COE finds her way...

Working through the desire to eat it all...everything, no discerning based on actual hunger.

This COE needs and wants a change.  So, I have my eating plan for today...so carefully planned out and packed last night.  Measured, weighed....it's looks like a lot food I think.

I find myself sort of "white-knuckling it" today.  I want more, of everything.  More coffee (really the sweetener and creamer), more of it all.  Yet, I am not really hungry.  I have checked in with myself and realize that hunger is not what is driving the preoccupation with food. 

Is it habit?  eggs and oatmeal (loaded with brown sugar and pecans) at 8AM.  The hallway wander that will inevitably lead me to the candy dish of the co-worker that I feel mediocre about around 10AM.  I linger...don't grab and go.  Chit-chat for a minute...oh, just one piece...maybe one more.  The planning for lunch.  Review the specials at the cafe in my building and my favorite local caterer/takeout restaurant across the street....this was my typical day.  I am working on a new day.

My ideal new day....I pause..."healthy" breakfast.  Some escalation in the heartrate and breathing (referred to commonly as exercise ...the E word) followed by a workday I enjoy, a sensible lunch, maybe a mid afternoon apple and a lovely, family dinner.  The best part of this ideal day is the absence of my focus and obsession with what I get to eat next.  I have a hard time imagining that day.

For now, my efforts will revolve around having an eating plan, sticking to the eating plan and exploring those uncomfortable emotions that have led me to this place.  Through it all, I am committing to a daily "relationship" with a higher power.  I am not sure what that will be yet.  Typing this is part of that...owning and expressing feelings.

Feelings I have had today that would normally drive me to the cookie jar...loneliness, isolation, sadness.  By using a techinique in a book I read, I worked on actually thinking about what those emotions physically felt like while I was having them.  They felt vast and confining at the same time.  I felt like I had to concentrate to breathe and found myself breathing in and out slowly.  I think it helped.  I am not sure yet....I was in the car.

Even now, the emotions, the physical feelings and my intellectual response seem clouded and just scratching the surface of what I need to uncover about myself.  But, it also felt forced and expected.  What is driving the loneliness, isolation and sadness?  Feelings of inadequacy.  Not measuring up as a friend, wife, mom make me sad and lonely and I feel isolated.  Hmmm.

More later...