Are You an Emotional Eater?

Learn to Manage, through understanding, planning and action steps

Resource: http://exercise.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/emotionaleating.htm

Do you ever eat when you're not hungry? Is that a silly question? Most of us are probably guilty of eating for reasons other than hunger; this is often called emotional eating. In fact, in a recent poll, 19% of my readers cited "Eating when I'm tired, depressed or stressed," as one of their biggest diet blunders.

Emotional eating is a common way we sabotage our weight loss goals, as well as our physical and mental health well being, but it doesn't have to be that way. By recognizing your emotional eating habits, you can start changing those bad habits and take control of your diet.

Food for Thought

Eating only when you're hungry makes sense on an intellectual level but, emotionally, food often represents more than just a mixture of inanimate ingredients. For many of us, food is a reward for doing something good, a comfort when we're feeling bad or even something to do when we're bored. People often turn to food when they feel:

    Stress* Depression*Anger*Boredom* Loneliness*Frustration*Anxiety

For many of us, reaching for our favorite foods is an automatic response when we don't feel good about ourselves. Changing that automatic response isn't easy but, if you want to learn how to control your calories to lose weight or get healthy, it's worth the time and effort to figure out what's behind your emotional eating habits.

Why Are You Eating?

The first step to taking control of your eating is to figure out what triggers emotional eating for you. Do you eat more at work because of stress or boredom? Do you eat more at parties or other social situations because you're nervous or anxious? Do you eat when you're bored or lonely?

For many of us, emotional eating is such an ingrained habit, we're not even aware we're doing it. The following tools can help you keep track of your eating to give you a clearer perspective on your eating habits:

 

    Blank Food Diary

    How to Keep a Food Diary

    Identify Your Emotional Eating Triggers   
you can access the tools @ :http://exercise.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/emotionaleating.htm