Triggers

Today I want to write briefly about triggers, before my scheduled mid-week check in tomorrow.

I have two types of triggers: emotional triggers and food triggers.

Food is pretty easy to identify and avoid.  I eat a certain type of food and I want more. Chocolate is one. Pizza, another. Weirdly, oats is another one! No matter how big a bowl of oats I have in the morning I want more and since I've gotten rid of all junk food in my house, oats is often my go-to food.

Emotional triggers are a lot harder to deal with. You can't avoid emotions. Unlike junk food you can't banish it from your house. If you're stressed, you're stressed - there is no low-fat version of being upset.

This morning I woke up feeling depressed. My mother was getting the results of a tumour she had removed and I had dreamt the night before that I had cancer.

I was feeling grumpy and sleepily tried to put in a contact lens. I dropped it in the rubbish never to be found. It was my last one and my glasses are almost broken. I'm broke and can't afford a new pair.

I'm dealing with a particularly difficult client at work, our server is down so I can't access email or anything useful.

Volunteers at my work are playing up and not following rules.

I feel fat and I can't believe just 6 months ago I was the healthiest I had ever been.

I wanted to eat. I wanted to stuff down every emotion as I cried standing in a hot shower. I wanted another bowl of oats, some chocolate, some toast, a yogurt - whatever I had in the fridge.

Instead I went to the gym. I felt a lot better but I was still quite stressed when I got back home. Then I wrote a list of all the things I needed to acheive throughout the day to alleviate stress. I felt better.

I was having a good day until my colleagues suggested cup cakes to fix our crappy days. Then I had another serve of food at dinner. Then another cup cake and two glasses of wine at dinner.

I guess what I'm illustrating here is how easy it is, despite genuine attempts, to fall of the wagon. How strong those triggers can be and how you can't, no matter how great you are, change things over night.

I have been really working on my emotional eating triggers for about 6 months now. It is by far the most difficult thing I have had to do. Going to the gym every day, running my first 5k, joining Weight Watchers, learning about healthy food - this all pales when compared to the emotional battle I've been waging. I've seen it written in countless other blogs before; this habit is hard to break.  Emotional eating patterns have formed over 25 years, it's not a habit that can be broken over night.

So today has been good and bad. I made some not-so-great choices but I also didn't binge, and did stave off binging at a couple of points, including right now as I write this post.

I'm a little tipsy and tired, two emotional triggers for me. Once I've written this I will clean my teeth, set my alarm and fall into bed and wont think of food until morning.  Tomorrow, when I'm more awake I'll read Shrink Yourself again, I'll go through all of the exercises and I'll remind myself to go to my WW meeting before the long weekend.

Blogging is just one of the ways I stave of emotional triggers. This is effort but it's worth it. I'm not hungry.