Day 32: The Emotional Attachment to Eating

The below paragraph is excerpted from "The South Beach Diet Dish"—an email I signed up for on the Friday before I started the diet. It came yesterday. Hmmm. Are they watching me? Reading the blog? Did someone tip them off?

"As many of us know...feeling fatigued by our daily schedule and overwhelmed by responsibilities can spark emotional eating. Many eat to fill a void or use food to keep themselves company. Some look to food to distract themselves from a traumatic event. But most who suffer from emotional eating find that it can't be traced to one specific reason — it's often simply a pattern of falling back on food when we need comforting in one way or another. It's much healthier to process our feelings than to block them out with food. It's important to realize that, ultimately, we do have power over our actions. Eating is something that can be controlled and still be enjoyed."

For some reason, when I was reading this passage (both when it arrived and just now, editing it) all I could think was CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE. Hmmm. Maybe they're onto something

Breakfast
Two Slices of WPFLCWW bread with
2 Tsp Peanut Butter
~4 oz Light Strawberry/Banana Yogurt
Tea

Snack
15 Almonds
15 Cashews
1 Cheese Stick

Lunch
Sliced Chicken with Spinach

Dinner
90% Sirloin Hamburgers
Olive Oil-Fried Onions
Bread & Butter Pickles
5 Cherry Tomatoes
Celery
1 Slice Ham, 1 Slice Turkey


Some folks who read this blog expressed concern (that's probably too strong a word) that I wasn't actually on Phase Two yet, just a poseur. But with today's breakfast, you can see, I am eating toast (though it is When Pigs Fly Low Carb Whole Wheat). And I had yogurt for the first time in 32 days, though it was asparteme-y it was still a nice familiar sensation. Also, the 'bread and butter' pickles are obviously not either, but they do contain sugar, but we were out of all other pickled products (I briefly considered sauntering over to a bar for a pickled egg, but remembered Needham is dry). As I have said before, I don't want to slip too far too fast—I need to take this Phase Two thing easy. I have to make sure that the toast does not overwhelm my weekly walks—I cannot have any recidivism now. I must continue my onward losing campaign! But I must tell you that tonight, I was VERY HUNGRY. After dinner (as you can see the vegetable course was very ad-hoc) I sort of went scrounging for something else, which I have not done in quite a while. I decided that the ham and turkey rollup (see: rollmop) might be just the thing. It was, but then a half hour later I was hungry again. I almost sought comfort in a nip, but finally took up with a cup of mango tea and calmed down.

Today a comrade at work described how sometimes you could feel OK if you weren't drinking with the gang if you were still hoisting a glass with them. I think there maybe a similar psychological component to the LENGTH of your dinner time. You could be eating powerbars 'n' steak, but if it's over in two bites, you're gonna go scrounging. Believe me.