My Struggle With Food

Well, here goes. The embarrassing post. 

I've always had issues with food. When I was only 8 I would go to the kitchen and cut off chunks of cheese to eat in my room when I was depressed. Or sneak chocolate into my bedroom and hide bags of cookies from my mom. When I was in middle school I'd be the one kid having nachos for lunch every day instead of the salad the cafeteria also had. In high school I'd get excited when we had after school activities, because it meant I'd get to eat at McDonalds or Pizza in my break between school/said activity. 

I'm not sure when it started, but I've always associated junk food with comfort, and the LACK of junk food with torture. Whenever I "dieted" I felt like I was dying. If I tried to eat all veggies and meat and cut out carbs I would convince myself I had a headache and it was "unhealthy to not eat carbs" and I'd stop the diet after a day or two. 


This is why I've always been overweight. Last time I decided to lose weight, 7 years ago, instead of learning to enjoy healthy foods and exercise, I starved myself for 6 months, lost 70 lbs. And gained everything back within two years. Thanks to my amazing Coach Amber I've learned to disassociate food from emotions. Or I've learned that I need to do that. It's still a struggle every day for me. I've gotten SO much better. I actually enjoy healthy foods now, there's fruits and vegetables that I LOVE. But if something bad happens, I have a fight with someone, or I get depressed or stressed? About 1/3 of the time I still reach for food. I know 1/3 of the time is better than 3/3, but it's still not good.

Today is a great example of this.
I went to see a patient who lives in a facility. I've had a really, really stressful last 10 days and was pretty much feeling over everything. I was grumpy and tired. When I got the the facility, I discovered they were having a bake sale to raise money for some cause. I got to my patient's room and saw that she had bought two (HUGE) cinnamon rolls, and told me one was for me so I could have had breakfast with her.
Of course, I'd already had my Shakeology for breakfast. But, I told myself "you've been working so hard, you never eat crap like this anymore, you deserve this" and ate the whole thing. 
Of course, now I feel guilty (which is BAD, guild is another EMOTION and the whole point is to NOT ASSOCIATE EMOTIONS WITH FOOD).


This is the kind of thing I struggle with every day, but I feel like I've made so much progress in the last year. A year ago, I wouldn't have worked out today. Or I would have been like "meh, I already had a cinnamon roll, what the heck" and gone through a drive through and gotten a burger and fries.


Instead, I came home after work, did an extra workout (today was supposed to be a rest day), and started cooking a healthy dinner. 


It's progress, but I still have a long way to go when it comes to food.


I leave you with a few words of advice. Set small goals for yourself, and reward yourself when you hit the goals. But NEVER reward yourself with junk food. As my coach Amber says "Don't reward yourself with food, you're not a dog"


Thanks for reading!