Its Just Food! How Emotional Eating Makes You Overweight and What to Do About It
Chances are, if you're overweight, you've got a relationship with food. And I mean a relationship more than just the usual "love-hate" scenario most people think of with food. I'm talking about a love affair that may have lasted weeks or months, but most likely has been going on for a number of years. It may sound a bit crazy, but I'm guessing if you're overweight and you know what I'm talking about in your relationship to food, there have probably been times when you have indeed felt a bit crazy.
After working with hundreds of clients and examining patterns of emotional eating (not to mention years of struggling with my own), I've found there are all types of relationships people have with food and all types of different things that people may try to "get" from food. This is really what creates the love affair type of relationship is all the things you get from food that you may feel you are lacking in other areas of your life, the voids you are trying to feel, the feelings you are trying to stuff or avoid, or any other number of emotional causes of overeating.
When you over eat, what is it you are trying to get from that food? Is it love? Is it a feeling of relief? Is it a distraction? Is it revenge? Fulfillment? The list goes on, but to give you more of an idea of some of the things you may be using food for:
Food as Love. A very common trigger for emotional eating is trying to fill the void of love in your life. It may be that when you were a child you felt unloved by your parents or family members, so food became the coping mechanism to fill that void and help yourself feel loved.
Food as Relief or Distraction. Stress, anger, or other strong emotions are triggers to use food as a relief or distraction from feeling those feelings. It also may be if there's something you don't want to face in your life and to keep confronting it may be tough, so every time you want a break from your worries or anything else, you dive right into food for that relief....almost like taking the valve off a can built up with pressure.
Food as Revenge. Some people are unhappy in marriages and use food and gaining weight as a way to punish their spouse. Others may do it as a way to get back at their parents or siblings. Using food as revenge is an "oh yeah I'll show you" type of situation and some even use it towards society as a whole...to try to prove that they don't have to fit the "skinny" mold. You may even just feel angry at anybody who has ever had anything to do with talking about getting in shape or losing weight.
Food as Fulfillment. There could be any area of your life that you feel is lacking something and food is the replacement for that...whether you feel like you are lacking something as a person or perhaps some sort of success or this or that. Many times it's because of comparing yourself or your life to someone else and you think something is missing...so you use food to try to make you feel more fulfilled.
Food as Fun. If your life isn't balanced, you may be using food to try to fill the void of having fun. It may be as a social thing, or it may even be that you're so busy that the only fun thing you do in a day is the great things you get to eat.
There are many, many other things that you might use food for or try to get from it. But no matter what, it's probably a pretty complex relationship you've built up with food.
Think about how you feel when you are indulging (the part before you feel guilty) and if you could put the the feelings into words...it might be something like this.. "Oh this is so delicious. Oh the relief. Aaah, this is so nice. Everything is quiet. Food is always there for me. Food loves me. Food never talks back to me. Ahh I love you food. Food is the best. Food never lets me down. Food...food....food...."....and before you know it you've finished the entire bag of chips or the whole bucket of ice cream.
You've probably even had times where you experience what I call a "food blackout." You know the drill....you've sworn to yourself you're going to eat less today or maybe that you'll only have one cookie, etc. etc. and before you know it, you almost don't even know how it happened (blackout), but you are way too full and you ate twenty times more than you had set out to.
So what to do about all this food love affair? I could really write a book about the different causes and all the different ways to handle it, but for now...I'm going to give you two simple steps. That's right...just these two steps alone will help tremendously with being able to keep your emotional eating in check.
The first step is to become mindful of when you are overeating and why. Take notice of the emotional triggers, how you feel, what are your thoughts, etc. when you go to overeat. You may think, "Well, I only overeat when I'm with other people....or when the food is sitting around at work or when I'm out with friends or when I'm at a party or when I'm cooking for the family so I don't really have emotional overeating it's just that in social situations I have a hard time. Guess what? If you do that consistently it is because of emotional eating. Otherwise everyone who ever ate in a social setting would be fat. And if all the people you know are overweight as well so they are eating with you...it's because of emotional eating for them as well. Nobody continually overeats to the point it makes them overweight unless there are emotions behind it. Bottom line. OK so back to the topic at hand, what to do about it?
After you start to notice where, what, why, when, etc. the overeating happens that is a huge step to taking it off "unconscious" mode and being ready to take back your control and your power over it. That's step one.
Step two - it's just food. Once you do step one and become mindful of why you're eating so much and what you're trying to get from it, you can take a step back and remind yourself it's actually just food. Really, it's kind of funny that it's so simple...but you will notice that if you are emotional eating, you are not seeing it as just food. So next time you feel desperate to eat more than you know you actually need for your body, ask yourself, "What am I trying to get from this food?" Then whatever answer you come up with (even if you are trying to convince yourself you really are that hungry), just say over and over and over "it's just food." Because that's all it is. It's just food. Food is nutrition for your body and it gives you energy, that's it. Once you start to see food as just food, it's doesn't mean you'll enjoy it any less. You can actually start to enjoy it more because you're consciously eating and you are getting from it just the simple enjoyment of eating food instead of feeling guilty you ate too much and none the better in your search for love or anything else. You will never get anything from food besides just nutrition and lots of flavors...once you realize that your weight loss goals will become so much easier and you will be able to enjoy the food you eat. And who doesn't want that? So let this be your new mantra.....it's just food!
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