Emotional Eating

I never used to think I was an emotional eater. To me emotional eating conjured up images of being surrounded by multitudes of Canberra Show type foods. Fairy floss, meat pies, dagwood dogs (what the heck kinda name is dagwood anyway), popcorn, deep fried mars bars, and numerous other foods dripping with that "you're at the show" fatty goodness! I then pictured myself sitting squarely in the centre of these foods, tissue box on hand, sappy 'chick flick' on the box, tears streaming down my face and food falling out my gob as I reach for my next fat laden, artery clogging item. No, based on my own image, I was not an emotional eater (or so I thought).

Over the last few weeks I've been finding myself at home quite a bit. I am not involved in a mothers group, am not cut out for 'motherly' activities such as walks to the park, autumn leaf crayon drawings (you know, the ones where you colour over the underside of a leaf blah blah), am not akin to play centres and sadly do not have the money to spend on visits to the zoo and the like (who am I kidding, it would be coffee dates and shopping sprees anyway). So, being at home with my two darling boys, Jim and Bob, I have found myself feeling rather bored at times. And you know what I do when I am bored, yep I eat!

It's staggering how many times I walk past my pantries (we are blessed (or cursed) with two separate pantries) open the doors and survey the options. Even though we very rarely have unsavoury foods in our house I still find myself opening the cupboards willing that chocolate to magically appear. In moments of weakness I confess, I have even looked at a roll of ready made marzipan icing and wondered if that would suffice for a sugar craving.

I have made some fairly interesting concoctions in times of weakness. Mashed potato for morning tea (naturally, that comes with lashings of milk and butter), melted cheese salada's, (I agree, it sounds foul), greek yogurt smothered in milo, and of course you can't go wrong with anything lathered in peanut butter or nutella (unless of course it comes with a side dish of anaphylactic shock in which case I'd say you probably can)!

Yep, when it comes to emotional eating. I am guilty. However, I think it's probably more appropriate to say that when it comes to ANYTIME eating, I am guilty. I feel bored, I eat, I walk past the cupboard, I eat, I'm contemplating housework, I eat. Angry, sad, mad or glad, yep you guessed it - I eat!

I guess I should note that I do not succumb to moments of weakness every day. I am actually generally quite controlled and know that I have to be in order to keep said control. I also know that the secret to a good 'scoff my face' session is that I have to work extra hard on my next run, or lift a few extra weights. In this regard it evens out at times. It's also for this reason that I am NOT on a diet. I try as often as possible to eat sensible foods, have reasonable servings, regular snacks, and low fat/low sugar foods. None the less, if I want chocolate or yogurt milo, I'll eat it - BUT, most of the time I'll regret it when I think of the extra 2 kilometres I'll have to jog to prevent it landing directly on my love handles (another stupid name - nothing loving about floppy chunks of fat which hang over ones hip bone and inevitably lead to a muffin top). No, the marzipan roll certainly ain't worth that!

So, next time you go to raid your pantry in a moment of boredom, hunger, weakness....ask yourself, is this really worth it, and will I work it off?