Conquering emotional eating

Geldof (my band) is teaching me a lot about my past use of food to deal with my emotions - primarily stress.

I have found this book very helpful in understanding how I use food and what to do about it.

Having spent £5.5K on my band, and worked so hard to get my weight down, I am determined to not fall into a tub of Ben & Jerrys or to stuff myself full of chocolate in an attempt to feel momentarily better about how much work I have to do (and how little time) and to feel less sad and empty about my mum's prognosis.

Let's face it eating 'comfort food' full of carbohydrate, calories, fat and sugar won't change anything - I'll still have a full inbox, my accounts will still need completing, invoices will not have written and sent themselves, numerous reports will still need writing and my mum will still be dying. The only thing that will have changed is I will feel guilty for having eaten junk and physically I will, ultimately, gain weight and revert to feeling bloated, headachy, sluggish and uncomfortable.

I consider myself a very self aware individual (I'm a qualified psychotherapist) and as such I have been amazed how much of my emotional connection to food has been out of my awareness until now.

I have had to find new, healthier, ways of acknowledging and then dealing with my stress and grief. My new 'best friend' in this regard is my vibration plate (see here). When I get an urge to eat junk I instead jump on my wobble board and exercise the desire away. It works!

I spend 10 minutes on my vibration plate, working out with weights, and the urge to eat diminishes :D. Additionally, in the three weeks that I have been using the vibro-plate, I have seen incredible results in terms of inches lost and increased body tone. I have also stopped feeling an urge to eat when I am feeling sad or stressed - I now get an urge to exercise!! I cannot quite believe that I (yes I) am saying that.

I will get some photos of me using the vibro plate up here over the weekend (I might even post video if I can work out how)..........