Longstanding food issues

One thing that was very apparent to me while I was back with D for those 2 weeks of trying to reconcile was my desperate need to eat for emotional reasons! I have felt that urge before but never as strongly or as clearly.


After the first few days when I was crying nearly all the time and couldn't eat (and lost 2-3 lbs) I became ravenous. I would find myself standing in the kitchen thinking about what I could eat. It felt as though I had a physical pain or hole in my chest and only food could subdue it. I have heard emotional eating described in these terms but never experienced it as starkly myself. I bought biscuits and cakes and ate round after round of toast; we went out for posh meals and ate out several times and, inevitably, I gained 5 or 6lbs in 2 weeks!


Then, when I decided that nothing would be served by staying and trying to reconcile, I stopped eating. Well no, I didn't stop eating as such. I just stopped that sort of eating. I went back to what I had started to do over the last few months - "normal" eating!! It felt so easy. I eat when I'm hungry and pretty much what I feel like and I stop when I'm not hungry. My weight has since gently decreased so I'm now back down to 13 stone 7 and falling...


This must tell me something - perhaps that a lot of my past food issues have been to do with the fact that I've been in the wrong relationship. I didn't feel accepted so I ate for comfort even though I didn't recognise that that's what I was doing. As soon as I felt loved and accepted for who I am, I lost that fear of food and the corresponding need for it.


That's not to say that I can relax totally on the food front. This last weekend has shown me that. Rich and I had a really good weekend but a very busy one. And, as I'm currenty staying with friends so don't have a stocked kitchen to fall back on, we did a lot of grabbing food on the run and eating out. So - fish and chips after golf on Friday; a restaurant curry on Saturday and a full English breakfast on Sunday as well as a few beers, wines and some cider!!! Perhaps not the virtuous weekend of moderation one might hope for?


But no harm has been done. I played golf on Friday, went for an hour and a quarter's hilly run on Saturday followed by an afternoon painting a shop and a walk on Sunday. And this morning I'm straight back to my normal healthy eating - muesli, sushi, fruit etc.


And the joy of playing golf with your boyfriend (and his brother), sharing a couple of early evening drinks in the club then picking up fish and chips and having a quiet night in!! I know this is what nearly everyone I know does (well, not the golf obviously) but for me it was just heaven. Not worrying about eating fish and chips in front of him, not bargaining with myself about having to work them off, not feeling judged. Yeah, heaven.


It also helped the next morning as, instead of feeling that I HAD to go for the run and resenting it, I was actively looking forward to going out running and ended up going much further and higher than I'd planned because I was enjoying the run for its own sake not as a means to an end. Hopefully this means that I'll gradually lose another stone or so over the next few months but, if I don't, I know I'm happy (and fit and healthy) as I am and Rich is happy too.


In other news, we're really looking forward to our first dancing lesson this evening - ballroom and latin at Darren and Lilya off Strictly's dance studio in Sheffield - can't quite believe it to be honest. There may be photos one day but not until we're halfway decent!!