Escape The Painful Cycle of Diets,
Weight Loss Obsession and
Emotional Eating
Go
Right To: How Can We Help You Overcome Emotional Eating?
1.
Figure Out if You Are an Emotional Eater.
Start
paying attention to whether you have
"FOOD THOUGHTS" whenever you're stressed, or bored, or angry,
or lonely, etc. Emotional eaters use food thoughts to distract
themselves from uncomfortable feelings. The first step toward
changing emotional eating patterns is to recognize "FOOD THOUGHTS"
and overeating for what they are…ways to manage and regulate
moods. Emotional Stress (or Distress) leads to "FOOD THOUGHTS" which leads to unhealthy eating.
2.
Begin to identify the factors that drive (and perpetuate) your
emotional eating behaviors.
For example:
-
Do
you have difficulty tolerating feelings?
-
Are
you eating over stress at work?
-
Are
you afraid to say "no"?
-
Are
you afraid of confrontation?
-
Are
you in an unhealthy relationship?
-
Are
you afraid of emotional intimacy?
-
Are
you depressed?
-
Are
you lonely?
-
Are
you eating because you don't have anything else to keep you
occupied?
-
Are
you holding onto an unhealthy weight because you are afraid
of being sexually attractive?
-
Are
you having trouble breaking away from a critical or controlling
parent?
-
Are
you "in the dark" about why you overeat?
If you're
not sure why you overeat, you're certainly not alone. Many people
are not at all conscious of what's driving the eating behaviors.
Which makes perfect sense since the whole point of emotional eating
is to keep our feelings out of our conscious awareness! Emotional
eating works! At least for a little while...
3.
Stop Dieting!
Emotional
eaters eat in an attempt to disconnect from feelings. So, when
we diet, we just replace the "FOOD THOUGHTS" with "DIET THOUGHTS".
To manage mood, for however long the diet lasts, we obsess about
the diet instead of obsessing about food. But it doesn't work
for long. The moment we "blow" the diet, we're back to having
"FOOD THOUGHTS". For emotional eaters, dieting just delays the
emotional and/or behavioral work that inevitably must be done
in order for us to stop feeling out-of-control.
4.
Ask For Help. It's O.K. To Ask For Help!
Making
the shift from emotional eating to healthy eating is hard work!
An emotional eater has to develop healthier coping strategies
to deal with all the feelings that he or she is currently "stuffing
down" with the food. Keep in mind that emotional eating happens
on a continuum. Some people do it a little and some people do
it a lot. If it's a problem for you, there is no shame in asking
for help.
Find A Professional Who "Gets It"
Take a class, participate in a group, hire a Coach, a Therapist,
or a Dietitian who understands emotional eating. Interview them
thoroughly. See if their understanding of emotional eating matches
yours.
