New Discoveries About... ME

July 23, 2013

Over the course of my life starting in high school, i became shamefully aware that i was a larger girl. I rarely felt pretty when comparing to the cheer leaders and such at school, (this explains my great love for Glee) and i knew that i needed to make a change. It took a boyfriend just out of high school to give me the motivation to do something. He was a swing dancer and I loved being able to do routines with him, but because of my size i couldn't do all of the flips and lifts that he wanted to do, so he worked out and i began my first diet. I was very successful and within 6 months i was at my goal weight of 130 pounds and nothing could get in my way! I finally felt beautiful and felt comfortable in my own skin! 

A year went by and my dancing boyfriend went away and another boyfriend went on a mission, and i moved to an apartment with my girlfriends. I lost all motivation to keep working out and eating right. Soon i had gained all the weight back that I had lost and then some. I was in a sad place. Thus began my history of yo-yo diets. If it’s advertised i tried it. Everything from Sensa, Hydroxatone, Keytone Thin (Raspberry extract), HCG, down to Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Herbalife, and Jillian Michaels. I am not sure what happens in my mind when I hear of a new diet pill or technique, but I just gotta try it. I have done diet after diet after diet, and each time I relearn what I already knew, and my weight and other self-inflicted issues still linger. 
Well, to get to my point I read a couple articles from the Psychology Today Magazine; both talking about the problems with dieting as well as current studies and information on emotional eating. Next is a little clip from the article explaining the study about yo-yo dieters:

“A recent study showed just how chronic dieting can turn someone into a food addict.
Bad news for yo-yo dieters this week: according to a recent study, cycles of feast and famine can create fast-food junkies–at least in rodents. The researchers put rats on a cyclic diet of 5 days of standard rat chow, followed by 2 days of the equivalent of rat fast food (high fat, high sugar, highly delicious). In other words, a compressed version of most dieters' swings between self-control and indulgence.
The first thing they observed is that it didn't take long for the rats to develop a clear preference for the unhealthier diet. When put back on a standard diet, they showed signs of anxiety and reduced pleasure from (or even refusal to eat) the standard chow. When the preferred food was available again, their anxiety calmed down, but they overate.
After 7 weeks, the researchers took a look at what this diet had done to the rat's brains. They found increased gene expression for corticotrophin releasing factor (CRF) in the rats' amygdalas–that is, the brain was resetting itself for higher levels of stress. This is the same pattern of brain changes observed during withdrawal from alcohol or other addictive substances. Other research has demonstrated that this neural stress response triggers cravings and relapse among the substance-dependent.”

No wonder I am the way I am with my dieting. So I then read another article about emotional eating. Here is a little clip from it as well.

“What triggers a binge? Some people are able to describe some external triggering event—-but rarely the feeling.
How do you fix this? In some ways it’s like having to teach someone who is completely deaf how to appreciate music. You can point to the notes on the page, but ultimately something is missing in their experience.
In my view in emotional eaters, alexithymia is more of a state-dependent issue and less of an inflexible personality trait. That is, something about the situation yields having no words for how they’re feeling just then--in the moment. In other words, this is treatable.
The elusive feeling could be anything from a sense of being about to explode, to a sleight from a trusted friend, to a stress which persists like a dull ache but resides just under the surface of awareness, or, like one of my patients who gave up an Oxycontin addiction in exchange for one involving Whoopie Pies.
This last example, begs for a discussion about the addictive nature of refined sugar—and where the chemical reward pathways in the brain could play a role--but in this individual, psychologically, some important mechanisms for coping and self-soothing seemed grossly absent.
Interestingly, the regret often for the emotional eating begins during mid-bite. Luscious clouds of white cream are barely licked by the time the emotional eater is already, in the back of his mind, getting down on himself for doing something he knows is not good for him.
It is in this very spot—at this critical time--that a window for treatment opens up: where there is a small crack, so the crowbar of good psychotherapy—even self-directed behavior modification—can force an opening into the bright light of a whole grain high fiber or otherwise healthy solution.
The French study suggested that obese women who have difficulty identifying and communicating their feelings also have a tendency to eat in response to emotions.
Think about it. Isn’t it just easier to do something automatically than to sit still with an uncomfortable feeling? Or easier to act rather than talk about feelings?
It may be that by acting or doing you avoid necessary self-analysis, the work of figuring out what is motivating you, how truly poorly you feel at a given moment. Often the issue concerns a particular problem unrelated to food. The issues unrelated to food might be your ticket to improving an automatic and intractable seeming dilemma in driving your emotional eating.”

These two articles really spoke to me. It’s as if they put words out to describe how I have been feeling for the past year. I have gotten myself to a state where I am willing to look beyond the calorie counting and deeper in to what the real issues are. I never thought of myself as an emotional eater, but after reading the entire article I realized that I am one… mostly under the category of what the French say “je ne se quoi,” which is an expression for not feeling or not knowing what you are feeling. I often enter this place of emotion or lack of during certain times of the day, but only when I am in surroundings that play in to feeling that emotion. For example: around 10 am and again around 2 then continuously through till 4 or so, and again around 8 till bed time. The 10,2, and 4 only happen when I am working as a nanny at the boys’ homes. There are always readily available snacks and during nap times what better to do than eat out all the fits and frustrating experiences that the boys create? Kids will be kids, I just need to get to a better state of dealing with the stress of it all, and you would think that during their nap time I would be able to just relax and simmer down, but no… all I can think about is the oatmeal cream pie cookies that are in the cupboard or the frosted animal crackers, or the chocolate milk in the fridge. Looking back on the emotions I have felt during 2-4 in the afternoons I can say that some days I eat because the stress and anxiety are evident, yet I must admit that most of the time I really can’t place a specific emotion to why I wanna eat all that junk. I’m not hungry, that’s for sure. 

This is where the second article I mentioned really helped. It gave me a direction to introspection. To really think about what non-food issues could be in the way. I have never thought about my lack of control with food being linked to other issues I may be in denial about and need to work on. I have had weight loss goals since high school. Perhaps I need to change my perspective and work on what these 2 articles suggest: being ok and loving me and my body for who and what I am, and focusing more on the positive actions I take rather than focusing on the negatives. (enjoying my exercise vs beating myself up for eating something I shouldn’t have). 

I have learned a lot about myself from reading these articles and I plan to do more self-introspection and I hope to get a handle on the real reasons for my emotional eating and yo-yo dieting. I hope you as my readers will also get something out of all this. Good luck! And feel free to comment below your experiences.