Our Lifestyle Revolves Round Food
We all have times of celebration. We have birthday parties, anniversary parties, celebrate promotions, and many other things. And at these times we love to entertain and sit around the dinner table celebrating with a meal and a toast. It seems that whatever the reason for celebrating, it ends up revolving around food.
Food just fits into our ideas of home, comfort, and entertainment. We even prepare food for those who have suffered loss, as a source of comfort. We use it to express our devotion and love. It definitely plays a very important role in our lives. Without it, we simply couldn’t function. We all need food.
What Is Emotional Eating?
So what is ‘emotional eating?’ – There are those times of sadness or loneliness that we also turn to eating for comfort. We see food as something more than just a source of energy and nourishment. We enjoy our food. And there is scientific fact that backs up the fact that food causes chemical reactions in our brains that make us feel better. Even boredom can send you repeatedly to check out the refrigerator. And sadly, many people become so involved in some of these feelings that they’re obsessed with food, their weight, and with dieting.
What these emotional eaters do is turn to food as a distraction from having to deal with these strong emotions. But in the end, it causes them to experience guilt over eating so much, because the food is such a temporary fix, and doesn’t solve the problem. So they move from eating to dieting and exercising, and purging. It’s a vicious cycle for many people today.
Emotional eaters will evaluate themselves according to their weight and to how closely they stuck to their diets. They end up with having a distorted relationship to food. Everything suddenly becomes either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. An emotional eater can find himself experiencing some very serious disorders. And one of the most common disorder associated with emotional eaters is depression.
So How Do I Know If I’m An Emotional Eater?
Ask yourself if you ever turn to eating for any other reason besides being hungry. Are you constantly thinking about food? Do you find it always on your mind, either about restricting your intake, or about eating it?
Are you one who tries new diets regularly and fails? Do you experience feelings of guilt when you eat? Are you a purger? If you are one who uses laxatives all the time, or exercises compulsively when overeating, you are probably an emotional eater.
How Can You Overcome Emotional Eating?
Emotional eating is caused by looking to food as a strategy for coping. Emotional distress dieting will actually create more problems. Whenever you can’t stick to your diet, you’ll lapse into the world of guilt that makes you want to eat even more.
So instead of focusing on what you’re eating, as an emotional eater you need to learn new skills and methods for dealing with stressful emotions. This can many times call for professional help, like with a coach or psychotherapist. You need to find other things to replace the food as your comfort at times of distress. By changing your habits in this way, you can put your food back into its rightful place, and free yourself from the dependence for comfort you used to give it.
