Tag Archives: sad

Reclaim what is mine.

  December 26, 2012 - 11:51 AM |
12 Comments

Did you all have a great holiday yesterday? Anyone get any snow for Christmas?  We did not, however since this is Indiana, I’m sure that we will soon have more than we can handle. 

I found the jar that I’m going to use for our HL Challenge exercise in January.  Now all I need to do is cut out some slips of paper and gather a couple of pens so I’m not spending all of my time looking for things to write with/on. 

I’ve been mentally preparing for this exercise by practicing gratitude in my mind but am finding its not the same.  I need to go through the act of physically writing it down and putting it somewhere that I can see it.  Physical reminders are so important and can give instant positive feedback.  Plus, just thinking about what I’m grateful for ends up leading to thoughts of needing to fill up my bird feeders, brush the dogs, clean house, etc.  Not the best use of this exercise.  So, yes – I’m looking forward to starting my Gratitude Jar. 

Yesterday was Christmas.  Even though my morning started out well, things quickly changed as the day progressed. I ended up in a very bad place emotionally by mid afternoon and found myself quickly wishing for the holiday to be over.  Forgive me for not going into detail, here.  Some things are just better left unwritten.  I will say that while I thought I’d set boundaries in place I realized by the end of the night that I will need to take things a step further.  If a family member causes havoc every holiday it’s more than reasonable to want to remove oneself from distress, but the real trick I’m finding is being strong enough to follow through.  I grew lax this year, hoping things would get better, when clearly they only worsened. 

I never again want to be put in the position of spending another holiday feeling anxious and sad.   My husband and I have agreed that if certain conditions aren’t met next year, we’re packing up and taking a vacation over the holidays.  Either way, I’m taking back my holidays.

The thing about going to bed sad is that you almost always wake up in a funk as well, so this gal is signing off and heading straight for the treadmill.  I’m on week 4 of C25K and I think if I run fast enough, I’ll be able to leave this sorrow far behind. 

Gratitude – I’m grateful for the opportunity to outrun a heavy heart.  Or at the very least, make myself too tired to care. 

 

**I will have an official overview of January’s Challenge THIS FRIDAY.  If you’re participating, you wont want to miss it.  See you then. 

~Ellen

Pinpointing why we overeat.

  January 3, 2011 - 8:00 AM | , , ,
28 Comments

For me, overeating doesn’t have as much to do with how good the food tastes as it does with how much anxiety I’m having at the time of the binge.   Being anxious and stressed out has a LOT to do with why I crave comfort foods.   I’ve also been doing quite a bit of thinking about the type of overeater I am.  I read somewhere that pinpointing why we overeat is the first step in learning how to manage it better. 

According to Dr. Daniel Amen, MD  there are 5 types of overeaters.  Truthfully, I see a part of me in all of these categories.

  • The Sad Overeater: this type of overeater tends to eat by self-medicating.  Usually the underlying condition is due to depression, boredom, or loneliness. People with Seasonal Affective Disorder fall into this category as well.
      • The Compulsive Overeater:  this type of overeater thinks about food all of the time. It is difficult to change their focus to something else.  Nighttime-eaters fit into this category.  These people tend to overeat and/or gorge during the night.
      • The Impulsive Overeater:  this type of overeater sees food and just takes it without any afterthought.  They intend to eat well, but when they don’t, they use the old saying, ‘I’ll just start my diet tomorrow.’  This type of person usually has problems focusing, being inattentive and is often bored.  People with ADD can fall into this category, according to Dr. Amen.
      • The Anxious Overeater:  this type eats to calm down feelings of anxiety, tension, feelings of being nervous or fear. 
      • The Impulsive-Compulsive Overeater:  this type of person is a combination of the compulsive overeater and the impulsive overeater.  He or she may be disorganized, easily distracted, have a short attention span; also may focus on anxious or depressing thoughts.

These little drops of heaven are truly my kryptonite.

The one that I struggle with these days is Anxious Overeating.  What’s strange is that I morphed into this category; when I began my long, destructive road into morbid obesity I was clearly a Sad Overeater. 

Maybe, as periods in our lives change so then do our eating habits.  The one constant that remains sadly, is the food itself.  We can’t cut food out of our lives, so we have no other choices other than to stay on the same destructive path or make better decisions about what we eat.

Do you agree with this methodology on defining why we overeat? What kind of overeater are you?  What foods are your kryptonite?