I Have No Power

Do you feel like you are powerless over your eating habits?

You mean I coulda been getting this for free?

I've decided I'm leaving my current gym to join the Student Rec Center at WVU. Why? Because it's cheaper, and I can get a free personal trainer. What did she say? A free personal trainer? That's right. I wish I had known this a month ago. 

Unfortunately, I have a hiatal hernia that I must have repaired—soon. But that doesn't mean I can't get my ass started. And stop paying for the other membership that I'm really not using anyway.

I want to be healthy as I enter my twilight years—I think I'm older than I am. But right now I feel older than I am.  

A sidebar, and I know you'll be really interested in my health symptoms, my hernia causes me to retain large amounts of gas that identifies itself when I take a swig of diet Coke and follow it with something the magnitude of what might come out of a frat boy at a keg party. Nice, huh?

OK. That's the bad side of the hernia. What it has done for me, though, is made me think about every piece of food I put in my mouth. If I eat too much at a time, I'm in pain for hours afterward. So I'm eating very small portions. What I have come to realize is that I ate when I wasn't even thinking about it. I would look at some food and think, "this will be good," and then eat it—maybe later I don't even remember that I did it. Now, I stop before I put it in my mouth and think about the pain I'll be in if I give into the temptation. And I'm not even sure that temptation is the right word. 

So that brings me back to using food to comfort myself. What does it do for me? Especially since it makes me feel so guilty after I do it. Why am I always on self destruct? 

So that's what I'll be thinking about this week. 

What triggers your binge?

Hello all, Over the next several weeks I intend to take on the topic of emotional eating, and I invite you comment about what triggers emotional overeating for you. Emotional overeating is not merely connected to a love of food. Typically we eat out of emotion because it's the only thing that comforts us. But then once we've eaten the entire half gallon of ice cream, we feel guilty.

So together let's discover why we overeat--and it's more than your mother ice cream to satisfy you to make you stop crying--although that can play into it. Why do you continue the behavior that causes you so much pain? Let's face it, if we were alcoholics, we'd all be in rehab--or worse.

It's OK to try to control the behavior without understanding why, for a while. But then you break down and binge again. And the cycle continues.

I know I've said this before, but I'm determined to figure out why. And I will.

It Must be an Ulcer—Or Maybe it Could be Something Else

OK. So I haven't been here for a while. Well, I have a good excuse. At least I think it's a good excuse. I've been having numerous medical tests to determine why I am in pain. My gall bladder has been ruled out. So now we're checking for ulcers. 

I have been turned upside down, spun, probed, and pricked—and not necessarily in that order. I've been asked to lay face up. I've been asked to lay face down—sort of like my honeymoon.  The other day a nurse was putting an IV in my hand, and she said, "OK, how's that?" I said, "About as good as having a needle stuck in your hand could be, I guess." I know she wasn't trying to hurt me, but I still have a bruise on the back of my hand. 

This morning I had to drink barium all while being photographed—internally. I did get to see my guts though. And that was pretty cool. I got to watch what it looks like when I'm swallowing. I saw my stomach and small intestine. And my stomach is a lot smaller than I thought it would be—surprisingly. I couldn't tell if I have ulcers or not. I'll leave that to the radiologists. 

I'm getting to know the staff at Mon General's radiology department pretty well. Maybe we'll vacation together this year—not. 

I am looking forward to feeling better. I'm really sick of all of this. I want to get back to the gym. I just want to be well. 

Sorry I Haven't Been Around

Sorry I haven't been around. I'm still sick I think I'm having gall bladder issues. But, if that is the case, it certainly answers a lot of questions and I finally know why I've been sick for about six months.