Think with your brain and not with your heart! True, but we wish things were that easy. For most women, food tends to be the easy way out of depression, stress or anger. Food acts as a balm to help calm down frayed nerves. Emotional eating however comes at a price – obesity and related medical complications such as diabetes and heart diseases. In this article, we present you with 5 ways to combat emotional turmoil and helping you control emotional eating.
# 1 To stop emotional eating, identify the source of your emotional turmoil
When you find yourself turning to comfort foods even though you are not hungry, stop to ask yourself “why?” Why do you feel the need for comfort food? Peel off your thought like you would an onion until you get to the core reason.
Once you’ve identified the reason you are angry, think on how you can eliminate the source of the problem. If you think it will help, talk to a friend or relative. Stop emotional eating – it is not the solution to your problem.
# 2 You control emotional eating by putting ‘iron’ into your thoughts
Are you truly so weak that you need to resort to food? What can emotional eating achieve? It will only comfort you for a short while and then what? Will your problem go away? Put that plate aside and let the anger flow. Believe in yourself that you can control and combat it. After all, you are bigger and stronger than your anger or depression. Whatever might be the root of your problem, believe in yourself that you can rise above it and triumph. After all, you only get iron when the ore is in the fire. We all have to go through our personal infernos – it makes us stronger. Only a weak mind will resort to emotional eating.
# 3 Eat only to satisfy your hunger – not your emotion
Eat only at meal times or when you are truly hungry. Avoid distractions including TV and newspapers. Concentrate on the food in your plate, eating slowly and savoring every morsel you eat. Concentrate on the energy the food will bring you. Feel the pleasure in eating simple, wholesome, healthy food. You can stop emotional eating by not eating when you are angry or in emotional turmoil.
# 4 Contrary to popular belief, curiosity never killed the cat – it made it smarter
Be curious as to what you do and why you do what you do. You can achieve this by stopping all activity and thinking about your day and your actions during the day. See yourself dispassionately. Analyze your actions, what did they achieve? Was it worth it?
# 5 Believe in yourself
You can stop emotional eating by identifying the source of the problem, analyzing it and combating it head-on. Resorting to emotional eating is more like running away from the problem. The problem just follows you and will raise its ugly head the next day. Each of us was born with an abundance of will power and inner strength. You can achieve freedom from your stress or distressful situation only by believing in yourself and combating the source of the problem head-on.
Remember that emotional eating is one of the reasons for people to overeat and learning some facts about healthy eating can help you cope with emotional eating, too.