UNHOOK THE CHAINS

Today is day 81 of the 100 Days Challenge. Linda Spangle writes, "It always starts with just one little thing. Maybe your child is sick or your washing machine quits working. When you walk into the kitchen, you're attacked by leftover brownies so you eat several of them. Later on, you feel exhausted from your day as well as frustrated because you overate. So to get it all out of your system, you finish off the evening by eating a large bowl of ice cream.

While these things may seem like a series of random events, they became connected until they wore down your resistance to food. In a behavior chain, one thing leads to another, increasing your frustration until you throw your hands up in the air and reach for the cookies or the M&M's.

Struggles with emotional eating rarely happen in isolation. If your finances are already stretched, the broken washing machine simply adds another layer to your anxiety. And on days when you're operating by a thread, seeing an open pizza box can be too much for your fragile willpower.

Ask, "And what else?"
To examine the links in a behavior chain, start by identifying the exact time you first ate or knew you desperately wanted to eat. Working backward from there, ask yourself, "What happened? What bothered me or made me upset?"

Then consider all of the situations or people that may have prompted your stressful feelings or other emotions. As you identify items along the way, keep asking "And what else?" to jog your memory about other issues that affected you.

Study the links.
After you identify all the links in an eating-related chain of events, look carefully at each one. Determine exactly which places you slipped up and consider what you could have done to prevent them. For example, did you get way too hungry?....Maybe you skipped your regular lunchtime walk that always helps you manage your stress.

Rather than focus on how much you ate, think about other ways you could have handled the problems in your day. By stopping the sequence at the third event instead of waiting until the tenth one, you may be able to prevent yourself from heading for the cupboard."

I've pretty much written this article word for word because it was so thought provoking that I couldn't paraphrase it properly. No one said the journey of overcoming emotional eating was going to be an easy one. If I am to reach my goal, to health and wholeness it is a journey I must take. I'm glad I have you on the journey with me. I suppose you noticed no change in weight on my side bar. I didn't get home in time to weigh in. I did weigh Tuesday morning and it appeared I was up two lbs but I weighed this morning and it was gone. I weighed again when I got home this afternoon but I wasn't up so I think I'm o.k. from my trip. Traveling is terrible for eating well. We were told the hotels would have hot breakfast. Well, gravy & biscuits and make your own waffle is not my idea of a hot breakfast. However, I did manage to make good choices whenever I had a choice. When I didn't have a choice, I just ate less.

So tell me, do you have any advice on staying on a healthy eating plan while away from home short of carrying your food with you?