End Emotional Eating

When I started reading “End Emotional Eating” by Jennifer Taitz, and I quickly realized I needed to share it. Published in 2012, this new book has a message that resonates with me as a person who lifts the fork when overtaken by stress of everyday life.

My obesity problems started in my preadolescence, around the the time my parents separated. Since then, I have yo-yoed up and down 100 pounds three times; once in my teens, once in my early twenties and again in my thirties. After weight loss surgery in 2006, I reached my goal only to get pregnant in 2009. In the months following my son’s birth, I found myself 80 pounds in the black. While I celebrated giving my son life, I couldn’t help but mourn the loss of all my hard work. I packed on over 100 pounds in 9 months. Who does that? An emotional eater.

Like most over eaters (who are not in denial), I know my problem is not food. Over the years, food has become my escape and my scapegoat.  While I am obsessed with it and find refuge in it, my true thorn is my inability to survive intense emotions.

My Vision

I have created this blog as a safe place for people looking for a better relationship with food. We will identify good books, read them together and find comfort in each others insights.  Since most of us are in different cities (with different work schedules and family obligations), we will meet online.  I plan to meet every 2 to 3 weeks to discuss a few chapters.  If this sounds exciting, this book club might be for you.

September 20th at 7:00 pm

If you are interested in joining our book club, buy Jennifer Taitz’s book, join Skype and send us an email entitled, “Sign Me Up!” to eaterreader916@gmail.com.  All participants are completely anonymous. If your email address or Skype account conveys personal information about you, feel free to create an anonymous account–I did.

Cookie Swap

SIFTing Through Emotions

Taitz provides us with the following exercise on page 32 of End Emotional Eating:

First, notice what emotions you are having .  Note the intensity of your emotion on a scale from 1 (barely there) to 10 (extreme).  Now SIFT your emotions:

S: What is the situation (the event or person that triggered an emotional reaction)?

I: Do you notice interpretations or thoughts that relate to your experience?

F: What feelings and sensations do you notice in your body?

T: What tendencies show up?  Are you pulled to pursue particular actions?

Ah, There is Loneliness…

“Ah, there is loneliness, and there is that familiar pull to eat.” -End Emotional Eating, Jennifer Taitz, p19

Taitz starts her book by discussing the purpose of emotions. She compels us to answer the question, “what are our emotions trying to tell us?” Reading about loneliness, seemed to open my eyes to my experience. I am suffering from loneliness, even while surrounded by people most of the day.

When I was single, I was lonely and as a married woman with a child, I am still lonely. So, is there a cure for loneliness? I’m not sure. Mostly I look for my cure at the bottom of a bag of chips or a box of doughnuts….

Anyway, here’s what other people are saying:

The Cure for Loneliness
Is God Trying to Be Your Best Friend?
Can You Cure It?
Comfort Food and Its Magic
Comfort & Casseroles
Loneliness is Underrated (another wordpress.com blog)

Distorted and Irrational Thinking

The following worksheet was given to me as a tool to help me identify thoughts that lead to anxiety, depression and overeating.  I hope you can benefit from this resource.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE THINKING THAT IS DISTORTED AND IRRATIONAL

Very Extreme: Seeing things in black and white, and blowing things out of proportion

Very Broad: Generalizing from a specific; labeling people rather than their behaviors

Very Catastrophic: Exaggerating how “awful” something is when these thoughts are better reserved for life and death situations or events of serious injury

Very Negative: Seeing the glass as half empty not half full and dwelling heavily on the negative

Very Skewed: Skewing your perceptions to fit your idiosyncratic “proofs”

Very Unscientific: Ignoring the facts: preferring to go on “gut” and feeling in a non-constructive way

Very Idealistic: Denying and having unrealistic expectations that cloud a sense of reality

Very Demanding: Wanting things your way and having expectations that also include being demanding of yourself

Very Judgmental: Condemning others for their shortcomings and being unable to forgive

Very Obsessed: Getting on a track of thinking and being unable to budge or view things differently; perseverating about something that is out of your control

Very Confused: Having pictures in your head that to not match the “real world”; feeling that you don’t get what you think you are “supposed to” get; having a hard time seeing things without delusion, denial, and negativity

Very Intolerant: Having a need to have things the way they “should be”; finding it difficult to have patience and tolerance for differences that don’t fit your needs and expectations

Very Perfectionistic: Having a need to be “right” and not make mistakes, as that would mean one is inferior or is a failure; having permeating low self-esteem

“Shoulding” on Self and Others: Placing expectations of how one “should” be, thereby limiting one’s ability to accept self and others without judgement, leading to negativity and tendency to criticize

Labeling and Interpreting: Blowing mistakes out of proportion, leading to labeling self or others as a “failure” or a “bum”

Judith A. Belmont, M.S. (2006) | Page 65 | 86 T.I.P.S. for the Therapeutic Toolbox | www.worksiteinsights.com
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