I feel totally out of control and it’s humiliating. I can be disciplined and healthy and then I have an apparent emotional or mental break and I binge. I can eat until I feel literally stuffed. My gluttonous voice is so much louder than my reasonable eater voice. Strikingly louder.
I don’t know how to stop once and for all. I can’t keep doing this to myself. I’m fat. I want to lose 70 pounds. I’ve done cico, I’ve eaten 1200-1400 calorie restrictions, I’ve tracked calories. Ive lost weight this way, 20 & 30 pounds lost, but one injury and I crash. One day off turns into 2 turns into 20. All the progress I made, gone. Which send me into a downward, self hate spiral.
If this is based on will power, I truly must have none.
I like fasting. I like intermittent fasting. I can be good for a couple of weeks and then I lose control and eat like a barnyard pig. I can hear the voice of reason trying to stop me but that angry, emotional eating voice always wins.
Has anybody else dealt with these issues?
I feel you, I’m right there with you!
Keep in mind that SO MANY of the “food urges” we get are hormonal in nature, often dealing with insulin, leptin, ghrelin, and if you’ve got metabolic disorder, it will take time.
Have you thought about fasting a 23:1 (or whatever you can) + zero carb or keto (high fat, mod protein, low carb) during the 1 hour? That really helps with balancing out the “urgy” hormones. It doesn’t fix everything, but gives you a lot of balance that you might not have had before.
(Oh, and making sure you get salt when you’re fasting! - I put salt in my coffee.)
Every day you try is progress, you’re strengthening yourself in the direction you want to go!
I’ve also been motivating myself through this video…it’s amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6sTlukHLiA
SELF-LOVE!! :D
Totally feel you. I am an emotional eater at my very core. We even say in our family that we are “feeding our feelings”. I also get discouraged very easily and am in that place right now after moving countries and gaining a whole bunch of weight.
Was doing really awesome with IF and keto, and then friends visited and my mouth became a gaping black hole of shit food. Have put all the weight I lost back on.
I just try to remind myself, and to remind you, that it doesn’t matter how many times we fall off the horse as long as we get back on it. Reach out here and to people in life that will encourage and motivate you, and listen to that voice and not the one that says EAT!
You’re awesome and you can do it.
Thank you so much for posting this. I just had my first non-binge day after a good month of no control. This was after months (starting in February) of excellent eating and weight loss. Whenever I get close to my goal weight, something happens to me. I wish nothing more than to be someone different than my worst traits. I let myself down in terrible ways at times and it brings me such sadness.
Hey, have you ever considered seeing a counsellor or another mental health professional? It’s awesome that you’re able to recognize you may be an emotional eater and that there is some addiction behaviour around food.
Food is no different that struggling with alcohol addiction or drug addiction. It’s not necessarily something you can just “get over” by having better discipline and self-control. You have clearly proven with much success in healthy eating/dieting/weight loss that you DO have self control and DO have discipline. But there may be some underlying emotional/psychological/physiological issues that are working against you.
I personally struggle with obsessive behaviours, compulsiveness, anxiety, depression, disordered eating & emotional eating. I know from experience that I fully have the capacity to be disciplined and have self-control, but I find if I am too rigid or strict with myself, it’s a lot more challenging to create that sense of discipline when it comes to treating myself. It’s challenging to find balance, but because of my obsessive compulsive tendencies, an all or nothing approach can easily lead to binging behaviour.
Instead, I’ve been trying really hard to change my relationship with food, and to learn a lot more about nutrition and to work to cook nourishing meals. It feels so different to be eating in a way that makes my body feel physically good as opposed to just filling an emotional void. I still let myself have treats, but I try to stick to really good quality things like a croissant from the local bakery that is fresh-baked, so that it’s about enjoying a beautiful and delicious thing that someone made rather than shovelling snacks into my face.
One really helpful thing has been to try to add other things in my life that I can take pleasure in and that bring me joy. I find that so much of my life is focused around food, when I’m going to eat and what I’m going to eat. I still allow myself to take joy and pleasure in the food that I eat, but I try to make an effort to slow down and savour each bite so that it really is an act of having a pleasurable experience.
But, having other activities in my life (like visiting a couple of dogs that live on my street, going for a walk by the water, doing yoga, taking a nice bath, sitting under a tree reading, calling a friend or family member, going swimming, volunteering) that bring me joy are really handy to have in my back pocket. Whenever I feel sad/empty/bored/stressed or whenever my depression is rearing its ugly head, I pick a favourite non-food-related activity I can do to bring me joy. Then, when it’s meal time, I can still find joy and savour the food that I’m eating, but my relationship with food is a lot different, as it’s no longer THE thing that fills the void.
Sorry for being so long-winded. A lot of counsellors are willing to work on a sliding scale or even see you over the internet at a lower cost. Everyone’s different, but it may be helpful to have someone work with you to figure out what lies underneath some of this behaviour. As much as we all would like to believe that we’re somehow defective and we just need to be more diligent in our actions, there is usually something a lot deeper.
Good luck to you ❤️
Edit for grammar, clarity, and more detail
The reality is over your life you’ve built a habit of coping with difficult emotions through eating. I am right there with you- the moment I get an inkling of stress, I’m off to the carbs! At some point these coping mechanisms did what they needed to do for us at the time. They helped us through some terrible things. So, thank you coping mechanisms.
But now they’re becoming pathological coping mechanisms and we have to figure out the best way to change the habit. I’m not fully there, but I challenge you to start practicing mindfulness as it has helped me. When you start to notice the glutton screaming, take a moment to reground yourself. Focus on an object around you “that tree is tall. It has many branches. It’s growing fresh green leaves. It is very thick. It must be old. It must have many rings”.
The first time is the hardest. Hell, the 100th time is still hard, but we are rewiring our brain circuits! Of course it’s going to take time.
Another way to think about it is - for some time in your life, the synapses in your brain have been getting closer and closer together because of certain actions. Like worn paths in a field, eventually that path is the path always travelled because it’s the path that is easiest to navigate. So you have to start taking another path, but that other path is filled with brambles and thorns and is just not easy to walk. But you have to be uncomfortable for a little while, eventually that path will get worn down while the other one begins to get grown over, and soon you won’t even have to think about which path to take, your synapses have grown closer together with the newer, and hopefully healthier habit you’ve created.
It’s really hard to do, though. It not necessarily about will power, it’s about relearning a life of coping mechanisms. So be nice to yourself, forgive your travels on the already worn path, and reward your travels down a new path.
If you had to quit smoking or quit drinking, would you be able to only have 2 cigarettes a day? No, you’d want as many as possible and you might even go overboard because you’re restricting yourself. Quitting cold turkey is one of the only ways to successfully get over that.
Addiction to sugar is the same thing. Fasting helps me gain back control over eating. (And I don’t mean sugar like chocolate, I mean any sugar/carb that releases dopamine when you eat). It’s just so much easier on my brain to not eat than to constantly worry about my next meal, does it meet all of my “goals”, etc.
Boy I can relate to this one. I think being so strict with yourself is just unsustainable. Last night I had my first carb binge (where I probably consumed about 50-60 net carbs instead of keeping it under 25). However, I overate nuts. No bread, no crackers, no grains at all. Seriously, 4 months ago this would have been unheard of.
I’m still trying to find the best routine for me. I’m finding that IF (probably 20:4) is probably going to be the best since I have just a short window of time to eat and I can’t overeat in that time period.
Sometimes you just need a break to get refreshed and motivated again. The fact is that you may fall off the wagon but you keep climbing back on. It’s that 2 steps forward 1 step back thing, but this means you’re still losing the weight - just slower than you want. However, it might be more sustainable this way.
Everyone else had written amazing responses, so I’l keep mine short: I believe everybody who has attempted to lose weight has gone through periods like this, whether it be plateauing, losing faith, or bingeing. Instead of getting down on yourself, maybe look at all the all the times you restarted- that takes guts and willpower to keep getting back on the horse!
It took Edision 1000+ times to invent the lightbulb, JK Rowling got 252 rejection letters for Harry Potter, It took me 14 times to quit butts. You’re learning what doesn’t work, which is really important to figuring out what does work. Keep getting back on the horse, you’ve got all of us helping you!
Sooooo late to this, but wanted to say, ‘hi! Me too!’ Fasting is awesome in part because it reminds me of my healthier relationship with food, appreciating each truly-hungry bite of whole-food flavors. It also, in large part, heals my self-esteem. I regain control, confidence, pride, and some balance. It’s still difficult for me to break fasts without feeling a strong urge to eat MORE more more more / many urgent thoughts about what to eat and why and how it fits in with my overall plan and my life. It’s so stressful dealing with ‘addiction’ to food—whatever it is, feeding your feelings. Fasting doesn’t fix it, but it’s DEFINITELY in the toolkit!