It's been a while since I've been on here. I think I'm going to start visiting again, because I don't know how else to stay motivated. I don't feel able at all to get control of my eating lately, because I've start using food for everything - particularly eating in response to stress. The idea of not doing that makes me feel vaguely panicky because I can't think of anything else that would provide the same level or comfort/distraction, but I know I need to try. I lost nearly five stone starting a couple of years ago (still nowhere near goal!), but I've put at least two back in the past year.

It's just so hard to know where to start again.. eating in response to problems is such a shortsighted fix, but it never fails to make me feel better, and I don't even feel guilty about it!

Welcome back terichelle! I've come back to visiting this forum to and find it to be a great place for support.

I'm definitely battling with emotional eating and its very difficult. One thing I've tried to do is carry around a journal with me and when I'm feeling stressed and want to eat I write down what the real issue is in my journal. I know it sounds kind of silly but it actually works! Eating in response to stress is just an action-one that unfortunately has negative consequences. I find that replacing the action of eating with another action (in my case writing) has helped. It doesn't work 100% of the time but no one is perfect.

I can relate to not feeling guilty about the emotional eating-I’m the same way. But deep down we know it’s wrong and we want to change that behavior-otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Good luck to you-hugs!

Welcome and I hear you. Emotional eating, eating to cope with stress, whatever you want to call it is my main reason for being overweight. The truth is that there is no diet that will actually address these issues. You can go low-fat, low carb etc and the weight will always come back because you're not addressing the real issue at hand which is using food as a coping mechanism. That's why I went the Intuitive Eating route. I don't have a food problem, I have a problem with coping with stress and using food as that way to cope.

With IE I'm finding that I have made alot of progress in this area. First I had to acknowledge that emotional eating worked - it really did otherwise I wouldn't have done it for 2 decades! It really serves a purpose in my life and that's ok, I turn to food when I need to. But when I turn to food for every little thing then that's not good either, so I've learned new ways to cope with stress. I'm still learning and I've done a lot of work with a nutritional therapist but IE is the only WOE that has addressed these real issues. The weight is coming off now without dieting, merely by aleviating myself of the need to binge and eat for comfort.

Do you exercise? I have noticed my emotional binges go down significantly since I started working out. I talking 30 minutes pouring sweat on a elliptical or lifting weights until I can't anymore. I do it before work, and I'm in a good mood the rest of the day.
My job can be stressful, sick kids, coding patients,etc bad trauma cases. I used to go home and eat my feelings better. Now I go home and if I'm hungry, I want something healthy, I don't want to feel like crap, and between the exercise and the crazy shift,I just want to go to bed.
It took probably two months to make the changes stick. But now I dont regret it. I'd try to find some form of exercise you don't hate, I always rolled my eyes before because I felt I didn't have time. I made time,and it really is the mood stabilizer I needed.

I find eating the right foods and exercise help me deal with stress.

Fish, running and weight training deal with anything life can throw at me.

I wish I was more like Ian.

But terichelle, you do know how to start. You came back. That's the most important part.

I took a long break from here and came back with a new name as I couldn't be who I was before, physically or mentally. I'm a very emotional eater and when I'm in one of my sad, bingeing, stuff my face moods, there is no one and no thing to fix me. And to people that don't understand emotional eating, it doesn't make any sense. My husband would never understand how I try to find comfort in a bottle of wine and bag of chips when I'm sad. And he never will, I get that. But that doesn't stop me from trying to find happiness in that place sometimes.

At the end of the day, my body and brain are better when I eat right and exercise right. But some days that isn't possible. I just have to pray I have 10x as many good days for every 1 bad day I have.

Thank you for being brave enough to make your post. You inspired me to think about my choices and my emotional eating. I have been avoiding it lately.

Have you looked into Overeaters Anonymous? Its pretty damn good :-)

I agree with what has been said about exercise. Sometimes I am so down that I just want to stay in bed, but I force myself to get up and go to my early morning Crossfit class, and afterwards, I feel SO much better. Not only does exercise itself help (endorphins, etc.), but just being around other people helps, too.

And sometimes, I just sit with my feelings. I even cry. I don't try to escape from what I'm feeling; I just let it be. And you know what? Afterwards, I always feel much better. You might give that a try.

There are two books that I've found very helpful with my binge eating.
One is Shrink Yourself by Roger Gould, and the other is Brain Over Binge, by Kathryn Hansen. Check them out, maybe they can help you too.