One of the most common problems that can cause someone to become overweight is emotional eating. Not sure if you do this? It’s fairly easy to tell actually and it’s not an uncommon problem at all. If you’ve ever grabbed a bag of chips, or a carton of ice cream when you’re feeling down, stressed or unhappy, that’s emotional eating. Emotional eaters not only turn to food for comfort, but then they usually end up beating themselves up because they overate. It’s a vicious cycle that can be hard to break. How do you know if you’re an emotional eater? Does stress tend to make you eat more than normal? Do you eat even when you’re full or not hungry? Do you eat until you feel stuffed rather than just satisfied? Do you reward yourself with food? Do you eat to calm down or feel less upset when things go wrong? Do you sometimes feel like you can’t control your eating? These are the types of feelings and actions that can point to being an emotional eater. If you are an emotional eater, dieting becomes even more difficult because not only do you need to focus on your eating and exercise plan, you also need to be aware of your emotional eating and deal with that as well. That can cause stress which can make you want to eat and then…yes, you see the issue right there, I’m sure. The biggest thing you can do when learning to alleviate emotional eating is to figure out what is emotional hunger and what is actual, real hunger. This may sound easy, but it can be harder than you would imagine. There are a few things that can help you decide which type of hunger you are dealing with. Below are a few signs for you to watch out for, so you can learn to spot emotional eating. Emotional hunger tends to come on suddenly… a stressful meeting, a fight with a loved one, traffic jams on the way home… and suddenly, you want to swing into the nearest McDonalds©. Emotional hunger usually makes you crave certain, specific comfort foods like cheesecake or pizza. You feel like if you don’t get that food right away, you’ll go nuts. (not literally of course, but the craving for that specific food is overpowering) Emotional hunger can lead to mindless eating and before you know it the whole box of cookies is gone, or bag of chips is nothing but crumbs. You may not (and probably didn’t) realize that you had eaten the whole thing. Emotional hunger isn’t accompanied by growling stomachs and hunger pangs. Emotional hunger is typically in the mind. You THINK about the food, how it tastes, smells, makes you feel… Emotional hunger can make you eat until you feel so stuffed you’re uncomfortable and may not even feel well afterwards. All of the above can help you distinguish between emotional hunger and real physical hunger. Everyone gets hungry. The idea behind stopping emotional eating is not to stop you from eating to supply your body with the nutrition it needs, it’s to help keep you from overeating and causing additional issues that can crop up with added weight gain. So what causes emotional eating? There are many things that can trigger emotional eating but typically, stress, boredom, loneliness, hiding emotions, childhood habits you were brought up with and social influences are the most common reasons that people turn to food for comfort. There are things that you can do to get rid of emotional eating from your life. It’s not always easy to battle, but with support and some solid alternatives in place, you can learn to not turn to food for comfort. Discussion Questions: What are some alternatives you can think of to grabbing a bag of chips or box of cookies when you’re upset, stressed, bored, etc? Do you recognize when you’re eating for hunger or eating for comfort? What is the hardest time to “do something else” and not resort to food? What tips can you offer that have worked for you? Please comment below and leave the answers to your questions as well as adding to the discussion. If you have any questions as well, please leave them below. We and/or another reader might have some tips that worked for them that you would find helpful. Have you set a new goal? Are you struggling with new changes in your life? Are you trying to lose weight? Get healthy? Do you need some NON-JUDGMENTAL support? Could you use some encouragement and cheerleading? Then come join our group KickingtheFatwithKati
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 02:02:41 +0000
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