Do you find yourself turning to comfort food when you feel particularly under pressure, upset, bored, or lonely? You are far from alone if you tend to use food as a way to cheer yourself up or relieve stress; after all, humans have evolved to enjoy their food and not just simply use it for fuel.
What is emotional eating?
Almost all of us allow ourselves to indulge in the occasional treat or celebratory reward without feeling too guilty about it. However, if this type of eating becomes a regular habit in response to difficult feelings, it can lead to unwanted weight gain and all the associated health risks that go with it, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.
Being overweight or obese can also hinder our fitness and exercise goals, and lower our confidence and self-esteem, which only serve to reinforce the cycle of comfort eating.
Unfortunately, emotional eating can be a difficult habit to break because we tend to reach for foods that leave us craving more yet never really satisfy our nutritional needs, such as crisps, fatty fried food, sweets, and biscuits. They provide a fast dopamine hit, but once this wears off neither our emotional or physical needs are met, and we crave the next fix.
Here are some tips to help break the cycle. If you need more tailored advice to help to manage emotional eating, consider working with a nutritional therapist.
How can you break the cycle of emotional eating?
Understand your triggers
Keep a food diary to help you track what and when you eat, and pay attention to your reasons for doing so. Think about whether you are physically hungry with an empty stomach, or craving comfort. If you are physically hungry, you will enjoy healthy foods such as a banana or a handful of nuts and raisins.
If you are looking for a dopamine hit, you are more likely to turn to junk food that will leave you craving more and feeling guilty and out of control. In this case, ask what has triggered the craving, such as boredom, relationship conflict, work stress, and so on. Record the type and quantity of food you ate, and how you felt before, during and after eating it.
Identify a pattern
After a week or so, try to find a common thread in your unhelpful eating patterns. For example, you might comfort eat after getting home from work, seeing a certain person, or dealing with your finances. You may simply be feeling low, bored, or lonely.
Look for a different emotional outlet
Once you learn to recognise your triggers, your next step is to find a coping mechanism that doesn’t involve comfort eating or any other unhelpful behaviours. This might be through exercise or meditation if your triggers are stress related, or reaching out to friends and family if you feel lonely.
Eat more mindfully
Emotional eating tends to be a mindless process that keeps us reaching for more. Stop buying unhealthy snacks to avoid temptation, and stock up on food with more nutritional value, such as fruits, nuts, and vegetables and hummus. Focus on the taste and texture of your food, and ask yourself if you are full before taking the next mouthful.
Comentarios