Category: Compulsive eating

• Watsontown, PA

  “How’d you find Watsontown?” asked one of my 111 high school classmates after Stoic and I ended up there as we drove home from Niagara Falls last month. She, incidentally, is among the handful of us who didn’t stay there after graduation. Well, as a vaudeville comic might say, with great difficulty. I think because […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  September 15, 2018

  Aging, Comfort food, Compulsive eating, Depression, Depression and anxiety-related food issues, Emotional side of weight loss, Food addiction, Rural life, Taking care of ourselves, Warrior Run High School Class of ’62, Why overweight?

  Academy Street by Mary Costello, High school reunion, obesity, self-image, why overeat

• Longing and weight gain; best purple cabbage ever

  Years ago my best friend in the newsroom, the sunniest person I’ve ever known besides our younger grandson, asked if I’d ever been sad for something I’d never had. It’s taken me more than 40 years to figure out that’s all I was! Not knowing, of course, meant I was always trying to fill that hole […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  November 5, 2016

  Balance, Comfort food, Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Emotional side of weight loss, Handling loss without eating, Sidedishes, Taking care of ourselves

  allspice, apples, Martha Rose Shulman, Red cabbage, The Rainbow Comes and Goes

• Weight Watchers watching

  Sunday’s USA Today crossword features shades of blue. Appropriate, because I am feeling cobalt, indigo, azure, sky, baby, teal and several others since going back to Weight Watchers three weeks ago (my fourth trip to the scales is tomorrow). The first week I was just anxious — how was I going to figure out the nifty WW phone app? […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  May 3, 2016

  Addiction, Building better habits, Compulsive eating, Depression, Emo eating, Importance of others to recovering addict, Starting over, Stress eating, Sugar, Weight Watchers

  binging, healthy eating, obesity, self-image, why overeat

• Guilt and lamb

  Amazing how one sentence can bring someone back from the dead and slap you up’side the haid. My mother’s been dead for 18 years, and yet when I found an old letter of hers this morning, boom! This letter’s at least 20 years old, maybe more. She’s talking about a much disliked sister-in-law’s back surgery […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  September 10, 2015

  Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Emotional side of weight loss, Family, Middle Eastern foods, Stress eating, Why overweight?

  Fresh herbs, Garlic, Grilling, Lamb, Yogurt

• What’s your heroin?

  Mine’s food; computer solitaire in a pinch. I haven’t played solitaire since Oct. 10 (the day I heard Anne Lamott talk about being involved in your life). I still feel the itch every time I sit at the computer. Nobody ever died playing solitaire, of course, but plenty of us have wasted precious hours because […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  February 7, 2014

  Balance, Being present in our lives, Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Food addiction, Importance of others to recovering addict

  Anne Lamott, Flaubert, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Russell Brand

• Planet Fatso; tortellini slow-cooker soup

  Elizabeth Taylor in her old age said the elastic waistband was a girl’s best friend. Diet gurus, though, advise “The elastic waistband is bad for your diet” so I’ve been trying to wear real waistbands with buttons and zippers and stuff. And clothes that fit, not caftans suggestive of a camel ride. I feel, in […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  January 25, 2014

  Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Exercise, Slow cooker recipes, Soup, Weight loss

  cheese, Drew Carey, Elizabeth Taylor, Garfield comic, obesity, Spinach, Tomatoes, Tortellini, why overeat

• Two Twinkies, jammy tomatoes

  One feels odd, to say the least, taking diet words of wisdom from comic Louis C.K., but in the April 25 issue of Rolling Stone, he does talk sensibly about anxiety and eating. When asked if it helped to realize that his compulsive eating was just self medicating anxiety, he answers: “Oh, definitely. Once you […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  April 25, 2013

  Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Meat, Simple foods, Spring, Tomatoes

  Brushy Creek Farms, cheese, Grits, Louis C.K., Pork, Real Simple magazine, Rolling Stone magazine, Tomatoes

• Ten commandments

  Things I need to accept: 1. All weight “lost” will be found as soon as I think I can eat like a normal-weight person. I dropped to 186 pounds before my high school reunion in August and, magically, I’m back up to 203 after yesterday’s first of two Thanksgiving dinners this week. Beef producers should […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  November 19, 2012

  Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Food addiction, Holiday eating, Maintaining weight loss, Stress eating

  binging, healthy eating, Hilary Mantel, Larissa MacFarquhar, obesity, over-eating, thanksgiving dinners, The New Yorker, vegetables and fruits, why overeat

• Saying goodbye

  You asked what it was like to put our youngest on the plane for 4 months in East Africa.  Sad.  Scary. Lonely, even though her father and I share this challenge. We’re both eating like bears getting ready for a Wyoming winter (I’ve put back on 9 of the pounds I lost for my high […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  September 5, 2012

  Aging, Compulsive eating, Emo eating, Handling loss without eating, Overeaters Anonymous, Self control

  Addiction, binging, healthy eating, Narcissism, self-image, why overeat

• Puppy poop

  It’s hard to fault a day in which a kitty shares her lunch chipmunk. Even a day when the air is like wet bread. Puppy and I walked 2.5 20-minute miles this morning. For her, that’s not even stretching her paws. For me, it’s faster than lightning, and I was soaked at the end of […]

  JoAnn Rhodes Grose

  July 11, 2012

  Animal rescue, Compulsive eating, Maintaining weight loss, Weight loss, Why overweight?

  healthy eating, High school reunion, Holiday eating, self-image