Your emotions affect every cell in your body. Mind and body, mentaland physical, are intertwined.
~Thomas Tutko
I must confess that I am an emotional eater. When something good happens, I prefer to celebrate by eating one of my favorite meals or desserts. When I’m stressed or angry, I’ve been known to rely on food to lift my spirits. On occasion I get bored and am tempted to pass the time away by eating. These tendencies are a reflection of the habits that I developed over the years. I had resolved my problems with food so much that I was on auto-pilot. I didn’t think about what I was doing, I just did it. That was the bad news. The good news is that I was able to develop new habits by making myself aware of what I was doing. I found a way to be more conscious of my decisions. In essence, I took myself off of auto-pilot.
Emotional eating is a vicious cycle that can only be stopped when we become aware of how our feelings influence our food choices. I have found that the best way to face my feelings was to keep track of them. I kept track of what I was eating and why. In the end I learned that I wasn’t always hungry when I ate. There were many times where I ate just because I “had a taste” for something. There were also times that I ate because I was bored, angry, or stressed.
It wasn’t until I made the decision to lose weight that I realized how out of control I had become.
I’m happy to say that that I eventually broke out of my emotional eating cycle. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. Now, when I’m tempted to eat to fill an emotional void, I call a friend or find something fun to do. When someone says or does something that makes me upset, I now talk it through rather than hold in my feelings and eat. When I have a tough day at work, I take a walk or workout to relieve my stress. Despite this progress, there are still times where I’m tempted to resort to emotional eating and every once in a while I give in. I guess it’s like any addiction. You may not be able to cure it, but you can find a way to manage it. No food is bad in moderation; it’s eating in excess that gets us in trouble.
To break this habit, keep a journal of your food choices and emotions. I recommend that you use it for one week. During this week, you don’t have to change what you eat. Your only assignment is to ask yourself two questions every time you eat: “Am I truly hungry?” and “Am I eating to soothe my emotions?” It is important that you answer these questions honestly. Being true to you is the only way you can move forward.
After you have completed the exercise, take a look your food choices over the course of the week. How often did you eat when you weren’t hungry? What type of emotions were you feeling at the time? Is there a pattern where a certain emotion triggers a desire for a particular food? Were your comfort foods healthy foods or did they tend to be high in fat, sugar, and calories? As you analyze your food journal, you will learn the answer to these questions and more. Now that you are aware of how your mood affects your eating habits, it’s time to come up with a plan of action for when (not if) these feelings resurface. What will you do instead of eat? Give this some serious thought because the only way to overcome unhealthy habits is to replace them with healthy ones. Be sure to put your plan in writing so that you can refer to it when needed.
I found these articles on emotional eating to be very helpful. They may be helpful to you as well.
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