Emotional eating is not just bad for your body’s health. It is also bad for your mental health. If you have drowned a whole round of chocolate cake and you end up feeling guilty about how you have eaten as much in a short amount of time, you are a typical emotional eater. If you take out your frustrations on a big bag of chips and you found it empty in a snap, you are showing off signs what emotional eating is about.
Are you or Are you not?
The first step in dealing with emotional eating is to find out if you are one or to determine in which situations you see the emotional eating setting in. Here is a useful guideline:
* Emotional eating occurs later in the day, as your energy level is decreased considerably.
* Emotional eating usually happens unconsciously. It has no real trigger that you can try to avoid.
* Emotional eating is often about the same culprits. Stress relieving foods, also known as comfort foods, are commonly the main attraction. Sweets like chocolates, cakes, ice cream, or cookies can be drowned in seconds without you even being aware of it. For some, the cravings could be for something salty like cheese, chips, or crackers.
* Once emotional eating is started, there’s no stopping the person until everything is drowned into the stomach.
* Emotional eating is when you feel guilty, disappointed about yourself, or regretful afterwards.
How to Combat Emotional Eating?
After knowing what is emotional eating, it is time that you learn how to combat it. Here is a step-by-step guide:
Step 1: Do soul searching. It will help a lot if you become aware of what you are going through. Reflect on your eating habits and see if there is anything wrong with your ‘splurging’ on your comfort food. Emotional eating may not be as big of a problem to you as it is to others. That is, if it is not excessive. If you do it only when you are stressed or restless, it might be okay to let go on food sometimes. But if it happens every single day of your life, you should take it as a serious concern. This website https://manarax.com/ provides you with complete information regarding healthy and nutritional food which is good for your health. Do not forget to check that out!
Step 2: Find a motivation. Before you start on any reform, you need to be clear about your motivation. Having the commitment and determination to make a change are essential to turn them into reality.
Step 3: Make a log of what you eat on a daily basis. It helps that you can read in print what you have downed into your stomach. If you only keep it in mind, there’s a chance that your mind would choose to deny what and how much you have eaten. Writing down what you eat will also give you a good view of your eating patterns. With that, you will be able to find out the best formula to help you control your cravings.
Step 4: Be mindful of your meal preparation. Make sure that a healthy alternative is always accessible. Also, it is important that you plan your menus well so you could have a greater chance at developing a healthier eating habit.
Step 5: Be easy on yourself. Do not expect things to happen overnight. The key to combating emotional eating is to be kind to yourself.