How to Stop Emotional Eating

Have you ever noticed, that there is a strong connection between your eating habits and your mood? There are many factors which bring about changes in the way we eat. Very often it is noticed, that people pile on kilos, due to emotional eating. Hence, for such people, along with the right exercises, they need to stop emotional eating to lose weight. Let's first read on emotional eating, before we turn towards how to control emotional eating.

What is Emotional Eating?

Emotional eating is a eating disorder like bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa. Have you ever noticed that you do not eat to feed your stomach, but you eat to feed your emotions? Your eating should be initiated by physical symptoms, but more often than not, it is initiated by emotions. If you are eating in response to boredom, stress, fatigue, tension, anger, loneliness, depression and anxiety, remember you are indulging in emotional eating to fill in the void. Are you thinking how do you differentiate between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Well, it is not difficult.

Remember, physical hunger will not hit you all of a sudden, it is emotional hunger, which hits all of a sudden. It is emotional hunger, that needs to be satiated immediately, on the other hand physical hunger can wait. If you are eating to fulfill your emotional hunger, you will keep eating, although your stomach is full, neglecting the physical cues. On the other hand, if it is physical hunger, you will stop eating the moment, your stomach is full. Have you analyzed your feelings after eating? If you feel guilty after eating, remember that you have eaten to fulfill your emotional food cravings. Sometimes, you may also feel sick, after an emotional eating binge. It is seen that emotional eaters feel empty, although they have eaten much more than they can actually consume.

How to Stop Emotional Eating?

Now that we have understood what is emotional eating, let's find out how do we stop emotional eating. The first step to stop emotional eating, is to stop and ask yourself, whether you are indeed hungry. If the answer to this question is no, then all you need is a glass of water. On the other hand, if the answer to this question is yes, wait back and evaluate how hungry you are. You can evaluate your hunger on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means you are extremely hungry. The other question is to check when was the last time you had eaten. If it has been more than 3 to 4 hours, then it can be a sign of physical hunger.

It is important that you evaluate your hunger triggers. You may want to make a note of this for a couple of days. It is recommended that you make a note of all that you eat and feel, both before and after eating for a few days. This will help you in analyzing your hunger pattern.

Many times, distracting your mind helps in dealing with emotional eating. You may play with your pet, take your pet for a walk, you can also go for a jog or a swim, watch a movie (without popcorn or chips), listen to music, maybe even call your friends or loved ones. This is a simple and nice way to distract your mind off your food craving.

Make sure you always eat healthy and well-balanced food. If the number of calories you take are less as compared to the actual requirement of the body, you will end up nibbling on food. Make sure you eat at least 4 to 5 times a day. Too much of a gap between two meals, can cause emotional eating. The most important tip is not to skip breakfast, whatever be the reasons for the same. Make sure your food is rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, lean proteins and do not forget low fat dairy products.

Exercising helps in managing mood swings, stress and depression. Hence, it is advisable to make exercising a regular habit. If you do not get adequate rest, your body will trigger off emotional hunger cues. Hence it is important, you take adequate rest and let your body recover from the daily stress and fatigue.

If you do eat in spite of trying the tips on "how to stop emotional eating", do not feel guilty. Remember to start afresh the next day, at the same time make sure you do not repeat the same mistakes again. Cursing yourself is not going to solve the problem. It will in fact land you in the vicious circle of emotional eating all the more. It may take some time to overcome the problem and you will have to work diligently in controlling this habit of emotional eating. I assure you, it is not as difficult as it seems.