My Eating Disorder

I’ve been either really soft or really harsh on myself when it came to dieting. I’m almost half a year now into this “getting fit” journey and it has been a crazy rollercoaster. But I have some serious eating problems that I need to handle smartly. I’m a picky, emotional binge eater who has a ridiculously strong sweet tooth and extremely unhealthy cravings.

I don’t exactly know how I ended up with this many bad eating habits, but it’s basically a result of everything I’ve eaten in the first 21 years of my life. I mostly blame this on our culture and its lack of proper nutrition. I’m a picky eater because I mainly live off carbs and very few protein meals. I’m an emotional eater because I embrace my emotions with food. Especially when I’m feeling a little down, I go for food even though I’m fully aware that food won’t fix my broken spirit. But it’s those few seconds when the flavor smoothly diffuses into my taste buds that are pleasurably enjoyable enough to temporarily make me feel a teeny tiny bit better; that’s why I go for food. Temporary happiness is definitely better than straightforward sadness. I mean, it’s not the right mindset but this is my way of viewing it. However, because emotional eating has been in my life for far too long now I think it has developed into something even worse; binge eating disorder. It’s when I eat in excessively large portions, one thing after another, completely ignoring all the signs my tummy sends me to drop the spoon and shut my mouth. It usually follows my emotional eating episode thinking that the more I eat, the longer that temporary happiness will stay. Now all of that has resulted in me constantly wanting sweet treats and fatty cravings.

Two months ago, I wasn’t aware of how bad my eating habits were. It wasn’t until I first started dieting that my bad habits have started to resurface, and they were even more intensified as they were punished instead of nurtured. That’s why I sometimes now go easy on myself, because I want to nurture my bad habits and gently tame them into good ones. Today is day 14 of #projectcomeback and I’ve already caved in a few times but that doesn’t mean I’ve failed. I’m still working out, going for healthy meals and determined to adapt a healthy lifestyle. Maybe allowing myself to have a treat every three days or so will get me slower to my goals, but at least I’m nurturing my body along the way instead of harshly taming it.

Maybe both nurturing and punishing yourself will help you achieve your goals, but people would be able to tell which way was healthier from the state of your whole after you’ve passed the finish line. So please remember to nurture instead of punish!