Comfort eating

[motherofboys]

Why do they call it 'comfort eating' when it makes you feel so uncomfortable?

A few knocks have increased my anxiety levels this week - and I'm back at the crisps and chocolate bars. Very disappointed with myself.

[Hidden]

Good point. Maybe if we called it uncomfort and regret eating we were more aware. But on the other hand I do not like negative labeling.

[Venusflytrap]

Try eating them very slowly so that you can work out why you want them. Often in this kind of situation, we "inhale" the comfort food so fast, it doesn't touch the sides! And onto the next pack. So we don't have time to feel the comfort and work out what it comes from.

I am a real crisps fan and I was having real trouble with them before Christmas. I finally said to myself I can have crisps whenever I want, but I have to make them. I haven't been so desperate to do it! One of the few times my laziness has worked for me instead of against me.

What I do find is that if what I want is that crisp bite, then melba toasts are often satisfactory enough and they are about half what the crisps would be kcal wise. And I get a little pack of 6 for that. For me it was about the crunch, about opening a little pack just for me and the saltiness. So often now my go to topping is a small amount of quark topped by pickled beetroot and too much salt. Actually my alternative is more satisfactory than the crisps it replaces.

With chocolate I have three replacements. Two involve the Options brand hot chocolate. The third is to have actual 70% dark chocolate, but I tend to eat more than planned of that. But sometimes it has to be that.

If you think very carefully about what your "naughty" food means to you, then you have a chance of using it to help you feel better, rather than to wreck your day by eating too much.

I try to avoid having my trigger foods readily to hand at home. Face up to the fact that they probably aren't there "for the family", that is often our excuse, they are there for us. The family often have different favourites, if we check. My son's preference was prawn cocktail flavour. This was great, as I hate them. Too sweet for me.

Good luck with working your way round this one. It is possible. We aren't helpless in the face of our temptations, but it might take some thinking and practice.

[Morgancando]

I`m the queen of comfort eating so I completely understand where you`re coming from. Try not beat yourself up about it. It`s done! I tend to eat more when I`m alone so try getting out for a quick walk round the block and I get inspiration from the positive posts on this forum.

Chin up, we all have off days.

[Twiglet65]

Rather than give yourself a hard time over it why not look at what you've consumed and work it off over the next few days?

[motherofboys 3kg Restart April 2024 in reply to Twiglet65]

I think I'm not going to manage that. I will take the step of owning up to all today's calories in my tracker.

It's anxiety at work that really gets me - cos we have a wide array of calorie laden foods available for us to buy spread out along a corridor... not time to find an alternative before I have succumbed!

[TakeAction91 in reply to motherofboys]

take your healthy snacks, and DONT TAKE ANY MONEY! this is my worst ever, we have a canteen at work, and they sell cakes, chocolate crisps etc. ive stopped taking money with me and made sure i have an Apple, some oranges, a yogurt etc with me instead

[TakeAction91]

Dont punish yourself. i dont know if this will work for you, but ive always thought that if you have made the decision to eat the chocolate bar, the crisps etc, then youve made the choice to eat them, and only them. The next thing you eat, is your next decision, you can chose to eat it all again, or you can chose not to - dont give in to your temptations. be in charge. be in control good luck - tomorrow is a new day. i say your next decision is

[Carolee13]

Know what you mean, I 've been good for months but my phased return to work turned out to be more stressful than expected and Iceland had a cheap deal on Clubs and Caramel Rockies. You can guess the rest. Luckily I have 3 men in the house who love these things more than I do so temptation all gone now 😊No regrets just go back to eating proper food.

[jjgilb]

Don't feel bad, we all do it. I found that the more I beat myself up about it then the more upset I got. Just tell yourself you are amazing for doing what you do to lose weight and get back in to the swing of things as soon as possible. If you can't, then try eating healthy then bad. By that I mean, before you reach for the chocolate or crisps, reach for something like fruit or a few nuts. It slows you down a bit from eating too much chocolate. Good luck.