Re: rough day...

[Guest guest]

, for me I think it's starting to help to just to recognize

that I'm not really hungry when I eat outside of meals. I just want

something to eat whether it's because I'm bored or stressed or

whatever. I think you nailed it when you said "I don't know how to

deal with stress, I guess." Join the party. For everyone who drinks

too much, eats too much, shops too much, watches TV too much, etc.,

etc., we don't know how to deal with our stress either. I think the

real trick is to find something constructive to do with those stressful

feelings instead of eating. Some people exercise, some people soak in

the tub, some people meditate or do yoga, some people distract

themselves doing some physical work, because I don't think you can

avoid stress altogether, so you just have to find something that calms

you without resorting to eating 2 dozen cookies, a pound bag of

M & Ms and/or a half gallon of Blue Bell (I know of what I speak) and

making yourself sick.

As Geneen Roth described them in Women, Food and God, some people

figure the best way to go is to just restrict what they eat, punish

themselves for "being so weak" and devote themselves to losing weight

by eating grapefruit or steak (or whatever the latest craze is) to

atone for the sin of letting themselves eat. The other lot is my

choice - nobody is telling me what to eat, when or where. So I'm a

permitter or someone who'll just stuff my face full of chocolate

brownies and whine about the number on the scale and then fret about

what to do about it. But the bottom line is it isn't about the food

anyway. It's about coping with stress without using food to calm

yourself. I think we all have to find our own coping mechanisms.

Does that help?

Dawn

Hi All

Yesterday was a rough day for me. Nothing seemed to go right and I feel

like I'm under quite a bit of stress at this point in my life. The

problem is that I don't know how to deal with stress, I guess.

I felt like I'd been doing well trying to eat normally and not think

about calories or diets lately. But, as soon as I got stressed out I

found that I just ate and ate and ate... Of course, that led to feeling

bloated and fatter... And today I'm trying not to, but I keep

entertaining the idea of a diet or some sort of restriction.

Any tips as to how to break this cycle? I'm trying to look at the

positive side and recognize that at least I know what triggered these

actions (stress), but knowing this didn't stop me from mindlessly,

quickly overeating all day...

I'm just already so scared to trust myself to know when and how much to

eat, so whenever this happens, it shakes that trust even more :/

Thanks for reading,