Boredom Eating
LizbethHeller
Posts: 39 Member
Does anyone else find themselves succumbing to boredom eating? What do you do to counteract the urge?
3
Replies
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I find something else to do. Like read a book, knit, go for a walk, do some weeding, organize a kitchen drawer. Or just eat a snack that fits into my daily calorie allotment.1
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Keep your calories high enough to include some wiggle room, or have planned snacks.
I bring veggies, sugar-free pudding, a can of diet soda, and milk (for chai) to work. That way I have no excuses to raid the vending machine.
When I get home from work, I can have a cookie or a piece of fruit.
When sitting in front of the TV - no eating allowed. I have ice water, maybe throw in a lemon slice. I keep a little distracted to keep my mind off snacks. Distractions could be solitaire, crosswords, adult coloring book, crochet, anything to keep your hand busy.
Before I go to bed I typically have some popcorn. I use a microwave popping bowl, only a teaspoon of oil is needed. I find a little oil helps the toppings stick. Kernel Season's has many flavors.
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Boredom eating only happens to me when I'm home, so I can leave the house and go elsewhere, or take a nap1
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Kind of like TeaBea, I try to set myself up for success particularly at work...bringing a variety of stuff like raw veggies, single portion fruit, tea and calorie-free sparkling water...the occasional kombucha (sugary but only like 30-60 cals).
Sometimes when a coworker brings in donuts and I'm tempted I will tell myself if I finish my celery or sugar snap peas and still want a donut, I'll have one. But most of the time I don't. I guarantee if I didn't have those healthier snacks on hand I'd just go for the donuts especially when it's cold and grey outside.1 -
I have a little talk with myself telling me how damaging that food is, do something positive!0
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Don’t keep things in the house that are conducive to spontaneous boredom eating. Also keep my hands busy - I have been learning the piano, sewing, yoga, gardening.1
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I only get the urge to boredom eat when I sit down in the evening to watch tv. I find it really difficult to resist the urge. There’s something about watching tv that I feel I need to be eating. I try to keep some calories so I can have have something small.0
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find something else to do.
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After upping my protein at lunch, as well as exercising, my urge to boredom eat in the afternoon vanished.0
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Idle hands are the devil’s tool. Or in my case, the devil’s fork. Keep em busy.
I schedule small snacks throughout the day. Chai, coffe, candy cane (addicted to Oreo candy canes @ 45 calories a large cane, spanglercandy.com) or single hard piece of candy to suck on, a Fiorucci brand individually packed mozarella stick rolled in prosciutto. Making the chai is a small, almost meditative private “ceremony” or habit. Just doing that helps.
If I run out of snacks, I put on my shoes and do the 2.84 mile “dog park” loop, which is a pleasant walk. That usually holds me til it’s time to start dinner. I know I’m in the home stretch at that point.1 -
I keep enough calories to snack at night but honestly knitting and crochet are hugely helpful. My hands are occupied and I don't want food bits on my project.1
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I realised that most of what I thought was boredom eating was actually looking for sensory stimulation. So now when I want food but I don't feel hungry I have chewing gum. Feels similar enough to scratch the itch.3
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Perhaps this isn't helpful in terms of Excersice... However the Game PC Stellaris is a tremendous time sink, that can encapsulate you entirely. Then the problems becomes how to pull yourself away from it. Just on more turn... One more turn. One more turn.
My fiancé is not a fan of said game.
FYI i play on a 10000 star galaxy, to ensure my neurons are overloaded.0 -
I've struggled my whole life with boredom eating. I started seriously dieting almost 2 years ago and had absolutely no problem staying fully engaged with my diet and exercise program when I was busy and had a full life of stuff going on. Then ... covid. It's really been challenging. For various stretches over the past year, maintenance was the best I could do. I don't really feel like it's been a success, although it hasn't been a failure either. My recent insight is that not failing is kind of a success on a weight loss journey - nothing wrong with treading water; it's better than gaining weight. But anyway, couple of suggestions from my n=1 experience.
Replace high calorie snacky junky foods with lower calorie stuff, and optimally, get the high calorie junk out of the house. You can only eat so many carrots and you can only do so much damage when the food is low-calorie.
For me, intermittent fasting, that is to say, no food before noon or after 8 pm, has helped a lot. I am in a pretty good habit of just not eating ANYTHING after dinner, ever, and that is the core time when the boredom binging used to happen. I don't think IF works for everyone, but definitely works for some people. Like any other weight loss tool, it only works if you actually do it, which is a bit of an adjustment, but the payoff for me has been huge.
It's hard to boredom-eat when you're exercising, so I pack as much exercise into each day as I can tolerate.
Those three things have helped this boredom-eater, or really boredom-binger, not give back any significant amount of hard-won weight loss, even in times of stress and extreme boredom.4
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