Emotional Eating
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One way that most people deal with every day stressors is eating. Eating can provide a sense of comfort and distract you from issues that you may be dealing with. Eating can temporarily ease the feeling of loneliness and boredom. But emotional eating will most certainly ruin your health and fitness goals unless you take control.
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What is Emotional Eating
Emotional eating is when one engages in eating to suppress negative feelings and distract oneself from stress, anxiety, boredom, sadness, etc. Often emotional eating involves consuming large quantities of unhealthy foods at one time. Although emotional eating may be a quick fix, it is not a solution to the underlying problems. Not only will you discover that your issues are still there, but you’ll have consumed an enormous amount of calories, and you will most likely add guilt and regret to your mix of negative feelings. Thus feeding a seemingly unending cycle.
Often times this need to emotionally eat comes on suddenly. Since it is not hunger based, powerful cravings for specific foods such as pizza, chocolate and ice cream become overwhelming. You have to have it now and you have to have a lot of it.
How Does Emotional Eating Affect Weight Loss
Emotional eating affects weight loss a great deal. If you do not take steps to control emotional eating, you will experience weight gain. This is because emotional eating typically occurs when you are not hungry. Everything you eat will end up as excess calories in the body, which will then be stored as fat. These calories are also more than likely coming from high carbohydrate, and high fat junk foods instead of from fruits, vegetables and lean meats.
Emotional eating also encourages us to develop bad habits. When we are faced with stress, instead of engaging in healthy methods to deal with it, we turn to food. The habit of doing this will sabotage any health and fitness efforts we may have.
How to Stop Emotional Eating
Identify Triggers
The first thing you need to do stop emotional eating is to identify when you are doing it and how you are feeling. Keeping a food journal will help you identify the types of food you are eating and identify the emotion you are experiencing at the time. After you write down the foods and calorie information, be sure to write your emotion in the space for comments and maybe even a situation that led up to that emotion. Over time you will begin to identify an emotional eating trend and recognize what triggers this behavior. Once you have a better understanding of what your triggers are you can take healthy steps to deal with them.
Develop Healthy Alternatives to Emotional Eating
The habit of eating when your emotions get the best of you is a hard thing to break, but not impossible. Here are several healthy alternatives to emotionally eating.
Eat Healthy Alternatives
Keep healthy alternatives around. Ideally you will want these healthy alternatives to be things like fruits and vegetables. Realistically, however, you are probably not going to be satisfied eating an apple if you are craving pizza. These days you can find a variety of 100 calorie snack foods in your local food store. They may not be the healthiest of snacks, but it beats overeating. For example, if you have had a stressful day and you just have to have chocolate, try a slim fast double-dutch chocolate snack bar instead of a box of chocolate fudge ice cream. There are many brands of 100 calorie chocolate snack treats as well as other types of snacks so search around and buy something you like. Keep these in convenient locations such as at work or in your car in case you have a sudden urge. Incidentally, if you are craving pizza, they make pizza lean pockets that you can throw in the microwave. This is a much better alternative to eating a loaded pizza
Get Active
When you feel the urge to emotionally eat, do something active and stay busy. Go for a walk around the neighborhood, or get in the car and go for a drive. Do laundry or something around the house you have been meaning to do. Take the focus off of eating.
Keep a List
Write a list of things you enjoy doing and keep it close. When you are having one of your moments, look at the list and do something.
Seek Support / Accountability Partner
When you are on the verge of emotionally eating call a friend or a family member. If possible, arrange for someone you can depend on to be your accountability partner. You can call them up for support at anytime and they will help you deal with your issues instead of having to rely on food. They should understand that the goal is to keep you from overeating.
If you just can’t seem to shake your emotional eating habit, you may want to consider seeing a professional therapist. They will be able to help you get through the underlying issues.
Exercise!
I know that this is probably the last thing you are thinking about when you are dealing with tough emotions but exercise is a miracle activity. Not only will it increase your mood, but it can help with cravings. Getting your heart pumping causes your body to release mood boosting chemicals. Endorphins have been known to help with anxiety, depression and stress. Aerobic activity also affects two appetite hormones, ghrelin and peptide YY. Research has shown that exercise may temporarily lower levels of ghrelin, which is a hormone that stimulates appetite and increases levels of peptide YY, a hormone that decreases appetite.
Drink a Big Glass of Water
Water is a natural appetite suppressant. Drink a big glass when you feel the need to give in to temptation.
Limit Access to Junk Food
Limit the amount of junk food on hand. Fill your fridge and pantry with healthy alternatives instead of unhealthy items.
Emotional eating is when a person engages in eating to suppress emotions such as sadness and loneliness. Learn to recognize when you emotionally eat and implement healthy alternatives. Remember that it takes time to build healthy habits. If you slip up, try not to feel guilt or regret. Instead focus on getting back on track and how great you’ll look and feel once you accomplish your health and fitness goals.