We are all Emotional Eaters

You just had a fight with your spouse, kid, mom, or the guy in the car behind, and it is not even 10 o’clock. Our natural reaction is to make ourselves feel better, and fast. Our brain knows when things are bad and when they are good. In fact it will relate how you feel to what you are doing. Most people eat when there is a party or a gathering of people. Party’s makes you feel good. So now your brain relates that good feeling to food. So if you have had a fight with someone or had a bad day, you just want to feel better and your brain reaches back into the archives and tells you that if you have those doughnuts you will feel so much better. This is where so many people get into trouble. The brain just want to soothe you, and much of the time it is with something smooth, fattening, creamy, sugary, salty, or crunchy.

Sound familiar? I know it does because it happens to everyone at some point in time, we are all emotional eaters. You know that unhealthy overeating leads to weight gain and destructive pattern of self-loathing and anxiety. Yet, none of us will ever be stress free, so this is as good a time as any to break that habit. Identify the things that cause sadness, or make you feel angry, or anxious.

We should no longer worry about the past. We will only concentrate on the present. Maybe the last few diets did not work, and that made you upset, hurt, angry, or depressed, forget it. The presents defines you; not the past. A good weapon is to write down a daily schedule that states when you will eat, what you will eat and where you will be when you eat. Having a game plan affects your behavior now. Once you have formed this new habit you can stop writing out your daily plan but it will keep your actions that benefit you in the forefront of your mind. I don’t need to see this but maybe you do. Once you have committed to the process take it day by day.

So with this new mindset the next time you have a bad morning you won’t reach for the breakfast burritos or the cinnamon rolls that have been sitting in the office all morning. You know that eating that will not make you feel better in the long run, but it will add calories and maybe pounds you don’t need or want.

Here is and example of a typical schedule.

7 Wake/Eat (2 hard boiled eggs and ½ cup of Oatmeal)/Home
8
9:30 Eat (1 Hard boiled egg and ½ cup of Oatmeal)/Work
10
11
12 Eat (4oz of Salmon, ½ baked potato and steamed green beans)/Restaurant
1
2
3 Eat (4oz of Salmon, ½ baked potato and green beans)/Work
4
5
6 Eat (4oz Chicken breast, 6oz summer squash)/Home
7
8
9
10 Sleep

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