Nov 16, 2016

Do you emotionally eat?

“Emotional eating”

Our emotional connection with food comes from Birth. Food and eating is really all about nourishment but it also can become about pleasure, socialising, expressing love, rewarding ourselves and others, soothing hurt, eating when stressed and eating for comfort.

Our emotional connection with food can sometimes start when we grow up being told that ‘big girls don’t cry’ or don’t make a big deal out of this. So whenever you felt disappointed, threatened, confused or disillusioned you held your breath and swallowed these feelings hoping that someday they may disappear. Sadness, self- judgement and fear became trapped away. After a while trying to control your emotions wears thin and you find new ways of dealing with feelings.

Binge eating other behaviours around food become our survival systems. We create behaviours to take care of ourselves. Food brings comfort and helps to busy awkward feelings like fear, anger, and sadness.

We fuel our addictions with food to numb out our emotions – but it doesn’t last long. Have to learn healthier ways to deal with emotions.

Typical emotional food triggers, feeding emotional needs rather than your stomach.

Fear
Anger
Sadness
Jealousy
Un-stoppable emotions
Boredom
Stress
Depression
Tired or feeling empty
Anxious
Loneliness

Typical emotional foods are calorie dense, sugary, fatty like foods like, chocolate or ice-cream. But they can also be foods that created comfort when you were young.

Strategies:

Find other ways to feed your feelings, fulfil yourself emotionally