Being an emotional eater is not at all pleasant because every time the guilty feeling sets in (after the gobbling up of decadent cakes, ooey-gooey ice cream sundaes, hot apple pies, or the guzzling down of flavored sodas and creamy milkshakes), you usually feel terrible. Based on my experience, I’d say that being an emotional eater isn’t necessarily about eating too much but it is more about eating too much of the wrong thing: foods too high in sucrose or sodium namely. Well, we all know how indulging in rich foods can help elevate our moods almost instantly and so, it’s not totally surprising when people who are on an emotional roller-coaster ride take eating as a coping device.
My emotional eating bout lasted till the time I decided to take control of my life by being healthy. I didn’t really go on any kind of diet but I started working out so regularly that I didn’t need food to help elevate my good mood when I was down. By the time I got married, I lost the unpleasant weight (still pleasantly plump though!) and as a bonus, achieved clearer looking and glowing skin.
When I got pregnant, I gave in to all the cravings happily and did put on some major weight. But luckily for me, the weight dwindled down around eight months after my baby was born. Well, it wasn’t very easy to do that, mind it. It was mainly because I let go all of the munching and bingeing that I used to blame on motherly craving during pregnancy and kept myself always active. Another thing that helped was the breastfeeding. From the time he was born till to his sixth month, my baby was breastfeed exclusively…yes, no formulas. Since then and till now, he is still nursing as a supplement to his varied and rich solid foods.
So with emotional eating well behind me, I have now become a lifestyle eater! It is like you eat according to the lifestyle you have. So is there such thing like “Yes, I eat like a mom”?! (Note: basically, my lifestyle revolves around me being a mother 24/7). I took some time thinking about it and kind of got a sense of what that means.
Now that my baby is a toddler and is in the snacking phase, the pantry is simple filled with several types of cookies, crackers, cereals and chips. He also has his fruits and cheese but it is the above Cs that entice me the most. I serve a handful of those innocent looking mini chocolate chip cookies to my son and have some for myself. Or, I pass him a handful of his goldfish cheese crackers and keep some on the plate for me to have with coffee a little later. Jeez, it is true that I have become a Mom Eater! I eat these crackers and cookies mainly because they are there in the pantry for my son and didn’t even bother having them at home before he started eating these things.
I cannot for sure stop buying these things which are my son's snack time treats and deprive him of nice things and so today, I wrote up a list of Cs on the cute little white board on my fridge: cookies, crackers, chips and to notorious C gang goes, coffee. I feel like coffee is directly related to the Cs. The Cs goes so well with coffee and vice versa. You have a cup of coffee and you almost instinctly start searching for cookies or crackers!
So I wrote the list with a black marker and took a red marker and crossed them out with a big “X” to remind me that I am going to stay off them simply because I feel like I am indulging in them a little too often lately. The thing about me is that to handle these kind of tempting situations, I need to go cold turkey and completely switch off the bad angel button on my left shoulder. I need to do it soon or go around singing this. For now, I am just hoping that my willpower will work for me and that the above song will only be something I sing for my son, a Sesame Street junkie :)
What about the most indulgent of the Cs - chocolate - how come they don't get into the list? No way, José! I definitely need a dose of this C from time to time to keep me sane!
So I wrote the list with a black marker and took a red marker and crossed them out with a big “X” to remind me that I am going to stay off them simply because I feel like I am indulging in them a little too often lately. The thing about me is that to handle these kind of tempting situations, I need to go cold turkey and completely switch off the bad angel button on my left shoulder. I need to do it soon or go around singing this. For now, I am just hoping that my willpower will work for me and that the above song will only be something I sing for my son, a Sesame Street junkie :)
What about the most indulgent of the Cs - chocolate - how come they don't get into the list? No way, José! I definitely need a dose of this C from time to time to keep me sane!
I tell myself to be a healthy eater and remind myself to always look at all those apples, oranges and pears in the fruit basket in the fridge and pretend to ignore the Cheese Cake, Chocolate muffins, Cinnamon buns and Cream Cheese Cupcakes hiding behind the back of the fruit basket!
