Let me tell you (and by ‘you’ I mean the 2 of you who are still reading this): I am STRUGGLING.
In general, I eat well. I cleaned up most of my bad eating habits a few years ago when I decided to make a change with myself and my life. I removed high calorie junk foods, reduced portion sizes, started cooking more, ate more vegetables and whole grains, seriously cut back on snacking, cut out the vast majority of processed foods – and nearly all processed foods containing additives & preservatives (like the dreaded high fructose corn syrup).
I’m still doing great with most of those things.It’s the snacking that’s getting me.
I can’t seem to stop! They’re all healthy snacks, there are just way too many of them. Between the hours of about 3 & 7, I eat.
And eat.
And eat.
And eat.
Each time I eat, I choose a healthy snack, and a reasonable amount of it. But that doesn’t satisfy me. So I pick something else to eat. Still healthy, still a reasonable amount, but another one. And that doesn’t satisfy me, either. So the pattern continues.
Let me give you a specific example: Yesterday, on my way home from a meeting at about 3pm, I ate a granola bar that I happened to still have in my purse from when I was out of town last week. After I got home, I worked until about 5, when I ate a banana, with the teeniest smear of peanut butter and a sprinkling of granola. Fifteen minutes later, I ate the last of some home fries leftover from Sunday’s breakfast. An hour after that, I ate a grapefruit. Not long after that, I had ANOTHER granola bar (different flavor!). Then I went to Kung Fu, so I had a break from food for about 2 hours, at which time I had dinner.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!
Now, granted, yesterday was worse than usual, but this is not a new thing. I know I wasn’t actually hungry for each of those snacks. So what was I doing? Why was I shoving food in my mouth even though I didn’t actually want it?
I was bored. And I like eating. And that’s all that mattered at that point in time.
I thought I had a better handle on the mental aspect of food and had control of my eating habits. I guess I still have some work to do!
I’m certainly not back at the beginning. At least all of my snacks are healthy now!
It’s so very frustrating though. As I scoured the kitchen for my next snack, I thought about how I wasn’t hungry. That I was just bored. And that this is the exact reason that I’ve been bouncing up and down with my weight, losing and gaining the same 5 pounds for months and months on end.
But did that keep me from eating what I wanted to eat? Not even a little.
Think I need therapy?

