Overcoming Emotional Eating

How emotional eating develops

Most people don’t realize that people develop relationships with food. This relationship is one that is very intimate and very dear to the person. It speaks volumes about struggling to maintain a desirable weight or if you are already living at what is your ideal weight. Many feelings regarding eating are in-grained from the time we are children. See if any of the following statements sound familiar or bring back memories of your childhood:

• Clean up your plate because I don’t want to deal with any leftovers.
• Eat all of this and you’ll feel a lot better.
• He’s a good eater just like his grandfather and his father.
• If you don’t eat everything you’ll hurt grandma’s feelings.
• You can’t leave this table and watch TV until you clean off your plate.

Most of us have heard statements similar to these despite the fact that most of them were not necessarily true. As a result of this, our relationship with food did not begin truthfully. Instead, that relationship grew out of false pretenses.

Determining if you are an emotional eater

The first step to overcoming emotional eating is determining whether or not you are an emotional eater. Remember that if you eat because of what you are feeling instead of being hungry, this is known as emotional eating. In order to determine if you are an emotional eater, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you continue eating even after you are full?
• Do you eat because of problems in your everyday life or constant turmoil?
• Do you eat due to boredom or loneliness?
• Do you eat in order to comfort yourself or to relieve stress?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above (or a combination of them), you may be a candidate for an emotional overeating treatment and recovery facility. Once you have completed the above, do the following:

• Start changing your eating behavior and habits one step at a time
• Listen to what your body is telling you as this will help you determine if your hunger is emotional or physical
• Make your eating a conscious activity, not one that you do while you are behind the wheel of your vehicle or when you are sitting in front of the TV
• Organize your eating so that you eat on purpose (at scheduled times) and when you are actually hungry

For more information about Harmony Grove for eating wellness or any of our programs call us today. We will be happy to answer your questions and assist you in any way that we can.