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You’ve
experienced it before. You’re
watching your favorite TV show and suddenly you find that you’ve
eaten the whole bag of chips, or, after a stressful day at work, you
start eating the Ben & Jerry’s straight from the carton.
When did our emotions start deciding what we eat?
Getting
to the bottom of emotional eating will help you make healthier choices.
Look at four ways we use food to handle emotions:
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1. Stress
eating: When you're
having a bad day (emotional stressor), you eat and eat till you end
“food coma” – numbing your body in order to block out the
unpleasant emotion.
2. Boredom Eating – You're waiting for an appointment
or a phone call or simply procrastinating, and suddenly you're nibbling
everything in sight. In
this case, the emotion of boredom is relieved by this
"nervous" eating.
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3. Unconscious
eating – You may find that you've finished off that entire carton
of ice cream and you don't remember how it happened.
You are blocking some unpleasant feelings---and at the same time
detaching yourself from your own actions.
4. Fear
Eating –When you don’t want to face something in your life,
distracting yourself with food helps you avoid coping with the
uncomfortable situation.
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It’s
important to remember that your cravings are a window to your emotions.
Emotional eating is really not about the food, its about
what’s behind your cravings.
The question then becomes:
“What is my food covering up exactly?” If you eat
emotionally, whether it is stress eating, boredom eating, unconscious
eating or fear eating, you are shutting down your present awareness,
your consciousness, in order to escape a current state of anxiety.
While this may work for awhile, it only pushes your emotion down
deeper and creates more stress and anxiety in the body.
Addressing your emotions is the first key to putting an end to
emotional eating. Consider
that you have the following choices:
1. You can
go on ignoring your emotions and letting them live deep within you.
This will keep you in the vicious circle of emotional eating.
Your relationships with food will serve only as a tool to hide
your emotions rather than as something that nourishes you and provides
you energy.
2.
You can acknowledge your emotions by allowing them
to come to the surface. It
may be difficult and painful, but the process of addressing your
emotions will allow you to heal from the stress, fear or anxiety.
Emotional
eating, and the cravings that lead to it, are not about food at all.
They are attempts to avoid dealing with unpleasant emotions.
And we all know, although it's easy to forget, that the relief
only works for a short time. Getting a handle on those unpleasant
emotions is the key to putting an end to emotional eating.
Here are some quick tips to help break the emotional eating
cycle:
1.
When that craving hits, take a minute to find out
where it comes from. Will
eating right now really solve the underlying issue?
2.
Take 5 deep breaths before eating.
Relaxing will help you to see more clearly what you are doing.
3.
Chew. This slows you down and gives you time to
realize what you are doing.
4.
Create a list of comfort activities.
It may be taking a walk, calling a friend, punching a pillow or
sitting in silence. Comfort
activities are much more likely to fill your body's need than
"comfort foods."
5.
Plan ahead. Know
what triggers your stress and have your pantry stocked with healthy
food like whole grains, vegetables and fruits.
By
making these smarter choices your food will nourish you and give you
energy, not add to your problems.
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