09/08/2023
A common issues I see with clients in clinic is emotional eating. They will have a a run of good nutrition followed by a bout of emotional eating. Often they haven’t learnt to pin point triggers and or find ways to overcome this negative pattern!
Here are 10 tips to overcome emotional eating. Head to the comments for the last few tips that are critical to success
1. Identify triggers: Pay attention to the emotions or situations that often lead to emotional eating. This could be stress, boredom, sadness, or other negative feelings. It can also be celebrations or happy times when we over indulge as we are stuck in an all or nothing mentality and unable to enjoy treats in a sensible moderated way.
2. Find alternative coping mechanisms: Instead of turning to food, find healthier ways to manage your emotions. This could include engaging in physical activity, practicing deep breathing exercises, journaling, or talking to a supportive friend or family member. It can also be choosing to celebrate or reward your self in non food related ways, such as booking nail or facial appointments, splurging on a new outfit or book, or spending more time in the garden or doing something you love.
3. Practice mindfulness: Be mindful of your eating habits and try to eat only when you are physically hungry, rather than using food as a way to soothe emotional discomfort. Ideally always have meals and snacks away from your working environment and away from social media so you can be mindful whilst eating, this also helps with satiety.
4. Keep a food diary: Keeping track of your eating patterns can help you become more aware of emotional eating tendencies. Write down what you eat, when you eat, and how you feel before and after each meal or snack. This can be pen and paper or an app.
5. Find healthy substitutes: If you find yourself craving certain comfort foods, try to find healthier alternatives. For example, reach for some salted nuts instead of chips, or a low carb sugar free chocolate instead if reaching for a high carb sugary snack.
6. Create a supportive environment: Surround yourself with people who support your efforts to overcome emotional eating and avoid keeping trigger foods in the house.
7. Seek professional help: If emotional eating is a persistent problem that you cannot overcome on your own, consider seeking help from a therapist, counselor or nutritionist with experience in emotional eating.
8. Practice stress management techniques: Find healthy ways to manage stress, such as practicing yoga, meditating, taking a bath, or engaging in hobbies you enjoy.
9. Avoid being overly restrictive! This is an important one! When we over restrict calories and or foods we enjoy it can often lead to feelings of deprivation, which can trigger emotional eating. Focus on nourishing your body with food you genuinely enjoy and balanced meals and snacks instead.
10. Be patient and kind to yourself: Overcoming emotional eating is a journey and it takes time. Be patient with yourself and remember that slip-ups are normal. We eat up to 42x per week and that 1 slip up is insignificant in the scene of things. Our calories and macros balance out across the whole week so even if we have slipped up that one meal is not going to be detrimental. The trick is to get back on track as quickly as possible rather than slipping into the all or nothing mentality of “I have mucked up…. I may as well just eat the whole pack of biscuits and reset next week! Reset immediately and focus on consistent progress, not perfection.
