How do you deal with the emotional/food triggers?

[Sai 785]

My strongest urge to binge is after 8 pm. I have a diet app to remind me to watch out for emotional eating that goes of at that time every night. I come on these forums, read some posts, line up a bunch of hobbies that I do for my evenings: games, knitting, reading, musical instruments, exercise... Etc.

For other triggers, I always have little baggies of healthy food to carry with me or in the fridge if I'm at home. My favorite though is carrying string cheese in my backpack. It's filling and fun to eat.

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[LadyB_atx 29]

@thenewkel - months before my surgery (I'm barely 1 week out post-op 12/3/16), I was going to therapy, and realized I was an emotional eater. Group therapy for eating issues didn't feel like the right fit for me, but I worked on it and slipped, but each time I slipped, I didn't let it make me feel like I failed. I felt like it was a relationship that needed to end, so I picked one thing that I felt that I would say good bye to, it was a frozen pizza, ice cream dinner. I enjoyed it, thought about why it was such a comfort and ate it slowly making it a long good bye. From there, i worked on really figuring out what I could do to replace those feelings.

Now, I am very conscious about my eating. I'm still on liquids, but I make sure that even though I'm not hungry, that I'm sipping a few ozs of broth, Protein smoothie, tea, etc. every 20 mins. For my soft foods phase in two weeks, I'm seeing what recipes exist so that I can have my own festive portions of not only healthy food, but tastier food than the easy comfort of store bought diet food. For non-foodies, I suggest asking your dietician for a thorough guideline on meal-options so it is less work for you or recommendations for ready-made delivery services that cater to high Protein, low carb diets, ketogenic, wholefoods30, paleo, or bariatric.

For holiday meal and appetizer ideas, check out BariatricCookery

You already did the hardest part, not that everything else isn't hard, but will become rote, easier and even rediscover your relationship with food!

Continued success to you and happy holiday eating!  

Photos courtesy of BariatricCookery.com