Wednesday 22 August 2018
Mental Illness and Emotional Eating
(Trigger Warning: Detailed discussion of weight, diet, and disordered eating)
Disclaimer: This post is in no way designed to promote dieting, disordered eating etc. This is purely an account of my own experiences with emotional eating and my perceptions of my own body.
Emotional Eating: "The practice of consuming large quantities of food - usually "comfort" or "junk" foods in response to feelings instead of hunger." (source: https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=46450)
I am most definitely an emotional eater.
The mental health problems I have do cause a lot of complicated and negative feelings. I spend most days looking for distractions and comfort. I'm lucky in that food is readily available, I can use online apps to order takeaway, and my local supermarket is within walking distance. Unfortunately, this also means I can quite impulsively buy food, especially when feeling low or stressed.
Despite this, I'm actually trying to lose weight. (I am very body positive of course, but personally I don't feel comfortable with my own body). I'm trying to find other distractions or non-edible "treats" in response to my emotions, but this is very difficult.
Although the weight loss program I'm on helps me to eat in a healthier way, it also means that I am constantly thinking about food. The mindset I seem to have at the moment (which, according to my consultant, will most likely change) is that food is something to use as a way to treat myself when I've achieved something, console myself with if I feel down or frustrated, and occasionally even punish myself with if I feel like a failure.
Most of the time, especially since trying to lose weight however, I feel guilty after comfort eating. I worry so much about the potential "consequences" (i.e. putting on weight) and sometimes that only results in more emotional eating. It becomes a vicious cycle of guilt, emotional eating, more guilt, more emotional eating, and so on. It's not easy to break out of this cycle, but usually the guilt gets so severe that I stop.
This weight loss program is starting to help me think about food in a different way (e.g. to enjoy in moderation, experiment with, learn more about etc) and I think I can manage my emotional eating myself, but I know it is going to take a while.
In the meantime, I'm going to focus on other distractions (I recently took up cross-stitch again!) and addressing the feelings I have. I will still treat myself, but I will try to be mindful of the signs that this is becoming emotional eating.
I also want to address the guilt I feel when eating foods considered unhealthy. Words such as "naughty" and "junk food" are really unhelpful. Food is not something to feel ashamed of eating. It's a difficult thing to balance; body positivity and attempting to lose weight, but I'm trying.
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Hugs..I've been struggling with this for decades myself. It's so hard!
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