Emotional Eating

Hi, my name is Alicia and I'm an emotional eater. I eat when I'm sad and/or stressed. I guess I've always knew this, but I really realized it when I had a miscarriage last year. I would try and be good about not buying junk food, but then I would bake something. I was making some kind of treat at least weekly. I even hid it from Russ sometimes (don't worry, I've since told him about this and haven't done it in a very long time). I was just too embarrassed. It took me a while to realize why I was doing it. I handled my miscarriage pretty well, at least on the outside. I don't think I truly mourned like I should have. And so I would turn to food for comfort. I knew I shouldn't have been eating the way I was, but I would give in. I would say "who cares, I want it, so I'm just going to have it."

Then I got pregnant again and well...as every woman who has been pregnant knows, it is hard to eat healthy when pregnant. There are cravings and morning sickness to worry about. And of course you can't "diet" when pregnant so I would indulge here and there. Luckily I didn't gain a huge amount of weight--just around 30 lbs. But then my sugar level was slightly high, so my doctor made me limit my sugar intake.

After Carson was born, I actually started losing the weight pretty quickly because I was pumping and I didn't have much of an appetite. But then the pumping didn't last very long and I started eating like crap. As you all know, I've been under a huge amount of stress. Having a baby in the hospital puts a pretty big strain on you. So what did I do? I ate, of course. We ate out a lot and I rarely made healthy decisions. Again, the "who cares, I want it, so I'm just going to have it" mentality kicked in. It was especially bad when Carson had major open heart surgery. We were in for a long day at the hospital and of course I took junk food with me. I wanted comfort food.

Anyway, I'm doing much better now. Not perfect, but better. I am actually down a few more pounds. I still give in more than I should. I actually bought some chocolate covered raisins (one of my weaknesses) when I went to the store the other day because I was feeling stressed. I know that it will be a while until things calm down since taking care of a special needs baby isn't exactly easy, but I'm hoping that I won't slip too much.