Definitely. I eat when I'm anxious. Especially if I'm entering in a new social situation where I'm unsure of who will be there, I eat to self sooth and calm myself down. I also eat when I feel lonely (this lovely habit arose when I attended an out of state graduate program where it took forever to make local friends). I've been doing a lot better about distracting myself when these situations arise. My dog has been my biggest "tool". He snuggles when I need calming down or feel lonely and always wants to go for a walk to get me out of the house.

The two main emotional drivers of eating for me are anger and boredom. Fortunately not in that order in terms of frequency, but I've really had to work on the anger eating. When a significant anger comes on, I really really have to watch it.

Boredom requires a different kind of vigilance. Because it's easy to have small periods of boredom interspersed throughout otherwise interesting times. It doesn't take much down time for me to get a lot of stupid eating in.

I recently read Shrink Yourself, by Roger Gould. It was recommended on GOAD, (I believe by Murple, but not 100% sure). Excellent information on why I / we emotionally overeat. For me, it has to do with both late night boredom, and eating to avoid thinking and dealing with stuff in my life. Dr. Gould has good recommendations on how to overcome emotional eating. Since reading, I have not once binged on late night ice cream, pizza, alcohol, junk food. Would not say I am "cured", but I am much more mindful and proactive when I am heading down the emotional eating path.

Well, sad, happy, bored, good day, bad day, anxious, lonely. Seems like once eating breaks loose from hunger the sky's the limit.

In the bad old days I felt really bad a lot. Eating was a way to feel better for a while. Big picture, might have been trying to kill myself. Don't know.

Boredom and tiredness are my worse emotional eating triggers.

88olds wrote: »

Well, sad, happy, bored, good day, bad day, anxious, lonely.

Initially, THIS ^^^^^^^^^ . However, once I started breaking it down, I found my primary triggers to eat were stress, anxiety, and emotions. When experiencing these things, if I did not stop to identify the circumstances (which I rarely did prior to WW), I would stuff my face when confronted with these feelings. Not only would I stuff it, but I would do so with things that contributed to my weight gain: sweets, baked goods, fatty foods, yada-yada.

Once I realized that was the case, I broke the behavior into two parts. The first part was the going for food when under stress, etc. OK, yup, I see it and I get that it's a crutch. I may or may not choose to follow through at any given time but I'm much clearer about the relationship. The part I have deliberately changed is making better choices if I'm going to eat to help me through a challenging time. I keep my better foods around now. I can go through fruit and veggies like nobody's business. I usually have a stash of lean meats instead of the capicola, pepperoni, etc. I used to snack on. Even my best friend (almost) peanut butter is metered out by the teaspoon--something I couldn't even have dreamed of prior to WW.

Getting this behavior more manageable has probably been one of the biggest steps for my weight loss. Someday, maybe I'll stop the behavior altogether but in the meantime, making better choices when under pressure is definitely working in my favor.

As an aside, my social eating and drinking, which I used to do quite a bit of also, I find much more manageable. I have to keep my overall goal of weight loss/management in mind and then most of the time, make choices consistent with that. Not so hard, if I keep my head in the game.