I cant get past emotional eating

My problem too :-(

Missy, I am Judy and go by Brookhaven 64. I have dealt with emotional eating my entire life and this program has helped me so much. I am a retired teacher and would be around to listen to you when you feel like you just have to have the snack. I am not saying I don't snack, but I have come across a few snacks that seem to get me through the rough times. Both of my parents passed away in November and the last year I really packed on the pounds because we traveled every weekend to help them. I was introduced to MFP in March and have lose 23 pounds. Just let me know if you need me.

I am like that too. I have been controlling it for the past weeks but today was my break point. Tomorrow I have an interview and I am super anxious. What I started doing is getting rid of all the junk food and get low cal snacks or healthier. For example I love ice cream and I bought a light ice cream that taste delicious and It fits in my diet.

Eating Less by Gillian Riley is a book precisely about this sort of thing. If looks at your eating as the problem, and weight as the consequence. Fix the eating and the weight solves itself, as it were. Worth a look.

http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Less-ebook/dp/B005H0CALU

One trick is to postpone the snack. It's easier to say "I'll eat it a bit later", than saying "I won't eat it". In the meanwhile chances are you'll get distracted and forget all about it. And even if you don't, you'll end up eating less because you start later :-)

I was a real emotional eater.. usually when I was alone etc.

I took out all my tigger foods in the house and replaced them with items like fruit., veggies, and stuff like that.. Then when I felt i needed something I ask myself are you hungry? Sad? why do you want to eat? I then would make myself wait 30mins and then ask myself again why. I started to realize as I did this that most of the time I wanted to eat because I was bored or lonely.

I have the same problem : ( I've learned to control it a little bit but I do have one or two bad days a month now...And my TOM, forget it!! It's worse!! Drinking a lot of water has helped a lot!! I wish I had more advice though, I could use the help too. Good luck to you *Hugs*

I'm an emotional eater, too. When I get depressed or stressed out, I just want to EAT. Honestly, it's just a matter or willpower for me. I try to pep talk myself "Don't eat it, you'll regret, you're out of calories, it's just stress talking" etc. If I really can't stop myself, I try to eat raw veggies and drink a bunch of water.

I was a very serious emotional eater, in fact because of that I grew to the +500lbs at one time , I have fought and struggled for years to lose to 450lbs now I had to learn the every time I wanted to eat or felt the need to eat , I would either drink cold water wait ten minutes then if I still wanted to eat I had a Atkins shake , or one of those shakes in a can , then I would wait another ten minutes if I still felt I needed something it was a fruit , or a honey nut granola bar. The key is to wait the full ten minutes , after awhile it becomes easier and at the same time you can stay within you calorie intake for the day. This helped me , everyone is different but I hope this helps.

Did you know that your body tells you its thirsty that same way it tells you its hungry? I start with water. If I still have the munchies, then I promise myself I'll snack after I'm active for 15 minutes(usually walking the dog). By then It's usually time to eat again anyway!
I have three meals and two snacks a day, so I'm basically eating often and that helps me. I am under TONS of stress lately so I make sure my kitchen is full of healthey choices and if its not healthy, it is wrapped in a single serving size. My favorites right now are sugar free pudding cups or 100 calorie packs of EVERYTHING(nuts, cookies, crackers). One pack of bad stuff with a big glass of water BEFORE I eat is perfect.
I find that if I drink alot after I eat, I dont feel aas full as long....

Look into some 12-step programs such as Overeaters Anonymous or Food Addicts Anonymous. They help people deal with the emotional and physical addictions to the food. I'm not sure about your faith but several years ago I went through the Weigh Down program at church and it helped me with this area. One of the biggest things it taught me was that the food doesn't love me back. It is a temporary fix for a much deeper emotional problem. Good luck, know that you aren't alone.

When I first started doing this I spent a lot of time reading books (on my kindle) written by people telling their weight loss stories. Reading these stories helped me to work through some of my issues with emotional eating. And I think it makes a difference to read something book-length and not just blogs or posts. In a book the author really has time to explore the issues that they dealt with and it gives you time to think about the ways that what they went through applies to you. It also helps keeps your head in the game in general.

posted by DesignGuy
Everything is an evolution of patterns. Most people have trouble because they try to go from one extreme to the other overnight

This is so true. Just keep chipping away at patterns.

Something that helped me a lot when I was eating mindlessly was to write in a Journal. Mine is on my computer, and I've written in it for five years, developing strategies for dealing with emotional eating.

I log everything I eat. I realized that I don't need more than 2000 calories a day to maintain. So anything above that is out of control, and I don't like that at all.

You have the power within you to heal your emotions. If you write them down, you will be really surprised what comes out when you are healing yourself.

If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution.

Here is a tip that helped me with emotional eating. Flip your emotion, use your emotion, anger, depression, pain or whatever it is, use it for a workout! Go for a walk, run, aerobics, weight resistance. Use your emotion to inspire you to workout instead of eating.

I had a tough last two weeks at work and was also overeating due to stress (and TOM). I wish there were an easy way to get over emotional eating, but here are a few things I've gathered over the years:

- Exercise helps, but sometimes it might only help to a point. It'll distract you from whatever you're feeling for an hour or so but once you stop, it might come back again. Nevertheless, it's good to sweat it out, even if the adrenaline rush is temporary.

- Be easier on yourself. If you know that eating will make you feel better (before the guilt settles in), maybe you should eat something. The last week I was constantly hungry and eating and still hungry, but if I'd deprived myself I think I would've felt even worse because with everything to worry about, being hungry was really the last thing I needed on my mind. I've noticed that giving my body what it wants, in moderation, sometimes works better than ignoring it altogether.

- If possible, tackle the root problem. What are you avoiding thinking about, when you reach for food instead? Sometimes we can't solve the problems that are really bothering us, the sources of stress, but being honest with yourself and letting yourself be in that moment could help in the long run. I often eat to not think at all - and that's horrible! By not thinking I'm letting these problems fester and they'll only cause bigger problems later.