Hello beautiful!
Today I wanted to talk in a little more depth about emotional eating. I believe we all have this to some degree. This is when we turn to food to make us feel good when we don’t feel great. With a lot of us it can be hard to stop eating as this hunger may come from a place of wanting to feel good rather that from true hunger.
I totally get that, I’ve been through this myself. It became and issue when I felt out of control. I needed to find ways to look at what was happening.
Check out the video below:
Why foods are an amazing coping mechanism…
When we are emotionally eating we tend to choose foods that are processed foods, carby, fatty or chemicals that make us feel “good’ and stimulated. This gives a temporary high. Food in general makes us feel good but this is a bit different. These processed carbs and fattier foods elicit a more impactful feeling on us. We want to feel GOOD and this is not conscious and we automatically go for the biggest high.
This helps us cope with the emotion. Coping is not the same as getting to the root cause of the emotion. Coping is temporary and can create an addictive cycle. We are using food to feel good but not getting to the root cause of why we weren’t feeling good to begin with. This is like shopping or gambling addiction.
We use this coping because we’re not taught to really look at our emotions. You we can get to a place where you can look at your emotions and start addressing what is going on.
TIPS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO…
Start journalling the times you have experienced emotional eating episodes and look at the following areas:
Types of Food
With this exercise we are looking at the types of foods you are gravitating towards. Why are you going for those foods?
Situation
Next you want to look at the situation around the food, a particular time of day, a certain situation, were you around a certain person. This will give more awareness of what triggers the emotional eating.
Is there a pattern?
Next if a pattern or emotion emerges you can journal what was happening. You can start to uncover what you were feeling and what was happening in that situation.
This will help you connect why you wanted a certain food when you were in this situation feeling X. This will give you more awareness.
For example, you might realize that you feel crappy at work because you’re not doing the work you want to do.
Personally, I needed to simply be with the emotions, acknowledge and feel them.
If you need more support feel free to reach out!
To health,
Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist.
