Strategies To cope with Emotional Eating

mpkpbk2015

Yesterday I was discussing with everyone about sabotaging our goals and the topic of Emotional Eating came up several times. So I got to thinking about how I cope with it and wondered if people would share with me how they cope on their journey to goal and maintaining their weigh. The things I do to cope are:
Going outside for a walk
taking a warm bath relaxing bath with candles
Journal my feelings - getting t them out of my head and down on paper
reading a book
doing puzzles
exercising
calling friends
calling the free help line at crisis center
going to church
praying
Painting or drawing something or doodling
crafting or in my case making jewelry
gardening
Thank you I acknowledge that just because I have reached my goal weigh after all this time my stress isn't going away if anything it probably is going to be more stressful because I am fearful of gaining it back.

rosebarnalice

While all of your diversion techniques are good ones, I didn't really make progress with my emotional eating until I stopped "diverting" or "avoiding" my emotions and instead started naming and FEELING the emotions associated with the behavior.b

It wasn't easy and I still catch myself, but I've also given myself permission to feel bad/sad/ bored /anxious /stressed without trying to stuff down those feelings with food, and also to feel good/ happy/ celebratory/ social without trying to "puff up" those feelings with food.

mpkpbk2015

rosebarnalice wrote: »

While all of your diversion techniques are good ones, I didn't really make progress with my emotional eating until I stopped "diverting" or "avoiding" my emotions and instead started naming and FEELING the emotions associated with the behavior.b

It wasn't easy and I still catch myself, but I've also given myself permission to feel bad/sad/ bored /anxious /stressed without trying to stuff down those feelings with food, and also to feel good/ happy/ celebratory/ social without trying to "puff up" those feelings with food.

Thank you it is hard I appreciate your insights, I still struggle everyday. Have a good week.

lemmanuel66

Another emotional eater here. I'm currently trying to take of the 20lbs of emotion that I ate since the new year. Right now, I am very motivated, but there are times when emotion gets the better of me and, even as I put the food in my mouth I know what I am doing to myself but the comfort of eating overwhelms my resistance. One tool I use that sometimes helps is to acknowledge that the food will not make whatever the cause of the emotion is to disappear. I have also found that, like the poster above, naming, acknowledging, and allowing myself to feel the emotion makes it easier to cope with and I am less likely to eat it.

concordancia

I find mindfulness and journaling to be useful tools (part of feeling and acknowledging the emotions as the above posters said).

And while they aren't always enough, at least when I do turn to food for emotional support, I put in the work to figure out what emotion it was, what triggered that emotion, what might be a better way of facing that emotion in the future, etc.

mpkpbk2015

concordancia wrote: »

I find mindfulness and journaling to be useful tools (part of feeling and acknowledging the emotions as the above posters said).

And while they aren't always enough, at least when I do turn to food for emotional support, I put in the work to figure out what emotion it was, what triggered that emotion, what might be a better way of facing that emotion in the future, etc.

Thank you I find them helpful too. I started blogging and the last few days MFP has had a glitch and I am feeling a little lost so I have been paper blogging and working out to combat the emotional stress I am going through.

mpkpbk2015

lemmanuel66 wrote: »

Another emotional eater here. I'm currently trying to take of the 20lbs of emotion that I ate since the new year. Right now, I am very motivated, but there are times when emotion gets the better of me and, even as I put the food in my mouth I know what I am doing to myself but the comfort of eating overwhelms my resistance. One tool I use that sometimes helps is to acknowledge that the food will not make whatever the cause of the emotion is to disappear. I have also found that, like the poster above, naming, acknowledging, and allowing myself to feel the emotion makes it easier to cope with and I am less likely to eat it.

Beautiful dog, resistance is hard, as a old star trek fan I always think of the old borg say resistance say resistance is futile. But then I go to mind over matter and start a mind dump to get everything out of my head and down on paper and while I am writing I am not eating and if I write long enough the time passes and I read back what I wrote and realize eating is not going to fix it and move on too.Thanks for sharing have a nice weekend.

mpkpbk2015

What are other ways to deal with Emotional Eating - Is it more of a problem in the beginning stages of dieting or does it last in maintenance and beyond.