How to Stop Emotional Eating
Breaking the Emotional Eating Cycle
To stop emotional eating patterns, try these four steps:
- Determine what eating comfort food does for you. Does it make you feel happy or calm, or does it reduce your anxiety? Recognizing these thought patterns can help you proactively develop a healthier coping plan when feeling down or anxious.
- Know your triggers. Keep a food diary and write down what you eat, how much, and your feelings when you eat. You should start to notice a pattern that you can break. For instance, if you realize that you’re eating because you had a stressful day, try a different way to deal with the stress, such as meditation.
- Find a distraction. Focusing elsewhere for just five minutes can interrupt your thought process. Try taking a short walk, calling a friend or putting on a favorite song and dancing.
- Seek help. If these strategies don’t work for you, consider talking to a therapist. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you replace negative thinking patterns with more productive ones.
Some people turn to comfort food. When they feel stressed, anxious, down or have other negative emotions. The brain is wired to reward responses that feel good, so people often choose “comfort foods” that are sweet, salty or savory to try to make themselves feel better. These foods also tend to be high in fat and calories, resulting in weight gain. And, frequently, that weight gain triggers more negative emotions. How do you break that cycle?
Warning Signs Of Emotional Eating
- Cravings coming on suddenly
- Cravings of junk food
- Cravings accompanied by negative emotions (sadness, anger, boredom, etc.)
- Feeling guilty after giving in to cravings
- Gaining weight and not realizing why
In the long term, people who overeat have higher risks of serious medical issues, such as heart disease and diabetes, not to mention the psychological drawbacks.
More serious conditions can link สมัครสมาชิก UFABET วันนี้ รับเครดิตฟรีทุกวัน to emotional eating. One is binge eating disorder, characterized by eating dramatically large amounts of food well after you reach the point of fullness.
Eating more food than your body needs can have dangerous consequences. People who eat for emotional reasons often gain too much weight. This puts them at greater risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and cancer. Excessive eating has emotional consequences as well. These include feeling guilty or embarrassed afterward.