emotional eating - avoiding it

I know I am an emotional eater/drinker... when I feel lonely or sad, I always want to eat something comforting or savoury. I used to eat sweets, but they just made me sadder. What's a good healthy distraction?

what is your favourite non-eating self comforting distraction?

(don't say sex... if I knew someone, I probably wouldn't be lonely...)

What are your favorite hobbies or things you do to unwind?  I used to run for the food whenever I would be alone or upset as well, but I conditioned myself to jump toward some healthier alternatives to emotional binge eating.  I love playing the guitar, and I love to read, so whenever I get upset, I grab my guitar and rock out for half an hour, or get engrossed in a good book. 

There were many times when I was tempted to just go for the food anyway.  But as I was in the moment of doing so, I tell myself, "Is it really worth sacrificing long-term goals for stupid short-term pleasure?"  And the answer was always no.  It took some iron discipline, and I will admit that I slipped up from time to time.  But more often than not, I trained myself to do some healthy things instead.  (Though I must admit, sex is a pretty good non-eating distraction :)

the biggest thing for me is leaving the house even if i dont have anywhere to go. sitting at home its just too easy to start snacking or pouting. Go for a walk, go window shopping, library etc.

also if you are a snacker try changing your snack foods rather than giving up snacking all together. soy beans instead of chips, celery, carrot sticks, also instead of cookies or candy i eat a sweet cereal like Cinnamon toast crunch

I also have a small problem with addicted shopping... hahah... i am trying not to visit shops for a little while... i always find something i think i need, but when i get home, i realize it was just self indulgence.

I second getting out of the house and not having the food in the house in the first place.

I know whenever I bought chocolate, in my head I was saying that I was going to eat that when I was sad and blah blah. However, two things have helped me out.

Firstly, I don't keep it around anymore- if you want it that much it'll be worth walking to the shops to buy (oh, I'm also skint at the moment so I have no cash in my wallet and there isn't a cash machine in my village so I literally cannot buy the chocolate from our shop, heh).

Secondly, I've stopped calling myself an emotional eater. As soon as I say that to myself it feels like I'm almost saying it's not your fault- you're an emotional eater and then I'm allowing myself to give in as though I don't have any control over my own eating habits. Now I'm just questioning myself whenever I want to eat. For example, this morning I was making a second bowl of shreddies and yoghurt (actually very yummy) and asked myself whether I was still hungry. I replied no but that I still wanted to eat another bowl. I had another bowl because I wanted it, but not because I felt powerless to the emotional eater in me. I felt much more in control and I can now say no to foods when I decide I don't want to eat another portion or I don't want to eat that piece of cake etc.

Well, that was very rambly but I hope there's something useful in there.

More relevantly, personally I like to ball up under a blanket (that keeps my hands inside so I can't be snacking at the same time) on my bed and watch a film :) 

Original Post by jennehughes:

More relevantly, personally I like to ball up under a blanket (that keeps my hands inside so I can't be snacking at the same time) on my bed and watch a film :) 

 that sounds do-able! and practical too... I usually kind of like to snack while watching movies, but if they're under the blanket, i can't be eating - haha

Original Post by karen278:

Original Post by jennehughes:

More relevantly, personally I like to ball up under a blanket (that keeps my hands inside so I can't be snacking at the same time) on my bed and watch a film :) 

 that sounds do-able! and practical too... I usually kind of like to snack while watching movies, but if they're under the blanket, i can't be eating - haha

yeah :) I was exactly the same- it was a bit of a habit for me to snack when I was watching movies or tv or reading or whatever.. 

the best thing is finding a film that you're really following so that snacking is too much of a distraction from it; something with alot of twists or that's difficult to follow usually does the trick for me :)