Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

[Helena_HastingsUK]

Five things I am grateful for today.

1. My boyfriend is slim, fit and waiting for the moment when we can go for long walks together.
2. The sky is deep blue this morning.
3. That summer is here at last.
4. That I own a wonderful house.
5. That I have a garden to sit in.

[Bejiitta]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

I can honostly say for me it's boredom, I am a very curious intelligent individual. If my brain isn't consitently stimulated well.. you know lol..

I noticed ever sense I met Amanda my binges have been leaner, and my emotional instability has lessend. Because now I have something to keep my mind on, which may or may not be a good thing. I try to watch myself as I know I'm an obsessive guy. But she seems quite understanding, funny considering we're polar oppisites. But perhaps what the other lacks we help built a complete model..

[prozacwoman]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

Hi! I'm AJ, and I love this thread! I just started doing Atkins a couple weeks ago with my DH and have been cruising around this board, looking at various forums. I'm SUCH an emotional eater! When I'm sad, when I'm happy, when I'm depressed, when I'm frustrated, when I'm angry, when I'm tired. I just LOVE to eat, and I'm always looking forward to the next meal or snack. What can I have? How long has it been since I last ate? What would taste the best? What am I in the mood for? ALL DAY LONG. I just hate it!

I've been depressed since I was about 10 (another cruddy childhood here, plus jerks at school), but I've only been on prozac since 1994. I'm pretty steady now, thank God, but my emotional eating is still here. One of the biggest ones is visiting family and eating dinner/dessert. Or visiting my best friend. We always raided her grandma's kitchen together late at night in high school. Every time we get together, we both tend to overeat. But there's no way I'm staying away from friends and family! I'm just going to have to find some way to stop it when I'm around them.

The gratitude journal thing was a great idea! I do something like it every night in my prayers, list things I'm grateful for. Usually they're the same things, but I can always find a new one or two to throw in there every night. I started doing that for the exact reason we're doing it here...to focus on good things instead of negative things. So I'll share some of mine with you:

1. I'm grateful for my two girls (6 mos and 2 yrs)
2. I'm grateful for my perfect-for-me husband, whom I met on the internet
3. I'm grateful for the beautiful world we live in that provides so much for us
4. I'm grateful for a place to live that's NOT with my in-laws (LOL)
5. I'm grateful just to wake up every morning into a new day

xo,

AJ

[kbuchs]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

I have the same problem-- I tend to over eat with family and friends. It's like I think I'll just have a little to indulge and I end up eating the whole damn thing! Then it ends up being a days long binge. I think I am addict and like an addict I can't just have a little bit- at least for right now- maybe someday I will be able to have one bite or one serving. So, I decided to stay away from those foods all together, including of course those franken' foods!

[prozacwoman]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

Oh, I'm EXACTLY the same way! Where did the concept of "just a little bit" come from? Not any dictionary *I* know! LOL Someone will say "just have a couple squares of chocolate instead of the whole bar,", and I'll think "why bother?" THAT'S the attitude I have to change. But on the other hand, those people are SATISFIED with a couple squares of chocolate and can stop. I can eat one of those HUGE Hershey Bars and still not be satisfied, usually when I'm frustrated. I'll try to substitute something else so I won't eat the chocolate, but it just keeps bugging me and bugging me until I eat the chocolate anyway, and then not only have I eaten the chocolate, I've also eaten the "pacifier" too, so why not just eat the chocolate and be done with it? (my Chocolate Receptors are very stubborn. lol) I haven't had any candy at all since I started Atkins, which is a mini miracle in itself, but I keep craving and craving sweet things, so I have stuff with Splenda or an Atkins candy bar. I think I may have to cut out sweet things altogether for quite a while to see if the sweet craving goes away (SOB!! ) Sometimes I walk through the bakery section of the store and want to wail.

Oh well, I'm just babbling now, so I'll stop.

xo,

AJ

[Sd1136]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

i am a emotional eater, Where i was never thin but gained alot of my weightafter my husband died. I had to deal with my kids who were just 1, just 4 and 7 (they watched him die) and was left alone in a hospital room while i spend hours looking for them.
and mom got sick and died and other events,
so the pounds added on and added on. Then i got sick and more.
I eat for stress and emotions. I wantto get my life together and lose weight, I am now looking for other options instead of eating.
thank you for listening

[2big4mysize]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

Sd136 welcome to the emotional eaters forum.

I'm sorry for your loss and all the hardships you have stuggled to over come.


can you answer the questions from the first post

Think about the following questions and post your response to them so we can discuss them.

• What are your emotional triggers? Can you identify the emotions that make you want to eat foods for comfort? Boredom? Loneliness? Stress? Anger? Fright?
  
  Are there PEOPLE in your life that cause you to overeat or want to overeat?
  
  What SITUATIONS cause you to want to overeat?
  
  What overeating binges are simply a habit?

Post your answers to share with us.

[Sd1136]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

Think about the following questions and post your response to them so we can discuss them.

• What are your emotional triggers? Can you identify the emotions that make you want to eat foods for comfort? Boredom? Loneliness? Stress? Anger? Fright?
• a little of above, more stress and depression
• 
  and i would add sickness, this past year i almost died of a blood clot and trying to get better with otherthings going wrong.
• 
  Are there PEOPLE in your life that cause you to overeat or want to overeat?
• i guess at times and they change
  
  What SITUATIONS cause you to want to overeat?
• stress, depression, bored but that is the least of it,
• 
  What overeating binges are simply a habit?
• i guess all, they are my reaction to a action, some i guess are preceived

Post your answers to share with us.

thank you

[2big4mysize]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

nobody is going to tell you not to feel the emotions that drive you to over eat. What this topic is about is helping you identify things in your life currently that can trigger you to feel those emotions and trigger you to over eat so you can gain control of your eating in response to them with some other coping method.

Do you journal your foods? if not you should be and try to expand on the eating to include how you were feeling what you were doing why you were doing it who was with you before during and after you eat. I know it sounds silly be it works.

On atkins we call it looking for trigger foods that make your body because of your genetic make up crave sweets even if they are legal Atkins foods for me that was Splends and celery.

But emotional eaters can have events trigger the cravings that have nothing to do with blood sugar levels and for that we need to look ofr patterens. I was shocked eating with my little sister (even though I didn't want the high carb desserts she was eating and ate only my foods for my phases so I know it wasn't something Ihad eatten triggering it) would hours later send me to the kitchen needing to eat the whole house! Nothing Dr Atkins tells us to do when we have cravings will stop emotional eating so we need a different stratagy for those times. As harsh as it seems avoiding the triggering event all together is the best solution. yep I do not share meals with my sister any more. i will visit with her go out somewhere with her but I refues to eat with her.

Do you know of any triggers for you?

[booklady]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

Wow, this is such an amazing thread !!!
What are my emotinal triggers???
I am one to eat when bored, depressed, and when eating badly that is my state of mind all the time.
I eat when things are tough, financially, the kids, you name it , if it is stressful, I am prone to eat.
Last year I was going to lose all this weight, our oldest son and our son in law both left for Iraq in Jan 05 and I was going to be thin when they got home, yeah right. My son asked us to baby sit thier baby while his wife went to school so she could be done when he got home. A year of full time sitting that just ended in Dec, he is 21 months old now. I was so stressed out. 5 days a week, 8 hours a day for her to complete her EMT training and then Paramedic training, I kept trying and falling off and trying and falling off. In Aug, one of my best friends died and I actually made it a few weeks after that as her death was weight related, but while I was dealing with that our oldest daughter delivered prematurely and we thought we would lose our little grandson and he was born with problems, again, on and off plan, then November my Mom died suddenly and without warning and that was it for the year.
I cannot let that happen ever again. No matter what stresses come my way I have to learn to deal with this stress eating . I have to understand, really understand that I need to hang on to my low carb eating more than ever when things get tough as going off plan made me even more depressed and miserable than the stressful year ever could have. I could not stand myself by Dec 27 and started early. I was going to start back on Jan 1. Within a few days, I felt great and happy and my depression was gone.

As far as people who make me want to eat wrong, my hubby and I in the past would start our low carb plan together, the minute one of us would say, oh, lets eat something we shouldn't, the other would say, okay !!
This time, he is on Body for Life, and I am on Atkins and we are not allowing that behavior anymore. It is not an option. We want to be healthy when we are old in years, and we want to have a long full life and only staying on plan for the rest of our lives will give us that.
What overeating binges are habits,
I think eating when I am bored and I KNOW I am not hungry has been a problem all along. I am not giving into that this time. If I have recently eating a good meal and I find myself wandering into the kitchen, I will ask myself, are you hungry, If I feel I am not, out I go, with no food.I am very aware of that this time. THat is when I tend to come to the boards and read and post, it distracts me from the wanting to eat and gets me to the other end of the house, far away from the food !!
Dairy is a huge trigger food for me, my favorate foods are all dairy based, both meals and desserts. I found this time around, cutting out the dairy entirely helped with the cravings so much. I had a little bowl of diet jello tonight, no whip cream on it and it was divine, and it is the first dessert I have had in two weeks. I just cannot have dairy. It is a bad trigger for me, also chocolate. I used to eat so much of it. I will not even eat low carb chocolates now. It is just not worth the risk and helped put me off plan many a time.
Thats enough for me now, sorry I went on to long, just so thrilled to have a place to explore all this important stuff , thanks !!
Stephie

[2big4mysize]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

I'm so sorry for your losses. You have done well to realize the emotions are okay to have but keeping control of your eating when you have no control of the events triggering you to want to eat is very empowering.

Good for you about the chocolate. We just had a topic on chocolate and I'll bet you didn't know one of the places choclate reacts in the brain is thesame area as pot. yep talk about feeling addicted to choclate.

SInce hubby is doing BFL have you looked at the BFL exercise program? that is a great program I have been doing the lifting part since 2003 until last May but I'm restarting it tomorrow. Exercise is a great stress release casue one it is action and two it really does take the chemicals stress cuases and break them down in a positive manner and it produces endorphins in your brain. I'm sure you have heard of runners high but any vigorous exercise can produce them too.

SO what steps are you taking now that you weren't taking back then other then you and DH not sabataging each other?

[booklady]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

Yes, we are planning on joining the ymca in a week so we can start the body for life workouts, it looks great, the before and after pictures just blow you away, and we can't wait. This week we are going to walk everyday . After reading your post I can see how much it will help us with stress as well. Thanks for that info, that is so amazing !!!
That is shocking about chocolate, wow. I am really glad I am staying away from it. It never fails to amaze me how druglike food can be, and mostly l ike bad drugs, not good ones, although avoiding those bad ones can give you good benefits.
Other than the not sabatoging each other, we actually talk about our goals pretty much daily and why we want to do this and how we want to be healthy when we are old in years. We do not want to GET old, if you know what I mean. We want to get old in years but be healthy and fit and not sick and in a nursing home.
We are not buying anything for anyone else except we keep some of those nasty frozen burritos for when our kids come over and have told them not to eat our food. We make sure to have plenty of prepared foods for each of our plans on hand at all times. We are shopping together and making the food decisions as a team helping each other. I feel we really are a team in our new eating plans even if they are differant. Our sixteen year old is eating the same foods for the most part too. He is slim and does not need to lose weight. He eats lunch at school and cereal or yogurt for breakfast.He has an occasional box of mac cheese but mainly eats the veggies and meats with me at anight. We buy him a few treats for the weekend, his corn dogs and frozen pizza, but during the week, he eats what I eat for dinner. ( my hubby works swing and is at work every night until midnight, that is why he eats what I eat !!) He is eating the sugar free jello now and understands as unfair as it is, we just can't have sweets or treats other than good ones, in the house. I buy apples and baby carrots for him. He is fine with it and is very supportive.
We are taking it day by day. I do feel we are stronger from our really awful year last year. We both realize our health was suffering for our bad habits.
I have learned more in just a couple of days here than in three years of low carbing and visiting other boards.
Thanks so much, I am so excited about my woe , more and more each day !!! This board is priceless to me !! Stephie

[2big4mysize]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

good for you now get your emergency Atkins kit ready I think it is in the newsletter and stickied somewhere on the board. but basically you need your reasons a before and as you are losing pic if you need visual reminders of how good you are getting. some atkins acceptable for your phase foods water and a letter to yourself why you don't want to be that before person again so you will not cheat. make sure you take it where every you go so you never "have" to eat high carb cause you didn't have anything low carb. you'd be surprized at all the obsticles life tosses at you.

Recruit your friends and coworkers to be support buddies for your new WOE. It is hard to be a support buddy if they invite you to doughnuts and coffee so they will instead invite you for a walk and some water

[BigRunner]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

I find this topic very interesting and I'll try to analyse myself.




Boredom is my trigger -- when I am bored, I am ready to eat an elephant ( it really doesn't matter what food I eat -- the main thing is that I eat it all the time until I find some other type of entertainment :confused ).

When I am stressed or angry or frightened I don't want to eat at all. So it's vice versa with that. I guess my adrenaline entertains me :joy !

Before it was my boyfriend who caused me to overeat, but it went away somehow. ( with all my previous boyfriends I ate really much, now I think: maybe we didn't have so much in common that we let food join us??)

Situations: every time when I have to do something and I don't want to do it, I want to eat. I guess the only wayout is to do the thing that I have to do and this stupid craving goes away right after.

Before I had a habit to eat late at night -- so I was slowly gaining weight, but I didn't really feel like I always wanted to eat. I am more of a morning eater. So I just told myself to stay away from the kitchen in the evenings and ignore others eating. It was hard at first but after a couple of months my habit and thoughts about it left me! So this was just a habit. :joy

Wow! How insightful to your own feelings. I apologize for bringing back an older reply, but I'm new to this board and reading a lot these days. I see myself in a lot of the responses.

[2big4mysize]

Re: Let's discuss alternatives to Emotional Eating

thats okay.
you are welcometo start your own topic in this forum too.