[sag123]

I lost 2. 5 last week. THen on Friday DH and I got into a fight. Well, to make a long story short, he and DD went camping this weekend and I was still fuming from the fight and ate tons of junk all weekend. I'm talking --I made cookies--all gone, bought some candy--gone, had mcdonalds for breakfast, went to the grocery on Sunday-bought donut holes---all gone. SO, I weighed myself this morning and yes gained 4 pounds. Ok, I know some MIGHT be water weight. BUt I know the rest is just fat. I am such an emotional eater. I feel guilty and bad. Plus I am dealing with the possibility the my 1 year old son is probably going to be diagnosed autistic and I just feel miserable. I hate the way my body looks, and then I go do something like this and sabatage all my efforts.
I'm bummed out.
Sonya

[Jman1]

Try to stop making a moral issue out of it. If you overeat, you aren't "bad" and you shouldn't feel guilty. You simply ate more than you burned. It's not helpful for losing weight, but it's not like you punched anyone either.

I'm sometimes an emotional eater as well, and the only advice I have to prevent emotional eating is to find other ways to deal with your emotions. It's hard, but it is possible. Some of the techniques I use instead of eating when I'm upset are: distracting myself with tv, movies, etc; working out; doing yoga; calling a friend; journalling; doing exercises from the book Feeling Good; and sometimes just sitting on the couch and not doing anything for as long as it takes for my mind to stop racing.

[flipafart]

a sure cure for the bummed out feel exercise. don't be to hard on yourself

[chick_in_the_hat]

Punching someone might work, too

My for real's answer is ditto to flipafart...a short walk can go a long way to making you feel better...

[lucky]

I used to consider myself an emotional eater too. After a TON of soul searching I finally had to admit that stress, anger, sadness, etc. weren't TRIGGERS they were EXCUSES. With the help of journaling I realized that, more often than not I wanted to eat FIRST, then I'd feel whatever emotion and - bingo - I could eat what I wanted without actually having to be responsible for the damage done.

Maybe that isn't the case for you but the bottom line is still that putting food in our mouths is a CHOICE. Sometimes it is really, really hard to choose not to eat when we know we shouldn't but it is always within our control to do so.

Finding other ways to vent your feelings is a great option and I would venture to say that exercise is the most effective. It may also help to try and bottle the feelings you are having right now. Did the donut holes smooth things over with your husband? I doubt it. Did the cookies and candy make your anger magically disappear? Didn't think so. And THAT is the lesson. At best eating distracted you for a while. In the end, it didn't solve any problems and, in fact, created new ones that you are facing now. Keep that in mind the next time you start to feel yourself losing control again. It may very well help you make better choices from here on out.

And, it is true, that there is no reason to beat yourself up. You made a mistake, you regret it now, but you can't change it. The best you can do is start THIS SECOND eating the way you know you have to in order to meet your weight loss goals. You CAN do it and you will be sooooo glad that you did.