Stop your emotional eating

Sometimes the worst food craving happens when you are in your weakest emotional point. Many people turn to food for comfort-consciously or subconsciously - when they face a difficult challenge, or hope to keep themselves occupied.

But emotional eating as a way to suppress or reassure negative emotions, such as stress, anger, anxiety, boredom, sadness and loneliness - can spoil your weight loss efforts. Often, emotional eating leads to consuming too much food, especially high-calorie, sweet, salty and fatty foods.

The good news is that if you are prone to emotional eating, you can regain control of your eating preferences and return to successful accomplishing your weight loss goals.

How mood and food are connected

Your life can consist of different events that are not always pleasant, such as unemployment, health or other problems. Every day of your life you can expect stress, bad weather and other negative changes. All this could provoke emotions, which lead to overeating. But why do negative emotions lead to overeating?

Some foods can turn to have addictive qualities. Say, if you are eating tasty foods, like chocolate, your body produces opiates, which are responsible for elevation of the mood and increased satisfaction. This "reward" may produce addiction to foods that are most closely associated with certain feelings. This is due to the simple fact that the satisfaction from eating suppresses negative emotions.

Food can also be a distraction. If you are worried about the forthcoming event, or thinking of an earlier conflict, eating delicious food can distract you. But distraction is only temporary. While you are eating, your thoughts focus on the good taste of your food. Unfortunately after eating your thoughts can once again turn to your cares, and in addition, you may feel guilty for overeating.

How to regain control your eating preferences

Of course, strong emotions can trigger the desire to eat. But you can take steps to manage those cravings. Here are some ideas to help you avoid emotional eating:

• Learn to determine if you are really hungry. Answer yourself if your cravings caused by physique or emotions? If you had meals recently and your stomach is quiet, you are not really hungry. Wait a few minutes to let the feeling of hunger pass.
• Identify your triggers. In the next few days, write down what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, how are you feeling when you eat and how hungry you are. After some time, you can see that some patterns that reveal the negative eating patterns and triggers to avoid.
• Do not connect comfort with eating. Do not eat candy bars if you want to get positive emotions. Go to the cinema, take a walk or talk to a friend instead. If it seems to you that negative emotions force you to eat something, distract yourself by talking to someone. It is you who should plan pleasant activities for yourself.
• Never keep much of unhealthy food around. Try not to keep much of high calorie foods at home. If you are bored or feel like eating something, do not go to the store as long as these feelings pass. Thoughts on eating should not affect your purchases.
• Eat healthy snacks. If you want to eat between meals. Opt for a low fat, low calorie food like fresh fruits and veggies, popcorn without butter. Or you can choose low calorie versions of your favorite foods to check if they can fulfill your desire to eat.
• Balance your diet. If your calorie consumption is less than your body needs, it is obvious that you will give in to emotional eating. In order to avoid that, eat on a regular basis and try to incorporate food from all basic groups into your ration. Eat more whole grains, veggies and fruits, low fat diary foods and sources of lean protein. Basic foods will help you feel full for longer time.
• Exercise regularly and get adequate rest. If your body gets adequate rest and physical activity, it can more effectively sustain stresses and exhaustion.

Do not blame yourself if you fall for emotional eating, start the next day. You can make it easier by adding natural weight loss pills that effectively help you manage your cravings (Read our best weight loss pills comparison).

Think of the ways how you can overcome emotional eating in the future, and analyze your successful experience. Concentrate on positive changes you are making in your eating habits and reward yourself for these.

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