Eating alone

Hi all, 

I'm hoping some of you might be or have been in a similar boat, and might have some advice or experience to share.

I have recently relocated to be with my previously long distance partner. I left my city, work and life in general to be with him. As happy as I am to be together at last, the move is not without its drawbacks. I am now in a very small an rural (isolated) community where I do not speak the language (at least not well enough to practice in my field). So, I've been volunteering. My work out schedule has completely changed, as I know have to drive rather than walk everywhere. It's also arctic cold here, but I try to bundle up and brave it.

My main question is if anyone here has experience with living in a remote area and being alone at home a lot. My partner needs to be away for weeks on end for his work, and I'm finding myself at home alone completely deviating from my eating habits from when I was alone. I'm not talking small potatoes here, and at the risk of throwing out the old binge term that everyone seems to use, I'm actually concerned about the way I've been for the past few months. I don't want to get into specifics, but its suffice to say that something isn't right. I've eaten entire cakes, boxes of cereal, made batches of cookies and eaten all of them in one night. It's like when he is gone I eat as much and as fast as I can, and I have no idea why. Then, I feel terrible, get cranky, exercise at half my potential (and on a bloated stomach) and on top of it all I've been taking my anger out on him and he has no idea why.

This is really embarrassing, and I'm sorry for the long post, but right now this board literally is my community.

Thanks for reading and good luck to you all!

I think a lot of this stems from the stress of being in a new area.  I suspect our best bet is

1. to become more fluent in the language

2. to make friends in your new community.

Stress can cause a lot of things.  You're not working, you've just moved, you don't know the language, and you don't know the community.  Yikes!  Definitely put an effort into getting to know people.  It'll keep you occupied when you are alone.

Good luck.

Been there (sorta)!  While I was in the military I moved to Japan with my husband.  When I found out I was pregnant I got out of the military and became a stay at home wife/mom.  It was such a drastic change!  I no longer had professional contacts, my social interactions significantly changed with a baby, he deployed for weeks at a time and barely speaking Japanese made daily interactions generic and meaningless.  Unfortunately, our marriage did not survive (there were other issues, too).  Let's not allow that to happen here! 

I would find a library, gym, coffee shop or rec center and get active both physically and with my personal interactions quickly!  If that doesn't help to alter the behavior significantly,  I would seek the aquaintance of the local physician for some professional help.  Radical life changes can reak havoc on both our physical and mental health and getting some help can remedy the situation much more efficiently than individual effort alone.  In hindsight, some professional help may have made my transition much smoother and maybe even saved my marriage.

Remember that the person in the mirror is still the same wonderful person on the inside that you were previous to these changes.  You just need to act like it :)

While I haven't been in your situation, I HAVE felt lonely and isolated and sought comfort in food.  Remember that food is not company and food is not comfort.

Get more comfortable with the language, seek opportunities to be with others.  Small towns sometimes have community centres or volunteer opportunities.  Read more books, browse the internet more.

You made a big life decision, stick with it and find ways to make it work for you.  Good luck.

Thank you so much, all of you! It was so inspiring to read this this morning! Just what I needed. Thanks a million!!!!

There's been some great suggestions for dealing with the isolation, so I'd like to address something else.  You mention going from city to rural, and the "arctic cold."  Have you moved someplace where you're suddenly dealing with less hours of daylight/less light in general than you're used to?

The foods my family wants, plus eating patterns, tend to change slowly throughout the year, as we shift between less than 8 hours of daylight and less than 8 hours of dark, along with accompanying temperature changes.  I'm wondering if one factor in what's happening could be your body's need to cope with a sudden change in your physical environment?