emotionaly and bored eating

Hi everyone,

I have a habit of weighing my self everyday when I wake-up and I know its a bad habit but at the end of the week I had gained 5lbs which I know I didn't but according to my scale I did. I had gotten really upset about it and started eating pretty much all the time and when I get bored I eat as well. Like I don't eat junk food but I eat carbs a lot of carbs. I was wondering if anyone had a way of getting over emotionally eating and boredom eating,

Thank you
Amy G

Replies

  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    1. drink lots of water, and when you feel hungry but know you shouldn't be drink more water
    2. bored eating is easy to cure, find something to do: clean your house, take the dog for a walk, go outside for a quick break if you are stuck and bored at work
    3. emotional eating is a little bit harder but you just have to figure out what your triggers are and ask yourself if eating this is going to help the situation. Usually the answer is no so find a better way to channel the emotion. If it is stress then tackle whatever it is causing the stress, I find more often that not I stress about things more than necessary and once I get it done I realize it was not as bad as I had worked it up to be in my head. If it is sadness then do something to make yourself happy, spend some you time getting a manicure or go plant some pretty flowers.
  • firewalking
    firewalking Posts: 335 Member
    I know this is going to sound silly, but I had the same problem. When these moments hit me, I play BigFishGames and that entertains my brain. Hunt and find games, puzzles, adventures, etc. it doesn't matter - all I know is it helped a LOT! I also started reading - getting lost in the books helps me so much!

    Also - brush your teeth - it is difficult to eat after you have done this.

    I hope these suggestions help...
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    I don't think it's necessarily bad to weigh yourself every day. In fact, I recommend daily weigh-ins, with a huge caveat: you need to do some math to find the difference between your actual weight loss and the daily fluctuations, which are much larger.

    Your weight fluctuates depending on water, salt, and fiber intake, and other factors having nothing to do with calories. Using an exponentially weighted average can help you filter out the noise and focus on the trend, as John Walker explains in "The Hacker's Diet" (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/). The chapter on "The Rubber Bag" explains, briefly, the source of these fluctuations. The chapter on "Signal and Noise" explains how some simple math can filter them out. Walker explains how to do the math, but you can also set up a free account on his server to do it for you, or use a service like Beeminder or TrendWeight.com.

    NOTE: If you're going to be all "OMG! I'm bloated!" if you see the number go up by 2 lbs. from one day to the next, then daily weigh-ins aren't for you. Personally, I'm not bothered, because it's the trend that matters. In fact, it can be a relief to note that when I have a club sandwich for lunch, or salty soup for dinner, my weight is higher the next day even though I didn't go over my calorie goal.