FYI- this post hasn’t been edited because I’m feeling inspired right now and because this is a raw subject so I’m letting myself be raw and vulnerable. Okay I’m a day late posting and don’t have time to get it edited- but the vulnerable thing sounded good right?

Today is the day I stop ‘trying to lose weight’ and do it. Six years ago I began my battle with my body, trying different things to lose weight. I would say out loud that I wanted to be healthy and feel better. I have a daughter whose self esteem I’m trying to preserve. But it always came down to numbers on the scale and tag of clothes.

Anyway as I’m sure it is for most of you the battle never ends. It’s a yo-yo ride of horror, where you eat well, exercise, say your positive affirmations and lose some weight. Then something happens. You fight with your spouse, stress because of an asshole at work, you get on the scale which hasn’t changed much and you try to console yourself that you have lost inches and gone down a dress size and muscle weighs more then fat, but that number on the fucking scale burns through everything good leaving a gaping wound which can only be filled by fried chocolaty things.

*crickers chirping* okay maybe that last one is just me.

Point being something happens, maybe it’s a good thing like a party. And you eat. You eat yummy greasy things that make you feel heavy, then numb. And the world is a tough place and dealing with emotions when you have so much to get done can be challenging, and numb feels really good right now. So you order some Chinese food and turn on re-runs of Big Bang Theory and become happily numb.

And, of course, you gain all the weight right back.

So for the past six years this has been me. I’d like to think I am smarter then this, that I would have learned some trick, or sucked it the fuck up and just pushed past it, but I didn’t and I actually weight more now then when I started.

So I am calling out a battle cry against the yo-yo of evil. I am going to break through my bad eating habits, and work on the emotional aspect while doing it- see I can learn.

Why now? You might ask, well really it’s a depressing story and involves crying in Target after trying on jeans on my birthday- lets just not go there.

My master plan I shall share with you. I am doing a cleanse for 30days. I have done it before and have my Personal Trainer and a nutritionist (okay my hubby with tons of life experience) helping me out. I will have a protein shake after working out, and the rest of the time eat raw fruit. My goal is to cleanse my body of all the crap I’ve been eating and break my addictions to carbs, salt, fat, sugar, and gooeyness.

I also want to break my cycle of eating until I’m numb and ignoring my emotions. So to do this I will be following the advice I read in an article on Oprah’s site which talked about emotional eating, you can read it here

Bob Greene talks about making a pie chart with eight segments and putting down the eight things that are most important to you. Then you color in the sections you feel are good in your life. The ones you don’t fill in are places you are trying to eat to fill up. Interesting. So, I will also being doing this, and trying to work on the emotional reasons I eat.

Here are my eight-

1-My kids

2- My hubby

3- Work

4- Writing

5- Friends

6- Spirituality/ self reflection/ personal growth

7- Fun

8- Financial Security

I will continue to write in my gratitude journal, and I’m going to focus on adding more joy into my life. Also I’m going to work on accepting that I am an emotionally sensitive person. I cry at commercials. I am dramatic and use my hands a lot when I speak. And this is okay. I’m not broken. I don’t have to change, or suck it up, or fix anything. Yes, there are times and places for things, but I’m an adult and I can wait to freak out, I don’t need to numb myself so I don’t feel it at all. And no matter how intense my emotions I’m strong enough to handle them. They won’t break me.

So, have you managed to defeat the evil yo-yo?

What would your eight things be?

How do you handle your emotions when it isn’t safe to express them right then?