I have been overeating almonds for about three weeks.

I have a 'no salty snacks' rule but somehow, almonds never got put on that list.

My mom was staying with me and she was buying roasted salted almonds all the time.

Yesterday, I think I ate 1000 calories of almonds. I felt sick to my stomach and had trouble sleeping.

Obviously, almonds belong in the 'salty snacks' category-- a category I can't handle!!!!!! I've had some problems with pumpkin seeds too.

From now on, I DON'T EAT ALMONDS. EVER. Not even a serving.

I have none in the house and am not going to buy them. If my DH wants them, he can keep them in his car or at work.

There you have it. You declared it and so it will be!!! Nothing more to think about. It's no longer an option for you. You will no longer eat almonds, so there's no way now to OVEReat almonds.

This is one of the reasons I buy whole natural non roasted/salted/whatever almonds. I find them easier to stop at just one serving!

Good for you for seeing what was happening and putting a stop to it!!!

Nuts are a BIG no no for me in ANY form!

Glad you got a grip

Good for you! I can very easily scarf down a can of any kind! Salted, natural, smoked, doesn't matter. Don't even get me near the cashews! Way to go.

Periodically, I find that when my anxiety level is constant even though not very high (when I'm kind of on "orange" alert for a long time), I keep eating some kind of food that I've classed as "safe" but in quantities that aren't good & that indicate some kind of obsessive behavior is taking place. It's a behavior with me, rather than a particular food. If I ban a food, another takes its place. Roasted almonds were one of these foods a few weeks ago. Then Macoun apples. And then Stride Sweet Peppermint gum. One food or another is constantly banned, when what I ought to be doing is addressing the behavior, or, even better, drilling down deeper & addressing the anxiety. I don't know if it's the same for you.

Good for you, Uber! They're on my banned list too. My biggest problem was that almonds were paired with chocolate. I ate almonds, I craved chocolate. But also I have a tendency to just keep grabbing another handful and another handful. The darn healthy things are way too caloric.

I bet you see a drop in the scale now.

Wow. Talk about spot on. We even chew the same flavor of gum!

I think you are so right that it's flat out uncanny, and you know, thank you so much for posting that. You also wrote something a week or so ago, commenting about the fact that I was paralyzed....

I definitely, definitely do a compulsive thing. I had noticed that the almond thing and the Stride Sweet Pepperment gum thing were going out of control at about the same time. It's the same behavior that I've had all along, the one that got me to close to 300 lbs. And it makes me feel like I've got a lid on the situation, just barely, but at any minute it might blow.

So, after I read your post, I realized that I had time to go to the gym and run, my normal routine since June of 09-- put the kids to bed, go to the gym. But I have not been doing it for the past several weeks, instead, I've been squeezing in my workouts catch as catch can, and that NEVER works for me. But somehow, after I read your post, I thought "I'm anxious, and it would be a good idea to exercise," AND I DID. (back now, had a great run!)

I mean, I don't have to drill down very deep at all to understand why I'm feeling anxious right now. This is an incredibly stressful time for me, not really bad stress, but pressure and anxious making.

I am going to ditch the gum too, and do what I used to do earlier on this journey that was working very well for me-- NEVER skip a workout, to relieve stress, and when I get that cravey "want something" feeling, I'm going to ride it out and give it NOTHING. No gum, no "safe" choice like almonds or apples (yup, I also eat apples...) Just five minutes of meditation.

I'll keep you posted and THANKS SO MUCH for getting it!!!

I'm glad this is helpful, Uber. As I mentioned, it's a particular condition for me that's conducive to this behavior: Reaching a certain level of anxiety, and with that continuing nearly unmitigated for a long-ish period of time. I'm far better with dealing with outright trauma or a big sudden shock than with low-level but comparatively long-lasting anxiety.

Unfortunately, I **do** have to do the drilldown thing when trying to attribute it to something in particular, as I got my own move over last summer, and I moved less than three miles & nothing else changed in my life. So my recurrent anxiety requires further exploration. Sometimes it's work related. Sometimes it spreads beyond that & it's my feeling of inadequacy at all the things I'm trying to accomplish or feel for some reason I have to do well at. Usually, it's me being hard on myself, harder than I'd be on a friend or a stranger. And at this time of year, there are bad memories, ghosts of the recent past.

And I related to what you say about that "cravey" feeling. (RockinRobin described in spookily well once, as that feeling of "looking, looking, looking" FOR SOMETHING. That resonated with me. I have to think more about what it means.) And resolving to give it nothing, instead of trying to propitiate it with "safe" foods.

I don't binge anymore, not in the epic way that I used to, like a textbook definition of bingeing, but this behavior is so very close to it -- that way of using food -- that I'd feel better about myself if I could stop it.

And as for the foods we're choosing, think about them. They require jaw action. Chewing. They're quite substantial in the mouth. They need to be ground down between the molars. Apples, roasted almonds, gum. It's like teeth-grinding. (I wear a mouth guard at night.) Definitely an anxiety behavior.

Thank you saef and uber for discussing this. It's making me think about some really uncomfortable feelings I've been processing lately.

Nuts of any kind are one of those foods I have to weigh out, portion into a bowl, and put away. There is NO standing and eating them from a can that is safe. I don't ban them outright, but I have to be very, very careful, they can easily become a binge food for me,.

I'm the same way. I used to not be able to control myself when it came to nuts, peanut butter, anything salty. I would always justify that nuts are natural and therefore good for me, yet felt miserable an hour later when I had all that fat sitting in my stomach. Good for you! I stopped eating nuts too a while ago, and now I RARELY crave them

There's this weird belief out there that almonds are some sort of high protein food, when in reality they are actually 73% fat/13% protein. The same thing applies to peanut butter (72% fat/15% protein). It seems like I see someone say "I need a high protein breakfast, so I have a tablespoon of peanut butter on a sandwich thin". Nuts aren't high protein, they are low-carb, but for some reason people think those are the same thing.

This gets me to me too. We get fooled into believing that they're healthy, so if they're healthy then having more of them must be even health-ier.

Even if I could keep almonds to a healthy,moderate amount, it still wouldn't be an option for me. It's not enough bulk (volume) or filling power. I need my calories to last much longer then the 10 seconds it would take me to eat 10 of them.

There really should be some sort of disclaimer on the wrapper, "Proceed with Caution -Only healthy when eating a moderate amount, which is nearly impossible."

And Saef, you really gave me some food for thought there, let me tell you. As I have had to ban certain healthy foods (and then bring them back) through out my 4+ year journey.

I also want to thank you for remembering that post of mine - the "looking, looking, looking for something" one. So many people here forget that I've written many a post where I've *had issues*.

I think the most important thing is to be cognizant of when we are using "healthy" foods to fuel unhealthy behaviors. My hubby always eats almonds and they never tempted me before and then all if a sudden I couldn't stop I have a history of eating stuff that barely counts as food. A couple of months ago i ate an entire container full of unprocessed flax seeds. It definitely borders on weird.