This post is more for girls, but maybe guys do it as well.  But what I know from movies, it’s always the girls.  No wonder we have so many emotional eaters out there.  Movies and TV shows continue to deal with the situation the same way not giving woman other options so we fall for the trap and do it ourselves.  Actually, out of my 33 years, this is the first time I fell prey to the trap and I only did it to see what it was like.  I didn’t even do it according to “movie” standard.

I’m talking about the breakup ice-cream binge.  You know in the movies when the couple breaks up and the girl goes home and the friend gives her the tub of Ben and Jerry’s and she eats from it by the spoonful drowning in her sorrows of the break up.

Recently I was in a similar situation.  I wonder if there is a right way of the break-up ice-cream binge because I certainly didn’t do it according to the movies.

My version of the proper steps to the break-up ice-cream binge:

1. Find your best friend and cry on their shoulder because you just broke up with your boyfriend.
2. Said friend gets your favourite Ben & Jerry’s (because it’s the movies and they can’t use some generic kind of ice-cream).
3. Get two spoons and begin to eat a full tub of ice-cream.  But in reality you really aren’t going to share so only 1 spoon is necessary.
4. Eat and cry while your friend consoles you with the typical “Oh he is a jerk anyway” or “There is someone better out there for you”.  (Actually I don’t remember what they say in the movies, but we will pretend it is that.)
5. OR Watch a chick flick while you eat the tub of ice-cream.  Why do we do that?

My reality of the steps of the break-up ice-cream binge:

1. I thought, “I’m going to get a tub of ice-cream and eat it like they do in the movies.”
2. It was 2 days after the break-up, not the day of.  The day of I drank a bottle of Anne’s Raspberry Cordial because Anne makes all things better. 
3. I went to the store and found a new kind of ice-cream to try – it wasn’t my favourite. Bay of Fundy Mudslide – chocolate with caramel swirl and peanut butter cups.  Yes please.
4. I came home and put it in a bowl.  Wait, wasn’t the point to eat it out of the ice-cream tub.
5. I only ate one bowl and the rest is still sitting in my freezer.  Maybe if you are going to do this you should be a huge ice-cream lover.  If it was a big bag of chips, that would have been a different story.
6. I was alone.  But I had my talk session 2 nights before with my best friend – my sister.
7. I watched a couple chick flicks – one was Sleepless in Seattle.

Reflection of my Experience

I didn’t actually have a typical movie break-up ice-cream binge.  I had the thought and got the ice-cream, but that was about it. Besides the chick flick watching. I’m glad I didn’t do the full deal.  Ladies, don’t let food consume you when you break up with someone or they break-up with you.  In the short and long run it is not beneficial at all.  It will make you feel even worse.  Find something that will help you cope, but leave food out of it.  We as women, do too much emotional eating. You will pull through and you can do it without the guilt of binge eating and all its negativity that it brings along with it.  Plus you are better than that.  You are a beautiful woman who deserves to let herself believe it.  Stay strong my lady friends, stay strong and carry on.

Have you ever did the whole ice-cream eating from the tub thing?

*Thanks to my Google+ friend, King Tigre, for finding a great picture for this post.