I have had a problem overeating since i stopped playing sports after a knee injury. I tend to eat for comfort, i unintentionally order large portions and seem to block out my conscious until i have finished eating and feel hot full i am. I understand i need a balance of the right nutrients like proteins, carbs and healthy fats as they all work off each other to create the sensation of fullness, however; i still make poor choices in food when I am not feeling my best. I get a sweet tooth craving at night, even though i know i shouldn't eat. I think my problem may be getting to a very mental point, but i am hoping some one out there has experience the same thing and has some advice.

I went through a time after i twisted my ankle a month before i was to run a half marathon about 2 years ago that is basically the problem your explaining. It was brutal, i was upset i couldn't run and i ate instead.

Only recently (last 2 months) have i really started to get back on the horse.

If it is basically just a bad habit and lifestyle then changes need to come slow any easy for it to really stick. try small things and build your way up to having a healthy diet with reasonable portions.

Anything helps at first, switching from whole milk to 1% or even skim, drinking water instead of pop, trying grain bread instead of white, picking chicken or fish instead of a thick fatty steak. salad instead of fries. even if technically some of them arn't actually much healthier than its substitute, mentally you feel better for picking it. then you can move up to really refining your diet once you feel confident that you can stick to it.

Drink tons of water. it helps full you up.

the late night snack was my hardest thing to shake also, easiest way is to substitute chips or chocolate with something less fatty and sugary. try unbuttered popcorn, or just a fruit salad. My savior and something i will swear to for the rest of my life is herbal tea or green tea with a teaspoon of honey, no milk.

hi i'm also struggling with over-eating at the moment. i recently lost a lot of weight due to stress and have spent the last few months trying to gain it back so that i'm a healthy weight again. i'm there now but i'm finding it hard to stop! i've gotten myself into the mindset of "i'm underweight, i need to eat more" but thats not true anymore. i'm still eating too much but now its just out of habit or for comfort. when i binge i'm not hungry and i don't stop when i'm full i just keep going until its really uncomfortable or i feel sick. its driving me nuts that something seemingly simple like only eating when i'm hungry should be SO hard! i'm so emotionally attached to food- i eat for comfort, i eat to celebrate, i eat when i'm bored. i really need to find something to replace it with!

i have been trying to satisfy my urge to nibble with healthy things like raw fruit/veg but then i end up having way to much fibre and fructose which aggrivates my ibs.

i agree that herbal teas are really good although i don't always feel like it when the weather is so hot. rice or corn cakes are really good because they are quite bulky so they fill you up without being too calorific. roasted soya nuts are also really good.

i just need to wrestle control back from that little bit of my brain that is always telling me "eat more, it will taste nice, it will make you happy"

I have to confess that I am going through a hard binge eating phase as well. I just went on a 10 day trip to florida with a friend and her family. Her parents were the only ones who cooked and they are very fond of fried foods and butter and a lot of other very rich or heavy foods. Up untill I left I was on a diet and trying to eat what I know is healthy and run every day.

As the trip went on I found out her mother didn't like me running in a part of town where I didn't know anyone and for health reasons, noone could run with me. Since I wasn't able to run or exercise I just sat in the house and ate from noon untill midnight and ended up gaining 9 pounds. I am not sure if the weight is from fat, water, or just the totm, but it deviastated me to come back after just 10 days and find all my hard work of the past few months gone. I am still working hard to get my binge eating under controll and not revert to bad habits but it is very hard.

You know, I read posts about frustrations like these, and I think some of us (myself included) are just hardwired to be binge eaters.

Then I think of my two little dogs and it makes perfect sense to me. I have two dogs of the same breed, roughly the same height, etc. etc. In all respects they are pretty much identical except for their eating habits.

My boy is a total glutton. He will eat until he explodes. Just the other day he jumped up and grabbed a package of big tortillas off of my counter top (this little guy is cat sized - 11" tall at the shoulder!), and ate the whole damned thing. He looked like a sausage, and he was miserable, but it didn't stop him from eating it. (Hours later he hurled a big pile of tortilla on the floor,and OMG the pile looked as big as he did!) Meanwhile, my girl completely ignored the feast. She's lean and mean, and he's chubby, and I have to feed him LESS than her to keep him from porking up! Poor guy is probably always hungry, or at least always thinking about food.

While I wouldn't say some of us are hardwired to be fat, I would say some of us LOVE food, and that it's a natural trait... probably inherited or something. I for one know I could eat a whole dozen donuts if I allowed myself to. People see me at my weight now and make silly comments like "One or two isn't going to hurt you." While that may be the case, eating one or two leads to three or four... and the next thing I know I'm traveling down that comfortable track and I'm gaining weight. It is ALWAYS a conscious decision to control what I eat. Oh, wouldn't it be great if we weren't ruled by the tummy, and were one of those naturally lean people (like my girl dog) that only eats when one needs to, and isn't overwhelmed by desire to much on tasty stuff.

For those of us who are natural gluttons (ha ha ha, 'tis true!), it's about control. The more practice you have in controlling yourself, the easier it gets over time. Everyone has it in them to eat responsibly, but not everyone has the willpower to do it. What's your choice?

You need to really explore your motivation for both binge eating and the reason you don't want to binge eat.

After lots of exploration, I realised that I binge because I'm bored. Eating had become sort of a hobby. It's important to know why you eat because then you can strategize how to NOT binge.

Your motivation to quit binge eating can be totally different. For me, it needed to be really specific. The vague notions of health didn't work because I rarely get sick. I had to narrow it down to something that meant a lot to me. Mother nature did that for me when I got pregnant and developed early onset gestational diabetes and pregnancy induced hypertension.

At first my goal was to avoid having a huge baby (a side effect of g.d.) and to avoid the onset of pre-eclampsia.

Now my motivation is to avoid the onset of Type II diabetes (since women who have had g.d. are 80% more likely to develop it) and to control my blood pressure, which still has not returned to normal. So my goal is to maintain a healthy blood sugar (I test regularly) and to stay off blood pressure medication.

My goals are specific and clear, which gives me a reason to avoid binge eating. It helps because I have clear indicators of my progess (not just my weight but my blood sugar results and my bp results) that I can think about when a craving really hits.

Once you figure out the reason you're binge eating, you can do something about it. I eat when I'm bored so now I find something else to do (like playing with my kids, taking a walk, etc.). And if the urge to over eat still bothers me, I grab my blood sugar book and marvel at how good they are (and think about how I had to give myself needles five times a day and how I really want to avoid that).

Good luck. I know it's hard but you'll be so pleased with the results.

I recommend reading Paul Mckenna's book "I Can Make You Thin." It's one of the few weight loss books that I have seen that primarily addresses the emotional/mental aspect of eating. His theory is that many people are overweight due to behaviors that we have developed to fill an emotional need. He points out how many people obsess about food, and then when they eat, they go into a trance and seem to completely ignore what they are eating. His plan is to help you fill that emotional role that food plays using less food.

I don't know if it is the magic bullet, but it has been another tool that have found helpful in developing proper eating habits.

Ahh binge eating and eating for comfort. Those are such companions of mine. I grew up swimming and playing water polo and could eat anything I wanted to and not gain weight. Then real life happened, I got a desk job, hubby (then boyfriend) developed cancer and I ate myself to 40 pounds heavier in 6 months. Up until a year ago, I could sit down and eat almost an entire medium sized pizza myself. Then I'd feel horrible and depressed, then I'd eat crappy for the next meal. I got to where I was buying a doughnut (or two) or a bag of small doughnuts or cookies, etc. at the grocery store and pig out on them on the way home. Then I'd feel guilty, fat, ugly, throw out what little was left of the bag/box. Ugh, makes me depressed just thinking about it.

Hardest part is stopping the binge eating cold turkey. After about two weeks it started getting easier to eat less, eat better and not be so miserable. I also switched to eating almonds or popcorn during the late evening snack time. Once you start cutting out more of the sugery/fatty foods, the easier it gets. Your body starts to crave it less.

The other thing that helped me was weighing myself every day. A year later, I have a pretty good understanding of the monthly fluctuations in my weight, so that's not as scary. I also can tell when I've had saltier food than normal, because my weight will be higher the next morning. But, seeing that scale move downward slowly but surely is huge!

I also agree that you need to make the changes to your habits for the right reasons. This time, it seems to have stuck. It's been 13 months and I'm still going strong. My life changing decision was the worry that I wasn't going to live to see my two boys grow up. Plus I wanted to be able to run around and play with them. But, mainly, I wanted to be healthy and fit enough to be there for them.

Now I have a second desire and that's to be in better shape and thinner than my sister-in-law...

It's hard. I know there are still occasions where the urge to buy a doughnut and eat it on the way home is huge. Now I go "OMG, how much longer would I have to run to overcome that doughnut?" Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy one on a rare occasion, along with birthday cake, pie, etc. but I try not to do it alone or by hiding out to eat it. Wow, I just realized I did binge eating when I was younger. I used to get up in the middle of the night and go in and have a pastry or doughnut stick or something while everyone else was asleep. We had a lot of crap in the house growing up. No, my parents and grandparents were not thin. Geesh, guess my problems go way back.

Holy cow, I just wrote a book. I'm sorry.

My whole life has changed. I left my husband. I am in a little apartment all by myself. My running is gone. My motivation is gone. All I want to do is sit and eat. Help me...

I was doing so well...

aaagggghhhhh!!!!

I was wondering where you were Rosie. Congrats on the new life. I hope you took the dog with you.
Why in the world did you stop running?

I can't answer that, John. No, my dog is at home in his comfy house with big yard to run in. I am adjusting to living in a tiny apartment in the city far from my lovely running trails...
But today is a new start. Now that I live in the middle of the city I don't have to drive where I need to go. So my first step back to health is to walk everywhere I need to go today.
Sasha, I'm sorry I hijacked your post. I was inebriated last night. That stops now, too...

ROSIE, depression can do unbelievable things to ones appetite! i understand how you feel- didnt leave my husband, but been seperated for a while and all i wanted to do was sit around and smoke and eat the whole day, until i saw my household and work starting to fall apart.

I decided to stop my self-pity and carry on with the life I had previously chosen for myself. now im still struggling from time to time with feelings of apathy, but i dont feel sick to my core anymore.

i am frustrated though - ive been working very hard to curb my daily calorie intake but my weight seems to have stagnated.

feel like i have a hole in me today and need to fill it up. already eaten half a box of chocolates - obviously didnt help, only gave me heartburn!

I actualy know what the hole is from but don't know how (or have the energy to try) to make it right.

evelyn, I hear you, girl.
I'm making progress, though.
Yesterday I did a vigorous hike in the morning, and danced in the evening. I still came home and binged! I think it was coming home alone that did it.
But I'm back in the game this morning. I have my running clothes on, and as soon as I'm done with this, I'm out the door.
Let's leave yesterday behind us, OK?
We can do this...