I am into my first month of six and I am really struggling with my eating. I don't understand why. I have dieted all my life, but I just cant seem to get a handle on it. I am a very bad emotional eater. Lately, I have been dealing with some major stress in my life so I do what I always did....eat.

Has anyone dealt with their emotional eating and maybe have some advice that can help. I really don't want to screw this up the first month.

You've probably heard this before, but the best thing to do is to find something other than food to relieve your stress. Take a walk, get out of the house, call a friend, play a game, etc. find something that will help the stress and keep you away from food.

I didn't have to do a 6-month diet since I was self-pay, but I've dealt with emotional eating in the past. I know it's hard. Try to keep focused on why you're doing it. Now that I've had my surgery, I can tell you it's worth it! Think of the end goal and find a new passion other than food. If you find something else now, it will help even more after surgery!

If you see what you are eating, and have to account for it on paper, it will also help you to get up and out of the house and walk, go find a show on netflix and stand in place and march, go brush your teeth instead of eating something that you would rather not put in your mouth. These are the things I did during my six months pre-diet. Lucky you, you have 5 more months to figure this out.

If you don't have an account on myfitnesspal.com, perhaps make one. I HATE seeing what I ate on paper, but it has helped me tremendously because I have to account to myself. I can see where I went wrong, and I can fix triggers in advanced.

This is my THIRD stint through a six month pre-op diet. First time I broke down when I found out I would have to wait six months and I didn't like the psych and then my husband lost his insurance. I went to healthy4life a few years later, and again freaked knowing I would have to do six months pre-op diet, but realized, had I stuck with the first program, I wouldn't have gained even more weight. That time I ended up less than a month later with pneumonia and I couldn't hang with the low carb because I was drinking a ton of orange juice (I cannot take cold medications due to glaucoma) and I was eating pretzels, so I quit after a month. I went back a year later thinking omg I can't believe I have to do this six months but I'm even heavier and I'm done. I am WORTH THIS. My family is worth it, my life is worth me following through and ending the dieting roller coaster.

You can do it. You will find that you have days you may overdo it - but I would have never believed that I could have lost 60 pounds in the six months program before I was approved for surgery. Today I am on day 2 of the 14 day pre-op shakes and surgery is June 4th.

You can do this, have faith in yourself, you are worth it.