So it turns out I haven't beaten the emotional eating page 4

[becks83]

Thanks everyone who has replied, it's great to have support in whatever form it comes.
sakura_girl you're right with the rewards thing, I remember reading something by a psychologist about how some of us are conditioned to want certain foods from childhood. Like we are made cakes on our birthdays so cake makes us feel special. I understand within all of this, as an adult, there is wallowing involved, and excuses, and weakness. I totally accept that there comes a point where I have to take charge of my own mind, and I've done it before, successfully. I certainly got to a point where I tried a tiny bit of milk chocolate and thought it was disgusting and tasted like sugary wax. I'm just annoyed at myself for returning to the place where I think it's nice again. So I will work harder to ditch it completely, and go through withdrawal again (milder this time though, I'm guessing, since these 'cheats' aren't part of my meal structure. My meals are pretty much meat/fish and veg, no cheats).

I do believe, since we are all different, that there are those of us who more naturally swing towards an emotional connection with food - not that we can't overcome it, but it's there to start with - and those who don't, perhaps the more logical types? I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there and if you're one or the other, it's kind of hard to empathise with whatever your opposite is.

I'd been trying not to eat unnecessarily, but perhaps I need to go back to square one and overeat on the coconut, the butter and so on for a while, so at least I'm not both hungry and battling sugar cravings. o

As bonkers as it sounds, I sometimes feel like I have two versions of myself battling it out. The one who knows what the best thing is and what she really wants, and the one who tries to make me do bad things for the hell of it. That makes me sound like Gollum...haha....well, hopefully you get what I mean! thanks again guys, you're really helping.

[Leida]

Sorry, i forgot to add this one in my post: There is a very useful book out there, 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food. You might want to look it up in the local library. It concentrates exclusively on the emotional aspects of eating and how to cope with specific emotional states without food.

[cavebabymama]

Very helpful stuff in this thread, I'm going through a very stressful time right now as well and the sugar cravings have been intense. I do find a tablespoon of coconut butter does the trick, even though I can't always afford the calories...

[JesseJe]

We can be too hard on ourselves. The thing is you do it right most of the time. You aren't ever going to be perfect.

The road to success is rarely a straight line. The people who get there are the ones who don't let small screw ups turn into permanent failure.

After all, eating a little junk food once in a while isn't like shooting heroin when you're upset. Well, it's a little like it, but I've never heard of anyone ending up on the streets because they indulged in french fries. (Boy, did I clean that up for public consumption.)

Hahahah and yes. This is very very true. As for the creative bit. I'm the same. I actually found that switching to the primal diet and lifestyle gave me more energy to be creative but that was after an entire YEAR of not being creative at all. You just have to let it come as it does.