What are your trigger circumstances?
 

I realized one thing that almost guarantees I'll overeat is if an anticipated and/or planned meal turns out to be dissatisfying. Example: Tonight I attempted barbecue chicken in my Dutch oven. It turned out rubbery, tough, and sweet. Yuck! But for some reason, I kept trying to like it, so I ate some. Besides, I was tired, and it's what I had prepared for dinner. About two hours later, I felt so dissatisfied with my meal that I made myself a half sandwich of boiled egg, a bit of mayo, and a slice of red onion (my lower fat version of egg salad); it's what I had been craving all day but hadn't had. Additionally, I ate three mini biscotti (before eating the egg salad).

This incident has just verified something I actually realized some time ago: I tend to engage in "compensatory eating" when I eat a dissatisfying meal. So, my plan to address this problem? When I start eating a meal and discover that I don't like it, I need to stop eating after that first bite. If I don't, then I'll just end up eating what I want to anyway (or eating other substitutes for what I want). That's my plan from this point forward.

What are some circumstances that trigger you to overeat?

Being up super late or all night working. I think it's a double whammy -

1) I am awake a lot longer so I legitimately get hungry
2) I'm tired and cranky and feel like I "deserve" whatever it takes to keep going and not feel like total crap

Hmm. I don't really have trigger circumstances and in many of the circumstances where most people over-indulge, I tend to hold back (I will not be the fat lady over eating in public at the buffet, birthday party, family gathering, wedding, etc. Won't do it. Don't like buffets anyway). I have trigger foods - bread, noodles, rice. I don't like the idea of never having them again, so I try not to keep white bread in the house and if we have rice or pasta, I either cook ONLY as much as we need or it goes in the fridge ASAP.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE bread, rice, and pasta. I am fairly certain I could eat a pasta and rice sandwich on white with some potato chips for crunch and salt and be in heaven. Yup. I'm a carb girl.

P.S. Have never actually done the above :dizzy:

That's one of my unplanned eating triggers, too, OP. If I don't like it, I chuck it, or else I'll eat more.

On top of that, I have a lot of other triggers. It really sucks. But I'm working with it... ugh.

One of mine is eating after 8:30. If I do that, I get ravenous in the middle of the night. No idea why.

If I'm bored, I'm way more prone to get bad cravings and overeat.

If I don't have meals planned out and I get hungry, I grab whatever's in sight and trigger a bine 9.5/10 times.

Sometimes it's just trigger foods. Sometimes I can feel if it'll trigger me, and other times I can't. No one food always triggers me.

I do well at parties, get togethers, buffets, etc. for some reason. It's when I have a lot of down time that I have issues.

thinking of my ex bf

trying on clothes that still dont fit

weighing myself

thinking i am looking better than seeing someone thin and thinking how i need my eyes checked cuz i have such a long way to go

boredom

loneliness

Being hungry and at a place where there is no healthy food... and lots of unhealthy food.

Candy! Can't stop eating it once I start. I can inhale insane amounts, so I'm better to just stay away from it altogether.

- Leftovers
- A bad weigh in day

having a severe migraine (I have them daily but they can get unbearable)
low grade stress or a party
sleep deprivation
having a cold/flu
not being able to workout
missing a meal or snack
pms

in the past, the same thing would be a trigger for me. It wouldn't even have to be bad or something I didn't like, but if I was having a craving for a specific food and tried to eat other (healthier) stuff, I would end up still craving that food anyway, so those healthier substitutes would just be extra calories on top of finally giving in and eating what I wanted in the first place.

But the amazing thing about my current plan is that I do not do that anymore. I do not get cravings for sweets or junk food. I might think that gee, some ice cream or whatever would taste good, but that's it, I just THINK it and move on. On my plan I eat when I am hungry, as long as it's on plan food (lean protein, low/no fat dairy and veggies) and the food is tasty and satisfying but it's not the stuff of food fantasy. So I only eat when I get physically hungry and don't spend much time thinking about food otherwise.

Letting myself get too hungry with no meal planned or quick healthy food around

Going to dinner at the 'in laws' straight after work and being very hungry

So many of these are triggers for me, as well.

Mainly not planning ahead, skipping breakfast, TOM, hard day with the kids.

But, honestly, I haven't gotten the eating totally in control yet. I work out a lot, but, by the end of the day, I just want to veg...without the veggies...and eat/drink beer. Stress/absent-minded eater, definitely. :(

This + the exhaustion and stress of teaching = gaining back the 40 lbs I lost. :o

I love it! So funny

The same happened to me about six years ago. I started a new teaching job, got completely stressed out, and gradually (over a year or two) gained back all the weight I'd lost and then some. I was so discouraged by that, that it has taken about six years for me to get back to a point where I even thought about losing, but I'm doing well so far.


It seems that for many of us, unplanned events are triggers. A good strategy might be to brainstorm a list of strategies to handle our most common unplanned situations (although that seems like an oxymoron).

Mine pretty much all certer around my children! LOL

If I wait to long to eat (I usually eat every few hours), b/c the kids need me and life is life, I'll start to get crabby. It quickly escalates to full-on psycho and feelings of starvation and madness rolled into one lovely me... Let's just say that hubby now insists on me eating FIRST and keeping a protein bar in the my purse...scary.

I'm going to echo you from another thread, Lin. I could have written this exactly.

What are your trigger circumstances?

Pretty much being awake does it for me.:D

In all seriousness I think my number one trigger is boredom. If I do not constantly have something enjoyable and interesting to do I turn to food in a heart beat. Maybe some day I will be able to be still doing absolutely nothing and enjoy it. I am not there yet nor do I know if I ever will be.

Larry,

Definitely failing at a recipe or it not tasting good.
Also:
Tons of junk food in the house
I think having a good weigh in triggers me to think I'm on the right track and I over eat

Boredom, loneliness, and the TV.

If I'm watching a show that is actually interesting or that I've planned to watch, it doesn't trigger me to eat... but if I just have the TV on, and am rather bored... well then I'll go looking for something to eat while watching. :no: Then I'm being lazy, sedentary and stuffing my face.

Unfortunately I succumbed to that situation just yesterday. *sigh* Got to plan better for this week.

What are your trigger circumstances?

Pretty much being awake does it for me.:D

In all seriousness I think my number one trigger is boredom. If I do not constantly have something enjoyable and interesting to do I turn to food in a heart beat. Maybe some day I will be able to be still doing absolutely nothing and enjoy it. I am not there yet nor do I know if I ever will be.

Larry,

I am realizing that one trigger is planning my food out too much. All I do is anticipate the next meal and watch the clock to eat again. Sometimes I end up eating both "planned" meals in one sitting. However, if I wait until mealtime to decide what I am having, I can usually make a good choice. And I am not obsessing about for hours and hours in advance.

Eating too fast - I will inhale and feel unsatisfied. Eating slowly helps.

Too much candy/sugar/dessert. This especially happens if I eat this stuff when I am hungry in place of a meal. I end up binging later in the day.

Boredom

Work - too much junk lying around and I am bored even when busy at my job.

Certain kinds of stress and depression make me gorge, while others make me lose my appetite.

Loneliness

Overly restricting calories and the foods I'll eat for too long a period.

The word DIET! This is perhaps the worst one because of the connotation of deprivation.

1) Thoughtlessness around my food
2) Denying cravings (it just builds up and then I eat it ALL)
3) Boredom
4) Stress (I clench my teeth and eating unclenches it... I need to buy some gum!)
5) Procrastinating
6) Boredom
7) Boredom
8) Boredom
9) Boredom
10) If I eat too many sugar infested products, including alcohol, I start that vicious cycle

Me, too!!! Oh, I have struggled so many times to SLOW DOWN, but I can't seem to do that and still enjoy my food. I don't know if anyone will understand this, but when when I eat small bites and eat them slowly, I feel as if I cannot really taste the food. That goes contrary to what everyone suggests about slowing down to "enjoy" and "savor" food. With me, it's the opposite. I swear, sometimes I think that my taste buds are weak or something and that I need a big mouthful of food to really taste it well. It's embarrassing to eat so fast, especially for a woman!

I completely understand with the fast eating. This is totally me. My mom claims she stopped breastfeeding me at 4 months because I didn't have the patience for it and would rather have my milk poured down my throat in my bottle with a large flow.

I too don't really enjoy small mouthfuls of food. What I've found helps is drinking lots of water whilst I eat. I know there are some negative messages about whether or not one should drink whilst eating (many of which I find scientifically unsound), but I have to. I try to stop inhaling my food a couple of times during the meal and try to drink 1 full 11-oz (330ml) glass of water each time. This is also a good opportunity to make small talk if you're not eating alone. Having to drink that much water at once not only slows me down and gives my dinner companions time to catch up a little to my speedy munching, it also fills me up, so that by the time I'm done, I'm quite full and the last thing on my mind is more food. If I'm not full enough after dinner, I down another glass of water. Now that I think of it, a lot of my water consumption is during meals.

Thanks for the tip! I'll try it.