Over eater

[kelscap]

I am 100% an emotional eater, happy eater, sad eater, bored eater, etc. I basically eat to fill a void in my body that never quite ends... has anyone every felt the same way and found a different way to try and fill it? That didn’t seem impossible?? I’m really stuck. I’m at my heaviest but I’m also at my most vulnerable and sad.. so any suggestions or thoughts would be so nice. Thank you in advance!

[Hidden]

Hi there, firstly here's a warm welcome to our friendly forum, now I think that you are far from alone in comforting eating when in reality your over eating is making you uncomfortable. So In my opinion you have to change your relationship with food and reset your mindset to eating by gradually making changes and being mindful of what you eat and why. And you have to be aware that food is our fuel so everything we eat affects our well being.

Here's a post about being mindful about what we eat:

healthunlocked.com/healthye...

Fasting can be a good way to become mindful of what we eat so here's a link to F&F for all things fasting related:

healthunlocked.com/fasting-...

And good luck as you can do it, so I wish you well with this.

Jerry. 😊

[Fran182716 Prediabetic]

Hi kelscap I think a lot of people can relate to this, I know in the past I have been able to eat healthily for months on end then something stressful would derail me and I’d be back to grazing on high sugar snacks instead of eating healthy meals. Being diagnosed prediabetic six months ago has made me much more focused and motivated but shortly before that happened I was already reading a book which was recommended to me called “ditching diets” by Gillian Riley which helped me to rethink my relationship with food. After years of trying to use willpower which I couldn’t seem to sustain, her approach (which is based on being able to let go of the feeling of deprivation if you don’t eat something you’ve decided isn’t good for you and building good habits that become your new “normal”) seemed to make complete sense. I haven’t followed that books advice completely, I couldn’t “ditch my diet” as I did need to lose some weight straightaway to lower my diabetes risk, but it certainly made me think about food in a different way and has helped with the process.

Might be worth a look? I think the problem with that “void” is that if it wasn’t caused by actual lack of food then eating more is never going to be the answer.

Good luck 😀

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to Fran182716]

This book sounds good, I shall have a look out for it!

[Praveen55 Star]

kelscap

Not your fault. Nothing of what you mentioned - emotional eater,happy eater, sad eater, bored eater etc etc is true! Problem is wrong type of foods which do not give satiety and make us eat more and more. One would require huge effort to overeat the right kind of food no matter what state one is going through.

Learn about LCHF dietary approach to lose excess weight effortlessly in a healthy way without starving yourself. Look at the dietdoctor.com website for an introduction to this dietary approach. If you have any questions, post them here. All the best.

[Zest]

Hi kelscap

Welcome to the Healthy eating forum. I would like to wish you the best with your goals, and hope that you'll find it easier with some support from the forums - have a look around and see what interests you.

Zest

[andyswarbs]

Feeling hungry is about your body not getting great nutrition. Start eating a whole food plant based diet and hunger will become a thing of the past without effort. Not only that you will find your weight steadily drops and drops and drops. Your only calorific goal is to eat at or just below your daily needs. Not only will your weight drop without effort but also other signs of good health should return.

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to andyswarbs]

Emotional eating isn't so much about feeling hungry, it's about eating when you're not hungry, you just have an emotional wish to eat. E.g. if you're bored, then a bag of crisps will give you something to do with your hands. If you've had a bad day, some Oreo cookies will brighten your mood.

[andyswarbs in reply to Cooper27]

Agreed, but underlying that is incomplete nutrition.

The human body is self-regulating if you give it the opportunity. When we eat some junk food it is a food swap for food that is high in nutrition. As a society we are drugged up to the hilt (on fat, sugar and refined carbs and processed foods). Which is great for companies like Nestle, Tesco, Costco and their shareholders. But we just end up going further down the mire of poorer and poorer nutrition.

There is only one way to break that cycle, and Kellogs, Nestle, Cadbury's or whoever are not going to tell anyone how to do it. They just want more and more choccy bars etc sold at ever cheaper prices in greater and greater quantities.

The ony way to break this cycle is from a personal perspective. It is to begin to see these as nothing less than poison to the human body, especially if that human is overweight, has high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, a stroke or any other chronic illness.

The fact is every human eats the same physical amount of food each and every day. If you ingest some bad food choices then you are saying to your body you are not going to get the opposite - some good food choices. It is a swap. Bad or good food. Each person makes their own choice.

I don't pretend making a good personal choice is easy. Many teachers become overweight because of a school culture where cakes are an almost daily treat - as compensation for dealing with difficult pupils/school environment. That social pressure to conform and have "just one piece. It won't hurt you..." is all too common.

And the result of those bad choices is... Over eating until you become the heaviest you have ever been.

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to andyswarbs]

Is that not an attitude change, as opposed to a dietary one though?

While it sounds easy in principle, I've been in some truly awful downward spirals myself, and telling yourself that certain foods are poison (which I did) doesn't tend to make much difference. Not eating it doesn't make you any happier.

[Cooper27 Administrator]

You have my sympathy I'm a bit of an emotional eater myself sometimes.

The thing that worked for me was to find a support network. The likes of Slimming World, or even the Weight Loss NHS section of this site can provide great support when you need it. Getting people at home on board also helped.

I think signing up for some exercise classes can also help a little bit, it gets your mind into the "healthy living" frame of mind.

Knitting is also helpful, as it keeps your hands busy in the evenings, and when you're under a pile of wool, you can't be bothered shifting it all just to go get another biscuit