Emotional eating

Friday:

I am very much aware that I am an emotional eater, primarily reacting to boredom and tiredness but also (I would have said) stress. I don't eat so much when happily busy, and I've never had a problem with big celebrations like Christmas because I actually eat less when around lots of people and chatting and cooking and everything else. I am much more likely to overeat when alone, bingeing on a bag of chips in front of the TV.

I would have thought that all the stress and worry about my mum would have pushed me towards overeating but it's had the opposite affect. Even though I've had fast food a several times and dessert at my sister-in-law's and lots of access to Christmas treats, and I've been sleeping really badly which would usually be another trigger, I actually lost nearly a kilogram in that first week. When we had McDonald's recently while travelling I got my usual order but then only ate half of it, and that has been my pattern lately. I have to remember to have a snack to manage my blood sugar. I just haven't been much interested in eating.

Then of course the past few days I've been quite sick and I lost a lot more (I'm sure temporary) weight, yesterday morning I was down to 80kg. So I've lost about 2.5kg (5.5 pounds) in a week and a half.

Of course the irony is that the reasons for me losing the weight are totally not worth the result. Any other time I'd be so excited to lose weight so rapidly. But not now.

I am quite a lot better today, up to eating a whole piece of toast for breakfast this morning and able to walk the kids to school (well, halfway, I got them across the road then they walked the rest of the way without me). I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get out this afternoon to do the grocery shopping and return our overdue library books. Trying to mainly take it easy though, and not think about the 50 million things I need to be doing in the lead up to Christmas. At least we aren't hosting this year!