I have done that. Not out of abuse, no, but I felt more professional in the workplace without being too curvy. Sort of turned curves into bulk by eating too much. Took the sexiness away. realized what I was doing only after the fact. Very, very, very stupid, in hindsight. And then added unnecessary psych medications with the weight gain that they bring. Very unfortunate as well.

Since you are 38 and doing it, you are approaching the point of no return, because it becomes much, much, much harder to lose weight after 40. The metabolism slows down and the weight loss efforts that would have been successful earlier just aren't yielding anything anymore.

It is great that you have to the realization that you are using food the way you are due to the desire to have an unattractive body; the next step is to relearn this way of using food and start using food for nourishment and pleasure and positive social interaction and nothing else.