Keeping a deficit under extreme emotional stress

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ogmomma2012
ogmomma2012 Posts: 1,520 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Won't go into detail but this is going to be long-term emotional havoc.

I am an emotional eater. The Wellbutrin helps but I can over-ride it easily.

Tips, tricks, advice?
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Replies

  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    One day at a time and do what you can do. You've lost 78 pounds, this is ingrained in you- you've got this!
  • michelle7673
    michelle7673 Posts: 370 Member
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    I know it's hard. Plan, plan, plan. Buy things for the fridge that work, even if you eat the same kinds of things every day. Put it on autopilot. Find other stress outlets and use them as hard as you can. You can do this :)
  • brenn24179
    brenn24179 Posts: 2,144 Member
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    remind yourself I have to take care of myself!
  • marissafit06
    marissafit06 Posts: 1,996 Member
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    Are you able to get any exercise? I have found that exercising, even if it's just walking, can help me de-stress and acts as an alternative to emotional eating.
  • SweetPeasMom55
    SweetPeasMom55 Posts: 3,385 Member
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    have to agree with the others I literally plan everything if i'm going to eat junk I exercise more so it works out. Definitely have stuff in the fridge that will satisfy the urge that is good for you too. You look fabulous you can do this you have proven that!!! :smiley:
  • ariana_eatsandlifts
    ariana_eatsandlifts Posts: 197 Member
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    This may sound harsh, but don't make excuses because life gets hard. My mom took care of my sick grandpa for five years before he passed away and I listened to her make excuses all the time for why she was overeating and not exercising. I work in health care, so I know how hard it was for her, but as another poster said, how can you care for others if you don't take care of yourself?
  • newyorkcitymom
    newyorkcitymom Posts: 48 Member
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    I've got a lot of emotional stress right now. Some days have been really bad and I come home at the end of them and really just need to eat cheap chinese food and have a couple of beers. I don't beat myself up over it. I eat probably half to 2/3 the portion of chinese I would have in the past and I make sure that I get up the next day and get back on plan. I find that usually it's so up and down that there's only 1 or 2 nights/week max that I really need that, but it's easy to fall into bad habits. So on the nights I need it, I need it and that's that. But on the nights I don't, I stick to plan. I will also try to eat a little less during the day (which is easier for me) so that I have more calories for evening stress eating if needed. And exercise is a total release for me. It makes me feel better and often helps to clear my head so that I have more emotional resources to deal with the stuff I need to deal with. AND, it really helps to keep the deficit when cutting food is harder.
  • MarcyKirkton
    MarcyKirkton Posts: 507 Member
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    My guess is that emotional eating won't even work for you anymore. Congrats on 78 lbs lost......that's terrific!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,906 Member
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    marissafit06 wrote: »
    Are you able to get any exercise? I have found that exercising, even if it's just walking, can help me de-stress and acts as an alternative to emotional eating.

    Another vote for regular cardio. And yoga. And massage if it's in the budget.

    My fiance is the caretaker for his elderly mother, and this is stressful. I suggested he get regular massage - caretakers need to be taken care of too - and am glad he agreed.
  • ogmomma2012
    ogmomma2012 Posts: 1,520 Member
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    MarcyKirkton wrote: »
    My guess is that emotional eating won't even work for you anymore. Congrats on 78 lbs lost......that's terrific!

    It used to be an 82lb loss... I was just grazing high 170's, now I'm hovering at 183...
  • ebouchie
    ebouchie Posts: 124 Member
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    Yoga is an amazing stress reliever
  • MarcyKirkton
    MarcyKirkton Posts: 507 Member
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    ogmomma2012 wrote: »
    MarcyKirkton wrote: »
    My guess is that emotional eating won't even work for you anymore. Congrats on 78 lbs lost......that's terrific!

    It used to be an 82lb loss... I was just grazing high 170's, now I'm hovering at 183...

    That's fabulous. I actually did some emotional eating one night last week. Let me tell you.....it's lost its pizzaz. :) I just felt sorta bloated and silly afterwards.

    Glad I tried it, but I don't really need to use food like that anymore. I have already figured out some other ways to relax and chill, without eating.

    I bet you'll cope better than you think. Old ideas........when we outgrow them, we really, really do outgrow them.
  • victoria_1024
    victoria_1024 Posts: 915 Member
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    I understand. I'm an emotional eater too. I've done great over the past several months, and then today got really bad news and all I wanted to do was eat. I went a couple hundred calories over for the day, but only nothing significant. Tomorrow I'm going to force myself to do a nice long work-out, and then I'm going to order pizza with my family and have a movie night and just relax. The stress will still be there, but I'm hoping a little self-care (that includes food!) will help.
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
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    If you're upset about something--why punish your body by over-eating? That's what I ask myself. What is this going to fix? How is it going to help? The answer is nothing. The answer is it's not.

    Now I put some music on and walk or go to the gym.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    You need stress relievers and ways to comfort and protect yourself that are not food related. Recognize your triggers and write down things you might try.

    For introverts, do alone things. Escape in a book, light a candle, diarize your experience.

    For extrovert, get out with people. I guess. I'm an introvert.

    I think a simple meditation can help and walks are always good.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
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    I would start by attempting to identify why you are doing what you are doing. That process starts by asking questions rather than looking for solutions.

    For example, are you certain it's emotional eating rather than a conditioned behavior? Is it environmental?

    Are there specific foods you reach towards? Is it only during certain emotions?

    Almost everyone responds to stress in a way that makes dieting tougher. Regardless of whether or not it's emotional eating, people get stressed out and when this happens, cravings tend to magnify and willpower depletes so you end up in a position where you want more calorie dense foods and you have less willpower to use to refuse them.

    Finally, I don't mean to imply that it's not emotional eating that's doing you in. I'm just asking some questions that might be important.

    Consider journaling to start identifying how you feel and what your choices are in response to that feeling and see if it leads you anywhere.

  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
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    Another possibility is to eat at maintenance for a while. If staying on track with weight loss boosts your mood and cognitive energy, stay with it. If eating at a deficit wears on you, a few more calories could boost your mood and help you weather the storm. Deficit eating can produce a little stress (higher cortisol), and a little sporadically is good. Chronic intense stress/elevated cortisol disrupts other endocrine processes and can be harmful. All the stress relief suggestions are great, and I hope they work for you. I know getting out for a run or walk does my head more good than it does my body. I also know I am more apt to feel a little depressed (less resilient) when eating in a deficit, especially a big one, but there are many other factors.

    A big factor is sleep. Do what you have to do to prioritize that. Personally, it makes no sense to exercise if I'm not getting enough sleep. Insufficient sleep messes with leptin & ghrelin, hormones regulating hunger, so it makes deficit eating harder, too. If your sleep and mood are good, and you feel well other than the stress, then by all means, exercise and maintain that deficit. If you feel your mood or sleep slipping, it might be good to reevaluate. Best of luck to you!
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
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    ahoy_m8 wrote: »
    Another possibility is to eat at maintenance for a while. If staying on track with weight loss boosts your mood and cognitive energy, stay with it. If eating at a deficit wears on you, a few more calories could boost your mood and help you weather the storm. Deficit eating can produce a little stress (higher cortisol), and a little sporadically is good. Chronic intense stress/elevated cortisol disrupts other endocrine processes and can be harmful. All the stress relief suggestions are great, and I hope they work for you. I know getting out for a run or walk does my head more good than it does my body. I also know I am more apt to feel a little depressed (less resilient) when eating in a deficit, especially a big one, but there are many other factors.

    A big factor is sleep. Do what you have to do to prioritize that. Personally, it makes no sense to exercise if I'm not getting enough sleep. Insufficient sleep messes with leptin & ghrelin, hormones regulating hunger, so it makes deficit eating harder, too. If your sleep and mood are good, and you feel well other than the stress, then by all means, exercise and maintain that deficit. If you feel your mood or sleep slipping, it might be good to reevaluate. Best of luck to you!

    Totally agree with this and I made an eerily similar post on my wall today along these same lines =)
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
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    About a week after I decided to get serious about my weight loss last fall, I went through a period of intense emotional turmoil. I won't get into details, but suffice to say, it was the sort of thing that normally would've sent me running for the cakes, cookies, and pints of Ben & Jerry's straight out of the carton.

    I think I knew I would be successful this time when I didn't do that. In fact, I was so angry and distressed and out of control about everything else in my life, that I made a decision: The one thing I could control was what I ate. I could stick to my calorie goal and not let this particular event derail me. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. So instead of coping by eating junk, I coped by getting serious -- maybe to the point of obsession -- about following my plan.

    Okay, so maybe this wasn't exactly the healthiest reaction in the world. Yes, I clearly have some control issues. But it was leaps and bounds better than running to the junk food and trying to console myself with emotional eating. And it felt really good to control my food rather than letting my food control me. It was something I could do.

    Fast forward a year. I'm down 50 pounds. I've had other stress periods in my life, and I haven't allowed any of them to derail me. The times when I've gone over my calories have been in times of celebration (a holiday, a special event) and not in times of sadness or stress, and that's fine with me because I deliberately made the decision to allow myself to go over. Food has once again become something I enjoy, not something I use as a crutch.
  • kathy0224
    kathy0224 Posts: 43 Member
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    extreme emotional stress... I've been there for the past 2 years so I can relate. For people who tell you to just deal, I tell them to f-off. They are lucky they don't know extreme stress so they have nothing to talk about.

    As my blood pressure meds kept increasing & my stress was becoming overbearing, I found that the treadmill at 4:30am helped keep my blood pressure in check (I focus on getting my heart rate to 140) as well as crying in the car when I was driving. As far as maintaining a deficit, I don't. I eat every calorie I'm allowed + all of my exercise ones. I am losing more slowly but my sanity is still somewhat there. and the 2 ice cream cones a day help with the craving of junk.

    I am with you on this. You goal right now is to survive. Depending on what is causing the stress, it might get better, it might get worse, or in my case, you might just better at coping with it. Just focus on surviving. My prayers are with you.

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