Are You Emotionally Eating to Avoid a Life Change?

One of the most emotional times in your life is when you’re faced with an important change that you either do or don’t want to make. Even if it’s for the better, change is a scary thing at times, especially if what lies beyond it is unknown and you’re not sure what to expect.

Naturally, right around these moments, you’re going to be in an elevated emotional state. You’re going to be more stressed or sadder than you normally would be, making it a target time for emotional eating.

For example, you might be in a bad or unhealthy relationship. You know that you want to end it, but part of you dreads having to. Whether it be retaliation from the other party, ridicule among friends, or loneliness, there are a lot of things that you might be worried about.

It’s easy to get caught up in the short term negatives while ignoring the long term positives. Before a time like this, you’ll probably experience many emotional eating urges.

Jobs are another very common source of stress and stressful situations. If you have a job that you just despise, you’re definitely going to be stressed.

The prospect of quitting your job is an intimidating one for sure, and even the thought of accepting a new job is nerve racking.

This is another likely case in which you’ll resort to emotional eating. The problem with emotional eating in these situations is that it involves you ignoring a major decision in your life that needs to be made just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Of course it’s more comfortable to be eating a bunch of junk food, but that’s not going to help you make the decisions that you need to – or even carry out the transition from one thing to another after a decision has been made.

There are certain things in our lives that we have to do, even though we hate doing them. These difficult decisions are prime examples of that.

Even if you know you want to leave your significant other, you might still dread doing it just because it’s uncomfortable.

However, that’s just the way things go in life, and eating isn’t going to change that. What it can do is permanently damage your health. Even positive life changes, such as a move or marriage, can drive you to eat emotionally because although it’s rooted in happiness, these times are still a source of stress based on an unknown future.

The sooner you learn to stop hiding behind food, the better. It’s a bandage, a temporary solution to a long term problem.

You need to be able to face these problems directly if you hope to have a chance at making a positive change for good and protecting your health for longevity.

Stop the Emotional Eating Urge

When the urge to eat strikes, even though you’re not hungry, it can be difficult to pass it up. It just seems so tempting, so comforting, and you might not even think twice about it if it’s something that you’re used to doing.

However, you need to learn how to stop the urge and fight it when it hits - otherwise you’re just going to keep on falling into the same habit again and again as you watch your health decline.

The first step you need to take is noting when you feel that urge. You don’t necessarily need to do anything about it at first, just learn to identify the difference between genuine hunger and an emotional eating urge.

It may be easier for some than others, but you’ll get the hang of it with some practice. Once you get to a point where you can easily identify emotional eating urges, wait for the next urge to strike.

When it does, instead of going straight to the kitchen or to get fast food, just set yourself a ten minute timer on your phone. Do whatever else you want during this time to distract yourself, and see if you can make it through that ten minutes.

Try to engage in other habits that help you experience joy. That might be talking to a good friend, watching a stand up comedy routine on YouTube, painting or doing a puzzle, gardening or something else.

If you really, truly can’t wait, then you might just not be ready yet. Otherwise, you’re ready to take the next step.
Increase the time between feeling the urge hit and acting on it. If you’ve made it through a total twenty minutes, you can think about whether or not you even want to eat anymore.

If you still feel that urge, then keep working with the timer until the urge goes away. It should, sooner or later, at least until you feel genuinely hungry.

While you’re waiting for this urge to go away, try thinking about how you’re feeling emotionally at that time and why.

This can give you some good insight as to why you’re feeling the urge to eat when you’re not even hungry. Facing your emotions directly is a very important thing to learn, and if you don’t have that ability, you won’t be able to make smart decisions in life.

Over time, you’ll get better and better at denying the urge to eat emotionally, and you’ll have an easier time doing so.

It’ll lead to you having a happier life, a healthier body, and a clearer mind. You won’t be so bogged down by your emotions and you’ll feel a lot more in control.

For a comprehensive and day by day guide for how to lose weight on a healthy diet you can grab a copy of my new kindle/paperback book "7 ways in 7 days to Lose 5 Pounds" that has just been published as part of my Natural Health and Beauty book series that are available to buy online at places like iTunes, Amazon and Lulu.




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Cheers, Helene Malmsio

Related Reading: https://www.discoveryhub.net/Healthy-Eating-Plan.html

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