Dealing with emotional eating! Day 2 of NHS Plan - NEWBIE!

[Newelywed2018]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to following the NHS plan. But I have successfully completed one day!

However today I had a bit of a near meltdown.

I have previously tried many diets including the famous macro tracking, Joe Wicks body coach & Slimming World. I followed SW for the longest of about 3 years and never actually lost any weight overall - I actually gained around a stone from my starting SW weight.

I personally felt SW encouraged my feelings of guilt for eating food, guilt about eating to much & just generally contributed to my feeling s**t about myself!

SW encourages the eating of speed food (most fruit & veg except avocados which were synned - grrrr), this I agree with & I still think of veg as being "free" in my head. SW also encourages you to fill up on "free" foods such as zero fat yogurts, zero fat cottage cheese & pasta & rice. Bread is limited as is most cheese & milk. Pretty much anything with sugar or fat is synned!. You get 15 syns a day.

Sounds great except I then gorged myself silly on my favourite guilty meal of at least 4 peoples portion of pasta, can of chopped tomatoes, chilli flakes, garlic & chorizo. Even thinking about is making my mouth water.... However according to slimming world this meal was all free except the chorizo. (chorizo was synned at one of those thin slices at 0.5syns so 15 syns a day that's a lot of chorizo!)

This diet was not for me at all - I was restricting the food that wasn't actually causing my issues like bread & cheese and encouraging my love of pasta etc.

Anyway clearly SW was not for me!

So yesterday on the NHS plan went really well. Stuck to my limit of 1480 calories a day did 60 minutes of Bootcamp & ate food I liked. Below is a brief summary of my food yesterday.

Breakfast - measured bran flakes & 1 green apple chopped in.

Lunch - left over homemade spag bowl with carrots, onions & green pepper using 5% mince & chopped tomatoes (I love these bad boys they just go with everything!) + 1 full fat greek style yogurt (Lidl - also epic)

Dinner - homemade Jambalaya - contained measured 1 portion of wild rice, green pepper, onion, celery & measured amount of chorizo sausage.

Snacks - measured low fat humous & carrot sticks, glass of fresh orange juice with ice (it was so hot!), 6 limited edition chocolate orange smarties yum yum & 5 very small shortbread choc chip cookies.

All within my calorie limit - which felt great!

Today has not gone so well.

Day started really well - did a box fit class with my hubbie was feeling really positive etc had yummie breakfast (bran flakes, pecan nuts & chopped green apple)

Then had a meeting at work which due to various reasons ended up with me crying in the toilets - cue the urge to eat everything in site! Suddenly I wanted packets of salt & vinegar McCoys - my favourite & Indian food for dinner!

I panicked! Quick text to the hubbie - I suddenly felt like s**t - ate the lunch I had lovingly prepared (measured plain cous cous, radishes, cucumber, green pepper, tomatoes, chopped green olives, chilli flakes (obsessed) & again measured halloumi- its awesome with everything!) & a 2nd green apple.

Back at my desk after lunch and want to raid the vending machine of all McCoy crisps! Instead I sat at my desk & thought about why I was upset & how exactly eating my bodyweight in Indian would make me feel better. Ergo it wouldnt.

Instead I spoke to who I needed to at work about how I was feeling regarding the meeting & went forward going I just need to move on. I cant let this one incident ruin my whole day & eventually week. I knew "messing up" would make me feel like I had failed and therefore why bother carrying on with the rest of the week. I am a total guilty eater!

Now 2 hrs later after having spoken & sort of resolved the issue - I feel more in control - I did almost get the McCoys, went to the vending machine with the right change & looked at them for a long time debating "the calories on those will push me over my budget (I work in Finance - we love budgets) -well it doesn't matter - will just not have any sweet after dinner - but you know you will wand the sweet hmmm...." I didn't get them & do now feel better for it.

It was my choice - it wasn't my emotions that decided what I put in my mouth.

Very small thing for most people - however this was a massive plus for me.

Now I can go home & have my selected dinner (Lidl sweet chilLi salmon fillet, roasted tinned new potatoes with salad & cottage cheese) & still have a mini biscuit afterwards!

Woohoooo!

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone]

Overall, I think you've come out on top Newelywed2018 . Speaking to the person you needed to was much the most effective way of dealing with your nangled up feelings, and you can remind yourself of this in the future if you're in a similar situation.

You seem to really enjoy your food and put a lot of thought into it, which is really going to work in your favour. Do have a look at the Daily Diary - you can find tomorrow's by scrolling down, it's not far below yours - and add your own meal plan for tomorrow. You can get some feedback on your plans, as well as picking up some good ideas from other people's menus.

As for your comments about SW, I know there are people here who have found them useful but I agree that any plan that describes some foods as "syns" is bound to generate negative, and probably guilty, feelings towards food.

[Newelywed2018 in reply to BridgeGirl]

Thanks for your kind words :). I will definitely check it out. Yer I am not an SW believer!

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to Newelywed2018]

I meant to give you this link, too helpguide.org/articles/diet...

[Fattytaffy 1lb]

Well done for sorting out your work issues. Learn from today and just take one day at a time. Remember you are in control

[lucigret]

Welcome Newelywed to our friendly forum,

I see that you have already had a message back from BridgeGirl and I as I agree with all that she has said and that you have said about SW, I am just going to give you all our newbie information.

To make navigating the forum easier, we've put all the information you'll need in a newbie pack and here's the link

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

Please take the time to read it carefully, so that you're able to enjoy everything that we have on offer.

We ask that you also read this important information about internet privacy and security, especially as you have left your post unlocked.

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Wishing you all the best

[LilacLil]

Its a hard one dealing with emotional eating. I've struggled all my life with it. I'm posting on these boards to tackle the problems associated with it.

Great to read your post. Think day at a time is very appropriate when dealing with this.

Keep it up, you'll get stronger every day.