Mother's Day Success

How many of you are emotional eaters.  Me too! Or at least I used to be...

This week has been rough for me. I couldn't figure out why I was such a basket case and so unusually emotional until I was driving to work this morning and it hit me! I didn't eat my way through this issue therefore I actually had to feel the emotions. It wasn't fun but I've got to tell you I'm pretty proud of myself now that I'm on the other side of it.

I hope you all had a happy Mother's Day.  Mine wasn't bad. It was also my soon-to-be step son's 18th birthday so the majority of our day was spent focusing on him. However as the day progressed I was sad.  I have plenty of reasons to be sad on Mother's Day...I don't have any children of my own and I had a miscarriage 20 years ago and lost my only opportunity to be a mother...but I've been through many mother's days since then and didn't have this kind of reaction. Why now?? Monday was horrible, I couldn't stop crying and Tuesday was almost as bad. I was mean to my fiancé, I was sad and hurting.  I was able to identify why but like I said I just couldn't understand why now? Why was it hitting me so hard this year?

Now I know...I didn't drown my feelings with food.  I didn't self medicate with sugar, candy, chips, junk food or whatever I could get my hands on to make myself feel better.  That's my MO and also why I've struggled with my weight for most of my life.  Food makes me feel better! However being overweight and poisoning myself doesn't feel good in the long run.  But we all know we don't care about that in the moment, we want our drug of choice to make us feel better.

What is amazing is I didn't have any desire to go there.  Sure I had the munchies but I wasn't willing to break my commitment to myself to eat real food.  How was I able to do that???  For years and years I haven't had the will power to not eat my way through a crisis so how in the world did the thought not even cross my mind this year? Well, I'm pretty sure it's because I've only been eating real food and real food isn't addictive.  It isn't full of MSG and high fructose corn syrup and all the stuff our food producers know makes us want to come back for more.

I am amazed at how easy it was to not eat my way through this.  Dealing with it and feeling those emotions SUCKED! But I am very proud of myself now that I'm on the other side of it.

You know what I did do to treat myself....I bought myself flowers and they made me smile.  I'm looking at them right now and they are beautiful and delicate. They make me happy and they last for days so it's much better than the brief moment a food fix would have lasted.

I mark this up as an amazing success and it just confirms once again I'm on the right path! It was a hard lesson but so worth it!


Would you like some proof our food makers know exactly what they are doing? I can't help but laugh because I was fooled for so long. It's sad what people will do to make a buck...

Here's a long but very informative video that explains everything: http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717

If you don't have 90 mins to watch it try the short version...search youtube for "Sugar the bitter truth, short version".

I actually watched the full length video and was amazed!  Did you know fructose (like high fructose corn syrup which is an ingredient in almost every item on the grocery shelf) breaks down just like alcohol in our blood? Why do you have to be 21 to buy alcohol and go to jail for driving under the influence but we feed our kids HFCS all day everyday? It's scary stuff. It explains how addictive our processed foods are as well as why America is so obese and dropping like flies from heart disease.

I have no doubt that my only saving grace was cutting out processed foods. If I was still eating like most Americans this success would not have happened for me.  We aren't crazy and it's not about will power. Our food truly is addictive. If you are a crack addict and try to control it but still consume it all day you will never win.