Emotional Eating

Why do you eat?

When I ask people this question, the answers are pretty common:” because it’s there”, “I’m bored”, “it’s expected”, “it’s time”, “to cope”, “it’s a habit”.

Notice what’s missing?

No one said, “because I was hungry.”

When was the last time you felt hungry?

If I follow up with this question, I often get silence and maybe a chuckle. We don’t even remember the last time we felt hungry, even if we are trying to lose weight.

It is not that uncommon.

We eat because it is a way to celebrate and socialize. We eat because of traditions, habits, and cues. We eat to calm and soothe emotional states. We eat because it is what we do when we watch TV, go out with friends, or work. We eat to relieve boredom, reduce stress, and push back anger. We eat because food is available everywhere we go. We eat for many reasons. Sometimes even because we are hungry.

If you are struggling with weight loss, ask yourself, When was the last time I ate because I was hungry?

Hunger is a physical feeling.

It is not a craving. Becoming too hungry can cause overeating. Remember the last time you ate, was it a physical feeling or something else?

Mindfulness-based eating helps people understand their emotional eating cues. Awareness can help change the response to emotional cues and allow us to make different choices, but that doesn’t always work.

A study published in Frontiers in Behavioural Medicine examined how the environment changes our food decisions. They were interested in the idea that we have control over how and when we eat, but that is being constantly undermined by a constant stream of sensory overload. 

In other words, the advertising and marketing of junk food.

These same researchers suggest that using simple cues or reminders about healthy food choices could be all it takes to make better decisions. Finding ways to interrupt the regular cues to eat, the endless stream of cues to eat unhealthy foods, can make enough of a difference to stop the eating cycle.

This may work if you are a lab rat.

Which is how they did their research. Interrupting regular cues is a start, but last time I checked, it was easier to control your environment if you were trapped in a lab.

To successfully change a habit, you need to keep the same cue and the same reward, but substitute the routine. This means understanding what is the reward that you are looking for? If it is not to satisfy hunger, then the solution is personal. The reward could be to soothe emotions, to alleviate boredom, or to socialize.

New research from the University of Australia shows that it takes about two months to form a new habit and up to a year to make it part of your routine. This is important because the old saying that it takes 21 days to make a new habit is incorrect and leads people to give up too soon. Researcher, Dr Ben Singh says,

When trying to establish a new healthy habit, success can be influenced by a range of things including how frequently we undertake the new activity, the timing of the practice, and whether we enjoy it or not.

When I help people change their health behaviours, I suggest making the changes small and easy, easier to do than to avoid. That their new habits fit into their life right now, not some imagined perfect future and maybe most importantly, that they like doing them. Your good habits are not a punishment for bad behaviour.

Recognizing emotional cues, pausing before reacting, and consistently practicing healthier alternatives can become a new habit.

So enjoy that occasional indulgence, and remember that new habits take time. The key is to keep practicing, and the next time you reach for a snack, ask yourself, “Am I hungry?”

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla