Some of my thoughts on emotional eating

stroutman81

Thanks Steve excellent post - it already has me thinking of when i need to snack and what is triggering it. Any suggestions on what i should do to prevent eating doing those triggers. I thought maybe if i was home i could go on the treadmill. Just off the top of my head i thought of i snack when i am bored or when my husband aggravates me.

In a case like this, you're feeling frustration. Your response to the frustration is to eat. Your mind has it linked up that eating will soothe the discomfort stemming from the frustration and I'd bet that in the heat of the moment you can't imagine any other possible responses to the emotion..

On paper it's easy to see eat is not a logical response. In the heat of the moment, though... turning to food makes all the sense in the world.

You can try and shortcut it by finding an alternate outlet, right? Maybe some other activity, besides eating, can help soothe the frustration. Going for a walk, reading a book, etc, etc... whatever jives with you.

You can also try shortcutting it by eating high volume (low energy density) food to fill you up before doing too much "damage" in the calorie department.

While these types of tweaks can certainly help (and I advocate such things), they're akin to putting a band aid on a shotgun wound.

Where I'm really going with the OP is digging deeper than finding a shortcut. Shortcuts can give you a little breathing room... they might help you feel a little better and free up some of your willpower to work towards finding more permanent solutions.

But the important thing to remember is our emotions are telling you something. If you actually accept them, feel them, and listen to them you can become much more aware and present and thus much more "pointed" in your responses to them.

In your particular case you feel frustration toward your husband. I'd spend a lot of time figuring out what that frustration means to you. Whatever you believe about frustration right now in the context of your husband, the emotion motivates you to eat. Obviously that's not very helpful or productive.

So identify those beliefs. And then work towards changing them.

This is why journaling is such a powerful tool if you do it correctly.

When a lot of people go down this path of analysis, they see quickly that they don't handle uncomfortable emotions well, which is why they're escaping them by turning to the pleasure food provides. Maybe when you're frustrated with your husband, you believe that there's no fix for the frustration... you're in a helpless situation. He is how he is and there's nothing you can do about it. So why not eat to feel good... as there are no other options.

What if you worked on that belief. Figure out some alternative ways you can think about frustration and come up with some different responses. There are likely more issues at play - maybe you feel he doesn't respect your feelings, maybe you feel he does things to spite you, maybe you have unrealistic expectations, etc, etc... I could rattle off dozens of possibilities.

But given your underlying issues, without communicating with your husband about them, you're likely to never dig deep enough to transplant that root, so to speak.








It's important to figure out why that frustration is there. Maybe you can identify the root and find a more concrete solution. Is it rooted solely in your husbands acute actions?

stroutman81

It's been my experience as a former "emotional eater" that my emotions had nothing to do with my overeating. I changed my diet and in a matter of weeks I had a normal appetite -- no getting in touch with my feelings needed. So my advice for "emotional eaters" is to look at your diet for the cause. That need to stuff yourself with food is a physical problem brought on by the food you're eating; not a mental one or a poor relationship with food. Just something to consider.

If only it were that easy for everyone.

Of course we start with diet.

Read that twice.

But when that doesn't work, you need to dig deeper.

You were not a full fledged emotional eater. The emotional eaters I'm talking about are borderline binge eaters. They've tweaked diets and tried time and time again. They've even hired people like me or dietitians to put them on a "proper" diet and there's still no relief.

Entire books and papers are written on this subject.

I assure you, your n=1 experience is a blessing for you but a dream for others.

stroutman81

In response to Alabaster above ^

That's your experience and it's valid, but that doesn't mean it's the only answer and applies to everyone. For you your emotions weren't involved, for others they are. It's not an either/or sort of thing.

Absolutely; except my emotions were involved and my weight/appetite spiraled out of control with the death of my sister. You don't get any more emotional than that -- the cause? The food I was eating.

stroutman81 posts are always thoughtful and on point but in this case I think people would do better and have more success looking towards their diets for the cause of their "emotional" eating. Just my opinion.

That was an acute response to a specific event. Tragic event, at that... sorry about your loss.

But the emotional eating I'm referring to is more general than that. It isn't necessarily fueled by a specific event as much as it is by a poor emotional coping system and/or a lack of awareness.

If it were as easy as you're making it out to be, my clients would NEVER struggle. You said you've followed me on here before... well then you know I'm like the "anti-rigid" diet guy. I bring it back to basics and fit nutrition to the person and his/her circumstances. Still though, some people struggle with compliance and these struggles typically come in the form of binges.

Some of it is definitely full fledged B.E.D.

Others, though, is simply a weak coping system and with a little education and practice... things tend to improve.

Then again, everyone's entitled to their opinion and I thank you for sharing yours. If you think much of this is bogus, I'm definitely not going to attack you for it.

fat2skinny50

Good good good analysis Steve I honestly appreciate it. I am going to start a journal for sure, like today. And I hear what you are saying about I have to communicate when Joey (my husband) frustrates me or he will keep on doing it and I will keep on eating. You’re the best thank you :flowerforyou:

bluelena

Bump to read later.

brenn24179

thanks, I think emotional eating is a lot of our problems. I know it is mine. Over Christmas, someone hit my car, I guess I need to learn to feel uncomfortable and have some patience. Problem solving has never been my best feature. I was so aggravated, before I knew it I was eating the donuts I had bought and planned to give hubby half but ate them all to of course make me feel better. I have used a pen and paper to write down and problem solve which has helped but when I had to act promptly I lost it.

I am doing better at this but it is just like an alcoholic, go to food to cope, which makes it worse of course. I tell myself I have to be uncomfortable and it will end, gosh it is patience I need to calm my fears. Had to wait 3 wks for my car to go in the shop, felt better after having set up with insurance and garage, some anxiety lessened and tell myself it is not the end of the world, have patience. Aggravation is a part of life. I can get thru stuff. I can deal. Acceptance is good to, things happen, life is hard at times. It is what it is,deal don't eat. I am taking baby steps to cope. This too shall pass especially disappointments if we can hold tight,work it out, exercise,pen and paper and good ole patience (especially when sick and people let us down)

1ZenGirl

It's been my experience as a former "emotional eater" that my emotions had nothing to do with my overeating. I changed my diet and in a matter of weeks I had a normal appetite -- no getting in touch with my feelings needed. So my advice for "emotional eaters" is to look at your diet for the cause. That need to stuff yourself with food is a physical problem brought on by the food you're eating; not a mental one or a poor relationship with food. Just something to consider.

Then I question your definition of emotional eating. I'm sorry but that makes absolutley no sense.

I could binge on 5 bags of carrots. Shoving food in my mouth was the only way that I thought that I could deal with what was eating me.

Emotional eating is about soothing yourself, regardless of the food used. Granted, I personally tended towards carbs and refined sugar but I binged on healthy food too. But it's not the healthy food that got me to 300 pounds. It is never about the types of food you eat. It just isn't. It is self-medicating the same way that an alcoholic does. The addictive patterns are exactly the same.

Feeling crappy...why think about it? Eat whatever you can to fill the emotional emptiness inside.....feel like crap afterwards, guilty....why even try.....depression....I'm going to try again...healthy breakfast.....bad meeting at work....hit vendoland....i've blown my day....get junk food on the way home.....have a huge dinner, maybe 3 portions....eat 2 pints of ice cream after.....go to bed and get up at 1am to keep feeding and hating myself.

Rinse and repeat.

I finally found an amazing therapist that helped me realize it was actually OK to feel my feelings! To learn that it wasn't about the "types" of food I was eating but what was eating ME. Two years later I am finally losing weight because I had to get real and deal with signifanct truths in my life.

Everyone is different but i guarantee you that is true emotional eating in the worst possible sense of the word. And I would never, will NEVER go back to that. Every day and I mean EVERY day I am mindful of what I am eating. And I eat ice cream still and refined sugar and I am losing weight and never feel guilty about what I eat.

Ramitta

Thanks Steve,
I am defo an emotional eater (binger rather) and I have struggled with that the last 5 years and I seem to either be on an extremely rigid 'diet' or on a binge fest.
Your post is definitely food for thought

walkingforward

Bumping

Cre8veLifeR

Great post! I wanted to add something as a former emotional / binge eater. I OBSESSED about food constantly. It was ALWAYS on my mind - When I would eat... What I would eat... Planning menus... Buying cookbooks... Cutting coupons... Thank GOD Pinterest wasn't around back then or that would have been a pure food escape!! I wasn't overweight when this was happening in my 20's. But I was sickeningly obsessed with food and binging was terrible. I tried to be bulimic but I could never make myself throw up (thank you God).

The food obsession drove me, literally, nuts. It was the constant, obsessive hum in my mind. Then one day my therapist recommended a book called "Healing Through Dark Emotions" which I can't recommend ENOUGH to anyone who stuffs their emotions by replacing them with other things to obsess about (not just food here - cleaning, working out , OTHER people's crap, booze, drugs)...

After reading the book and deciding to heal, the next problem for me is that I literally did not even know how I felt about anything. Emotionally I was totally numbed out and shut down. It helped me to get a list of emotions, and just like a person with a brain injury having to relearn a skill, I had to relearn emotions, be able to identify them, label them and most important - FEEL them. I would literally read through the list deciding which one applied. If you are a person who has suffered severe emotional trauma (as I had, obviously) this was absolutely TERRIFYING and really should be aided by either someone you really trust to be vulnerable around, or a therapist. The vulnerability was so absolutely, utterly raw - I felt naked and exposed. I developed terrible anxiety and my therapist put my on a low dose of Xanax so I could function at work.

The fact that I can write this is a testament to what serious introspective work can do. It's not as easy for someone with a severe emotional eating disorder to "just acknowledge your real feelings and don't eat." I was on Xanax for about 6 months before I was able to not feel like such a scared freak (I felt like a freak). I felt like I was the only one with feelings lol. Hard to explain. I only saw my therapist for about a year total but I have personally never stopped being introspective and never stopped learning about the power of the mind, and how to harness it!

One day it dawned on me: I haven't thought about food! I have now been free from an eating disorder for 15 years. It still can trigger though! When something really emotional happens (usually my response to a "negative" emotion) I will immediately want something sweet! But I recognize it for what it is and I am loving to that part of myself that created the food obsession in order to cope with emotions, and then deal with the emotions accordingly.

I wanted to shere is a list of emotions that may be helpful to someone going through serious emotional identification problems. It's a journey. Emotional eating can be difficult and scary in severe cases to overcome. I hope this is helpful.

joan111582

Fantastic post! Bumping so I can keep referring back to it.

stroutman81

Good good good analysis Steve I honestly appreciate it. I am going to start a journal for sure, like today. And I hear what you are saying about I have to communicate when Joey (my husband) frustrates me or he will keep on doing it and I will keep on eating. You’re the best thank you :flowerforyou:

My wife has the habit of asking questions that, to me, have very obvious answers. She'd likely punch my head if she heard me say this. She's magnificently smart though... so I used to have the habit of responding with a tone. This tone always rubbed her wrong and at one point she walked away from me in what I could tell was complete anger.

We never fight, so it was very noticeable from my end. And I honestly had no idea I did anything offensive.

She was obviously frustrated and likely hurt. Her coping mechanism was to walk away. And truth be told... she would have cooled off and we would have both went on our merry way. Until the next time I copped that smart aleck tone, of course. This vicious cycle would have continued and I imagine it would have dug in deeper and deeper each time I did it.

Thinking along the lines of how I think with my clients and their issues with emotional eating, I confronted her immediately asking, "What was that?"

From there the rest is history.

I learned how frustrated she was getting which I honestly had no clue about. Hell, I didn't even realize I was being such a smart *kitten* - it was so natural.

And what had the potential of being a real rub in my wife's perspective of our relationship wound up being a non-issue.

Only good can come from communication as far as I'm concerned.

In our case, I learned something that about myself that I'd like to improve as I don't ever want to make people feel stupid (well sometimes but that's a different story) and she a) didn't have to deal with the frustration going forward and b) opened her eyes to her weakness of confronting her emotions... especially the uncomfortable ones.

Really really simple stuff... obviously. But it's so simple that most people just write it off.

stroutman81

It's been my experience as a former "emotional eater" that my emotions had nothing to do with my overeating. I changed my diet and in a matter of weeks I had a normal appetite -- no getting in touch with my feelings needed. So my advice for "emotional eaters" is to look at your diet for the cause. That need to stuff yourself with food is a physical problem brought on by the food you're eating; not a mental one or a poor relationship with food. Just something to consider.

Then I question your definition of emotional eating. I'm sorry but that makes absolutley no sense.

I could binge on 5 bags of carrots. Shoving food in my mouth was the only way that I thought that I could deal with what was eating me.

Emotional eating is about soothing yourself, regardless of the food used. Granted, I personally tended towards carbs and refined sugar but I binged on healthy food too. But it's not the healthy food that got me to 300 pounds. It is never about the types of food you eat. It just isn't. It is self-medicating the same way that an alcoholic does. The addictive patterns are exactly the same.

Feeling crappy...why think about it? Eat whatever you can to fill the emotional emptiness inside.....feel like crap afterwards, guilty....why even try.....depression....I'm going to try again...healthy breakfast.....bad meeting at work....hit vendoland....i've blown my day....get junk food on the way home.....have a huge dinner, maybe 3 portions....eat 2 pints of ice cream after.....go to bed and get up at 1am to keep feeding and hating myself.

Rinse and repeat.

I finally found an amazing therapist that helped me realize it was actually OK to feel my feelings! To learn that it wasn't about the "types" of food I was eating but what was eating ME. Two years later I am finally losing weight because I had to get real and deal with signifanct truths in my life.

Everyone is different but i guarantee you that is true emotional eating in the worst possible sense of the word. And I would never, will NEVER go back to that. Every day and I mean EVERY day I am mindful of what I am eating. And I eat ice cream still and refined sugar and I am losing weight and never feel guilty about what I eat.

Thanks for sharing. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

holliebevineau

Thankyou!! Thankyou so much.

stroutman81

Thanks Steve,
I am defo an emotional eater (binger rather) and I have struggled with that the last 5 years and I seem to either be on an extremely rigid 'diet' or on a binge fest.
Your post is definitely food for thought

This brings up an interesting point.

You claim to be an emotional eater... and you very well could be for all I know.

However, you also claim to either be "on an extremely rigid diet or a binge fest."

It just so happens that very rigid diets tend to fuel binges. Depravity and consistency are inversely related. So I'm left wondering how much of your "on again, off again" relationship with food is fueled by you're unnecessarily rigid perception of "how to eat."

Related to this, if you haven't checked out this post I made elsewhere on the forum, take a gander:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1091357-a-random-thought-on-rigid-dieting

stroutman81

Great post! I wanted to add something as a former emotional / binge eater. I OBSESSED about food constantly. It was ALWAYS on my mind - When I would eat... What I would eat... Planning menus... Buying cookbooks... Cutting coupons... Thank GOD Pinterest wasn't around back then or that would have been a pure food escape!! I wasn't overweight when this was happening in my 20's. But I was sickeningly obsessed with food and binging was terrible. I tried to be bulimic but I could never make myself throw up (thank you God).

The food obsession drove me, literally, nuts. It was the constant, obsessive hum in my mind. Then one day my therapist recommended a book called "Healing Through Dark Emotions" which I can't recommend ENOUGH to anyone who stuffs their emotions by replacing them with other things to obsess about (not just food here - cleaning, working out , OTHER people's crap, booze, drugs)...

After reading the book and deciding to heal, the next problem for me is that I literally did not even know how I felt about anything. Emotionally I was totally numbed out and shut down. It helped me to get a list of emotions, and just like a person with a brain injury having to relearn a skill, I had to relearn emotions, be able to identify them, label them and most important - FEEL them. I would literally read through the list deciding which one applied. If you are a person who has suffered severe emotional trauma (as I had, obviously) this was absolutely TERRIFYING and really should be aided by either someone you really trust to be vulnerable around, or a therapist. The vulnerability was so absolutely, utterly raw - I felt naked and exposed. I developed terrible anxiety and my therapist put my on a low dose of Xanax so I could function at work.

The fact that I can write this is a testament to what serious introspective work can do. It's not as easy for someone with a severe emotional eating disorder to "just acknowledge your real feelings and don't eat." I was on Xanax for about 6 months before I was able to not feel like such a scared freak (I felt like a freak). I felt like I was the only one with feelings lol. Hard to explain. I only saw my therapist for about a year total but I have personally never stopped being introspective and never stopped learning about the power of the mind, and how to harness it!

One day it dawned on me: I haven't thought about food! I have now been free from an eating disorder for 15 years. It still can trigger though! When something really emotional happens (usually my response to a "negative" emotion) I will immediately want something sweet! But I recognize it for what it is and I am loving to that part of myself that created the food obsession in order to cope with emotions, and then deal with the emotions accordingly.

I wanted to shere is a list of emotions that may be helpful to someone going through serious emotional identification problems. It's a journey. Emotional eating can be difficult and scary in severe cases to overcome. I hope this is helpful.

Standing ovation to you. Seriously.

And I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said... thanks very much for sharing your story.

wordpainter09

I think this post can also apply very well to other coping mechanisms besides emotional eating. I tend to avoid my feelings by zoning out with TV or alcohol. Or shopping. Thanks for the great information.

getfitformeee

You need to write a book if you haven't already! I would buy one, and highlight and underline the whole thing! Then, I would buy a hundred more and pass them out Keep doing what you're doing!!! Thank you for passing along your words of wisdom!

stroutman81

I think this post can also apply very well to other coping mechanisms besides emotional eating. I tend to avoid my feelings by zoning out with TV or alcohol. Or shopping. Thanks for the great information.

Most definitely. I only focused on emotional eating since it's a daily part of my career.

stroutman81

You need to write a book if you haven't already! I would buy one, and highlight and underline the whole thing! Then, I would buy a hundred more and pass them out Keep doing what you're doing!!! Thank you for passing along your words of wisdom!

Thank you! That comment means a lot to me. I'd write a book but I'm too busy working and when I'm not working I'm chasing rugrats around. Someday maybe.