Recovery From Emotional Eating - I Need Buddies Who Get It!

iamthesweenmachine

I may only be 19, but I became a huge emotional eater, especially last year!! I really started to put on weight in 8th grade, mostly out of boredom. I would yoyo around the 175-190 range of weight. Last year, I started college, and it was an extremely difficult time in my life. I would go to 7-Eleven all the time and buy popcorn, cheese puffs and OMG Ben and Jerry's!! I used to be able to down a pint in about 20 minutes!!! Anyway, what really helped me is I realized how much I hated myself for gorging on all that, and how much I was hurting both my body and my wallet. I once spent $400 in a month on junk food!! I eventually realized that I didn't need it, and that there were better ways of dealing with my emotions. Whether it be talking to a good friend, writing them out in a journal, or just having a good cry every once in awhile, food isn't your best friend. Once I realized that it became such a bad habit, I laid off, which for me was actually surprisingly easy, and the results began to follow. In 11 months, I went from 187 lbs to 130, and I am now 5 lbs away from my goal. I still enjoy the occasional sweet, but it is no longer a habit like it once was, and I am much happier than I once was!! Good luck!!

DeliriumCanBeFun

I am 150 lbs. over weight. Food is such a problem for me as far as stress, boredom, lonliness, happiness, don't matter the occasion. I know I am bad when I go get 3 donuts and milk and eat them. Or a bag of walnuts, OMG I will eat so much more than a 1/4 cup serving.

Food has ruled my life and emotions ever since I was a little girl. Would love to meet people who can share with me how they have recovered or fight to continue to recover from emotional eating.

I do good, lose 5 to 15 lbs. and then something comes up, stress, uncertainty and bamn! I stop getting on here, stop working out and gain it all back. If I could add up 2012 alone I would have lost about 40 lbs. had I not gained it all back this year. So frustrating!

Add me if you get it, thanks.

You had me at Emotional ...

Seriously, I eat to celebrate, to grieve, out of boredom, out of lonliness, stress, happiness and even jsut because it smells good ...

I eat because "it's Christmas", or a birthday party. I because it's lunch time, or because you are eating. I eat because food is good. I eat because I wanna try everything, and taste everything, and experience everything. I think about visiting new places and my first thought is ... I'll have to try thier food!

I eat when I am mad, when I am sad and sometimes I eat because I am disappointed in myself for eating so much.

You ask how I recovered from this? I haven't. Every day is a challenge for me. Everyday I wake up and look in the mirror and want to give up. Everyday something happens that makes want to reach for the nearest menu. I haven't recovered one single bit. The only thing I have managed to do is convince myself to log EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth. EVERYTHING.

100% honest, true, to the wire logging. No matter how bad, unhealthy, embarrassing it is. I log it. I log it and I make my diary public. It's like my own personal form of Food Shaming. The more days I log, the more thought I give something before eating it. Do I really want EVERYONE to see me eat that piece of cake? Drink that smoothie? Partake in ANOTHER fast food lunch? Nothing else has worked for me. Logging every bite, every morsel is the only thing that has slowed down that hand to mouth action.

Good Luck!

Wow! This is exactly me! I have definitely found out that logging no matter what makes an immense difference for me. I binged after I had dinner one night just this week and made myself look at that ugly red negative calorie numer, but being fully aware did make me taper it off before I probably would have otherwise. I make really good food choices most of the time, but I can ruin it all in no time. I have found that not setting my calorie goal too low is of utmost importance as is planning ahead. I think I will always obsess over food in one way or another. Right now I'm planning ahead of time and weighing and measuring everything and pre-portioning. I'm still obsessing, but it's what I need to help me get to where I want to be and it's working. I have admitted to myself that I absolutely cannot stop eating certain things once I start, and just knowing that has helped me when I am faced with say king cake in the break room at work or at home with the treats I buy for my family. Even once you decide that you're ready to make a real change, it doesn't mean you aren't going to fall sometimes. Just keep getting up and trying to find what works best for you that can become part of your life and not some punishing diet. Wishing you the best on your journey! I've been trying to be more active on here too, and I'm finding that to be more helpful than I ever thought it would. Open to friend requests

DeliriumCanBeFun

One thing that you could try to do is to make small changes to your diet. Eat the things that your normally eat, but just smaller portions of them. Be sure to track them so that you know what you have left for the day. For instance, let's say that when you sit down at night to watch T.V. you just have to have some popcorn to eat while you watch T.V. Well, you can still do that, but buy the 100 calorie bags of butter popcorn and eat it slowly. That way you don't feel like you're being deprived. Once you get the hang of that, then try to start substituting that popcorn with some fruit or something like that. Remember, baby steps. God bless!!

I definitely agree with making small, gradual changes to get yourself started. There are so many little ways to swap food items out for healthier ones, and your body and tastes are much more adaptable to those changes and smaller portions than you might think. I do have to say though that TV can be one of the absolute worst things for a healthy lifestyle. It's mindless and involves zero physicality or interaction. We have giant TV in our living room, but no cable. So many people can't even believe that. Might sound crazy to some of you too. But it's truly one of the best things you could ever do for your health.