You’re an Emotional Eater, But Are You Emotionally Hungry?
- Cindy Pole
- Mar 18, 2019
- 3 min read
You are determined to lose weight! You spend time choosing the right diet program, cutting out certain foods, making promises to yourself and finally getting that gym membership that you have been putting off. You start off with the best of intentions, only to have it all fall apart because you are stressed, sad, anxious, bored or, frankly, lazy. You also happen to be an emotional eater. Perhaps it’s time you addressed that first!
Time for a food reality check: emotional eating can be triggered by a variety of psychological factors, whether we’re conscious of them or not. To help you become aware of your own triggers for emotional eating, we’ve compiled a list of common ones:
Type 1: Food is my therapist
I feel angry, depressed, anxious, bored and stressed. I use food to numb the pain and ease these emotions. I just want to feel happy again.
Type 2: Food is my shield
No one sticks up for me. I eat to defend and protect myself from the harsh words and feelings that others impose on me. When I’m eating, I can’t hear my inner critic.
Type 3: Food is my friend and love
I feel alone, unwanted and unloved. Relationships around me don’t feel stable or intimate, so I allow my close relationship with food to fill the gap.
Type 4: Food lets me feel like I’m in control
When life hands me lemons, I eat to feel like “I got this”. I feel independent and I am in charge of my own life, but I let my fear of missing out get the best of me by overeating.
Type 5: Food is my comfort zone
Change is scary. If I am faced with a new challenge, I use food to prepare myself for what is ahead, or to procrastinate. I’m afraid of failure and even success. Food never lets me down.
Type 6: Food keeps me young
I’m eating because I don’t want to grow up. I don’t like to face life as an adult. This is how I dealt with things when I was younger, so it should work now.
Food is often our way of rewarding ourselves, lifting our spirits and celebrating. While we need healthy food to live, relying on it as your primary coping mechanism can become an unhealthy cycle and an obstacle to tackling your weight loss goals.
How do you address emotional eating? Before jumping on that treadmill, here are three important questions to ask yourself to help tackle the real problem:
Are you physically hungry or emotionally hungry? Learn to recognize the signs and feelings of true physical hunger, and eat only when you experience them.
Are you actually thirsty rather than hungry? We often confuse the two. Try drinking a glass of water or a cup of tea and then reassess.
Have you given your body enough time after eating to register that it's full? Wait 20 minutes before taking that second helping.
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