Emotional Overeaters - Anyone want to join me in losing weight

[3mum]

So clearly I am not going to be slim in time for Summer, but I have decided that I am going to embark on a weight loss journey now anyway.

Realistically I'll be doing this for at least a year as I have about 4 stones to lose. I have always been an emotional eater, but a shitty marriage and an even shittier divorce have seen me turn to food for just about everything: entertainment, company, self-soothing, rewards, self-abuse, you name it, I do it.

I don't want to be that person any more and I know I need to change not just my eating habits but how I deal with emotions too, which is a very scary thought.

Anyone in a similar boat interested in joining me for mutual support? I'm planning to follow a low carb approach, but I think the route you follow is less important than actually doing something and sticking to it.

We had a really good chat actually, about food issues, my weight, anxiety and other things. At first he offered beta blockers for the anxiety bit I've tried them before, the side effects are horrid and didn't stop the eating. So he said the next step would be counselling/CBT

My advice would be to be ad honest as you can bring yourself to be. Then he can gauge how much/what help you need

totally, yes it's mostly sweets with me too but bread is a big problem.
I'm just afraid that if I do strict LC, that I lose weight and then go mad eating carbs again and pile it back on. I can't imagine never eating them again.

On the subject of GP's my health centre has a book list to deal with various eating issues that I think works in tandem with CBT.

I hope no one minds me posting my own experience here.
I have been an emotional eater all my life. My mother had me on a diet from the earliest of ages and wouldn't allow me to make my own food choices or eat when I was hungry so eating food became something of an underground pleasure. When she was out I would binge but I would only eat a little of everything so she did not find out. Very sad really.
She would praise me for being skinny and tell me off for looking fat (although I never was fat, she just liked me very very skinny 5ft 8 and seven and a half stone!. So I have lived a life of emotional eating and dieting.
The thing that helped me was learning about a book called "Overcoming Overeating by Jane Hirschman. This was in the nineties and it completely changed the way I was with food. It also made me cry a lot because it told me that food is just food, not good or bad, not a treat or a punishment, just food. You can lose weight through any diet.
Low carb, 5:2, WW, SW, whatever because at the end of the day you are reducing the calories. When I low carbed in the past I worked out that I am actually just cutting my overall calories. There is no magic. And when I had a piece of toast and a biscuit then 3lbs would go on overnight. I could not live my life like that.
So for ten years now I have followed the eat what I want, when I am truly hungry principle and it has freed me from disordered eating and all that entails. If I want cake (the most amazing cake mind) then I have it but now instead of polishing off a whole piece I take a few bites and then feel satisfied and stop. This is because I no longer view food as treat and non treat . Cake and chocolate , salad and meat, potatoes, sweets, etc are all equal and have lost their hold over me.
I now do Paul McKenna because his CDs are both relaxing and keep me on an even keel. But the main thing is to eat when you are truly hungry, stop when you are satisfied, eat whatever you fancy (you will stop eating choc and cake in vast quantities eventually when you free yourself from the dieting mentality ) and eat mindfully, being fully aware taste and feelings.

His emotional eating book is helpful as is the CD. His other books are good too. I have used his Gastric band cd too as it really helps you to get in touch with your "full feeling" again.

Beat have successfully secured a Department of Health grant to develop our work in the area of overeating and obesity.

This funding is being utilised to establish a network of Emotional Overeating Support Groups in East and West midlands and East Anglia.

The groups, facilitated by trained Beat volunteers, will provide an open and non-judgemental space for peer support between adults who:

• Binge eat
• Compulsively overeat
• Feel they have emotional eating issues
• Are overweight, obese or struggling with their weight

The groups will enable individuals to:

• Meet other people in similar situations and gain peer support
• Discuss their experiences in a safe, confidential and stigma-free environment
• Gain information about resources and services

The groups will not provide therapy, counselling or advice and are open to anyone over the age of 18. No fees, medical referral or weigh-in will be required and individuals can attend groups as often or as seldom as they need. Please go to www.b-eat.co.uk or email [email protected] for more information.