Emotional Eating

My mother told me a while back about Emotional Intelligence: the innate ability to manage one's emotions. When someone is in control of their own emotions, they can enhance social effectiveness.

Well Mama, does one of the branches on the EI tree include EE?

Ah...Emotional Eating.

You know how there are AA meetings for recovering alcoholics? There should be EE meetings for women (and men who are brave enough to trudge on a woman's terrain).

Controlling my food intake is easy when I'm alone and when I plan my own meals, but when I'm with others, like my family and friends, I tend to let go when I see others let go.

I think I'm also in more control of eating habits when I'm not so stressed. Lately, I've been panicking about preparing to start grad school this fall. It's not only thrown off my eating cycle, but also given me unpleasant and often unrelated dreams. Consequently, I wake up each morning feeling very tired while my stomach starts its day off craving carbs, sweets, and anything HEAVY.

Yesterday, for example, was practically the first day out of maybe 2 weeks since I've spent quality time with my family. We each did our own thing as we congealed at our dining table with a myriad of fruits and snacks on the table. I was enjoyed seeing my sister and mother happily snacking.
MISTAKE: I joined in.

* Note: I had been feeling a bit bloated for the past 2 days.

I wasn't hungry but I wanted to try a bit of everything. I gorged on sweet, juicy, and plump nectarines, blueberries, grapes, cherries...Oh the never ending list...And my never ending chewing...

By the end of my food rampage, I had managed to skip lunch and felt even more bloated.

The guilt also kicked in. I tried to combat my conscience by doing some (incomplete) yoga only to have my lovely sister almost barge into the room to tell me to eat dinner. I also started cleaning out our garage before heading out for a run. I also went for a walk with a friend.

Despite all this, you'd think I did enough to lose all that extra intake but the bloated feeling and side cramps didn't go away. The guilt was still there.

I woke up this morning feeling tired but hungry. I decided to go back to counting calories. When I logged in my breakfast this morning, I almost freaked out when the screen read almost 850 calories.

Yeah. I didn't lie right?

Emotional Eating. Sign me up.