Are You An Emotional Eater?

By Simon Warner

Do you find yourself overeating when you are sad? Perhaps you have attempted to avoid your urges to eat only to discover yourself stuffing your face with food?When you feel down, do you eat anything in sight? Oftentimes you feel helpless that you have no self-control. Maybe you feel guilty about eating but can't stop yourself.

Perhaps you are like many others and end up eating all the time. First, you need to come to grips that you are really in control of things.Whether you accept the facts or not, you on your own are the deciding factor of what goes inside your mouth.

You may be using food as a crutch to help you meet and handle your feelings that you don't know how to manage in a healthier way.

People who behave like this are often referred to as "emotional eaters". They will really feel to need to smother their feelings in fast foods or sweet pleasures like jelly donuts. There are times that you feel you lose all self control and end up easting way beyond our needs.

However, often time, guilt and low self esteem plaque the person. They not only feel bad about the behavior but more than likely will repeat this again. All you actually want is to be healthy and thin. To feel alive again without drowning in food is possible.

Let's face Reality

Junk food and high calories foods are not good for you, health-wise and mentally. What you eat requires you to make a conscious choice. Eating should be a mental activity and not a mindless activity of stuffing our faces. You decide what you eat.

So, the truth is that it's not possible to eat out of control. You are in control but not taking responsibility.

It's Simply Yes or No

First, let's agree that eating involves both the conscious and the unconscious mind. Most of the time, we can go unaware of some feelings and internal issues that push us to overeat. It can be such a conflict internally that we can debate within ourselves the guilty yet comforting feelings inside.

But in the end, we feel depressed that we allowed ourselves to grow addicted to the food. To help battle this, we need to face the issue directly. It does relate to the emotional power that eating has, as well as the foods we crave. Food is simply a tool to give us energy for our bodies. It has no power, unless we allow it to rule us. It comes down to the relationship we've built up with the food we eat.

It can trigger some comforting feeling to help ease some internal anxiety. Most people do suffer simply because food will become an emotional coping habit. It distracts the mind to make it think that everything is ok. It comforts. It's always there if you need it. It's readily available anywhere you go. It's no surprise that so many people feel the burden of stress in their lives.

Food is the easier way to cope with our internal feelings. We spend a majority of time helping others, while we feel our own internal feelings unresolved. So what happens? We end up drowning out our own dilemmas with food, only to find temporary relief. The first thing we need to do to help resolve our feelings is to acknowledge that we have a choice when it comes to food.

As you tune into your inner butterflies and feelings of your current mood, you can better make conscious decisions to handle them without the urges of eating.

Until this happens, you will always find yourself running to eating as a way to suppress your inner problems.

Empowerment Eating

A good habit to develop is empowerment eating. As you become aware of your inner feelings, take note of what you are eating and why you are eating.This method will help build up your relationship with food.

Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Be Responsible for Everything You Eat

Face the music and take responsibility for your actions. No one is forcing you to eat. Every bite that you ingests is of your own decision to eat. You should also be aware of the foods you eat. It's important to know that certain food can trigger your blood sugar levels to rise and fall. This will affect your overall energy level and mood. Remember, it's up to you to take control. Only you can do it for yourself.

You must be strong and have a sense of pride that you are making smarter decisions with your food.

Step 2: Know Your Reasons Behind Eating

When you sit down to eat, be aware of your reasons behind your actions. Eating is a physical activity but its can also be a mental action as well. Assure yourself that you are able to handle anything that comes your way, without the help of food.

Step 3: Gauge Your Internal Butterflies

Be aware of your overall mood and feelings throughout the day. Do you feel stressed out? Depressed? Do you feel overwhelmed? By being aware of your feelings, you can avoid putting yourself in front of food.You can resolve your feelings with resorting to food.

Empowerment eating can help put you in the right state of mind and help you start developing healthier habits. It's not an end-all to overeating, but a smart tool to help regain as sense of self worth. When you do happen to find yourself overeating or binging, you will now understand how to best handle it next time. Knowing the why's behind our actions will make life's decisions much easier to make. A healthier life is a decision away. - 31857

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