Special Offer for My 100th Post!!!!!

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I can hardly believe that this is my 100th blog post so I am celebrating by offering:

FREE one-on-one Binge-Eating Counseling consultations to the first 8 people who subscribe to my blog by entering their email address (look to the right ->).  

As most of you know, I am an Emotional Eating Coach specializing in Binge-Eating and am passionate about guiding those who want a healthier relationship with food and themselves.  Take a look at my website to learn more at www.lifestrides.com.

Please accept my heartfelt thanks for reading and please encourage others to email subscribe if you like what you see.  Thanks also for joining me on this journey to help those struggling with Binge-Eating…it’s been a fun and wild ride!

Enjoy, live and love, Michelle

Unwanted Self

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There are many emotions that we don’t want to feel but not wanting to feel them is like not wanting our true selves to emerge.  If we are our feelings and we avoid them, then we avoid ourselves.  Additionally, the things we do to avoid the emotions is a form of self-hate since many of them are destructive.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a healthy way to avoid our emotions without avoiding or hurting ourselves.

Ain’t No Cure…

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Summer’s coming which means warm weather which means more revealing clothing.  As you can imagine, this causes me a lot of anxiety and negative body image thoughts.  I just wish that I could put on a t-shirt without having to worry about my wobbly bits and pieces showing.  It’s painful to shop for clothes when what you envision yourself buying doesn’t look good.  How very depressing.  I try to end posts on a positive note but I just don’t have it in me today – I guess I have an early case of the Summertime Blues.

Enjoy, live and love, Michelle

Treatment – Con’t.

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It seems that I only complain about my treatment center but I truly am grateful for their intervention in helping me better identify, understand and deal with my eating disorder.  They were a lifeline for me in that they validated my behavior and showed me that conventional diet and exercise doesn’t work for those with Binge-Eating Disorder.  Before treatment, I felt like such a failure always thinking “why couldn’t I get this eating and weight under control for the long term?”  They showed me a way out of the self-torture, I just needed to figure out how I was going to get to the exit.

Moody Blues

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Since I’ve been feeling emotions and not numbing them out, I’ve noticed that I tend to be moody meaning I can be happy one minute and angry the next.  How interesting that I condemned myself for being moody when it is a completely normal state of being for a human.  I asked, “how long will I feel this way?” and “how can I regulate my moods?”  The answer is that my emotions will swing throughout the day but how I react to them makes all the difference. After all, I don’t want to run away from them (we know that doesn’t work…hello, binge-eating disorder!) because my emotions are me.  Face them, manage them with love and move on is the strategy!

Exhausted

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It just dawned on me how much more relaxed I feel in my own skin now as compared to before treatment.  Before I lived in a constant state of anxiety resulting from insecurity with my weight/body and acting like things with me were OK.  It was exhausting but, interestingly enough, I didn’t realize why I was so exhausted, I just knew that I was tired…so tired.

Now, I have moods and feel exhausted but I’m SO incredibly thankful that my exhaustion is derived from other factors.  It’s realizations like this that make the difficulty of treatment worth it because I know this process has brought me peace.  🙂

Heaven or Hell

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“The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

~John Milton

I love this quote because it perfectly describes the power of the mind and reminds us to use it with great care.  We can think ourselves in and out of positive and negative perspectives despite the reality of any situation.  Of course, we have emotions which cannot be ignored but healthfully managing them can be the difference between joy and pain, acceptance and suffering.  This is a staggering revelation and it’s unbelievable to imagine that we have this magnitude of power over ourselves.  Happiness and joy are within our grasps but only if we’re brave enough to think ourselves to make and stay in Heaven.

Enjoy, Live and Love, Michelle

Freedom Reigns

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I often say, “Denial is a great place to live until you realize you’re living there.”  Denial was the only thing keeping me functioning during the worst of my Binge-Eating Disorder.  It allowed me to bury my head in the sand and not address the underlying issues of the disorder so it helped a little but damaged a lot.  It wasn’t until I started treatment that I realized how far in denial I was.  In fact, I’m still uncovering aspects of my life and personality about which I was/am in denial.  It’s freedom when you realize what you were denying because you can address and release it.  After all, most of us are in denial because we don’t want to face the unpleasantness of the truth but this just traps us in the negativity of a lie.

Release from denial…you’ll be glad you did because there is nothing like the feeling of freedom for the soul.

My Daily Bread

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I love this particular spelt bread that can only be bought at Whole Foods.  The problem is that I live in an area where the closest Whole Foods is 40 miles away so I have been stockpiling this bread for a year (it freezes beautifully) so have not been without it.

Imagine my horror when I ran out this week – YIKES!  I typically have it for breakfast everyday and the lack of it has thrown me off so much that I have no idea what to eat now.  Is this healthy?  Is this part of my eating disorder?  Am I too attached to this food?  Or maybe I’m just crazy and quirky?

In any event, my horror will be over on Saturday because a whole case of the stuff is waiting for me at Whole Foods!  My world will be right again on Sunday… 🙂

Binge Boyfriend

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I realize now that I had a profound relationship with my bingeing and it became my boyfriend, in a way.  I planned for it, prepared for it, was excited to do it, needed its comfort and relished the privacy in which I did it.  I guess it’s like any unhealthy relationship, it’s wonderful while it lasts but, when it’s over, leaves you feeling empty, alone and miserable.