Comfort Eating and Food Addictions

Fat2Glamourous

Hey Everyone,

I am faced with a tough dilemma and I'm not sure if anyone else has lived in my shoes or not but I am in series need of help...

I am a comfort eater. I eat when I am stressed, I eat when I am upset... and it is of course not good food. It is cookies, chips, pop etc.
I know the easy answer is to not have these things in the house but I don't just struggle with comfort eating I also struggle with the addicting side effects of this food. Sugar is more addicting then cocaine which has been scientifically proven. How do I stop? In the moment of weakness I convince myself I don't care that I am "fat" and whatever else I have to say to allow myself to eat the bad foods.

I have zero motivation to exercise and eat healthy as well. I find it to be a pain in the butt to enter a lot of the foods that I eat in the myfitnesspal because some items it doesn't have, and some items I just don't know what the calorie amount is...

Advice??

Yanagibashi

Been there and done that. If you must have cookies, chips, chocolate in the house, try buying the single serving sized ones made for kids lunches. That's a very easy way to portion control. Each individual wrapper for each snack is shocking to look at when you see all the ones you ate in one day staring back at you. That's how I started. And once you get the hang of comfort eating just 1 packet of chips/cookies, etc, then it is so much easier to start winding down your comfort food purchases and maybe only have chips in the house or cookies, but not both.

Emotional eating is so hard. It really is. But maybe also try taking a walk up and down your street when you think you need the chips first. And then go have chips if you really do. If you can do that too, your brain may pick up on "I do some mild exercise when I'm upset" and may let you get away with that before demanding those chips.

And nacho cheese Doritos were my favorite back in the day. Best of luck to you though.

FoodFitnessTravel

Me too.
If you're not working out, start. No matter how hard the beginning is, the more you work out the more you will enjoy it. And i find myself eating so much better on workout days-i usually don't wanna blow the effort of workout later that day.
Eat fruit, veggies, lean protein, a bit of healthy fats. These foods are filling. You can have 400 cookie and be hungry and have 400 salad and be full for 4 hours. I've been there.
And keep yourself busy. This is not only about making better choices, like for most of the people, it's about the real addiction. Fill your day with activities and you won't have too much time to think about food.
I always gain weight during holidays and lose weight when the semester starts.
And then, at night when I'm most likely to binge, I have a piece of fruit or a glass of milk and i tell myself, i'll eat tomorrow.
Good luck!

lemurcat12

Setting aside the whole addiction thing (but some interesting posts re a new study elsewhere), I don't get the but. If in the throes of emotion you are likely to decide you don't care about your weight, that's why not having it in the house will help.

Otherwise, you need to deal with finding other ways to address your emotions. I found forcing myself to be really mindful of why I wanted to eat and journaling helpful. Also, doing something else to address stress or emotion (today was the worst in a while and I went for a run, but walking, listening to music, meditating all could work, and many other things). It's hard to break the mental connection, but totally possible.

Fat2Glamourous

Problem is... I am so exhausted from everything on my plate. I was doing so well at the beginning of the year, I was doing the beachbody workout T25 and was clean eating. I managed to get down to 230lbs but now I have gained most of it back.

I have so much stress going on right now being a practical single mom with my husband working such late nights, I am in college full time (online) and a mom full time and two of my kids are in school... I don't really have a lot of time or energy to workout but I have been trying so hard to get back to it.

So in the meantime I have been trying to gain control back over my eating but I am stumped on healthy meals. For example, breakfasts I need to eat quick and a hurry so I end up eating a bowl of frosted flakes, and then I don't eat again until like 2PM (which I know is bad but I get so submersed in my schooling, and also don't have an appetite from the stress) and then I end up doing something quick again like as of late ichiban, which is full of sodium I know.
Tonight I didn't even have supper as I just wasn't hungry.

I ended up eating 1/2 box of cookies mid-afternoon and some chips. I felt so guilty after, but I can only try and do better tomorrow.

Any meal ideas that are quick and easy to prepare for a busy mom in school would be great help!

Fat2Glamourous

Thank you. I will try journaling. Not a bad idea.

Its so challenging as my kids are so young and I can't just up and go for a run like I would want, and they are a huge part of my stress trigger as kids usually are so taking them with me isn't overly helpful - haha!

skiextrm

I hear (and felt) your struggle! I had 2 kids, a full-time job, school, and an internship in my 30's. I was so busy I didn't have time to eat right, but came up with some go to meals, like a veggie sub for lunch, keeping large sourdough pretzels handy for breakfast, etc. I wonder if you are getting adequate nutrition and rest? I'd also recommend trying to learn meditation/stress reduction that you can do for only 5-10 minutes at a time to stay centered or walking between classes.

Lastly, it really helps me to know my MFP friends can see what I ate and to e-mail them instead of grabbing snacks. Grapes, greek yogurt w/berries, teas, and stuff can be satisfying. Maybe try buying the kids cookies you don't care for. Lastly, take whatever minutes you can find to think about and plan what your body needs to carry this schedule, then carry out your plan. You can do this! Now get some sleep!

RodaRose

Your children need a mom who is happy, healthy, and strong. You owe this to them and to yourself.
It only takes two weeks to get all that sugar out of your system so that you rarely crave it.
When ever we get exercise and get enough sleep, we do not "comfort eat." If keeping up with the house is overwhelming.
find it in the budget to get a cleaning lady.
For dinner, eat protein and lots of vegetables.For example at dinner, eat meet with three vegetable sides along with some fats and oil..
Breakfast is easy: reheat something from dinner.
Consider moving to college part -time while you get your health and well being "organized."

pikselinka

Have a ton of fruit in the house and when u need comfort eat fruit, best fruit is the one with not that much sugar, berries, nectarines, peaches, apples. I do it all the time, buy 2kg nectarines eat in 1 day.

lemurcat12

Problem is... I am so exhausted from everything on my plate. I was doing so well at the beginning of the year, I was doing the beachbody workout T25 and was clean eating. I managed to get down to 230lbs but now I have gained most of it back.

I had some similar issues when I was first starting. My job gets super stressful and crazy off and on, and I was having numerous nights where I had to stay until 10 or so, so would get home starving and not wanting to cook and plus I'd be both stressed and hungry at work in the evening where there's all kinds of food I didn't want to eat around. I had to figure out a way to deal with that.

Add to it that I had a workout plan fell apart for the same reason and my mind was telling me that it was all ruined anyway since I wasn't working out so I might as well just eat what I wanted and be happy and start again later.

Somehow this time I was able to (a) put together a plan for this issues which I knew were going to come up and bring lunch and dinner to work and eat something in the morning too; and (b) stop beating myself up about the working out and just control what I could--eating well. It's gotten engrained enough now that everything is easier, even fitting in the working out, but I do think that not holding yourself to overly high standards is part of it. Life's hard enough, and it definitely sounds like you have lots of deal with.

So in the meantime I have been trying to gain control back over my eating but I am stumped on healthy meals. For example, breakfasts I need to eat quick and a hurry so I end up eating a bowl of frosted flakes, and then I don't eat again until like 2PM (which I know is bad but I get so submersed in my schooling, and also don't have an appetite from the stress) and then I end up doing something quick again like as of late ichiban, which is full of sodium I know.

If you plan for this, you can find a way to deal with it. What do you like for breakfast? Sounds like something without cooking time is key, so maybe a greek yogurt and fruit? Hard boiled eggs (premade) and fruit? For me having some protein really makes a difference in feeling satiated, and some fat too (like in the eggs or, say, 2% greek yogurt).

Then for lunch maybe having something on hand premade, like a sandwich or (my favorite) some leftover dinner? (I intentionally make extras so I can have them for lunch too.) For dinner, cooking ahead can help, or figuring out some quick things to make and having the ingredients on hand. That's been a big help for me in going (when I'm home) from being overwhelmed and tired and ordering food to quickly whipping up something, maybe even just an omelet with lots and vegetables.

Having stuff on hand that you are okay with snacking on, like yogurt or nuts or raw veggies or fruit is also good to avoid the "I'm hungry and stressed" eating.

I'm a super simple cook on the day to day basis--I usually just do some kind of meat, vegetables, and whatever else seems to go--rice or potatoes (roasted) or sweet potato, etc. I keep my portion of the starch reasonably small but that's good when you have people in the house who aren't dieting. If I have the food on hand I can cook a good meal in 30 mins or under. Sometimes I roast things or do rice which will take longer, but usually those things are mostly hands off. I love roasting chicken pieces and potatoes, putting in veggies with the potatoes toward the end, and then getting them out. Delicious and no work at all.

meaghanmcb

I like to work from home every once in a while and find that being here sabotages my "schedule" of eating - but I am very much like you ~ I don't feel the need for breakfast or I'll grab something super quick and forget for the next 5-7 hours. I hate breaking for lunch, so I decided to make myself graze. It's working really, really well for me. These food choices are NOT the healthiest, but I'm taking very small steps in the right direction!
My hubs or I try to grocery shop along late on a weeknight. Then on Sunday afternoon, I enlist my daughter (8) to help me prep my food. We tear apart string cheese packs, set out Tupperware with matching tops and get out all the veggies and fruits. She goes through and puts in one handful of X into each container, while I follow behind with Y, or cut the next thing. I buy prewashed trimmed green beans, sugar snap pea pods, turkey pepperoni sticks, jicama, cucumbers, peppers, etc and she helps me make a dish for each day - usually about 2-2.5 cup container. A fruit container comes next with berries or melon, only 1/2 cup though. I found some great small containers at walmart, I think 1/3 cup in size (?) that I preload with 2Tbls natural peanut butter and throw in the bucket when I have celery cut & prepared.
I make sure everything is bagged or in containers and either put it all in one drawer of the fridge, or take over half a shelf (or more). I also buy Greek yogurt singles (I used to buy a big tub and portion it out, but I usually run out of time and energy so go for singles now) - they even sell Greek gogurt-like tubes that I LOVE to freeze for a treat.
Breakfast sucks, so I try to have a stash of Larabars handy. I don't like eggs or anything non-sweet (if anything) for breakfast, so Larabars at least give me a little something and some fiber.
This is what works for me. You could try even "packing" your lunch to stay out of the kitchen while studying? Keep a nice big water bottle nearby, light some peppermint candles (they supposedly help trick your mind out of hunger), and hit the books! Good luck!

PrincessEliNa

I totally get the feeling 'exhausted', honestly I hate exercising,but I still take a walk every day. (I have a dog)About 2-3 neighborhood kids tag along. They love it! I say start there. Short walks with your kiddies you'll enjoy it!

ukaryote

One thing at a time.

Start logging every day,
1. everything you eat. if you forget, do the best you can. Do not worry what it is, just log it
2. all your exercises - running after the kids and housework counts.

After 7 days, come back and let us know how successful you have been in posting every day.

0 to 1 post - try again next week. No fouls, no error, just give it another shot.
2 to 4 posts - really good effort. Not easy to keep posting right away.
5 to 7 posts - Awesomeness!

Fat2Glamourous

Well this is my report back...

I have logged everything I have eaten basically since I posted this thread. One thing I struggle to log is my exercise though, just the every day stuff (ie. housework, going up and down flights of stairs etc) I know I am burning calories and stuff but I don't know how to quantify it.

Thanks everyone, I really need more encouraging friends on myfitnesspal!

bonnieneedshelp1

I was encouraged to get one of those little pedometers and clip it to my pants every morning and I would be amazed at how many steps I take each day. It's just an idea, but I'm going to try it myself. Good luck

Fat2Glamourous

Thanks! My husband is actually thinking of getting me that "fitbit" tracker thing for Christmas, still researching which one is the best, but definitely already have my mind set on one!

EmilyStopFlying

I am a huge comfort eater, and a bored eater I guess you'd call it (I eat when I'm emotional, I eat when there's nothing better for me to be doing). What I've started doing instead is drinking tea. A cup of tea takes me so much longer to drink than eating a bunch of snacks would, so it can give me enough time to get my thoughts in order and not be in that headspace anymore. And as long as I don't always have caffeinated teas (so, having peppermint or green tea sometimes) then there's very limited side effects and it actually counts towards my daily water intake.