Step 25

Ruthie’s Step 25… This may hurt a little!
Do Your Emotions Control Your Weight? With help from an article.
Losing weight may involve breaking bad habits. Major habits, such as smoking and drinking are obvious. Emotional eating habits and attitude are less obvious.
There are those who eat because they are hungry. Then there are those who eat because food is like a pacifier. They eat when they are frustrated, angry, sad, depressed or bored. This is can lead to over eating.
If you think about it we celebrate our birthdays, graduations, weddings, and any other social gathering with food. We associate feeding ourselves with feeling good. Read Step 11. For an occasion we get chocolate. In church our fellowship consists of dinners and Sunday morning donuts. I think because we get to thinking….. to feel good and to fit in we need to eat! We need to take control of the situation! Step 17 and step 5.
People will feel some type of emotion, be it stress, sadness, anger, loneliness, boredom, or any other emotion that sees fit. Then they turn to food to ease those feelings. This is only a temporary fix. We feel guilt or frustration and sometimes fat.
How do I know I’m an emotional eater? A very good article. This was me!
I hope this is a good read for you. I was this person. Every thing was an occasion to eat. Every single mood! I hope this helps. A lot of my steps are in my own words but sometimes an article like this is too good to pass up!
You know you’re an emotional eater when your first response to any sort of emotion that is beyond the norm is to eat and eat a lot. [WOW! ME!] Even if those feelings give you minor discomfort, you will binge. What it does, is take your mind off the problem for a while – but eventually, after it is all said and done, the problem will still be there, along with more pain and anguish from you for giving in to the craving. For emotional eaters it is a roller coaster ride.
The best way to stop is by starting a food journal so you can keep track of what you eat and when. This way you can recognize patterns. You can recognize what emotions you felt when you ate. Step 11, step 24 and step 3.
After you have tracked your routine for a while, go back and take a look at your food journal. You should be able to spot a pattern quickly and easily. When you identify what causes you to binge so much, it will be much easier to know when to expect them, and in turn, how to deal with the emotion itself instead of trying to mask it with food. The best way to fight it is to learn what emotion you feel and tackle that emotion head-on!
While writing things down in your journal, make a list of things you can do during those emotional stages instead of eating. For example, if you feel bored, instead of going for food, do a little exercising. This will strengthen your body and make you feel better. Another way to describe it is to replace the emotion with something more positive that will give you beneficial results.
There are many times when it is difficult to know the difference between a physiological need for food and a psychological want. Real, physical hunger comes on gradually, giving you signs to let you know when it is time to eat - small gurgles followed by large rumbles. At this time you eat more than one kind of food. You eat a variety. But you eat only to satisfy that hunger.
Emotional eating comes on suddenly. At the moment you weren’t even thinking about food. But then the next minute you think you are famished. This is not physically based, it is psychologically based. You think you need to eat but you don’t. Your mind plays tricks on you and causes you to eat when you don’t need to.
The best ways to avoid this problem when cravings hit are to wait for twenty to thirty minutes before you indulge. During this time, you may realize that you really don’t have any cravings, or you may figure out what you really do need and go after that instead. Usually after a few minutes have passed, the cravings will go away and you won’t have the temptation anymore.[Read step 14.]
Keep on keeping on……making better choices for a healthier you!