Why Do We Eat

Maybe you know the situation ... you get angry and frustrated with yourself and your body and you just ask “WHY?”
“Why me?”
“Why can’t I stop?”
“Why do I have to eat?”

Well, the following exercise is supposed to help me find out why I eat. I’ve taken it from Doris Wolf’s book and translated it.

If you can think of other reasons, please feel free to extend the list. The more honest you are with yourself, and the more insight you have, the better for the recovery process.

I eat/ drink when ...	Yes	No
I am depressed	X
I am anxious	X
I am angry	X
I feel rejected	X
I feel lonely	X
I am bored	X
I am sad	X
I feel tense and excited	X
I don’t like myself	X
I am happy		X
I feel guilty	X
I feel jolly		X
I feel stressed	X
I had an argument with my partner	X
I don’t feel fulfilled	X
I failed at something	X
I have an unpleasant task ahead of me	X
I want to prove to someone that they can’t tell me what to do	X
I want to reward myself	X

Wow, I practically eat all the time! Funnily enough though, I don’t have to eat when there are positive feelings. It seems that I know just how to deal with positive feelings, but still use food as a strategy to deal with negative ones.

Looking at each emotion, I suppose there are better ways to deal with them. I mean, if you’re angry, you should hit a pillow or something, rather than eat. I think It might help me to do a list of emotions, and ways of dealing with them. I might stick that to my fridge door, and then I can maybe stop myself before I eat.