Looking for some tactics to prevent emotional eating, please share your experiences

I suffer from anxiety and depression. When I started mfp and began eating much healthier food, I noticed a big difference in my emotional appetite.

Within two weeks, my cravings to overeat were gone and my anxiety and depression symptoms were lessened.

sometimes I find a hot cup of green or herbal tea will curb my hunger and improve my mood at the same time.

I had gotten into a bad habit of emotional eating and what helped me the most was sitting with whatever feelings were causing me to want to overeat. So first identify if it's really an emotion or if you actually hungry, then make a cup of tea or a glass of water and sit down with no distractions (except maybe a notepad in case you want to jot anything down). Then just feel it. Whatever it is, boredom/anxiety/fear, and just breathe through it, call a friend, write it out, whatever it is just go ahead and feel it. I think so often we replace eating as a distraction with other distractions and then it doesn't really solve anything. Although, if the emotion is boredom then maybe taking up a hobby or opening a book or volunteering would help but if it's other stronger emotions (fear, sadness etc) it might be something you want to work through. Just my two cents and what helped me, I hope it helps others too.

For me, the first step to changing my emotional eating was the recognize the emotions I was experiencing. I would eat or drink to avoid dealing with the emotion I was feeling. This is an issue I still work on. So, initially I didn't even try to stop or change the behaviors I engaged in when avoiding an emotion. I focused on naming, and understanding the emotion. I would write down the answer to these questions

1) what am I feeling? (describe it as best you can, physical sensations, as well as whatever you're going to name the emotion)
2) what caused me to feel this? (what event, action, activity, person brought these physical and emotional feelings on?)
3) what am I about to do because I feel this? (what is my current activity when I feel this?)
4) what would I like to start doing because I feel this? (what action do I want to take instead of the one I usually take?

once you've written that down, say the questions and answers out loud. It helped me to carry around a notebook and I made a sincere effort to stop and answer these four questions in the moment when i needed to.

Identifying the emotions I experience, why i experience them, which emotions are likely to drive me to a negative reaction then allowed me to work on those situations in particular. I never had success just saying " I want to quit doing this" I needed to understand why I did it.

Give it a try, getting to the root of the behavior might help! Good luck.

I am going to try journaling! About food feelings, anxiety- see if I can manage my behavior with recognition of my emotions and triggers. Plus bullet journals can be anything you want them to be. Mine arrives next week and I think it will be fun. Also I think making sure you have your own stress reducer hobby like seeing or fishing or whatever is helpful.

I get an "empty void" inside me sometimes that I try to fill with food.

And same - if stressed/depressed - I eat.

To stop myself eating, sometimes it's hard and I can't, but I try to stop it by playing games on my phone - those addictive candy matching type ones that keep your fingers busy and your mind engaged. That way time passes and I'm occupied with my fingers and head and I don't eat.

Or else, which is better, go for a walk. But sometimes it's not possible or you feel so crap you don't want to walk, but if you can force yourself out the door, I ALWAYS feel better afterwards. I walk fast - brisk walking and up and down hills and stuff. I just roam the neighbourhood and get to the end of one street and go "oh, I"ll turn left today" and not have a set path but just wander.

HUGS to you.

PS - part of the reason why I want to put on as much muscle as possible is so that I can eat more.