Overcoming Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is one of the most common obstacles for people who are trying to lose weight. Emotional eaters turn to food to cope with emotions like stress, anxiety, and depression. Eating to cope with emotions instead of to satisfy your body’s hunger can often lead to overeating and weight gain.

One of the reasons emotional eating is so appealing to people is that we tend to turn to foods that are packed with simple carbohydrates and refined sugars when we’re stressed. These foods cause a quick spike in blood sugar, which leads to an almost immediate response of increased energy and mood. Unfortunately, that sugar high comes with added calories without much nutritional value, and can be quickly followed by an emotional crash once your blood sugar comes down.

Instead of turning to foods, look for other ways to achieve that natural high. A quick round of physical activity when you’re feeling anxious can boost your energy and mood just as well as a cupcake, but it won’t come with a crash or added pounds. The next time you feel the urge for a snack, consider going for a brisk walk or doing several jumping jacks to get your heart pumping until the craving for junk food passes.

Overeating is often the result of emotional eating, or using food to cope with negative emotions like stress or anxiety. For many people, conquering emotional eating is the key to weight loss success.

In order to overcome emotional eating, you need to find new ways to manage emotions like stress. You need to simultaneously break the habit of reaching for food and create a new habit of using another coping mechanism.

The next time you feel the need to binge on sugary snacks, set a stopwatch for 10 minutes. Tell yourself you only have to get through the next 10 minutes without giving in to the urge to eat. During that 10 minutes, ask yourself if you’re eating because you’re hungry, or if you’re feeling an underlying emotion like stress. Practice deep breathing and relaxing your muscles to help ease the tension in your body that’s caused by stress. Give yourself a full 10 minutes to work through the rush of negative emotions that are leading you to eat. In most cases, once the 10 minutes have passed, you’ll no longer feel the overwhelming urge to snack.

Understand that overcoming emotional eating can be a long process. You may have setbacks. One of the problems emotional eaters face is feeling like they have to give up on their diet entirely after bingeing once on unhealthy foods. Remember that you’re practicing new behavior patterns. With time, turning to something besides food will become your natural response. In the mean time, be patient with yourself and resolve not to give up when setbacks occur.