My first post! This one is for all the emotional eaters out there...

Every week I plan on posting a little bit about my life and the struggles I have gone through. I currently have lost over 40 pounds over a year's time, am not eating wheat or gluten at all due to a recently discovered sensitivity to gluten that has been holding me back (stay tuned for an in depth post on that!) , and am going to a local gym 4-5 days a week and seeing a trainer. I will post a picture of me now compared to a picture of me taken just in July so you can see the difference. But, back to this week's topic: Emotional eating!
Many, many people eat when they are happy, or upset. Or for many reasons that are not for the reason they should be eating: because they are hungry. If you can just eat when you are hungry, and stop eating when you are full (like those damned skinny people!) then you too will take a first important step to good health. But how do you stop yourself from having an ice cream cone to make everything better? Well, lets start with where the emotional eating started.
For me, it started at a young age. I had a very stressful home life. My parents did not get along very well and there was often screaming or yelling. My father was obsessed with exercise and even though I didn't have any weight problems until I was an adult (I was a perfectly normal sized child and teenager) I ended up with low self esteem due to my father's obsession with exercise from a young age of 10. I did endless "gilad" exercise videos before I was allowed outside to play as well as had to walk 1 or 2 miles (my father had a route planned out around the neighborhood) before I was allowed to do anything else. Control was his game, and control he would have over every aspect of our lives. I wasn't allowed to eat sweets, or things like bacon or french fries. All of these things put together are a bad combination for a child. Tell them that they have to exercise everyday and that they aren't allowed to eat this entire list of things leads to feeling like you are fat and worthless and grabbing that 'illegal' candy bar will stick it to the man and make you feel oh so much better. Well, that is exactly what I did. My best friend and I would grab some change laying around the house and go down to the local "harlicks" pharmacy and candy store where you could buy candies for 5 cents a piece. From that early young age I made a habit of 1) eating whatever I wanted as soon as my father wasn't looking just because I could, and of course it made me feel better and 2) hating and despising exercise and was determined to do the least amount of exercise and cheat in anyway possible.
Now, as adults we know that eating right and exercising are an important part of life. You have to balance the two without going off the deep end and either eating everything in sight or not allowing yourself to eat anything and then feeling guilty about it when you do. Feeling guilty about eating something sweet or whatnot will not help you when you are loosing weight or trying to have a healthy lifestyle- do NOT get stuck in the "well I already ruined today so I may as well eat whatever I want today" routine!!!! Don't go there. Allow yourself your one indulgence for the week- a couple drinks with a friend or enjoying grandma's cookies you only get once a year. Then move on. As long as you don't drink everyday or eat all grandma's cookies you're all right. Remember, balance is everything. Having said all that, if you don't TEACH your child about balance, then how will they know???? If you just say "eat whatever you want" or "you can't eat anything sweet or drink any pop ever!!!" that will not get you anywhere. It certainly didn't get me anywhere. I wish that as a family we could have done a sport or exercises that was enjoyable together that could have changed my life in a  more positive way. Alas, I wasn't meant to have a fitness partner (which makes it a lot harder) but I did meet some amazing people along the way that helped me to be where I am now. (more on them in future posts!)
So, how did I overcome emotional eating? Well, learning balance was definitely a key factor for me. Also, my journey of overcoming emotional eating and eating healthy in general has taken place over an entire year! It doesn't happen overnight! And do NOT be hard on yourself- that is something that I faced greatly when I first started personal training and luckily for me my personal trainer and some of my friends encouraged me and told me to stop being hard on myself. To remember to have that balance, and not freak out because you ate a cookie and then eat everything in sight. Eat the cookie. Move on. Eat some celery. Feel better. That was the one thing that helped me. The other thing that helped me was that sometime after I started the gym, in July of this year, I took responsibility for myself. Despite having some severe thyroid issues, and having a difficult childhood, only I am responsible for the weight I am/was. Only I can decide to not eat that fudge in the break room at work or decide to not drink soda pop (I have not had soda pop in over a year). No one is making you put the food in your mouth. You have to want it- really, really bad- I hit rock bottom with my insulin resistance (another issue I have, and more on that because it is related to the gluten free diet I am on) because my insulin levels in my body were really high. If I kept eating and living how I was, I was going to give myself diabetes (I do not have it, nor do I ever plan on having it), and also I was feeling the many side effects of having my insulin be high and out of control such as high blood pressure and what I like to call "tweaking out" for no reason. I hit rock bottom and decided that food DID. NOT. CONTROL. ME. PERIOD. That I was going to hire a personal trainer, and do everything they told me to do and not just buy a chocolate bar every time I had a stressful day at work. Do you eat to live or live to eat? That's the question right??? Do you want diabetes or to have a stroke? Or do you want to live each day with energy and happiness? Listen, life is short- one of my good friends died earlier this year of melanoma. He was 36 years old. He taught me a valuable lesson- life is short so get off the couch and put down the doughnut. Finally, if you are trying to avoid eating those carbs or sweet treats, you MUST have other foods around that you enjoy to snack on that are healthy. It will be impossible to not snack when you are hungry or on the go. So figure out what vegetables, fruits, nuts, rice cakes, whatever, that you like, and have them around. Put peanut butter in some celery sticks in a bag and have it ready to go. But already cut apples (Sams club 3.98), to take in a hurry and some almonds around. It is a lot harder to eat healthy if you don't have things you enjoy that are healthy readily available to you. Lastly, educate yourself. Go buy a Glycemic index book so you can learn what foods have what affects on your body. Did you know that eating two pieces of wheat bread has the same glycemic index as eating A CANDY BAR??? Huh, neither did I until about two weeks ago. More of those tidbits related to gluten/wheat in the next post.  Read. Learn. Figure out what works best for you and your body. Live healthy have energy and most important, be happy!