It is not exactly a weight loss related question I have but as it seems to come to me again and again and sabotaging my weight loss efforts, I though it might be worth a shot.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips or suggestions that have worked for them in practice in overcoming emotional eating. I am not even sure if this is the right word as I don't think it is an established eating disorder but rather an occasional, distorted reaction on my part.

Example: over the last 4 weeks I have been very good with exercise by my own measures, going to the gym 4-5 times a week and enjoying it. Started counting calories again about a week ago and there has been initial progress on the scale and I noticed pants fitting me more comfortable, so initial encouraging signs that I felt good about.

Yesterday I went to a speed dating event and experienced it as kind of disastrous. I don't think that I had any real expectations in the positive sense, but neither did I expect to be treated not courteously and feeling hurt afterwards. I felt miserable in the evening, cried and of course also ate all kinds of stuff I should not eat more than a little bit of and it continued also this morning like that. I had no sense of feeling sated or better, only feeling mildly ill from all the food last night. It brought no real comfort but my mind was stuck in a rut of "it does not matter anyway" thoughts and I just ate ... probably enough calories to ruin the efforts of the past month.

The calorie related results are not really what worries me, but the behaviour. Being weekend and no obligations to face such as work or family probably did not help much and while I was aware before that I sometimes use food as a source of pleasure or comfort or a when I am tired, stressed or just down, it has never stuck me as this obvious. I think I really need to find a way to address this, otherwise I fear that any future weight loss effort may turn out to be in vain.

I have never been to a speed dating event but that sounds really stressful. I think that if there was 1 place where people would stress eat, that would be it.
How horrible that you were not treated courteously.
to you.
I think it is important that you are noticing this and trying to work on it. That is the first thing. You did notice it and are not ok with it. Maybe when your mind is stuck in the it doesn't matter mode you could take note of this and say it matters to me, my exercise and my diet matter to me and I matter and am important. Put yourself first.
I think it was very brave of you to go to the event in the first place. I am sorry it turned out badly.

hi Lizz. I want to echo what Madame S said, that it was brave of you to go. That being said, maybe it helps to look at why you ate after being treated so badly, after being disrespected. You wanted to feel better, to feel safe ( I think this may be right because I am SUCH an emotional eater)
Maybe if you find something else besides eating that makes you feel just as safe and comforted? I'm going to try my own advice!

Lizz, It is strange how certain situations cause us to seek comfort {or whatever} in food. How did this start? and how do I stop? are to of the questions I ask myself, along with Why do I keep doing this even though I KNOW it doesn't work??? I don't have any good answers, but by being aware of the behavior I can sometimes head it off before I get too involved in the process. But in many situations I find I've eaten before I even realized that I'm upset {insert emotion here } so somewhere along the way the cause/reaction has bypassed my good sense.

My advice would be to start with positive self-talk. Even if you don't believe it!

"It doesn't matter anyway" means "I don't love myself enough to think that it matters." When I'm feeling this way, I say to myself, "I deserve so much better. Why? Because I am so amazing. How am I amazing?" And then I list how I am so amazing... well, a short list because I can't sit around doing this for weeks and I am all kinds of amazing.

When you start self-talk, you'll feel ridiculous and like a liar but eventually, it will come easily for you and you'll be able to talk yourself out of being SO MEAN TO YOURSELF. And that's exactly what you're doing -- no one lost weight any faster by hating themselves. It doesn't work that way!

Journalling your GOOD experiences can help this. When you're feeling like it doesn't matter, you can read your OWN voice saying oh heck yes it matters! I tend to journal my positive experiences for this reason and there are times when I'm blue and I can read the hopeful, positive voice and realize, oh yeah, I do think this is important. I'm just having a hard time right now.

Lizz, I can really relate. I sometimes struggle with eating for the wrong reasons: for me it's usually boredom, anxiety, or stress. I also have a sweet tooth. I think many of us have certain triggers that cause us to eat beyond what our body needs just for nutrition.

In my eyes you've already done the hardest and most important part: you've identified that it's a problem for you and you desire to do something about it.

For me the most helpful behaviour is writing in a private journal whenever I have a craving that doesn't seem based on actual hunger. I start by writing about what I want to eat and then I try to write about why I want to eat it and how I feel in general. I have a rule that if I finish one page in the journal, I can have the food if I still want it. But usually, I don't want it anymore. Essentially, I am trying to reprogram my brain to turn to thinking/writing for comfort and relief, instead of turning to food. It's sort of like interviewing myself, in a caring way (not an inquisition!), about how I feel and trying to encourage myself to deal with those emotions in a healthier way.

Sometimes I still slip up but I know it is a change that will take time and I have to be patient. If you make an effort to be aware of your feelings I am sure you can find something that works for you. One of the quotations I keep coming back to during my journey:

"If the problem isn't hunger, the solution isn't food."

I can definitely relate...i'm so good for weeks w/ food/exercise and then some emotion (depression, stress, anxiety, boredom...) triggers my NEED to stuff my face...and its so overwhelming that all sense of self control or rationality evaporates..and then I go on a 1-3 day binge which during and after I hate myself. In these instances, I try my very best to get over the guilt in order to get back on track asap. Also, what I've discovered after many many ups and downs is to JUST DON'T GO THERE!!! Don't even allow yourself ONE piece of chocolate when you're in that state because we all know it probably won't end there...but will end in eating the entire bar plus many many more high-cal/sugar/fatty foods. Another important factor is to tell yourself that you CAN control these emotional eating binges...and to also realise that the more frequent they are, they develop into a habit (which happened in my case) so even when you're not 'emotional' you're just used to stuffing your face despite being motivated to eating healthy...so my advice is (and what I'm currently doing) is to sticking to a healthy meal plan which doesn't allow any unhealthy indulgences until enough time passes in order to develop NEW healthy habits and means of dealing with your emotions. Gluck!

Eating is my response to pretty much any emotion. I haven't gone on an eating spree in over 6 months now, my longest stretch in 10+ years. As corny as it sounds, I just say NO to myself. NO, I'm not going to eat a dozen of the cookies I just baked. NO, I'm not going to eat more than one of the mini pizzas in the freezer. NO, I'm not going to eat the entire can of cashews. Instead, I eat a few cookies, or one pizza, or a handful of cashews. Sometimes, I chew gum and can go through half a pack in a bad day at work.

But that's the only negative self-talk I allow myself. As others have said, you have to have a positive self-image or, as in my case, act as if you do and hope the belief will follow. It gets easier the more you do it.

Good luck!

I can so relate to emotional overeating. Whenever I am stressed or upset about something....my stomach starts calling me to fill it up! Really, it is probably my soul crying out to be filled with love, compassion, comfort....but in my mind the warm fuzzies that come from downing a pan of warm cookies or brownies is a great substitute in the moment. Of course, after that last bite and bloat, I feel even worse about myself.

There is a saying - change will only be achieved when the pain of staying the same is worse than the pain of changing your ways. Everyone has their own limit of when enough is enough. Sounds like you are getting there, which is the first step to a better life!

Emotional eating is all about the level of stress in my life. I had to do two things: remove as much of the toxic stressors of my life as possible and find new ways to replace going to food for stress relief. It's not an overnight fix, and part of the fix caused extra stress for awhile, but I am feeling so much better now and am definitely not overeating any longer.

The toxic stress that I got rid of...the X (been divorced for two years now, but only just recently have manged to get him out of my head), my mother (the queen of all my toxic stress - I had to break up with her completely), and I have learned to stop doing things to please people (I was doing it for all the wrong reasons and it only makes me look like a doormat rather than a good person).

How I replaced food...that was a tough one and I'm only just figuring it out. I tend to live in my head a lot. I can work myself up into a lather over non-existant problems. I can find stress where none should exist. This is a BAD habit of mine. I used eating a lot of fatty, salty, sugary foods to numb those bad feelings when it got to be too much for me to handle. I finally learned (really, just this last week) to get out of my head and start experiencing real pleasures in life outside of food. Simple things, like how good it feels to take a hot shower to warm my body, how good I feel after a good night's sleep, the pleasure of stretching, appreciating my effort to complete a task, socially connecting with someone I love and respect, laughing outloud when watching Community, feeling the dryness of my skin be remedied with an application of lotion, or how good my teeth feel after I brush them. I used to just let those good moments flash past me, but I'm learning to savor how good they feel when I'm experiencing them. And slowly, my brain stops going to stress-mode and starts to really relax.

And just this week, I can wait until I'm hungry before I eat something, then I can choose exactly what I want to eat, make a healthy choice, eat a few bites and be done with it.

So all that, plus one more thing, really helps me to avoid emotional eating. The additional thing is to make sure I am eating adequate nutrition, both macro and micronutrients. When my body is adequately nourished, I just don't feel like eating. I eat lots of veggies, a little fruit, clean protein, healthy fats, and I am totally satiated.

Even now, there's a really excellent piece of cheesecake in my refrigerator. It's been there since Sunday and I am ready to throw it out. I don't want it at all. I'm kinda marveling at this. It's like I have a new, secret superpower. Hope it never goes away!

Huge hugs, that would have sent me to the ice cream and the chocolate for sure.

For me there are two parts of it.

The first is having "safe foods", sometimes comfort eating is so deeply ingrained its hard not to do it, I love fruit, so if I need comfort I might go and buy a huge fruit salad. It feels indulgent, its not wonderful calorie wise, but its a heck of a lot better than a packet of chocolate biscuits.

The second is to work on your headspace. If you've started don't say "well I've eaten half the chips, I may as well eat the rest", walk away. "Ok I've eaten half the chips, but I haven't eaten all of them, and that's progress".

I love geoblewis post about making sure your body is well nourished, you are so less likely to eat rubbish.

I used to be a mega emotional eater. The thing that helped was finding a great therapist (one that specializes in addiction behavior) and getting to the bottom of things. I'm definitely still on the journey, but my therapist has been an indispensable tool on my journey.