Divorce and weight gain/loss

Are there any other ladies out there who've dealt with this. As of August 2008, I had lost 88 pounds. (Thank you CC!)

Then my ex-husband's alcohol use and other issues began to take its tole on me. Now, after 10 months and divorce, I find myself having put 34 pounds back on. (I was 8 pounds from my goal). I am so angry with myself. How could I have let him put me back in this hole again?!

So...here I am...back again. I know that I can use him and his girlfriend as the perfect motivation...but it seems as if it should come from me. The problem is I tend to me an emotional eater. So basically over the last 10 months I have drowned my feelings in as much unhealthy food as I possibly could.

Help! I'm looking for some guidance here. How can I get back on track..and do this for myself...the way it should be?!

I just wanted to say this.

Don't use your ex and his girlfriend as motivation. Why would you torture yourself like that?

If you're going to do this again, do it for you.

Honestly, I don't think the problem with u is that u are only an emotional eater, the problem is that ur using food to run away from what is bothering u.  For 10 months u have been divorced from ur husband and u are still thinking about using him and his gf for motivation to lose weight.  I think u need to stop worrying about losing weight only and think about moving on mentally.  You might be trying to put whatever happened between him and u behind u, but ur still battling it even if it is a battle occuring in the back of ur head...and i understand. You are just being human.  Nevertheless, the bottom line is deal with u and then deal with losing weight or else u never will. 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the replies thus far are not from people who have experienced divorce. Yep, completely based on first impressions and my personal stereotypes.

Yes, I'm divorced. And yes, I gained lots of weight. I drank too much, I sat on my couch and threw one man pity parties complete with raw cookie dough, I became extremely sedentary. I wanted to lose weight to get back at him, but it wasn't the motivation needed to actually get me to follow through.

It's easier said than done.
Blaming yourself and being angry are probably just going to make it harder to reach your goal. You've been upset, possibly depressed, you gained weight. It happens. You've lost it once, you can absolutely do it again.

Find a new coping mechanism. Eating to cope is how a lot of us got here, and without changing those habits, long term maintenence is that much harder. Honestly, the idea gets neglected when we're dieting while life is mundane. Then it sucks and you (or I) realize we forgot that part. Make a decision and try and stick with it. 'When I am upset, I will jog/paint/break dishes/call so-and-so' It might take a few trys to find the right thing, but that distraction is important.

As for motivation, its debatable, but my suggestion is to fake it til you make it. Divorce is, in my experience, absolutely horrible. But like everything else, the emotions, the pain, the anger, they all fade. I willing to bet that a months ago you weren't even seriously considering getting back on your diet. It sounds like you've worked through a good bit of it. As you get back into it, you'll find the old motivations come back around and that the angry motivations start to fade. Just give it a go. Try doing it just for something new to focus on.

Cut yourself some slack. A lot of it. If the motivation isn't where you want it, try just going through the motions, you'll remember. Commit to one week at a time. Think of his face when you run into him looking fabulous : )

Hope this helps a little, and if I made any incorrect assumptions, they were simply based on my experience.

I feel for you, I agree w/ Minda, divorce is absolutely horrible...

I guess I was lucky in that I am a "happy" eater, when I'm happy I get fat, when I get depressed, it is everything I can do to eat enough to function on a daily basis.

I lost 45lbs when I was going thru my divorce, although after when people would ask how much I had lost, I always added my ex-husbands weight to the total ;o)

But my coping method at the time was running, when I felt awful, or my brain would wander to things I just wanted to not think about, I would climb on my treadmill and run until the only pain that I was feeling was because I had pushed myself physically.

Still not very healthy, but my ex had left me for my much skinnier "best friend" at the time, so the next time that I saw him, and I had lost all that weight, the look on his face was worth a million dollars... Wasn't my intention at the time, but it sure did make it all feel a bit better.

Hang in there, even if unfortunately your motivation starts out as revenge, once you get to a place where you're starting to feel better about yourself, who you are, and where you're heading, those original reasons probably won't even matter to you anymore.