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Emotional Eating Tips

Emotional eating can be defined as the action of eating large amounts of food or consuming comfort foods in response to certain feelings instead of hunger. If you are feeling sad and head for a piece of chocolate cake or when you’re angry you want to eat a whole bag of chips, this could mean you suffer from eating from emotions. This is when your emotions are controlling what you eat and not your body’s natural hunger signals.

Are you an Emotional Eater?

Many people are not aware of their current eating habits and therefore do not know if they are an emotional eater. So how do you know if you suffer from over eating due to your emotions? You could be an emotional eater if you answer yes to any of these questions;

Do you feel guilty after you eat even when you were not hungry?
Do you find yourself eating before you even realize it?
Do you have cravings for certain foods when you are upset or sad?
Do you eat because you have nothing else to do and are bored?
Do you find yourself eating instead of dealing with a problem?

sad woman The list of questions and emotions can go on and on, but you get the gist of it.

If you head for the vending machine because of the stress of a deadline at work or you sneak a candy bar because you are home alone and bored, this is emotional eating according to Linda Spangle, RN, MA, a Denver weight loss specialist and author of Life is Hard, Food is Easy: The 5 Step Plan to Overcome Emotional Eating and Lose Weight on Any Diet.

Difference Between Hunger and Eating From Emotions

There are differences between eating from emotions and eating due to hunger. Recognizing these differences will help you to determine what emotions trigger your unhealthy eating.

Hunger comes on slowly whereas emotional hunger will come on suddenly.
When you are hungry, you are generally open to any foods to satisfy your hunger. However, if you are craving certain foods, and only these foods will satisfy you, this is emotional eating.
Physical hunger can generally wait, but with emotional hunger, you will feel the need to eat immediately.
With physical hunger, you will eat until you are full but when you eat because of emotional triggers, you will keep on eating even after you are full.

Know Your Emotional Triggers

chocolate candy

When certain emotions trigger your cravings, you will try to find your comfort foods like chocolate or potato chips. Being aware of which emotions trigger your unhealthy eating is the first step to changing your eating habits due to emotions. Keep a weight loss journal and write down what you eat and when. Keep track of all the foods and drinks you have in the day, when you ate them and what you were feeling at the time you ate and how you felt in general for the day.

Track your eating habits for 1 to 4 weeks to see if there are any patterns in your snacking habits. Review your weight loss journal and note any times you overate or snacked on your comfort foods. Look at your journal for the times you headed for the cookie jar and see if there was a particular emotion you were feeling. Now write down these emotions that you know trigger your emotional eating.

Types of Emotional Eating

According to Linda Spangle, the emotions you are feeling tend to correlate to the food choices you make. For instance, Spangle calls "head hunger" emotional eating that comes from intellectual sources like stress, anger and frustration.

Perhaps you missed a big deadline at work or you feel you are misunderstood. This tends to lead to the crunchy and chewy foods to satisfy your head hunger.

Another type of emotional snacking according to Spangle is "heart hunger". When experiencing heart hunger you may not know exactly what you want to snack on, you just feel you need something that makes you feel better. If you are lonely, bored, depressed, sad or just feeling empty you probably want to find some food that has fond memories for you like ice cream, cakes, etc.

Ways to Deal with Emotions and Overeating

Emotional eaters have a hard time losing weight due to their snacking or binging getting in the way. If you are trying to lose weight or just want to eat healthy, then you want to find ways to deal with your emotions other than your comfort foods.

Ways to Avoid Eating When Emotional

Go for a walk around the block or up and down the stairs at work. Walking helps relieve stress, gives you energy and will give you time to focus on the emotion and problem at hand without heading to the vending machine.
Listen to music to help you avoid eating. If you are feeling bored or depressed, then make your selection something up beat and fun. If you are feeling stressed or overworked, then pick something nice and relaxing.
Visit with a friend and just chit chat. Go across the street and gab a bit with your neighbor or walk down the hall and talk with a coworker.
Do some gardening or house work to keep you mind off the bag of potato chips. Not only will you be avoiding your comfort food you will be productive and this will make you feel better about yourself.
Read a book or magazine for pleasure. Just take 10 to 20 minutes to sit down and read, focusing only on the book and not food.
Drink a glass of water instead of the snack. This allows you time to really determine if it's hunger or emotional eating. It also allows you time to ponder over your emotions.
A weight loss support group is also a great way to help understand emotional eating. You are not alone in this. In fact experts say that emotional eating accounts for 75% of overeating.

Emotions or Just Plain Cravings

There are times when you want that salty pretzel or that creamy chocolate candy bar and you were not feeling one of your emotional triggers. This is probably a time when you just "crave" it because you want to have that something special or different.

It's okay to let yourself have a treat now and again, even if you are trying to lose weight. Experts say that diets that are too strict tend to fail as people eventually give in to their cravings and overdo their snacking. So instead of waiting until your breaking point, go ahead and snack but first check to see if it is a certain emotion you are having or it is simply a craving.

Chocolate cravings or emotional eating? Be sure to check out this article on chocoholics.

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