I know what you mean - - food has a very strong correlation with emotions for me.
Happy? Let's celebrate and eat!
Sad? Let me comfort myself by eating...
Stressed? Let me distract myself by eating.
Bored? Let me pass some time and change up the day by eating.
Mad? Screw this, I am having something to eat.

I could have written this myself. Great minds think alike, let's eat!

That is exactly what I thought while I read nibog's comment as well.

Emotional regulation is not a strength of mine and eating (especially high salt, sugar or fat foods) provides quick access to the reward system. Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss is a great book on the subject.

Yes. Smell and taste is highly wired to form memories in our brains. It serves as a reminder of times when we may have eaten something tasty, or worse, poisonous or toxic. It is one reason why other types of conditioning take many more times to set up, but food aversion only takes once. And why the smell of a perfume/cologne/food takes us back to a certain place.

Unfortunately, with a brain so complex, and emotions so strong, it sets us up to confuse emotions with food, or evoke emotions with food, or forget/ignore feelings with food. It's good and bad. It's nice to smell something and remember wedding cake, but terrible to need to stuff an entire roast beef sandwich in your gullet in order to cope with emotional distress. Been there, done that.

Finding out some of the reasoning behind it is half the battle. So, you've already covered a ton of ground
This is something I struggle with terribly. Using logic and talking things out helps only a small fraction of the time since our emotions can be so illogical.
It seems, changing our behaviour sometimes starts with changing our own opinions of ourselves. Then, others can't affect us so much. And after a while, it ceases to become an effort to love ourselves and not let others affect our emotion.
Easier said than done. But practice makes perfect and we CAN rewire our own brains.

My suggestion: Next time you are feeling an emotional trigger, view it as an opportunity to exercise this new found knowledge.

I know this sounds counterproductive, but try psyching yourself up for the next insult/relationship pit fall/whatever.
Get excited about it! Go looking for it happen! You want it to happen! It WILL be a good thing! You're waiting for it! Maybe even instigate one
This not only puts you in control, but provides the positive emotional momentum needed to fly right over it without needing to eat.

I'm sorry your family isn't supportive. You deserve better than that.

I can relate to using food for comfort, but agree that recognizing your triggers is half the battle. Start creating the life that you want and being the person that you want to be. Not who your mom has told you you are. You are in control and you are the only one who can change things, and you have made a lot of great progress already. Start looking for things other than food that make you feel good when you feel emotional or in need of comfort. It's hard work, but it can be done. You are strong. Good luck to you!

Negative remarks from a mother or a stressful romantic situation can all be triggers for emotional eating. I'm an emotional eater, I eat mostly at times of stress and anger. I've always known this but I didn't know how to change it, mostly because I didn't understand it. Eating never made any of my problems go away, it made everything worse so why did I keep doing it?

I've realized that by eating I'm displacing my "emotion" on to food. The eating makes me feel guilty and I start placing blame on my inability to control my eating. Then I feel angry because I let myself get fat and then that makes me angry and anxious and then I eat more. By feeling an emotion towards a situation that I don't think i can control (like, another person, or a work situation) I turn to food and then all my problems turn into fat problems without ever having to confront the situation that is really bothering me.

It's necessary for emotional eaters to learn how to deal with their problems head on. We need to learn techniques to manage stress, build our self esteem, and find other ways to cope with our emotions other than food.

Dear Miss Warhead lol: Next time, since you know your mom's 'tactics' just cook for your Gramma (something healthy you can share) and send your mum a card. Why look to get beaten up emotionally? Time to detach and acknowledge that she gave birth to you, but you don't have to like each other. Just because someone is family, doesn't make them a nice person or even one you should hang out with. Surround yourself with people who are supportive & not emotionally abusive and you will be happier. Hugs!

DEFINITELY agree

I somewhat agree with earthling. I wouldn't be hoping it will happen soon but when you know what your triggers are, as you now do, you can prepare yourself for it and choose in advance to do something different when the craving strikes.

You have to do a lot of psyching. You really do not need to anticipate an event. I think that's setting up a potential other set of bad mental habits.

Its just enough to know that there will be future situations of the kind you've experienced in the past.

To prepare yourself mentally, all you have to do is think it through thoroughly about how you are going to deal with it. Spend enough time on it over the following days and weeks (you don't have to schedule times - it should come naturally). The sorts of things i would think to prepare myself is to decide what sort of food and how much i will eat. For instance, i have pretty much allowed myself to eat more when i get in a very bad way. but i will choose to eat foods like fruit and vegetables. Stick to your meal times for eating as much as possible. Don't go and sit on the bed with a big bag of anything.

Sleeping through emotional pain also helps a lot. Especially if you are ruminating.

And finally if your pain is really bad, find a counsellor. Even a phone counsellor. This strategy can bring a halt to the ruminating tendency. You may need a few session depending on how bad the pain is. But if you also try to keep focussed on recovery, you will get better faster.

Try to avoid ruminating. Shove the painful thoughts out of your mind as much as you can. Especially when its about a guy. This REALLY HELPS. Keep busy. With rejection, i have found that suppression is the best solution because time tends to heal your attachment to the guy. You want to let go that attachment as fast and as thoroughly as you can to minimise the pain of rejection and abandonment.

With your mum, i am sure its a lot harder and its probably a good idea to deal with this in sessions with a psychologist because its a long held problem and your relationship with your mother is so important. And it sounds like you've been emotionally deprived for a long long time. Therapy can heal that deprivation. But it won't happen overnight.

if you don't want to do therapy, you may have to read some psychology books, take up buddhism and do some serious healing work on your self. Basically if you don't heal this wound, you scar tissue is always aggravating you and it tends to affect the way you live your life. I think the most effective and quickest way to deal with it is in therapy. But the buddhist have some very good tools to apply as well, though you won't have the chance to work on the particular issue with someone else. Basically you have to do all the work on your own in buddhism and if you don't have a good teacher, you can miss your blind spots and get stuck in a rut.

so that's all my advice about your food problem. The food is a symptom. Dealing with it doesn't really address the cause, although it can help.

I suggested to try looking forward to one because these things WILL happen eventually. They are inevitable for everyone. Of course, avoiding them would be great too, but then how will you learn about how to deal with them? Perhaps, preparation is key. Make a list of things you'll want to remind yourself of in the event of an emotional day. Take it out and read it before you turn to eating.

I certainly don't want you to go out looking for punishment That is not exactly what I meant.

But it is more productive to look forward to an event, even a negative one, than to be in fear over when the next thing is going to happen. Train yourself to look forward to EVERYTHING. Life is Ups and Downs. Maybe the Downs can be your Ups too.

I know EXACTLY where you are coming from Earthling and completely agree. Well said too

What you were effectively saying is akin to hoping a binge craving (for no particular reason) would come on soon that you could enjoy fighting it off. Its the same sort of situation.

I know you didn't mean quite like that but in effect its the same thing.

I don't think that not looking forward to one automatically means one is afraid of it. Even though a little bit of caution is a good thing. I mean even though one has been rejected or had their heart broken, while some people do take a fearful response to it, most people don't. Most people just get over it and go along as before not in avoidance mode.

But if there was an acknowledged fear factor, then your approach would probably be a good idea. Because if one is fearful, then one would probably avoid and avoidance of potential pain can be crippling. I know i've done quite a lot of that in my life.

But i think its risky behaviour to provoke a binge/pain situation when one does not have professional support. So i think the safest course is just preparation. And acceptance that these sorts of problematic events are likely to happen again. If you can accept the probability, then its easier to prepare and accept.

I totally totally agree with this. There are several books that deal with emotional eating out there. I have actually read quite a few of them and they are really helpful IF you do the exercises and try to work through the things they bring up. I have come a long long way with emotional eating. It makes all the difference if you stop turning to food to deal with your feelings.