How to Stop Emotional Eating

The term “emotional eating” refers to the practice of eating food not to satisfy physical hunger but rather to deal with unpleasant emotions like stress, sadness, boredom, or anxiety. Some people use it as a coping strategy to deal with their emotional distress, which can lead to binge eating or overeating. 

Emotional eating is a widespread occurrence that has an impact on lots of people. According to an American Psychological Association study, up to 38% of adults say they overeat or eat as a stress-reduction strategy. It is also common in people with eating disorders like bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

However, understanding the factors contributing to this behavior can help people manage it better. Continue reading to learn more!

Understanding Your Triggers

Emotional eating is not a straightforward behavior with a single cause. Instead, a complex interplay between psychological, social, and biological factors leads to it. Developing coping mechanisms for emotional eating requires understanding its causes and triggers.

Triggers can be anything that causes you to feel stressed, anxious, or upset, such as a difficult conversation or a negative thought. Once you have identified your triggers, you can work on developing healthier coping mechanisms to manage them. 

Identifying what promotes this behavior and tracing its pattern is the foremost step in combating its triggers. Understand what leads to your triggers. The possible triggers could be:

• Stress: One of the primary psychological factors that can lead to emotional eating is stress. When you are under stress, your body releases hormones that can increase appetite and lead to cravings for high-calorie, high-carbohydrate foods.
• Negative mood: Negative emotions such as sadness, loneliness, boredom, and anxiety can trigger this behavior. People often turn to food to cope with these feelings and find comfort.
• Lack of self-esteem: People who struggle with low self-esteem may turn to food to feel better about themselves. However, this behavior can quickly turn into a negative cycle, as overeating often leads to feelings of guilt and shame.
• Social situations: Social situations can also play a significant role. For example, people may eat more than they intended to when they are at a party or family gathering where there is an abundance of food available.
• Peer pressure: Peer pressure can also lead to emotional eating. For example, a person may feel compelled to eat unhealthy foods to fit in with their friends or colleagues.

Overall, this complex behavior is influenced by a variety of factors. By understanding these factors, individuals can take steps to overcome emotional eating and develop healthier eating habits. 

Let’s read about the different strategies which could help. 

Track Your Eating Habits With a Diary

Emotional eating can be challenging to identify, especially if it has become a habit. However, tracing these habits can register them, initiating a shift in approaching them. 

Logging what you’re consuming throughout the day will help you trace and be mindful of what you’re putting in your body. As you progress with this habit, try adding the macros or the nutritional values credited to each meal. This will help you realize if your eating habit promotes deficiency or excess development into obesity or other health complications. Moreover, dedicate another column to how you’re feeling at that particular moment when you consumed that food article. Was it out of boredom, distraction, hunger, or to avoid anxiety?

Dedicate a separate diary for this task and show up to trace each food component you consume throughout the day, along with the emotive segment attached to it. Make sure to revisit the day’s log at the end of the day, reflect on your choices, and make decisive healthy choices.

As emotional eating not only affects our weight but also has several other harmful effects on our physical, psychological, and social well-being, maintaining a log of the food consumed along with the emotional factor will also help you trail down any psychological or physical discomfort you experience.

Work Toward Set Goals

Emotional eating can eventually lead to compromised physical fitness. Weight gain is one of the most obvious consequences of emotional eating. Obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are some health issues that can follow from here. Additionally, digestive issues like bloating, stomach pain, and constipation can also result from emotional eating.

Set a goal for yourself, trace its progress, and focalize on the results for a focused integration of the problem at hand for a quicker resolution. If you aim to cut the fat and bad cholesterol out of your diet, setting a goal to not overindulge in salty and oily junk food can be your goal. Set small goals for yourself and do not restrict yourself too much or undereat. Setting specific goals for yourself is a healthy approach to neutralizing falling on either side of the extreme spectrum of either a nutritional deficit or caloric density.

Find Support Through a Loved One or a Professional

As we feel guilty or embarrassed about our eating habits, we might isolate ourselves even more. We might also shy away from social situations like going out to eat with friends or going to parties out of concern that we’ll overeat in front of them.

Confide in a trusted loved one to share your concerns about the recurrence of such emotional eating episodes. Sharing your concerns with a trusted loved one or a professional will help you unload the pent-up emotions, surface the problem, and make it more likely for you to reach a definitive solution.

If you are struggling with emotional eating and find it difficult to manage on your own, seeking professional help can be a valuable option. Some professionals who can help you include:

• Registered dietitians or nutritionists specializing in emotional eating can help you develop a healthy meal plan
• Therapists or counselors who can help you address the underlying emotional issues that contribute to your eating habits
• Support groups or community programs that can provide encouragement and accountability

Using these strategies, you can learn to manage your emotions and develop healthy habits that can help you break free from emotional eating. Remember that overcoming emotional eating is a journey, and it may take time and effort, but the rewards of improved health and well-being are well worth it.

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Keep Unhealthy Foods Out of Your Home

To stop falling back into the old habits of overindulging in food to handle any situation which requires efforts to think or act, remove any potential threat to your set goal. Eliminate all junk food from your snack cabinet and fridge. Use this as an opportunity to look for healthier alternatives. 

If you don’t have direct or easy access to junk-unhealthy food, this creates a barrier and a buffer time for your brain to reconsider if you really want to consume it. Sure, sometimes treating yourself is only normal, but define your limits to avoid falling into the emotional eating spiral.

Making a decisive choice about eating healthy, getting rid of all unhealthy items from your pantry which might astray your set goal, and substituting them with healthier options is an effective technique in combating emotional eating and a stepping stone towards inculcating a healthier lifestyle routine by routine.

Find Healthy Snacks

While meals can be comparatively easily nutritionally packed, snacking has the tendency to develop into unhealthy options. This can be easily curbed by planning ahead your snacking options. While packed junk food is tempting for both the price they offer as well as the accessibility which we can devour, they can very easily ruin your entire goal of staying on track with your fitness journey.

Find snacks with high fiber and low fat. Fruits, nuts, smoothies, soups, or yogurt are some great healthy yet fulfilling alternatives. If you have children in your home, make them join the health bandwagon with you. It is all about breaking out of the pattern of unhealthy snacking with healthy substitutes. Chocolates can have dates as a substitute, dry fruits for chips, and fruits for those sugar-craving shifts.

Try Relaxation Techniques

Relaxation techniques and developing mindfulness and self-awareness can help you become more attuned to your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. This, in turn, can help you better understand your eating behaviors.

Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment without judgment. While self-awareness involves understanding your own emotions and motivations. Some of the ways which can help you relax and shift your attention from obsessive eating are:

• Practicing meditation or deep breathing exercises
• Keeping a journal to track your emotions and eating patterns
• Practicing mindfulness while eating, such as savoring the taste, texture, and aroma of your food

Move Your Body and Exercise

Movement in the form of just walking or indulging in cardio or weight training will have tremendous fast and long-term positive effects on obsessive eating patterns. Drink a glass of water before you go for another series of snacks. Engaging in any physical activity will help your focus shift from food, regulate blood sugar and cholesterol, and keep your overall physical health in check. Fuel your body with protein-efficient food items in order to repair and replenish muscle expenditure during a heavy exercise session. Keep yourself well hydrated so that you don’t concede thirst for hunger.

Get Started With DocVita Today

It’s essential to acknowledge the importance of addressing emotional eating and its impact on our lives. By seeking help and making small changes to our daily routines, we can manage our emotional eating habits and improve our overall well-being.

We must remember this: emotional eating is a cycle that can be broken, and there is always hope for a better tomorrow.

Get started with DocVita to connect with an appropriate professional and seek the help you deserve!