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Understanding why we overeat is an important step on the road to making healthy food choices. And for many of us, our unhealthy emotions are contributing to our unhealthy eating.
It's called being an emotional eater. Are you one of them? I can admit...I am. I think if we are being honest with ourselves, we all do this to some degree. And in small doses, emotional eating isn't so bad. But many of us have gone way beyond minor emotional eating. Many of us are using food to avoid dealing with our true feelings...and not only doesn't it work, but it also compounds are troubles with feelings of guilt and anger toward ourselves.
This is from the Mayo Clinic - The Connection Between Mood and Food...
Major life events — such as unemployment, health problems and divorce — and daily life hassles — such as a stressful work commute, bad weather and changes in your normal routine — can trigger emotions that lead to overeating. But why do negative emotions lead to overeating?
Some foods may have seemingly addictive qualities. For example, when you eat enticing foods, such as chocolate, your body releases trace amounts of mood- and satisfaction-elevating hormones. That "reward" may reinforce a preference for foods that are most closely associated with specific feelings. Related to this is the simple fact that the pleasure of eating offsets negative emotions.
Food can also be a distraction. If you're worried about an upcoming event or rethinking an earlier conflict, eating comfort foods may distract you. But the distraction is only temporary. While you're eating, your thoughts focus on the pleasant taste of your comfort food. Unfortunately, when you're done overeating, your attention returns to your worries, and you may now bear the additional burden of guilt about overeating.
Here Diet.com address the 12 Types of Emotional Eaters...
You might already know you’re an emotional eater. Or you might not be sure and you may need a little bit more information to decide.
The first step is to find out if you are emotionally hungry.
Below are the 12 types of emotional hunger that trigger Emotional Eating. As you read through the list, ask yourself how many of these apply to you and your life.
If you use food in any of the ways listed below, you'll know that Emotional Eating is the real reason you struggle with your weight.
Many women have blogged about their struggles with emotional eating. Are you one of them?
Jessica Manning wrote about enduring emotional eating...
Have you ever dreamt of overcoming emotional eating by dieting even while knowing that it is not about self-control? Perhaps not, since it is not the thing that ends quenched. Well, emotional hunger is a tasty problem eating in reaction to an emotional trigger. We have all come across such people who make an attempt to manage mood swings with food.
Emotional eating is not about weight; it’s about the whys behind it and it is a very common consequence which clarifies that it is not due to actual hunger. hard to control. As I said, it develops as a problem only when the person resorts to regulating mood swings through eating.
Leah talks about crossing the threshold of emotional eating...
From the very first day on my raw journey, I have struggled with emotional eating. Taking away all of the cooked foods and SAD delights left me emotionally exposed. The longer periods of time I stayed raw, the more buried emotions surfaced.
Mary from Merry Mary is exploring her problems with emotional eating...
I didn’t - and still don’t - want to do this. I’ve put it off and pushed it away acting like I don’t have a problem. I don’t want to talk about how my emotions and other issues relate to my eating habits… but I need to. I wish I could just exercise away all my extra weight and forget about the reasons why I reached this weight in the first place.
But its not that simple.
Exercise makes me happier to a certain point. It gets all those good chemicals running in my brain but it doesn’t solve the deeply rooted issues that lead me to overeat. I have to do that myself by spending time with the messy, broken parts of my life. I have to explore them and try to find ways to heal those parts.
Laurie also admits to being an emotional eater...
Don't get me wrong I am so
