Women eat for comfort

I have to go to see the weight loss surgery doctor in less than a week and I need to find out where his office is. His main office is in Providence but he has a couple of other offices (probably for scaredy-cat people like me who hate driving to the city). It seems like I am just coasting along food wise. My excuse is I have no kitchen and everything is in boxes and my life seems all unorganised, even more so than usual.

Maybe I am waiting for the dietitian to tell me what to eat and the portions. They like to have you lose some weight to prove you can make the effort once your surgery is done to carry on doing so. It's not like I have no knowledge of calories and portions, every overweight person knows these things back and forward. We have been well educated at places like Weight Watchers and once indoctrinated we never forget.

But because I know a glass of skim milk is 90 calories, a medium orange or apple is 70 calories (or 1/2 cup canned) that doesn't mean I can cope the right way when faced with the choice of a muffin (450 cal. VS apple 70 cal).

I think women have a great deal more problems with food than men do. Just think we buy it, cook it and serve it, most of it for other people who can eat what they please. Most of us are worn out serving other people and have been so used to putting ourselves last that there is nothing much left to us (that is cheap) than junk food. We eat for comfort. We have to comfort ourselves. We comfort others, most of the time with very little thanks, and we feel that a Twinkie will solve all our problems.

At least for the time it takes to eat it. And you know, we don't even allow ourselves to even enjoy what we are eating. We feel guilty for eating what we shouldn't have (we are not stupid, we know all we are doing is wrecking our own health with everything we put in our mouths) So we feel bad once the Twinkie is gone, then reach for another because we are depressed that we ate the first one.

And round and round it goes. We are in stretch pants, T-shirts and old sneakers, and our under wear isn't exactly Victoria's Secret. We are waiting for someone to throw us a life line, save us from ourselves.

This is the story of my life when I am down. When I feel better I try harder and try to look outside myself, and pull the old bootstraps up again