Emotional
Eating Seminar
Signs
that you are emotionally eating:
- You eat in response to a situation, whether it be a positive or negative one. You get a bonus, an excuse to go for pizza. You get into a fight/breakup and reach for Haagen Daaz. While it is ok to have emotional ties to a food due to a memory or family/cultural tradition, it is not ok to eat mindlessly.
- You are eating to pacifiy, distract from or to soothe a feeling. Numbing yourself from experiencing an emotion.
- You are eating mindlessly. This includes multitasking (while doing other things), stuffing your face or eating frantically. You are not savoring each bite and enjoying your food.
- You are eating when you are tired or do not feel physically hungry, or it is not on your meal plan.
Why do we eat emotionally or make poor food choices:
Stress
actually causes your body to want to eat more! When your cortisol
levels rise, your body starts to crave fatty, sweet, and salty foods.
Our anxiety levels are also increased. Reducing stress is the number
one way to live a longer, better, and healthier life. Anyone that
knows me understands how much I believe that hormones are directly
related to health and weight, eating, and weight loss success.
Not
only does cortisol cause us to want to eat, it also affects every
system in your body including your reproductive system, thyroid,
liver, nervous and endocrine system. Having high levels of chronic
stress can make weight loss seem impossible and energy levels very
low. When these changes happen in our bodies, it makes it very hard
to chose health eating and exercise over the couch.
So
what can we do to prevent emotional eating and stress:
- BE MINDFUL! You need to learn how to be in touch with your emotions and feelings. When anxiety, panic, sadness, or any other emotion arises, you must take a deep breath and be calm and in the moment. Ask yourself what you are feeling. Label the emotion.If you are in a busy situation be calm and excuse yourself to be somewhere quiet to process the emotion and think it through.
- Think about how you can respond to the upsetting emotion .Do you need to do a workout? Call a friend or doctor? Cuddle with your dog? If you feel the urge to eat distract yourself for 15-20 minutes at a time and go for walk to clear you head (away from the grocery store)
- Be sure to eat on a regular basis and don't skip meals. This will keep your metabolism fired up and prevent binge eating due to starvation or extreme hunger.
- Lean to recognize the difference between emotional and physical hunger. It is a good thing to be hungry between meals. If you are not hungry every 4 hours, you need to evaluate your portions. Feeling hungry is not a bad thing.
- Exercise on a regular basis. It will help with food cravings and keep hunger at bay, as well as keep cortisol in check (Fight or flight response).
- Drink 3 litres of water a day to ensure you are not mistaking thirst for hunger
Aerobic
activity
BreathingCouncelling, call a friends, cry, clean
Distraction,
dance
Exercise
Food Journal, friends
Golf, garden, giggle, get out!
Hobby, hike
Identify the problem
Journal, jog
Knit
Laugh
Meditate, massage, manicure
Nature, nuture
Organize
Puzzles, play with pets or kids
Quiet time/introspection, quizzes
Read, research, relax, retail therapy (in moderation!)
Sleep, sports, sex, skipping
Talk it out, therapy
Unwind, unplug
Visualize, volunteer
Walk away
X
Youth involvment/yoga
Zumba
Exercise
Food Journal, friends
Golf, garden, giggle, get out!
Hobby, hike
Identify the problem
Journal, jog
Knit
Laugh
Meditate, massage, manicure
Nature, nuture
Organize
Puzzles, play with pets or kids
Quiet time/introspection, quizzes
Read, research, relax, retail therapy (in moderation!)
Sleep, sports, sex, skipping
Talk it out, therapy
Unwind, unplug
Visualize, volunteer
Walk away
X
Youth involvment/yoga
Zumba
The differences between emotional and physical hunger
| Emotional Hunger | Physical Hunger |
| Comes on suddenly, an emotion hits and you need to eat ASAP | Is slow, you get an empty stomach, a rumbling, a deep ache or pit in your stomach with nausea at times. Comes on over hours. |
| You are typically craving something specific. Usually with the fat/sugar combination or deep fried food with a specific mouthfeel. Typically junky food. | You are open to eating a wide variety of healthy foods |
| Is in the “head”. You get ideas about the taste and texture of a food and you feel urgency to get that food. | Is physical and in the stomach first. You can wait until you eat, although if you wait to long dizziness, nausea, and low blood sugar, irritability may occur. |
| Is coupled with an upsetting event/emotion. Such as angry boss, difficult children, exhaustion. You use the food to soothe your emotions. | Occurs because you physically need the energy to fuel your body through the day and it has been awhile since your last meal. |
| Involves eating absentmindedly. While doing something else, eating quickly. You may not notice how much you are actually consuming. You may binge eat to stuff emotions away and eat foods that trigger calming brain chemicals. You may suffer from bloating, gas, and pain from overeating. | Involves choices and awareness and being present in the meal. Eating slowly and savouring your food is part of normal eating. You can make a decision to stop half way through the meal if you are getting satisfied and not to overeat. |
| Feelings of quilt typically accompany overeating and bingeing. You may beat yourself up right after the meal making yourself feel even worse. This becomes a vicious cycle. | Eating is a normal behaviour and function of life and should not invoke guilty feeling. |
Being
gentle with oneself...
Changing
one's lifestyle is a journey and a process. You cannot expect things
to go perfectly, and anything worth doing is certainly not easy at
all. The process makes you a tougher human being.
Expect slips from your healthy lifestyle and emotional eating.
- You are not expected to be perfect, you are not to be on a diet that restricts you from foods (unless you have allergies).
- Work indulgences into your meal plan so that you do not crave them (unless they will trigger you to over do it, go slowly)
- After a slip happens, recover gracefully. Ask yourself why you slipped up, and what better ways there are to go about dealing with the emotions next time. Did the stratgegy that you implement work or not?
- If you overate, rather than beat yourself up, think of the extra energy as fuel. (If you are sick or overstuffed do not workout). If I have too many calories or junk, I use it as an opportunity to do an extra long way. Don't feel like you have to overcompensate, but make use of the fuel you put in your body.
- Intermittant fasting or cleansing are popular trends. While I do not think going long periods of food is a great idea all the time, consuming clear liquids for a half a day after a binge, going hungry and eating protein and veg for the rest of the day can reset the body so that you do not feel so sluggish
- Make note of how you feel/felt during and after the emotional eating/binge. Remind yourself next time of these feelings (ie sick, bloated, nauseous, weak)
- Do not engage in all or nothing thinking and let one binge ruin a week or month. Do not engage in negative self talk. Get back on that horse.
Body Image and Self-Esteem
- Body image is a persons inner perception of their own body. This encompases race, abilities, facial features, weight, height and other things. One's sence of well-being and satisfaction can be related to their body image.
- What are the different messages we are receiving from the media about the ways our bodies should be?
- Are these messages getting better over time?
- Why we should focus on exercise and health over weight lose and body shaping...
- You will not be remembered for the size of your waist or breasts. You will be remembered for the way you treat others and impact others lives.
- This being said, if you take care of yourself and are happy with who you are, you will be in a better position to accomplish the things you want in life and will be outwardly happy and have better relationships.
- Exercise because you love your body, not because you hate it
- Catch yourself in the midst of a negative thought and nip it in the bud
- Write a list of the positive things that your body can do
- Exercise helps your skin! (see previous blog post)
- Dress to impress, have fun with your body, pay attention to the bits that you don't normally like or even acknowledge (massaging your feet and fingers, forearms etc)
- No one likes a complainer
- It is good to have goals and aspirations, but finding a balance
- Celebrities...tabloid magazine, paparazzi shots, constant scrutinization, etc
Setting goals
Specific
(be able to compete one hour of exercise)
Measurable
(improve my 5k by 2 minutes)
Attainable
(have my pants fit more comfortably in 6 weeks)
Realistic
(drop 5 pounds in 3 months, not 50 pounds
Timely
(within 3-4 months) (small goals to start)
- When you start a new program, always start small. If you are a beginner exerciser, make it a goal to get to the gym 3 times a week to start.
- Don't expect an instantaneous life overall in a month. Starting with adding in a breakfast, or cutting out late night eating a good first step
- Remember, changing your life is a process
