Managing Emotional Eating
Have you ever suspected that you’re an emotional eater? Do you eat when you’re not physically hungry? Do you have a secret cupboard in your room full of snacks and processed goodies ? Do you starve yourself before a special event is nigh? Do you pretend to eat little with your friends/family and then go home and binge on processed foods? Binge eating almost always involves processed foods like a bag of chips, or packaged cakes and cookies and seldom natural foods. Highly sugared and salty items are always available, cheap, easily stored and have a long sell-by date. If you were born in the 1970’s and 1980’s then you probably were given boxed cereal for breakfast, had a bag of crisps and a bar of chocolate in your packed lunch and ate frozen- microwaved foods for dinner at least on weeknights. You were also taught to finish everything on your plate; not stop when you’re full, and don’t load up the dinner plate to begin with.
Bad habits do die hard. However, emotional eating is not a habit. It’s a condition where a person is distracting themselves from a traumatic experience, or social pressure, work or school stress, bullying and abuse, rebelling against perfectionism, nurturing and comforting oneself through eating as they might not feel good enough in a relationship. Eating to self-soothe hurt feelings or fill up the void and emptiness “inside” always happens alone and in secret. Those who under-eat on purpose are also doing so because of emotions. Eating disorders are born this way: unaddressed emotional and mental health issues.
How do you manage it? First of all you have to perform the difficult and often painful task of figuring out the root cause behind your binge-eating. It might be obvious, it might not be. It might be the time for you to be brave enough to face as you recognise your binge eating habits as emotionally rooted. Perhaps a loved one has noticed you binge eating in secret and points out that something is wrong. Whatever the case might be, you know that something is intrinsically wrong. Secondly, you can begin to recognise the triggers that send you to your secret stash of goodies in the first place. Mindfulness, and self-awareness can help you identify the triggers as a person, a place, a topic under discussion. Ask yourself “Why are you sensitive to this particular situation?” Then, name it. Yes name the emotion you can feel bubbling inside you. You might have heard the expression; “Name it, and then tame it.” When you christen the emotion, it suddenly loses its power over you. It isn’t elusive anymore or hidden nut felt but now very much visible to you. As a result of this practice you can willingly stop binge eating, and tackle the emotion head on by doing the exact opposite. Take 10 deep breaths to calm your adrenal glands and turn on the parasympathetic nervous system. In a calm state, you will grow brave and confront the trigger head on and let go of the emotional eating.
If you recognise after reading this newsletter that you might have an emotional eating disorder, schedule an appointment with me to help navigate you to a healthy and normal eating pattern. You’re not alone.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Sonia Salim.
“Good health practices are contagious.”
“I am a Nutrition and Being-Well Coach. My training is from IIN in NYC in Holisitc Health Counselling. I started my private practice in 2017 and as I gained clientele, I wanted to delve deeper in to the root causes of bad health whilst helping women reach their weight loss goals.
I earned 3 more certifications from IIN in Gut Health, Hormone Health and then later one in The Psychology of Food.
Breakfast Book | Lunch Book | Dinner Book
You can contact me at my given email or phone number.
info@thefoodpharmacy.pk | thefoodpharmacyapp@gmail.com | +92 302 8437778
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Thanks, Sonia.
