It was not that long ago I would have eaten my favorite (terrible for me) food to  help me deal with whatever emotional stress I was dealing with at the time…

I struggled with the idea that I was an emotional eater…

I didn’t want to accept the fact that I used food as a crutch to get me through hard times…

Food was my friend!  It brought me comfort, it tasted good, and it eased whatever pain I was going through.  It was my favorite coping mechanism.  But not long after eating, I felt GUILT.  It was awful!  It took me so long to truly realize and understand all these elements and put together a better way.

I have done a lot of work on myself in the last year.  I’ve read a lot of books, spent a lot of time learning about food and how REAL food helps my body.  I’ve succeeded and failed (a lot)  Now I know how to listen to my body better and avoid certain foods because they make my body feel awful or sluggish.  I even discovered that cabbage gives me migraines!  (who knew?)

One of the biggest things I’ve discovered?  I like to run!  ok, I know…not many people like to run, but I’ve found joy in it.  It is an amazing feeling to set a goal with my running and accomplish it!  It’s an awesome rush to cross a finish line and beat your previous time!  I never dreamed that one day I would enjoy running, but here I am!

We had a crazy, busy, stressful week where I spent most of it as a single parent because my husband had a lot of meetings in the evenings.  It happens sometimes, and we were doing pretty good handling it.  He asked me if there was something I wanted to do on Saturday on my own since I probably needed a little time away.  My very first response was, I want to run!  I want to go run and not worry about how long I’m gone.  I wanted to hit the trail and just GO.  This shocked me when I thought about it later…when did I change into someone who WANTED to run?!?

Well, I went!  I decided to run 5 miles.  It was a little longer than I normally run, but I have an 8k race coming up on Memorial Day, and I needed to get a practice run in.  It was hard!  My knees hurt, my back hurt, my toes even started to hurt…but I just kept telling myself, you can do this!  You can achieve this!  Don’t give up!  And I didn’t.  I hit 5 miles and it was AMAZING!  I was so glad I didn’t give up, and so thankful that I didn’t quit when it got hard.

This is my change of pace.  This is the new me.  No longer do I need food to help me get through the hard times in my life because I have figured out healthier ways to handle the blows life brings my way. No longer do I need to be an emotional eater!

How do you handle your stress?  What helps you when going through a lot of emotions?  Do you eat, run, meditate, draw a bath and turn on soft music?  How do you deal with life’s hard times?  I’d love to hear your ideas.

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