Sadly, emotional eating can interrupt your healthy eating and prevent you from losing weight on a consistent basis. Too often our efforts to lose weight come unstuck when we indulge in emotional eating. Using these tips and tricks can help you control your emotional eating, stay on your calories loss diet and enjoy long term weight loss.
Learn the difference between being truly hungry and wanting to feel better is not always easy, especially if you have eaten in response to your changing emotions over an extended time. You need to learn to recognize that true hunger comes with feeling physically fatigued and can include a grumbling stomach. Make sure that before you next eat food that will help fuel your body that you permit yourself to get really hungry as this is the only reason you should ever eat.
Determine what sets off your emotional eating, making note of the times and causes of these occasions and look for a pattern around this to become apparent. Do you hanker after salty fatty food when the pressure is on at work instead of those calories loss lunches you know are nutricius and much better for you? Do you head for the cookie jar at the end of the day after a drive home filled with traffic jams or do you eat lashings of gravy on mashed potatoes when the kids are a nightmare after school?
Identifying the situations and the times of the day that make you crave certain foods is the key to stopping emotional eating so if you know that you will crave something sweet when you get home to dull the stress of your trip, you can find another way to handle that stress that does not involve food. Maybe you need to listen to music for 15 minutes after you get home, or have a cup of tea with a calories loss snack like low fat cheese on a cracker as you read the newspaper, or maybe a hot shower will help. Find another way to alleviate the stress that makes you want to eat something sweet because dealing with that stress in a healthier way will help you lose weight and manage your stress more effectively.
Cross comfort food off your shopping list as this may give you momentary comfort when things are tough, but if there is none in the pantry, you can not eat it and will learn to seek comfort in other ways. If you feel down and think escaping in front of the TV with a soda and bag of buttery popcorn is the best way to recover, will you drive to the nearest supermarket to buy this comfort food? Probably not, if you are like most people who search for an alternative food at home rather than go out to buy what they would like to indulge in.
Find other means of comfort instead of food if you feel down, pressured and hyped up, like taking the dog for a walk, going for a bike ride, reading that book you have been dying to start, or meeting with a friend and discuss life over a low fat coffee. There is an endless list of what you can do when you are feeling sad or stressed apart from reaching for the munchies in those places you have always kept them. So start including these alternatives in your life as 'pick me ups' and keep on that calories loss diet at the same time.
Fill your cupboards with healthy foods because these will replace the comfort food from which you are starting to wean yourself. If you replace those high carb and high sugar foods with healthy calories loss foods you will have fewer cravings so do not keep any junk food in the house. When you feel desperately in need of something sweet, instead of filling up on chocolate or fudge, recognize the craving you are experiencing and test out better alternatives that will not set back your weight loss program like a platter of fruit or healthy food bars.
Delay any eating at least 30 minutes from when you are first aware of your craving, keeping a close and accurate check on this time. Do not cheat and start eating earlier than this and if after 30 minutes you still feel hungry, only eat half the portion of the food you planned to eat. You will often discover that after the waiting 30 minutes that your craving will have diminished or even vanished especially if you have found something else to occupy yourself.
Do something active instead of eating as this does not just use calories, to help with your calorie loss, it also causes your brain to secret endorphins and serotonin and these lift your spirits. So the next time you reach for a pizza to feel better, grab your sneakers and go for a walk, or a bike ride, or a run to help with your weight loss and to make you feel better. Even just a quick mile walk can really change your mood and when you get back you will feel as good as you would feel if you had just eaten 4 slices of pizza. - 16463
Learn the difference between being truly hungry and wanting to feel better is not always easy, especially if you have eaten in response to your changing emotions over an extended time. You need to learn to recognize that true hunger comes with feeling physically fatigued and can include a grumbling stomach. Make sure that before you next eat food that will help fuel your body that you permit yourself to get really hungry as this is the only reason you should ever eat.
Determine what sets off your emotional eating, making note of the times and causes of these occasions and look for a pattern around this to become apparent. Do you hanker after salty fatty food when the pressure is on at work instead of those calories loss lunches you know are nutricius and much better for you? Do you head for the cookie jar at the end of the day after a drive home filled with traffic jams or do you eat lashings of gravy on mashed potatoes when the kids are a nightmare after school?
Identifying the situations and the times of the day that make you crave certain foods is the key to stopping emotional eating so if you know that you will crave something sweet when you get home to dull the stress of your trip, you can find another way to handle that stress that does not involve food. Maybe you need to listen to music for 15 minutes after you get home, or have a cup of tea with a calories loss snack like low fat cheese on a cracker as you read the newspaper, or maybe a hot shower will help. Find another way to alleviate the stress that makes you want to eat something sweet because dealing with that stress in a healthier way will help you lose weight and manage your stress more effectively.
Cross comfort food off your shopping list as this may give you momentary comfort when things are tough, but if there is none in the pantry, you can not eat it and will learn to seek comfort in other ways. If you feel down and think escaping in front of the TV with a soda and bag of buttery popcorn is the best way to recover, will you drive to the nearest supermarket to buy this comfort food? Probably not, if you are like most people who search for an alternative food at home rather than go out to buy what they would like to indulge in.
Find other means of comfort instead of food if you feel down, pressured and hyped up, like taking the dog for a walk, going for a bike ride, reading that book you have been dying to start, or meeting with a friend and discuss life over a low fat coffee. There is an endless list of what you can do when you are feeling sad or stressed apart from reaching for the munchies in those places you have always kept them. So start including these alternatives in your life as 'pick me ups' and keep on that calories loss diet at the same time.
Fill your cupboards with healthy foods because these will replace the comfort food from which you are starting to wean yourself. If you replace those high carb and high sugar foods with healthy calories loss foods you will have fewer cravings so do not keep any junk food in the house. When you feel desperately in need of something sweet, instead of filling up on chocolate or fudge, recognize the craving you are experiencing and test out better alternatives that will not set back your weight loss program like a platter of fruit or healthy food bars.
Delay any eating at least 30 minutes from when you are first aware of your craving, keeping a close and accurate check on this time. Do not cheat and start eating earlier than this and if after 30 minutes you still feel hungry, only eat half the portion of the food you planned to eat. You will often discover that after the waiting 30 minutes that your craving will have diminished or even vanished especially if you have found something else to occupy yourself.
Do something active instead of eating as this does not just use calories, to help with your calorie loss, it also causes your brain to secret endorphins and serotonin and these lift your spirits. So the next time you reach for a pizza to feel better, grab your sneakers and go for a walk, or a bike ride, or a run to help with your weight loss and to make you feel better. Even just a quick mile walk can really change your mood and when you get back you will feel as good as you would feel if you had just eaten 4 slices of pizza. - 16463
About the Author:
Rowena French knows that emotional eating can sabotage weight loss routines. Tired of dieting with no results? Determined to reach your weight loss goals? My free tips show you how calories loss is the simple answer. Read my guide, hear my audio book!
