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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Is That the Problem?


I brought my computer to work so that I could busy myself with writing over my lunch break.

Its day 3 of week 3 and I think I am doing pretty good. Still eating breakfast at home. I do think that I need to find new ideas for breakfast besides cereal and oatmeal. I think I could make some mini baked eggs or something to have it in fridge. Then I can just pull them out and heat them up for a great breakfast. I know that the South Beach Diet cookbook I have has some recipes like that. I will have to look into it.

I was going to write about that empty feeling I’ve had all week since I started really paying attention to what goes into my mouth. Anne over at Twelve-in-Twelve has recently been writing about owning her emotions and not using food as a cover up. I think I started to over eat when I was in high school when I was feeling inadequate, not good enough. And I just continued to eat through college, especially when my grades didn’t meet my expectations or when I disappointed someone. The strange thing is though that I never strived to do better. I just ate and forgot about it until the next time I didn’t succeed. I cruised through college, graduating with an average GPA and 25 pounds. I gained another 25 pounds after graduation. Sure I had a job because I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. The first couple of years at the job were stressful. There is a lot to learn about banking and I wasn’t the quickest to catch on. I was stressed and I needed food to cover up the emotions. I used stress as an excuse. The Subway, across the street, became my new best friend. I think the worst I was for going out to lunch was 4 times in a 5 day work week. Now I know there are worst things to eat but I was just eating too much.  I knew that had to change.

I knew I could walk into the restaurant and order just a six inch sub, and I did a couple of times, but only when I knew that I was going to have a larger dinner. It just became a habit. It probably still is a habit. How come the feeling of shame is ripping through my pores right now? I am downright ashamed of my actions. Maybe I’m more embarrassed by those actions? I guess I like to keep the face that I have things in control.

When I think about my lunch breaks, I often hide my overeating from my coworkers. I’m often in the breakroom alone which allows me to eat without thinking. If someone is in there with me, I will just eat what I have. If I get Subway and come back with a 12 inch sub, if someone is on break with me, I will actually only eat half of it because I don’t want them to judge me. I never thought I was one of those people that hid my binges because my husband usually knew about them. But come to think of it, I am one of those people. Its probably why I usually lose weight when I’m with my parents. I don’t want to binge in front of them.

So now that this week I am controlling what I am eating alone in the breakroom over my lunch period, I’ve been feeling empty, physically and emotionally. The cool thing is that I know of ways to alleviate the problem, it’s just hard to do at work when the feeling comes over me.

If I am physically empty, I could eat a healthy snack such as an apple or a yogurt. (I should have eaten something before I ran after work yesterday. I was so starving when I was done that I ate too much for dinner.) I think it’s the emotionally empty feeling that I need to overcome with some physical activity or some other sort of activity to take my mind off it. I don’t want to just forget about it but I need something to bring me out of that feeling. I said it’s the worst at work because I work the retail side of a bank and it’s not like I can just get up to leave the building to go for a walk. I also think I would like to find some new hobbies to work on or atleast I just need to pick up my camera and head outside when I need to overcome the emotions. Or maybe do something silly like get up to bust a move in my living room. Dancing is supposed to make me feel better right?

I’m supposed to be destroying dead ends right? I think this is just another dead end that I have…it’s not even a dead end but more of a high wall that I just need to climb over and the climb is hard.


2 comments:

  1. You know I've always been chubby - I've tried most things (not fad dieting but changing my lifestyle) and recently I was eating almost completely organic fruit/veggies and tofu, low fat and counting calories for *years* - exercising a lot (I do aikido and recently hiked the 4 day trip to Machu Picchu) - I would watch my friends eat tubs of icecream while I abstained, be able to hike around people much skinnier than myself.
    Recently I started the 'primal lifestyle' and I feel SO much better. I know I sound like an infomercial here but I have been doing more research, bought my meat at a local pasture-raised farm and switched over - I have dropped almost 30 lbs in no time and felt fantastic. It's the first time I'm just not hungry, feel good, not tired in the morning... and not having to exercise like mad (I am still out moving a lot, doing aikido, but killed going to the gym and running nowhere) - I don't know, but it's working really well for me. I can forward you more info if you want it, just let me know! It was hard to swallow the idea, but I was willing to give it a try and am really glad I did! (Christian is a big supporter of it as well, it seems).

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  2. Right when you first mentioned the primal way of eating, Christian's name popped in my head. The food he's been eating looks really yummy.

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