I have a difficult time drinking all my water per day and emotional eating. I started attending OA meetings and its helping, but would love some advise on how to quit emotionally eating.
Welcome, Dusty. Everyone has a problem drinking the recommended amount of water. There are some things you can try that helped me a lot.
- Start with the quality of your water. Urban water is full of impurities and additives that make it taste bad--heavy metals, chlorine, chemicals, fluoride, unfiltered pollutants, rusty pipes--so consider drinking only purified or spring bottled water.
- Measure out a gallon of water before you go to bed and put it in the fridge. In the morning, begin your day with a glass of water, or however much you can drink in one sitting.
- If drinking is laborious, consider drinking it by the spoonful. Just get your glass of water, have a seat, turn on the tv or radio or bring it to your desk and literally sip it as if you were eating it.
- Breaking a stall is easier than increasing your water consumption. Keep a food journal and first, write down what you PLAN to eat each day and put a little checkbox in front of each item (include water servings) AFTER you eat it.
- Increase and decrease servings every time you eat. Your metabolism will adjust to alternating serving sizes and ultimately, will start working better than if you just try to keep to an arbitrary serving size. It's amazing.
- Practice affirmations. It's stunning how well they work, even if you don't believe them, or your "fat brain" tries to argue with the message. I got a lot out of this book (click on the image):
You don't even have to buy it. It's available online as a *.pdf. It's REALLY good, though I had to choke it down because my self-esteem was so low, I didn't even feel like I deserved to live.
You don't need validation from your loved ones. If you give them permission to praise you, you also give them permission to criticize you. Take them out of the equation. Focus on self-love.
You are a beautiful, vital human being, whether you believe you were created by God or by a glorious universal process. You may have gotten critical messages all your life, but those didn't come from your soul. They come from all kinds of stupid, negative sources that have no business talking about you and know nothing about your inner beauty.
This list comes from my life. I did all these things, and no one can make me feel bad anymore. I lost 115 pounds 20 years ago and have kept most of it off. I'm about to turn 75 and it's normal to get a little "matronly" as your body's systems work less efficiently. But I still feel fabulous, look great and so proud of myself for changing my life.
