Ever watch a movie where a woman who just broke up with her boyfriend sits down with a half gallon of ice cream to comfort herself? Ever hear someone say “I need chocolate. Chocolate solves everything”? I’m sure you have because in today’s society this is the ‘norm’ and how the media even turns overeating into almost somewhat of a joke. For those that suffer from it, it’s certainly no joke.
This article is going to give you some tips on how you can overcome emotional overeating but first there’s one more thing that needs to be mentioned. The first and most important thing is you have to be 100% honest with yourself. You have to be willing to admit you have a problem. If you can’t do that then you won’t be able to overcome it because you can’t fix something you aren’t willing to admit you have a problem with. Ok, now let’s look at some tips.
1. Food diary. It may seem like a pain to think about having to write down in a food diary everything you eat but it will help if you can look at everything you’re putting in your mouth. Take it a step further than just jotting down what you’re eating – make a quick note of how you’re feeling at the time you eat. This will help you identify triggers/patterns of emotional overeating.
2. Stress. One of the common signs of emotional overeating is gaining weight while under stress. So take note of times you are under a lot of stress (this goes back to that food diary and writing things down) and note whether you find that you always gain weight during those times or not.
3. Professional help. It never hurts to seek professional help. Emotional overeating can be hard to conquer on your own. It helps getting professional help especially a therapist because a lot of times you’ll find emotional overeating to be the cause of some ‘deep dark tucked away’ event in your life that caused you to start turning to food to comfort you. A therapist can help you deal with this in a healthy way instead of turning to food to ‘stuff’ those memories/feelings.
Those three tips don’t really tell you how you can overcome it so let’s look a bit further now at three more things. These tips are geared to helping you overcome emotional overeating whereas the tips above were geared more towards helping you decide if you’re an emotional overeater or not.
1. Stress relief. Most emotional overeaters eat when they are stressed. So, you are going to have to find a way to relieve stress that doesn’t involve food. Some examples may be going for a walk, painting your nails (because if they’re wet then you can’t eat), calling a friend, etc. You need to find what works best for you to relieve stress. What works for one person might not work for another.
2. Swap goodies for goodies
What this means is that you need to find other foods you can swap for your comfort foods. For example let’s say you love potato chips. You could still eat them but try the baked version instead of the regular version. Or let’s say you love ice cream. Instead of buying that, next time try going for frozen yogurt instead. Another thing you could do is allow yourself one day a week to enjoy (in moderation) the one comfort food you just can’t give up. So if you just can’t give up that ice cream or substitute a ‘healthier’ option like frozen yogurt then allow yourself to enjoy a bowl every Saturday (or whatever day you choose to be your ‘cheat’ day).
3. Why am I doing this?
Every time you go to put food in your mouth stop and ask yourself why am I doing this? If you find that you are genuinely hungry then by all means eat. But usually emotional overeaters eat out of boredom or stress or because of an emotion they’re feeling (anger, sadness, etc). If you aren’t truly hungry go and do something else.
