Well despite the pain I've forced myself to get my act together.  It was so tempting to binge after I went to the the doctor but I soon had a little epiphany from an unpleasant experience. I hate taking meds but I gave in and went to my regular doctor and got prescriptions for the nerve pain, arthritis and muscle relaxants til my pain doc gets back. I found I'd gained 3 1/2 pounds and wasn't surprised but was very unhappy.  Afterwards to get my mind off "Miss Piggy" who was sitting on my shoulder trying to get me to binge, I took my grandson to a ----- ---- . My grandmother raised me that you raise children by setting an example. Now I know from personal experience that it always doesn't work but I still follow the same philosophy for my grandchildren.    So my lesson..... I am deliberately leaving this vague so the persons would not be identified. I have no idea why he was singled out for cruelty but there was a child there, old enough to know better, who was harassing my grandchild calling him names, taunting him, trying to get the other kids to not play with him. The parents were there and completely ignored the situation. He did what he was taught and told when he was being bullied.  The parents ignored the situation. When it got to the point where the child was hitting him with a bucket repeatedly trying to hurt him I told it  "you do not hit him again".  Although he is a brown belt and could have retaliated he didn't (I'm glad) although I wish he would have used his blocking moves. Anyway, of course this did not go over well. There was a confrontation where mom tried to justify, "they are just being kids" and I explained ignoring repeated verbal and physical abuse is no excuse, and when that didn't work outright lied "she was only defending herself", then mom resorted to name calling when I called her on the lie.  I'm sure you know the type I was dealing with so we made the wise choice to leave. What does this have to do with anything? I was just so livid, just so upset, it was so totally difficult to not respond by eating inappropriately. I was already having a major battle before this happened trying so hard not to resort back to bad habits. In the past I would have seen the weight gain and thought "well I gained, I'll just start back dieting tomorrow".   Well, with each pass of a fast food restaurant I gained strength.  Of course my grandson was very upset and confused because he is very sensitive to bullying and the right and wrong way to treat people. During the course of our discussion of the experience it's like a light bulb suddenly went off over my head, like in a cartoon.  I started to relate this experience to my eating disorder. Based on mom's reaction, I believe the situation was probably because this child was taught that it was acceptable behavior. The kid acted that way, I feel, because that was what it was used to or had observed in the home. I then realized that I have several grandchildren living with me and others who frequently come to visit and I'm also setting a bad example. Every time they see me binge eating or pigging out on Cheetos or sweets or pizza or other junk food or going to get fast food when I'm upset or in pain I'm pretty much showing them that's it's OK. It's an appropriate relationship with food (NOT). I have to show them the RIGHT way by example and hope it sticks. I had to come up with alternate ways to deal with stress and emotions rather than food. That's what totally did it for me.  I love my grandchildren very much and didn't really realize what I could potentially be teaching them. When I went home I stayed on course.  Despite my discomfort I dealt with my frustration by doing 50 minutes on the treadmill. I later struggled through 45 minutes water exercises and then relaxed in the whirlpool at the Y.    I've made it 2 days with my carbs under 100g and my calories under 1500. Today my diet has been really squeaky clean and I signed up to do the Johnnycake Jog Walk on Sunday. I'm getting pretty uncomfortable now but I'm going to take some medication and see if the kids want to take a walk in a bit rather than eat any of those chocolate chip peanut butter bars!  "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."~ Winston Churchill