Do you find yourself gorging on a pizza when you feel happy or sad? If yes, you may be an emotional eater. Emotional eating can sabotage your weight loss efforts. It is essential to recognize emotional eating and deal with the problem if you wish to lose weight successfully.

What is emotional eating?

Some people resort to foods when their emotions wax or wane. For instance, a person going through a divorce or someone who has been fired may derive comfort from a big tub of ice-cream or burger and fries. The food they eat gives them a temporary high and soon eating according to ones emotions becomes a habit. Most of the time, people tend to find comfort in high calorie junk foods. The result of doing such is weight gain.

How can I identify emotional eating?

The following are signs of emotional eating:

• Eating even if you are not hungry simply because you feel angry or upset or happy.

• Eating out of boredom.

• Eating large amounts. If you are an emotional eater, you are bound to eat till you feel uncomfortably full.

• You may feel guilty after bingeing unnecessarily on so much food.

• Most emotional eaters prefer foods like pizza, ice cream and burgers.

• Remember, if you are an emotional eater, your eating habits will be dictated by your emotions and not by your stomach.

How to stop emotional eating?

The first step towards dealing with emotional eating is to identify whether it is really hunger that is making you eat. Before you start eating, take a minute to identify the reason behind your eating. A good way to do this is by keeping a journal of your day, activities and feelings. Also write down what you eat each day. By going through the journal, you will be able to identify whether it is emotions making you eat.

Next is to deal with the problem that is on your mind. If you cannot do it yourself, seek help from friends, family or a therapist.

Maintain an overall sense of well being. Take care of your appearance, exercise and be active in society.

Learn to identify when you are really hungry. If you still feel hungry even after drinking water or juice or eating a light and healthy snack like carrot sticks, chances are you are really hungry and need to eat a full meal.

Don’t stress out about your diet plans or the lack of progress you see in your weight loss plan. Stress can also trigger you from being emotional eating. Remember, it takes time to lose weight and if you stick to your plan, you will see the results.

Build your confidence and self esteem. Learn to accept yourself as you are and take time to learn new skills and socialize. Spend some time getting your hair or make up done so that you look good. This will work wonders for your self esteem. When you feel confident and happy, emotions will not take control over your eating habits.

Jonathan Pitts

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