On the flip side, many people overeat when under stress sometimes to the point of eating compulsively. The following behaviors are typical of a compulsive eater:
- Eating when not hungry
- Feeling out of control when around food—either trying to resist it or gorging on it
- Spending a lot of time thinking or worrying about food and one’s weight
- Feeling desperate to try another diet that promises Results
- Feeling self-loathing and shame
- Hating one’s own body
- Being obsessed with what one can or will eat, or has Eaten
- Eating in secret or with “eating partners”
- Appearing in public to be a professional dieter who’s in control
- Buying cakes or pies and treating them as gifts—for example, having them wrapped to hide the fact that they’re for oneself
- Feeling either out of control with food (compulsive eating) or imprisoned by it (dieting)
- Feeling temporary relief by not eating
- Looking forward with pleasure and anticipation to the time when one can eat alone
- Feeling unhappy because of one’s eating behavior most people eat when they’re hungry. But if you’re a compulsive eater, hunger cues have nothing to do with when you eat. You may eat for any of the following reasons.
- To take part in a social event, including family meals or meeting friends at restaurants, where the food is the entertainment, even when you’re not hungry
- To satisfy mouth hunger—the need to have something in your mouth, even though you’re not hungry
- To prevent future hunger that is “Better eat now, because later I may not get a chance”
- As a reward for enduring a bad day or bad experience, or to celebrate a good day or good experience
- Because “It’s the only pleasure I can count on!”
- To quell nerves
- Because you’re bored
- To reward, comfort, or protect yourself because you’re “going on a diet” tomorrow
- Because food is your “friend”