Comfort Eating: I'm doing it wrong.

As you probably know, I'm depressed.

I suffer from a long history of depression, anxiety, and disordered eating.  However, I had it mostly  under control for years.  Then my mom died, and suddenly I'm dealing with copious amounts of "normal" grief.

Because of my aformentioned history of mental illness, I struggle with trying to figure out what is normal grief, and what is extreme of me.  I've come to the conclusion that everything I'm going through is normal grief. 

My depression and anxiety issues have reappeared, but I think that most "normal" people  have issues with these when a loved one dies.  It may be more extreme for those of us who already struggle with these, but I doubt it.  Anyway, I digress.

The third issue... disordered eating?  That has never gone completely away for me, but I had it shoved under the rug for a bit, disguised as a "healthy" preoccupation with Weight Watchers and other various diet plans from late 2009 to early 2012. 

My WLJ in a nutshell:  I lost a lot of weight with WW and other diet programs in 2010 and early 2011 (from 220+ to 144), then slowly gained back about 20 pounds by 2012, but felt pretty comfortable around 165...  Then shit hit the fan in May and I got back up to 209 within just a few weeks.  Since then, I've been trying really hard to at least NOT GAIN ANYMORE.  I lost a few pounds, gained a few back, etc.  I'm around 197 now, after six months of this...

A lot of this crazy imbalance has to do with COMFORT EATING.

This is not a normal thing to do, I realize.  Eating my feelings away, eating to numb myself, eating to supress, eating to distract, eating to remember, eating to forget, eating to ease lonliness, eating to procrastinate, eating because I feel guilt about the procrastination...  etc.

But it is actually normal for grief to affect one's appetite and to change one's eating habits.  Some go to this extreme, of emotional overeating, but others go to the opposite extreme and have to have folks remind them to eat.  (Is it wrong that I'm jealous of those people?  YES, probably.)

But here's the thing:  I'm comfort eating wrong.  If the goal of my comfort eating is to improve my mood, to help make life a little bit happier, or at least a little bit easier, then I'm eating the WRONG things.

According to my extensive internet research, these are foods that will actually help improve mood:

• spinach
• whole grains
• FRUITS, especially bananas
• walnuts
• yogurt
• dark chocolate
• lentils
• salmon and halibut
• popcorn

Nowhere were MY favorite comfort foods to be found!  Nowhere did I read a list like this:

• potato chips (dip optional)
• corn chips
• snack cakes
• cookies
• toaster pastries
• french fries
• macaroni and cheese
• pizza

Therefore, I've been comfort eating all wrong.  It's time to actually try to comfort eat correctly.  I'm going to try to work these "happy foods" into my diet, and to say goodbye to the comfort foods listed above (except in moderation, of course).

I probably will not hop off of the vegetarian train to try the fish, but who knows, I may some day.  Not at first though, and I will let you guys know WAY beforehand if I decide to do that. 

At this point, I'm thinking that I'm planning to stay vegetarian for now, and may even go back to vegan eating soon, or at least have several vegan days per week. 

Also, another good thing for mood improvement:  MOVEMENT!!!

Which is another thing that I've let slip lately. 

It's crazy that to improve one's mood one must eat healthy foods and exercise, and yet whenever I'm in a bad mood I want to do the opposite. 

It's time to do it right. 

Are there any foods that you eat that  you do so for comfort reasons? 

Any healthy foods that you find actually DO improve your mood?

Getting out of my weight gain comfort zone...

As much as I want to regain control over my eating and my weight, I am having the hardest time sticking to Weight Watchers.

I remember WW being easy. I remember being able to lose a pound a week by just tracking my food and never going "in the red". I remember loving to eat healthy meals like a big bowl of brown rice with beans, EVOO, and tons of veggies. And mostly, I remember all of these things coming to me naturally, and never feeling deprived.

Yeah... this was EASY-PEASey...not.

Ummm.....yeah.... I'm pretty sure that my memories of being on WW in the past are a bit romanticized and not actually what I experienced.

I'm pretty sure that when I first started WW, I felt hungry a lot of the time, and that I missed being "allowed" to eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING with the wild abandon that I give into during stages of weight gain...

I'm also sure that once I forced myself to break out of my comfort zone, I was able to embrace WW and it began to feel routine. Like, how I was supposed to eat. Getting used to the WW way of eating didn't happen overnight for me last time, so I don't know why I'm expecting it to happen overnight this time.

I need to give myself a break.

Sure, I keep on diving into bad habits (not tracking, giving up on the day, eating a bowlful of peanut butter with several pieces of bread, etc.).

But it's because I have gotten used to overeating on things like bread and peanut butter... chips... chocolate... etc... and that is what I like to eat right now. It's comforting to me. It's comfortable for me. It feels like it's how I'm supposed to eat, because that's how and what I've been eating since Mom went into the hospital on May 22.

That mindset about comfort eating did not just go away because I joined Weight Watchers Online.

I need to stop giving into that kind of eating, need to force myself to really give Weight Watchers a try again, because I know that it works.

And I know that it's not a miserable way to eat. Memory tells me that it was actually kind of easy and delicious once I got used to it.

So that's my plan now, to just really give WW a chance. It will probably feel uncomfortable at first, but it will be worth it soon.

Here I go.