Overeating and Sex

I initiated a small discussion over on Plurk about weight, eating and sex. The older I get, and the further I get from real opportunities for satisfying sex, the more aware I become of how I eat more when I am in the mood for sex. I've tried Googling the topic and there seems to be no research on it. It SEEMS like a no brainer to me, but I am a fat woman who has long been aware that her tendency to over indulge extends beyond food.

I would love to get some serious conversations going with other women about their experiences around this.

Emotional Eating

A lot of women say they overeat when they are upset. I've tried to watch for patterns of that in myself, but I find that I don't consistantly overeat when I am angry or sad. I have a lot of reasons to be sad lately, what with getting a divorce from my third husband, who I love more than I've loved anyone before, and getting older and the dead of my second husband. So I've tried to track if any of this effects my eating.

What I've found is that I am likely to eat unwisely when I am lonely. When I miss my husband I really wish he was with me and loved and desired me. I eat when I want to be touched and held. Does anyone else experience weight gain when they don't get and want sex?

This week I posted another loss. I'm quite excited. That's at least a month of losses. So obviously I'm not succumbing to eating when I'm lonely. I've been trying to decide what my affirmation for this week should be and I'm drawing a blank. I suppose I could recycle an old one. Maybe I'll do I accept myself the way I am again

Sexual Orgasm Increases Longevity

Having regular (and enthusiastic) sex confers a host of measurable physiological advantages to both men and women.

In one of the most credible studies tracking overall health with sexual frequency, the mortality of roughly 1,000 middle-aged men was tracked over the course of a decade.

Men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm experienced half the death rate. Other studies have correlated frequency of sex with, among other benefits:

• An improved sense of smell
• A reduced risk of heart disease
• Weight loss and overall fitness
• Reduced depression
• Pain relief
• Less-frequent colds and flu
• Better bladder control

In physiological terms, women experience no possibility of "overdosing" and experience no dangers from too much sex. Men, however, can damage their penile tissue with too much rough or forceful sex, especially now that drugs such as Viagra and Levitra can allow for more staying power.

Sex And Death, Are They Related

Still Feeling Crappy

Still feeling WAY below good. Symptoms are diminishing (twitching brain, pulsing eyes, and auditory hallucenations stopped sometime during a very sleepless night), but I'm still voraciously hungry, disoriented to the point I cannot multi-task at all, and have difficulty finishing thoughts and sentences. A bit of difficulty getting what I am thinking out verbally. Sometimes I've had to totally stop talking and work my way back through what I was trying to convey. This does not seem to be affecting this form of communication. Interesting.

Found an article about Reasons to Have Sex that I thought was interesting. One of the reasons supports what I have claimed all along, that sex--specifically intercourse--helps me moderate my moods. LOL You know, they just need to stop wasting money on studies and come and ask me what *I* think. ::giggle::

Moving All My Health Related Posts From My Hidden Personal Blog

Yeah, so much of what happens to me affects my health, I thought I should include some of that here so that maybe some day I can look back and say OH, NOW I UNDERSTAND.

Perking up from the husband and his gf moving out this past weekend. Thought for a brief time that I was relapsing into fibro. Between the cubicle walls we moved in from the old office and all the boxes they openned to sort from the last place in Denver (which was a hell hole . . don't get me started about the Danes and their filth.), I have had some muscular pain and a serious sinus infection.

But that is clearing up. Also had a sort of breakthrough the other morning when I was chatting with an old lover. He always tells me about all the sex he is having and sends me pics of the women he is doing. I'm not one, because he has a "no germ" policy and I have herpes (thanks all you scum who are positive and don't bother taking care). Every time he does this I've sunk into a depression. A year since I contracted herpes and, even though the husband is positive he doesn't want to risk having an "outbreak" if he touches me, I have only had a couple of brief, unsatisfying encounters with the now gone husband.

This have been very traumatic for me. First, because I worked SO hard to get over the rape and abuse of my childhood and first marriage. In the mid-80s I could not even bear to stand next to a man without shaking and I once fainted when I was kneeling between two men in the Temple. But I went through therapy and did a lot of dream and vision work to overcome this aversion. Once I was able participate enthusiastically in sex, I found it was a good therapy for depression. I oftened joked that I self-medicated for depression with caffeine and sex.

Of course, no sex during the last year means that the depression and self-loathing of the last year as I came to grip with being "diseased" and the pain and depression of suffering from chronic pain had the added strain of being undesirable and getting no hits of "oxytocin". To say nothing of the RAGE that the person I should most be able to count on refusing to do more than occassionally agree to talk about my needs, IF I staged a crisis.

The need to BEG for attention was so humiliating . . .I got so depressed and ended up totally absorbed in World of Warcraft. Which was totally sedentary and kept me closed up inside all the time on top of everything else.

Anyway, back to the breakthrough. I've decided to just accept the end of my sexuality. It still causes me to choke up a bit and get tears in the back of my eyes. But I have to be realistic. I prefer men and men are nothing but a pain in the ass. So I started my new path to sexless living by asking my former lover not to send me pictures or tell me about his sex life. I was very nice, I took the blame for it and asked him, as my friend, not to make it more difficult on me. He replied that he would be happy to do that.

Whew. Now, to find other outlets for the sexual energy. In the past when I have been hungry for touch I have eaten food. (In fact, I've been doing some thinking and realized that weight gain often follows "settling" into new relationship--ie, when the sex goes away, I eat more. Like to see one of the weight loss support groups address THIS. LOL I can't be the only one.) I am going to try to increase my exercise, although I know from experience that increased exercise means increased body awareness and increased sex drive.

Not sure what I will do, but I will figure it out.