Are you an emotional eater?

I’m a typical woman battling the same food issues most of us struggle with every day. One in every 100 women in the US suffers from emotional eating.

So What is Emotional Eating?

It means you eat to satisfy an emotional hunger; using food as a way to cope with life and comfort your soul. It’s a growing epidemic and not one openly discussed among our friends. It’s a private moment with yourself, indulging in food to comfort your soul.

75% of overeating is caused by emotions

• Unemployment, Work stress or Financial pressure

• Health problems

• Relationships

• Sad, Anger, Happy, Bored

Emotional eating is a way to suppress or soothe any of these emotions. It leads us to the eating zone!

Some of us don’t know we’re in an emotional eating “zone”. When you’re in the zone, you may or may not be hungry. You might find yourself standing in the pantry or in front of the refrigerator and grabbing a variety of treats to satisfy your emotion. At that point, you’re not connecting the emotion to anything particular in your life with what’s going in your mouth. It’s not likely that you are going to whip up a gourmet meal. Instead you are looking for something to sooth yourself. You move between the fridge, pantry, and countertops, while taking a bite here and there. On average you can consume over 2,000 calories in the Zone, without realizing it…. A sure fire way to sabotage your weight-loss efforts.

Emotional eating often leads to eating too much, especially too much of high-calorie, sweet, fatty foods. But the good news is you can take steps to regain control of being in the zone.

You can start by building a healthy relationship with food. If you think about it, we have many relationships in life, our families, spouse, significant other, children, friends, co-workers, hair dresser, manicurist etc. Having a healthy relationship with food is as important as having a healthy relationship with everything else in your life. It’s okay to call a friend and tell him/her that you’re having a bad day and feel like eating yourself silly. Don’t be embarrassed. If we were having relationship issues with our spouse, a friend or someone else, we always reach out to someone close to us and to talk about what’s bothering us, so why should talking about a bad relationship with food be any different? It shouldn’t!

Get rid of the high-calorie, sweet, fatty foods you have in your house and replace it with some of the healthy more nutrient valued snacks. This will help keep you on a healthier track next time you are in the zone. Some of my favorite store bought items are: Think-Thin Bars (low in sugar), Skinny Cow Fudge Bars, and Breyers Smooth & Dreamy Bars. Dole Fruit Bars. Salt cravings: whole wheat gold fish mixed with raw almonds or reduced fat triscuits.

Get active…we have a tendency to celebrate life with food gatherings. Have you ever asked someone to get together for a run, golf, tennis, workout, hike, etc. instead of going out to eat? Now’s the time to start!

Lastly, remember that emotional eating is something that most people do when they're bored or something’s “eating” at them. Next time something’s eating at you, don’t react instead respond by making a healthy choice.

Until next time...