Question for People who -WERE- Emotional/Bored Eaters

ryske

Now that Call of Duty has come out I can stay away from my tub of ice cream

Speazzy

I am a former binge/emotional eater (I still occasionally do in moments of weakness). I have a few things that I try to do/not do. I try to satiate my hunger with some healthy or drink a ton of water. I try not to buy things that I tend to binge on (snack foods - trail mix, m&m's, etc). Or if I do buy them, I ration out potion sizes, because if I eat out of the bag it is all over from there. I also chew gum. I have found that it is not wise to deny yourself something to the point that you obsess over it...that is when the floodgates open and how a 2 lbs bag of peanut m&m's "disappears".

9thChakra

My short answer is:

I found the audiobook, "Intuitive Eating" very insightful and helpful.

I'm still working on things. I know I developed emotional eating as one of my coping mechanisms when I was young. I am just now beginning to acknowledge and give thanks that I had this as a way of coping then, but also acknowledging that it is no longer useful in my life and it is actually hurting me.

Again, I highly recommend the audiobook.

http://www.amazon.com/Intuitive-Eating-Practical-Yourself-Chronic/dp/1591796822/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383698652&sr=1-3&keywords=intuitive+eating

Best to you!

9thChakra

karlospiklington

I have always been an emotional eater which has led to me being overweight. I changed my relationship with food fairly recently when I realised that comfort eating wasn't actually making me feel better anymore. It seems odd to think it took me so long to realise that. But now every time I am tempted to slip back into old habits I remember how bad it feels to be overweight or how it just made me feel worse.

If I really need to eat something I will use chewing gum but usually I try to distract myself with something else. Playing guitar or learning to play something new often helps as it can improve my mood like the food did, totally distract me from the urge to comfort eat and gives me a sense of accomplishment that stuffing my face never did.

ModernNerd

Totes used to be a boredom eater. I have three suggestions that really helped me.

1. Remove the temptation.
I went cold-turkey and got rid of snack foods. No chips, no pop, no cookies, no nada in my cupboards. After some time I found that I no longer even wanted those foods.

2. Get busy!
Sign up for a pilates class. Do one of those 30 day challenges everyone yaks about. Create your own circuit training routine for the next month at the gym. The less time you're bored or sad, the less time you give food the opportunity to tempt you.

3. Brush your teeth after meals.
I find that I'm far less tempted to graze if I just brushed my teeth.

Best of luck OP, you got this:)

heyjay31

I go ahead and eat. My bored eating is when I get my extra protein in. Greek yogurt with granola, nuts, or an Apple/banana with peanut butter! Yum!!
I've always been a bored eater no sense trying to torture myself over it.....just keep healthy snacks around for these occasions.
Good luck:)

sc193usa

I was an emotional and a bored eater. Sad=eat, happy=eat, stressed=eat, bored=eat. Which added up to a lot of eating. Consistently logging helped me see how much harm these were doing me. I would still stay in my calories for the day, but I realized that my binge on gummy bears meant that I couldn't eat dinner and was still hungry.

I found it helped to have really filling and low-cal snacks around, carrots and hummus worked well for me. Then if I felt like eating, I could have those and I'd get full enough that I couldn't stand eating more while staying in my calories.

Now I see that my relationship to food has changed, and my fiance agrees. Other than that TOM, I really don't have problems with it anymore. I do try to spread my lunch out throughout the day, which helps with snacking from boredom, fruit in the mid morning, noon time main meal/protein, afternoon veggie snack. Halloween showed me that I still have work to do, but I do feel really good about how I've changed. I've also taken to distracting myself from boredom by cleaning, there's no need to go anywhere and depending on what you are doing, it can be pretty active/stress relieving.

Pearsquared

As for bored eating, I try keep my hands busy because I need them to eat, and honestly, I'd rather be playing pokemon. Finding ways to fill the emotional side was more difficult. I write down everything that pops into my mind that makes me even the least bit happy or excited (trying out a new music artist or genre, picking out a book, people watching in the mall, etc. etc.). Whenever I'm stressed, I either think about doing these things or go out and do them. Even thinking about doing them makes me feel better, and I don't have to fill it with food.