Temptation and Addiction

Holy emotional eating, Batman! This evening's events triggered my "stress eating" gene...no worries, I didn't deviate from my planned meals, but I'm really fighting the need to soothe my nerves with carbohydrates. It all started when I got home this evening and found that my beagle had destroyed my blinds in the office, peed twice in my closet, and brought a plant in from out in the backyard and dumped it on my living room carpet. Welcome home, Mom!

I know the answer is more attention, and I truly am going to give it. In my perfect world I'd be home with my family, giving them all the attention they deserve. But reality forces me to work full-time, and for the next year or so until we can pay down some debt and relocate to a house more suited to a young, growing family, that's not going to change.

Cleaning up the mess, I felt the erie, creeping feeling of addiction encompass my spine and neck, all the way to that little part when it meets the brain - the hot, liquid silver fury that was begging - BEGGING? DEMANDING! NOW! To be cooled and soothed by that amazing piece of chocolate, by another helping of pasta, by just a few cookies. I could feel the anticipation of satisfaction, the parasympathetic reaction that proved to me I was reacting to the stress of the situation and not to my appetite - I could feel the soothing calm release of the food without actually eating anything. My body was tricking me...tempting me.

Knowing is half the battle, and so armed with that knowledge I continued with the evening agenda - bath, stories, and bedtime for my blonde boy. Now, I'm writing to kill the craving. Good battle plan, no? I felt and fought this same feeling when I quit smoking. I beat it then, I can beat it now.

 I'm otherwise really excited - this weight-loss go round, I've switched up my tempo. Instead of trying to conquer the diet aspect first I've begun conquering the exercise portion. I'm in week 4 of a fierce pilates class and week 2 of twice-weekly zumba classes, and I'm finding that I'm choosing healthier options based on how my body feels because of these classes. My husband made a deal with me that we could have another baby once I got back to my healthier fighting weight...and that's really the motivation I need. Oddly enough it's the best carrot to dangle in front of me.

This week I signed up with Fatsecret to track my food intake online as opposed to on paper, and I find the nutritional info very helpful and the search feature very easy to use, so I feel I may stay with this one.


I met with a local gym today. I've been taking classes piecemeal style at about $100 per month, and for $25 a month PLUS $10 for their babysitting service (which is a HUGE bonus) I can attend as many classes as I want and use all the equipment I want. I am going to sign up when I get back from the 4th of July vacation.  My ideal goal would be to go to a different class 5 or 6 days a week. Having babysitting onsite makes it something I can do with my son, so when Mommy goes to the gym he doesn't feel left out.

My pilates class this week was the first one where I felt capable. I felt strong. I felt like I could do the maneuvers properly and afterwards, I felt amazing. Now, the few days since the class...yeah, I kinda want to cry a little. But it's getting better...slowly but surely, it's getting better.