I’ll Take Easter Candy for $100, Alex!

Hi, my name is Joanna and I am an overeater! I eat my feelings, I eat my pain, hell, I even eat my happiness! My motto for so long was “Everything is better with a bean burrito”. I would wake up in the morning and wonder what I should have for breakfast, unch and dinner. Sometimes I would plan on eating all of them at the same time! It’s not easy to sort through extra psychological baggage to figure out why you overeat. I want to stop yo-yoing with my food and understand WHY I overeat. For instance…

There I was, minding my own business, walking through the local grocery store to pick up items for dinner (a good dinner too…not mashed potaoes with gravy and mac and cheese with a side of buttered bread) when I walked into aisle 3 and BAM (yes, just like Batman and Robin) there was the Easter candy right in front of me. I’m not talking one or two packs of jelly beans. I am talking about chocolate covered peeps, Easter snicker eggs, Hershey chocolate mini eggs, Reeses peanut butter bunnies and Hot Tamale peeps. YES HOT TAMALE PEEPS!

I spent the next two hours looking at every package, reading the back and trying to find a keto Easter peanut butter egg or a low carb peep…I would even settle for a Starburst jellybean…JUST ONE!

Alas, Easter candy is not conducive to healthy eating. Oh I know what people will say “Just eat one, everything in moderation”. Well, that is the problem Apparently I stayed home the say moderate eating was taught in 8th Grade Health. I can’t eat things like that in moderation, unless moderation means one in your mouth while 2 more candies sit on standbye in each chocolate stained fist.

I cannot eat in moderation so I refrain from eating it at all. That may seem ridiculous to you, but it is what I have to do. I once thought I had control of myself. I once thought I could eat one piece of chocolate, I could eat one pancake…fast forward 6 months and I had gained 60 pounds. So, yea, I can’t do that.It’s like being on Jeopardy and the catagory is “FOODS THAT MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT” but your damn buzzer doesn’t work! It is frustrating!

So, on Easter, on Christmas, on Thanksgiving and even on St. Patrick’s Day…I try to not make the holiday centered around food. It sounds easy, but when you raised that good food makes good times, it is hard to do. So I plan events, I plan games, I buy candy for the kid’s baskets/stockings BUT I only buy enough for them. No extras. Not happening. Not in this house.

Do you feel traumatized by the holidays? Reach out to me! Let’s battle this together. No successful dieter ever did it alone, I guarantee.