Emotional eating is the habit of eating food not just you satisfy hunger, but based on emotional feelings. For example, emotional eaters turn to food for comfort, to escape boredom, to reward themselves, or to reduce stress. Additionally, most emotional eaters tend eat junk food, fast food, carbonated drinks, sweets, and other unhealthy foods. This article provides some helpful tips on how to stop emotional eating.
Individuals who often engage in emotional eating ingest food items several times within a week to relieve or suppress negative feelings within themselves. Sometimes, people who emotionally eat feel guilty inside themselves after each round of eating. Nevertheless, it is worthy of note that emotional eating triggers a cycle of excess diet which is linked to medical conditions such as obesity.
It is a phenomenon that can be associated with both women and men, is usually as a result of multiple factors which include hormonal fluctuations, stress, or appetite disorder.
So, how can one quench the urge or emotional cravings for food? What are the ways to stop emotional eating? This article listed some effective methods to curb that excess desire to eat.
How to Stop Emotional Eating
Emotional eating is different from eating go satisfy physical hunger. Thus, these tips on how to stop emotional eating are not just meant to help you eat less or eat healthier, but to also help your overall wellbeing.
1. Engage Your Body In Active Exercise
Some folks get satisfaction when they engage in regular exercising activities. Walking or jogging around your hood or a short yoga workout can help you overcome spontaneous emotional moments.
In a particular study, sample participants were instructed to carry out eight weeks of yoga and were subsequently assessed based on their mental alertness and their understanding of situations around them.
The results from the study revealed that frequent exercise can be a very effective tool to alleviate emotional conditions such as depression, which often triggers emotional eating.
2. Engage Your Mind In Meditation
Aside from physical activities like yoga, some other people feel mentally relaxed when they engage in solemn practices such as meditation.
Several studies had proved meditation as a medical therapy for emotional eating and other appetite disorders.
You can try out meditation in almost any location. All you have to do is to sit in a place devoid of distractions, focus on your breath, and deeply breathe in and out.
3. Savour Your Food
Emotional eaters tend to eat mindlessly, and that leads to more and more eating. When you eat very fast you will not able to enjoy the different tastes and textures of your food. You will also not notice when you are full and no longer hungry.
You can stop emotional eating by eating slowly and savoring your food. Take your time to chew properly, and take a break between bites.
4. Keep A Food Journal
Maintaining a record of whatever meal you take and the time you ate, can help you detect the little mind catalysts that often push you to eat emotionally. You can pen down short notes in a diary or perhaps a notebook app on your smartphone.
It may be a little bit hard to keep up with, but try to keep a log of every single thing you eat, and specify how you felt while eating. If you eventually decide to visit a medical expert, your food journal can be useful to your doctor.
5. Maintain A Healthy Diet
While it can be hard to differentiate between emotional and true hunger, you should ensure you take healthy diet to maintain your body nourishment. Eating a balanced diet makes it easier to identify emotional eating patterns. Instead of eating junk foods that won’t satisfy you, eat more foods rich in protein, fibre, and nutrients.
6. Deal With Your Feelings Without Food
Most emotional eaters often complain that they are powerless when it comes to food. However, the real issues behind their emotional eating actually comes from feeling powerless over their emotions. When you don’t feel capable of dealing with your feelings head on, so you avoid them by eating food.
You can combat this by accepting your feelings, don’t suppress it or try to avoid. Then next thing is to deal with that feeling or emotion. There are some healthy ways to deal with negative emotions.
7. Seek External Support
You should avoid being lonely during your sad moments. A quick phone call to a relative or close friend can be the little magic you need to improve your countenance. There are corporate support bodies that can help you overcome your eating disorder, as well.
Your physician may refer you to a counselor who, in turn, can assist you to identify the feelings that trigger your unhealthy cravings.
Final Thoughts
Food may help relieve your negative feelings at the beginning, but tackling the emotions behind the craving is much more important in the long run.
It takes hard work and that’s why you should look at your eating disorder as an avenue to understand yourself and your feelings.
Taking the entire process bit by bit will gradually push you to a deeper knowledge of yourself. Furthermore, the process will also help you cultivate healthier eating habits.
Very helpful tips that I am going to pass along to my parents.
This is exactly what I do, and have done for decades! I eat emotionally and I am 60 pounds overweight. This is an insightful and helpful post for me! Thank you!