Some people blame their food addiction on stress or other emotions. I honestly cannot point the finger at anything other than a genuine love of food. I like to eat; it tastes good. Some days it tastes better than others, so I eat more than others. I wish it was more complicated than that, but it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I am a stress eater. Last year when attempting National Boards, it was all I could do to keep up with my points and find time to exercise. I was stressed. I was also busy. Was I making poor food choices and not hitting the gym because I was stressed or because I was busy? I’m not sure there’s a clear answer to that question. I am pretty sure it wouldn’t matter if there was. The end result would still be the same.
Weight Watchers has taught me the importance of identifying “behavior triggers,” so I hesitate to down-play the motive behind the choices we make where food is concerned. I bring this up, though, because there are many people out there that are putting off making a change because of an excuse. They’re too busy to exercise OR healthy food costs more than Mickey D’s OR they’re stressed OR it’s that time of the month. Regardless of the problem, I believe the solutions are pretty much the same. Here's what helps me maintain my weight:
Heighten your consciousness. It is unbelievable the amount of food we forget that we’ve eaten. As much as I love food, it’s hard to believe I could forget a delicious encounter I had with a biscuit at 9am by lunch time, but I have. Just a few weeks ago, Skip was telling me how he’d missed breakfast and was famished. When I reminded him about the two donuts he’d had at church just an hour earlier, he was honestly surprised. I could relate.
Stop eating by the clock. This is a tough one for me. I equate certain times of the day with food. I like to eat breakfast during my planning and eat lunch with my friends in the workroom at 11:25am, and I like to have a snack as soon as I walk in the door after school. While there is nothing really wrong with this routine, it causes me to eat sometimes when I am not hungry. I used to eat an early dinner; I was done eating by 5:30pm every week night, and every night I had a snack. When I began to eat a little later and eat when I was actually hungry, it eliminated my “need” for a snack.
Quit comparing. As I mentioned previously, my friends growing up were skinny. Friday night sleepovers were filled with chips and dip and regular soft drinks. My skinny friends ate their weight in junk food and I couldn’t understand it. We ate the same things and in the same quantities and I got bigger and they stayed the same. What I failed to consider in my sugar induced coma was that Jenilee ran track and Becki played softball and was a cheerleader. I was a couch potato. But, if they ate a double cheeseburger, so did I. Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize that just because someone else eats something, doesn’t mean I should, too.
Start moving. Exercise is not a requirement if you want to lose weight. It IS a requirement if you want to get healthy. I’ve said many times that when I see skinny girls at the gym, I want to send them home with a Big Mac, but I’ve gotta admit, they’re probably skinny because they are there and not in spite of it. A good workout routine will help you lose weight and manage you stress, which I hear can also help you lose weight.
