The Power of Suggestion, Mind over Metabolism, or, More than you ever wanted to know about my eating habits

A week ago I bought myself a BYU jacket (a graduation gift to me! I'm so happy). I tried several on and found, to my surprise, that the ones that fit me best were all size small. Even the larger children's ones would have sufficed, if looks didn't matter.
Sunday I hopped on the bathroom scale and looked at the smallest number I can remember seeing - ever. Since before I cared what the bathroom scale said.

What is this?

In high school I was healthy, but not athletic unless you count the Stagelight shows (from which I did, in fact, lose 4 lbs. in one day despite eating ridiculous amounts of food). Then when I moved away from home and started paying for my own food, I started noticing the eating habits of those I shared a fridge with. It drove me crazy to see good food -sitting, rotting, forgotten- when I was living off bagels and string cheese. For me, "healthy" came second to "cheap," especially for those few weeks I tried to live on $5/week for groceries. Saving up for Europe, you know.
Anytime I got free food, I ate it. Junk food, salad, leftovers, I did not discriminate.
You see where I'm going with this.

When I spent four months in Europe, our host family fed us breakfast every day plus one evening meal a week. Sundays we ate dinner as a group in Dr. Jacobs' apartment. My roommate ate like a bird, and I didn't want to offend Frau Hartl, so I ate myself sick at least twice a week. Usually more.

I found that when I when to bed stuffed, I woke up RAVENOUS. Like my metabolism went into hyperdrive at night. Every morning, I would jump out of bed and head straight for the table, afraid I would starve before making it to the food.
(Okay, I wasn't afraid I would starve. But I thought it was a possibility.)
Hardly a good thing for the figure.

I got back and nothing tasted as good, but my mindset bordered on obsessive. I thought about food constantly. I'd pack a lunch in the morning, think about it until I ate it - before lunchtime, often - then I'd go to work hoping there would be treats there. I was rarely diasppointed.
I jogged several times a week, swam, even took an aerobics class, but nothing made a difference when I was thinking about food all the time. By the time I was engaged to Slice, I had only lost about 5 pounds from my Vienna days.

Then, miraculously, I stopped caring about food so much. I ate what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and I just kept getting skinnier! My wedding dress was too big, my college pants don't fit me anymore.
It's like Slice solved all of my food problems!

So.
I've been thinking about my compulsive eating habits, the stressful times that drove me to eating more junk, even when I knew it was just stress driving me to eat. Those times are pretty much gone now.
The stress isn't necessarily gone, but the relationship and school stress is.

And I'm thinking that the life changes which resulted in my weight changes are inextricably connected with my emotional well-being. My metabolism is happy when I'm happy.
At least that's my theory.

Thoughts, anyone? Chocolate cake?