Tea, water, water, water, tea, tea, tea!

I've been drinking a lot of tea before bed! It really seems to help with sweet cravings and help me relax  before bed. Plus it counts as part of your daily water total! Although I try to drink 12 8oz glasses of water, then count whatever else I drank.

Drinking water flushes out your system and all the salt and other bad things you may have eaten. It also helps  It also keeps you regular if you know what I mean...

So I've been doing pretty well this week! My Mom went ahead and weighed herself. Our scale is off by about 3-4lbs but so far it says she lost 4lbs! That's pretty good! I haven't weighed myself, and don't plan to until Wednesday at our Weight Watchers meeting. Mostly because if I see that I haven't lost any weight, or have only lost a tiny bit I'll be discouraged and then want to binge eat.

Let's talk about binge eating. So far this week I haven't done it at all! That's a huge accomplishment for me! Usually I'll do it anywhere between 2-4 times a week. After I binge eat I feel disgusting, guilty, fat, depressed, hopeless. So why do I do it? Why do I want to eat to the point that I feel so full and gross! And eat foods that are doing nothing for your body too. I don't really know. I'd like to know. I try to think about it and how I feel when I do it, how I feel afterwards. Neither are good. I think it's just a way to emotionally soothe yourself (at least for me) when I don't know how to handle how I'm feeling, or can't express those feelings either to myself or to who I'm having issues with.

So how do you stop binge eating? Well that's another hard one, because if I had it figured out I wouldn't be doing it anymore, right? Also I think once you've been a binge eater it's really hard to break the habit, no matter how good you've been doing. It's constant fear that you could do it again at any time. I did it when I was thin, I do it when I'm fat. Just now that I'm older and overweight it contributes to the problem and only exacerbates it.

Yikes, this is getting pretty heavy! So let's talk about the things I do to stop it! First, eat a piece or fruit or some veggies and drink and entire 8oz glass of water. Wait at least 25 mins. Assess the situation. Am I still hungry? How bad is it? 1 being hardly hungry at all, and a 10 being so starving you can't even stand. OK it's about a 6. Your stomach takes about 20-25 minutes to register that you've eaten something if you're obese so it's best to wait at least this long before eating something else. So now it's been 25 mins and you're still hungry. Let's first drink another 8oz glass of water. If you're still hungry after that maybe it's time to think about eating some protein. Do you have low fat sandwich meat? Can you bake a chicken breast? These are better options than eating a entire can of Pringles or sitting down with a entire box of cookies. This is the strategy I've been using lately to determine if I'm hungry and if I need to eat anything, and if so what.

Also think about what you're putting into your body. Veggies and fruit provide vitamins and fiber your body can adsorb easier than if you're taking a supplement to try and make up for not getting enough vitamins and minerals. If I think "hey does this do anything for me?" I'm less likely to eat some Oreo's!

Well that's about all for tonight! I'm feeling pretty good right about now! I still have some points left for today so I think I'll eat a few Wheat Thins, and some baby carrots!