, the peanut butter was opened and the cookie was hitting the jar.

At home, I wallowed in my emotions and in that damn jar. I eventually fell asleep and when I woke up at 2am on the patio, the guilt started. My head was computing the caloric damage that this particular binged had cost me. My heart weighed heavy with the emotions that I never did deal with. I felt anger at myself for not being able to exhibit self-control. As I crawled into bed, I cried. I mourned for the little girl who is so emotional stunted that one of her closest friends is a jar of Jiffy.

I woke up at 4am to hit the gym and before I headed out for a healthier emotional release, I threw away the remaining contraband and promised myself that I would write about this. As I worked out, I thought about last night. I examined my feelings, the triggers that set me off and the guilt that crawled into bed with me. I need to deal with this. I need to learn how to deal with my emotions in a healthy way. Because until I do, I will never meet my goals, this vicious cycle will continue and I will forever be the “fat” girl.