Excessive weight gain and comfort eating?!

Excessive weight gain and comfort eating?

In the past year I've gained a LOT of weight - I've gone from a UK dress size 12 to a size 16, and when I went shopping today I had to buy size 18 jeans because none of the size 16 ones would fit :o(

I think my main problem is that I comfort eat, and also that I've moved away from home a year and a half ago so I decide what I want to eat and when, rather than my mum cooking for me. I get quite homesick and when I'm upset I eat, I can't seem to help it - I think "I'll just have a little bit of chocolate" and then before I know it I've eaten a whole family sized bar.

It makes me feel sick to see myself in a mirror now, I hate being so fat and I've got stretch marks all over because I've gained so much weight - I look disgusting. But I can't seem to stop eating - even when I had to buy size 18 jeans today, I was really depressed and the first thing I did when I got out the shop was buy a chocolate bar. (This is also really rotting my teeth)

What can I do? I REALLY need help!!

Hey hun, that is a fair amount of weight to have put on in a short space of time, I'm guessing about 2 or 3 stones?? It's difficult when you first move away from home and you have the freedom to eat whatever you want whenever you want, but you've learned the hard way that it's not always for the best.

My first piece of advice would be to try to exercise some control when you're shopping for food. If you don't have any chocolate in the house, then you can't eat it, can you? Try to find other things which are sweet, but don't contain as many calories or fat. Fruit is good, especially grapes - they're very sweet and have hardly any calories in them. Don't totally ban anything from your diet, it'll just make you crave it even more, but try to be sensible and restrict yourself to one "treat" a day.

Try to get some exercise as well, there's no need to go mad and force yourself to go to the gym every day or anything like that, but if you can do something that gets you a bit out of breath and increases your heart rate for 20 minutes, 3 times a week, it will really help.

You mentioned you were having problems with tooth decay as well because of all the sugar you are eating - try chewing sugarfree gum all the time, it means there is something in your mouth, it's sweet, but it's actually GOOD for your teeth!

Good luck hun, I know it's difficult and I know you feel horrible right now, but try really hard to just be a bit stricter about your diet and do a bit of exercise and hopefully you'll start to lose that weight.