Am I that single girl who has conquered emotional eating?

I kick my trainers off. Frantically strip my tank top, leggings and underwear off and threw them across the room. Standing butt naked. I am alone. Actually alone. In a central London gym changing room. At peak time. This is utterly unheard of. Victory lap?

Then the scales begin to threaten me from across the room. I look in the mirror and me breathing in. Fluoresce lighting and cellulite. Arse! I walk confidently to the scales. Then pause. Do I actually want to do this? Do I want to know the answer to this never-ending question?

Fuck it. I get on.

Five kilograms. Lost. Happy days. ‘Happy happy skinny days’ I think, ignoring the new patch of cellulite I had just discovered.

After my recent break up I discovered that I am an emotional eater. But I am also an emotional starver too. How can I do/be both baffles me. But it seems that as my brain begins to digest and process what is happening in my emotional world, my stomach just stops. Allowing all of my bodies effort to go into thinking. Lots of thinking.

After that initial ‘I think we should stop seeing each other conversation’ my stomach no longer wanted anything. It stopped working. Required a hard reset. Was closed and off on vacation. And it did not once cross my mind. I never once felt hungry. I never thought of food. My mind was completely distracted going over and over every conversation we had ever had. Scanning through my brains memory files reflecting on his body language and reactions. Searching for that moment it all went wrong. That moment he decided he did not love me anymore. A non-stop overthinking week and a half went past incredible slowly. A week and a half of just eating cereal bars, orange juice and protein shakes. In this time I lost just under a stone in 10 days. Maybe this could be the new fad diet? Break Up, Thin Up.

After my newfound fad diet I decided that crying myself to sleep wasn’t the answer. So I went to beautiful Italy to continue crying myself to sleep, but this time just in the glorious sunshine. My stomach had shrunk and was still not craving food, but I couldn’t resist nibbling on the fine Italian foods. By the end of my break I was still overthinking every coma used in all What’s App messages and was happily tucking into three courses of fine full-fat-carb-high sugar-alcohol fueled meals. Delicious.

The general not so healthy eating continued and continued and continued. Week after week.

Now, I am a real gym bunny. If I could I would go twice a day, seven days a week. So even with my continuous eating I wasn’t getting ‘fat’ but I was getting soft and a bit flabby. And it was really noticed on a night out in Blackpool, when I put on a dress that fitted me perfectly 6 weeks before, and now I had to squeeze myself into it with the help of two friends holding various fatty body parts as they carefully forced the zip up whilst trying not the split the seam. I realized this emotional eating had to stop. Now. It is one thing being broken hearted and single. But another being broken hearted, single and flabby.

Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow I will begin to conquer my dreams. Tomorrow I will get my dream body back. Right after, the pint, chips and mayo.

Tomorrow came.

The fridge was full with fruit and vegetable and lean meats. I had researched and written out a (practical for my schedule) healthy food plan. I began getting up early to fit in a morning runs before going to work and then attending the gym 4-5 times a week. The most important part to this new life plan was making time to see good friends for good time. Sometimes work takes over my life and this aspect can get pushed to the side. I need to take control of this and begin to say ‘Yes’ more. This was not just a physical get fit, get happy thing. This was a physically and mentally get super fit, get super happy. Forever thing.

I was concerned my energy levels would be down and I wouldn’t sleep well, and would suffer from fatigued with doing so much. But the complete opposite occurred. My energy levels were at an all time high. I was sleeping like a baby or a drunk on The Strand. I was enjoying delicious healthy food, and training my arse off and loving every second. My entire days were filled to the brim with hardcore gym time, challenging work, having a social life and laughter.

And now I am stood here in the gym, naked with the scales dominating the room. I place one foot on the scale slowly and bigger the other one up to meet it, extra slowly so not to increase the weight too much.

Bingo. Five kilograms. Weeks of hard work. Weeks of fun. Weeks of returning to being me. And finally the weight is off. Not the 5kg, but the excess weight of the ex boyfriend, the baggage, the misery of the lies, the heartache. It has taken time and I am sure there will be emotional eating temptation when a memory is jogged or I come across an old photo. But as I highjack Kate Moss’s famous quote, ‘nothing tastes as good, as emotional freedom’.

Am I that single girl who has conquered emotional eating?