Emotional/Stress Eating
 

Anyone else suffer particularly from stress bingeing?

I worked hard to overcome my disordered binge eating behavior that stemmed from a restrictive mindset, but NOW my trouble is turning to food for comfort in times of frustration and stress and anxiety. Throughout the rest of my meals of the day, I'm happy to eat any and all foods, none "good" or "bad," when I'm hungry and stop before I'm too full. It's just when I'm in emotional distress that I reach for massive quantities of food, totally regardless of feeling hungry or not, or even particularly wanting to eat any one food, just to make myself feel better!

I know I should probably be finding a healthier outlet for my stress, but food is awfully easy and effective, in the moment, and so it's very hard to choose not to eat and keep eating based on just knowing I'll regret it later.... Especially since I have a little baby around and can't just go relax in the bath or shower, or lie down and read, or go work out, or anything like that.

I'm trying to cut myself slack especially during this period, but the eating's quite out of hand, and I'm very, very unhappy about the weight gain that accompanies it! I hardly recognize my reflection at this point. Not to mention that feeling sickly from overeating hampers what little sleep I get at night anyway.

Any tips, help, or sympathy?

I've got tips, help, sympathy and empathy for you!

Just when I think I've conquered my binge eating it comes back - only during times of high stress. Stress and anxiety are my biggest triggers and I've been working on finding ways to conquer it for years. I've made a lot of progress with Intuitive Eating but stress eating is a beast and although it's gotten better I can't make it go away completely.

Dealing with stress is only one part of it. Coming up with appropriate coping techniques is important but don't get hung up on pedicures and long baths - not all stress can be avoided by self pampering and in fact these only work on the every day stresses that we face. But most stress needs to be confronted directly. So here's one thing that is helping me when I face debilitating anxiety and stress - I read in the Josie Spinardi book about the difference between stress eaters and normal eaters. People who do not use food as an emotional coping tool are action oriented people. They face a problem and they deal with it directly. They're behind on rent = they put in a few more hours at work. They are angry with someone = they talk to that person. They're worried about a public speaking thing they have to do at work = they prepare for it. Etc.

But people (me) who have developed a habit of eating during emotional stress have origins of helplessness from early on. At a young age we were presented with problems we couldn't hope to solve - in my case I had a brother who was terminally ill. My whole family was affected by this of course, my parents were eternally involved in making his life as comfortable as possible, running to the hospital for weeks a a time, and the stress that brings on can be excruciating as you can imagine. Imagine this for nearly 2 decades until he died. My JOB in life was to not be a burden to my family. My family had much to worry about, I couldn't let them worry for me. I took care of myself, made sure that all my needs were met. I didn't dare ask for any emotional support for all of it was reserved for my poor little brother. I learned to be the strong, independent "don't worry about me" sister and daughter. I nourished myself the only way I knew how, with food.

So those of us who comfort with food are in fact retreating from our problems rather than dealing with them. We lick our wounds, we try to protect ourselves from our feelings because we learned early on in our lives that we were powerless to affect change. In behavioral psychology this is known as "Learned Helplessness" and it's a ***** to unlearn

Stress is my NUMBER ONE reason for binging :( It seems like every semester when finals come up I stop caring--and I KNOW that eating junk and ordering out won't do anything to ease the stress, but all I seem to care about is the moment...

I've got no tips per se since this is a still a big issue with me, but I'm going to try to find better stress-reducing habits...like exercise...and hopefully I will be able to at least cut back on the ridiculous binging that seems to happen even time things get stressful.

I had no idea. That must have been so rough.

F.