Why does eating make me feel good?

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I've had life long weight issues. Years ago I lost huge amounts of weight and kept most of it off, but I still need to lose as my BMI is 32. I'm relatively healthy and active, but my joints are starting to suffer and my body image is bad. I hate my body, I can't bare to look at myself naked.

I am an emotional eater, I binge when I am feeling down, angry or anxious. I'm talking 5000 calories on a bad day.

I find eating a large meal makes me feel good. I have just eaten a huge lunch (after an equally huge breakfast) and as soon as I stop eating I just get this warm glow come over me, a sense of relaxation and calm. An inner feeling that everything is 'going to be OK'. Obviously this is then replaced by guilt, shame and a resolution to do better 'tomorrow'.

This isn't normal is it?

You activate certain chemicals in the body that create feelings of contentment and happiness when you eat in response to emotional needs rather than physical needs. This is what emotional eating is. You eat food to give you that "high" but then of course you feel guilty after so the low follows.

There is a brilliant book I read years ago called OvercomingOvereating by Jane Hirschman and it shows you how to get off the eating/binging cycle and to normalise all food again. Once you fully allow ALL foods back into your life and not see foods as good or bad then food should lose its hold over you. Diets have a lot to answer for in terms of creating binge eating in people. Going on a diet is the easy part, keeping that weight off with that same way of eating for life is the part where most people fall. Its like learning to drive. Its only after you pass your test that you really learn what driving is all about. Same as weight loss. You can lose it but its keeping it off where most people fail and then the cycle starts again and again and again.