A quick insight about emotional eating

When you're feeling down, stressed, or upset, do you find yourself rushing to the pantry, looking for food? Finding solace in food is a typical occurrence, and it's referred to as emotional eating or stress eating.

In my own experience, school has been one of my biggest sources of stress for a few months now and I experience emotional eating almost every day. Personally, I am aware that it’s really not good for me but I’m always having a hard time dealing with it.

But, why do I, or we do this?

Stress causes our adrenal glands to release a hormone called cortisol, which is a stress hormone. This causes an increase in hunger and a desire to eat sweet, salty, or fatty meals.

You eat for reasons other than hunger when you engage in emotional eating. Food may be comforting and might help you to suppress or soothe negative emotions, such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness and loneliness; forget about what's upsetting you; and also it can give people a sense of reward.

What are the bad effects of emotional eating?

Emotional eating is harmful to one's health on both a physical and emotional level.

-Weight Gain. Emotional eating can sabotage your weight-loss efforts. It can contribute to overeating since it does not satisfy a nutritional or calorie requirement. Taking in excess calories might lead to weight gain over time.

-Guilt. After the emotional episode has gone by, there is frequently a feeling of shame, guilt, and remorse when it is discovered and felt that too much food was consumed. This guilt might also lead to additional emotional eating outbursts or low self-esteem, creating a vicious cycle.

-Sickness. Emotional eating frequently leads to overeating, stomach discomfort, and nausea later on. It has a powerful effect, and you may have these symptoms for days after consuming a big amount of food in a short period of time.

Here are some tips to avoid emotional eating:

- Learn how to recognize hunger. Emotional eating happens when a person is not really hungry but seeks food as a comfort meal to make them feel better. To avoid this, one effective strategy for resolving emotional eating is to ask yourself if you are hungry when you find yourself reaching for food.

- Find another distraction. Food is frequently used as a distraction strategy. Finding another distraction so that when you are experiencing unpleasant feelings, you seek for anything other than food is one strategy to reduce emotional eating tendencies.

- Learn to practice intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is an eating style that promotes a healthy attitude toward food and body image. The idea is that you should eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Though this should be an intuitive process, for many people it's not.

- Adopt healthy lifestyle habits. When you’re physically strong, relaxed, and well rested, you’re better able to handle the curveballs that life inevitably throws your way.

- Get a decent amount of sleep. When you don't get enough sleep, your body desires sweet foods that provide an immediate energy boost. Getting enough sleep will help you regulate your appetite and lessen your food cravings.

For further information, here’s an 11-minute video about the experience Renée Jones on how to deal with Emotional Eating, lose weight and keep it off (TEDxWilmingtonLive):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bE5XLGNPF0

If you have any suggestions or tips on how to lessen or avoid emotional eating, share it with us!

Would you like to share what's your experiences in regards to emotional eating? I would love to hear what you have to say! Comment below!

Have a lovely day ahead!

- Denise :)