Question for people who got control of emotional eating

[Anonymous]

This is a question for people who struggled with emotional eating.

If you pinpointed the *cause* of your emotional eating, did that make all the difference in helping you to stop your emotional eating?

I’ve been reading some Geneen Roth (thanks for the rec, DCUM!) and it hit me like a thunderbolt that most of my emotional eating is driven by spite or a desire for revenge. Underneath there is/was part of me thinking, if I get fat/fatter, that will really stick it to my DH + parents. I truly did not realize this until recently.

I am hoping that this realization will allow me to channel anger into other paths, and I will stop overeating and lose weight…but maybe that is magical thinking.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I ate for every emotion including boredom. Happy? Celebrate with food. Nervous? Eat and think about it. Sad? Eat something. Angry? Calm down with food.

[Anonymous]

Powerful awareness, good for you, OP! Stay on the path to understand yourself, feel your feelings, give yourself grace, and your life will change. I don’t have the same issue as you but recently had revelations about my chronic tardiness and completely reversed the trend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Powerful awareness, good for you, OP! Stay on the path to understand yourself, feel your feelings, give yourself grace, and your life will change. I don’t have the same issue as you but recently had revelations about my chronic tardiness and completely reversed the trend.

Ahhh, this is great to hear, thanks so much! Good for you too!

[Anonymous]

It didn’t make all the difference but it makes a huge difference. I still eat out of boredom or anxiety I’m trying to escape from, but at least I’m usually aware enough to know what I’m doing and I don’t feel out of control. And often when I realize I’m doing that I just think “this food is doing me no good. And it doesn’t even taste that great.”

[Anonymous]

OP, what an amazing realization!

I overeat out of boredom, which is the most boring reason to overeat in the book.

[Anonymous]

Some things that helped me:

1. Getting more sleep - my emotions are more under control when I'm rested

2. using cognitive behavioral therapy in Beck Diet Book. It makes me just get to it rather than making weight loss more complicated

If I really really have to have something that day I eat Nick's ice cream - good compromise

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this is emotional eating but I realized I did/do equate eating to relaxation. This caused me to eat a lot (past fullness and sometimes binging) at certain points in the day, including when I get home from work, and later at night. Yes, realizing this was an important step.

What helps me is not getting too hungry by skipping meals. Planning my food, drinking a big glass of water. Having things handy, like bite sized veggies or gum.

IF is also helping get the “I just got the kids in bed now it’s my Me time, let’s eat!” mentality. I close out the eating day with something planned and prepackaged, then I go away from my kitchen. I tell myself I can just eat again tomorrow. Believe it or not, saying that to myself actually helps.

[Anonymous]

I definitely did and have it pretty under control now. I got the emotional issues under control, got myself to a much more mentally healthy place, and quit drinking (drinking makes me more emotional, all emotions, and makes me hungry).

I think now that I have such a better set of tools for dealing with turmoil and my own childhood issues that I will be able to keep the eating under control if a difficult event happens. I think figuring out how to get to a better place is really the real key.

[Anonymous]

I think I am a. much more aware of what I am doing on a deeper level. And b. I therefore have access to a window of choice that then let's me sometimes stop. I just stop, put the food away and that's it. Sometimes I might choose to still eat when not really hungry. It's not about perfection but about having a choice, eating in a less compulsive way. And having a choice. It took therapy and working with a great, empathic dietician and time. I also accept biological factors that are in play sometimes (when I have pms the drive for chocolate is real) but I maybe just have a little, but more importantly, that does not mean I completely stop working out for two weeks you know? I don't stay as stuck for as long and I have much less self loathing. And finally, yes I did lose weight, but that's not all of it. I have made more peace with myself and food. Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Poster above...my experience was there is no one cause. I learned to do this emotional eating somehow (after I became a parent mostly and it was one of the few ways I could have pleasure while home with a little baby). But even as a kid I did it sometimes even though I was skinny. (I loved to dunk a lot of cookies into milk and eat it with a spoon). Over time, it took its toll and made me feel frustration, self loathing, etc. It all fed on itself (no pun intented). Being kinder to myself and talking openly to my therapist and dietician and being met with empathy and thoughts about what coukd be happening in me helped immensely and I gradually started to feel like I had agency again...the pieces were connecting.

[Anonymous]

Yes, eating out of underlying feelings of anger is common. Realizing that on a deeper level in yourself can be very very pivotal. Then the next step is to talk freely and as honestly as possible about your anger. Over and over....keep talking about it in therapy,, keep working on it, see it in all its forms, talk of this part of yourself...make it your job to be curious about it. Then a sort of amazing thing can happen very gradually (it will take time, be patient) ....as you work through it, it loses its power and consequently you then have a choice as to how to handle it. It becomes manageable....and if you don't want to eat over it anymore, you can have the agency to not do that. If you don't want to stop eating emotionally, you can choose that.

[Anonymous]

I got divorced! That resolved the underlying source of emotional eating.

Jokes aside, after getting divorced, a friend told me people accomplish the things they prioritize. And that hit me hard; our conversation wasn’t even diet-related. But I took that to heart and began REALLY prioritizing my diet, cutting out the junk I’d have for afternoon snacks, making conscious decisions about what food I put in my mouth and when. I lost 40 lbs and have kept it off for over a year now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I ate for every emotion including boredom. Happy? Celebrate with food. Nervous? Eat and think about it. Sad? Eat something. Angry? Calm down with food.

Yes, this is me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I ate for every emotion including boredom. Happy? Celebrate with food. Nervous? Eat and think about it. Sad? Eat something. Angry? Calm down with food.

Yes, this is me.

I’m the 40 lb lost pp, I wanted to add I used to eat out of boredom/loneliness in addition to stress, etc, too. One thing that helped me with eating out of boredom was DCUM diet threads. They gave me a sense of community and gave me something to do.