New to this.

sammo72

Hi there,
I have recently found myfitnesspal and cant wait to see some improvements. I am a comfort eater, which started during the final stages of my 17yr policing career. In that time, my weight drifted from 74 to 107kgs. I was hospitalised for mental illness, depression, anxiety and attempting to take my own life. I have a terminally ill wife and 2 little girls I need to be around for, so a new start is here.
I would love to join up with other MI sufferers, to share the journey and support through this.
I comfort eat when I am either alone or down, so this will hopefully make me accountable and see some results.
My weight has been sitting on 98kgs for a while now and although I do a lot of running and long distance races, I always undo the hard training with bad dietry habits.
My goal is to get to 78kgs and hold it for the year.
Thanks,

rnohou2010

Welcome to the boards, sammo. I, too, have suffered from depression, anxiety, and OCD. I went to a lot of therapists for all of this, trying to figure out the connection to overeating. But in recent years I have come to believe that weight loss is not so much about our current life situations or our upbringing, but more about behavior modification and creating new habits. You can analyze all you want, but it's said that anything you do for 90 days becomes a permanent habit. An idea: cut out the comfort food for one day. It will be difficult. Then go for day 2. This day will also be hard. But day 3 will be a little easier and day 4 even easier. Now you are on your way to the 90 days at which point (theoretically) you won't have the cravings anymore. I realize I am oversimplifying but I have been through so much turmoil about my eating issues for my entire life (I am 65 now) that I am beginning to favor the simpler approaches. Best of luck to you. I'll send you a friend request.

We men need to stick together: it's harder for us to talk about things like mental illness and food cravings. Good for us!