I Now Know What An Emotional Eater Is!

Current Weight (as of Saturday, April 17, 2010): 172.2 Pounds

Total Weight Loss To-Date: 34.8 Pounds

Looks like my typical weekly weight loss is on a .4 pound kick. Again, not complaining but I really feel like it should've been more since I'm moving more and eating the same. Well, at least it's a loss.

On to this week's topic. Emotional eating. In all the years of trying to lose weight, I've heard all kinds of things about "emotional eating" and thought I wasn't one...

Until this past Friday! I've blogged before that Rob and I were having some financial issues and went to credit counselling to help us out. Everything is in place for them to proceed, however our payday loans places seemed to have not gotten the message. I dealt with them on Thursday and tried to explain that we were in credit counselling and that a proposal was being worked on. The guy I spoke with said "when things are signed, let us know the name of the agency and the contact person". I thought this was great and I could finally move on with my life...how wrong! I came home from work on Friday to find 6 messages from one of the places. It seems they have my number on auto-dial and it keeps dialing until someone picks up (ha!) - almost hourly! I thought, fine, I'll speak to the next person who calls and hopeful the calls will stop. Well, without fail, the phone rings, and I pick it up...I got "please stay on the line for an important call" - this repeated a couple of times and then the line clicked off. Okay, 10 minutes later, the phone rang again, and again I picked it up, and got the same message, except this time, a live person came on the line. At first quite cordial, and he knew that I had spoken with someone the day before. The purpose of HIS call was likely to dissuade me from going the route Rob and I were planning. Again, I repeated my intent, and he retorted..."well, you must be very heavily in debt Ma'am". I responded that that was not the case, I simply wanted to be free of payday loans and this was my only option. To which he annoyingly replied "credit counselling ONLY for people with heavy credit card debt - NOT PAYDAY LOANS!" and that he was speaking to me as someone who has "years" of experience in finance. Having been down this road before, I knew he didn't know what he was talking about. I stuck to my guns but I was getting increasingly testy. Additionally, he told me that if I went that route, it would be on my credit report for 7 YEARS. Again, I knew he was full of it - because I wasn't applying for bankruptcy!!!! Realizing that he wasn't going to convince me to settle up with him right then and there, he resigned and stated "well, as a citizen of Canada, I have done my duty to inform you of your options...good luck Ma'am", and with that he hung up on me. I should mention that when I was having the conversation, I was in the midst of preparing dinner (a healthy one - veggie and chicken meatball stirfry). Within minutes of the end of the call, Rob came home from work to find me in quite the foul mood. I explained what happened and he was extremely supportive and we agreed to speak to our credit counsellor on Monday about what had happened.

The next day, we went out (I went to my WW meeting) in the morning and didn't return until about 1:00 p.m., to find that the calls resumed in earnest and there were 3 messages. Throughout the day, another 3 came through, which we decided we were not going to respond to, but rather follow through with calling the credit counsellor. Rob saw that I was so upset that he suggested I make a tray of low-fat brownies. Normally, I'd be okay and decline his suggestion...this time, I went whole hog and made the brownies. When they were ready, I didn't hold back, but not before I ate 5 fajitas I made. Needless to say, while it felt good in the moment, it felt awful in hindsight. I only hope and pray that when I get on the scale this Saturday, I don't pay too heavy a price for my out-of-control emotions.

I'll let you know what happens next week.