{{{P-C}}}

I'm in such a mood, all I want to do is EAT!

I don't know if this could be part of your problem, but it is a huge part of my food issues. I have tremendous jaw tension. If I believed in reincarnation I'd be sure I was a canine or a shark or something bitey in a former life, because I'm often compelled to bite when I'm provoked, and as a result I clench my teeth and my jaw a lot. Lots.

When I'm eating to assuage tension, I tend to plow through quantities of food, not even registering what or how much I'm eating. And then later, of course, between the riled-up stomach acid and the indiscriminate and too much food, I'm physically sick, and hating myself for lack of control and emotionally sick, too.

So? Raw carrots. The big ones, like for soup and stew. Raw turnips, celery, anything hard and woody that takes effort to bite and forces you to chew a lot. It sounds uber silly but, for me at least, it quickly dissipates the tension caused by anger. You can't chow through as many big carrots as you can bags of Fritos, and however many you have, they're healthy.

May not do the trick for anybody else, but I've made myself sick eating anger a whole lot less since I figured this out.

I've switched to sugar snap peas, Bev. I dip in a bit of ranch dressing, too. But I mostly just crunch on those sweet, crunchy things.

I've also figured out that when I eat breakfast--even just toast and a banana or a cup of instant oatmeal and coffee--I eat almost 300 calories a day less.

If I believed in reincarnation I'd be sure I was a canine or a shark or something bitey in a former life, because I'm often compelled to bite when I'm provoked, and as a result I clench my teeth and my jaw a lot. Lots.

When I'm eating to assuage tension, I tend to plow through quantities of food, not even registering what or how much I'm eating. And then later, of course, between the riled-up stomach acid and the indiscriminate and too much food, I'm physically sick, and hating myself for lack of control and emotionally sick, too.

Oh my god, Bev. This is cur-razy. That is eXactly my experience. I'm constantly trying to stretch my jaw. I don't grind my teeth in my sleep, thank goodness, but I DO want to chew through everything. arngharngharngh.

I need to find something other than carrots though. Raw carrots tend to aggravate my stomach acid issues.

Maybe I should find a leather belt to chew on. ARgh.

Bonny, do you like jerky? Or are you vegetarian?

See, I'm having a very hard time not with the calories themselves, in terms of "but I can't eat enough on that!" (except occasional days), but with just WANTING. I am currently full--I had lunch a couple hours ago--bbq chicken, an orange, and a pack of almonds. But do I want YUMMY FOOD in my MOUTH? Hells yeah. ...why can't we just eat and bypass the tummy? My tummy is not saying 'feed me'! Dieting would be so much easier if I could just go cold turkey, though....

I feel your pain. Anxiety/nerves/stress has me wanting to munch. And then if things taste good, I just want to keep doing that which is good. Alas, it's not good in the belly. I agree, can't we have something for taste buds, that takes care of the jaw thing mentioned earlier, but doesn't actually go into your system, so no calories/fat are accrued. If it could *not* involve puking, I would be interested.

Celery?

I used to chew on inedible objects like pen caps all the time but now that I have a tongue ring I just play with that. Not that I'm not also an incorrigible snacker. I went through most of a bag of cheese popcorn watching Bones last night.

Bonny, do you like jerky? Or are you vegetarian?

There is vegetarian jerky, isn't there? Not that I'm advocating it, because it could be gnarly.

Also, a side effect of the Wellbutrin is that I get agitated easily, and the agitation makes me actually snap my teeth together, like an alligator chomping or something. It makes me look crazy, which is ironic, considering it's caused by a drug to make me *less* crazy.