Today I joined a gym. I’m tired of being overweight so I signed up for a 16-week program at a gym that is only a couple of miles from my home. Then I went home and binged, but only slightly.

My life has been particularly stressful the last two years and the binge eating isn’t helping anymore. At first there is some feeling of relief, and that may last for some people, but it isn’t working for me anymore.

Being overweight makes part of you fade away. Even though you take up more space, you feel invisible. It’s a very emotional experience that gets more stressful as you gain more weight.

Some people can go on an emotional eating binge now and then, put on a few pounds and then take them off. But for a person with a food addiction, those emotional upsets always seem out of proportion as do the binges that follow.

I walked on my treadmill almost every day for the past three or four years. Recently I was injured and missed almost six months, then it was the flu for two weeks, and now the tread has started slipping.

There are diets, exercises, weight loss programs, and pills that promise a flat tummy or toned backside in some short period of time. Then you see the women in bikinis, sleeveless dresses, all  smiles.

If they can do it, why can’t you, you ask yourself. And so you give it a half-hearted try and lose a few pounds.

Then something unpleasant happens and the food addict will likely give in to a binge because that’s what we do when the stress of imagining oneself in good shape, happy, enjoying ourselves in a social situation is too intimidating, too overwhelming.

So let’s see how the gym experience goes. Perhaps the exercise will prove a good substitute for overeating in times of stress.

We shall see.