We just launched our updated and interactive website. With this change, Emotional Brain Training (EBT) posts will now be under the heading Emotional Eating. The message is similar as EBT is used to get to the root of Emotional Eating.
I thought it would be helpful to first define Emotional Eating to make sure we are all on the same page.
Do you find yourself eating when you’re not really hungry?
Do you use food as a source of comfort in the face of feeling sad, anxious, or bored?
It is important to point out it is normal from time to time to eat when we are not hungry. However, if you regularly are using food to:
• Avoid negative feeling such as anger, guilt, sadness or fear/anxiety
• Distract ourselves from feeling bored or to distract from things happening in our lives.
…it will sabotage your health, your waistline and create disrupted circuits in your brain that strengthen those emotional eating patterns.
Find out if Emotional Eating is thwarting your weight loss success by increasing your awareness of what drives your hunger.
The following is a simple hunger scale. Start by identifying what messages your body sends you when you are starving, hungry and all the way to stuffed.
For myself I know I am…
Starving – when my thoughts are predominantly about food, I want to eat anything in sight and I find it hard to stop. I also can get irritable and feel a bit shaky.
Hungry – when I feel my stomach growl and I feel a bit ‘weak’ and find it difficult to concentrate
Comfortable –when there’s an absence of hunger. My body is satisfied here (although my mind might still want more)
Full – when I feel some pressure in my stomach
Stuffed – when I feel uncomfortable, like after Christmas dinner. It can even be painful.
Once you have identified what your body feels like at each point on the scale, start checking in before and after eating to see if you are routinely eating when you are not hungry (this is often a sign of emotional eating).
The goal is to start eating at 2 (hungry) and stop eating at 3 (comfortable) because in 20-30 minutes you will be at 4 (full).
Check back next Tuesday to learn how dieting can make you an emotional eater.