Understanding and addressing my emotional eating has been such a great way to take care of myself. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. And as a result, cooking and eating low-carb, high-fat meals has just been feeling very natural lately. I don’t want to say I’m all in with keto just yet because 1) I don’t want to put pressure on myself, 2) it’s going so good I don’t want to jinx it! lol. But I can feel my energy getting more consistent throughout the day, and my brain fog is starting to lift once again. Not struggling with cravings due to emotional eating has made a huge difference.
So here is a fun lunch I packed today on a whim, using whatever was in my refrigerator. I’ve been doing good getting my green veggies in this week so I wanted something different for my Friday lunch.
Inspired by the charcuterie board trend. Summer sausage, sliced Colby Jack cheese, celery, a boiled egg, almonds, blackberries and blueberries.
And we have rolling power outages here as well. I figured I’d better fix myself a hot brunch before anything happens on our street.
In case you’ve been following my blog, I’ve been learning about #emotionaleating and how I experience this. I’m reading a very informative and engaging book (more on that later as I get further in to it), and learning about #radicalacceptance
I am still a proponent of keto for many different reasons that are not weight-related. But as I’ve said in my blog, I’m taking a step back from all specific WOEs (Ways of Eating), while I learn about myself and how to work through my emotions as they relate to my behaviors surrounding food.
I’m still enjoying keto foods, and Mediterranean diet foods, and other familiar recipes. I’m cooking and eating what I have access to and what I think will be good fuel for my body.
So today, for my hot brunch before any power outages, I fixed my favorite soft-cooked eggs, on low-carb toasted bread, and I fixed a Cesar salad for my green veggies. It was so good. As an added bonus, it just happened to work out that I broke a 16-hour fast with this plate of food. I wasn’t trying to fast that long, I just didn’t feel hungry or experience any emotions that triggered snacking. #happytuesday #intermittentfasting #ketobrunch #emotionaleatingrecovery #radicalacceptance
Earlier this week, I found myself in the mood to snack. To provide some context, the extreme cold weather generated some fear and anxiety. I worried about our power going out, worried about my Dad and my sister and their power going out. I worried about our adult children and their families, and my best friends in Oklahoma, who are not used to the extreme weather. I worried about my family in Michigan and Montana. Not to mention thinking about the homeless and pets who have nowhere to go. And then I had some work meetings which used up much of my mental and emotional energy. The outcome for all meetings was positive, but there was a big mental drain that gave me the weirdest headache right in the middle at the top of my head.
During one of my meetings, we discussed how when individuals act out, or employ different tactics that could be seen as “manipulative”, that there is a NEED that is not being met. And the individual is using the tools and techniques that they know work to get their needs met. The thing that struck me about that conversation was the reminder about viewing some behaviors as a symptom of an emotional need not being met. Which brought home a favorite quote from the author and psychologist Susan David, “Emotions are data, not directives.” Our emotions inform us of our needs, they do not direct our actions.
I ate my lunch before 1pm, but at 3pm I was starting to graze on the chocolates left in the Valentine’s box, and some fruit and Greek yogurt. When I took a bite out of the 3rd chocolate, I realized I was starting to mindlessly snack. So I paused to do a check-in. I was not hungry, but my head hurt with that weird headache and I was TIRED! Mentally and physically tired.
I did a quick inner assessment and figured out that my emotional, mental and physical tiredness and the weird headache came from worrying about the extreme cold and it’s effect on my loved ones, and the tiredness from my meetings. So I was deliberate in thinking to myself “What do I need?” What need is not being met that I am trying to meet with snacking?” Reminded myself that my emotions are clues as to what is going on with me, not internal physiological orders or directives to snack.
I came to the conclusion that I needed rest. Not necessarily sleep, but I needed to give myself a few moments to let go of draining thoughts and allow my brain to just rest. I tried to convince myself to do a short yoga video, but I truly felt too tired to do so. Since my work day was done, I went to lay down for a bit. I gave myself permission to lay down and read or just lay down with my eyes closed for a short time to recharge. The takeaway here for me was figuring out what I needed and figuring how best to meet that need with the resources available to me. I am noting my emotions and train of thought and my decision making, and starting to see where my go-to coping mechanism for a long time has been to stay busy, to keep doing things, to keep powering through, so I don’t have to think about how I feel. And that has contributed to where I find myself now with my physical and mental health.
What needs do I have that are not being met that I think can be met with food? That’s my new self check-in question. Self-discovery things like this make me happy to be a social worker for the self-help purposes. 😁
It’s been a little over a week since I acknowledged my emotional eating, and started to heal from that. I wanted to give a brief update on how things are going.
I am doing my self-check-ins, starting as soon as I wake up. Before I get out of bed I take note of how I am feeling. Do I feel rested? Are there any muscle aches or pains? Do I have a headache? What is my mood and what thoughts immediately come to mind? I acknowledge that the thoughts and feelings are there and then I let them go without attributing a “good”’or “bad” label to them.
This has been a nice way to wake up. I’ve noticed that by doing this, when I actually get out of bed, I feel more awake and alert. My awareness has been heightened and it has a positive effect on my energy. I’ve felt exhausted waking up for the past 4 weeks. I attribute the improvement to my self-check-in, and also my body is finally adjusting to the Meloxicam.
I find myself doing a check-in before I decide to eat anything as well. This has been really helpful to me. If I am anxious or stressed, I put making a food choice and eating on hold until I can reduce my stress. Some of the tools I’m using to reduce my stress are doing 4-7-8 breathing, yoga videos, doing this (writing in my blog), and EFT Tapping.
One of changes I’ve noticed with these small changes is that I need less coffee to feel awake and alert. I also have had very few cravings in the last 5 days. When I had stressful days prior to my current health practices, my thoughts were only on having a big bowl of homemade stovetop popcorn with real butter. But I just realized today that I have not craved popcorn for the last 5 days. And yesterday was SUPER-stressful. The diminished craving for sweets or popcorn was a big surprise to me. I started on this journey with the knowledge that my stress and my cravings were connected, but to actually feel how managing my stress impacts my food cravings in real time….wow!!
A NSV that I took note of happened on Thursday. We picked up 2 ALDI Take & Bake pizzas for our dinner. While the pizzas were in the oven, I started to eat potato chips out of the bag because the bag was left out on the counter. It was right there looking at me, demanding to be noticed….and also I was hungry. lol. I stopped myself and did my check-in to see how I was feeling. I determined that it was in fact just hunger (I hadn’t eaten anything since 10:30am) and not stress, so I got out a little bowl and put a small handful of chips in there and enjoyed them. Then I did something I haven’t done in years. I made a Cesar salad to eat with my pizza. Back in the day we used to do that regularly. We would be mindful to have a veggie side with pizza because it helped fill us up and balanced out our plates. I even cooked some broccoli so my daughter had a big serving with her cheese pizza.
It was a good week! A few NSVs and also some intrinsic validation that I’m on the right path. I bought a book from our local bookstore The Raven about emotional eating so I will post about that when I make some headway through it. Stay tuned…..
Sometimes I am too nosy for my own good. Meaning, I have a curiosity that needs to be satisfied and many times the outcome is detrimental to my own peace of mind.
I’ve been doing my “noting technique” and self check-ins, giving a name to my physical and emotional feelings and then letting them go, not ruminating on them. I am dabbling in “radical acceptance” by not attributing a good or bad to my feelings, just accepting them as they are and that it’s ok. I am a work in progress. Things were going well and I’ve been noticing a difference in how I feel physically when I choose to eat, and what I choose to eat.
I decided to participate in a 4-week wellness challenge and my goal is to learn about my emotional eating and start learning techniques to manage it. I mentioned in my blog yesterday that I am foregoing keto in order to devote my focus to getting my learn on. So my goals with this challenge are not weight loss focused. I’ve adjusted my goals for where I am right now and what I want to learn. One of my goals is to adjust my thinking regarding physical activity. View activity as being gentle and restorative rather than strenuous for calorie burn. I did MocassinFlow yoga with my friend Lisa Hill for the first time last night (she has weekly classes via Zoom out of Ontario, CAN). I want to be gentle and supportive with my physical and mental health. And because my injured ankle still gets sore with extended walking, and it’s freaking cold outside, AND because my new left hip is still healing but has good range of motion again, I am giving yoga another look. I am in it for the restorative benefits because that is in line with how I am trying to restore a healthy relationship with food.
Anyway…..my curiosity, my nosiness, got the better of me on Monday. I had the “great idea” to track my food in MyFitnessPal. Why you ask? I wanted to see if utilizing my noting technique and taking that pause before eating had any effect on my calorie intake for the day. WHYYYYYYY?????? Why would I think that was a good idea????? Guess what happened? I got stressed out when I saw how many calories I was eating. And then guess what happened?? I ended up eating Tostitos Scoops right out of the bag before I was able to pause myself, admit how stressed out I made myself with my curiosity, and then walk away from the bag of chips.
And that is the perfect example of how dysfunctional my relationship with food has become. It is a struggle to just take note of this and not sit here and wonder, “What the hell is wrong with me.” Part of this, I realize, is my public health training and experience. When I was in charge of the Diabetes Prevention Program at our local IHS service unit, and the NAWLM Weight Loss program at KUMC, tracking food was the biggest tool we utilized in losing weight. My job was to promote and be encouraging about tracking food. The National Weight Control Registry also found that tracking food was one of the most significant factors in successful weight loss and maintaining weight loss for at least one year. One of the weight loss challenges organized by a colleague uses a point system where tracking food earns points. Weight Watchers, where I had much personal success in 2001-2002 in losing 35 pounds and keeping it off until I had my first child in 2004, used a point system where food tracking was the foundation. Somewhere along my journey, this research-supported tool, became a source of stress in my relationship to food.
Chalk it up to another thing learned about Shelley. I am happy to report that although I experienced some frustration with myself, these are exactly the things I want to learn about me. So rather than beat myself up, I was able reframe my experience and then celebrate the new discovery. And I made the decision to not track my food while I am learning about my style of emotional eating. I am going to allow myself to focus on the NSV – the Non-Scale Victories and celebrate those while I heal.
I made the executive decision to forego doing keto while I am figuring out my emotional eating. I will eat the keto meals that are nutritious and that I enjoy, such as my egg and veggie brunches, and I will continue to make food choices that benefit my health, but I feel it’s more important to not put restrictions on my self-learning. Restrictions induce stress when it comes to food for me, so let’s get that barrier out of the way while I get my learn on.
I am starting with taking note of how I am feeling throughout the day. I am putting a name to my feelings and differentiating between a physical sensation and an emotion. I’m not labeling anything as good or bad, each thought or emotion is simply something that’s going on in my body or in my head. It is what it is, yo. It is me and I am ok. I take a few moments to do a check-in with myself, and I am being deliberate about doing this frequently. I share these things throughout the day with my husband as well. That serves two purposes: 1) it helps me practice my marital communication skills, sharing with my companion because he is not a mind reader, 2) I remember when I first started on my anti-depressant and my provider suggested that my husband be my “barometer”. I can enlist his observation and intuitive skills to help show me the progress I am making or to bring something to my attention that I may not be seeing.
I have to slow down a little bit to take this mental “pause”. I am so used to being busy all the time that I always felt like this would be more hindrance than helpful. Like, “I got no time to be introspective!!!” But feeling compelled to be busy all the time is also stressful. Aaaahhhhhh, see what I just learned about myself there??? I’ve found that taking that pause takes less than a minute. And the more deliberate I am about practicing this, the better I will get at it and more comfortable I will feel with it.
When I was cooking dinner last night (my mom’s chili recipe), Joe B asked me if I was learning if I had any trigger foods (foods that set off a binge once I start in), or if I had identified the foods I most frequently crave when I’m stressed. I promptly responded “Popcorn, chips, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and butter pecan ice cream.” They are salty, crunchy, and in the case of cookies and ice cream, they have a salty-sweet combo, where if they are available and once I start in, then that’s all I want to eat. Now that I think about it and reflect back on yesterday, I also discovered that I have the same response to my homemade kale chips. They are salty, crunchy, and once I start in I will knock out a whole plate. But I’m not going to put the stamp of approval on this choice because it’s simply swapping one trigger food for a nutritionally-dense trigger food. That’s still emotional eating. Another “Ah-ha” moment for me there.
This path I’m on is already very interesting. I have to remind myself frequently that this is a J.O.U.R.N.E.Y. And I can take my time to take note of and enjoy all the new discoveries.
I’ve been deep in thought for the last few days. Not posting much on social media, and just physically being quiet. Part of that I attribute to the side-effects of my meds (fatigue and stomach upset). The other part is processing how I’m feeling about acknowledging that I am an emotional eater. I wasn’t going to share this on my blog, but the writing is a good outlet for all that is going on in my brain.
Whenever I learn something new about myself, or acknowledge something that’s been there for awhile….I don’t know how to describe how I feel. I don’t have the words to write how deep the realization feels. When I’ve had an epiphany in the past about myself, I have felt rocked to my core, almost shaken. But this feels different. It’s made me very still and very thoughtful. The past few days I’ve been allowing my mind to gently and deliberately follow the train of my thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and the impact it has had on my emotional, mental, and physical health and wellness for the last several years. I’m not sure if “introspective” is an emotional descriptor, but this introspection feels deeply personal and raw.
I’ve been deflecting for years. I’ve always minimized it to myself by calling it “Stress Eating”. I eat in times of stress. I have specific food cravings in times of stress. I indulge in these specific foods when stressed because I feel I deserve it for enduring whatever stress has set these emotions off. I eat craving-specific foods when I’m not hungry. I eat craving-specific foods mostly when I’m tired. Overall, I have it in my mind that it will make me feel better. Add in the depression I’ve been experiencing since 2016 which one of the symptoms is a change in eating habits, and makes me vulnerable to stress. These are the hallmarks of emotional eating, but I could look away from that stress-inducing label by doing a swerve and believing it’s “only stress”. I told myself, “I’m not an emotional eater. I’m just a very busy mom and wife who has a high number of life stressors.” Lol. Seriously. That was my ever-present thought bubble.
I am being gentle with myself. That’s been part of the quietness. I disclosed my thoughts to my husband and while making meaningful eye contact with me, he just slowly nodded his head in agreement. He said he didn’t know how to bring it to my attention before, but he noticed how I used food to soothe my stress. He reminded me of how hard I can be on myself, and that he didn’t want me to beat myself up over this realization. That to heal from something I need to be gentle and give good care to myself.
In my current deep thought and quietness, looked through my past blog entries. All good stuff about nutrition, managing inflammation, depression recovery, diabetes, exercise, my 2 hip replacements, physical activity. However, I am still pre-diabetic. I am still on medication for depression. I am still not back to normal or consistent physical activity due to surgery and my most recent injury. I’m still processing my grief from losing my mom. And I know now that all of those wonderful tools that I’ve written about will not work for me consistently unless I address the elephant in the room. That elephant has a big sign on the side saying “Emotional Eating”. No amount of “keeping myself accountable” or “no excuses” or “willpower” or “staying busy” or “just think positive” will move the elephant out of my room. I believe that emotional eating is the root of many of my health issues, and that root will continue to sprout unhealthy weeds until I address it effectively. I need to take an unflinching look and a personal inventory on this part of myself. Personal wellness and healing is my journey. And although it still feels very raw, I’m grateful to have finally come to this knowledge about myself. I feel like I’m in a good place to start learning. I want to write about what I learn and how I implement the new knowledge, so I am going to use my blog to help me process.
My left total-hip replacement surgery recovery was going great until January 1st. I was all pumped up to working back into walking for exercise and not just rehab, and then I slipped on the bottom tile floor at the base of my stairs and landed in a crazy hurdlers stretch with my left leg/ankle/foot folded under my left hip.
I’ve not had an ankle sprain that bad in my entire life. I do acknowledge that I’ve never been 52 years old and fallen like that either, so there’s that. I ended up with an inner and outter ankle sprain, pain and discoloration on top of my foot, and pain in my knee, and up into my hip flexors. My foot and cankle were all bruised up, my left knee had some swelling, my hip was sore, and I ended up back to using my cane for almost a week.
To say I was frustrated and discouraged is to put the emotions I was feeling mildly. I was angry that I slipped, angry that my progress back to normal activity and my own physical wellness was abruptly halted. And true to my usual “just push-through-it” self, I automatically shifted to what I could do, and started chair exercises. But that hurt my hip as well so my chair exercise career was short-lived.
I did have it in my mind to let my ankle heal. I stayed off it as much as I could, ice, Tylenol, etc. But 3 weeks later there was still swelling in my ankle and knee and my hip was still sore. So I brought it up to my orthopedic surgeon at my 16-week follow-up last week.
He looked at my x-rays and saw that my new hip was perfectly fine. No damage done there, and what I was feeling was inflammation from some soft tissue damage (sprains and strains). He felt the best course of action was to put me back on Meloxicam for 6 weeks to bring down the inflammation so I could get back to normal. I was bummed when I heard his suggestion. I was on Meloxicam since 2016 to manage the pain in my left hip before replacement. It felt good to come off of it before my surgery in October and know I wouldn’t need it anymore. So this felt like a big set-back. I kept telling myself that it was a short-term course of medication treatment and it was moving me towards full healing. But I still didn’t like it and it weighed heavily on my mind and affected my mood.
I do have to say that I’ve been on it for 6 days, and the swelling and pain in my ankle and knee are much lower. I was able to take my dogs for a walk 2 days this week and the ankle and knee felt good. So that’s a plus. But I’m feeling side effects of the Meloxicam this time around….I have felt tired since last Friday, 7 days now. Even with plenty of sleep, I feel tired. And my stomach is upset for most of the day, which impacts my appetite and what I feel like eating.
Meloxicam is the type of medication where it takes about 2 weeks to build up in your body and reach optimum therapeutic levels. So I have another week to go and I’m hoping I will be used to it and the side effects will go away. I enjoy feeling like moving. I’m able to take the stairs at work without twinges of pain in my ankle and knee and that feels really good. My sister sent me a link to a stretching video and that helped me feel good physically as well.
Sooooooo….I am hoping to write more to help process all this stuff. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. And I’m still learning how to identify what I’m feeling instead of covering it up with positivity or being busy doing stuff. There’s something in all this that is serving as a learning experience for me, about me. My higher power wants me to be healthy and well, physically, spiritually and mentally. Maybe if I’m still enough and don’t fight it, whatever I am to learn about myself will come to me.
Wozani Was'te 