Eating my life away

Birthdays, funerals, weddings and breakups. Life happens, these events in life happen and for me they all involve food. When I'm bored, I eat, when I'm tired, I eat more. When I'm sad or happy or somewhere in between I feel the need to stuff my face.

This has been my hardest habit to break, especially the eating when I'm bored part. It makes me wonder what happened to me to make me eat like this?

Maybe part of the problem is that I'm a bottomless pit. I can eat and eat and eat and it can take an immense amount of food to make me feel full. This is why portion control works so well for me. I do have the rare days when I'm just not hungry and I feel full almost immediately, but that happens MAYBE twice a month.

I don't think I learned this behavior. We didn't have a lot of treats around the house. We had meals we sat down to and I always had plenty to eat there. I don't remember seeing my mother or father always munching away. We maybe had chips or something at night after dinner, but that's all I remember.

So then why, when anything happens in life, do I immediately begin to eat it away, to welcome it in with a big slice of cake or to pass time with family and friends only when food is on the table? Food fills a void it's true. It releases those feel-good chemicals that we all allegedly love, but why food? Why, when something traumatic happens or something joyful don't I celebrate by getting my energy up and my heart pumping from a run that benefits my body and my mind? Why don't I go on a walk with family or friends instead of sitting down to a lunch? Both take time, but walks are significantly cheaper and you can talk more 'cuz there's no food to work your way through.

My next step, my next goal that I aim to meet is just being more active in my daily life. To go on a walk with my friends instead of out to lunch. Maybe to walk to church or home from church with my family when I visit. To reach out and be more active in my daily life. Not just taking the stairs instead of the elevator, but reaching out and being more active when happy or sad things occur instead of reaching out for a calorie-filled snack. This is life people. I don't want to say I spent it all eating.