The media, doctors and health experts all agree on 2 things that we are supposed to adhere too to be healthy and fit. Those two things are to eat less and exercise more. But it is extremely hard to eat less when you have uncontrollable cravings and food obsessions. Are we to forget and ignore what our bodies are trying to tell us when we can’t stop eating?

A few months ago my husband and I went out to eat at a restaurant in the city. I had a hard time finding food on the menu because they mainly served pastas, pizzas and sandwiches. There was only one Low Carb option and that was the Salmon Plate for a whopping $16-17. It was a salmon steak served with a small amount of veggies and a ridiculously small salad. But the salmon was a good size. It did fill the plate up and it did look like it would fill me up too.

The problem was that after leaving the restaurant I should have been quite full but instead I was still hungry. The salmon, even though it was big in size was baked with only lemon juice. There was hardly any noticeable fat on it. Fat (especially healthy saturated fat from healthy animals) helps quench those hunger pangs. It was a tasty meal, but it really lacked substance.

When I got home, I had to eat again. There is nothing more frustrating than being hungry after a meal you paid $17 for!

Now lets look at a different scenario…

If you check out my May 8th Low Carb and Anti-Candida menus blog, you will notice that at 4:30 pm I had a high fat snack, at 6:30 pm I had a homemade Caesar Salad with organic bacon. I made my own high fat salad dressing and then I added my bacon drippings on my salad. And that was all I ate for the rest of the evening and I felt like I ate a very satisfying dinner. If I had a low fat salad, I would need to eat a full meal with it!

Now my 2pm lunch on that day was rather low fat because my beef stew was made with Organic Grass fed Beef (grass fed beef is naturally low fat) and I did not add butter to it like I did with my dinner the night before. So I ended up needing a high fat snack in mid-afternoon.

So if you feel like you still have food cravings while on a low carb diet then add some more fat to your meals.

I get dismayed when the “health professionals” demonize fat and then talk about portion control. Are we supposed to ignore our bodily signals and live feeling deprived and hungry? And what about getting more exercise? Well exercise stimulates appetite! So with the “eat less, eat low fat and exercise more” philosophy you are setting yourself up for failure.

To watch your portions and eat smaller meals, add more fat to them. You will not be left hungry.

With love,

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I have created a new blog that logs all my daily food, drink and exercise. My goal is to update this blog daily with pictures of any new food that I try. Please note that I am not a food photographer and the photos will not depict the taste!

I will not be calculating my daily carb intake on this blog. It just takes to long.

This is not a recipe site, but I will link to any recipes that I find from different websites.

You will find that I do have occassional cheat days (about once a month). These days don’t seem to affect my weight but they do affect my Candida. These days are not planned but are a result of feeling crummy. The cheat meals normally happen in the evening as well. But the next day is back to normal low carb eating.

Here is my new Low Carb and Anti-Candida Menus Blog…

http://healthyfitmomlowcarbmenus.blogspot.com/

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I have a confession to make… When I was a teenager I was emotionally broken. To get through this part of my life I used to cut myself.

How can cutting help with emotional pain?

Creating physical pain was a distraction for the emotional pain. It is way easier to deal with the physical pain then the jumbled mess inside my head and in my heart. When I cut my arms I felt a euphoric high. I would sit and cry, with a sharp knife or scissors and let my emotional hurt guide the knife across my arms. I don’t do this anymore. It just stopped as I grew older. I did go to therapy but it was not the reason I stopped cutting.

This past week has been a very emotional one for me. My girlfriend lost her 5 year old daughter. There really are no words to describe the pain and grief that all who knew this child are feeling. How is one supposed to handle emotional trauma like this?

My Current Coping Mechanism: Comfort Food

So as to comfort myself I did allow myself to eat. And eat I did. I ate lots sweet stuff and I ate a lot of bread. I ate and I felt comforted.

It is not the healthiest way of dealing with distress, but I did notice a relationship between my cutting and emotional eating. I did them for the same reasons. I ate to distract from the emotional pain. I got a similar euphoric high when I ate some sweet high carbohydrate food. I sat, I ate and I cried.  Just like when I was cutting.

As a result of this emotional eating I gained five pounds in less than a week. It is nothing that going back to low carbing won’t get rid of, but I am amazed at what impact insulin has on weight gain.

One thing I have realized through all the grief is how much women need to support each other. I reconnected with friends that I may only see a few times a year and it felt good to just share… I remember in my early breastfeeding days how important La Leche League meetings were to me. In these meetings there were mothers with young babies just like me going through the same emotional, hormonal and physical issues.

There is power in just sharing your feelings. There is power in knowing that you are not alone on your journey.

Reach out, share, love, laugh and cry.

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I do it and I hate it! Emotional eating is a way I comfort myself. But at the end of the day the situation that caused me to eat junk food has not gone away and I am stuck with the physical discomfort and guilt.

How do I stop this? It is not an issue of self esteem, but rather of handling stress. I am lucky that I live far away from a grocery/convenience store and am not able to raid it at my leisure and when the mood strikes me.

Low Carb eating does help tremendously with the amount of junk food binging I have done in the last ten months, but life is life and stressful situations come up and at the end of the day when I am left alone I am still able to empty my cupboards.

What is the cause of this? I know in my head that what I am doing is emotional eating. I know that I will feel horrible and I do it anyways.

I am the only one in my family that eats Low Carb. I do all the groceries. But there are foods that my husband would not go without so I buy them. I don’t buy crackers for the kids anymore – they are my favourite junk food and I could eat a whole box in one sitting. There is a minimal amount of junk food in my house.

When I do have an emotional eating episode I try to eat foods with lots of fat. With pretzels I would dip them in butter, crackers I would dip in butter, I will eat white bread with lots of butter and cheese. (I think I see a pattern here… white flour and butter???) This in no way is great food combination if you are Somersizing but at least I don’t end up eating the whole night and I get full very quickly.

Emotional eating occurs in me when I have feelings like “I just don’t care, I am going to do it anyways” even though it hurts me. It is not related to boredom. I used to eat like that when I was a teenager and early twenties before I had kids. Now I just don’t have time to get bored.

I eat when I feel like crap! Eating junk food is immediate gratification for that. I savour every moment of it. This normally happens in the evening and I go to bed feeling yucky but I feel better in the morning.

Is there a cure for feeling crappy? I don’t think so. But there are things I can do to make the situation better. Unstoppable Fat Loss is great for some instant motivation and can get me put me on track when I have lost my way.

There is no easy way to stay strong. It has to be constantly refreshed in our minds. There are folks that meditate daily, do yoga, practice affirmations and visualizations. These are done on a regular basis to stay on track.

It has to be worked on and does not magically happen.

There are no easy answers for emotional eating.

To your health and wellness,

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