Mindless eating
friendlygirl316
Posts: 40 Member
For a while I thought that I was a binge eater, but I never felt guilty afterwards. After mom yelling at me earlier about what I got into lately I realized I'm a mindless eater. When I'm home alone I tend to watch TV in the kitchen instead of working on cleaning and laundry. For about 30 minutes or so I'll eat random foods right out of their packages. I'll still eat my next meal as normal. At work if there's food laying around with no name on it. I've been this way since I was a kid.
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Replies
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"Breaking Free from Emotional" by Geneen Roth
Also start a yoga practice as it helps with body-mind awareness.0 -
Maybe you should try mindfulness. Basically means that you pay your full attention to everything you do. Mindful eating is helping me quite a bit.
Futurelearn.com has a free course on mindfulness if you're interested.0 -
Grocery shop after eating not when your hungry and don't buy the stuff your mindlessly eating.0
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This place will work for you. Trust it and log everything. Go buy a food scale.
Take a before picture, so in a year you can post your success story here.0 -
Make each room have it's purpose, take the TV out of the kitchen.0
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That's a good thing to realize. Mindless eating can lead to lots of calories but is probably easier to kick than something like stress eating. What helped me was just to decide that I'd only eat at mealtimes or have planned snacks and certainly never to eat while watching TV or surfing on the internet or to eat out of packages. Decide how much you will eat, measure it out and put it on a plate, and eat that, period. Once you get out of the habit of mindless eating you really won't miss it. I think of those kinds of calories as so worthless, because you didn't even really enjoy the food while you were eating it.0
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I like to keep my hands busy with a puzzle or sewing when watching TV - keeps me from snacking and I still get time to rest and catch up on shows/movies.0
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Sorry I'm so late responding. I think I have that book Roda. Talanch I'll check out the website when I have time. Michael I mindlessly eat just about anything, mostly my parents food. Janet I've been using this app off and on for the past 2-3 and have a food scale. Junie the TV was mainly placed in the kitchen so mom & dad could watch the news. In my opinion it seems to slow me down when eating because I use closed captioning. Lemur I do try to portion my food. I think when I eat mindlessly it's because I don't want to get caught in action so I stuff my face and clean up. I only eat what I like. TC I watch TV as soon as I get home because I'm putting off something I don't like doing.0
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That statement about not getting caught in action is important.
You can change how you eat your food: set a place setting, eat slowly, pay attention, . . Those kinds of things. If there is any way you can eat without the TV, you could change your life.
If you keep the TV, change something else that you are doing that is getting in the way of your goals.0 -
I'm not even hungry when I eat mindlessly. I just automatically do it when I'm home alone. I know I have things to do but don't feel like doing them as soon as I walk in the door.0
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Can you do something else when you first walk in the door? Put sneakers on and go for a 15 mins walk?
Do some stretches? Soak your feet. Take a shower or bath?
-- any of those can help break the pattern.0 -
I probably could but most of the time I'm still groggy from sleeping on the bus. I use a paratransit service since I'm unable to drive.0
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Then maybe you need more restful sleep. How is your sleep?
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I see nothing wrong with mindless eating IF you're eating baby spinach, baby marrows, or cucumber slices. Give it a shot. I find that I'm the same: my jaws want to move and it doesn't matter what I'm chewing, as long as I'm chewing.0
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My sleep is poor. I've got sleep apnea, chronic anemia, and recently told that my ferritin and isat levels showed that I have inflammation through my body. Joy I'm not crazy about vegetables and fruit.0
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Some studies have shown that overweight people actually enjoy food a lot less than slim people. The conclusion was that they were eating mindlessly, almost robotically. Try staying in the moment and enjoying every bite. You might find that a lot of the mindless eating stops and food intake reduces significantly,0
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I love food that's why I can't say no unless it's fruit and vegetables.0
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Some studies have shown that overweight people actually enjoy food a lot less than slim people. The conclusion was that they were eating mindlessly, almost robotically. Try staying in the moment and enjoying every bite. You might find that a lot of the mindless eating stops and food intake reduces significantly,
I can agree to this. I thought I loved food too, and that that was why I ate too much (or that I was an emotional eater). I hated the feeling of wanting and eating all the wrong things, but I couldn't help myself. After I've changed/restructured my diet and attitude (thank you, MFP!), and plan my meals and portion out my food - so that I know I won't be starving, but at the same time the amount of food is limited - I find that I love food more, I appreciate it in a totally different way. I think I used to eat just because there was food. And I didn't even want food, I wanted junk. What I want, has changed somewhat - I still want tasty delicious things, but I want healthy tasty delicious things now. I enjoy my vegetables now, eat some at every meal, beacuse they make me feel full and energized and while I still desire junk, I don't want it anymore, so I don't buy it, and don't eat it.0 -
friendlygirl316 wrote: »I love food that's why I can't say no unless it's fruit and vegetables.
So your eating isn't quite as "mindless" as you made it out to be. In fact it's not mindless at all. You make choices.
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friendlygirl316 wrote: »I love food that's why I can't say no unless it's fruit and vegetables.
So your eating isn't quite as "mindless" as you made it out to be. In fact it's not mindless at all. You make choices.
Right.
From my own experience, my "mindless" eating was an attempt to block conscious acceptance that the choices I was making were not in my best interests so I could perform the action without having to deal with the negative emotions that came with it.
Sometimes it is a case of facing up to yourself and what you are doing.0 -
friendlygirl316 wrote: »I love food that's why I can't say no unless it's fruit and vegetables.
So your eating isn't quite as "mindless" as you made it out to be. In fact it's not mindless at all. You make choices.
Right.
From my own experience, my "mindless" eating was an attempt to block conscious acceptance that the choices I was making were not in my best interests so I could perform the action without having to deal with the negative emotions that came with it.
Sometimes it is a case of facing up to yourself and what you are doing.
This.
OP, you're making excuses, and they're not even very good ones. You're the one who goes in the kitchen. You're the one who picks up the food. You're the one who puts it in your mouth. Literally every step of the way from front door to chewing, you could make a different decision, and you don't. If you're going to get anywhere, you're going to have to own that.
You talk about food like it just happens to you. Food doesn't just happen to you. Either take the TV out of the kitchen or find something else to do when you first get home - there are a million more productive and worthwhile things you could be doing than watching teen moms throw chairs at each other. If you don't choose to do either, fine, but understand that you made that decision.
You decide. You need to own your decision. If you're not responsible for your own actions in physically putting food in your mouth, who is?0 -
Mindless eating does occur randomly to me. I don't say to myself ok let's raid the pantry or the fridge. In fact nothing is going through my mind when I'm doing it. Like I said previously I've been doing it since I was a young kid so almost 30 years.0
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I use to be this way to a certain extent myself. Might I suggest chewing gum before you walk in the door at your parents house? You have to take the gum out of your mouth before you eat more food. That might give you a chance to consider what you are doing.0
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friendlygirl316 wrote: »Mindless eating does occur randomly to me. I don't say to myself ok let's raid the pantry or the fridge. In fact nothing is going through my mind when I'm doing it. Like I said previously I've been doing it since I was a young kid so almost 30 years.
Okay, but no. That may be what you tell yourself, but the only person you're fooling is yourself. You are, in fact, making a decision to raid the fridge. Your behavior is entirely under your control, and no one else's. The sooner you accept this very basic fact, the sooner you can begin fixing the things that are wrong with your eating. The longer you tell yourself that your eating is out of your control, the longer you will stay fat.
Which is more important to you, being a helpless victim of your body's actions and the food in the refrigerator, or being a normal weight? You can't have both. You have to choose.0 -
It's hard to choose because I love the wrong type of food but need to lose weight.0
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What is the wrong type of food, and what is love? Would you love a husband who abused you? Or would you rather find another? Foods aren't even good or bad, there are just good or bad amounts of foods.0
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Maybe you should try mindfulness. Basically means that you pay your full attention to everything you do. Mindful eating is helping me quite a bit.
Futurelearn.com has a free course on mindfulness if you're interested.
Agreed.
Sit down and eat without any distraction (no people, TV, radio, internet). Note the different flavour of the food, see the different textures on your tongue and how it feels when you chew/bite it. Make every spoonful an experience that should be enjoyed separately.
Several things will happen:
-you'll take longer to eat
-you'll feel full before you finish
-you'll probably feel quite chilled out
-you'll realise what food actually tastes like (it doesn't just fly past your taste buds!)0 -
friendlygirl316 wrote: »It's hard to choose because I love the wrong type of food but need to lose weight.
Are you sure you love it? Because you don't describe it like it's something you love. You describe yourself sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the TV, mindlessly (your word) stuffing food in your mouth as fast as you can so no one will catch you eating.
That doesn't sound like someone doing something they love. That sounds like misery.0 -
A good trick is to not keep any snack foods around. So there are no boxes that you can just open and start eating out of the box. Everything in your house should be an ingredient for a meal, not finger-foods.
As far as your habit of having to eat something, try to not do that for just a week. Your body will most likely get used to not expecting to eat all day, so you won't have that compulsion as much anymore. Getting through a week of that will be tough, but it will help.0 -
Larissa, the reason why I say I love food is because I can't say no to it especially junk food. In a way I see your point because sometimes I do feel miserable after eating mindlessly then eating dinner as if nothing happened. Like right now I'm feeling last night's effects and not hungry as I should be upon waking. EQ, healthy food just goes bad in our house.0
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