Question of the Week
May 1, 2010
Every Sunday, we'll be asking you a question about one aspect of your journey. We hope that when answering this question (by replying to the blog post) not only will it get you thinking, but your answers may provide inspiration for other challenge participants.
Today we'd like to ask....
Thinking back, has my weight gain been associated with stressful events of periods of emotional upheaval?
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Much like sunflower13 I eat
Much like sunflower13 I eat for every emotion! Happy, sad, stressed, depressed, whatever!! I gained my weight when I was going thru unhappy times in my relationship and then again when I became complacent in a new relationship. Since the beginning of this xweighted challenge I now choose heathier ways to deal with these emotion - occaisionally I do have junk treats but it has been only a bite or two of the junk - I haven't sat down and ate a bag of chips or 1/2 dozen cookies! I do feel good about that.
Definitely!
High school was stressful. I gained weight at the beginning, and lost all the weight as soon as I graduated and got out. I started gaining again once my relationship turned ugly, and now that I'm out of it, I'm losing again.
I always liked junk food,
I always liked junk food, especially anything chocolate. However, when my husband became sick and I cared for him for 6 months watching him waste away, the stress was high. When he died and my father died two months later and my mother moved in with me, my stress levels escalated. I was in mourning and feeling sorry for myself and filled the gap in my life with junk food. Finally, when my daily headaches stretched into a week and I found out my blood pressure was high, I knew I had to do something and so I started to watch what I ate and I started walking. Sometimes I slipped, but I am happy to say I am now smaller than I have been in thirty years and only have 11lbs left to lose.
Congratulations
Being 11 pounds away must make you feel good. It is strange when you are in better shape in later years than in earlier years but it is a good sign.
when you're happy and you know it stuff your face...
I get heavier when I get complacent. I have to learn that food and happiness are not equals.
Stress/emotions
Yes when I'm stressed i eat. I eat when i'm bored I eat when i'm depressed, i eat when i'm happy. I gained a majority of my weight when my mom stopped talking to me. She broke my trust in her. Everytime i think about it I want to eat. I am working past that as I am better than that and It is her that is missing out on my kids life and mine as well. I know it sounds harsh but I've tried too many times to rekindle the relationship and it always ends up with me gaining more and more weight. I'm starting the journey for good and nothing and nobody will stop me from reaching my goal weight and healthy lifestyle that begins today.
Relationships
Without relationships we have problems and with them we can also have problems. It seems important to nurture the good relationships and wean the others.
Yes, I would say that
Yes, I would say that stessfull emotional events played a big part in my weight gain, my marriage was having a wee bit of a hiccough, my sister was ill, then died, my mother died, and then I layed on the couch and watched TV and ate an awfull lot of not so healthy food items. I pretty much isolated myself, except for going to work. So now I am glad to say, I am pretty much off the couch, and my eating habits have improved greatly.
I have been able to get back to some physical activities, and that is just great. I would say that x-weighted has played a big part in getting me motivated to make changes in my life style.
The Couch
Life is challenging because there are times that we should be on the couch. A little rest is not always a bad thing and in some cases, it can be a good thing. The trick is to know when we need to rest and when we have to move.
well, yeah
My kids grew up and didn't need me any more and I gained weight. I changed jobs, and I gained weight. I had a spiritual crisis, and I gained weight.
It took years - and it was quite a bit of weight.
It's not really 'me.'
So now I'm losing the weight, and hopefullly learning better ways to cope.
Just a band-aid!
I think it is just like any other vice - I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and when I got stressed I would smoke even more and justify it that I was stressed out! Did it make the stress go away? NOPE!
Same with drinking - it was very easy to have a stressfull day at work or have some depressing moments alone and then use alcohol to deal with that.....but again, it's just another band-aid solution.
It is so easy to dive into food when things aren't going right, or I am feeling sad or depressed....but if we cope with those emotions every time by stuffing food in our mouths or drinks down our throats, we will never actually address the real problems and it will be forever a vicious circle.....so easy to hide behind stress and emotions as an excuse but until you are able to stop justifying that and move past it, success is very difficult to achieve.
Not the solution
A little treat does not actually make a difference and having more of it makes a person feel even worse. Food is not the solution.
Basically yes
Stress and exhaustion tend to go hand and hand with over-eating and bad food choices for me.
I tend to have a bunch of new icecream buckets when the scale has started to creep up.
Puttin on pudge
Looking back I can attribute my weight gain solely to ignorance. I didn't know how to not gain weight, I thought the only way to exercise was via lifting weights and was easily discouraged because I never thought of how my eating affected my physique.
In the last few years, since joining the military, my whole outlook on fitness and my own body have changed dramatically.
I find now that my periods of inactivity in the recent years have been due to my job. When I come home from deployments which are not physically taxing but are psychologically trying, I tend to think "..pish I'm not working out I just got home and I deserve time off and treats..."
Since I've been home for a while now I appreciate how counter productive that attitude is since I now have to work twice as hard to counter all of my treating myself.
It's obvious now that the only treat I can give myself is to carry on with a healthy active life to ensure that the future is that much easier.
Weight gain
It seems that I have noticed my weight gain at family weddings. I think that this is a coincidence and that when the happy events were being planned that I still did not focus on what was important.