emotional aspect of all this

brenn24179

anyone figured out why you overeat? I just recently lost 30 lbs and notice I feel pain now. I never felt pain much before, distracted myself with food and was happy but then I would never deal with stuff.

I have more self esteem now, realize when I am disrespected or being taken advantage of. It is like when I ate I didnt have to feel my feelings, very distracted like being drunk and who cares?

Seems like I can figure who I want in my life and who not. I can see more clearly which is definitely a good reason not to overeat!

I remember watching a lady whose husband died get up to 400 lbs and I thought that could be me. If I don't want to feel all I have to do is eat and then of course I never find solutions or healthy ways to cope like talking to friend, writing, staying busy, etc.

countcurt

This is why it's important to figure out both the reasons you want to lose weight and the reasons you don't want to lose weight or make the changes necessary to lose weight.

I had a friend who used to say you can't stop stuffing your face until you start facing your stuff.

100_PROOF_

This is an important lesson to learn for lasting success.
I think you are well on your way to lasting success OP as it seems like you are doing the mental work along with the physical. Many don't realize that there's a deeper side to weight loss that runs deeper than just being thinner.
It looks like you figured it out though and that's great!
Not everyone knows that There's " inner" work that needs to be done along side of the "outer" work.

urloved33

its not what we are eating...its what is eating us.

brenn24179

thanks so much, ya really understand, I thought I was just weird. Some people dont emotionally eat but I am one of them

smolmaus

countcurt wrote: »

I had a friend who used to say you can't stop stuffing your face until you start facing your stuff.

Can I get this in cross-stitch for my wall please.

brenn24179 wrote: »

thanks so much, ya really understand, I thought I was just weird. Some people dont emotionally eat but I am one of them

That's one thing I appreciate most about this forum. There's always somebody who's been there.

You've made a really valuable discovery about yourself and I think you should be proud of that

brenn24179

I hate that commercial on tv when mother slides her daughter a chocolate bar under her door and says now things will be getting better, I must have taken that to heart somewhere down the line.

amy19355

brenn24179 wrote: »

thanks so much, ya really understand, I thought I was just weird. Some people dont emotionally eat but I am one of them

You're totally in good company!

I think there is plenty of emotional eating and exercising going on.

If there weren't , then the yo-yo diet/workout threads wouldn't exist!

My answer to emotional drivers is my daily mantra: Only I have control over how other people make me feel.

good luck to you and good fitness to us all!

brenn24179

yes some people are just jerks, has nothing to do with me. My self worth is getting much better.

cwolfman13

I've never been an "overeater" in that kind of emotional sense, but yeah...if that's an issue, that "stuff" definitely needs to be dealt with to have long term success I'd think.

neskapolita1978

Yes I am definitely an emotional eater. Upset? Comfort food like pasta or curry. Happy? Ice cream! Angry? THAT BAG OF FUN SIZE HERSHEY WONT EAT ITSELF. I find myself looking for food now when I feel some kind of way and have to distract myself with something else. And to add fuel to the fire I gained a lot of weight after being assaulted. Doesn't rule out a repeat occurrence but makes the logistics a lot more difficult. Ironically the bigger I was, the more invisible I got and I'd much rather be invisible than vulnerable. Then it started getting hard to do basic everyday things. That's when I realized it was too much but by now I'm in so far over my head. Trying to get out little by little.

brenn24179

neskapolita, dont know how to respond, that is awful, I just know food doesnt solve anything, if you are upset, it just makes you fat and upset, makes all situations worse.

yayamom3

brenn24179 wrote: »

I hate that commercial on tv when mother slides her daughter a chocolate bar under her door and says now things will be getting better, I must have taken that to heart somewhere down the line.

Yes! That commercial irks me too!

allarounddice

Now that I'm tracking everything, I'm more and more aware of all of the emotional eating that I'm doing. Because I'm eating less, I realize what it feels like again to be hungry. I'm not eating as much food now and starting to feel better. My blood glucose is getting lower too!

Phoebe5164

It’s also a generational thing too , grandma gave us a kit kat with a bandaid, my mom cooks and bakes when she’s stressed because she’s lived without things.
My generation (50)has always had everything, my kids think we have too much food in the freezer , buy too many groceries ....

20 year olds today could put a stop to emotional eating ... I hope they do 🌸

brenn24179

yes excessive food would numb me. I would stuff feelings, tolerate pain, ignore problems. Just today I told my family members things would be different this Xmas. I usually do all the cooking and go get my Mom and take food to my sons and my daughter would sometimes come, sometimes not with her family. They never came Xmas eve or day (guess that is for the important people) Anyway, we are going off this year for couple of days and I told them to come by over Xmas so I could give grandchildren something (money, they are older now) It will be so nice not to have to do everything, all the cooking, and then a week later cook again. I know crazy.
We have to take care of ourselves.

maureenkhilde

I too for years was very much an emotional eater. Family issues, Job issues, Stress issues, and many of them almost had categories under them. Job and Stress were really big ones for me in last few years. And as I started my journey here in May, with logging food I also have been keeping a separate journal for what are my triggers. What could set me off. And learning to cope a different way than literally what had become my normal, which was abnormal.
And eating and eating all that did was pack on more pounds, meant I had more medical issues. Quite the catch22.

We too decided to go away a bit for the Holidays to enjoy it. Instead of being the house everyone comes to after I did the majority of the cooking and baking. Hubby most of the cleaning.

babysaffy

I love this thread. Too many reasons to go into. You've also inspired me to do less this Christmas. I spent most of last Christmas Day feeling resentful and miserable that I was going to be doing all that cooking and cleaning up.

I've lost a lot of weight slowly started the journey around this time last year and I've also had a lot of emotional breakthroughs.

It's such a great feeling and I intend to work on myself emotionally and mentally a lot more in 2019 once I've reached my gw. Almost there.
Thanks for your posts everyone!

robertw486

@brenn24179

Very interesting post. Though I've never considered myself an emotional eater, most of your other points hold true to me as well. Having my weight and fitness in check makes me more confident, I take less crap from people, my focus is better, etc.

The positive changes can go well beyond physical, and I'm glad you're one of the people seeing those other positive changes. Well done.

estherdragonbat

What's helped for me has been upping my exercise. I don't do high-intensity, but over the last two years I've gone from "25 minutes of walking daily, even if it's just a few circuits around the block and when weather doesn't permit, fitness glider in the basement" to "Shoot for 2 hours of walking; 90 minutes or more is good enough OR 75 minutes on the glider, plus strength training 5 days/week (dumbbells ranging from 8x2 to 30x2lbs depending on exercise)". And what I've found is:

• When I exercise, I'm proportionally less hungry. In other words, I eat back 50-75% of my calories according to what MFP says I burn. So, if it tells me I burned 510 calories—pretty much par for one of my 2-hour walks now—I eat back 255 and I find that I'm not hungry on 1605 total calories. BUT if I don't exercise, I feel hungry on my base 1360.
• The time I spend exercising is time not spent grazing, nibbling, etc. Basically cuts back on my boredom/mindless eating.
• Exercise helps my moods, so less stress/emotional eating.

OddDitty

I've always known why I over ate. It was a combination of several things and likely, that's the case for most people.

[Please bear with the length of this post if you will.]

When I was young, pre-teen, I was being molested at home. It was happening to my older sister and, when she got too old, I was next. It wasn't every day or even every week, but it happened. I was not threatened or given any indication that what was happening was wrong or harmful. In fact, I was trained to believe it was normal and the attention felt good, believe it or not.

Then one day the attention stopped.

This had a devastating affect. What I didn't know was that my molester had gotten professional help and determined to himself to stop molesting. Back then though, they didn't think children remembered such things or that it scarred them. So nobody got help for me.

Going alongside of this was a mother who taught us the importance of eating everything on our plates. She was a depression era person who knew the feeling of hunger and the fear of not knowing from where your next meal would come. So, when I no longer received comfort and attention from my molester, I got it from eating all my food and garnering Mom's praise.

The two were an explosive combination. Though I didn't start packing on the pounds until Jr. High. But by then the die was cast. The message was deeply embedded into my mind. And, when I finally learned about sex and realized that what had happened to me all those years wasn't normal but a kind of sickness being played out on me, I began to hate myself. Partially because I didn't want to believe it happened and would tell myself, "no this is your sick little mind thinking this." But also because I was in a religious sect that taught we were "better off dead than defiled".

Food was the only place I could turn to by then for acceptance. I ate for myself and ALL the starving children in Africa!

By age sixteen I was 180 pounds and much larger than the other girls. Back then they didn't do plus sizes for teen clothes so I sewed my own most of the time. I went to live with an Aunt for a summer. She tried getting me to lose weight. One egg, one slice toast, 1/2 grapefruit, every morning, and the women's exercise center every other day. But she went to work daily and, when she did, I would sneak out to the diner in town and grab a bite. By the time I left that summer I was close to 190 pounds.

Her constant harping about weight only pushed the feelings of inadequacy.

But there was something else going on in my head as well. Those feelings of wishing I had fought off my molester still stung in my head and, at sixteen, I tried to commit suicide. I didn't know how and, obviously, didn't succeed. A doctor in the ER tried to get me to open up, but I couldn't. I could not embarrass my family. Back then one didn't "put your trash on the street" so to speak.

It took me many many years to get past it all. And I eventually did. And over time had lost weight, going from a steady 250 pounds down to 140. I was all grown up now, feeling great and looking good. I had fought my way through the abuse, through a failed first marriage (also to an abuser), and a rape (yeah sucked), to come out on the other side! Life was good, right?

Hold on. I was only able to enjoy that weight loss for a couple of years when the weight started packing back on. But this time it wasn't really what I was eating as much as what was going on with my body. It took five years for a doctor to finally figure out that I had Hashimotos disease. My weight had soared, and quickly, to over 300 pounds. My hair was falling out. My skin was like that of an alligator. and forget growing nails! I had become diabetic, developed AFIB, and had breathing issues to where I needed a c-pap. I was miserable.

Eventually that was treated but the after affects left me so miserable that I decided to "accept my fate" as it were and just went back to the old ways. The weight climbed up to 325 before I finally got referred to a cardiologist who said I needed to drop the poundage to help with my medical issues.

Truly, you have no idea how much weight has to do with over all health. I worry for those people who are told to go ahead and be obese; that its' okay to be too thin; or that weight doesn't matter. Believe me- it DOES.

I ended up in a cardiac treatment facility for my AFIB. As it happened the electrical impulses of my heart had to work too hard because of the weight. But the vicious cycle was losing the weight while being on 50-100 units of insulin per day. Insulin does not help with weight loss, not one little bit! But the cardiac facility did. I HAD to go through their class to get my insurance to cover the program, which lasted 12 weeks. I had to attend every class and show improvement. So there was incentive right there!

And I did it. And, through exercise discovered that my blood pressure, and even my diabetes, was changing. For the better! Just getting on the treadmill and following the specified plan. Eventually I got down to 260. And then they changed the facility and I could no longer go there. I got kind of depressed but kept soldiering on down to 250, then 240. And then, we moved.

In the past year since the move I put back on 10 pounds and found myself up to 250. My diabetes was still under control as was the AFIB, but a new medical issue raised its ugly head. At first they said it was ITP but the liver specialist they sent me to sent me for a battery of testing. The result? First stage non-alcohol related cirrhosis of the liver. And I didn't even have the fun of getting drunk occasionally to get there! No, I ate myself into it and carried the weight of the world, literally, and for far too long.

I look at this all now and realize that depression, abuse, wrong information about food and its role in our lives (does it REALLY help the starving kids if you eat your lima beans?) all played a role in the weight gain. Add to it the fact that I just plain enjoy good tasting food and cooking it, and there's a recipe for an unhealthy life.

Now, I realize there's those who will read this and give me flack for opening up and others who think they're Freud and will try to analyze it all. PLEASE resist the temptation! I relate this in a transparent way to show that, for most people, its a multifaceted issue. There's not one single thing (usually) that makes a person either grossly over eat or grossly under eat. And I'm purposely not telling people how I came to get past it all because that trip is for another thread (maybe?) I leave that up to the OP. This tale has been long enough, I'm sure.

shelbygeorge29

brenn24179 wrote: »

I hate that commercial on tv when mother slides her daughter a chocolate bar under her door and says now things will be getting better, I must have taken that to heart somewhere down the line.

I was thinking in that same vein with that commercial. Why are we teaching kids chocolate will soothe out the bumps in life?

brenn24179

odd ditty, thanks so much for taking the time to write all that. I am so sorry you have been thru so much, I have read where people that are molested almost always have a weight problem. Then you had to get that disease on top of that. I am grateful to never have had sexual things happen to me. I did have neglectful narcisstic parents and my adult children are the same so I am sure frustrations led me to overeat. Hope you are ok now and have got your weight back to normal. I can see when things happen to us it is like turning to food like drunks do to alcohol, very numbing and distracting. Hopefully we can find healthier ways to cope, working on this.

kiela64

Absolutely. I had a really amazingly emotionally good summer, and losing 45lbs was challenging but doable. My SO has been a fantastic emotional support and I was doing so so so well on all fronts.

Now I've been experiencing more emotional upset being sidelined with a concussion (and recently officially a mild depressive episode...yay...) I've absolutely caved and used food as a crutch again. Thankfully I haven't regained too much yet, just 4lbs (and I've lost 1.5 again, it's been bouncing around all month here as I feel better and worse).

Exercise improves everything - my compliance with my eating, my mood, my sleep. But getting there, caring, having the energy. It's hard. I'm not always up to it.

I think also part of the process is forgiving yourself for using food as a crutch. If you know why, how it helps you, maybe you can figure out what to replace it with. Or if it's okay in some instances, but in a smaller portion, etc.

beaglady

kiela64 wrote: »

Absolutely. I had a really amazingly emotionally good summer, and losing 45lbs was challenging but doable. My SO has been a fantastic emotional support and I was doing so so so well on all fronts.

Now I've been experiencing more emotional upset being sidelined with a concussion (and recently officially a mild depressive episode...yay...) I've absolutely caved and used food as a crutch again. Thankfully I haven't regained too much yet, just 4lbs (and I've lost 1.5 again, it's been bouncing around all month here as I feel better and worse).

Exercise improves everything - my compliance with my eating, my mood, my sleep. But getting there, caring, having the energy. It's hard. I'm not always up to it.

I think also part of the process is forgiving yourself for using food as a crutch. If you know why, how it helps you, maybe you can figure out what to replace it with. Or if it's okay in some instances, but in a smaller portion, etc.

Agreed. I lost 50+ pounds slowly over the course of a year and a half. Due to the stress and time constraints of helping care for my elderly father, I got stuck at the same weight around the end of March 2018, with 20 more pounds to go. It was too much to keep my head in the right place to lose, and still do what was needed for my dad, while working full time and helping husband who has his own serious health challenges.

I decided mid-summer that my goal was to maintain, and that as long as I didn't gain, it was OK. Fall brought our wedding anniversary, hubs and my birthdays, then Thanksgiving. Plus we entered my dad into a hospice program at the end of October. At that point, I decided that I would still (somewhat haphazardly) log what I ate, but if I stress ate, then I just did. Dad passed on Thanksgiving, at which point I decided that I would keep on that path, with the deadline that after the eating occasions surrounding the funeral, I would be back to precise logging and keeping a deficit. Last Friday, he was buried, and afterward, we went out to a lengthy Chinese buffet lunch with cousins I seldom see. I ended up gaining a pound or two during those last few weeks.

On Saturday, it was relatively easy to make the planned shift that it was time to keep a deficit again, and I've been successful since then. My point in posting this isn't to garner attention via 'poor me'. It's to mention that it has been helpful to me to recognize that it can be Ok to give yourself permission to maintain, rather than try (and fail) to lose during difficult emotional times. It was also helpful to recognize that I do use food as an emotional crutch, and to give myself permission to do that, with the understanding that the permission had an expiration date.

MeganReid1991

Ugh this was such a nice post to read to know I’m not alone.. I have recently come to realize how depressed I am and I have a lot on more on my mind.. I seriously used food as a crutch before and would eat all my feelings. Now that I hardly drink and eat within my calories I have to face all these feelings.
I am going to go to my therapist more often but I will say it’s something I’m really struggling with.

sarakenna12

This is a really powerful thread. Thank you everyone for sharing. It's helpful to see how sticky depression can be in relation to food and weight; how depression can eat at you while compelling you to overeat. I've felt out of control in so many aspects of my life... with food, alcohol, fitness, emotional stability... As I go through this journey I see that the things that feel out of control for me are interconnected, and that my emotional health is the common denominator. In order to work on balancing one thing, I must work on balancing them all.

Lolinloggen

I have just been through a stressful time at work and my coping mechanisms have changed But I admit to having felt the urge to eat eat eat to cope with the stress. I did not but it sure showed me the mechanism again.
Thankfully I managed to get some other mechanisms in place over the last few years but I got to the point when that almost did not work anymore either.
I got through (though still dealing with the fall out) and praise myself for doing so.

kshama2001

estherdragonbat wrote: »

What's helped for me has been upping my exercise. I don't do high-intensity, but over the last two years I've gone from "25 minutes of walking daily, even if it's just a few circuits around the block and when weather doesn't permit, fitness glider in the basement" to "Shoot for 2 hours of walking; 90 minutes or more is good enough OR 75 minutes on the glider, plus strength training 5 days/week (dumbbells ranging from 8x2 to 30x2lbs depending on exercise)". And what I've found is:

• When I exercise, I'm proportionally less hungry. In other words, I eat back 50-75% of my calories according to what MFP says I burn. So, if it tells me I burned 510 calories—pretty much par for one of my 2-hour walks now—I eat back 255 and I find that I'm not hungry on 1605 total calories. BUT if I don't exercise, I feel hungry on my base 1360.
• The time I spend exercising is time not spent grazing, nibbling, etc. Basically cuts back on my boredom/mindless eating.
• Exercise helps my moods, so less stress/emotional eating.

Ya, exercise is crucial for my emotional state too. I'm sleep deprived today, and had to really force myself out there. I promised myself I could quit after 4 songs if I needed to but I was doing trail maintenance, got involved in a big fallen tree cleanup, and was out there for 65 minutes.

brenn24179

Lolinloggen wrote: »

I have just been through a stressful time at work and my coping mechanisms have changed But I admit to having felt the urge to eat eat eat to cope with the stress. I did not but it sure showed me the mechanism again.
Thankfully I managed to get some other mechanisms in place over the last few years but I got to the point when that almost did not work anymore either.
I got through (though still dealing with the fall out) and praise myself for doing so.

that is great, keep telling myself I can be stressed or stressed and fat if I overeat.

Girlheidi

kiela64 wrote: »

Absolutely. I had a really amazingly emotionally good summer, and losing 45lbs was challenging but doable. My SO has been a fantastic emotional support and I was doing so so so well on all fronts.

Now I've been experiencing more emotional upset being sidelined with a concussion (and recently officially a mild depressive episode...yay...) I've absolutely caved and used food as a crutch again. Thankfully I haven't regained too much yet, just 4lbs (and I've lost 1.5 again, it's been bouncing around all month here as I feel better and worse).

Exercise improves everything - my compliance with my eating, my mood, my sleep. But getting there, caring, having the energy. It's hard. I'm not always up to it.

I think also part of the process is forgiving yourself for using food as a crutch. If you know why, how it helps you, maybe you can figure out what to replace it with. Or if it's okay in some instances, but in a smaller portion, etc.

One of the symptoms of concussion is depression, along with appetite and sleep. My son was badly affected during his exams - he's slim but he lost his appetite and wasn't sleeping and told me that he wasn't his usual happy self.....we saw the concussion specialist as soon as possible and I was told that this is very normal for concussions.......be kind to yourself - concussions are not fun.