Stress eating and depression.

It IS hard if you use eating emotionally. I've always been an emotional eater/binger and stress does it to me more than anything. But the thing that's helped me the most is using MFP to stay accountable. I find if I get lazy a couple of days, it's too easy for me to throw in the towel.
Please don't add guilt to your stress. Stepping outside your calorie allotment one day is not a make or break issue as long as you get back to it. Good luck!!

Hello, fellow emotional eater here. I'm just back on since last week, I was scared at where my emotional eating was going. Like @ReenieHJ has said coming on here is really helping me, I know I'm in the new "flush" of getting back on the wagon, so I'm conscious of being kind but also sustainable about my choices.

An example is that I managed to "poison" myself with a cocoa chai smoothie the other evening, I find they are a great way to fill me with lower cals and I was looking for something sweet but I totally didn't think it would affect me like it did, I have histamine intolerance and cocoa/chocolate is high histamine, I thought I'd have a stuffy head the next day, nope, I felt as sick as if I'd had a hard night drinking......(lesson learned) so the next day when I finally felt ok to eat I could just about manage toast, so I ate toast with pate, some icecream and I logged it all, worked on not feeling guilty and I'm so glad. Then I had a chicken burger the next day because I was still feeling a bit rough and logged that too. I'm down weight, but, for me, way more importantly I'm showing up for myself. So my goal this month is to show up for myself, to find ways to regulate myself that aren't food (things that help me are a good cup of coffee, breathing exercises, silly videos on youtube and chatting to my neighbours cat.... ).

@Xellercin makes a great point, if we can't regulate our emotions then managing our eating becomes really hard. I'm working through some trauma and I am hoping to get to access some mental health support in the next few months bc I can't afford it myself right now. But in the meantime I'm trying all sorts, I'm by no ways in a good routine, I'm doing a little yoga one day, a meditation the next, a breathing exercise the next, finding things that work for me. Again, I think in taking action I'm showing myself that I'm here for myself. Other things that have helped me are journaling or doing a brain dump (sounds awful, I know! I just "pour" out what's in my head onto a sheet, then bin it or burn it, burning it often feels good). And I have a DIY punchbag that I use, less these days, but when I was really dysregulated and frustrated it was a huge help, there's a book called "Burnout" that has an exercise in there about visualizing what's stressing you out and you workout your frustrations, I used the punchbag because the physical exercise really helped.

It's taking time, there are times when I'm frustrated at how slow it all feels, this healing journey. And there have been backslides, but I'm learning from others that this is all part of the journey, and looking back over this last year I can see that I have made progress.

Wishing you the best, please feel free to send me a friend request, I could share a heap more resources if you are interested, or shoot the breeze. Oh, the thing that got me through the really hard times were recordings of meditations on youtube, there's one for folks with ptsd that fit me really well and I could lie on my couch, in a darkened room, under a blanket and it helped, when I didn't feel I had the energy to do much else it helped to calm my system enough before I could find the energy to take more action.