Emotional Eating

I’ve always had a history of emotional eating which has caused me to frequently get 10-15 lbs overweight. Luckily it’s never teach an eating disorder level. I don’t binge eat or have Binge Eating Disorder but I’ve been potentially approaching that at times in my life due to reoccurring extremely high levels of stress. During this postpartum period, I’ve mostly had the opposite problem. In times where I get so overly anxious I will actually almost stop eating. I’ve been so stressed that I didn’t really have an appetite until the 8 month of my postpartum journey. I definitely ate enough to feed my baby but it was a chore. Now I’ve noticed in the last month that I am having some back to back days of emotional eating. I had some emotional eating in August around my birthday because the baby which normally doesn’t sleep well, was having even worse sleeping. He was being extra fussy. For the last 3 days I’ve been eating maybe 500 -700 calories in excess everyday! I don’t know exactly how much overeating is considered a binge. I’m not overweight, I’m still breastfeeding and I’ve recently increased my walking (for pleasure and stress relief) so I’m not concerned about gaining too much weight back. My major concern is the decrease in my nutrition. My food choices during these emotional eating sessions are not good. When I emotional eat I always gravitate toward sugar. I would say that I battle with a sugar addition. Breaking free of this addiction is super important for me and my babies health. I told myself I would start in September but I was not successful. I will start again once I get the desserts out of the house. Perhaps in one week. An app that truly helped me with my emotional eating a few years ago was Eat Right Now. I used it for 3 - 6 months because I had it on discount through a work program. It actually helped me a lot. I believe I only really used it for 3 months. It wasn’t labor intensive. You listened to a few things and read a little. It worked like magic. I may return to using it if I continue to have problems. The main reasons that are contributing to me overeating besides the obvious stress of having a small child is :

1. Rushing to eat.

2. Having to hold him while I eat.

3. The baby crying while I eat.

4. Having to feed him and myself at the same time.

5. The baby literally tearing food out of my hands.

6. The dog hovering around .

All this adds up to me not enjoying my food, having to eat quickly, and not being relaxed while I eat. This takes so much out of eating I feel like I either don’t want to eat at all or I try to get more food to see if maybe this time I can enjoy it but it never works. I have to be relaxed to eat and enjoy my food. Otherwise what’s the point. After I stop breastfeeding, if I’m not pregnant again - I may eat very little at all. There’s no time to enjoy much of anything at this time - certainly not food. Perhaps I’ll get really into fasting again. I hope so.