If you used to stress-eat (or any emotion in my case) and don’t anymore...

[Times10]

How did you manage to stop? Every morning I think this will be the day I stop eating my emotions, but by lunch time I’m already halfway through a packet of biscuits, and won’t stop until bedtime.
I need to stop this, as it’s basically a self-destruct habit, but I just don’t know how. What worked for you?

[quote Times10]@BewareTheBeardedDragon you’ll laugh, but I keep putting off eating nuts due to the calories, forgetting that a) biscuits/chocolate are worse and b) at least nuts have nutrients!

@anotherBadAvatar thank you for the tip of planning ahead. Seems so simple now, but I never did that! And yes, I need to learn how to deal with the stress in another way. I like your goal of minutes of exercise over a whole month.

I think I’m going to use this thread as an accountability one, if anyone else wants to join in with their attempts and tips.

So step one, I need to plan what I’m going to eat today.[/quote]
I’d like to join with too, I need to be held accountable.

I found my answer to this emotional stress triggered over eating recently . I've been on Mysimba for 14 days and have lost 10lbs
The pill " turns off " that part of your brain that controls uncontrollable cravings and curbs appetite
It's a private prescription , still monitored by a Dr and expensive but still cheaper than the junk I could consume .. and the cost of obesity related health problems. I wish I'd found this years ago , it's not without side effects but nothing major

@UrsulaBee an accountability would definitely help me, so please do join!

I went for a long walk today, and could sense the call of the kitchen when I got back, so went for a nap instead, as I knew it was tiredness and not hunger. Obviously that will only work on days DH is home, but I think I’m going to have to go to bed earlier most of the time during the week (not that we actually do much in the evening apart from snack and veg in from of the TV)

I’ve been careful with my eating for 7 weeks now.

An upcoming event post lockdown was my motivation to stop eating emotions (mostly boredom but often misery) when some old acquaintances spoke of how hot they thought I was 30 years ago (never told me then) and I didn’t want them screaming with laughter when the saw me now (yes I’m that shallow)

Lockdown has helped so we don’t buy in junk food that I’d eat (only have prawn cocktail crisps in for the kids- food of the devil) I now listen to my stomach rather than my head for hunger cues and this was the biggest revelation- my head lies to me about being hungry when I’m not physically hungry. Everytime I’d want to binge I’d ask myself do I need this? Usually the answer was no. Worst time for me is when my youngest goes to bed and I feel I deserve some kind of treat for surviving another day having him clinging onto me for 13 waking hours knowing he’ll wake through the night for me also.

My determination not to look so huge for this event at the end of the year really keeps me on track. I’ve had a couple of weeks where I’ve had more cake and crisps than previous weeks but I’m not disallowing any food stuff just being really disciplined- so for example Fridays are cake day and I can have a cupcake from a local cake Shop.

It was a lot easier than I expected it to be and I fully suspect I’ll return to old ways if I get bored enough. I also discovered I really don’t like Cadbury’s chocolate but was somewhat craving it but it doesn’t taste nice.

I am the same, I feel like I'm eating to fill a black hole of emotion. But it can be anything to excess, last year I was running every other day and obsessing about steps. Then it was drinking to excess, then not eating to excess, loving feeling hungry and now back to eating to excess. Basically it's like I do something a couple of times and then I can't stop. I think I'm trying to distract myself from emotions or thinking, so I can be eating, reading Mumsnet, going for a walk and listening to an audio book, all at the same time, just needing lots of input to distract myself.

For those of you who like an audiobook I found these 3 really helpful over the past year:
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F* by Mark Manson (these were both available through my library for free)
Habits for Happiness by Dr Tim Sharp ( free to Audible members)

Oh yes, I’ve been wanting to read Atomic Habits for a while now. Must check the library (although I can’t remember my online pin so will have to wait until they open up again.

Some parts just go over my head but there are bits that really clicked with me @Times10.

I’ll definitely try to read it in the near future.

Today is a write-off (who’d have thought easy access to chocolate would help?!) I did go for a nice walk so hopefully counteracted a tiny bit of the excess. Might do some Zumba on the wii to work off a bit more (but I’m under no illusion that I would have to do it for a very long time to break even for calories in vs calories out!)

It's only 1 day OP, a blip. I'd have devoured an Easter Egg if I'd had one in the house.

I think getting started is the hardest part I did really well in lockdown one I ran yoga did loads of exercise felt great lost weight with IF finished a 9 year relationship. I now have a proper job working from home which makes me sit at a desk all day and I feal so so low most of the time so bored and fed up my son has been at home from school most of last year and yes I’m eating on my feelings of stress sadness worry about him and day to day is the same. I’m booked on a 6 week gym session from next week and ordered a Fitbit hopefully my head will catch up

The best resource I've found about habit change are Gretchen Rubin's The Four Tendencies and Better than Before. She has the Happier podcast and blog too. She takes a much more personalised approach to understanding yourself and choosing strategies that work with your personality. More focused on women too.

Yesterday was full of biscuits, so today is back to square 1. Going for a walk later so no opportunity to eat during that time!

I’ve heard of Gretchen Rubin but haven’t read her books yet.

I've definitely had to limit what snacks I have in the house. Dark chocolate digestive s are like a drug to me. It's nice plain chocolate or snack packs of popcorn and fruit only at the moment.

Op for me what has helped is to stop pushing so hard to stop.
For a few weeks allow the bingeing but work on taking care of your feelings as well.
So for me this looked like practising sitting with difficult emotions, asking for help and support, getting exercise etc as well as eating if I needed to. Pushing so hard to 'stop' was always counterintuitive.
I found that in time I simply didn't need the food as much. Sometimes sure, and I don't think that is 'wrong' but it didn't stay as my only coping mechanism.
Practising breathing techniques is also very helpful.

@Lovelymonkeyninetynine I think you’re right, I really need to work on the background issues if I want to succeed. Once again I ate everything in sight yesterday, so just wanting to stop isn’t working!

I’ve ordered the Better than Before book and I need to remember that any improvement from yesterday is better than nothing at all.

Ugh, I wish I could tell you I've managed to leave that behind but I cant. There are tons of distracting techniques such as writing down your emotions or keeping yourself busy with other stuff or doing several push-ups before grabbing something to eat, but thesethings work only partly. Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. I remember one time when I was craving for a pack of marshmellows and I told myself I'll finish the page from antistress painting book first and when I'm done I'll check on my desire to eat these marshmellows again. So I finished the page in maybe an hour and then ate those marshmellows anyway

My advice is to let yourself have some relief and eat something you are craving for without punishing yourself for that, and it gets better in time. Avoiding triggers might help, too, I've noticed that I tend to binge eat after looking at the picures of nicely done food lol. I once worked on a Smartshow 3d presentation for a local cafe and after looking at the photos of their meals I've ordered pizza pretty spontaneously. Think of the possible reasons that trigger your stress-eating, there may be something you could avoid.