Emotional Eating, continued

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've come to realize how much of my day to day stress, anxiety, and simple emotion I dealt with through eating (and to a much lesser extent, drinking). I think I've developed some much healthier approaches to my emotions and I'm working hard to avoid falling back into those habits once I leave the fast.

So far, that's all I've really dealt with: day to day trials and tribulations. While that's the real danger (as weight loss or gain is a long term process), today I've learned how strange it is to deal with more dramatic emotional events without food or alcohol. I've been working part time, and while I knew the job was temporary, I found out that I was most likely done with all actual work. Later, my girlfriend who had had emergency surgery a week ago informed me that she wanted to break up. Both events were foreseen, and neither is a really bad turn of events, but it still left me in an interesting emotional state.

Emotional eating is a problem, as is alcoholism, but nobody judges the person who got fired and dumped in the same day for pigging out on Chinese food and drinking a twelve pack. It's allowed, hell, it's encouraged in many circles. I found myself strongly drawn to binging, closer than I'd been on the diet. I talked some stuff through with family and friends, and did some thinking on my own about what really bothered me, and I'm fine now, but for a few hours this evening I felt truly upset that I was on my diet and couldn't deal with things the way I wanted to.

Finally, this was a cathartic day, but not a traumatic or a shocking one. I'm worried what would happen if the emotions were surprising or deeply upsetting. I can only hope I can deal with them, and not resort to food.