This past week I graduated from a nine-month Emotional Eating Psychology Course. Yay – It was a lot of work! The course involved nine months of lectures, writing, quizzes, tests, and weekly meetings with an accountability partner. This was a deep dive into the very complex subject of emotional eating – how to recognize emotional eating, what are the myriad of causes, and how to eventually overcome emotional eating. It’s not easy – there are no easy steps to overcome emotional eating, but there are very real steps that you can take to understand the causes and move away from the shackles of emotional eating.
Everyone, I mean everyone, deals with emotional eating from time-to-time. It might be the celebratory piece birthday cake enjoyed when you are not hungry, unexpectedly hitting the bottom of the popcorn bag at the movie theater, or reaching into the panty when you are tired or stressed. Emotional eating becomes a problem when food becomes your go-to for dealing with negative emotions. Emotional eating can affect your health, weight-loss efforts, and your over-all sense of well-being.
Food often provides comfort for emotional eaters. But the comfort is only temporary! Emotional overeating can sabotage your diet and weight-loss goals. It can also negatively affect your health. Luckily, there are steps you can take today recognize the sings of emotional eating and take steps to stop emotional overeating!
Overcome Emotional Overeating
Try these strategies:
Figure out your triggers. In many cases, emotional overeating is triggered by an event, thought, or feeling.
- If you can figure out your triggers, then it will be easier to take control of them and stop them from encouraging you to overeat.
- The most common triggers are stress and negative emotions. Other triggers can be difficult days at work, fights with your family or spouse, and issues with friends or coworkers.
- Therapy may also help you deal with your triggers.
Try to eat only when you’re hungry. Teach your body to accept food only when you’re really hungry instead of viewing it as a constant source of comfort.
- This step will take time because changing your eating habits is challenging. However, you can take small steps to make dietary modifications. Learn to listen to your body and pay attention to real hunger pangs.
Create alternative plans. For example, if you know that you overeat after a difficult meeting at work each week, then plan ahead and try to prevent it. Try substituting a more positive action that also brings you comfort or reduces your stress.
- By creating alternative plans that don’t involve eating, you will be setting yourself up for diet success.
- For example, you can plan a long walk or gym workout after work to get rid of stress.
- Instead of turning to your fridge and ice cream after an argument, you can binge watch your favorite TV shows or get on the phone with a friend.
- The key is to find other ways to deal with stress and negative emotions.
Surround yourself with people who care. One of the main reasons many people turn to emotional overeating is because they feel like they don’t have a support network. Do you feel alone and isolated?
- Reach out to family, friends, coworkers, and others for help.
- Build a strong support network around you that can help you deal with negativity and stress. Find those whom you can call or visit without worrying that you’re intruding or upsetting them. In turn, be open to offering them support, too.
- Explain to friends or loved ones about emotional overeating so they can understand why you overeat. Discuss effective techniques that can motivate you to stick to a diet or exercise plan. They can remind you of these techniques when you need help, without being authoritarian or critical, to help you get back on track.
Emotional overeating doesn’t have to control your life. You can fight it and overcome it with these strategies.
If you are ready to deal with emotional eating and need support, I invite you to work with me as your health coach. It’s a journey, but one that is worth the time and effort. I offer a free 50 minute consultation to learn more about yourself and how intuitive eating can help you let go of self-judgment, and discover a better way to manage weight, find health, and love the body you have. Simply visit StaceyDaprile.com and click on the coaching tab. Our follow this link: Ditch the Diets and Find a New Way.
Once you are on my coaching page you simply need to submit your name and email. Once I receive your request, I will send you a questionnaire to complete and the link to schedule a Zoom meeting. If you are local to my area, I am happy to meet in person. If you are looking for a better way to mange your weight and health, I really hope you take advantage if this life-changing opportunity. It changed my life, and it can impact your life as well.
