4 Steps To Handling Emotional Eating

If only food were just that—food. Oh, that’s something our jeans would really like. However, the problem is that food is often utilized for purposes other than nourishing the body. For some reason, when we’re feeling down, bored, empty, or stressed, we turn to comfort foods like ice cream, pizza, cookies, potato chips, and casseroles to help us feel better.

It’s Time To Eat: Do You Know Where Your Hunger Is?

Do you recognize the source of your hunger? If you’re hungry, here’s a GPS to help you find it. You’d think it would be simple. There’s more on the way.

Physical hunger manifests itself below the chin, whereas emotional hunger is experienced above it. As opposed to physical hunger, which can be anticipated by planning ahead, emotional hunger strikes without warning. While deep in thought while writing an essay, suddenly, you realize you’re ravenous.

Specific food cravings, particularly if they are intense and pull you toward eating immediately, point to hunger higher up the body. You can know your GPS is pointing north (that’d be above your neck toward your thoughts) when that’s coupled with an unpleasant feeling tied to a painful event.

Is the candy being shoved into your mouth mindlessly, or are you consuming it without discernible intention? Is that cupcake almost flying into your mouth? Really hungry? You’re talking about something above your neck.

Do you continue to eat even if you know your stomach is full? Emotional eating, that’s what you’ve got going on.

Now that you’ve realized you’ve overeaten, you feel guilty about doing something you started doing to alleviate negative emotions like depression, tension, anxiety, and loneliness. What a contradiction, eating due to feelings of stress or anger above the neck!

Are you prepared to swap out your dysfunctional, emotional eating habits with those based on your stomach’s true physical hunger? Are you prepared to identify the hunger that sneaks up on you, leaving you open to a variety of foods to nourish your body, manifests itself with a rumbling, gnawing feeling in your stomach, and waits patiently until you can eat? Good!