Turning negative reactions to positive thoughts

EvelynBfly78

Sometimes when I'm feeling sorry for myself for whatever reason, or angry at someone or something, or frustrated, my first reaction is to comfort myself with food. This is the negative side which we all know about. I should step back and stop and think about why I'm feeling sorry, why I'm angry or frustrated. I need to turn actions around.
Instead of feeling sorry for myself I should be grateful for what I have. Instead of being angry I could think of all the things that make me happy. Instead of being frustrated I could go back to figure out how it happened and take steps to correct the situation.
Food shouldn't be the medication to numb my feelings. It's not the answer.
What can you do to turn yourself around?

brenn24179

yep, look at what you got not what you dont. I do think positive outlook keeps us from numbing ourself with food. I use to eat mindlessly, now focusing.

Sara13CH

writing gratitude list help me a lot to remember all the things I do have.
I used to push my anger away,now I use it as a tool to figure out what need of mine isn't being met.
Journaling helps me when I start to feel overwhelmed with feelings. When I first started working on my recovery, I had to use an actual feelings sheet because I didn't know how I was feeling.
I have learned that HAULT helps me a lot. When I start to want to use food, I ask myself: am I hungry? Angry? Anxious? Lonely? Tired? Usually I then can move on to getting what it is that I really need.

One thing I have learned is that food craving come on fast and strong. Real hunger is slow and gradual. Paying attention to what it feels like when I am hungry and writing the sensations down helped me to distinguish between real hunger and using food.

working on internal and external boundaries. This is on going for me. I take what others say to heart some times and pick up on others emotions to the point that I think they are my own. When I do that I become overwhelmed and want to eat. So taking a few breaths and checking in with myself-how I feel and what I want- help a lot.

I can go on and on.

SpenceandAubsMom

I am doing a bible study, Made to Crave, and it is helping me work through some of the emotions that go along with my binge eating. It is important to me and I think what was always missing from my past attempts at weight loss. Journaling and prayer are very important to me and help me to quiet the negative talk that is running through my head telling me that I am just going to fail, or just one more binge, or whatever...

susanjean62

I am so delighted to have you precious people on board and discussing what our hurdles are. I am reading (and doing) a book I just bought called The Food and Feelings Workbook. A full course on Emotional Health by Karen R. Koenig. The advice is so eye opening,but the exercises(mind) are fairly difficult. I didn't realize how those old tapes we heard as children,keep on playing as adults. We live in a society,and sometimes childhood,that has taught us NOT to have feelings. This book teaches how to really get in touch with what you are feelings and validation. It takes the focus off of food and weight,and addresses what is really going on. I would love to have members of our group get this book,and we can discuss what we are learning about ourselves. I downloaded it on my kindle,but I think it would be better to get the actual workbook,that you can buy,cheap. So glad to share with my F&F friends(food and feelings) Have a wonderful,happy week. Hugs,Susanjean

Sara13CH

I have that book too! I think I completed about half of it and moved on. Right now I am listening to Weight Loss For People Who Feel to Much by Colette Baron-Reid. There is a lot of practicing visualization, journaling, EFT (tapping) ect. Another book that I am reading is Good Bye ED. I am in the beginning of it and even though she doesn't struggle with emotional or binge eating, well she binges and purges, she talks about how to distinguish between the thoughts that lead to eating or using maladaptive behaviors. Its pretty interesting how so much negative self talk and old tapes control so much.

pasofan

For much of my adult life I dealt with emotions and stress with cigarettes. I stopped smoking almost 15 years ago and I substituted food for smoking. I hàve never had any coping skills. I hope this group can help me !!!

bookworm_847

To get myself turned around, I used to clean. Yup, heavy duty cleaning was my bad times activity. I'm not sure when it turned into eating, but it would probably be more constructive to clean the house than to eat a bag of Doritos!

The difficult thing in that situation is I can never really pull myself out of a low when I'm in it. I've heard the advice before to think of all the things I can be grateful for, and maybe it works for some people, but not for me. It actually makes me feel worse. When I'm in a deep depression, rather than thinking "It'll be all right. I have so many blessings and so much to be thankful for" I think "I have all these great things in my life, so why do I just want to lay in bed, cry, and eat pizza? I'm a terrible person."

It's interesting to hear everyone's different techniques for dealing with those times. I look forward to getting to know you all and support one another.

That book Susan mentioned sounds interesting. I'll have to look for it.

PlumCrazyGirl

The difficult thing in that situation is I can never really pull myself out of a low when I'm in it. I've heard the advice before to think of all the things I can be grateful for, and maybe it works for some people, but not for me. It actually makes me feel worse. When I'm in a deep depression, rather than thinking "It'll be all right. I have so many blessings and so much to be thankful for" I think "I have all these great things in my life, so why do I just want to lay in bed, cry, and eat pizza? I'm a terrible person."

Well said -- sums up how I feel when depressed. It is very refreshing to hear another state -- when others attempt to "cheer us up" they actually bring us down. Thank you.