Emotional Sensitivity Training - Company Wide
We're about to get real here people. I'm about to lay some heavy stuff down.
I love food. I love the way food tastes. I love the way food smells. I love the way food brings people together. I love the way food makes me feel. Food makes me feel happy. Food fixes things when I'm sad, mad, bored. Food is my security blanket. Food is an anxiety medication. Food is entertainment. Food is an enemy. Food is a healer. Food is a drug. Food is my drug. I self medicate with food. When we're out and my anxiety peeks, I reach for food or drink. When I've had a rough day and I don't want to think about it, I reach for food. When I've had great news and I want to celebrate, I reach for food. My love language is food. I love food. But this love affair I have had with food for the last two years has become unhealthy.
I eat all the time. I constantly have the urge or desire to eat. When I'm eating, I over eat. I binge. I eat more than any normal person should. It has to stop. I can't keep going this way. If I keep going this way, I'm going to be sick. I'll wind up with self induced diabetes or worse. My joints already hate me. I don't want to be this way. I want to be active and I want to be healthy. This has to stop.
I don't really know how to explain it, but when I start to feel anxious, or my emotions start to get amped up, I turn to food. My preference is cookies, ice cream, or salty snacks. But when the desire to eat becomes overwhelming, I'll settle for just about anything. In the last two years, I've gotten to the point where I didn't know if I was truly hungry or just eating to be eating. I also lost the ability to sense when I was full. People keep asking me what I'm doing for exercise on this journey to weight loss, and to be honest, I'm not there yet. I need to get my emotional eating under control. Recreate my relationship with food, and work on how I react to my emotions.
One of the first things that needed to take place was me telling myself no. I have to stop telling myself "I deserve this treat." "I've worked hard this week, let's get a blizzard!" The truth is, I do work hard and I do deserve rewards, but it needs to stop being food (at least all the time). I have to stop telling myself "Gosh, what a terrible day. You know what would make this better? A whole box of Girl Scout Cookies!" "Wah! Someone was mean to me today. Wah! I feel like a failure. Let's eat a whole bag of puffy Cheetos." I have to start telling myself NO! This has been a process over the last two weeks, but so far it has been okay. I've been working to notice when my hunger is from boredom or emotions and working on ways to curb that desire. If it's late at night, I've just been going to bed. If it's been during the work day, I've gotten up and walked around the office, fixed a cup of tea, or had a short chat with a coworker to change my train of thought. I need to develop some techniques to control this issue, and I need to change my eating habits to ensure my success.
So to change my habits, I've started doing a few simple things. 1) Actually eating a satisfying breakfast. 2) Meal prepping. 3) Packing snacks. 4) Eating on a schedule, but not too rigid or too flexible. I typically drink my smoothie starting around 7:30ish and finish it around 8:30ish. I savor that sucker. Then I usually have a small snack around 10ish. Lunch at Noonish. Afternoon snack around 3ish. Then we try to eat dinner around 6 or 6:30. In the last two weeks this has been really beneficial during the work week. I still need to work on my weekends. That's when things get a little derailed and I have a hard time staying on schedule. Doing this has really helped me start reconditioning my body to know when it is truly hungry. To know when I am full, I've started putting my fork down between bites and am eating slower. Not stuffing food in my face as fast as possible and actually being aware of what I'm eating and how much, is helping my stomach and my brain communicate better.
These are baby steps. But they are baby steps on a path to healthy eating and a longer life. Sorry this post hasn't had it's usual humor, but I feel like I needed you guys to understand that I don't just think I'm fat or that I'm lazy for not exercising. I need to get my mental health straight and my relationship with food in check before I go on to the next phase. So to lighten the mood, here's a comic from one of my favorite artists.
I love food. I love the way food tastes. I love the way food smells. I love the way food brings people together. I love the way food makes me feel. Food makes me feel happy. Food fixes things when I'm sad, mad, bored. Food is my security blanket. Food is an anxiety medication. Food is entertainment. Food is an enemy. Food is a healer. Food is a drug. Food is my drug. I self medicate with food. When we're out and my anxiety peeks, I reach for food or drink. When I've had a rough day and I don't want to think about it, I reach for food. When I've had great news and I want to celebrate, I reach for food. My love language is food. I love food. But this love affair I have had with food for the last two years has become unhealthy.
I eat all the time. I constantly have the urge or desire to eat. When I'm eating, I over eat. I binge. I eat more than any normal person should. It has to stop. I can't keep going this way. If I keep going this way, I'm going to be sick. I'll wind up with self induced diabetes or worse. My joints already hate me. I don't want to be this way. I want to be active and I want to be healthy. This has to stop.
I don't really know how to explain it, but when I start to feel anxious, or my emotions start to get amped up, I turn to food. My preference is cookies, ice cream, or salty snacks. But when the desire to eat becomes overwhelming, I'll settle for just about anything. In the last two years, I've gotten to the point where I didn't know if I was truly hungry or just eating to be eating. I also lost the ability to sense when I was full. People keep asking me what I'm doing for exercise on this journey to weight loss, and to be honest, I'm not there yet. I need to get my emotional eating under control. Recreate my relationship with food, and work on how I react to my emotions.
One of the first things that needed to take place was me telling myself no. I have to stop telling myself "I deserve this treat." "I've worked hard this week, let's get a blizzard!" The truth is, I do work hard and I do deserve rewards, but it needs to stop being food (at least all the time). I have to stop telling myself "Gosh, what a terrible day. You know what would make this better? A whole box of Girl Scout Cookies!" "Wah! Someone was mean to me today. Wah! I feel like a failure. Let's eat a whole bag of puffy Cheetos." I have to start telling myself NO! This has been a process over the last two weeks, but so far it has been okay. I've been working to notice when my hunger is from boredom or emotions and working on ways to curb that desire. If it's late at night, I've just been going to bed. If it's been during the work day, I've gotten up and walked around the office, fixed a cup of tea, or had a short chat with a coworker to change my train of thought. I need to develop some techniques to control this issue, and I need to change my eating habits to ensure my success.
So to change my habits, I've started doing a few simple things. 1) Actually eating a satisfying breakfast. 2) Meal prepping. 3) Packing snacks. 4) Eating on a schedule, but not too rigid or too flexible. I typically drink my smoothie starting around 7:30ish and finish it around 8:30ish. I savor that sucker. Then I usually have a small snack around 10ish. Lunch at Noonish. Afternoon snack around 3ish. Then we try to eat dinner around 6 or 6:30. In the last two weeks this has been really beneficial during the work week. I still need to work on my weekends. That's when things get a little derailed and I have a hard time staying on schedule. Doing this has really helped me start reconditioning my body to know when it is truly hungry. To know when I am full, I've started putting my fork down between bites and am eating slower. Not stuffing food in my face as fast as possible and actually being aware of what I'm eating and how much, is helping my stomach and my brain communicate better.
These are baby steps. But they are baby steps on a path to healthy eating and a longer life. Sorry this post hasn't had it's usual humor, but I feel like I needed you guys to understand that I don't just think I'm fat or that I'm lazy for not exercising. I need to get my mental health straight and my relationship with food in check before I go on to the next phase. So to lighten the mood, here's a comic from one of my favorite artists.
Comments
Post a Comment