The Struggle is Real with Emotional Eating

Has anyone out there ever heard of Emotional Eating or about the struggles that come with it- Momma, we got you.

Healthy Tip Tuesday is brought to you in partnership with Trinity Health Systems.

It is when a person consumes foods in response to emotions rather than eating when they are hungry. Negative emotions such as stress and anxiety, boredom, sadness, and even positive events such as weddings and parties all can result in emotional eating.  Happy or sad, most people correlate comfort food with feeling better. Ice cream after a breakup, a bag of chips when we are bored, and too many helpings of dessert at Thanksgiving all result in the potential to over-eat. Read on to learn more about how to take steps to stop emotional eating?

Journaling or a Food Diary: Create a food diary 

Writing down what you are eating, how much, and what you are feeling as compared to if you are really hungry shows the patterns developed connecting stress/mood to food.

Mindful Wellness: Practicing mindful wellness

This has also been shown to be a great way to tame stress and encourage mindful eating. When people slow down, pace themselves and enjoy food using all of their senses, everyone is able to pay better attention to the impulse to grab unhealthy foods. This also decides if we decide if we are hungry. Look up and eat healthy during stressful times.

Build a Support Network: Find friends, family, neighbors, or even community members at the local gym to be a support.

Having a support network helps efforts to change eating habits and improves the chance of success! It may also be helpful to join a support group specifically for individuals with similar emotional eating behaviors to learn better ways of coping.

Substitute other activities for eating: This could look like taking a walk, reading, calling an old friend, or playing with your cat or dog.

Doing something that reduces your stress fights boredom, or takes away the temptation to emotionally eat and substitutes a healthier behavior is a great way to reduce emotional eating.

There isn’t much a person can control when it comes to situations but creating goals to make better food choices when stressed and reduce my emotional eating is one thing you can control. If someone may be struggling with an eating disorder reach out to a physician to seek medical advice.