Food may be tied to emotions and memories. The best step towards distinguishing if emotions are affecting you is by creating awareness of eating habits.
Here are 5 steps that are going to help you counter emotional eating:
a) Identify what triggers you to eat
Ask yourself what’s causing you to overeat. Is it anxiety, stress, or boredom? Are you lonely or depressed? How does this feel?
When you acknowledge what your trigger is, you have to try and arrange for its mitigation. For example, if loneliness is your trigger then you have to plan a meet-up and turn up.
If anger triggers you to eat, find appropriate ways to calm yourself down instead of food. In anyway food has never been the solution for anger.
b) Strengthen your coping mechanism
Once you have established what triggers you to overeat, think of alternative choices available.
If for instance, you’re feeling like eating when you are lonely, consider available options like reading books, exercising, or meditating. Find the simplest activity for you.
c) Evaluate your life balance
Feeling bored, or tired? These are some of the contributing factors to your emotional eating. If you’ve got a couple of minutes to spare, do some physical activities around as they facilitate your overcoming.Â
Place hobbies in your daily schedule. It refreshes you besides helping you reduce weight as it will increase the burning of calories in your body
d) Examine your Eating Habits
Having a low body glucose level will negatively impact your more. This causes an individual to indulge in less healthy food decisions.Â
Ensure you’re providing your body with enough energy to power your day.
e) Eat with Enjoyment
To minimize mindless uptake think about the foods you’re eating and describe them silently using adjectives.
For example, is that food sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy, sour, spicy, hard, or soft? Allowing yourself to taste and describe the food helps you slow down and enjoy it mindfully.
