Eating My Feelings

I keep saying I'm going to lose weight and take better care of myself.  I have some incipient health troubles because of my poor eating habits that I really, really need to nip in the bud.

And I could lose weight, you know.  There's no mystery about it.  If I made better food choices the pounds would come off.  I know, because I've done it before.  I've lost ten pounds lots of times.  I'm one of the best "ten-pound-losers" you could ever hope to meet.  I've lost count of the number of times I've lost ten pounds.

KEEPING it off, well, that's another matter.

The trouble is that I eat my feelings.  If I'm stressed, I eat.  I should turn to healthier ways to deal with stress--chores, exercise, prayer, some hobby.  But no, I turn to peanut butter sandwiches and potato chips and oh, look, cookies.  My life, quite honestly, is moderately stressful, and I've explored some of the reasons for that in this blog.  But lots of people have stressful lives.

Eating my feelings temporarily does make me feel better; it really does.  If things with the family are kind of high pressure right now, some ice cream is a short-term relief.  But long term?  It's really bad for me, and it'll make me less able to cope with stress if I'm unhealthy and unwell.

I need to figure out how to do healthier things with my feelings.