Tips on how to stop emotional eating

Tips on how to stop emotional eating

People eat for different reasons. To stop emotional eating, you need to know what triggers it. Know what situations, emotions or places trigger emotional hunger. Emotional eating is most often triggered by negative feelings and sometimes by positive emotions, such as rewarding yourself for an achievement.

Causes of emotional eating

• Stress – Most people tend to eat when they are stressed, and there is a good reason for this. During chronic stress, high levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, are released. Cortisol gives you cravings for salty, sugary, and fatty foods - foods that increase your energy and pleasure.

• Boredom – This happens when you are idle and have nothing to do. You can eat to overcome boredom. You feel empty and unfulfilled, so you eat to kill the boredom and get that feeling of fulfillment.

• Childhood Habits – You may remember childhood memories of food. Some parents use snacks to reward children for good things, maybe your parents rewarded you with chocolate every time you got good grades. You can adopt the habit from childhood.

• Social influences – dinner with friends is a great way to socialize and have fun, but it can sometimes lead to overeating. It will be easy for you to overeat when your friends are also eating too much, or you will overeat to calm your nerves. If family members or friends encourage you to overeat, it's easy.

• Stuffing emotions – Eating can be a way to silence negative emotions you may be having, such as: E.g. anger, shame, loneliness, sadness and so on. By focusing on food, you can temporarily forget about these emotions.

How to Curb Emotional Eating

An easy way to do this is to keep a food and mood diary. Every time you notice that you have eaten unhealthy foods, write it down. Later, look back at what emotions caused you to eat. Over time, you will be able to identify habits or emotions that cause you to overeat. Once you know what triggers your emotional eating, you can start working on stopping it and finding healthier ways to eat.

1.Find other ways to feed your feelings

Unless you find another way to deal with your emotions without involving food, it will be almost impossible to give up this habit. One of the reasons diets fail is that they offer logical nutritional recommendations, assuming that the only thing stopping you from eating right is a lack of knowledge. This type of advice only works if you can control your eating habits. Identifying your triggers and understanding your cycle isn't enough to curb emotional eating - you need to find other ways to manage your emotions. When you are stressed or lonely, you can talk on the phone or hang out with a friend who makes you feel better, visit places you like, read an interesting book, watch a comedy show, or play with your pet.

2.Pause when cravings arise

This may not be as easy as it sounds because when the urge to eat comes, it's all you can think about. You feel the need to eat immediately. Take at least 5 minutes before giving in to the craving. This gives you time to think about the bad decision you are about to make. Within this period you can change your mind and make a better choice. If 5 minutes is a lot for you, start with 2 minutes and increase the time as you get better at it.

3.Learn to accept good and bad feelings

Emotional eating comes from not being able to deal with your feelings on your head. Find a friend or professional to talk to about problems and problems you are having. Being able to accept bad and good feelings without food will help you make progress.

4.Engage in healthy lifestyle habits

Exercise, rest and enough sleep will make it easy for you to deal with any problems that come your way, be it emotional or physical. Make time for a 30-minute exercise at least 5 days a week, relax and get 7 to 8 hours of sleep every day. It is also important to surround yourself with positive people who will uplift you and help you deal with your problems.

Inspired by Brian Syuki