Overcome emotional eating?

jdbly3373

Hi, I've been wanting to lose weight for a while but I find it really hard to keep a deficit. I am going through some very difficult things in my life and find it just feels very heavy when I'm in a deficit at all. Its like all the emotions come to the surface. I feel better when I am eating maintenance calories. Do any of you deal with this? How do you overcome? I really could use at least 30 lbs of weight loss for health and to reduce physical pain.

I don't even find exercise helps, though it does help your body feel better and stuff. The emotional pain from life issues is still there. I don't want to have to pay someone an exorbitant fee to talk to me. Think just talking to regular people would help.

penguinmama87

I think it definitely helps to work on alternative coping strategies. Finding something to do with your hands helps (can't eat if your hands are busy and/or dirty!) A good support network of friends helps.

One of the difficult things about switching to better coping strategies is exactly that interim time, IMO - where they still feel new and awkward, but eating would be second nature. For me, being mindful of that helped me get through that awkward time - I could tell myself it was temporary and my brain was reworking itself to do this other thing instead. If I made a good choice now, it would be easier next time to make that same choice. (And it's true - humans are creatures of habit!)

I still think it can be worth it to seek out therapy. I really benefited from a year or so of therapy when I had severe postpartum depression and I recall lessons and practices I learned then all the time. If you don't already know for certain it would be very expensive for you, I'd encourage you to check a few things if they apply to you: your insurance benefits and expected copays, employee benefits (including EAPs), or checking with community resources (or even Googling) to find providers who work on sliding scales or can work out alternative arrangements. I think there's often a lot more of this than many people think.

Failing that, there are self-help books. Some are better than others, some are focused on eating specifically. One of my favorites is Codependent No More, which is not about overeating specifically but did help me a lot with how I responded to emotional stress. It's a pretty popular one; there were lots of copies in our local library system.

Some of the boring things here too - getting adequate sleep is a biggie. A big key for me is to just keep on with my routine and not make items of self-care subject to my emotions about it - again this is a habit thing. So (unless I am really sick) if I know I should shower but I don't want to, I do it anyway, because that's what I do. Same with exercise and going to bed on time. I can't think of a time I went ahead and did those things and thought to myself, "nah, I should have kept moping or becoming one with the couch."

It definitely feels awful to know you need to hop on but aren't sure how to jump. But you can, and IMO it doesn't matter much that you do it perfectly but that you just go for it and keep at it. It doesn't have to be perfect on the first go. If you need a smaller deficit to start, then that's OK. I hope some of this is helpful and you begin feeling better soon.

JBanx256

If you think talking to "normal" (er...maybe not exactly normal ) people might help, feel free to send a friend request. Sometimes just having someone to vent to can help relieve a lot of pent-up emotion/stress/etc. The forums are good for that in general though - loads of people are willing to lend a sympathetic ear to help get you over whatever hurdle you're facing, and/or bouncing some ideas around as possible ways to cope with the problem when it's acute.

Depending on how often you have these bad days, it may make sense to just eat maintenance some days, or at least reduce your deficit. I mean if your mood/emotions hit hard an average of once or twice a week, allow yourself to not be in a steep deficit those days so you have a little more ammo to ride out the dark wave. It might slow down your overall rate of loss, but if it helps preserve your mental health/stability and you don't have a medical necessity to lose weight as quickly as possible...sounds to me like a reasonable trade-off?

missmeggg

I am definitely an emotional eater. And, building new habits is hard when your emotions are high. I try to find foods that keep my mouth busy to satiate that need, but also aren't completely unhealthy. Sunflower seeds in the shells are good ones. I bite the shell off and spit it out in a cup and then eat the seed. I get the satisfaction of eating, but it's not a complete gorge-fest.