Emotional Eating – Especially Difficult For Many During The Holidays
Millions of people are affected by emotional eating in their everyday lives. Compound that with the holidays and you can find yourself packing on a lot of extra weight over the 5 weeks or so of celebrating. It’s not just the treats and parties that lead to this time of year being when people gain the most weight of anytime of year. If you have an emotional eating problem, the euphoria of the holidays assists but for many it also brings on extra stress, anger or even worse, sadness and depression. Not everyone has a perfect family with a white picket fence. But using food anytime of year to control emotions of any kind is never a good idea. We become so programmed over the years that there is a good chance you do not even realizer you have an emotional eating problem, Below you will find ideas on how to become aware and try to help control your emotional eating habits.
Before going any further you need to figure out the difference between emotional eating and physical eating. I know it sounds goofy but there is a difference. Emotional eating can hit you at anytime, almost blindside you. You can suddenly feel the overwhelming need to eat, even though you weren’t hungry just a few minutes earlier. Most of the time, you will feel a rush for sugar or fatty foods and once locked in nothing else will do. For example, let’s say you get a sudden urge for something really salty like chips. You can grab a bag from anywhere. Problem is not only are chips not healthy but they carry nothing of substance to make you filled up so once you complete the bag you are more than likely to still have a craving, maybe this time for pizza. So you go to a nearby pizza parlor and order a pizza. Not only are you going to feel satisfied on the first bite, you are more than likely gong to overeat, stuffing yourself with a fatty food. Same thing with ice cream. You can be watching tv and suddenly get the urge for ice cream. You go to the freezer, pull the ice cream out but instead of getting a bowl you sit back in front of the tv and overeat right out of the carton. Sound familiar? We’ve all been there.
The biggest reason for emotional eating is stress. See the solution to emotionally eating is less about your hunger and more about your emotions. The best way to handle this when it comes on is to sit down and make a list of what you are feeling stressed about right now. After your list is completed read it 3 times then tear it up and throw it where it belongs, in the trash. Now drink 20oz of water and go back to your day.
If the problem persists and is out of your control, consider talking to a counselor to help you better understand not only what is going on but the best way for you to deal with the issue. is out of your control, you can manage the way you think about it. If you can notice your stress in the moment, you can choose how you respond, rather than reacting the way you have in the past. As Albert Einstein used to describe the definition of insanity – “doing the same thing over and over, the exact same way and expecting a different result.”
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