Lets go back to the start...things could get emotional
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"Men are a huge reason why most women seem to comfort eat..."
Ouch! I guess there are not a lot of men in this group... I really never saw it as a gender issue (I know you weren't blaming my gender). I think a lot of men are self-conscious about their bodies too and worry that women won't find them attractive unless they are big buff dudes.
Anyway, I don't think my eating goes back to any particular event or trauma. I love the taste of chocolate. I love candy. It's a very pleasurable activity. The only reason I don't eat double-stuff Oreos every day is because I know I'll get fat (or fatter I guess). When I comfort eat, it's because either the discomfort I feel is more powerful than my desire to stay (or get) thin, or I just don't give a crap.
I tend to eat when my wife and I have a huge fight. That's a good example of both processes at work. I feel so bad that I want something to make me feel better right away. Chocolate is always happy to oblige - and I *do* feel better right away. It's like drugs. Plus, I feel so despondent that I don't make a conscious decision... "screw it, I might as well eat, nothing matters anyway..."
So that's me.0 -
"Men are a huge reason why most women seem to comfort eat..."
Ouch!
i'm sorry i didn't mean 'your the reason im fat' or anything like that! just that relationship problems tend to spark it off and we didn't have any men to vouch we do it too! its good to have a guys point of view- and welcome to the group and thank you for sharing!
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bump , someday i will spill it all.0
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I'm not sure I can even remember when I started. I was getting pretty chunky by the time I was 10 years old or so, but growing taller and being more active as a kid tended to keep it from getting too out of hand at that age. Once I went off to college, though... I was around 180 pounds in high school (on the soccer and wrestling teams, best shape of my life). By the time I finished my first year of college (about 12 years ago), my weight was more like 220, and it's gone up from there ever since.
There have been other diet-related problems as well, but "comfort eating" has been there just about as far back as I can remember. Getting myself good and stuffed (nearly to the point of making myself sick) gave me something to focus on other than whatever was really bothering me, and tended to make me fall asleep after a while. There were other forms of escapist behavior going on as well, and my depression got a lot worse after I moved away from home.
Things are getting easier now. My wife gives a lot of support, and vitamin-D supplements seem to be a big help with the winter blues. I sometimes still have the urge to binge when I'm stressed (and sometimes still do it), but it's happening less often now, and it hasn't hindered my recent weight loss too much. Here's hoping those habits stay gone, and good riddance!0 -
Here is an interesting parable a personal trainer told me. I'll try to tell it like she told me:
"If someone offered to go fill your car up, you'd be so happy and say of course! So what happens when you go to your car and find it won't crank because instead of filling it up with gas (fuel), they filled it up with diet coke. Yeah...it was filled but it was filled with nothing that can help you."
Oh that is a good one! Brilliant, hope you don't mind but when I start personal training I will be using that analogy!0 -
so my time to spill , I wish i could be the person that says i dont know why i comfort eat , but my reason's SLAPPED me in the face . My tale of woa. My first son was born 6 weeks early and was in kidney failure , he passed away at three weeks . got married , got pregnant again , i was five months preg when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer , two days after her diagnosis my husband was life flighted from his work , he cuts down trees for a living , he was hit with what they call a widow maker , he spent a month in a hospital 2 hours away from me. I had my healthy baby girl and found out i was preg again , i worried the entire time during my pregnancies. my son was ten months when my mom passed away. needless to say different meds have made me numb and i started to starve , binge , starve , binge. I'm finally trying to get my head right and learn how to be healthy both mentally and physically. the food was a quick comfort but has made me miserable in the long run. this journey has definately changed my thinking and actions. i feel great after a long walk and a day when i havent used food as my friend. long road many hills but im not a quitter , im still standing 0
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Life is short , Live it.
Love is rare, Grab it.
Fear is a mind - killer , Face it.
Memories are sweet , Cherish them.0 -
When I try to pinpoint exactly when or where my emotional overeating began, I feel extremely overwhelmed. It could be due to the fact that I don't know how long it has been going on.
My overeating comes in month phases-- when I feel equipped to challenge the habit, it doesn't happen. When I idle, it happens.
I used to think I was bored. But I'm beginning to realize it is when I idle that my issues are actually able to surface, and I realize that they need to be dealt with.
So, what are these issues that I can't seem to grasp as easily? I don't know exactly; all I can do is look back to when I started to gain weight. That was after my parents divorced, about 10 years ago.
I never felt disturbed by their separation, mostly because my whole life people told me I was "mature for my age," and never seemed as young as I was. I suppose I decided to take this "truth" about myself and never really owned my own childhood. This is really sad because even today I wish I could have experienced being a child, having fun and being carefree. Instead I played an emotionally aloof, quiet and refined child that had an amazing imagination and never acted on it.
In regards to my parent's divorce, I stayed quiet so they could move through their separation. I never really expressed how much I was going to miss our old dynamics as a family-- the Sunday breakfasts and the Christmases.
Today I struggle most with romantic relationships. I'm too afraid of losing the sense of family that I want so badly for myself as a parent someday. Any child I choose to have should experience a family that stays together because they prepared in advance (I was an accident baby and my parents were teenagers) and support each other for life.
I overeat because I haven't gotten these things yet, and I feel scared I won't have them. These feelings were hard for me to uncover, and I am overeating because these feelings in the back of my mind begin to surface and the stress is overwhelming. I suppose any chance of disappointment or failure cause me to worry that I'm not doing my best, so I get anxious.
Thank you for posting this thread.. I have no clue what to do with this information, or this new awareness around my feelings and stress and why I overeat.. but maybe it will lead me to what I CAN do to get over this vicious cycle.
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Alright so my story starts at when I was a kid. I was actually a fairly active, skinny kid up until elementary school. My mom tells me she was terrified of how skinny I was as a child, which leads me to believe she bought a lot of junk food processed crap to get me to eat. When I started filling out, I got the chubby look that kids mercilessly ridiculed me for. I tried making friends, but kids don't wanna be friends with the weird, ugly fat girl.
I only started coming into my own at 13-14, when I got "pretty" and my weight redistributed so I didn't look as rolly polly. But I "felt" fat, I wasn't lean or tone or had a flattering silhouette. But I ate with very little care as to what I was putting in my body due to low self esteem.
By the time I was 16, I had just broken up with my first boyfriend, who told me he cheated on me after the fact. I was fed up, I had gained 15 lbs in the year and 3 months we dated alone, and I was at my absolute heaviest (188 lbs). So I made it my mission to lose weight and get fit. 8 months later, I was 50 lbs lighter and working out everyday, but I had taken to the other extreme of severely undercutting my calories. I ate 500 calories a day and burned anywhere from 250 - 400 cals in my workouts. I was 100% convinced that by doing so I was healthy, and I was very selective about what foods I would eat, if at all. I remember literally starving myself at night because I was so fixated on being thin. The amount of obsession and control that went into my diet is overwhelming, it was masochistic.
So then I loosened my restrictions, and maintained at 140-150 for years, until I started college. Due to crazy relationships and friendships, back stabbing and other emotional turmoil, my nutrition and exercise took a back seat.
So here I am, knowing now that my eating habits are born out of my mood and emotions. When I indulge, I know logically I am doing nothing good for my body, but when I restrict, I get very militant and picky or end up not eating anything. And when I'm depressed, I can either starve myself or eat until I purge. I am a Yo-Yo diet emotional eater.
And I KNOW for a fact my mom is an emotional eater on top of being a compulsive hoarder. She will buy bags upon bags of crappy crappy processed junk food. And when I ask her for help or support, she snubs me. My house is a mine field of hostess and entenmann's. It makes keeping my own cravings in check 10x harder.
Her justification is she thinks that I'm "too skinny" from when I lost all my weight 5 years ago, when I've nearly gained all of it back. I don't wanna end up like her! (she's over 300lbs)0 -
So I had a traumatic childhood and I've been using overeating for a long time as a way to cope. My dad is an over eater and my sister is bulimic so there's a family component to this too. I could have written the post above about doing well in the morning and lunch and then losing it altogether at night. I hate hate hate that I'm so tired and sick feeling at night and can't stay focused and be there for my kids.
I've been in therapy for 20 years, on Prozac or similar meds for more than 15 years. I thought it was pretty much as good as it was going to get.
Then I started low carb and realized that I felt a lot better when I was eating a lot of protein and mostly veggies. I started to wonder about blood sugar highs and lows and how they affect me. I also saw a little weight loss and some great changes in my blood work (way down on triglicerides, huge increase in "good" cholesterol). But after 18 months of low carb and junk/sugar binging in between, I wanted to try something different.
so I read the book "Potatoes not Prozac" and "Your Last Diet." It talks alot about different things going on in your body chemistry and made sense to me. Well, I've been going to the Radiant Recovery website and giving this a try for 4 months now. It's an extremely slow process but I've really seen some big strides forward in terms of my ability to stay connected with my body and emotions. I realize that I live with a lot of psychic pain and I'm "medicating" myself with food. The support on that website has been huge in terms of learning better habits, step by step by step. My partner has noticed how much more connected I am. It's taking a lot of effort, but it seems to be working.
I've learned a ton in therapy over the years, but this is giving me a more solid base to work from in terms of how much I can cope, if that makes sense.
Anyway, best wishes to all on this list and I'm here to say I know it's really hard!!!0 -
Two years ago I began having issues with anxiety and depression. The only thing that made me feel better was food--normally pizza. Pizza for lonliness, pizza for sadness, pizza and wine for a breakup. At first I didn't know I had a problem. 20 lbs later it's clear I did/do. I am very aware of my need to soothe with food. Most days I can control it. But somedays I lose the battle. For me, it's about staying on the wagon, and learning to deal with my issues without food.0
