Jimmy Moore (of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb) turned me on to Jimmy Morris (of Bread and Money) a while back. Both are low-carb evangelists who have lost lots of weight low-carbing.

The latter Jimmy recently wrote an article on the relationship between emotional eating and diet that really resonated with me.

In Is Emotional Eating Another Chicken and Egg Conundrum?, he writes:

Emotional eating is defined as the conscious or unconscious consumption of sweetened, salty or fatty foods, usually to excess. This eating behavior is believed to be triggered by negative emotions arising from unpleasant events like an argument with someone, a stressful day at work or a poor grade on a test. Many people, even those who are not overweight, have some sense of the connection between emotions and diet. The core theory behind emotional eating is that strong negative emotions (the cause) trigger the desire to eat high-calorie foods (the effect).

Sounds plausible, but what if we’ve got the cause and effect part of this equation backwards? Up until now, we’ve only focused on the eating behavior that follows an emotion-fueled binge, but what about the content and quality of the food that precedes the event/binge? What if it’s actually what we’re eating that determines our negative response to life’s ups and downs, which in turn, influence eating behavior?

I’m still off track, and while events at work (as mentioned recently) have been difficult, I think that this two-week retreat into old behaviors is really all a reflection of what I ate over the last day (or days).

I do think my old friend (”just one more day”) has been playing a role, but I also think that all I need is one or two good days of solid nutrition under my belt and I’ll be fine.