Discussion Board

It's easy for me to stick to the plan when I'm feeling happy, busy, and life is good, which feels like most of the time. But I have realized that my main coping strategy for stress and emotional pain has always been to eat something....and not something healthy, either. A recent bout of illness reduced me to such things as peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches and Peeps ( ); the thought of whole and plant-based foods had no appeal, and I babied myself with the quick satisfaction of soft and trashy foods. I don't have good coping strategies to handle bad times without turning to food, and this feels like the main thing that is stopping me from reaching my goals in the health and weight area.

So my question (my plea) to y'all is this: If you've overcome this kind of emotional eating, how did you do it? What kind of coping strategies did you develop for yourselves? What do you do or what do you tell yourself when a powerful craving hits at a vulnerable time? And what are your go-to foods/recipes/actions for times when you are either depressed or actually ill? This feels like a big missing piece for me.

There are still times when the thought of an old favorite sounds really good. For me it would be Pizza, hot links, a chunk of cheese, quite a variety of things. Since I don't keep them in the house I can't reach out and grab them. It's more work and a lot more thought to get in a car and go get them. By then the feeling has passed. Having safe, healthy foods around always helps. And I know people get tired of hearing this but....The more you avoid eating the garbage the less attractive they are. Taste buds do adjust to new foods if you let them. That's a big if. For many even small tastes of the junk keep the cravings sharp in your mind. If any time a stressful situation comes up you go for junk food your body begins to seek out those events. Like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Time and adherence work together.
f1jim

What I have found over the years, is that what I really want when I'm depressed is to eat vast quantities of food. The food doesn't have to be rich and fattening, but there has to be A LOT of it. So I keep plenty of very low-calorie vegetables in the fridge and freezer and let myself go crazy. I'll make a HUGE salad that would feed a family of four and top it with lots of salsa, THEN I'll grab some cabbage, onions and every frozen vegetable I can find in the freezer and make a whole frying pan full of stir-fry and top it with a splash of balsamic vinegar or soy sauce. Then I'll finish with a whole nuked acorn squash sprinkled with stevia and cinnamon. I will literally be stuffed to the gills, but I'll only have consumed a few hundred VERY HEALTHY calories. And after all the cooking, cleaning and EATING, whatever set me off will usually have passed. And I won't have regret to add to my problems. In fact, the only problem will come about 2AM when my body finishes processing out all the water in those vegetables .
Kate

The other key to comfort food for me is that is has to be EASY. Your PB&Js and Peeps are easy, jump-in-your-mouth food, just like I like Peanut butter was my knee-jerk go-to, and I still have it in the house, but it no longer sings to me, even in bad times.

I keep cooked brown rice around all the time, and the Costco 90-second microwave rice bowls, and little red potatoes from Costco that nuke up in 4 minutes. If I don't have those, I start to range a bit further afield and eat rice cakes or bread or candied ginger, so I try to keep my supplies up.

A lot of times when I was upset and ate, I realize now I was also "eating to spite." I don't know if you can identify with that, but in case someone does, I wanted to say it. I distinctly remember when I was a teenager, having had some terrible fight with someone, thinking to myself, "OK, I'm going to sit here and eat these potato chips until I die. That'll show 'em!" I have since decided that that was a very stupid coping mechanism and I have substituted other reactions to stress that include zoning out on music, and reading--but not heading for the kitchen.

And what Jim said is so true--the more you tease our taste buds with a bit of junk, the more you need the junk. Get it out of your life. Peeps is not to be in your house any more. (Or your car, or your mouth!) Sugar has a way of pushing you over the edge into wanting more and more. Same with fat, which is why peanut butter is so yummy. I don't know if I could employ Kate's big salad technique when I was angry or depressed or hurt, but I sure can get into the starch-for-comfort mode easily--but not if I have just recently been sneaking bits of chocolate or jelly beans or something!

Keeping fruit and pre-nuked Yukon gold taters around helps me. It also helps that I live WAAAAAY out so a trip to the grocery store is a 1 hour commitment, LOL. OTOH, b/c I live WAAAAAAY out, the drive to and from work is potentially fraught with trouble spots. Hence, I always carry food w/ me.

Yeah, I get like that, too. At those times when only a vast quantity of something is going to settle me down, my go-to food is air-popped popcorn. I never want something you eat with a fork; it has to be something I can feed myself with my fingers. The hand-to-mouth action feels very important, I don't know what's up with that.

We don't keep trigger foods in the house, for our own protection.

Karen

Thank you all for the feedback. I like the "mass quantities of low-calorie-density food" idea and felt stuffed just from reading Katy's reply. I was out of the office, working at my part time job over a four-day weekend, so that's why it took me awhile to reply (no computer access those days). Here's what I did when I got home on Wednesday: I took the remains of a bag of chips (I was saving them for later), stomped them to crumbs and dumped them into the garbage. I dumped the vacuum cleaner bin over the top of them. The only other junk food I had in the house were five boxes of Peep rabbits, which I bagged up and took to the breakroom at my weekend job, where the rest of the crew made short work of them.

I just completed 5 consecutive days with no cheats. The first three were easy; the last two were pretty intense because I was, I think, detoxing: headache, fuzzy brain, fatigue, and a ravening "Feast Beast" who wanted his sugar fix. I'm rereading "The Pleasure Trap" and journaling (pen and paper) like mad. I'm planning my time and my meals somewhat obsessively because I can't just let stuff happen right now (or I know that what will happen is not pretty!). I'm also doing some coaching with Bob over on his board. I respect him a lot, and he's very good at spotting bulls**t and calling it as he sees it (which is why I don't always like him, even while I respect him).

It's been a really, really long time since I did this many consecutive days without mindlessly eating something off-plan. It was a shock for me to realize this sad truth; and realizing that is a breakthrough, I think. I've dropped 5 pounds of mostly water weight (no more puffy ankles!), which makes me feel happy. I want to keep this going for myself. It is definitely going to have to be a "one step at a time" endeavor.

This is actually great advice. However, in addition to being addicted to certain foods (sweets, primarily), I am also addicted to the activity of eating.

So, when I start eating as Katydid does, there's hardly an end to it; it lasts all day and into the night. Even though it's all healthy, McDougall-style food, a healthy binge can sometimes lead to an unhealthy one.

That old feeling of miserable fullness reminds me of the bad old days when I was full of SAD food, and I'm tempted to keep going. I'll start adding in problem foods like cereal, bagels, and the like. I'm better off stopping myself before I go too far.

I prove to myself pretty much every weekend that I'm still a compulsive eater and always will be. When I become conscious of what I'm doing, I try to stop, even if it means going to bed early.

Nettie