I'm an emotional or stress eater too. All the suggestions here are excellent. I have two more to add on top of these that have worked for me.


You are doing Atkins- can you go back to induction? Sometimes cravings come back for me with adding carbs. Get into deep ketosis-- go high fat super low carb for a few days. White knuckle it for three days if you have to. In deep ketosis I crave less and have less appetite, high fat makes me full/less hungry. Then I have the mental ability to do those other things. The walk, play with a dog, listen to music, cry, go sit under a tree, find someone to talk to, go help a neighbor. For example- go for a walk, sorry for myself, depressed, mad I have to go for a walk, cursing the world etc...and boy do I feel better after a certain amount of time-- I promise myself I will walk just 15 min away from my house...then of course I'm stuck and I have to walk the 15 min home...and by then my mind set has changed completely.

My second approach is to to go ahead and eat-- but only low carb/almost zero carb, no sweetener foods. Bacon for me is a huge help. If I binge on sweets, I'm depressed, exhausted and ashamed...and hungry soon after. If I "binge" on a mix of bacon, butter, a little cheese, beef and gravy, chicken drippings, etc-- I get so full I end up not eating for hours. For example-- I stress-ate after work yesterday at 5....it's now 7 am and I wasn't hungry all those hours in between. Mint tea in the evening was all I needed. I'm not saying I can do this every day, but on those occasions I "have" to, it works way better than high carb binging to keep me feeling emotionally calm.

For me, once I'm stable on low carb high fat, I eat for emotional reasons way way less. The stable blood sugar, the feeling that in spite of all stresses I am feeding myself right, that this woe is nurturing and loving myself, and having low carb strategies and healthy no-food strategies have all over time helped me be less of an emotional eater.

We're here on your side. All the suggestions here have something to offer-- even if inside it makes you roll your eyes or say we don't understand how it is for you. You'll find that there are things that help your personal journey with this-- trial and error and you'll identify the things that work for you.

Good luck with this, friend. The emotional journey you are on is the one that (in my opinion) is what makes the weight loss and the life change possible. It's great you asked for support. Keep going.