How To Know If You Emotionally Eating And What You Can Do To Stop, Ep #010
In this episode, we are going to talk all about emotional eating. We will address ways you can recognize and handle it with the "Am I hungry" method. We will also talk about what emotional eating is and what it is not. When I have researched this topic before, studies estimate that about 70 to 80% of people emotionally eat. That means the vast majority of us emotionally eat at least from time to time. You may be eating the way you want the majority of the day and this emotional trigger happens then all of a sudden you find yourself off your eating pattern, eating way more than you planned, and eating foods you hadn't planned to eat. So what do we do about this? I hope to give you some tools today that will help so make sure you check out the show!
Points of interest...
What is emotional eating? [1:18]
Recognizing the triggers [2:56]
Am I hungry? [6:48]
What is the problem and how do I solve it? [10:33]
Building a toolbox to help deal with emotional eating [14:48]
Is giving in to emotional eating on occasion ok? [17:06]
Actionable take-a-ways [20:30]
What is emotional eating?
Emotional eating is when you are eating something to solve or soothe an emotion instead of for fuel, energy, or hunger. It is different from binge eating disorder, which is an actual medical diagnosis and is a lot higher volume of food and is a lot more distressing and upsetting when it happens.
When you find yourself going to eat, ask yourself if you're hungry, if you are hungry, eat a balanced meal. If you are not hungry, check in with your emotions. What are you feeling? Maybe you just need to feel the emotion and let it pass or maybe you need to distract yourself, do something else, or do something that would actually make you feel better.
How to apply what we talked about today
You be successful at this. But how do you do that? You might write a little note and put it on your fridge or a cabinet that says on it, am I hungry? This can be a little reminder before you go to eat. If that doesn't work for you perhaps you can just mentally check in and ask yourself before you go to eat. Then you need to recognize when you are trying to emotionally eat so that you can find something else to do instead.
That is your homework today. Put a little note or mental reminder to yourself to ask if you're actually hungry before you eat, and then have a place either virtually, on a notepad, or even a little box of things you can do when you are feeling those emotions instead of eating so that you actually are helping your health, feeling better, and not struggling so much with emotional eating.I hope those are some helpful tips. Go ahead and try them out this week.
Remember, this is a practice. It is not about perfection. It gets easier with time. Most people are still going to emotionally eat from time to time, and that is okay. The goal is to recognize it, feel a little more in control of it, and be able to do something about it.
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