Hi, I'm new here and I have a question that I'm struggling to find answers to.
I know that a pivotal step in managing weight and food intake is figuring out what causes you to eat in the first place but I can't really pinpoint anything too specific. I know why I started to gain weight - I had a teacher who used to humiliate and make school **** for me so I turned to food for comfort, and then gained a lot more weight 2 years later when I had her AGAIN but that is long gone.
I've been teased almost my whole life for being fat, even by close 'friends', so much so I left high school cause it was too depressing to face. But again, I'm not in that place anymore and worked hard to get on top of my education again so that can't be why I STILL eat.
Another thing I considered is that I don't feel accepted by some of my family but that's largely because I *am* fat so that can't be the reason why I overeat cause it wouldn’t make sense.
Am I missing something totally here? Is there always some underlining emotional revolution you have to find? Or could it just be I like all the wrong foods? Could it just be I know they're bad but maybe I like them too much to care?
Has anyone else had trouble trying to pinpoint their reason for bad eating habits? What did you do to figure it out?
I've done a lot of thinking about this and have divided my overeating into several different categories...each needs a different strategy.
1) "Thanksgiving" overeating. This is when it is (or seems like) a special occasion and I want to indulge. My rationale is often well it's Thanksgiving and I only eat like this once a year. (Of course when I look at it, Thanksgiving seems to come up more frequently than I want to admit.) For me though, this isn't emotional eating, this is self-indulgence. The solution is a lot of pre-planning, and allowing myself to indulge on some of these occasions, just not as much as before. (My buffet rule is one trip, anything I want I can have, but only if it is on my plate during that one trip.)
2) Emotional overeating. I'm angry, sad, disappointed and a steak/potato chips/chocolate will make me feel better. Of course it doesn't, and I then get angry with myself and punish myself for eating this stuff...by eating more of it. (Sounds crazy doesn't it...it is.)
3) Bored eating. I don't have anything to do, so I might as well eat for interest. This often happens when I am watching tv. I keep jigsaw puzzles and knitting by the tv so that my hands can be busy with something other than food.
4) Inclusion overeating. This is where everyone is eating something and I want to do it to...for instance at the social hour after services. I find that for me hot sweet tea addresses the issue.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this...and some time in therapy dealing with the emotional overeating. I don't think there always has to be some underlying emotional revolution, but I do think we learn patterns of behavior that have to be changed.
I disagree about having to find out why one overeats in the first place. I think that although it may be interesting to explore that question, the more important thing to do is to stop overeating now.
It seems to me that you have already found the answer anyway. You turned to food for emotional comfort. That may have begun the pattern.
In my own case, I didn't do that, although I do tend to get munchy when I'm under stress. For me, I just liked to eat! And since there was no limit, I overate. I had to learn to set my own limits and say "enough."
Don't put off starting a program of weight control and weight loss until you can "figure it out."
Thanks guys. Everything you have said makes sense.
For the record, I haven't let it stop me from starting a program at all. I just wanted to pinpoint it because I'm paranoid that if it is in fact something emotional driving me to overeat that I'm just not recognizing, I'm scared when I lose the weight I'll find another self destructive habit to compensate for whatever it is.
Hopefully it's just that simple.. bad habit and poor self control and not some deep-rooted emotional pain I'm not picking up on.
Sometimes I think the process goes both ways. Some people have to figure out the why to know how to stop. Some people have to stop and suddenly the why becomes apparent.
I didn't figure out why until loooong into my journey. I didn't really care about the why - I just knew that the time had come to make changes in my life and this was a biggie.
It wasn't until after I'd started being healthy and working out and seeing the changes it made in my body, emotions, and attitude that it started clicking with me why I hadn't been here before.
Dunno. I think sometimes we're conditioned to overthink things, thanks to Dr. Phil, Oprah, etc. Sometimes things don't need analysis. Sometimes just *being* is ok.
I'm a very traditional emotional overeater. I've always known this - I would eat "normal" portions nearly all the time, until something happened, and then I would eat until I was sick.
In the last year or so, I started to recognize when it was about to happen and find ways around it. I don't really know how I "stopped" it...it's just been trained out (most of the time :P ).
You can still start developin ghealthier habits,a nd figure out the why's as you go along. Sometimes it takes some change to be able to see yourself with better perspective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrinkabell
Another thing I considered is that I don't feel accepted by some of my family but that's largely because I *am* fat so that can't be the reason why I overeat cause it wouldn’t make sense.
Ahhhh, not necessarily. Soooo many of us dig in our heels and refuse to change things we know are bad for us, things we WANT to change, because we resent not being accepted, or we don't want them to think we changed because of them. Sounds silly, but dang if soooo many of us don't do it anyway. We all deserve to be accepted and treated well. If you aren't, it makes you angry. If you're uncomfortable with that anger for any number of reasons, you shove it down. You may be convinced there is no anger. But it is down there, and making you make choices that you don't like and you don't understand.
I don't think there is "always" a reason. I know a set of twins. They are very smart, talented young boys around 8 years old. I have taught them in VBS for several summers. They came from the same parents, same house, same womb at the same time. When they were born one baby weighed 7 pounds, and one weighed 5 pounds. The bigger baby has always been bigger and has always eaten more. Now he is considerably over weight and his bother is thin as a rail. These boys changed the way I though about obesity. Sometimes there is NO sick, emotional, psychological reason. It is what it is. By the way, the boys father is tall and thin...Mom is short and plump. Genetics all the way baby.
For me, figuring out why I eat to not feel has been very helpful, as it eases that mental pressure to eat.
Reading over your list of possibilities, it made me think of a few questions for you: Do you stick up for yourself in the moment when you're in a situation where someone is treating you poorly? If not, why not? Do you think (even on a deep down level) that you deserve to be treated that way? You don't have to answer these questions in public if you don't want, but maybe they'll help provide some insight.
i had trouble figuring it out myself. It helped me to start writing afterward, and that's kind of how I talk things through with myself (like typing or just writing in a journal), and usually you can arrive at the answer. My problems stem from stress somewhat, but more often than not it's just because something is in front of me, and I fall into old bad habits (like going to fazolis, and instead of getting a salad like I should, I order the old standby just out of habit).
My background is in psych (behavioral psych bachelor's degree, developmental psych masters degree), so you might be surprised to hear me say, I'm not sure it matters.
I'm not convinced that there are always "deep, dark" reasons for overeating, or that even if they exist, that behavior can't be changed at any time, whether that be before, during, or after learning what they are.
Don't get me wrong, knowing triggers can help you avoid them, but I don't think that you have to have a profound understanding of your psyche in order to make changes in your life. Behavioral psych and cognitive-behavioral psych theory would pretty much support this, you can make changes without understanding all of the "whys." Psychoanalytical theories would disagree (but I have to admit, I don't put a lot of stock in them, myselves).
Behavioral theory in a nutshell says we do things because there is a reward or payoff for doing so. You don't necessarily need to know what that payoff is to start making changes, you just have to change the payoff. Make losing weight more rewarding than eating.
Believing that you need to know all of the whys first, I think sometimes serves as a procrastination device. If you feel knowing why helps, then I think you should go ahead and explore the why, but start working on the changes in the meantime. And if you don't ever find a why (beyond "food tastes good"), I'm not sure it isn't just that simple.
In graduate school, I had a fellow grad student tell me that I had been raped or otherwise abused, but must be lying about it or have repressed it, because "no one is more than 100 lbs overweight, without a history of severe trauma or abuse or other mental illness."
Ah, I'm not just fat, but to be this fat, I must also be crazy.
What's even crazier, is for a (very short) while, I almost believed it, and I tried to figure out how I could tell if I had repressed memories, if they were repressed.
Psychoanalytical theories would disagree (but I have to admit, I don't put a lot of stock in them, myselves).
Freudian slip?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaplods
In graduate school, I had a fellow grad student tell me that I had been raped or otherwise abused, but must be lying about it or have repressed it, because "no one is more than 100 lbs overweight, without a history of severe trauma or abuse or other mental illness."
Ah, I'm not just fat, but to be this fat, I must also be crazy.
I suppose it definitely could be..... I do often say that I know that I definitely HAVE multiple personalities, the only reason I'm not considered crazy because of it, is all my personalities are named Colleen, and they all know about each other and share the same memories.
So much good advice already!
For me, I will echo the above. There IS an emotional component to my eating. In fact, there is an emotional component to everything I do
Did it help to journal or "notice" when I was stress or emotional eating? YES! It helped me realize behavior that needed to change.
Did I need to learn other ways to de-stress or calm my emotions? YES! I needed to put other substitutes within reach when I was eating strictly for emotional reasons.
Did I need to do this FIRST? NO! I found that - once I started eating healthier, started counting calories and paying attention to every bite I put in my mouth, much of my emotional eating went away automatically.
In other words - being AWARE that I was eating for emotional reasons, and having to LOG that food - stopped the behavior.
And Colleen - that person was full of CRAP - no abuse or trauma or any of the like in my family - but many of us are/were FAT!
Last edited by CountingDown; 09-21-2008 at 06:20 PM.
How do you figure out WHY you overeat?
Sometimes things don't need analysis. Sometimes just *being* is ok. 
