How do I stop emotional eating for good?

[Sunisshining12]

I had a baby 18 months ago. I’ve got 21lbs to lose to be back to my previous weight & have honestly been trying for the past 16 months. Some weeks I will lose 1-2lbs, then I have a stressful week/am tired/can’t be bothered & eat loads of shite all week & put it back on (and evidently plus more). I now weigh 7lbs more than I did 12 months ago. Would like to start thinking about TTC but really need to shift this weight first. I use MFP & have tried different varying calorie deficits. But I find my mood massively affects my attitude towards food. How do I stop this once and for all?

I’m active (run 5k twice per week, walk a couple of miles a day with the pushchair, and usually do 1 x 30 min strength workout pw)

I find that I dread exercise mostly because I’m time poor (but force myself) I’m sure it increases my appetite the next day when I’m a little bit sore/body feeling tired - but not sure if that’s psychological?

I’m wondering if cutting back on exercise would actually be better for me in that technically my appetite shouldn’t be as big the day after? Or would this be crazy? I’m scared to cut back incase I end up piling on even more weight!

I can’t carry on like this. Someone please give me some direction! Thank you

Hello again!
To be honest I wasnt starting from 4st. I lost a lot after the birth. Once the baby, water, water retention, extra blood etc was 'out' I probably lost a stone with the birth and then another stone of the 'obvious' fat over 6 weeks. Only because I literally was eating 4 huge high in fat meals per day for 9 months when Im otherwise quite healthy.
So It was more a 2St loss. However my point was, there is no need to buy a fancy book and start a fancy diet and go to loads of trouble and time you probably dont have.

Get rid of all the crap food in your cupboard.
Be consistent! Dont do it 2 weeks and then stop, it wont work theres no point.
Write down everything you eat, its important, do it for a month, you'll learn a lot about how you eat.
Drink a ton of water, 2L a day every day.
The first 2 weeks will be the hardest. You will crave food, and go to bed thinking about what you fancy, and maybe be a bit hungry as you lower your calorie intake. Thats when you will need the most will power. For me the hardest was wine and cheese and carbs. Just love it. So if I really fancied a drink I had a g&T (less calories).
After a month of this you will start to see results and it will get easier.

But my point was there is no secret!
Stop eating sugary shit, curb your bad habit. First 2 weeks are the hardest.
Eat eggs, avocado, sourdough bread, porridge in the morning. Eat fruit, eat a big healthy meal, no sugar.

Then have a big lunch full of veg proteines, and things like BULGUR, FREKEH,
QUINOA to fill you up. Have your lunch a tad later too. At the moment I have big greek salads or chicken with a ton of spring greens fried in garlic and olive oil and a side of bulgur.
And dinner a home made veg soup.
I snack on humous and sugar snap peas or
Nuts for example

There is no secret if you do this for a month you WILL loose weight, and if you do this for 3 you will probably loose it all. But more importantly you'll have kicked a bad habit and learnt how to eat well. And then when you do that regularly, you can re introduce a bit of cake and crap in your diet if you fancy it.

Anyway, I feel so much healthier and happier now. Be strong it will be worth it! Have a good day. Xx

OA is overeaters anonymous. Check out the website - they have loada of meetings over zoom.
CBT is Cognitive Behavioural therapy.
Try reading Fat is a Feminist Issue.

You've got a load of advice on here about how to diet. It might help you lost a bit of weight but it won't help you keep it off and it definitely wont help break your emotional relationship with food.

By the way - none of the above suggestions mean you should want to be overweight. I avoided them for a whole because I heard the title Fat is a feminist issue and worried that meant if I was a good feminist I should be happy to be fat. That is not the case.

Look up thebingeeating_therapist on Instagram, I read her book and things are slowly starting to fit into place. She incorporates intuitive eating and a gentle mentalization approach.

Pav You didn't read my threads properly, or you don't know about Paul Mackenna; his books, DVds etc are basically about mindful eating, I lost 3 stone doing it, I have maintained the loss for oooh about 4 or 5 years now. I lost more weight by not eating sugar , I did it for health not weight loss.

Caring about your health is the most important aspect of eating IMO and E.

Sun If you make yourself a large drink (none alk of course and no sugar\sweeteners) after a meal then you don't seem to crave the sugar hit in the same way.

Crunchy is right about the addictiveness of high sugar/carbs. It is a physiological thing that leads to emotional cravings. !!

How's it going Sun ?

Cutting out sugar and flour definitely helps (it's no coincidence they're in the foods that have been designed to be highly desired so you'll buy loads of them!), but the key is to understand the difference between physical and emotional hunger. Our brains are nifty in disguising emotional hunger, convincing ourselves we need to eat when in reality we don't. I mentioned in another post that just a couple of days ago I released a short podcast on the difference between physical and emotional hunger and how to manage it, but am not sure if I'm allowed to post the link here (don't want to break MN rules)?

Having a very bad week :-( been WFH all week again, made sure nothing bad in the cupboard. Filled up on porridge oats, natural Yog, eggs, fruit, veg etc. Then have been caving after every lunch & going to the shop ‘just’ to buy chocolate & cakes. Ffs

Sorry to hear youve had a bad week. Did u
You manage to look at Beyond Chocolate, or Fat is a Feminist issue?

I used to be exactly like you. Used to binge on sugary foods especially when tired. I couldn't stop at just one treat, nope sometimes had 5/6/7!
I did keto purely to stop my sugar cravings. You don't have to do keto but cutting out all refined/added sugar. You need to be quite diligent in the beginning as sugar is literally everywhere. I replaced the sugar with good fats like nuts, avocado, olive oil etc.
In the beginning I craved cakes etc so made myself some with almond flour/Natvia (loads of recipes on line) which really did the trick. Made keto ice cream etc.
Now these cravings are almost non existent. I do however still emotionally eat at times but recognize it much better. I can see it much earlier on that I'm emotionally eating instead of 17 Kit Kat's later!
Tiredness is a big trigger for me too. I'm much more disciplined at going to bed early/napping on days off etc if I need to. It's almost like my body is crying out for food to give me energy.

I have had days like you, where I couldn't sustain healthier eating and went to the supermarket just for cake and chocolate. That triggered guilt that I was messing up weightloss and felt so disappointed in myself.
Please read Feast Fast Repeat by Gin Stevens or listen to her podcasts on Delay Don't Deny. It's quite an eye-opener on how addictive sugar in all forms is, and the effect insulin has on weightloss attempts. By dripping insulin into our system all day, we are setting ourselves up to fail unfortunately. It isn't a question of willpower. The cravings, energy dips and negative effect on our mood is all real.
16:8 takes a week to get used to - possible withdrawal headaches and over-eating until appetite correction kicks in. Once appetite correction kicks you crave healthier foods and sugar makes you feel yuk. Within a few days you have more energy - all the time - and moods are so even. The extra dopamine makes you feel very happy. Less inflammation in the body too.
There is a support thread on MN and lots of good FB groups with inspiring stories.

Sun I sort of guessed you were going through a difficult stage!! BUT don't let it stop you, you can just start again. It's not unusual (you certainly won't be the first !)

It's just a hiccup! Diana is absolutely right about the sugar/carb problem. We live in an obesogenic society , the manufacturers WANT you to eat their shit!!!!! Don't give them the power over you with their high sugar/carb overload products. Say 2 fingers to them!!

Come on you CAN do it !!!!!

Thanks for the support! I just feel like I don’t care. I don’t care if I put on weight. I don’t care how I look. I don’t care I just want to eat what I want. I don’t care. BUT I WANT TO CARE!

Have you got a blender Sun ? Get a punnet of strawberries, some ground almonds and dates, chop them up , using milk I(I use almond\ plant milk) blend them , with a squeeze of lemon, it tastes so good you'd think it was crap food but it isn't !!!

I make smoothies like the above every morning. Also have one in the evening sometimes. They're filling too!!

Your thread title talks about emotional eating. If that’s a significant issue for you then, strange as it may seem, you need to care less about your weight and more about how your emotions drive your eating. Work on that and your weight will follow.

Two things which are helping me, with my decades long binge eating problem

Optimal EFT www.emofree.com to identify and neutralise past events about which you still have an emotional charge, leading to unhelpful beliefs and behaviours.

Hypnosis to install helpful attitudes and behaviours around food and exercise, there are any number of free tracks on YouTube.

Two months in, have lost over a stone.

If it's just surgery foods you want to target, have you thought about controlling a slow reduction - rather than just stopping?

Delayed gratification type of thing.

Eg go to the shop at lunchtime and buy a bar of chocolate. Bring it home and put it in the fridge. Make a deal with yourself you will eat and enjoy it later, after dinner.

Make it so that you get one sweet thing each day that you look forward to.

Over time you can then reduce your something down in size from a full size bar to a fun sized one.

Or you can increase its nutritional value by doing something like making nuts and seeds flapjack and drenching it in choc. Over time reducing the choc and/or using darker and darker choc.

Sugary foods. Not surgery ones

The 'I don't care' thing sounds like mental fog from sugar highs. I've had it. It's easier to bury your head and not care, because the alternative - abstaining or eating moderately requires sustained willpower. I find FB groups and MN support threads helpful when I feel weak.
Losing weight is hard. Being overweight is hard. Choose your hard.

Thanks all for the support & advice. I’ve suddenly come to the realisation that this is something more than just liking sweet treats & being addicted to sugar. I think I’m eating because I feel so unhappy & tired & have lost my way in life in general. I seem to have no respect for myself anymore & don’t care how I look or feel. It all came to a head over the weekend after a massive binge & I ended up crying upstairs because I just don’t know why I’m so unhappy & negative & behave like this. I recognise that eating chocolate & biscuits make me feel so happy & give me a lift. Nothing else seems to give me the same feeling, which rationally I know is a ludacris statement but emotionally that is how I feel. I’ve actually called the drs today for the first time in years ☹️

Bless you Sun Be kind to yourself

We are here to support not to judge you. I used St. John's wort for low moods it really helped with them at my menopause (I'm not suggesting you are going through it. It helps for any lowness) And it's gentle not like some ADs.

@ppeatfruit thank you!

Working from home is just horrendous for trying to lose weight & get out of this low mood too. Have eaten a lot today (will be over calorie allowance) but it’s all been healthy whole foods (porridge, eggs, fruit etc) so small steps!

Yes porridge is good ! As you say small steps!

Well done getting your act together Sun Did you check out Paul Mackenna?