Emotional eating can be the single biggest problem for some people trying to lose weight. If you're an emotional eater, here are the ten questions to ask yourself before you indulge next time:
- Do I know the difference between physical and emotional hunger? Have you ever been truly physically hungry? The only way to know the difference is to get physically hungry - so set yourself a date and time, and don't eat anything. After a few hours your stomach will start rumbling and feel empty. After a few more hours you should start to feel light headed and a little weak. Now you are physically hungry. Your body can go without food for that length of time without anything bad happening to it, but you need to know the difference between your hungers.
- Why do you eat? Emotional eaters eat to celebrate and socialize, as well as to soothe themselves, overcome feelings of anxiety and boredom. Keep a diary for a week, and note what you ate, the time you ate it, and how you felt each time you ate.
- How do you feel after you've eaten? Eating to fulfill an emotional need never works, so once you've finished eating, you still feel unfulfilled and in addition, you now feel guilty about what you've just eaten. Eating when you are physically hungry has no emotional context and you feel satisfied. Make a note in your diary about how you feel after you've eaten - satisfied or unfulfilled/guilty.
- Do you think about what you're eating when you are eating it? Start to plan your meals, and plan to do nothing but eat during your meal times. By this I mean no watching TV or reading a book while you're eating. Set yourself a place at the table, lay out all you will need for that meal, sit down and savour each bite. Eating while you are doing something else, like watching TV, becomes a mindless exercise with no beginning and no end, so your chances of overeating are so much greater.
- How long does it take me to eat? You can not gobble down your food, and savour each bite. And the longer you take to finish your meal, the fuller you will feel. You're sitting down at the table, with your beautiful meal or snack in front of you. Take your time, enjoy each bite. See it, smell it, note the texture, taste it, enjoy it.
- Is this the right time to be eating? If you are planning your meals correctly, you should be eating regularly throughout the day. Schedule your meal and snack times into your day, and stick to this schedule until it becomes a habit. Breakfast, mid-morning snack, Lunch, mid-afternoon snack, Dinner. And nothing but glasses of water in between. If you're thinking of eating outside of those times: DON'T DO IT!
- What do I really want? You've figured out your feelings, and you know it's not the right time to be eating, so what is it you really want. Is it company you're after? Then call a friend. Are you bored? Go for a walk, or read a book, weed the garden or clean the house. Get away from the pantry and just DO SOMETHING! Anything that does not involve eating.
- Do I have a cheat sheet? When you're feeling emotional or bored, it's very hard to come up with ideas to get you away from snacking when your entire being is now focused on that packet of chocolate biscuits in the pantry, calling out your name. Have a cheat sheet close by with a list of feelings and emotions, and what you can do about them: i.e. lonely: call Sarah; bored: walk the dog. Include some chores you never have the time for, like tidying the laundry cupboard. Your cheat sheet should be replacing old/bad habits with new/good ones.
- Is a particular food part of the problem? Some emotional eaters, when triggered, go straight to the same food. Banning that food completely will only make you crave it more, but you need to find ways of limiting the quantities you eat. If chocolate is your nemesis, only have chocolate at home in small quantities. It's easier to open a whole slab and then finish it than it is to open a whole bag of individual Freddo Frogs. But do include these as part of your meal plans: a Freddo frog with your mid-morning cup of tea.
- Have you rewarded yourself? You have probably been rewarding yourself with food for your whole life. Rewards are good, but rewarding yourself with food is not. Draw up a list of rewards: having a facial, massage, pedicure; going to a movie; buying a new outfit or perfume. Think about what you would really love, and plan to reward yourself in this way.
Sally Symonds is the author of "50 Steps to Lose 50kg... And Keep It Off" (entitled because she lost over 50kg - or over 50% of her original body weight- and kept it off for over 8 years). A qualified personal trainer and NLP practitioner, Sally also runs her own online healthy life club and offers consultations to both individuals and groups on time efficient ways to lose weight and achieve a work/life balance. Her website features a host of weight loss resources and she is also a much sought after motivational speaker. See http://www.sallysymonds.com.au for further details.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sally_Symonds
http://EzineArticles.com/?Top-Tips-for-Avoiding-Emotional-Eating&id=5995965
No comments:
Post a Comment