View Full Version : Food and anxiety
So my relationship with food has never been rosy. I worry a lot about being overweight and lost too much weight last year when all the anxiety about my health etc kicked in, then slowly gained it back to be a healthy weight.
However recently I've felt the urge to overeat so much, and often have been doing so, to the point where I feel so ill.
I don't know if it's making my digestion issues worse or not and that's panicking me on top of worrying about all the weight I've gained (about 8 pounds in 1 month if I've calculated right) and if I'm damaging my body with all this overeating. It's not even unhealthy stuff. Like I would eat so much yogurt and walnuts I would feel sick. Or too much bran flakes.
I've tried to stop myself doing it, as I don't think I'm excessibly hungry, I just eat... and eat and eat regardless, but it hasn't really worked.
I'm at home on my own a lot, and go back to uni next week, so it might be easier then.
I just feel so bad about the last month, and want to stop dealing with food like this. And also stop worrying I'm causing major damage to my body by overeating...
I guess I am scared to be hungry in case I get ectopic beats, but it's not something I directly think about.
Someone please help. Have you experienced this too? I keep googling and find things like tapeworm or diabeties and panic.
Are you at a normal weight currently? There is frequently an emotional/anxiety connection to eating habits. Have you talked about this with a therapist or your doctor at all? Sometimes I can be an "emotional eater" and eat a lot when sad or nervous as a distraction. Also when I am bored.
Try to pay attention to when you are eating, why you are eating, and if you are actually even hungry when you eat. There might be a connection there. Are you eating so that you never feel hungry and then don't experience ectopics? (Just going by your post)
8lbs in a month isn't worrying, I wouldn't say. I've easily put on 3-4lbs in a day before!!
I'm currently going through a similar problem, but the opposite - I have lost my appetite since being anxious. It's all about recognising your habit (overeating) and understanding why you are doing it. It's because you are anxious... accept that is why and you may find you stop overeating. The more you worry it's a separate issue causing you to overeat, the more you fuel your anxiety and will continue to do it. Accept it and you can beat it.
Are you at a normal weight currently? There is frequently an emotional/anxiety connection to eating habits. Have you talked about this with a therapist or your doctor at all? Sometimes I can be an "emotional eater" and eat a lot when sad or nervous as a distraction. Also when I am bored.
Try to pay attention to when you are eating, why you are eating, and if you are actually even hungry when you eat. There might be a connection there. Are you eating so that you never feel hungry and then don't experience ectopics? (Just going by your post)
I am, about 63kg, which means my BMI's about 20.8. I haven't, I bother them a lot about my heart and they don't like you saying more than one ailment in one appointment cause it's the NHS.
But I think I am too! My mum says she often eats more when stressed as well.
Well I'm not sure. I actually experience more ectopics if I overeat, it's more a lack of water, not food, that makes them happen. When I don't eat I go lightheaded and dizzy and feel like my insides are kind of sinking from my head downwards. That's not pleasent so it might be because of that.
It doesn't help that when I excerise my heart rate goes to 180-200 with almost no exertion and it worries me too.
---------- Post added at 21:35 ---------- Previous post was at 21:33 ----------
8lbs in a month isn't worrying, I wouldn't say. I've easily put on 3-4lbs in a day before!!
I'm currently going through a similar problem, but the opposite - I have lost my appetite since being anxious. It's all about recognising your habit (overeating) and understanding why you are doing it. It's because you are anxious... accept that is why and you may find you stop overeating. The more you worry it's a separate issue causing you to overeat, the more you fuel your anxiety and will continue to do it. Accept it and you can beat it.
Thank you, this was very helpful.
I think I am exeptionally good at fueling my anxiety looking back on it.
Ah yes, I had the same thing about this time last year and literally had to force myself to eat larger portions until I felt ill. Much the same as now, apart from then it was for my health and now it's just extra weight.
I feel health shouldn't be as difficult as I'm making it.
You just have to remember, there's nothing seriously wrong with you :D what is wrong with you, is simple - fear brought on by fear. you're scared of your own anxiety! once you stop fearing your own fear, you can start to relax more. I like to lay in bed, make my body completely loose and heavy and tell myself, i'm healthy and young and when I look in the mirror, I look pretty healthy too. :D
Fear of our fear is worse than the original thing we are afraid of!!
Fear of our fear is worse than the original thing we are afraid of!!
Simple yet so profound! Great post...
Positive thoughts
thank you all so much. I'm going to reread your comments again and really try and let them sink in. I think your right. I really obsess too much over the slightest pain then worry I'm going to get palps etc because I'm worrying, so then worry I'm gonna be stuck in that cycle again.
I feel posting on here to get reassurance probably isn't helping me cope very well on my own, especially with the emotions and getting to sleep at night.
do you have any tips on what I could do instead. Its so difficult to distract myself when all I can think about is 'im gonna die in my sleep'.
Fear of our fear is worse than the original thing we are afraid of!!
Great post :)
As my osteopath said this morning, (in relation to posture but I think it applies here too) it's about finding the balanced position. It's easy to go to extremes, but the ideal point is somewhere in between. However, once you recognise that they ARE extremes (i.e too many bran flakes make you feel sick, but too few makes you lightheaded), you are better able to judge where that point in between is. So, one month of weight gain is not much to worry about, look at it as testing out the opposite extreme ;)
Perhaps eat a bit slower, enjoy the taste of food, and you won't stuff yourself until you feel too full, equally get more physical - if your heart is a concern you can start off slowly, fit some walking in between meals or in your lunch break, once you start using all the calories you've consumed (even if you've overeaten) you will feel a lot better.
I hope that doesn't sound patronising in it's simplicity, I've come to realise I've also had a bit of a weird relationship with food and exercise in the past, and I'm slowly fixing it by finding a better balance between all the extremes... It's quite difficult to explain though!
---------- Post added at 12:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 ----------
thank you all so much. I'm going to reread your comments again and really try and let them sink in. I think your right. I really obsess too much over the slightest pain then worry I'm going to get palps etc because I'm worrying, so then worry I'm gonna be stuck in that cycle again.
I feel posting on here to get reassurance probably isn't helping me cope very well on my own, especially with the emotions and getting to sleep at night.
do you have any tips on what I could do instead. Its so difficult to distract myself when all I can think about is 'im gonna die in my sleep'.
Try the Getting There Slowly thread, we try our best not to do reassurance ;) But also, personally I've found reading as much as poss (offline) on anxiety helps - get a couple of books. And find a friend you can be open with about the way you're feeling, someone who will listen, it might be hard at first, but you might also be surprised at how many people go through these exact same feelings, and understand exactly even if their particular worries are/were different.
Oh and of course, I don't know where you're at with your anxiety "discovery" as it were, but if you haven't already go to your GP and ask about talking therapies - CBT, it is available on the NHS, it's just that you might have to wait a bit, in the meantime there is a free course for download on here somewhere which I'm sure someone else can be better at directing you to as I can never remember where! :D
I definitely agree with using the CBT course on here. Every time I wanted to seek reassurance, I would do an exercise from that course instead. I felt stupid at first because one night I just did the same exercise over and over, but it did help enormously after some time.
---------- Post added at 19:19 ---------- Previous post was at 19:17 ----------
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=131664
That thread has the course.
thank you all so much. Its a lot more difficult than I thought but I really trying now and this is all very very helpful advice
Serenity1990
12-01-15, 10:52
Eating too much or too little (or alternating between the two) is common in depression/anxiety disorders, so common in fact that it's one of the questions used to diagnose depression.
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