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New year, new me and new YOU, too!  Make this the year that you conquer your emotional eating.

Part 1: http://hashimotofriend.com/2017/01/03/emotional-eating-lets-really-look-at-that/

Part 2: So you thought about it, and you know how you got here.   I know for me that it had a lot to do with just a pattern in life that got ingrained.   Hungry?  Eat!   Something good happened,  eat for reward.  Something bad happened?  Eat to feel better.   Lousy day at work? Eat!  Happy? Sad? Angry? Confused? Confrontation? Depressed?  Comfort comes in  food.

If that’s your story, as it was mine, you have to break the patterns.  But in order to break it, you have to know when it’s screaming at you. Know your enemy.

Read moreEmotional Eating… know your monster…

A lot of people write to me.  Besides my disease, and working with Dr. Jack, I would say that the next most frequent topic of interest in my journey to better health, is emotional eating.  If that monster is part of your life, I can totally relate.  I am an emotional eater,  notice I didn’t say I was an emotional eater, I am one.  It’s one of those things that you just don’t lose.  It is a constant companion and I know I have gotten better with it, pretty much mastered, but it’s always with me. It tempts me, it tries to win, and so far, I am winning.  I do believe I am in control, but there is no way of knowing what comes down the road and I don’t want to set myself up for the self recrimination that comes from falling off the little tiny pedestel of perfection.

I feel sorry for people who write to me about emotional eating because I see myself in their journey, and I wish I could help.  Look, I am not Dr. Jack, I am not a health professional, I know nothing about the ins and outs of helping people with this same problem.  I am just an expert at being me.  And I don’t know what will work for you, but I know what has helped me. And I am happy to share that with you.  It’s a tough road, I won’t lie to you,  and give some fairy tale version of my battle with this, but what I know is that you can master it, you have to believe that.  It doesn’t mean you won’t fall down, or that times you will be better at it than others but you can do it! I have faith in you!!

Read moreEmotional eating…..let’s really look at that….

Also should be titled… “Valuable Lesson Learned.”

New Year’s Eve, and everyone in my family was going to be working the next day.  My grown up kids were getting together for pizza and wings and just a little celebration.  Now for every one of these occasions, I typically bring my own food.  But I knew I was going to be working all day, and I just wanted to make it easier on myself.

Everyone was making an early night of it.  No fuss evening.  Get together, have a little food, share some company, head home.  And to be honest, I have been doing great since October 2015, and I mean really great!  But it’s NYE and I just wanted to try a little something.  Not go all out crazy, just a little something. I have held off for forever, mostly out of fear.  But today?! Well, I just wanted to be a little brave.

Read moreNew Year’s Eve and chicken wings…

I have decided to fire the negative people in my life.  Fired….gone….terminated…. shablam…poof….disappear.

I can’t say I remember too much about the whole conversation, but I absolutely do remember a phrase Dr. Jack used.   “And I sleep really well at night.”   We were talking about how people often say things to me, things that just bring me down, about what I am doing and how I respond to that.  Dr. Jack listened patiently as he always does and then offered some things I could respond with.  He is a lot more direct than I am, a quality I admire,  and so when he told me how he would respond, he used that phrase.

Read moreResolution #4 Lose the negative people….

Before I met Dr. Jack, I seriously had no idea how badly I was affected by food additives and preservatives.  How would I know?   I had no idea the role they played in my symptoms, no clue as to how they just kept making my disease worse and worse and worse.  I look back now and I know that there’s so much that I did, things I did to myself believing they were good, that just contributed to my situation.  I didn’t know, that s my only consolation.   I thought that I was doing all the right things.  What I have come to understand is that I am a toxic magnet.  The icky stuff seems to just be attracted to me like bees to honey, pardon the sugar reference, and my body’s tolerance of them is minimal.

Like I have said a million times, Dr. Jack is great at education.  He has taught me things I never knew before. And once you learn what he is teaching, and understand it, you can’t unlearn it.   If you didn’t know and did it, that was not your fault, but what I have been taught and  learned, and then choose to ignore? That is completely my fault!  It’s like I am inviting disease and everything that goes with it.

When I started his program, Dr. Jack stressed that there would be absolutely no preserved foods. I was okay with that, I grew up in a family that made homemade everything,   We weren’t raised on much that was found on the inside part of the grocery store. So when he said I would mainly have to prepare my own food, I was okay with it, except for the time factor.   Working two jobs is not for the faint of heart. Lol…

Read morePreservatives are evil…..

Okay, that should have been resolution number one, but I have been struggling with it for awhile.  That seriously needs to be number one.  Every few weeks that realization hits me, and even  more so at two specific times, Christmas and graduation time when I seriously am in so far over my head and running on no energy at all.  It happens every single year…..I am running at top speed trying desperately to make it all happen.  And then it gets to the wire and this unachievable goal I have set for myself cannot be met so then it’s time to cut corners. The guilt that comes with that is enormous.  And it isn’t like the world is doing it to me, the fact is that I am doing it to myself.

I spend the few days before the holiday running like a little gerbil on a wheel, exhausting myself and yet getting nowhere, and I spend the entire school break working my second job and trying to catch up at home. By the time I return from this supposed rest filled hiatus, I am still exhausted and the cycle begins again.   If anyone had stopped by my house the week  before Christmas I might have died of embarrassment at the sheer disaster I had going on. I should have been relaxing, enjoying the holiday.

Relaxation?   Have no idea how to define that word most of the time.

Read moreResolution #3 Learn to say, “No.”

I still get all kinds of ads for weight loss plans.  Just saw another one today.  Facebook still thinks I am diet junkie which I admit I was.  Yeah, I read them all.  Always have.  Bought everyone’s book, a collection of tapes, access to websites. Some I totally forgot about until they remind me that I haven’t visited in awhile.

I gave out my book collection to friends who wanted them. and sent along a few to Dr. Jack.   I thought he could read the ones on Thyroid diets  for his amusement because no one without a medical degree could even understand it.  But before we go on here, rest assured, I am a vested card carrying member of the Dr. Jack Saia plan, a lifelong plan.  There is nothing “diet” about Dr. Jack and if you call him a weight loss doctor, I can promise his face will change expression, and I will cringe because he does not appreciate that title too much.  That is because he is all about health!  And weight loss comes from good health, it’s a  natural side effect.  There will never ever be another “plan” for me.  I have access to  the lifelong good health plan that HE follows himself.

Read moreFacebook diet ads..

“Chris? What did you have for Christmas dinner?”

Me: “We ate at my sister’s home.  She made stuffed shells, and I contributed some meatballs.  There was salad, rolls….cookies, pie….those kinds of things.  But for myself, I had grilled chicken, vegetables and salad, and coffee,  I had coffee.”

“Didn’t you feel deprived?”

hmmmm….I sat and thought on that… did I feel deprived?    deprived? No…….not deprived.  Come to think about it, I am not sure I even noticed. Wow…. what a long way down this road we have walked, when you realize that you didn’t even notice.

It has taken a long time,this crazy dysfunctional, obsessive, compulsive, insane, love hate, relationship I had with food. It really has and it also  is exceptionally difficult to describe.   What I do know it has been, is  a tough road back to a healthy relationship.  Not unlike healing from most unhealthy relationships, it has had its share of anger, tears, frustrations and hurt.   And absolutely there are times when I still feel this hair of deprivation, mostly at times when I might want a comfort food, or when I am angry or hurt and the I want to eat bad things to make the pain stop.

But the best news is, that this holiday? I can’t even say I noticed all that much.  I actually enjoyed the meals  I prepared myself.  And it has gotten easier to just look the other way from things I know will just make my symptoms return.   Dr. Jack and I have worked way too hard for that.

Read moreDo I feel deprived? Hmmmm….. No.

I know you must be wondering about that.  I eat a pretty clean diet.  That’s only one part of it.  Lik all things there is room for necessary improvement in my diet.  I have said right from the beginning, that I wanted to learn from Dr. Jack and I have.  I have tried to be a good student, and pick up as much knowledge as I can.  He has been an enthusiastic teacher, sharing, and answering the millions of questions I have asked.

The single most important thing among the thousands I learned is that when your cells are inflamed, your symptoms kick into gear.  They get inflamed from what goes in your body and what your breathe in, or pick up on your skin.  And that I have an extremely low tolerance level for such things.  Bet I have the lowest tolerance of anyone I know.  It’s no wonder I was so symptomatic.

When I was in my teens, I had terribly problematic skin.  I had no idea that it was the beginning of my thyroid issues. Looking back I realize that there were a lot of things going on that could be attributed to thyroid symptomology.  And the older I got the worse it became until I was living with nothing but symptoms and finally the diagnosis of hypothyroidism and then Hashimoto’s.

Read moreResolution #2. Clean up my life even further….

It started because like all teachers, I get cute Christmas gifts.   The kids in my classes know I love to color.   I colored long before it was this big adult hobby.  Friends used to laugh at me because where some people read in bed, I like to color.   And I still prefer crayons with big little kid coloring books, wide open spaces to shade.  I got three boxes of brand new crayons from students and some of those twisty crayons plus a few coloring books from students.  I looked at them and thought they look fun but time….. time is the enemy.

There are plenty of days where I just wonder how am I getting all of this done?  I have a lot of energy now, but it really is a juggling act and I have a lot of balls in the air. Way too many most days filled with an unachievable amount of balls in the air.  I expect far more of myself than anyone else.

Read moreResolution #1. Find a better balance.