12 Steps: Emotional Eating

I've heard that when a person has an addiction and enters rehab the first thing that he/she must do is first admit that there is a problem. So I guess that is how I will begin this post tonight. Hi, my name is Kimberly and I'm an emotional eater.

As I thought about this post I tried to remember when and how I became an emotional eater. I drew a blank. I do remember when I first realized that food made me feel better. That was in 2006. I had just left my husband, I was a single mom, I was in a stressful position at a new school, I was away from my family & friends, I was in a new town and well food just became everything to me. When I was happy, I ate. When I was sad, I ate. When I was angry, I ate. When I was lonely, I ate. Eating got me through difficult times. I didnt have to cry, I could eat and instantly feel better. And so this was the mentality that was established and therefore I became an emotional eater.

Things got better ..... I really have not gone on any binges lately. That is until tonight. Tonight I completed my five miles(woo hoo) and got the bright idea that I should look at my student's FCAT results. They say curiosity killed the cat and I can see why Mr Cat died because I often find myself placed in awful situations because my curiosity got the best of me. Tonight was no different. First of all I must say that I am a teacher who prides herself on having excellent test scores. I've been in this profession for 7 years(and my waist line shows it lol) and my results have never been less than 90%. This year my score is 76%. Before I knew it all types of emotions were coming and going. I was mad as hell, I wanted to cry, I was happy for those who did well, I was depressed, etc. What was funny is that although I was NOT hungry at all, the first thing that I wanted to do was eat. :/ I knew eating would make me feel better instantly....it would tame all of the emotions that were running through me.

In a perfect world and a perfect blog I'd type that I fought that urge and went about my business. However this is not a perfect world. I had baked chicken, brown rice and black beans, not bad right? Have you ever seen a crackhead fiending for crack? Is that ever a pretty sight? No not at all. I feel like emotional eating is no different .... its an addiction. Dont laugh but seriously there's an emotional eater's anonymous lol <---- sorry for laughing. I've made it to step 4 just by writing this blog post. Hopefully I can make it all the way to step 12 ;)