Stress eating

You can, although you may find that therapy helps. If that's an option for you, it's worth considering, especially if you are talking about real binging (binge eating disorder).

Apart from that, an important thing is breaking that cycle of beating yourself up -- that's just going to make things worse. I'm an emotional/stress eater (I don't binge, though), and what helped me was cutting out snacking and eating when feeling emotional (I'd have regular meals) and when I wanted to eat doing some journaling to force myself to be mindful about it and understand that it wasn't real hunger. I also forced myself to learn to sit with the feelings (and understand they wouldn't kill me, I didn't need to block them out with food or self-comfort) and to develop some healthier coping mechanisms, like listening to music or going for a walk or exercise or sometimes planning a delicious dinner for later (sound counterintuitive, but it worked for me).

If I messed up I wrote about what happened and treated it like a learning experience and and decided to take a really logical approach to food. It's just food -- I keep in mind the calories and nutritional content and try to eat a healthy diet, but a poor choice isn't that big a deal and may fit just fine into my overall diet. It certainly doesn't say anything terrible about who I am as a person.

Trying to focus on it logically really helped with my dysfunctional emotional relationship with food, although it's still a struggle from time to time.

I used to binge eat at weekends after very strict weeks - I realized I was using food as a reward for my 'hard work'. On Saturday, I would reward and eat indulgent foods. On Sunday, I knew the weekend was coming to an end so crammed as much in as possible before I went back to 'very strict'. It was totally wrong

I had to address my relationship with my food and start over from scratch. I had to change my behavior and the way I saw food and the way it made me feel in certain situations. It took me a while but as soon as I made peace with food, I got it right. Treats are absolutely okay in moderation, but remember - food is fuel first and foremost. We need it to be healthy, energized and on top of our game. Too much is detrimental - as is too little. You'll find that balance, I promise. We'll help you here at MFP.

I was a huge emotional eater. I turned to food in times of stress, anger, sadness, happiness, boredom. I learned from an early age that food could bring me comfort.
I started my weight loss in January and my emotional eating was my biggest obstacle. I started forcing myself to exercise instead of eat when I was upset or stressed. My first instinct was always to eat, but I would make myself workout instead. It was not easy by any means but I noticed that the exercise helped WAY more than eating ever did. When I would stress eat, I would feel better while I ate, then immediately after would feel worse. With the exercise, it legitimately made me feel physically and emotionally better. And obviously had health benefits.
There was a lot of internal struggle, and it was so so hard at first but now, I'm down 80lbs and it very rarely crosses my mind to stress eat. And now when I'm stressed, I find myself actually desiring exercise, which I probably would have thought was impossible for me a year ago.
There is hope. It's not easy but it's definitely doable. Best of luck.

Find a way to handle stress that does not involve eating. For me it is martial arts. For others yoga or just going for a walk or heavy weight lifting does the trick. You need to replace the undesirable behavior with a desirable one.

pinklotus_56 wrote: »

I was a huge emotional eater. I turned to food in times of stress, anger, sadness, happiness, boredom. I learned from an early age that food could bring me comfort.
I started my weight loss in January and my emotional eating was my biggest obstacle. I started forcing myself to exercise instead of eat when I was upset or stressed. My first instinct was always to eat, but I would make myself workout instead. It was not easy by any means but I noticed that the exercise helped WAY more than eating ever did. When I would stress eat, I would feel better while I ate, then immediately after would feel worse. With the exercise, it legitimately made me feel physically and emotionally better. And obviously had health benefits.
There was a lot of internal struggle, and it was so so hard at first but now, I'm down 80lbs and it very rarely crosses my mind to stress eat. And now when I'm stressed, I find myself actually desiring exercise, which I probably would have thought was impossible for me a year ago.
There is hope. It's not easy but it's definitely doable. Best of luck.

I can relate to so much of this!