For the first 35 years of my life I was an emotional eater. As a child and teen I gained weight to protect myself from unwanted advances. In using food for that purpose it also became my friend. I wanted to celebrate with it and if I was sad food was right there with me too! Food was always with me, always around...food never let me down.
I eventually reached 300 pounds and I knew I had to change something. I realized I no longer needed to eat to protect myself from others. I also realized that what I loved so much was killing me. I had several health issues that I had to start dealing with and all my excess weight was making things much worse for my body. I was flipping out at the idea of dieting. I was in no way ready to lose weight. I wasn't ready to give up my comfort..my only friend.
I guess the change came when I started to love myself and I realized I was important and I deserved to be healthy and live a healthy life. In the last 5 years I have lost 160 pounds. I changed my eating habits and lifestyle 100 percent.
In my mind I will always be an emotional eater. It is still a fight sometimes when I have good and bad moments my first thought is what can I eat...
When my girlfriend of 17 years and I broke up last year I fell off the wagon hard. I think I alone supported the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in my town
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Now I control my urges by only having food in the house that I am okay with eating. Do not put any trigger foods in your pantry until you can control yourself around that food. The hardest lesson for me was to take food out of it's *special* place in my life. Food is for the nourishment and health of your body and nothing else. I am at the place now where I can eat any food I want without triggering emotional eating and binging. I have learned to have my favourite foods in moderation and keep my food intake in balance.
One thing I know is you have to really want to eat right and lose weight to be successful. It is so hard to accomplish controlling your food intake when you really aren't ready to face it. I tell myself every morning...that I'm worth it. I think that thought that I am worth it keeps me trying to be as healthy as I can be.