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?
Understanding the causes of and times when you have an overwhelming ‘need’ for certain foods is the answer to preventing your uncontrolled eating. When you can pinpoint these aspects of your behavior you can begin to change this by finding other ways to manage stress. Have alternative healthy foods that will satisfy you cravings for sweet and fatty salty foods on hand to eat or plan to actively do something like jogging or working out or, on a more relaxing note, playing your favorite music or asking for a back rub or head massage.
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.
Seek comfort in things other than food so that if you feel miserable or pressured you head outside for a walk with your partner or some games in the park with your family or friends. It would be nice if you could just wave a wand and not have anymore unhealthy food cravings but that is not realistic so have a list of alternatives to eating a greasy hamburger and include in these relaxing with a glossy mag that you love, a long hot bath or a pedicure- whatever it is that you really enjoy. Make a list of these alternatives and be ready to act on them instead of eating.
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.
Wait 30 minutes and when a craving does hit, wait it out by setting a timer, looking at your watch, whatever you need to do. But wait a full 30 minutes before acting on that craving. If you still are craving that food after 30 minutes, allow yourself to have a half portion of it, but you will find that usually after 30 minutes that craving will disappear.
Replace your cravings with those activities you enjoy doing and that along with your calories loss eating plan will help to burn fat so you can lose those extra pounds. The additional benefit of exercise is that when you swim, jog, play ice hockey or work out at the gym, your brain releases endorphins and serotonin and this gives you a sense of euphoria that replaces feelings of sadness or frustration. So instead of reaching for the ice cream carton or the cookie jar when you are next under pressure or feeling low, ‘get down and boogie’ doing whatever activity you enjoy most, knowing that your weight loss and your emotional well being will improve as a result.