I just found this group a few days ago and that's when I found out that I too am an emotional eater. Since then I have tried to recognize what triggers these destructive habits. One thing that I have found that really helps me is thinking about what I have had to eat. I think about the calories that I've logged in and the extra work (exercise) I'll have to do if I do go ahead and indulge. I ask myself is this worth it? I recognize that if I give in it will lead to sabotage. It's hard, I am not going to lie about that. But if I end up giving in then I have to deal with the guilt and the feeling of failure. I don't want to do that to myself.

My goal is to stay within but preferably under my calorie goal each day. I know that that's the only way I will be able to lose the weight that I need to, you know? So I keep the end goal in mind. You've got to keep your eyes forward. Losing the weight is what we so often hear: a lifestyle change. And if you're a binge eater like I am you will need to identify that part of you everyday until you build these new lifestyle habits. When going to the fridge or cupboard isn't something you do when you're bored, but calling a friend, taking a walk, playing with the pets, going shopping, reading a book, etc. whatever things you enjoy, replace that desire to consume you will know you've overcome this or at least you're on your way

Anyhow that's what I have recently come to find. Good luck! I truly mean that. Old habits are hard to break, but when you succeed you can smile and pat yourself on the back and say I did that. It's such a better feeling than failure or guilt. You can do this! Look yourself in the eye and tell yourself I got this!

It's been my experience that when I try to distract myself from eating, I end up eating. The emtional eating, for me, is a distraction from dealing with the emotions I'm feeling. So, I can't really distract myself from the thing that my mind/body is using as a distraction in the first place. I've found that when I'm feeling the urge to eat, when it's not meal time, that's a hint that I'm feeling something uncomfortable and that urge to eat isn't going to away until I learn how to get comfortable with uncomfortable feelings. Avoiding them and distracting myself from them means I'm not dealing with them, which in turns means I'm going to binge eat again. Binge eating IS my coping mechanism for those uncomfortable feelings.

So, what do I do? I tend to write...alot. I sit down and ask myself, "Ok, you're wanting to eat and it's not meal time, what are you feeling and why?" If I can't identify it right then, which is most of the time, I start writting. I'll usually start writting about how my day went, and see if anything happened in the day that's bothering me, or I'll start writting about was doing just before the urge to eat hit to try to see if something was going on there.

Most of the time it's me feeling bad about something I didn't get done that day at work, something I procrastinated on doing or an unrealistic expectation I had on myself that I didn't meet. Or it's triggered by something I'm watching that made me feel sad, or lonely and I hate dealing with those feelings. Or it's just as simple as, "I'm bored."

Most of the time, spending the time and energy to even look at what I'm feeling, makes the urge to eat go away. Other times I have to go deeper and start working on whatever I need to take care of to deal with the feeling. Sometimes that action is annoying or inconvenient, but the alternative for me, is that I'll end up binge eating if I don't deal with the feelings I'm trying to avoid.

Anyway, that's how I'm starting to deal with my emotional eating. It's not easy, it's not fun, and it's not a quick fix. I had to give up the idea that working on this issue would be any of those things. Looking for easy, fun, and quick is how I got into this physical shape in the first place and turned to eating instead of feeling, so I try to do things differently now. Sometimes I do awesomely with that, and sometimes...not so much. I strive for progress, not prefection. Just my two cents.

I've been writting in a journal for years, most of them are actual pen and paper, several blank journals they sell at bookstores, but over the last 5 years or so, I've started writting on my computer, but not anything I post online. Writting on my computer has worked Ok; however, I've found that when I go back and re-read over stuff I've written, I have less of an emotional connection with that stuff, vs. the stuff I've written in a pen and paper journal. For me, seeing things written in my own handwritting, takes me back to what I was thinking and feeling at the time I wrote it, whereas reading something I typed out, just takes me back to the thoughts I was writing about. So, I prefer to still write out in pen and paper for that reason, but use my computer at times for speed and ease.

I also, stopped beating myself up for not writing every day, like I did in my younger years. I just don't have stuff that I need to write about every day and I tend to use that "failure" as an excuse to just stop writting completely, so I took that excuse away from myself. Normally I write once every two or three months. Lately, it's been more, because I've been focusing more attention on writting when I'm having a craving to eat, but know that's going to be temporary and not a perminate thing.