BlubberBusters Tips from Lucy

The Tale of Two Tanks

Lawrence's Travels Through Emotional Eating

Remember the story of Lawrence? He is the baseball player that lost weight. You can read his story by clicking here. Lawrence learned from talking with the Wiz that he ate because of cravings and not because of hunger. He ate when he was bored, lonely, sad, mad, and many other feelings. To help himself lose weight he discovered the Tale of the Two Tanks!

Lawrence learned that everybody has two tanks that need to stay full. The first tank is the tank for energy. Let's call it the red tank. The red tank holds all the energy our bodies need everyday. This energy helps us to move, play, sing, learn, talk, and many more things. Our body tells us when we need to put more energy in our tank through hunger. We feed it food as the fuel. To learn more about the red tank, click here. In this link you can learn more about eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full.

Lawrence was like many other kids and teens. He often ate food when he was not hungry. His red tank was not telling him to eat. He ate anyway. He was not weak or lacking willpower. Lawrence was eating because his other tank, the blue tank, was way too low. And, the only way Lawrence knew how to fill up this blue tank was with food. This tank does not do well filling up on food. This can make people too large. Other things go in the blue tank.

The blue tank holds the fuel we need to feel good about ourselves. It holds all our feelings. Hunger tells us when we need fuel in our red tank. Feelings tell us what we need in our blue tank. There are millions of feelings. You may have heard of happy, sad, mad, joyful, lonely, ashamed, embarrassed, and bored. There are lots! Some feelings feel good. Some feelings feel uncomfortable. To keep the blue tank full, we need to let the feelings out. We also need to take care of ourselves.

Lawrence's blue tank got too low since he was sad when his parents got divorced. He kept his feelings inside. He did not like to cry. He also did not want to tell anyone he was sad. He found that eating made him not feel so sad. Eating made his blue tank feel fuller. Soon, he started to feel embarrassed and ashamed when the kids called him names like "lardo." Eating helped him feel better, for a little bit. Then he felt guilt. He knew he needed to lose weight. Soon, he found himself eating to make the guilt go away too.

So what did Lawrence do? How did he fill up his blue tank without overfilling his red tank? The next tip will continue this story of Lawrence and the Tale of Two Tanks!