Sitting in front of the TV with ice cream, chips and cookies? Do you eat because you are sad, happy or bored? If these situations are familiar to you and you do them every day, you may find yourself in the grip of an emotional eater. Eating like this can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food, which can lead to feelings of guilt and various frustrations.
What is emotional overeating?
Emotional overeating occurs when people use food for mastery or concealment intense emotions. Sometimes these emotions are negative, sometimes positive. When such a person is stressed or sad, he needs comfort and that celebrates with food. People also use food as award, as recovery or as a way to deal with unpleasant emotions.
When food is used for coping negative emotions, it can be considered as eating disorders. The most important thing to note is that this type of emotional binge only provides temporary relief from difficult or unpleasant feelings. After this ingestion, a person is often faced with guilt, shame, and thus causes himself even more emotional and physical discomfort.
What causes emotional overeating
Emotional overeating is a symptom unfulfilled emotional and spiritual needs. It can be a direct result of not being aware of what or why you are eating. Often it's not about the food at all, but about what you control or you conceal within yourself and you replace it with food.
How to overcome emotional overeating
To overcome emotional overeating, you need to understand the difference between emotional and physical hunger. Emotional hunger begins when a person has a craving or wants to eat something very specific.
Physical hunger usually starts in the stomach and leads to providing the body with the nutrients it needs and is not related to emotions. It is necessary to become aware of the situations, conversations, experiences or feelings that trigger the cycle emotional overeating begins. To determine the triggers, try keep a diary, what happened before you started eating, even when you weren't physically hungry.
How to cure / prevent emotional overeating:
- Avoid negativity
- Learn to take care of yourself and your needs, and it's important to start think positive. Not taking care of your personal needs can all lead to problems and emotional eating.
- Learn to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full.
- Learn to "feed" in ways other than just food, go for a walk, find your hobby, etc.
- Learn to trust yourself to be able to listen to the signals your body is sending you.
- Be kind to yourself.
- Consider your wants and needs while finding joy in life.
- Because you deserve to take care of yourself, find balance in your life.
