8 Steps to Help Curb Emotional Eating
1/ Keep a Food Diary – How you eat, when and why, can be more important than what you eat when it comes to emotional overeating. The total amount of food you consume, your attitude toward food, how you balance your meals and snacks, and your personal eating habits can play a much bigger role in emotional overeating than the specific foods you choose to eat. Keeping a log of what you eat and when and why you eat it, may help you identify the triggers that lead to emotional overeating. While it can be challenging, try to include everything you eat — however big or small — and record how you feel in that moment. Take time to analyse your eating habits and patterns and pin point the situations (and even the people) that cause you to eat purely for emotional comfort.
2/ Separate Hunger Cues from Emotional Cues – It can be difficult to recognise and understand the difference between eating in response to hunger and eating in response to an emotion. Learn to separate the two and self-regulate your eating by eating mindfully when you are hungry and consciously resisting if you are not hungry and your craving or desire for food or a certain food is purely emotional.
3/ Pay Attention to Volume – If you are eating too much, then you may need to retrain your brain to see a smaller portion as more than enough. A standard-sized portion will look small on a large plate, making you feel dissatisfied, so use smaller dinner plates to trick your brain. When you’re finished, if you feel that you haven’t had enough to eat. Wait for about 20 minutes before reaching for a second helping. It can take a little while to feel satisfied after you have eaten. And don’t pick at leftovers. Wasting food certainly isn’t ideal, but avoid the temptation to polish off children’s or grandchildren’s meals. Get into the habit of cooking less or have a plan to use up leftovers in another meal.
4/ Stick to a Meal Schedule – Studies have found that skipping breakfast, eating late at night and other unusual eating patterns can lead to weight gain. That doesn’t mean everyone can or should eat breakfast as soon they wake up in the morning, nor does it mean you can’t eat anything at night. But if eating routines aren’t helping you lose weight or control overeating, it may be time to adopt a new pattern. Eating regularly-scheduled meals and regularly scheduled snacks, can prevent overeating for some people. Irregular meal habits usually spell trouble because they result in random eating and overeating. Generally, most people eat three meals and one or two snacks at specific times of the day.
5/ Get Rid of Danger Foods – Simply by not having easy access to the comfort foods you crave during times of stress may help break the overeating cycle. Get rid of biscuits and other ‘treat’ snacks from the cupboard and fridge. If you don’t want to deprive other household members, keep snacks in tins on high shelves or somewhere awkward so that you have to make an effort to get them – this inconvenience will make you remember why you decided to make these snacks so hard to reach in the first place.
6/ Substitute Healthy Behaviours – If you’re used to eating in response to emotional situations, make a positive effort to do something else instead. Make a list of activities you enjoy that don’t involve preparing, eating or shopping for food. One of the simplest, easiest and healthiest alternatives to emotional eating is walking: regular walking, speed walking, walking on a treadmill, walking your dog... do whatever will take your mind off food.
7/ Develop Other Ways to Cope With Stress – Discovering another way to recognise and deal with negative feelings is often the first step toward overcoming emotional eating. This could be reading a book, or finding a few minutes to otherwise relax and decompress from the day. It takes time to shift your mind-set from reaching for food to engaging in other forms of stress relief, so experiment with a variety of activities to find what works for you.
Practice saying ‘no’, not only to unhealthy foods, but also to emotionally-charged situations that sabotage your efforts to develop better eating habits
8/ Accept Support – A network of family and friends, including professional help in the form of a dietician, therapist (if necessary), or support group such as www.overeatersanonymous.ie can be as important to your success as your own motivation and efforts. Those who care about your well-being can help by cheering you on, recognising the emotional underpinnings of your overeating issues, and perhaps even helping to diffuse some of the situations that trigger your overeating. Surround yourself with people willing to lend an ear, offer encouragement and motivation, or maybe even join in as cooking, walking or workout buddies.