Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is something I've done for my entire life. I think many people who suffer from obesity have had their turn with emotional eating.

When I was bored? I'd find something tasty to eat - like a pair of Swiss cake rolls (or 2).

Stressed? Mad? Sad? I always turned to food.

Happy? That was an occasion for food too.

There. was. always. food.

I don't remember much from my Biggest Loser application, but I remember one specific question that said "Food is..." and let you fill in the blank. I wrote "Food is everything. When I am sad, I turn to food. Mad - there's food for that too. Even happiness is celebrated by food."

I've done pretty good over the last 15 months to control my emotional urges towards food. My only rule for overcoming this was eat when I am hungry, do something else if I'm not.

Tonight, after a stressful week at work, I wanted nothing but a trough of fried Chinese food and to sink into my couch and not talk to a soul for the whole weekend.

Check on the first part of that. (I'm working on the whole not talking to anyone thing.)

I've had a great week food wise. Despite eating that 450 calorie cookie Tuesday, my food choices overall have been good. Exercise has been great and the scale is moving.

I knew I was choosing General Tso's chicken for the wrong reasons. Sure, I wanted it because it tastes good, but what's more - the thought of eating it was comforting. Chinese food was a staple in my "past life" and the thought of a Friday night in front of the TV with Crab Rangoon sounded like the best solution as I was driving home almost in tears from the frustration of dealing with stupidity.

(Side note: If I ever win the lottery, the first thing I'm getting is a chauffeur. Seriously.)

But I digress, I don't know where I'm going with this...confession? Maybe. But I feel better talking about it. I know making this one bad choice tonight isn't going to make me gain 6 lbs overnight and somehow eating what was probably about 1,500+ calories is not really making me feel guilty.

I feel more guilty knowing I was making the wrong decision, realizing that I was turning to emotional eating and continuing to make the wrong choice.

My year in retrospective

This time a year ago, I was waiting. Waiting for what exactly? Well, I was one of the hundreds of thousands of morbidly obese Americans vying to be selected to be a contestant on a weight loss reality show.

In October of 2009, I auditioned for a new ABC weight loss show. I was around 320 at this time. They wanted people that were 200+ pounds overweight and I tried to act the part. I received a callback, but in the end I just wasn't big enough. Ha! That's something I had never heard before.

So, I spent the first two months in 2010 waiting to audition again. This time for Biggest Loser. I had auditioned once before for the show, two years prior in 2008. I was actually told during the October audition process, "if I don't get you on this show, I WILL get you on Biggest Loser." Those words gave me a lot of false hope. So, during these two months I did nothing to change my unhealthy lifestyle or try to lose weight. I did everything not to change the way I looked. I even waited to cut my hair and donate it to Beautiful Lengths. Between October and March, I actually gained weight. At this point I was hovering around 330-335.

The months following the audition was a roller coaster of highs and lows. The process completely broke me down and it was hard for me to not think about what might be going on behind the scenes in the casting process. This is an excerpt from one of the private journal entries I wrote during the casting process:

Whew, what an emotionally drawn out week this has been. I spent Sunday and Monday ANTICIPATING the call back, Tuesday morning was actually alright, I think I should have been more nervous than I was. I didn't really prepare. I was just excited I got calledback. Then spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday analyzing my interview and yesterday and today fretting over this damn hometape they want me to do BY TUESDAY!

So again, I did nothing for 2 months. I ate what I wanted and didn't exercise. In the back of my mind, I thought I'd be at the Ranch in just a few weeks, so why start losing weight now. Looking back, of course, this was a horrible way of thinking. On April 22, I received the news that the NBC executives passed on me as a potential contestant. This is the feedback I got from my casting director:

To be honest I feel like they thought you were just too all American normal. Everything I love about you.

When I read the message saying I was not selected, I cried. I was actually on my way to an event and I had to pull myself together pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean I didn't grieve for many days, because I did. Apparently I grieved for the whole month of May because on June 6 I started this blog and made a pledge to change my life and to never audition for a weight loss show again. It took me some time to get a grasp on eating healthy and exercising regularly again, but fortunately I was able to lose 30 pounds between June and November and maintain my weight in December. I can't say 2010 has been a horrible year, but I don't know that it was the best year either. There have been a lot of good times for sure, and equally a lot of disappointments.

2011 will bring at least 50 more pounds lost and my 2nd half-marathon in February. I will make 2011 a great year. And it won't be an accident when it is.

I like to eat food

I'm not sure just how to start my first post here in blogland, but here goes nothing...

So what do you do when you don't get something that you've wanted more than you've ever wanted anything else in life? Start a blog, of course!

I went through the Biggest Loser season 10 casting process with my head held high and my hopes held higher. Needless to say, that didn't work out so well...so here I am determined to get healthy and lose a few lbs.

I start with a new scale set up in my bathroom and Biggest Loser's 6 Weeks to a Healthier You sitting beside me. I checked the book out from the library out of curiosity, I'm not using it as my bible or anything, but I can tell you what I am going to do:

- Commit to exercising 3-4 times a week for 30-45 minutes

- Tone down my binge eating fits and learn a new way to interact with food, it's just not right to eat a whole loaf of banana bread in a day

- Start with a calorie intake of about 1900. This is just to START. I will decrease my calorie intake with every weight loss milestone I come to.

How did I get this number? Well, I didn't pull it out of thin air. I took a weight management class a few years back and found I was eating on average about 2400 calories/day. Beginning by cutting 250-500 calories from my daily intake allowed me to lose 40 lbs (I've gained about 15 back).

So here's where I start. Now, where do I want to go?

First, I don't have an overall weight loss number I am holding myself to. My main goal is to get to a healthy and active lifestyle where I feel comfortable in my own body. I will set small weight loss goals for me to work towards, but whether wrong or right, I won't set an overall one and let myself feel like I haven't made a difference in my life if I don't get to it. But here are two goals I'm starting with:

- Lose 30 pounds by the end of 2010

- Run my first 5K by the end of 2010

We can't start without a weigh in, right?

Shopping for scales. Can you believe this one (not the one I'm holding) only weighs to 300lbs?
That's ridiculous for a BL branded product.

I had to go out and buy a scale (I've never owned one) because my roommate's didn't have the capacity to weigh me. Talk about frustrating/embarrassing! I settled for this Taylor Memory Scale, which reads to 400lbs.

So without further ado, my starting weight is: 329.4 lbs!
(it just seems better with an exclamation point)

If you haven't been keeping track, this means with my 30 pound goal, I will be under 300! Something that hasn't happened since I was around 15!