Can't control my eating...

VaporeonSugar

I either overeat do to emotional reasons, because I'm bored out of my mind, because I don't want to waste food or because of no reason at all. I have no self-control at all and never have had any. I use to weigh a lot less, eat less and eat normal 'health' foods... I ate sort of poorly when I lived with my parents, but then lost all the extra weight when I moved into my own house. I gained all it back and LOTS more when I got married a year after that. Ever since, my eating habits have been horrid and I have no way to stop myself. I can't even stop myself from buying the food in the first place. Any tips? Any healthy options? Anything at all that can help me?

I managed to get back to being a pescatarian with no effort at all, but I'm still eating way too much. Thanks in advance.

MelodyandBarbells

Keeping a diary of why I ate certain items sometimes helps. I've used the MFP food notes function for this. Just a little blip detailing any triggers. It helps to come back and review those sometimes. Even though I may not have a good idea to resolve it right away, I may later

If you're somehow tempted just to buy the item, once you've eaten a nice portion, feel free to either take the remaining to work, if you object to doing the more effective thing which is to trash it.

And of course, doing your best not to buy the item in the first place. Don't go food shopping hungry, take your shopping list with you and try to stick to it

Finally, if you don't have a lot of recipes in your arsenal, you just have to keep learning more. Sometimes you've just craving chocolate or a burrito or a brownie. You can make controllable servings of that yourself, often for much fewer calories than an item you buy. I also found that compared to getting from a fast food restaurant , I could make a single serving of exactly what I was craving, vs adding on burger, fries, shake etc when I go out to buy food

Good luck!

nikole21212

I started off buying things like heart healthy progresso soup which id have for lunch at work
Salad with chicken in it (For flavor and so I dont feel starved after words) to eat at home
Some honey nut cherrios (which supprisingly are good) with soy milk
I snack on bananas/strawberries/ I LOVEEEE yogurt so maybe 1 yougurt a day (yoplait)
to get my veggies too.. I blend spinach/kale/carrots and other healthy things like once/twice a week
I have to plug my nose to drink it though lol, It taste horrible but I do it

Some things I named arent the healthiest like the soup with the sodium in it but its much healthier then Mcdonalds and Im losing weight eating these things.
Just thought Id share what I do..

SLLRunner

I had to look up pescatarian, and I could eat that diet. I LOVE fish!

What works for me is cutting nothing out, logging and weighing everything, and allowing myself control over food rather than allowing it to control me. When I started MFP, the first week or two I logged what I'd been normally eating all along without cutting down and was astounded with all the amount of calories I was eating. I just gradually made changes and started sticking to the calorie goal MFP gave me for the amount of weight I wanted to lose each week (I also ate my exercise calories back). After a short while, I wasn't bingeing anymore, and now I don't even think I could binge if I wanted to. For me, the secret to stop binge eating was cutting NOTHING out of my diet and learning portion control.

VaporeonSugar

Keeping a diary of why I ate certain items sometimes helps. I've used the MFP food notes function for this. Just a little blip detailing any triggers. It helps to come back and review those sometimes. Even though I may not have a good idea to resolve it right away, I may later

If you're somehow tempted just to buy the item, once you've eaten a nice portion, feel free to either take the remaining to work, if you object to doing the more effective thing which is to trash it.

And of course, doing your best not to buy the item in the first place. Don't go food shopping hungry, take your shopping list with you and try to stick to it

Finally, if you don't have a lot of recipes in your arsenal, you just have to keep learning more. Sometimes you've just craving chocolate or a burrito or a brownie. You can make controllable servings of that yourself, often for much fewer calories than an item you buy. I also found that compared to getting from a fast food restaurant , I could make a single serving of exactly what I was craving, vs adding on burger, fries, shake etc when I go out to buy food

Good luck!

Thank you! I really like the idea of notes on why I eat. I already track what I eat, the why might help though. No food shopping hungry would probably be best... I have lots of really nice cookbooks that my fiance just bought me, so I should really try cooking more. I adore cooking, but for some reason I've noticed I've been eating at restaurants a lot.

@ nikole: Eating more salad might help, but when I'm actually presented with vegetables as an option I always eat them. I love the taste. Soup might help as well. I haven't made broth in a while, but I should do so again.

@ SLLRunner: Haha yeah, it's a great way to eat as long as you don't overdo the high mercury fish. Weighing... do you know of any scales that work and are cheap? I haven't really tried the changing out options for healthier things either because I usually crave the full-fat, bad for you thing. I really have never been able to do portion control, so maybe buy less to start with. I also seem to have issues with eating more than one individually wrapped thing because I'm an eco-nut and all the plastic bugs me. Might be useful for the time being though.