Emotional Eating- Advice please!

 It has been far too long since I've been on here.

My weight hit a stopping point a little over 6 months ago (my own fault, I got back into emotional eating and not following my plan). I had my 21st birthday, did a study abroad to Italy and a lot of events that I blamed for reasons I didn't need to follow my healthy eating plan. Thankfully, I maintained my weight throughout the months.

Before then, I was using the forum to compare my weight loss, and feeling bad about my progress. It didn't seem helpful anymore, so I distanced myself from the forum. Around the time I was not making progress anymore, I got a therapst. However, I'm not sure she is helping me with my emotional journey with weight loss. We don't seem to get into deep issues regarding how I feel about food (AKA sometimes, I feel food is the only exciting thing in my day). Instead, she sometimes says that maybe I just need to accept my body at this weight. I'm not sure if its the therapst or me, but it's troublesome. I'm about 14 months out, and obviously have a problem with emotional eating, so I'm not ready to accept that this is how my life is going to stay. 

I'm about 14 months out from sugery, down 80 pounds, and feel so much better than a year ago, however, I want to lose another 20 to 30 pounds, which I believe is realistic. I know that my body can lose it, it is just my emotional state that is holding me back. Everytime I get down to 161, I stop working at my daily routine and let go. 

And also, I keep doing this back and forth diet mentality again. When I do a good job of eating healthy, between 1,000 and 1,400 calories per day, the weight loss is very slow. So, then I start doing my pre-op diet, drinking just protein shakes. I feel that may be messing with my metabolism (not sure, just my opinion), but I get so discouraged when the weight isn't moving. 

Anyway, I think I am ready to deal with the emotional issues that are holding me back here. I just could use some emotional support and help. I'm not even sure where to start with all this.

So, my question would be, for those of you that are emotional eaters and had some kind of block along the way (mentally, holding yourself back), how did you overcome it? 

How do you get back to a healthy mentality? I feel that if I don't lose additional weight, I won't be happy with myself. But, that isn't just about the actual weight, it is also about the fact that I am back to my diet mentality, and I'm back to my over-indulging and then over-dieting routine. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. 

Steph

I suggest taking the focus off your weight and focusing instead on how you're handling emotions.  If you get that under control, I'm guessing the weight issues will work themselves out, pretty much.

So when you say you are an emotional eater, what emotions lead you to eat?  You mentioned that food might be the most exciting thing in your day.  So do you need to include some more interesting, fun, exciting things in your life?  What might those things be?

Try looking at each emotion and brainstorming ways to deal with them that don't involve food.

I'm an emotional eater and I feel  your pain. I agree with what Kelly said and also think it's important to keep a journal either online or in writing to check in with yourself as to how you are feeling and when and if you are tempted to turn to food for nurturing. It helps a lot with me to recognize my feelings, acknowledge that I have a right to them, and feel them in all of their intensity. I turn to friends who can listen without judging my feelings and I seek out advice and help (often from people on tihs forum!). I try to wait to eat until I am actually hungry, but if I give in and eat out of stress (which is rare post op, but it does happen), I limit what I allow myself to eat and I get back on track immediately. I don't find it useful to beat myself up for it or indulge in self hating thoughts. I get over it faster if I admit I could have done better, figure out what caused the slip, and come up with a strategy to deal with my feelings more effectively in ways that don't involve food.

You seem like you're doing great and I wish you continued success!

Thanks Kelly and Laura.

You're right. For a while, my favorite part of the day was when I would wake up and see that I had lost a pound or two. So, when the weight loss slowed, I felt discouraged and didn't look forward to that moment anymore. So, weighing obviously isn't helping me at this point.

I need to focus on bringing activities into my daily life that I enjoy.

I know one of the emotions I deal with is loneliness, but I find that I often isolate myself (Ex. hanging out in my room as opposed to spending time with my roomates, so that's something I will work on.)

Thank you, Kelly, you always have such great advice. I am going to sit down after exercise today and write out each emotion and solution. It's such a simple idea, yet that's something I haven't done, so I'm sure it will help.

Thanks Laura! It seems like you are doing very well incorporating such healthy changes into your life. I do think keeping a journal would help very much, so I'm going to start now. Do you journal at different times throughout the day, or usually just once daily?

Steph

Thanks, Steph! Most of the time I journal once a day, but if it's a really bad day, more than once a day. It sounds like you know what you can do to make small changes so that helps a lot. Its hard not to isolate ourselves especially if we're around people such as roommates who can eat or drink whatever they want. I'd like to find a buddy in my community who has had the surgery and lives near me so we can hang out. The nearest support group is 40 minutes away so it's hard to get there and I don't know how to ask people to be my friend directly without scaring them away so I am trying to figure out how to do that! Best of luck to you and I'm glad you reached out on this forum!

I use Overeaters Anonynmous online to help with my emotional/compulsive eating issues = http://www.therecoverygroup.org/

They have an online meeting just for WLS patients.  It helps me work through the issues and focus on what is important - emotional recovery.

Just my opinion.. I mean I think it is great and all for her to want you to accept yourself, but you pegged it.  You ARE an emotional eater. So you need to figure out why.  I am seeing a therapist too. I figured that I have been obese since childhood and unsuccessful with diets, so I need help changing my mind, not just my body.

Best of luck to you.