8 Helpful Tips When You’re Struggling With Emotional Eating
Do you emotionally eat? Do you struggle with emotional eating? Don’t let emotional eating sabotage your weight and your lifestyle! Many people resort to eating to feel better and relieve stress in their lives. Here are 8 helpful tips when you are struggling with emotional eating.
Emotional eating is when we use food to make ourselves feel better. We eat to satisfy emotions, to deal with stress and to relieve unpleasant emotions such as sadness and boredom. Food is often used as a pick me up or a reward – which isn’t a bad thing. When you get into a cycle of choosing to eat to deal with issues, that is when it can become a problem. The real issue is the problem is never addressed.
1. Identify Your Emotional Eating Triggers
You might not actually know why you emotionally eat. Emotional eating can be linked to both sad and happy feelings. Stress, social influences, childhood habits, boredom, feelings of emptiness and stuffing your emotions without addressing them are all reasons to why individuals emotionally eat. It is important to understand what is your trigger. This will help you deal with your emotional eating.
2. Finding Ways To Cope With Stress
Stress is one of the most significant influences on people who emotionally eat. Understanding how to deal with the negative emotions inside of you can help with emotional eating. This could include writing a journal, meditate and reading a book. Find something that suits you.
3. Try Meditation
Often emotional eating is caused by stress, boredom and anxiety. Try practising mindfulness to help deal with these emotions. There are meditation exercises and deep breathing techniques you can learn. When you have those feelings, you can employ these techniques.
4. Move Your Body
When you feel yourself starting to have a craving and wanting to emotionally eat, try doing some exercise. A walk or jog around the block or maybe doing some yoga. When you experience those emotions, doing some exercise can take your mind off eating and on to something else.
5. Take Out Triggers From Your Pantry
Do you know what is your choice of food when you emotional eat and have a craving? Normally for people, it is sweet and high-fat foods such as ice-cream, brownies, chips, chocolate and sweets. By taking these foods out of your pantry, when you want to emotionally eat you won’t be able to.
6. Start A Food Diary
Understanding what triggers you to emotionally eat can help concur emotional eating. Either in a notebook or on your phone, writing down what you eat makes you accountable for your food choices. This may restrict you from emotional eating but also understand your food habits.
7. Practice Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is for you to develop an awareness of your eating habits and understanding the connection between your triggers and your actions. Eating mindfully can focus your mind on food, the enjoyment the food brings and curb overeating. To do this, mindful eating practices include eating your meals in a quiet place and don’t rush your meals.
8. Eat A Healthy Diet
Having a healthy diet is not only good for you but important for your body, your mind and health. By maintain a healthy diet, you will be able to see when you’re eating out of boredom, stress or sadness. If you’re still having trouble, start choosing healthy snacks such as fresh fruit and nuts. Don’t choose chocolate!
