anyone overcome/trying to overcome emotional eating????

I am working on this myself. Try and find a substitute for food as your comfort. long walks, taebo whatever. buble bath even. learn to pamper yourself with out food. easier said than done. good luck

I find if you just keep your hands busy - doing a craft, a puzzle, I play wii sometimes 9burns some calories too!) or as mentioned above going for a walk. Call a friend, clean a drawer, do you nails - once their wet you can touch anything!

I''ve read that when you're craving a specific food a heck of a lot, that's probably a sign that you may have emotional reasons for eating. If you're so hungry that just about anything sounds good, then you truly are hungry.

I read an interesting article that said we really should try to rate our hungry on a scale from -10 to positive 10. 0 is neither hungry nor full. Negative 10 is completely starving and positive 10 is completely stuffed. You should shoot for a 2 or 3: content and satiated. If you're too full, then you've eaten too much. If your starving, then you have gone too long without food.

In terms of health, your ability to keep your blood-sugar levels steady is a sign of good nutrition. Too much sugar and your insulin spikes and your blood sugar crashes, making you hungry again. Eating sweets doesn't keep you full for long, because your sugar levels will spike and this will release insulin, which in turn makes you hungry again.

If you HAVE TO HAVE ice cream or a donut, that is a sign that you are having emotional cravings.

That doesn't mean to NEVER give into temptation. Health is about life-style changes, sustained over the long term. It's not about never reaching for pumpkin pie during the holidays again. Nobody is here because they indulged in pie once or twice a year. We're here from sustained poor nutrition and exercise.

That's not to create guilt, but to encourage us to forgive ourselves when we make occasional lapses. It's OK to eat poorly at times, as long as we get back on program the next day and the day after that.

Emotional eating is a hard thing to overcome. Food addiction is as valid as any other. Food can provide release and escape from our stresses. It sounds like if you've lost your job that you definitely have cause for stress.

The best advice I can offer is to create a list of things you can do to relax that don't involve food. Post it on your fridge and elsewhere and remind yourself that there are other ways of relaxing.

Try listening to music, surfing the Internet, writing in a journal, talking to friends, taking up a hobby or craft. Do something with your hands. Consider things that will give you pleasure or entertain you. Avoid snacking while watching TV; it's easy to lose track of calories when you do this.

Try to develop coping activities that provide release/escape without resorting to food. Emotional eating involves using food as an escape. Try to find something more positive to escape with.

Im in the same boat but i realized i was a emotional eater a long time ago. Angry and sad for huge amount of reasons, so i ate and cooked to make myself and others around me happy. It really just took me looking at myself one nite with a lap fully of chinese food, munching away full a long time ago, to realize i was killing myself. I have a great core family and my bf loves me, but i hated myself. as the fall started we joined a gym together. He always worked out, one of those people naturally active with stamina out the ying yang. After a few weeks of exercise alone i lost a few lbs but nothing special. My brother told me about this site and ive been using it since the middle of october. Once i really started tracking everything and realized the effort it took to burn off those chicken wings everything became really clear to me. I needed to stop pleasing everyone else and worry about myself.
I stopped eating chinese food(sadly) and italian food as well for now, unless it is one of my lean cuisine.
I cant tell you how amazing i have been feeling. If you ask some of my friends and family i might be a little *****y or distant BUT IAM HAPPY!! I dont hang out all nite with a bag of chips on my lap at friends house and I refuse to eat something that i know is bad.
Gym seems to be my therapy lately. I go with my bf or by myself and its my time to release my bad energy.

big supporter of therapy and OA i go to a meeting twice a week!

There is a thread for binge eating I have the same problem, emotional eating, but not looking overweight so nobody knows. Sometimes I will eat until I dry heave because my stomach can almost not hold the food I ate. Try keeping healthy snacks around such as veggie sticks, water flavors, etc. that you can eat mindlessly without breaking the calorie bank.

I know it doesn't sound like a great solution, but it was the only thing that worked for me when I was binge eating. Otherwise, get out of the house and don't bring enough money to buy snacks. Leave the CC at home! Of course, the best solution is the figure out exactly what is triggering and solve it. Easier said than done

You can also try distracting yourself like others suggested, but it really didn't work for me

MFP has really helped me overcome this! Having a set goal to stick to makes it easier for me. I hate that feeling when I see I've gone over...when I'm tempted to overeat, I try and stop myself and think "What is going to feel better? Eating this piece of chocolate, or sticking to my calorie goal and seeing results?" That normally works for me We all slip up from time to time though, and that's ok. You've gotta go easy on yourself, it will take time to overcome bad habits!