Monday, 15 May 2017

Do You Eat Your Feelings?

Hello there, strangers! Yes, it's little 'ole me, back to entertain you after a bit of a break that went on longer than the school holidays. But you get that. Things to do. Places to go. People to see. That sort of thing. Except there wasn't. Unless my family, grocery shopping and scrolling mindlessly through Facebook count. See? I told you. All such important things. Yes, indeed. Such a fascinating and action-packed life I lead.

Anyway, I lied. I'm not so little. Oops. This is likely due to the fact that, in addition to all of the above, I have also been busily eating all of my  feelings. Every single one of them. They all taste suspiciously like cakies. Sadness = cakies.  Happiness = cakies. Boredom = cakies. Joy = cakies. Stressed? Eat a cakie. Relaxing? Best way to do so is with enough sugary carbs to induce a diabetic coma... You get the picture. 

Which segues neatly to this week's Life This Week prompt:

My favourite junk food. 

I bet you can't guess. Drum roll, please...

Chocolate!

Haha! Tricked you! 

Chocolate AND cake. What a surprise. With an honourable mention of hot chips. Because who doesn 't love hot chips with chicken salt and/or gravy? Shut up, all you low carb/no carb fanatics. No one wants to hear about it. Just go and eat your salad and be sad. Or smug and energetic and glowing. I'm not jealous AT ALL.


Image credit:https://www.facebook.com/ithinkmymomsgonecrazy/?pnref=story


Yep, basically I am addicted to sugar and all carbs. 

Needless to say, my trysts with the dietition are going splendidly well. Using 'splendidly well' in the sense of  are a complete and utter charade.

At my last visit I had managed to lose a whopping one kilo, but heavens knows how many more I have since put on. Sigh.

Don't you just hate people who whinge about being fat while they shovel anything that isn't nailed down into their gobs? Just quietly, people who whinge about being fat while being nothing of the kind are worse. This was also me some years ago. DOH.

It occurs to me that I never had significant issues with food when I when I was younger. Especially when I was still living with my parents. However, these days I am the person who is primarily responsible for everything food related. I have to do the grocery shopping, cook the meals and feed a family. 

This means that it often feels like all I ever think about is food. I don't find this very helpful. It appears that I have no impulse control when it comes to my eating habits. Additionally, I am now the mother of teenage boys. They constantly eat. They also never put on weight. I seem to have some sort of delusion that I'm also a gangly teenage boy, instead of an overweight middle aged woman. 

Yeah, I know. I need a gigantic kick up the you know what. It's quite obvious from what I have told you that I am the one who buys or bakes the cakies (except when my mum does...),  and I don't want to confront my addiction. I'd rather act like a petulant three year old, sulking in the corner because she can't have cake for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. And snacks...

Plus, most of the stuff that I like to do, such as reading or writing, is quite sedentary. Why couldn't I have been one of these sporty types? 

Oh, well. Enough of my whinging. I'll plod back to the dietitian and see what happens. She also suggested counselling and I was a bit meh about it. I've been backwards and forwards to shrinks and counselors for years and then basically had to figure out I'm autistic myself! But maybe it's not such a bad idea.

It's either that or wiring my jaw shut. Too extreme? 


Of course I could decide to hell with it, who cares what size I am. I certainly could not care less about anyone else's weight or size, so why torture myself? The thing is, though, I've had breast cancer, am on medication for high cholesterol and have a family history of type 2 diabetes. Therefore, keeping my weight within a reasonable range is actually rather important. DAMMIT. 

So I guess my food/weight issues are not going anywhere... Well, except for my waist, thighs etc... Eventually I may have the maturity and emotional intelligence to realise that I can just FEEL my feelings and leave the cakies the hell out of it. Hopefully before I'm around 75 years old and morbidly obese.  More sighs.

But I suspect cakies will always remain my favourite junk food.

What's yours? 


Are you an emotional eater? 

Linking up for Life This Week. 

12 comments:

  1. I have to admit cake (of almost any sort) is stupendously high on my list of the all time best foods in the world. I LOVE cake. I also like hot chips and chicken salt, satay curries, most Thai food, pav, and licorice bullets(I ate a whole packet in almost one sitting just last week).

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    1. YUM! Love that list of naughty foods. And yes, why do they even bother with 're-sealable' packets? Snorts.

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  2. I nodded all the way through your post. Yes, I am (or was, mostly all of the time) an emotional eater. I was a BIG girl and heading towards a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes and that was the catalyst for the smallest of changes for me. I began to walk more ..instead of parking the car close to the shop's entrance, park away and walk further. I also decided to cut things into smaller pieces to eat that little bit less. I was not fanatical at all but bugger me I wasnt going to get diabetes 2. next time I got my bloods done, 6 months later, the weight had come down 3 kg and I was no longer in the zone for developing diabetes 2. THEN...I went into anxiety ridden meltdown during moving, retiring, and so much more and I eat about half of what I used to. I have now lost 30kg but I do not recommend the stress/IBS diet. I hear everything you say and i too went to counsellors and more. I dieted 3x and put it all back on. For me, no deprivation but eating for stomach fullness rather than mouth feel has worked a bit. I hope you can find the 'why' in your eating (I did with mine) and then the 'what' of the eating will work for you too. Denyse xx Thank you for linking up for #lifethisweek 20/52. Next week "How I learn best."

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    1. I'm glad you eventually found a solution that has worked for you. Thanks for sharing that. I hope I'll find my 'why' and work it out soon. Thanks D xo

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  3. I have that future diabetes diagnosis looming over me too, which is why I TRY to be healthy. Plus I have this deep denial that I need to buy the next pant size up, so when things get dire in the tight pants situation I have to stop eating cake and biscuits and all the chocolate in the chocolate aisle! A bit of walking wouldn't go astray either...I might just sit here a while longer though ;)

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    1. LOL

      Yes, I've had to give in and buy bigger pants. OOPS.

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  4. Oh I feel you - I eat my feelings too. When I'm happy, sad, stressed, celebrating - basically I just eat all the wrong stuff all too often! Can you get my jaw wired shut too? x x

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    1. Sure. Let's do it! But we might as well have ONE last cakie before... And chocolate... And... everything...

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  5. I drink my feelings - self medication. I rarely eat sugar, but joke & say I like my sugar fermented - which is sort of the same, but alcohol. I walk lots. And lots, but manage to stay my size through careful application of wine and portions that are way too big of what would, in normal portion sizes, be very healthy food. Oh, and I like processed cheese. There. Now you know it all.

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    1. Walking is so good for you. I didn't learn to drive until well into my 30s and I use to walk everywhere. Now I drive and I'm fat!

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  6. Totally an emotional eater. Love my chocolate, cheese and crackers, and chips {Kettle Chilli ones are my favourite and oh-so-addictive!} Basically, if I don't want to put on too much weight, I can't have these in the house. I gained half a kilo the first week I was acting team leader because I was super-stressed! Did I also mention I drink when I emotional? Yeah...never good.

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    1. It seems to be a common problem for a lot of women. Sigh. You're so right, not buying the 'danger' foods in the first place is key!

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