What type of eater are you?

Here is a question for you. What type of eater are you? Are you an emotional eater, a stress eater, a grazer, or one who eats from boredom? What do you do to change that or distract yourself?

I am a combination of all of the above if left to myself but primarily I am a grazer. I have been able to control the emotional and stress eating pretty well by dealing with the issues as they arise and reminding myself of what I came from, and the boredom thing only presents occasionally and I do pretty well with that by getting moving. The grazing? Hmmmm........ That is much harder.

With my sleeve I have to plan protein snacks between meals and in the evening. You would think that would be enough, right? Nope! If I see something or think of something I want it. I nibble, I make numerous trips to the fridge and pantry to see what there might be lurking in there since I last checked (5 minutes ago).

I am learning to stop and think first. I also go get a big drink or a cup of hot tea. When you factor in the rules about drinking and eating I pretty much cover a good amount of time. Even yet, I tend to pick things up that are not planned and eat them with the tea! If I start to do that I put back what I have gotten out and find something to do. I admit that if there is something sweet in front of me I don't do as well but I get back up and start again. I am trending away from my old normal.

What are your best tricks?

Sue

I am a grazer!  The worst type of eater to be with a Restrictive WLS tool!  I am also a "bored" eater!  When I'm bored, I start searching for something to munch!

Pre-band, I was mainly a volume eater. I could out-eat my husband, who is 9" taller and does manual labor for a living. I also snacked, but didn't graze all day and night.

Post-op, I learned the value of planning healthy snacks into my day. That worked very well for me as a bandster. I still do it now, but my interest in food since being sleeved is much greater than it was when I was banded, so it's harder for me to resist food thoughts and cues unrelated to physical hunger. Lately I've been doing a bit better with that by finding something to distract me when the food thoughts arrive. It doesn't take much - sometimes just a change of scenery is what I need. So yesterday afternoon when I was working in my home office and started thinking about food, I got up and went into the bedroom to fold laundry. By the time I got done with that chore, the food thoughts had passed.

I eat out of boredom for sure.  Mental health issues keep me from working full time.  I do tutor elementary students part time.  It helps me to plan out my day for sure.  I plan not only what I eat, but when.  It helps me be structured and spread out my meals and snacks throughout the day. 

Exercise helps too.  There is something about working out that helps me with food choices and portions.

Good idea to change environment and activity to ward off cravings.  Sometimes I get online as a distraction, especially the two lapband forums I go on.

I eat when I am bored.  I am usually really good  all week long and then the weekend hits and I will have problems.   What I will do is try to plan my weekends so that I am busy.  The busier I am the less likely I am to overeat or eat foods that are bad for me. 

I am a stress eater.  When I get in those moods I try to do something with my hands such as sewing.  I don't want to get the articles I am sewing dirty so I do not have food around it.  It seems to work for me.

I also like to garden and digging in the dirt always helps me.

Ah, Granny....I am just iike you.  I am a great combination of all of them, but the grazing is the one killing me at the moment.  I am trying to battle it by keeping only low calorie and high protein snacks available to graze on.