How does your diet survive a tough day at work?

So,  once again I have a bad day at work and come home and eat like 1000 calories.    Does anyone else have this problem and how do you stay on track?

Lots of planning. Don't have any junk food in the house. Keep around tons of fruit. Plus when I'm very stressed I go to the gym and work out my aggression there. I always feel better after.

I've been there before! You could eat less beforehand in anticipation of the fact that you might eat more, you could prepare something to eat that you've made room for calorie-wise and stick it in the fridge, you could keep some sort of snack/energy bar in your car/bag and eat it before going home to take the edge off of your hunger (that's what I do)... there are lots of ideas. Like inkblue said though, it takes planning :)

In one post about binging, I remember one poster -- I'm pretty sure it was GI Jane -- said something that really resonated with me. She wrote that one of the reasons for eating too much is 'feeling deprived' and I think this extends to eating a little more than we need to once we get home after a very taxing day (even if it's not excessive enough to qualify as a true binge). If we feel like we're not getting what we need, emotionally, throughout the day -- like we're having to keep our dissatisfaction bottled up or whatever -- this triggers a sort of emotional eating when we get home at the end of the day. The post-work snack feels good at the time but not afterwards. When tempted to sit in front of the TV and have a big snack at the end of a difficult day, I find it helps to just take some deep breaths, think about what I'm feeling, and do something else (take a walk, etc) to make myself feel good.

I hope this helps a bit!

OK call me a big ol' nerd but.... I keep a Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Luna Bar in my desk at work at ALL times. After a bad day I grab it on my way out the door and throw in my ABBA greatest hits CD and sing all the way home at the top of my lungs and chow on my "treat" I'm sure I look like a lunatic but, I always feel better by the time I get to my daughter's school. I fell sooo silly by the time I get there it's kindof hard to remember what was so"devastating" that day.

(It sounds like the kind of thing I'd say ericajess... )   I used to do what the OP describes very often.  Sending out for takeaways and cracking open bottles of wine after a rotten day at the office accounted for a surplus 50lbs as a result!

Getting pleasure and relaxation out of food isn't a sin, I've since decided.  But keep your pleasures small and you'll enjoy them more.  These days if I fancy a Friday night treat I'll get something expensively decadent at the supermarket... small fillet steak, fancy shellfish, asparagus spears, interesting salads... extravagant (so I can't do it too often) but healthy.   I've stopped buying wine by the case and just buy a bottle for a treat.   

ABSOLUTELY. I find myself eating until full after a stressful day at work ... I'm sorting this out too. I think it kind of depends on what happened during the day...if it was a truly awful day, I chow down favorite comfort foods...then feel terrible for what I've done.

I've noticed that part of what makes my highest-stress days bad (leading to stuffing myself after work) is that I'm so focused on work that I miss lunch or snacks. Yesterday I spread my food out all morning, and I think it helped keep me trucking at an even blood sugar all day...and I didn't feel like loading up on food when I got home. You probably have your own things you like to eat, but I brought a small container of mixed grapes, fat-free chocolate pudding, a Fuji apple, yogurt and fresh blackberries.

Tonight I fried up some veggies with some tofu (it's been at least a year since I've had tofu!) to stay in my daily calorie range. You can eat a lot of veggies and tofu and not rack up many calories....I spike it with lots of lemon, lime, vinegar and pepper to add flavor. Yum-o! So I feel like I'm having a great big dinner but not busting the calorie bank. And when I'm done I'm heading off to the gym to burn some calories...or I hope I am!

I agree with what ericajess and gi-jane say about the 'not feeling satisfied' emotionally and making up for it with food, but how do we really FIX that feeling? Or learn to not rely on food for comfort? I've been making small attemtps at weight loss lately that just seem to dissapear after a rough work day or a quarrel with my love.

Does anyone think that it's a habit that can be undone on my own or should I consider seeking professional advice. Is it even catgorized as binge eating? Or emotional eating? Since i've sometimes done one, the other, or both. Thanks for any advice!

Lots of apples and oatmeal, that's how. =]

"I agree with what ericajess and gi-jane say about the 'not feeling satisfied' emotionally and making up for it with food, but how do we really FIX that feeling? "

I don't think we should 'fix' that feeling.  Eating and emotions are intertwined and memory is strongly linked to smell and taste.  We should connect emotionally with food.    Food isn't 'fuel' or 'medicine' to be shoveled down with our noses held... tolerated simply to keep us alive and get us from A to B.   It should be stimulating, fun, satisfying, enjoyable, rewarding.  Sitting round a table sharing the food we've made with people we love is one of life's basic joys.  If we stop getting pleasure from food what is the point of eating at all?  

So you could spend a long time with a psychologist trying to convince yourself that you don't get comfort or pleasure out of eating but I think you'd be fighting nature.  A simpler (and less expensive) solution would be to alter what it is you get comfort and pleasure out of.....  That's a lot easier to change.

(A great book on how to achieve a happy balance is 'French Women don't get fat' by Mireille Giuliano.)

Thanks for the reply gi-jane, you have a good point about food and emotions being intertwined. It just makes me wonder, why am I not getting my emotional needs met in everyday life that I need to turn to food for comfort? I have a loving and caring boyfriend, a great supportive family..I guess that's something I'll have to work on during this weight loss 'process'. ;)

Stellaluna, I am dealing with the same darn issue.  i do so good for a few weeks to a month, and then have a terrible day...then its almost like I have backtracked, and sometimes I feel like I have backtracked the entire way.  Its taking a toll on me mentally.  I am trying to work through that even as I type for today.  Yesterday went in the ****, so I guess I will just have to stay positive and know today is a new day and all the bad work that happened yesterday CAN and WILL be undone. 

Gr, good luck to you

It doesn't matter how wonderfully loving our families are or how much money we've got in the bank or how successful our careers... we all need cheering up from time to time.  It doesn't mean we're emotional cripples, just human beings.   

Agree with planning...I tend to go the wine, cheese and cracker route when something has been upsetting or unsettling.

I have a few tricks for myself and sometimes they work :) !

I keep an assortment of herbal teas that I love - if I make the cup of tea and sit down with it (vs the wine) - I relax and the desire for the wine goes away.  It is making the tea instead of pouring the wine that takes my will power.

A cup of hearty soup and ginger ale in a wineglass.

A walk with my dog.

Another trick - I write down what I'd prefer to do next time.  Somehow having written the plan helps me make the better choice more often.  There will always be times when I slip...get back up and go on from there.

My best tool is delaying myself, wait 15 minutes, and if I still want it Iwill have it, but usually I realise how much I want to stay on track, and how i dont want to sabotage, and sometimes, I just have it I want it REALLY back, but just a bit of it!

This is all great advice, and I agree that it's not bad to see food as a reward; it should definitely be pleasurable. We're all different, but what stops me from overeating after work like I used to, is reminding myself that it does not feel good afterwards. I desperately want to to avoid that feeling of being disappointed in myself -- and technically full, but still dissatisfied. So when I actually want to reward myself with food I indulge in something that I love -- usually Japanese food, which I enjoy way more than anything else  for some reason -- in moderation, then enjoy feeling proud of myself when I'm done. It doesn't work all the time, though....I still slip up now and then.