Maintenance Weekly 20th March 2006 - Emotional Eating

[Mitra]

If you're lucky, you might get through the corrective/intervention phase without any major emotional challenges. But maintenance is going to last for the rest of your life. You're pretty well guaranteed to have some difficult times at one time or another.

At times of stress in my life my first response was to start living on toast and butter. Even before I started PP I knew the toast thing wasn't working - not only did it not solve the problem, but it left me feeling too tired and muzzy to deal with it constructively.

Staying Power suggests that celebratory or reward meals are less of a problem than food for solace or consolation, because they tend to be one-off occasions. I'm not totally convinced about that - I'm quite capable of celebrating because it's the weekend, or the sun's shining, and ending up with an excuse to indulge for most of the time. But something that's emotionally painful is probably longer-lasting, and more repetitive. And when you're feeling down, the effort to eat well can seem just too much.

Do you eat to deal with stress or unhappiness? Do you tend to eat more, or to switch to the carb-fat combination that characterises most comfort foods?

The suggestions in Staying Power are:


Clear your house and desk of the "danger" foods. Limiting your access to them will make it easier to resist.
Try to pinpoint times and places that cause problems, and change your routine if necessary. For instance, if you tend to reach for the food when you're sitting in front of the TV, get up and take the dog for a walk, or join an evening class.
Substitute another activity for eating - gardening, sewing, painting, cleaning - whatever suits you.
Substitute more metabolically neutral foods. If you go for macaroni & cheese, try just having cheese; if you go for ice-cream, try a low carb one. This doesn't address the underlying issues, but does at least keep your insulin under control.
Seek professional help if necessary - doctor, clergyman, counseling.no matter what the problem is, unless it's starvation, food won't solve it.

Do you have problems with emotional eating? With little daily stresses, or major life events? What are your ways of dealing with it?

And - personal progress report - Shadow, I'm still over 110 :cool: (but only a bit), and only weighing once a week. I think I might even be able to go to once a month next month.

[Vivian]

I agree with you about "celebratory eating". We also celebrate Fridays by going out to eat, usually Mexican food. We are empty-nesters now, and since I started working again last fall, it seems a lot easier just to go out than cook. I try to make good choices, and limit my chips or bread to a bite or two. I keep my freezer stocked with low-carb ice cream. I stopped buying the Russel Stover sugar free candy, because I tend to over-do on that.

[Gaelen]

Mitra, I'm really glad you posted this topic this week...I think Malcolm also made some good points in another thread about how no matter how successful we are at initial losses, emotional eating can still derail our successes and it's a serious problem for some people. I know I own a few emotional eating issues. ;)

I've got some stuff on this I was going to post in another forum; I'll try to get to it this week.

[Shadow]

Janet - Not that I'm encouraging your weighing addiction, but I hope you don't go to monthly weigh-ins until you're not losing any more. 110 is still at the absolute lowest limit of your range... Don't wanna nag - but I am concerned that you're still hovering that "too thin" border ;).

As for emotional eating - oh my, I have a veritable ton of those issues :p. However, I have improved my choices since my time on low carb. I still can eat too much - heck, I do that every day :rolleyes: - but at least it's not the high carb/high fat fare of the past. I will, for example, hit the nut butters and have more than I should when extremely stressed . Luckily, that has only worked out to once or twice a year so that's much better than the every week thing it used to be ;). I also 'celebrate' the weekends and have less optimal foods than I eat during the week. But I do still stay in my guidelines on carbs. That keeps me from feeling guilty (which leads to more eating and imbibing) and allows me to feel like I'm being 'decadent' and having a special treat.

So, I do still eat a lot more from time to time but I try to make the choices the best I can given my mood. Not the perfect solution - but a far better balance than in the past.

PS - Janet - you may now clap for me ;). I made it through the last 2 weeks with no meal journaling at all - and it didn't even cause the gremlins to rise and make me eat things I would not have chosen if I had been writing it down :D!

[Mitra]

Janet - Not that I'm encouraging your weighing addiction, but I hope you don't go to monthly weigh-ins until you're not losing any more. 110 is still at the absolute lowest limit of your range... Don't wanna nag - but I am concerned that you're still hovering that "too thin" border ;).

I'm pretty sure I'm not too thin (and my husband doesn't think so, either, and he's pretty keen on keeping me healthy) but I haven't gone down for the last month, and I've stayed at least a pound above the lowest readings (which were mid-Feb). But I'll carry on with the weekly weighing for another month, if you think it's a good idea. The weird thing is that when I was weighing myself every day, I often saw a pound or two variation from day to day, but since I've been weighing only weekly, I've been either 110.4 or 110.6 for the last four Mondays :confused:.

As for emotional eating - oh my, I have a veritable ton of those issues. However, I have improved my choices since my time on low carb. I still can eat too much - heck, I do that every day :rolleyes: - but at least it's not the high carb/high fat fare of the past. I will, for example, hit the nut butters and have more than I should when extremely stressed . Luckily, that has only worked out to once or twice a year so that's much better than the every week thing it used to be ;). I also 'celebrate' the weekends and have less optimal foods than I eat during the week. But I do still stay in my guidelines on carbs. That keeps me from feeling guilty (which leads to more eating and imbibing) and allows me to feel like I'm being 'decadent' and having a special treat.
That all sounds pretty positive - you don't do it too often, and when you do, you pick something benign to eat. As for having a treat at the weekend that's within your carb limits - well, you are still allowed to enjoy yourself, you know ;).

PS - Janet - you may now clap for me ;). I made it through the last 2 weeks with no meal journaling at all - and it didn't even cause the gremlins to rise and make me eat things I would not have chosen if I had been writing it down :D!
I'm clapping - that's a major success :D.

[banshee]

It's interesting. For me, when I get emotional I completely lose my appetite. I know I'm feeling depressed or too stressed out when I wander around the kitchen and just can't come up with something I'm interested in eating. DH will ask if I want to go out and eat, and even that isn't interesting to me.

But this wasn't always the case. I used to want to pig out on sugary foods, but I seem to have kicked that habit completely. Now I don't even want the low-carb sweets when I'm emotional. And I don't even know why or how this change occurred. Wierd, huh?

I do sometimes get the "munchies" where I want to eat snacky type foods instead of a meal, but it doesn't seem to be really related to emotional issues. I think I just get tired at times of the work required to cook a real meal, especially if I've had a really stressful/busy/exhausting day. But thankfully it's pretty easy to make a meal out of low-carb finger foods. The taco meatballs that Aaron posted under the Finger Foods section make a great "snacky" food. Combine that with one or two of the low-carb biscuits. Or I'll toast a couple slices of low carb bread and make myself a grilled cheese sandwich in the microwave. (Toast the bread, throw the cheese on it, and nuke on low power for a minute or so. I also add some mayo - I love the taste of the mayo combined with the cheese!) Of course, some of these snacks don't help if they aren't already made, but if you keep a few in the fridge, you can have your "munchies" with foods that don't derail your plan! :)

[Shadow]

Mary - I find myself wanting snacky type foods a lot on the weekends. Maybe it's because I do so much cooking for the week that by supper time I'm all cooked out and just want something easy :p.

Janet - I've noticed a certain consistency with weekly weighing too. It seems on the "even" weeks (just for easy clarificiation) I weigh one thing and on the "odd" weeks I weigh the other - although there's usually a pound or two difference in my weeks. Pretty bizarre, huh? Well, as long as you're not losing I'm sure a monthly weigh in would suffice - surely DH or your clothes or how you feel would give you an indication that you're going downhill without the scale. Besides, ya gotta start sometime - so... okay, you can go to monthly :D. I knew you'd be impressed at my huge step! Now if I can just continue it successfully - because I've gotten quite spoiled at not recording everything :rolleyes:....