Emotional eating...does it force me to eat or is it just an

Great topic!! All though I really have no advice....sorry. I have and do experience emotional eating at times. I eat for everything!!! Happy, sad, mad, glad, frustrated....if there is an emotion....more than likely I have ate for it! Food is my comfort in whatever the situation.

Thanks for posting this. I would love some info too!!

Emotional eating is a tough issue. Food makes you feel good instantly but then it turns on you and makes you feel horrible. The results of it is usually extra weight which also makes you feel horrible. You try not to eat when you feel sad but the desire can be so stong that you cannot help yourself...then you feel weak and ashamed that you cannot control yourself.
The fact is that you can control yourself....you just have to believe that you can. You need someone who you can call on when you feel weak. If that person is not available then you need to be able to turn in to yourself and make a healthy choice. The food is your addiction, it is no different than drugs or alcohol and should be treated the same way.
It is a tough battle ..but it can be beat and the strength to beat it is inside of you. As your self esteem grows so will your ability to control your desire.
You said you are getting help for depession..that is a good step.. talk to your therapist about how to overcome addiction. Take control of your health and you will be strong enough to beat anything that comes along.

:brokenheart: Why are you depressed? Food in some cases is very helpful in replacing a sense of fulfillment. If you do not feel good about yourself or you have low self esteem. Food can give you a moment when you feel good inside but just like any addiction it also needs to be fed. Once you have made food your drug then the real trouble begins. Your weight gain will cause you to feel even lower then you already feel. Your Mental Health is a area you should focus on to avoid eatting to feel good. I think you already know this inside your mind you just need someone else to help conferm?
Good luck!!!
Donna Bridges

You have hit it on the nose - it's instantly rewarding but also makes you sick if you're eating the wrong types of foods. We saw this in our famly about a month after we started eating healthy (and I'm not talking clean or organic or whatever, just healthier) and then had a bday where we had chocolate cake. Hubby and I were sicker than a dog after eating a slice of cake! We couldn't believe that we used to eat like that all the time, didn't realize how it sapped our energy.

We have come back around to the point where we can have a treat like that once in a while and it won't make us sick if depending on what we eat with it...

You can't just "stop" a behavior or a comfort thing. You have to replace it with something else. Replace it with celery, raw carrots, sliced cucumbers.. those are all foods that actually use more calories to digest than what's in them. Once you're replaced the behavior with something healthy that will not harm your body, then you need to look at the triggers and so some deep self reflection and be able to work thru those issues. That may take a long time, or it may be a "when I'm stressed I want french fries".

Good luck on this journey.

I found this article. Hopefully it is helpful. Please know you're not alone. I think just about everyone that has a weight problem has struggled with emotional eating on some level.

The Basics of Emotional Eating
Learn why you eat when you may not be hungry, with Dr. Roger Gould, author of Shrink Yourself
By Jennifer Allen , Jennifer Allen is Project Editor at Prevention.com

Dr. Gould was a guest on our Emotional Eating forum recently: click here to read his candid, thoughtful responses to questions posted by readers. To read an excerpt of Shrink Yourself, click here.

What is emotional eating?
Using food as a form of relief or reward and eating when you're upset, stressed, angry, tired, bored or sad. Emotional eating is using food too often to make yourself feel better.

For emotional eaters, eating serves a psychological, as opposed to a biological, purpose. As long as you use food to control your emotions, you can't control your weight for very long.

How common is emotional eating?
Everyone eats for emotional reasons once in a while, but when you habitually use food to deal with being upset rather than dealing directly with what is bothering you, you won't be able to separate physical hunger from an unrelenting emotional hunger.

You may lose weight for a little bit, but you'll regain it when life throws you a curve ball.

Why do you think we eat emotionally?
We eat for relief and reward, because we've learned to rely on food to balance our emotional lives. We eat as a substitute for doing the sometimes frightening and difficult work of facing our feelings and taking risks.

We're afraid to let go of this emotional eating pattern because we're not sure we can learn other ways to manage our feelings. But of course, we can learn better ways to deal with life's challenges, which is the key to unlearning emotional eating.

What is a food trance?
You talk about a "food trance" in your book. What is that?
It is the pleasurable feeling that food provides. Food becomes enticing because it's transformed into a form of escape that works immediately.

What people don't realize is that this escape is addictive. We pay a high price for a very brief respite from stress.

What is your advice to emotional eaters?
You must prove to yourself that you can manage uncomfortable feelings in ways that don't include the negative backlash that food does.

Start from the surface by observing what turns your hunger switch on, and pause long enough to think about what you're really hungry for, and whether there's a better way than food to get it.

In your book you mention that using food to deal with feelings creates a vicious cycle. What does that mean?
A person feels bad about something, and she eats to feel better. She does feel better for a little while, but then she feels guilty and disgusted with the fact that she's overeaten and sabotaged her efforts to lose weight, which makes her feel a need to eat to feel better.

How does powerlessness affect emotional eating?
What does feeling powerless have to do with emotional eating?
When you feel powerless to effect real change in your life, the hunger switch gets turned on. Feeling powerless is so intolerable that it sends people looking for a quick fix. And food is a readily accessible and legal way to cope with that feeling.

Are the underlying issues behind emotional eating the same for someone who has spent a lifetime battling obesity, and someone who just needs to lose 5, 10, 20 pounds?
The core issue of using food as an emotional prop is the same. But if a person has had a weight problem since childhood, or has become obese, deeper reasons are at play.

Once a person becomes overweight, the label can become part of her identity, and it makes her feel safe to stay that way, whereas becoming fit actually makes her temporarily anxious, and drives her back to overeating in order to get "fat-safe" again.

Many people carry emotional baggage, but not all of these people turn to food for comfort. Why some and not others? It is not a matter of past history or emotional baggage; it's about overusing a bad mental habit of avoidance through food.

Some people avoid dealing with their life issues through substance abuse or distractions.

We must learn to stop using these avoidance mechanisms, and instead use the best and smartest part of our mind to deal with the many challenges of life that require us to solve problems, adapt, and take the risks necessary to make our lives work well.

Why can't we lose weight with diet alone?
For emotional eaters, why doesn't diet alone work for weight loss?
Emotional eaters cannot adhere to a diet for very long because they feel compelled to use food to manage their emotions.

That's when people break their diet and end up gaining 10 percent more than they lost, so their weight keeps increasing.

If dieters have a habit of using food to manage emotions, it is only a matter of time before they have a feeling that requires food to manage. That's why the message in Shrink Yourself is so critical to being able to make healthy food choices.

You say weight loss is not just about food. Why?
Weight loss is about how you live your life. Making healthy food choices is a natural offshoot of that.

When you eat to fill yourself up emotionally, you won't ever get enough food because food can't satisfy emotional hunger.

What's the way to recovery?
First, recognize that emotional eating is an unhealthy habit you must address. By using the practices and insights in Shrink Yourself, you'll realize that you don't really NEED food in the way that you think you do.

For more information on Dr. Roger Gould or Shrink Yourself, visit shrinkyourself.com.

This may sound bad but I stopped emotional eating when I was put on anti-anxiety medication. I was put on it for other reasons and that was just a side benefit but it really helps with it.

I recommend The Food and Feelings Book by Karen R. Koenig. It's a workbook and you can use it inconjunction with your therapy or stand-alone.