Dealing with stress eating- CBT?

[oopsadaisy77]

HI all,

Me again, I have a stressful job and sometimes turn to food on the way home when very tired and v stressed. I know thats part of my problem but whats the answer apart from don't do it? I get myself in such a state. I spoke to GP about it and they said I should proud of the job I do and long waiting list for cat. So when people say you need to get help, where is that help? what is that help?

Ive heard lighter life has a cbt approach but not sure I want to follow that plan. I feel I need support to how to manage not getting myself in such a state when stressed out. Does anyone know of online support or therapists? Or anything else I can do?

You could ask your GP for anti anxiety medication?

If the stress is causing the over eating, then rather than dealing with the symptoms (eating) you should be dealing with the cause (stress).

Is it possible to make your job less stressful? Or do things to mitigate the stress? I can't really make any suggestions here without knowing what your job is I'm going to guess at teacher.

If it's not possible to reduce the steps by making changes, then medication may help you manage and lower your stress levels.

Self help CBT options would be The Beck diet plan or ‘Overcoming Binge Eating’ (although this is unlikely to be centred on your needs, but you might find some helpful bits in it.

You could find a counsellor to help you with your goal of stopping stress eating.

I suggest

1. Maintain an honest food and feeling diary. Get good at spotting and predicting patterns and your worst times. Make small gradual changes (like buy one less thing, throw half away etc etc). Show yourself you are in control because you are persisting even if its not a auick fix.
2. Avoid getting hungry. Eat regularly, eat enough, eat all food groups and have gaps between meals. Things like making yourself eat salad/soup/2 apples and waiting a while before eating any crap. Or cleaning your teeth/drinking peppermint tea/chewing gum before you leave work.
3. Develop 3 additional ways of relaxing when stressed.

Good luck, get organised, keep at it.

Eva -Thank you so much for your advice, brilliant tips. Today I had a cold and work over the weekend, overate badly. I think I left too long a gap between lunch and evening meal. I had already had my allowance for the day so didn’t think I would have much then prepared the kids lunch box and raided the bread cheese cakes...(healthier cakes but cakes all the same) so hard to prep food for others and avoid eating. I was like a frantic woman eating everything -it was great for about ten minutes. So identified a trigger - work (aware of this one), and when in the kitchen prepping food.

Fate -you’re pretty good with guesses not spot on but sort of right. I don’t really like the end route but unsure if it’s just my nutty response to stress. Whenever I’m stressed (even when I don’t realise it - like today had some work to do and wa alike one of my children kept putting it off and when I did do it kept looking for snacks).

Ok a work in progress.