We all partake in emotional eating. Whether we are celebrating someone's birthday or mourning the loss of a loved one - food is rarely ever uninvolved. Comfort foods remind us of when we were young and even just the smell can make us feel safe and secure because it is a reminder of our childhood. We often crave these comfort foods most when life gets challenging or stressful.
For most of us we don't realize we are an emotional eater or we don't think it is that serious. For some of us emotional eating doesn't lead to feelings of guilt or weight gain. For some of us we can comfort eat and think its no big deal, but it really is. For others, emotional eating is out of control and something that can rule our lives on a daily basis. This can seem like overwhelming cravings or hunger, but really it is the emotions that we feel making us feel hunger, desperate and adding to our weight.
Comfort food gives us instant gratification and takes away our ability to feel. Digestion and feeling both take up a lot of energy and therefore the body cannot do both. Comfort eating allows us to not have to deal with the emotion as we overload our digestive system with toxic rubbish.
When we feel emotional, it can be normal for us to feel a big empty hole inside of us like we are hungry. Instead of facing what this means - i.e. our emotions, we stuff it down. In society it seems as though we have become scared to feel so much so we don't even realize that we are hiding from our emotions most of the time.
When we don't allow ourselves to feel, we repress it. When you learn and begin to allow yourself to feel the emotion or emotions that arise and stop stuffing down you can feel very overwhelmed. This is because your body will be releasing past pent up emotions and thus it can hit you very hard. This is why it can be hard to let go of emotional eating, because we have to get past that first initial "scare" in order to move on and start learning to appreciate emotions for what they are. Being in the present moment, allowing a feeling to wash over us is wonderful and should be appreciated. The more you allow yourself to be in the present moment and feel, the less emotions will consume you and the less scared you will be of them. The intensity of the emotion will also drop. You will become stronger mentally and physically. You will feel so much better once it's off your chest, instead of suppressing it with food.
Of course getting to this point isn't necessarily simple. Some people can break their emotional eating by nourishing their body properly to get rid of physical cravings and getting support from others when they feel stress or emotional. Essentially replacing the comfort with a person instead of using food.
If you want to break emotional eating, you need to become aware of how and why you eat. Take a day out to observe yourself and what triggers you to eat. Are you eating out of true hunger? Most people don't even have an understanding of true hunger!
If you find yourself eating for emotional reasons, can you stop yourself? Instead of eating can you sit and allow the emotion to wash over you - give yourself time to feel it and move pass it? Or can you turn to someone to talk about how you are feeling?
Don't be hard on yourself. Emotional eating is probably something you have done from a very early age and so is a part of your make up. It is a learnt habit and it is how you have learnt to cope with the world. To undo something so ingrained in you will take time, so if you find yourself eating out of emotion - if you slip up - learn from it, don't feel bad about it just move on. The first step is recognition. Once you know that you are eating out of comfort, you are able to overcome it.
Journaling can also help you pinpoint patterns in your eating. Write down how you feel before, during and after a meal. What triggered your eating - was it genuine hunger?
If you start doing this, you should, within time, be able to overcome your emotional eating and be able to feel and look after yourself properly. If you find it too hard or daunting to battle emotional eating yourself, you could try seeing a counsellor or there is a great program online that can help.
Kelly Aziz is an expert in the field of nutrition and addiction psychology. She is the author of the acclaimed "Free to Eat" Combat Your Cravings Ebook & Natural Weight Loss Program that helps you eat well and combat cravings for good. For more information please visit: Cravings
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