Coping mechanisms for emotional eating?
on 3/23/13 12:57 pm
I tend to do the same thing--when I'm angry or frustrated I, too, say &^%# this and where's the chocolate cake. It's not because I deserve something special, I think what I think I'm really saying is I'm upset and nothing is going right and I must not deserve to be happy. That always leads to lots of self-loathing and eating because after all, I'm never going to be thin and I'm such a loser and blah blah blah. Once I realized I was setting myself up for failure by believing I didn't deserve more (thanks Dr. Phil) I found I was able to deal with these feelings, hence anxiously awaiting my WLS. I'm not sure why, but somehow understanding this issue made it easier for me to deal with. I'm done with punishing myself for things that go wrong in life.
This has been a hard struggle for me too. I used to smoke, so that was easy. I would get upset and go outside and light up. So now I do not smoke, I chew gum instead. I want to go break into the fridge and grab this and that and stuff my face (it seems nicer thatn smashing things). This has taken a lot of work, but now I do some breathing exercises and get my gum. BUT I chew like three pieces not one. Its like I need to feel my teeth chewing through that mass of gum to help get the feelings out. And in my head I feel way better than if I had smoked or had a drink or smashed a dish or kicked a door. I work at a jail, and sometimes, OMG!!! So yeah, I chew gum. And I am an emotional eater, so when I have that empty bad feeling, instead of going to the pantry or the fridge I get my gum. I don't always, I am still teaching myself, or learning to replace that urge with gum. Its been a cold long winter, I was walking around the block outside last year when this would happen. But I had to think of something else, and its been working.
