Food Addiction

stirbuzz

I am usually pretty good at controlling my food intake however sometimes the food addiction kicks in and I eat horribly for a day or two. I am not the kind of person who loses weight when stesssed out; I tend to eat more at those times. Coronavirus has been one big stressor on me working as a nurse. I will go four days eating spinach and carrots and grapes and Jenny Craig. But then I get a compulsion to gobble things up. And then I feel guilty. Then I swear I will never do it again. I am in therapy for my addictive behavior, as it goes beyond food. But this is very frustrating

cmriverside

It is frustrating.

Keep working at it.

Eating too little for several days will cause uncontrolled eating eventually. I do a lot better if I just try to eat the right amount every day. Not too little and not too much. It's a balancing act.

kimny72

stirbuzz wrote: »

I am usually pretty good at controlling my food intake however sometimes the food addiction kicks in and I eat horribly for a day or two. I am not the kind of person who loses weight when stesssed out; I tend to eat more at those times. Coronavirus has been one big stressor on me working as a nurse. I will go four days eating spinach and carrots and grapes and Jenny Craig. But then I get a compulsion to gobble things up. And then I feel guilty. Then I swear I will never do it again. I am in therapy for my addictive behavior, as it goes beyond food. But this is very frustrating

Maybe it would help to not eat such a restrictive diet in the first place? Eat foods you like, but in the correct portion sizes so you have a calorie deficit. And make sure you aren't eating too little when you are being "good".

I often find on days I eat very little or am stuck with a bunch of food I don't like, the next day I just crave everything in massive portions! Learning to moderate and fit in the foods I liked and could control was a huge eye opener for me.

Best of luck with therapy, and hang in there

PAV8888

The ladies got this right: it will probably be helpful to you to create a more balanced and less extreme string of deficits

AnnPT77

I like what the people above are recommending, a more moderate approach to food selection and calories, day to day.

But I have another suggestion: If you have an over-goal day, where things kind of unraveled, log it. If you have to estimate after the fact, that's better than nothing, but logging before you eat is even better if you can do it.

Sometimes, we can feel like we've done something horrible with our eating when obectively it really isn't all that bad: Sometimes we were even eating below maintenance that day, or perhaps eating into the next day's calorie deficit. It's possible to overeat and wipe out one's calorie deficit for the week, but it can turn out that one day of non-ideal eating in a week has just resulted in a slowed loss for the week, rather than no loss for the week (even though the scale may be up very alarmingly the next day quite a bit, for reasons mostly having to do with food volume and water weight).

If you can bring yourself to log on "horrible" days, you'll know what the real impact is likely be, not just that scary and misleading immediate scale jump. Also, logging can help you to better understand patterns, and work with them. For example, some women find that they're hungrier for a few particular days in their menstrual cycle, so they decide to eat at maintenance calories for just those days every month. It takes a little longer to reach ultimate goal weight, but makes the process sustainable enough that they actually have higher chances of reaching that goal weight.

I'm not saying that's speicifically your pattern, but it could be lots of things - maybe particular kinds of breakfasts are less likely to cause "horrible" days, or sleep is a factor, or something like that. By logging and being mindful, you can increase the odds of figuring things out, and finding a more sustainable routine.

A day over calorie goal is not "a failure". It's just life. It can be a learning experience, even, and useful for insight into improvements.

Best wishes!