The Sound of M&Ms

[Widdlecuddles]

The Sound of M&Ms
By Widdlecuddles

This morning my co-worker, who sits in the cubicle next to me, seemed to be having a bad day. I heard her phone ring many times and each time it was another problem that had to be dealt with (or at least talked through). (only a cubicle wall separates us so it’s hard not to hear what is being discussed)

After one phone call when she hung up the phone I heard her get up from her desk and walk away. A few minutes later she came back, and I heard something hit her desk. It was a familiar sound. So I talked over the wall and asked her if she was a little stressed. She laughed a little and asked how I could tell. I said “I heard the bag of M&Ms hit your desk”

She laughed at my statement about the fact that I knew what M&Ms hitting the desk sounded like. She told me a lot that was going on and then we both continued on our day.

I started thinking about the M&Ms and why I recognized that sound. That was easy… because I had heard it so many times before. I am a stress eater, a happy eater, a boredom eater, a sad eater, you name the emotion and it is an excuse for me to eat. At work it’s usually a stress eater thing and my choice from the vending machine was usually a bag of M&Ms. Plain M&Ms and peanut M&Ms have a slightly different sound when they are tossed on the desk. But I know the sound of both.

Thankfully, thanks to the Biggest Loser Summer Online Challenge I was participating in, I haven’t heard that sound for a while on my desk. I’ve realized that I need to recognize the reasons I eat and not eat in reaction to something else. I needed to learn to eat to live and not live to eat. I needed to learn what triggered me to want to eat (for me it was very seldom hunger).

When I was stressed, or sad, or angry or bored I would try to use food to take care of those things instead of dealing with them in a constructive way. Food did not take care of those things ‘cause unfortunately when I was done eating those M&Ms, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, macaroni and cheese (all my so-called comfort foods) etc the issue that I was having before is still there and now I feel miserable cause I ate things in a manner I shouldn’t have.

I know that emotional eating is probably always going to be a struggle for me. Even though I am becoming aware of some of the emotional eating I do. I realized sometimes, because I have done this so long, I automatically fall into the old habits. Over the weekend I was stressed over something and my “knee jerk” response was to go to the pantry closet and look for something to eat. Fortunately for me, we have rid our house of any comfort type foods. So I would have to choose something “healthy”. Although I think that when you eat when you are not really hungry even that food is not as healthy cause I would probably eat too much of it or I am eating it when I’m not really hungry.

Even though healthy food is a better choice than unhealthy food…. The “better” choice would have been no food at all.

So when you want to eat, make note of why you are eating… are you actually hungry or are you stressed, angry, bored etc?
I think it is important for us all in this weight loss journey to learn to eat to live and not live to eat. That’s what I am going to try live by, how about you?

[Missy]

I just wanted to comment on this article. I think it was really good. I always hear people telling you to write down why you are eating...I know I've told others to do it!! haha, I have never actually sat down and done this myself though, although I know that it would probably benefit me a great deal. Thanks for posting up this article