Emotional Eating

Eating to Satisfy Your Emotions

One of the most challenging reasons that people are not able to achieve and maintain a healthy weight is because of unproductive emotions. The emotions associated with weight gain are primarily related to feelings of stress. People feel scarcity in their life, and they cope with this feeling by eating. Food in the Western world is abundant and cheap. When we feel stress, we eat, which makes us feel good temporarily. However, this type of coping mechanism leads to excess weight, which then makes us feel more stressed. If you want to conquer your weight problem, you must first conquer your emotions. Think about the last time that you ate too much junk food. Compare how you felt while eating the chocolate cake or the potato chips with how you felt after eating. You may have noticed that you felt good while eating the junk food. The food tasted good, and you might have felt a pleasant, comforting sensation. After you finished eating, you may have experienced a range of emotions from boredom to guilt to outright anger. You then vowed to stop eating junk food and get back on your diet. And so, your battle with food and weight continues.

The Addiction of Food
For many of you, unhealthy food is an addiction. For some people who have serious food addictions, depression or other psychological conditions, professional psychological evaluation may be appropriate. But for most of you, you just need a new strategy to overcome your struggle with food. The first step to winning the battle with a problem is to recognize the problem exists. Be truthful with yourself and realize that you have a problem with emotional eating. If you are not eating primarily for good health, then you are eating for the wrong reason. Some of you may be thinking that the social aspect of eating is just as important as the nutritional content of our food. For thousands of years, people have come together at the table to share food, conversation and camaraderie. Food permeates our culture. Jesus broke bread with his disciples. Gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you who you are." Eating is a basic human need and is integral to every human culture. But we need to eat only to survive. The problem with the way we eat now is that our culture has corrupted the meaning and content of our meals. We are bombarded by thousands of television ads daily regarding the consumption of unhealthy foods. Eat fast, eat junk, and eat more is the mantra from the idiot screen. You need to be aware that your eating habits are your own, even if those habits are influenced by advertising, friends and family, and the culture in which we live. You are 100% responsible for what you eat. The food does not jump off the plate into your mouth. No one holds you down and force feeds you. This may sound harsh, but it is actually liberating. No one decides what you eat but you. Even babies will spit the food out if they do not want to eat it. Once you have recognized that you have a problem with poor eating habits and have taken responsibility for those eating habits, you can begin to correct the unhealthy habits. You are responsible but you are also free to change your eating habits.

Do Your Food Choices Serve You?
A good question to answer is "Why do you eat unhealthy food?" What is it that makes you choose the wrong foods in the wrong quantities? Only you know the answer to this question, but I can help guide you in ferreting out the deeper reasons. Take out a pen and piece of paper (or open a word processing program on your computer) and write the question at the top of the page - "Why do I overeat the wrong foods?" Then come up with at least 20 answers. The concept is to ask the right question to get the best answer. I have done this exercise myself, and discovered that most of the answers are emotional. Remember that just because you have emotional issues with overeating does not mean that you are crazy. I am a very happy, well-adjusted, successful physician, father and husband, but I have just as many emotional issues with food as you. This is completely normal, and you do not need to check into a psychiatric ward just because you eat chips or cookies while watching American Idol. The point is that you need to identify the deeper causes of your unhealthy habits if you want to change them permanently. Are your eating habits serving you? Does eating junk food really solve your problems or make you feel better? No, these behaviors do not make you feel better in the long term and certainly do not make you healthier. In the past, I ate when I was stressed, upset, tired, bored or even elated. Superficially, I knew that eating all of the wrong foods was making me gain weight and lose health, but I never really acknowledged that my eating patterns were not serving me until 8 years ago. It was not until I admitted to myself that I was eating my way to an early grave that I began to seek a healthier way. After you get to the root of why you do not have healthy eating habits, you can identify ways to change your habits. Take out the paper and pen again and write a new question at the top of the page - "What can I do instead?" Again, write at least 20 answers to this question. You will come up with ways to replace unhealthy habits with healthy ones. For example, If you eat out of boredom in front of the television, turn it off and read a book or call your best friend. If you eat because you are tired and stressed, take a walk with your favorite person. The simplest solutions are often the most profound and effective. The key to success is to replace unhealthy habits with healthy ones. It takes at least 3 weeks of doing something every day to develop a new habit. I have found that a 30 day challenge is a great way to develop a new habit. Acknowledge that you have a problem with food, discover why you eat the way you do, and begin replacing junk food with healthier choices. Create new habits. Live the life that you really want to live. Do not settle for less than you are capable. Somerset Maugham reminds us to strive to be better because, "Only mediocre people are always at their best."