End Emotional Eating: Learn How to Stop Emotional Eating
What is Emotional Eating
Emotional eating is simply the act of eating for the purpose of comforting oneself. It is a way of self-medicating, a simple and often inexpensive way to calm oneself and numb the feelings that we might rather not deal with.
When we try to get satisfaction, happiness, calmness or stress relief from our food, we only get a temporary, false sense of these feelings. Food cannot fill a void. All it does is cause us to overindulge and then feel badly about it.
The true purpose of food is to give our bodies fuel to function properly, but ever since the beginning of time in the garden of Eden, food has been a temptation that can seem impossible to resist. Often times, the resulting consequence of weight gain or feeling miserable is not enough to keep us from indulging ourselves over and over even though we try with all our might to resist.
Food can have a hold on a person, and more and more, it has a hold on the population in general. Obesity is at an all-time high. Some emotional eaters are not overweight but tend more to live in a vicious cycle of making constant deals with themselves around food and then not following through on their end of the bargain. This is where I tend to fit into the emotional eaters category myself. I love the feeling of being satisfied by food. That is not a problem at all in and of itself. After all, eating is one of life’s greatest pleasures_._
Eating can become problematic when a person cannot stop thinking about that next food item they will consume. If you fit into this category you may be an emotional eater. Relax! It’s OK. It is not something you need to hide from! Take a deep breath and realize that this is simply an area in your life that could use some extra work. You can end emotional eating if you work at it.
How to Stop Emotional Eating
This habit of being calmed by food is very common and there are some simple steps you can take to end emotional eating.
1. A common reason that people eat when they are not hungry is that they have learned to eat instead of feeling and dealing with their emotions. One step you can take to end emotional eating is to begin to ask yourself if you are hungry when you have an urge to eat. If you think you might be hungry, drink two cups of water or herbal tea. Hunger is sometimes disguised as thirst. If you still think you might be hungry, ask yourself if a salad or a green juice might work. If that does not sound good and all you want is potato chips or a brownie and ice cream then you are looking for comfort from food. No big deal. People do this all the time!! Take a deep breath or two.
2. The next step to take when learning how to stop emotional eating is to get in touch with what you are feeling. Many emotional eaters, myself included, have learned to calm themselves with food while never feeling the emotion that they are trying to calm themselves from. There is a relatively simple remedy to this. If you have the urge to eat, but have decided that it is most likely not from hunger itself, ask yourself this…“Am I tired, worried, stressed out, anxious, sad or angry?” It seems like such a simple remedy for learning how to end emotional eating, but it really does work. If you are sad, cry. If you are angry, think about what you can do to change the situation that made you mad and try to accept the parts you cannot change. Apologize and seek forgiveness and forgive where necessary. Focus on what you can do about your circumstance. You may even want to work on your thought habits.
3. One more technique that has been very helpful to me is learning about healthy foods and treats to add to my diet instead of trying to take away so many things out of my diet. Set a goal of eating a big salad every day. Drink a fresh vegetable juice every afternoon and begin finding really healthy treats to eat so you do not feel deprived.
If you follow these steps you will be well on your way to ending that damaging cycle of emotional eating!
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