I am an emotional eater too (which is why I need to count calories AND carbs, because I can eat a pound of bacon or cheese just because I am angry or feeling low), and I have chronic pain. Sometimes the pain makes me SO frustrated, because I cannot do things I want to do.

First I started thinking about why I wanted to eat when I wasn't hungry (feeling bored, depressed, angry, anxious, whatever). Then give myself PERMISSION to eat those things if I REALLY "need to", as long as I write down every gram.

Posting here or on the emotional eating group about how I am feeling helps. I can get the feelings out, even if I get no response, it makes me feel better to say it. (My husband is no help, he just says "eat it then").

Then I ask myself if there is something else I could do to help myself. Like play a game or call a friend or do something.

I usually make a big pot of tea, if I am home. That helps, cause it is usually that I just want something going in. Then I think about all those calories or carbs I am going to put in and ask if I want to sabotage my progress. If I am really in bad shape, I will let go and eat it, BUT just take ONE thing, make it and eat it with thought and not mindlessly. Then If I feel I need some more, I will go back, but I usually feel so bad about the thing I ate, and I am not hungry anyway, that I don't eat the next thing.

And of course, eliminate temptation in the house if you can.

Don't know if this helps, but this is what I do.

and well......Sometimes you DO need to comfort your soul. and taking a walk won't do it. Sometimes a good comedy show will help

Yeah. I realise this a few days ago. I was extremely frustrated. (For those gamers here, it was a very intense boss fight that I had to seriously gear up and buff up for THREE times and still failed miserably. Miserably.) The first thing I did? Open the fridge. I was standing there just staring into it's depths when I realised what was happening.

Retraining old habits. The first step is to recognise them. You're on your way.

Love my food journal. Then again, I enjoy tracking everything, so I can honestly see where I need to fix things. I'm currently aiming for 20lbs in 90 day plan. I'm a goal driven person. I work better, if I break a big job into small increments and finish the little pieces one day at a time. So, it's more motivation, than anything else. I use MFP to calculate macros, log in the numbers, get inspired in the group. In my journal I write in the satiety and highs and lows of the effects of what I ate for the day. I think the key is recording the time of day. I try to note 6 times usually in my day.
Waking, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon, evening, bedtime. My worst times used to be mid-morning and mid-afternoon and late night. I'd go 'roaming' for something, even after I ate my nuked lean cusine lunch, (ugg!! what was I thinking??) or I'd skip a meal and then go on a ravenous binge. My ups and downs were out of control. I'm much more in control if I know I have to wait just one more hour til my next good, well rounded LCHF meal.

Might seem obsessive to most, but this works for me.. LOL. Good luck, if I can do this...

7:AM - Slept well. Bfast 2 fried eggs, 2 bacon, baby spinach in coconut oil.
10:00AM -Feeling Ok, BPC Coffee with cream - Having hot flashes, what's that about?
12:00 -Wait 'til 1pm for lunch, need to prep for meeting.
1:pm -Lunch - chicken tenders wrapped in bacon and avocado - reminder not to buy those at Market basket, always has too many rotten spots. 16 oz. H20.
3:00 - 16 oz H20 with meeting sux'd. More work on me.
I brought berries/ w/ cc for a mid day snack - not feeling hungry, ate some, will save rest for tonight. Tea.
6 pm - Walked at track (2miles) feeling good, best time yet! ankle ache but not bad..Not hungry.
7:30pm - finally home - Long exhausting day. Meeting wiped me out. Finished 4oz steak, kale/spinach, and berries and cream -too much cream w vanilla, but man that was good. Feel full and tired. *kitten* head called, left a message, not up for it tonight, deal with him in the morning, don't want to get riled before bed.

Knit - you crack me up! Yea, I forgot - add more salt.. Voila!

@carimiller, I am/was an emotional eater. When faced with stress the first thing that enters my mind ( at least before keto) was to eat something to make me feel better.

I was able to lose 100 pounds years ago through calorie restriction and extreme levels of exercise, but that was not sustainable and when emotional trauma and stress hit, I put back on all the pounds I lost and more due to inability to handle stress. However if I did learn anything through that horrific experience, it was that I always have better weight loss results if I track exactly what I am eating. I started to journal during that first epic weight loss journey. I refuse to call it failure as it was a stepping stone to where I am now.

When I started to try to get my health back on track 5 years ago, I wanted to journal again, but since my approach was so different than my old CICO approach I wanted to design a better log sheet. This was way before MFP. I didn't know something like this existed and I wanted something I could write on.

So with the help of my chiropractor's office, we designed a new sheet for me to use. I wish I was more tech savvy and knew how to send you my sheet to take a look at it....but I'm not. So I'll describe it to you, so please bear with me.

It had everything I needed to look after my whole day's health....spaces for meals and snacks at the left, and columns of food groups to track across the top. I was in the process of giving up grains and sugar back then, so my food groups were: healthy fats / protein / leafy greens / vegetables / Berries and low GI fruit / water / vitamins. I also had a spot to track exercise, meditation, bedtime, and whether I listened to my body's hunger cues.

But most importantly right after vitamins, I had a large column at the top entitled "Why did I eat? How did I feel?" so that I could make notes about all the food choices I made based on how I was feeling before the decision to eat a certain food and afterwards...how I felt physically and emotionally. Sometimes this was more important to track than the food. It sure helped me notice patterns of my behaviour and emotions. I started to think about other ways of soothing myself instead of using food. It became more of a self love journal, where I tried to turn my emotions around in a more positive way.

I lost 40 pounds this way in 4 years. But now I have abandoned my paper journal in favour of MFP. I do use the food notes section of the food diary to document notes that don't always pertain to food, and I will post a particular event on my news feed in order to talk about it, or I will enlist the support of my MFP friends to help me through an issue.

The greatest thing for me since starting MFP is the support. It has helped me greatly reduce the anxiety I had about losing weight. Now I feel as if the doors to success are open to me and all I have to do is wait for the rest of my weight to fall off. I've lost 81 pounds, 41 of those since last September with the last 23 on MFP at a much faster rate than ever before. I can only attribute this to the great resources here.

Much luck and success to you !

carimiller7391 wrote: »

Good morning ladies and gents!!!

OK..... this LCHF stuff is hard. I did so GOOD yesterday at work, but when I got home from work... all HECK broke loose. While at work, I concentrated on work and not food... when I got home... my back was killing me (to the point I took a pain pill, 2 muscle relaxers and got into bed at 730)... I did run some errands after work, don't think getting in and out of the car helped me out at all, but I had to get some stuff done... hurting or not.

So, I'm trying a new approach to this LCHF way of eating. Instead of killing myself not to eat carbs, I brought a journal with me. It's going to be my mood journal. I can keep track of food on MFP, but not the emotions causing me to want/eat certain foods. Hopefully with this approach I can pinpoint my triggers for carbs/comfort foods. Make a list of other things I can do when I have these feelings. Something more constructive then eating/stuffing my feelings. I'm hoping this approach helps. I plan on tracking for the next 3 weeks in my mood journal. See if I can find a pattern, a time (tracking time that I eat also) that I become weaker, or certain situations that cause the cravings and what I did to stay on track.

Did anyone else have to take this approach? I'm feeling deflated at this point.

Again, I need to remember I need food to nourish my body, not comfort my soul.

Hugs,
Cari

Generally speaking I think journaling is a really good idea.

At any rate, it's a good idea to try to determine what the causes are of overeating. It could be emotional, it could be environmental, it could be your calorie and macronutrient intake, it could be depleted willpower from life stress, it could be sleep deprivation, it could be a long list of things and it's quite likely a combination of factors.

Dragonwolf wrote: »

KnitOrMiss wrote: »

Mine would probably be a lot like:

starving, want to eat a cow. Stuff with some salt. And drank water. Better
Loaded tea - nice
water...want more salt - why does my body tell me I'm hungry then get "full" off of salt?
feel like crap
bacon and eggs for lunch - the heavens opened up and smiled on me...valhalla is real
want chocolate - must need magnesium...too full from the bacon
water
water
salt
water
etc.

and on and on and on...

You should try the chocolate I threw together. Between the molasses (ideally blackstrap), cocoa powder, and Amish style roll butter, you've got a nice hit of magnesium, potassium, and sodium. The only problem is that it is on the carby side, so you have to be careful with the amount of molasses you put in, but it's pretty self-limiting, since it overpowers everything fairly easily.

It's on my to do list, for sure! Amish style roll butter? Would unsalted Kerrygold do? I don't know if the molasses I have is blackstrap - Grandma's brand, if I'm picturing it right in my head... I'm going to go see if I can find the thread where you did your approximate calculations.