Emotional eating.

So, I'm fat. Don't go picturing me as some sweaty, 400 lb, can't get out of the bed lardass. I'm not that bad. But, at 211 and a size 16/18, I'm pretty fat for being 5'2.

I've always thought I was fat, even when I weighed 115 lbs in high school. Having a best friend who weighed 90 lbs soaking wet and wearing combat boots made for a totally distorted view of what healthy was. So, now I look rather like I thought I did then.

I've actually lost some weight. I topped out at about 234, not pregnant. Obviously I weighed more when I was pregnant. But, oddly enough, I seem to loose pregnant weight quickly. The first time I basically came home from the hospital at my pre-pregnant weight. The last time, I lost all 45 or so lbs by my 6 week check up. (Gotta love breastfeeding!)

So, you would think that would be motivation to get off my ass and lose some more weight, but it isn't. And after pigging out over Thanksgiving, well, I feel like a total lardass.

My biggest problem seems to be that I don't know when to stop eating. Why is this such a hard concept? When the tummy gets full, put down the fork. It isn't rocket science. Yet, here I sit, over full from supper. And, I let my hubby talk me into ordering pizza. I wasn't hard to convince, either.

I know it wouldn't be so bad if I would just stop when I got full, but no, I have to go for the extra slice.

And I know that the more stressed I am, the more I want to sooth or reward myself with food. So, I'm trying to figure out why I do this. I know when I was a child, we went through some really hard financial times. There was one time when my mother says we had nothing in the house to eat except a bag of beans and she knew we didn't like them, and no money to buy something else, when daddy came home from work (he was a restaurant manager at the time) with a big taco salad that got made incorrectly or something. (As I sit here thinking about it, I wonder why the hell my grandparents didn't help out. They lived right next door. Surely to fuck they realized how bad off my parents were? But, my grandmother's cluelessness and my step-g'father's assholishness are a whole, entire blog unto themselves.)

I don't remember anything except being excited that he brought us a "treat" home. And I remember all the times we would visit daddy at work at the various restaurants he worked in and always being disappointed we couldn't eat there. We must have been pretty broke that we couldn't afford something from Taco Bell.


Maybe in my psyche, more food is connected to happy times.
Seems stupid that I would still need to overeat to be happy, though. But, the psyche isn't the smart part of one's brain. lol

So, if food means happiness, or maybe security or being well off, then I need to find something else to make me, not feel happy, but maybe to appreciate how happy I am? Appreciate my financial security? Something like that. Definatly need to find something besides food to reward myself.

Convincing myself that I am worth spending the money on new clothes for would be a start. I need some new clothes anyway, so I could reward myself for loosing weight with new clothes.


Whatever the cause, emotional issues with food can start young. My nephew is about to turn 10 and weighs almost as much as I do. It breaks my heart to see him, and my brother and sister in law don't seem concerned about it. They are both overweight, too. Their oldest son is 16 and has actually slimmed down quite a bit, and the youngest is 8 and is a normal weight. But C has so many problems with food. He has admitted to eating something he didn't want just so his brothers couldn't have it.

I absolutely want to get my weight under control and my food issues under control so my children don't grow up with such messed up notions. My girls are slim and active and so strong and healthy, and I want them to stay that way. My son is a baby still, so roly poly, but I want him to grow up healthy, too.

If I could get my husband on this bandwagon, now. He's as overweight as I am, and has his head totally buried in the sand about it. I know it's not my responsibilty to get him to lose weight, but I do worry about him.

And now he wants over here so he can work from home. Whee.