Posts filed under 'mindless eating'
Weeding the Roots
This weekend my husband and I went to a wedding in Cleveland with a bunch of friends.
We had a truly fabulous time (we laughed so much this weekend that our sides hurt!), and after we got home on Sunday afternoon, we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and warm-ish weather and get to work tending to the dandelions that sprouted up in the past week.
We worked as a team, him using the little digging gadget to get to the root of each ugly weed, and me trailing behind with a bag to collect the dead weeds.
Now, I admittedly don’t have a green thumb and have never really gotten into gardening. Even though my parents are both really into it and can usually be found on a weekend afternoon in the garden, I never joined them as a kid, and honestly don’t know much about it. (more…)
7 comments May 4, 2009
Au Revoir: Tossing Triggers
What's your trigger?
Other times I can enjoy a small handful now and then and be done with them …
And other times, I can’t get them in the trash quickly enough.
I hate to be wasteful, and I realize how awful it is to throw out food (why buy it in the first place?!). But I liken “what is a trigger food” to how sometimes my IBS (which has been much better the past five years on WW) can flare up from eating, say, tomato sauce one day, and the next day I’ll be fine with it …
In other words, what might be a trigger today might definitely not be tomorrow. And it’s nearly impossible to predict, which makes playing “defense” hard. (more…)
17 comments January 27, 2009
A Bit of a Winter Rut … But Grateful for the Good
Therapy has helped me understand that many of my disordered eating issues stem from (or are manifestations of) anxiety.
In other words, even though I am not necessarily thinking of the current source of my anxiety at 2 a.m. in the kitchen, or in my car, or whenever/wherever … my subconscious has a way of getting in my brain and leaving its proverbial mark.
And for me, I take it out in one of two ways:
1) Over-exercising (pushing myself physically to distract my mind from what is really going on)
2) Emotional eating (as in, eating when not hungry; not a binge, but eating something to seek comfort instead of facing the problem — I’d count many, but not all, of my “midnight incidents” in this category).
Blog reader and friend Cathy shared this insanely relevant exercise she found via a Bob Greene/Oprah podcast. You lay out the following areas of your life and pick the ones that are harming you emotionally the most, and you explore ways to change them … or improve them if they can’t be changed. It’s a way to home in on what is stressing you, to dig deeper into the depths of anxiety. (more…)
15 comments January 15, 2009
Graze Much?
Happy Cows!
I seem to always have something in my mouth … or be talking. An oral fixation, if you will. My mouth is always moving, always doing something.
This isn’t new. Long before my disordered eating days — in middle school and into high school — my nickname was “Motormouth Melissa.”
In fact, I talked so much back then that my friends teased me about a ten-second rule … where I was supposed to think ten seconds before speaking. (Funny how that’s what I’m learning in therapy: to think before I speak!)
And I chewed a lot of ice and gum. (more…)
10 comments October 22, 2008
