[stilettolife]

Hey People,

Do anyone else experience emotional eating? I got angry this morning with a co-worker and the first thought was to get a soda and eat something like cake or cookies.

My doctor already told me that I'm an emotional eater and I didn't pay her any mind, but now I'm believing it.

I also remember that I experienced nocturnal eating, while on ambien and I don't remember what I ate, but I wondered if this was connected to stress.

What do yall think?

[betsy2013]

If you'll go get a dictionary and look up emotional eating, you'll see my picture next to the definition! Yes, I'm definitely an emotional eater, but I'm working hard to recognize the signs and cope with them. I have to admit that now that I'm retired, I do a lot less emotional eating.

[elvislover324]

Before I started my new eating plan and losing weight, I ate for every emotion I felt. I ate when I was happy, I ate when I was sad, I ate when I was bored. You get the picture. This lasted for years and years, all I did was eat. It never made anything better, I think it was just something I learned to do.

Now that I don't turn to eating for anything except as an energy source pretty much, my life has improved 10000%. I do enjoy my food when I have it but it's not used as a celebrating or coping mechanism.

Now when I am stressed, I try to get physical. Maybe go for a walk or pick up my hand weights. Anything but eat. Now it comes more naturally but in the beginning it was so hard.

You can do this too! If I can do it, anyone can.

[stilettolife]

Thank you Ladies for your advice. I guess it's a good thing I just brought that Wii Sports game, because all day long I wanted to do the boxing and bowling to work out my aggression. I need to go to the store, but I'm not going, because I'm still a little agaitated, but I don't fully trust myself yet to not grab that Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream.

Yeah today is definitely full workout day.

[Palestrina]

For years I thought I was an emotional eater. But after some therapy and paying real attention to my eating habits it turns out I'm a stress eater. I eat whenever I am stressed. Needless to say, this becomes quite a tricky habit to curb. Stress is my trigger, food is my outlet so I have to start learning new things to do to respond to my stress.

I get a little upset sometimes when people blame their emotions on the things they do. We all have emotions, I hate being labeled as an emotional person just because I cry at movies or empathize with a friend about a turbulent time in one's life. I think emotions bring on stress, there's nothing wrong with having emotions.

[KittyKatFan]

I believe that many of us on this board are emotional eaters. Through therapy, I have identified that I often turned to food when I feel sadness or when I have to do something I don't want to do.

I have found that if I can stop myself right before binging to ask myself why I want to eat and what am I feeling, I can identify the emotion and come up with another method besides food to address the emotion.