I noticed this week that I’ve been emotionally eating again. Not the kind where I eat a whole bag of chips, but the kind where I eat and read. The kind where I want to eat the whole bag of chips. I felt scared and looked at my scale daily when I know I’m only suppose to look at that thing once a week, at most. I started asking myself what was going on with me? Why did I want to eat without thinking. What happened to the thoughts of after three bites, I’m only chasing the dream of the first bite? I was eating too quick. It was like all my training was out the window.

Not that all the days were bad. I was driving the other day and decided to be present in my body. I felt myself breath. I felt the warmth of the sun on the steering wheel. I felt the wind blow over the hairs on my arm. I start to get this joy bubbling up in me at being alive. I felt like I could fly. I rolled down my windows even more and turned on whatever music was in the cd player. It just happened to be Toby Mac, so I cranked it. I jammed all the way home and felt amazing! Another day that week, I was in the midst of doing the last few weeks of my school work until summer. Finals are always stressful for me, especially the research projects. I looked up and saw the ocean. I saw the waves crashing and everything just seemed to slow down. It felt like what I’ve read about, where everything slows down while you are dying or think you are dying. It was fantastic and beautiful. A thought popped into my mind, “This is what it means to live and see as though today is your last.” It’s not morbid, it’s beautiful.

But I’ve been feeling the emotional eating wanting to rear it’s ugly head and I think to myself, haven’t you learned anything? What if I never change? I wondered why I wanted to eat without tasting, why I wanted to eat and read, eat and watch TV?

I started listening to my body and realized I was feeling tingling in my lower abdomen. I had felt that before. I thought back to when I felt that before and it was always during stress. I realized, when stressed, I felt it in my lower abdomen, well that’s good information to have. I thought about what I was stressed for and the final research project came to mind. I didn’t want to do it and I was procrastinating. I realized the procrastination was making the stress even worse. The anticipation of doing the project was always worse then actually doing it.

So this was the cause of my desire to eat more than what my body was telling me I needed. I could solve this by just starting the project. I did that and there was a small amount of the stress released. I felt a little less like eating everything in the kitchen. I then decided to isolate the place where I felt the tingling and work that muscle to release any cortisone buildup. (stress hormone) I found an exercise that released that feeling. It felt wonderful.

My week is almost up. I haven’t lost any weight. I know because I weighed myself. The thought came to me, this week was not good. I had to catch myself. This is not about weight. I did so many new, good, learning things this week, which will not be negated by weight. This is about living intentionally, living in the present and if I think back on this week, I lived more than I did the week before. I learned things about myself. I experienced joy just by being present.

This week was a good week.

Music for today: Switchfoot – Afterlife