(19) It's Okay To "Feel"

One of the reasons I started this blog was to help my cousin, Myranda. A few days ago I inquired on how she's been doing with 0-5 eating. She's struggling and told me, "It's harder now, when I get sad, I get distracted from goals a little easier-and I sort of 'took a break', I am mustering up the tenacity to get back on".

This is my reply to her, and to anyone when you've hit a slump or feel like you've lost control of your life and your eating.
Sometimes it is hard. We can't go through our lives without ever having off days. That is part of life. Even people who have no issues at all with their weight have bad days, weeks, months, even years. We're all going to feel bad and depressed sometimes. We're all human with human feelings and emotions.
One giant difference between a regular diet and 0-5 eating is that with a diet you're given a specific path to follow. All you have to do is stay on the path exactly...eat this, don't eat that, do this, don't do that... All of the emotions and feelings that cause you to overeat in the first place are not dealt with, they are ignored and pushed aside for the duration of the diet. Unfortunately after the diet is over those buried feelings and emotions will still be there waiting to be felt. If you can't deal with them you will revert back to food to cope with them.
With 0-5 eating you actually have to face your feelings and emotions and sometimes it is SO overwhelming. How do you cope with an open wound that wont heal? How do you face the emotions that you've been hiding from for so long?
This is hard for me also. Even just last night I felt panicky and anxious due to unresolved family issues. At first I didn't think at all about my real issues. All I could think of was to run to the kitchen and eat everything in sight. I wanted to stuff myself full of food until I felt sick, until nothing else would fit and the food would just ooze out of me, until my issues would be buried so deep I wouldn't be able to feel them even if I tried.
Luckily I recognized what was happening after eating only a little bit too much. I knew that even though I didn't want to deal with my issues, I had to. I had to face my problems and let myself feel anxious and panicked.
Instead of eating I ran to the bathroom and brushed, flossed, and mouth washed. All night the urge to binge was still there. I wanted to go eat but I didn't. I concentrated on the movie I was watching, I got onto Facebook and talked with friends. I pulled out my cross stitch (I didn't actually work on it but it was there just in case I needed it). I kept telling myself over and over "Don't eat! I'm not really hungry. I don't have to hide from my emotions. Just feel them and let them be what they are. I'm okay".
I made it through the night without binging. It's a step of progress for me but I know I'll have more overwhelming feelings and issues again soon. That's life. It's okay to feel uncomfortable. It's okay to feel period.
If you just can't handle it and you have to binge, then do it. Let yourself have a conscious binge. Get the best binge food you can think of and eat...pay attention to the binge and try to eat slowly. After a few minutes see if you can stop. After you're able to stop, don't beat yourself up about it. Yes, you just binged. You truly felt there was no other option. It happened now let it go and move on to the next moment of your life. Keep on trying to eat 0-5. Again and again until it becomes natural to you. Eventually you will be able to recognize when a binge is about to happen. You'll be able to feel your emotions, as uncomfortable as they are, without binging (even if the urge to binge is still there).