After my surgery last summer 6/11/12 I got a huge burst of self confidence and went back to school, moved out and crazy enough re-entered the crazy wide world of dating, and now due to all those reasons and some health issues with my parents, I have been doing lots of emotional and stress eating, to the point I have put on 10 lbs and am now beating myself over that too. What are some ways that everyone else deals with their emotional eating? I found a great solution by going running, but due to my school schedule this semester I am tied to the computer doing homework so barely have time for anything else. Any suggestions that you awesome bandsters have would be so incredibly helpful!! Thanks :-)

Emotional eating is rough, very rough. I realized early on I was an emotional eater at both extremes, both good and bad emotions. Have a bad day? Have a Twinkie! Have a great day? Celebrate with a Hershey bar! It wasn't until I was banded and was changing my lifestyle that realized how emotionally driven my eating always was.

For me, my incentive is seeing how far I've come. Nothing depresses me faster than remembering what my life was like when I was almost 220 pound heavier. I was positively miserable. I never, ever want to be "that girl" again. So, when I feel the overwhelming urge to emotionally eat, I think and remember how awful it felt back then. I even keep a picture of myself taken the day of my surgery on my phone so I can look at it as a reminder why emotional eating just can't happen in my life anymore.

Best wishes.

Emotional Freedom Technique or "Tapping." Thus far, it is the only thing I have found that consistently works for me. I have been a lifelong emotional eater. I can stay motivated to lose weight for only so long before the emotions take over. I have battled with this Lapband vs my emotions for the past six years. The weight goes updownupdownupdownupdown. I have finally accepted that the physical barrier is not going to "fix" me. I have to do that myself from the inside.

I've been tapping since June 11th and I'm down 17 pounds since then. You'd think I'm on some crazy restrictive diet to have been able to do that, but no - it's been easy. I just don't turn to food, nor do I want it, like I used to. I use it for nutrition instead of comfort or pleasure.

If you're interested, google it - there are tons of resources out there that describe the process. I do like the way Nick Ortner describes it: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/web-exclusive-tapping-technique . I have also used a lot of this PDF: http://harmonyharbor.com/angieseftweightlossprogram.pdf . But like I said - you can find info all over the place.