[Halelani]

For me it's hard to address the call of the food when I'm in pain (physically and or emotionally) and when I'm stressed...I just want to reach for a soothing mouthful of food. But I find what works for me is something that distracts me, and keeps my mind and hands busy...cleaning out a closet and putting aside things for charity...cleaning the bathroom (hey i just did that)! Brushing my teeth, chewing sugarless gum. For me I have had to train my body and my mind into understanding when I'm hungry and when I'm just looking for a food fix. I found that the first few days are the hardest and then it slowly becomes easier, both mind and body start becoming syncronized. Pain meds for me skew my mind and the signals are harder to identify. My son was on anti-inflammatories and steroids for a while and boy did he put on the weight!!! And he was hungry all the time! But he got better after he was off the steroids and the pain meds...I got somewhat better after I came off the drugs too. For me, writing down in a journal helps. Every bit of food, emotion, and exercise goes into it and any thoughts I may have at the moment. Counting calories is the easy part, keeping the food intake within those planned calories (say 1500) is the hard part, but for me, writing it down helps. Because of the journal, I have found what times of the days are more difficult for me, what stresses me etc. I can then somewhat control my eating pattern since I kind of have a heads-up on what triggers my desire to eat. Exercise helps since it pumps those happy-making endorphins into my blood stream, and with a good set of headphones and some upbeat music, well my mood suddenly becomes better...whether it's scrubbing the bathroom again, or taking that walk I've been procrastinating about. It's a mind and body approach, take one moment at a time...beginning now and write down what you just ate, when and if you can, why you ate what you just did. Don't try to analyze it, just do it...and you may see an enlightening pattern develop and you may surprise yourself...if I can support you in anyway, I will do my best, I'm not a nutritionist and I'm not a psychologist, but I know what it's like to loose 60 pds since I did it about 10 years ago.