Hi. I am SO sorry to read that your husband passed away. I think its understandable to have turned during that time to foods that comfort.

I clean my plate. I eat mindlessly. I eat emotionally, which I have even done when I was younger and anorexic (I would binge or emotionally eat and then go back to restricting). I eat because it tastes good. I feel like I have an unconscious fear sometimes of not getting more, or having my fill and so I eat more than normal people. Not to mention, I cook for others, so I end up eating that without thinking about it.

If something is stressing me out then I get this, "I don't care how fattening it is, I'm eating it anyway," attitude. I also eat more when there is a lot of food available, whether it be a Thanksgiving spread or lunch at a restaurant or if someone has come home with fast food dinner after I've already eaten. I think I eat when I'm bored too. There have been days where I've undereaten because I was so preoccupied with other things. I don't think my weight gain is from the times I overeat, but just from a lifetime of eating bad foods. There are days when I feel like I've eaten too much but will weigh less on the scale the next morning.

I'm Just like you BreighRenee.... I was forced to clean my plate, I feel like this is what lead me down the path. I also have portion control problems and boredom - hugries. But I'm workin on changing all that!

I think mine comes simply from the LOVE OF FOOD and that i do not feel full as quickly as the average person.

I can simply eat tremendous amounts of food.

That's totally me as well. I have an enormous capacity to overeat and don't feel physically uncomfortable unless I REALLY overdo it.

F.

My sister and I both have talked about this in the past. We are both overweight and eat our emotions.

I think part of it comes from growing up poor with a huge family. Food was used as a huge reward, luxury, celebration. Once a month we would get a big delicious meal and with so many people leftovers would disappear quickly. So it was almost like eat as much as you could now or it would be gone.

I seem not to have realized that I am now an adult and can buy whatever I want whenever I want to. If I want to eat that delicious meal every week I could so I don't need to stuff myself with it like Ill never get it again.

I also think during my teen years I was very depressed. I was bipolar and didn't know it and food was something that I could not only control but something I could get comfort from. So I would eat my emotions. That food would trigger the same feelings of happiness and celebration.

I think it all became a habit that is hard to break now. I get stressed and I turn to food and stuff myself senseless.

I've been doing some work lately with thinking about this as part of reading a book called "Shrink Yourself". I know that my binge eating comes from complex issues starting with the emotional abuse that I suffered as a child (and still suffer, to a degree, though I have learned to set the boundaries with my parents). Both my parents are mentally ill (though not diagnosed) - my father has a narcissistic personality and my mom has co-dependency and enmeshment issues.

Exploring reasons why I binge eat, I know that they come from feelings of having been powerless in the face of my parents' severe emotional abuse, their manipulation and control and their expectations that I take care of them rather than they take care of me (as it should have been when I was a child). I also know that my binge eating was my way of rebelling against my parents' control and abuse. I was never allowed to properly explore my independence and autonomy when I was growing up so my only way of rebelling was through food (which is ironic, since the whole idea of binge eating is that you feel out of control).

I'm learning that I have to work on those issues to help me overcome my binge eating.

Djuna

Djunamod it sounds like you have some real insight into what drove you to binge. And I think that the frantic nature of binging causes us to think that the process denotes lack of self control. I think that's wrong - on the contrary binging provides a purpose for those of us who have done it for years. My actions (binging) are not those of someone who is weak, powerless or cout of control. They are a desperate attempt to nurture ourselves in tr only way we know how. Food is safe, it doesn't say no, it doesn't talk back. As most of the time it works brilliantly to make us feel calmer. That's why we continue doing it for decades in some cases.

The sugar and fat soothes me and all that is currently wrong in my life.

Same here, I'm STILL trying to learn portion control almost a year later

Stress is definitely where it stems, for me. My family has always been "big eaters" (eating too much), and we never ate healthy. As I try to change my habits and better myself, I've found that I love eating healthy. It tastes great. But I'm so addicted to sugar, and when I get really stressed and overwhelmed, I go to sugary, fatty food.

This actually just happened yesterday. We're a one car family, and I found out our one car is not safe to drive (except to the mechanic's shop), part of the plaster is coming away from the ceiling in our living room, and my son is coming up on two and just...being in the terrible twos. I ended up binging. I only had my phone, and I tried to call some people to talk it out, but no one was around. Food was, and I made the wrong choice.

Changing my reactions, thought processes, and self care when it comes to stress is the hardest mental obstacle for me to get over.

Wannabeskinny, Thank you for the link! It really helped me work some things through in my mind. I bookmarked it so I can read it again whenever I need to.

Thank you too Flower123!

I'm so sorry I didn't see your posts earlier.