Emotional eating is a subject that is written about over and over. Emotional eating is considered the act of eating as a result of feelings. For example in our society we use things to celebrate. Many people when overwhelmed with happiness eat to celebrate it. Many people also use food to numb themselves from painful feelings and to comfort themselves. This is called emotional eating.

However there are also people who believe emotional eating doesn’t exist. What they see as emotional eating isn’t the fact that one overeats because they are upset, more so that they are eating because their body is craving nutrients. Feeling upset and off balance is a signal to the body that more food is required. This rings true when we remember times we had been hungry and haven’t eaten in several hours or nearly the entire day. We can be snappy or sensitive and on edge with our emotions. Once we feed our hunger we feel better and more balanced. In this sense emotional eating makes sense.

In terms of the typical definition of emotional eating, one will “overeat” as a result of feelings. Is this true? Well emotional eaters tend to be people who do not eat very well. Many emotional eaters don’t eat breakfast or have very light food in the beginning of the day. As a result emotional binges result near the end of the day as the stress of their job or someone upsetting them takes its toll. When we eat enough our ability to manage stress is much better and we are less likely to turn to food to deal with it. We aren’t really turning to the food because of the emotion more because the emotion has reminded us that we are off balance and need to eat more.

In this way it can be very clear that emotional eating can be rectified by simply eating enough and eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. However in some cases it isn’t as simple as this and the notion of emotional eating does seem to exist. For example smells and different meals can remind us of our childhood and we often eat these foods in order to reminisce. Some foods also remind us of people – maybe our mother used to make us a beautiful lasagne and we want to reminisce as that person has died. This type of emotional eating is much harder to resist and overcome. It is only through understanding that not eating the food does not taint or belittle your memories that you can get past it.

It can be very hard to stop eating junk food. The worse time for junk food cravings tend to be in the evening and leading up towards bedtime. There are many reasons for this. Most people become bored after work as they sit down and watch TV. The boredom can lead to eating junk. This is just the way you have dealt with the feeling of being bored. Instead of doing something creative or something your heart desires (maybe because you feel too tired) you numb yourself. So each evening when you come home from work, you start to crave – you crave for junk because it numbs you and solves your emotional issue.

Of course, it isn’t really solving it, because as the next night rolls around, you repeat the process. You put on weight, you feel rubbish about yourself and that ultimately leads to more eating. It is just the way you have learnt to cope in the world. To undo it you need to learn to deal with your emotions another way and you need to get your needs met. Eating junk food doesn’t result in your needs being met; it just allows you to ignore them more effectively for a little while.

If you typically pig out in front of the TV, then its time to do something. Write a list of activities that you can do instead of eat. What things do you like to do, want to do but never thought you could? The bigger the list the better. If you aren’t exercising daily write this down as well because exercise is important. You can write more eventful activities to get a work out to than running or going to the gym! Maybe you like the idea of taking a dance class?

Write down as many as you can think of. May be you have some ambitions that have gone unfulfilled.

Instead of coming home and going straight to the TV, do something else. You may see TV time as your relaxation (although believe me it is far from relaxing you) so replace it with something relaxing. You could take a nice warm bath, do some yoga or meditation. Get yourself relaxed if that is what you want or like to do other work.

Try to plan your evening so that you don’t end up in front of the TV. You will find life much more rewarding if you are doing things that you love and that satisfy your need to be creative and playful.

In fact your best bet is to chuck out the TV or put it away for a week or so, see if that makes it easier for you to resist.

Helpful Products

Combat You Cravings Ebook

A comprehensive ebook that covers physical cravings and emotional eating. It has some great tips and guidance you can implement straight away. Visit The Site: Stop Cravings

Sometimes cravings are a sign that our needs aren’t being met. For most of us, we are working 9 to 5, then coming home to deal with family – potentially cooking, dealing with kids and there just seems to be no time to do what we want to do, to relax, to be creative, to do things we enjoy. Even at weekends it feels like there is no time.

Most of us end up sitting in front of the TV, munching out as a way to deal with life and not having time, not having energy. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you want to overcome cravings you need to first start eating properly. Eat nourishing foods.

And secondly you need to start getting your needs met. One of these needs is relaxation/creative.

Giving yourself time to relax is very important in a world that is full of everyday stressors. Whether this is having a nice hot bath at the end of a long day, or dipping into a book, spending time with your partner etc. it is important for your health.

Being creative is also important. Diving into something you love has incredible power to it – writing a story, playing the guitar or painting a picture. Whatever your interests get creative! Life isn’t all about going to work – bring some spark back into your life and do not neglect your interests. Not sure what you are interested in? Try different things and get creative!

By fulfilling just this one need you should see a reduction in cravings and a better overall sense of well being.

Stop Cravings

Lots of people are emotional eaters but have no clue that they are.  When we first start realizing that we have an issue with our food, there are two things that we must acknowledge: physical cravings and emotional cravings.  For emotional cravings, we can observe ourselves and see which food cravings are triggered by emotion – but starting out, what do we need to look for and how do we know we really are an emotional eater?

There are very specific signs you can look for and it is quite easy to establish whether you eat for emotional reasons or not.  Here are 5 signs you are an emotional eater:

1. Your hunger comes on suddenly and it feels urgent (you have to have a certain food NOW and will go out of your way to get it, even go out at 1am to the store!).
When you have true hunger/physical hunger it comes on slowly and is patient.  It can wait until you are able to get food, it doesn’t need to be satisfied immediately then and there.  Emotional hunger on the other hand demands you feed it NOW and you usually will end up shovelling the food down like you haven’t eaten in days.

2. You crave specific foods – usually junk.

3. Your hunger will coincide with an upsetting emotion.
Hunger that is connected with upsetting emotionals is definitely emotional hunger.  If you find you eat straight after someone has upset you or after a stressful event than it is emotional hunger more often than not.

4.You don’t even realize that you are eating sometimes – eating is something very automatic.
If you are genuinely hungry you will usualyl be aware of it and mindful.  Emotional nger on the other hand isn’t mindful and is the reason why many “forget” what they have eaten that day and do not acknowledge their snacking.

5. You keep eating even when you are full.
You can satisfy your true hunger without overfilling.  Emotional hunger however never really feels satisfied so you end up eating after you are full and ready to pop.  We want to keep having the taste to help us the numb the feeling.

6. After you eat you often feel a sense of guilt and regret.
If you feel guilty after eating, trhen it is most likely emotional hunger – you know deep down that what you doing isn’t to satisfy true physical hunger.

If you relate to none of these statements then overcome food cravings may be as simple as eating the RIGHT nutritious foods, making sure you are eating enough and knowing more about physical food addiction.  For more information click here

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Emotional Eating Program

A 12 week online intensive emotional eating program to help you overcome overeating and feeding your emotions. This is also great for those wanting to lose a few pounds, as you will find by overcoming emotional eating the pounds will fall off.

Visit the Site: Click here.

Overcoming cravings can be as simple as erasing the physical causes (poor nutrition) of the cravings.  But usually there is an emotional craving attached also.  Emotional cravings are when an emotion triggers you to crave a food or feel hungry (Roger Gould calls this phantom hunger).

When we experience emotional cravings that are out of control, we need to start observing ourselves and seeing exactly what emotions are causing the triggers.  Maybe we eat out of boredom.  Maybe we eat because we are dissatisfied about our relationship.  Cravings – emotional cravings – are telling you something.  Instead of eating you need to listen.

A good start pointing when tackling this issue is to tackle our mindset first.  Negativity is something many people habitually part take in.  Our inner critic tells us we are not good enough and we constantly play the worse case scenario in any situation instead of weighing up all the facts.

Your weight loss outcomes can depend on many things but at the core of it all you need to believe in 3 things in order to successfully lose the battle with the bulge.

You need to believe:

1. POSSIBILITY: It is possible for you to overcome cravings.
2. ACHIEVEMENT: You are able to stop craving.
3. WORTHINESS: You deserve to stop craving and lose weight.

Possibility

Possibility is almost always mistaken for competence. We think that something isn’t possible, that we aren’t able to give up our favorite junk foods or stop craving when really we don’t know how to do it – we don’t have the knowledge or resources to be able to stop craving.

It is possible though, regardless of your situation. You can’t prove that it isn’t possible – you can only say that you haven’t achieved it yet.

Beliefs are not fact.

Beliefs are just our best guess at something and we often sell ourselves short. Do you think you have put a mental ceiling on your achievements? Do you think you have hindered your ability to stop craving through your beliefs about yourself?

Ability

Most of us tend to make others aware of our short comings, when we can’t do something. If you take a day out and observe people and what they say, you should notice how often people say they can’t do this or they can’t do that. We all think this is being modest, when in fact its not. Modesty is not boasting about what we can do, it isn’t boasting about what we can’t!

Once you become aware of yourself voicing your inability to give up chocolate/junk/sugar, you can stop yourself voicing it. If you continue to voice your inability to give it up, it will hold you back from achieving your lifestyle/weight loss goals. If you find it difficult to stop voicing your inability, a good alternative is to add the word “yet” to the end of your statements.

“I haven’t been able to give up chocolate…yet”

“I can’t stop craving…yet”.

It is also important not to make excuses for your craving failures. If you do not have the knowledge to prevent cravings, go out and get it.  Set tasks that you need to do in order to achieve your slimmer figure.

A general belief that you should try to hold is:

You have not yet reached the limit of what you are capable of.

Keeping this in mind will help you to achieve your craving and weight loss goals.

Worthiness

Do you deserve to give up junk food/lose weight? Does it make you feel uncomfortable to say you deserve to? If it does, this should help you figure out any obstacles that are in your way to achieving your goal. List them and work out how you can overcome them.

e.g. I don’t have the correct knowledge to stop my sugar addiction – to overcome this I am going to do some research and find a suitable diet program or expert to help me.

Allow yourself to believe these 3 things and you will be on the right path to a positive mindset to help yourself overcome cravings.

Overcome Overeating

Click here for help with emotional eating

Previous Post: Binge Eating Disorder – What is Binge Eating Disorder?

Many food cravings and overeating issues can be eliminated when one provides the right nutrition for their body. However, not all overeating is a result of physical addiction to food or because one isn’t being a healthy eater.  Sometimes it isn’t as simple as this.

As a society that uses food for celebration, mourning and for social interaction – the emotional element to food cravings and overeating cannot be ignored. For many people their emotional eating issues can be addressed with some self awareness and journaling, but many need more guidance and can’t overcome it alone.

It can be difficult, very difficult to overcome our attachment to food – the comfort it gives us, but it IS possible.

If you find that becoming self aware – finding your emotional eating triggers, getting support from others and nourishing your body to decrease physical cravings isn’t enough to stop you overeating, then ShrinkYourself.com’s step by step, 12 week online program may very well be the solution to your emotional eating.

ShrinkYourself.com offers a 12 week program that teaches you how to overcome the bad feelings and emotions that cause you to overeat. It has been developed from a proven program used in hospitals to help individuals overcome overeating. What the program will teach you , step by step, is how to become mentally stronger, to question your emotions and overcome bad feelings for good.

ShrinkYourself.com is also a wealth of information on emotional eating and overeating. It has many free interactive tools to help you become more aware of your patterns of eating and also has many articles on the subject. If you are struggling it is a great resource, whether or not you feel the 12 week program is for you.

Click Here to Read More About The Program

Click Here to Visit ShrinkYourself.com

This article has been taken from http://www.eating-naturally.com and was written by Kelly Aziz author of Combat Your Cravings.

This article gives a good overview of where your food issues came from:

Food cravings are one of the subtle, cultured forms of addiction and compulsive behavior that are very difficult to discern.  It is acceptable to have an addiction when it comes to food, or so it seems.  We all have them and we all treat people with this particular addiction (addiction to food) entirely different to someone who is addicted to alcohol or other drugs.

Where as someone who craves alcohol would be encouraged to seek help, those of us who crave sugary snacks are often – if not all the time – encouraged to indulge in our addictions.  And if we don’t indulge we will often hear the retort:

“Why are you depriving yourself?”

“A little isn’t going to hurt!”

Can you honestly say that the foods you crave are not addictions?

Most foods that are craved have no nutritional benefit to you and can cause and contribute to a number of different health conditions including excess fat, diabetes, heart disease etc.

Why would you want to eat these foods other than for comfort and pleasure?  You wouldn’t.  It is your addiction to them that makes you eat them.

Food has the power to control you in this way.  Sugar, salt and foods laced with fat are emotionally and physically addictive.  In order to rid yourself of these substances from your life, the first step is to admit there is a problem.  This is one of the hardest things to do, especially when you think you are eating that sandwich out of hunger.

But cravings are a bent form of hunger and it is quite possible that you may have never felt what true hunger feels like.  You are probably used to the unger that gets your stomach growling, that makes you feel agitated and that resultings in your needing food right then and there.

This is not hunger – it is addiction.

Addiction is anything that has become stronger than your willpower to change.

Bread, sweets, coffee, meat and salt among a million other foods, provide you with false needs and behavior patterns that are destructive to your well being and can have a greater authority in behavior than the natural desire to eat and drinnk.  The salt, fat and crunch of junk food offer emotionsl of fulfillment that are lacking because of a spritiual vacuum – a feeling deep down inside that something is missing.

Emotional emptiness is the source of addiction in most cases – dependency on pleasure to temporarily numb our feelings of hopelessness is usually the root issue.

The sensations of hunger and thirst are homeostatic mechanisms which help the body maintain optimum levels of energy, nutrients and water.  When addictive foods are eaten repeatedly, the body adjusts homeostasis to be balanced with the food in the system.  Over time the body will become dependent on that substance for homeostatic balance and its removal will cause withdrawal.  The body cries out for the missing substance as just intense hunger cries for food.

Control has been established on the inside of you.  Even if there is an intense desire to lose weight there is often failure and discouragement.

But how did it all come about?

The potential and most likely start of food addiction is from the moment you were born.  Living in a society that deems food as a social function and emotional poise it can be hard not to associate food with emotion/feelings (whether they are good or bad).

This would seem to suggest that we are all addicted to food and I would say we are to some extent. However, not everyone has a problem with food.

Some people overuse this method of consuming food at an emotional/social event, pushing it into every aspect of their lives. It may have started with an upset in childhood, where your mother gave you some cookies or cake to make you feel better, and as you grew you began to use this comfort as a way of easing your pain whenever pain arose. You went through your teens with the usual social awkwardness and pubescent pains and food was your way to make it easier. You then went onto college and a stressful job and the only comfort you had was food. Your days revolved around you coming home from work and comforting yourself with a takeaway or something else. It was your little treat.

Unfortunately this is an all too common scenario for people and a lot of people do not recognize they have an issue and if they do have some awareness, they do not take it seriously because the world doesn’t take it seriously. The world does not recognize it as an addiction.

Overeating is a powerful way to change the state of your mind. Eating is a way to silence the mind.

The compulsion to eat sets up a very painful process. It makes one feel weak and out of control. It prevents many from successfully losing weight and eating a healthy diet, because the endless slip ups and indulgences into junk food for comfort can leave one in a very low insecure place.

Emotional eaters have a dependency on food to get through life – to survive challenges. Many of us are emotional eaters. We avoid emotion, we avoid allowing emotion to flow through us and instead we void it by numbing it. This doesn’t work though, because that pain is still there, we have just put it off.

Emotional eating is instant gratification and short lived, but it is a very hard thing to break free from. However, to be able to control our eating, to lose weight and to live a fulfilling satisfying life, it is crucial that emotional eating is addressed.

Emotions aren’t something one should fear, we should embrace every one that we feel and experience and that’s just it: we should allow ourselves to feel and experience them. The more we do so, the better we are able to manage them and more able e are to cope in stressful situations in the world. The world will also be a much more interesting place and wonderful place.

We need to make peace with our food and we need to allow ourselves to be happy. You can beat your addictions, you can break your reliance on food and the first step to do so is to be aware of your reliance.

Some questions to think about concerning your own emotional eating:

(Being aware of the following questions throughout the course of a day can help you better answer them)

1. Emotional eating is one aspect of food addiction. What other aspects of food addiction are present in your life? For example, being overweight is a sign of food addiction just like emotional eating. Can you pinpoint any others?
2. Have you been on diets before and if so what has made you break them? How did you feel before and after breaking your diet? Did breaking your diet give you relief? Was it stressful to be on a diet that prevented you from using food as a comfort?

For more help with emotional eating please visit: www.ShrinkYourself.com which has some helpful and free tools.

Physical and emotional cravings to food can lead one on the path of desctruction.  Both can also hurt your weight loss efforts and most people who experience physical and emotional cravings are overweight anyway.  It can be like an neverending battle.  The first step to losing weight should be to tackle these issues.  Cravings will hurt your weight loss efforts more than anything else.  Why?  Because most of the time they are like a silent killer of dreams.  We don’t recognize cravings as something serious – we don’t recognize food addiction as anything for anyone to worry about.  It is just brushed off like it is something so so natural in the Western world.  However, for many cravings and/or emotional eating will stop you losing weight because instant gratification is more important at the time of craving.  Just like a heroin addict finds it difficult to give up heroin, so do some people find it difficult to give up certain foods or to stop intense cravings.  This is for two reasons.

1. Food is physically addictive.  Some foods, like chocolate trigger the same part of your brain as heroin does.

2. Emotional eating without paying much attention to it.  Some of us eat out of boredom without realizing – we snack, we indulge in lots of food to help us overcome a bad feeling, stress or even to celebrate!

To overcome the physical cravings with little effort, all one has to do is eat the right foods.  Eat healthy – eat plenty of fruit, eat nutritious WHOLE RAW foods regularly.  Also make sure you eat breakfast as this can have a condierable affect on your eating habits – it can either cause you to snack more, or decrease your snacking desires.

To overcome emotional eating you need to write down what triggers you to eat.  Observe yourself over a day and make a note of what triggers you.  Then come up with a list of things you can do instead of eat e.g. go for a walk, talk to a friend.  For some people though emotional eating is deeper and more intense then they can imagine.  After years of emotional eating, we may need more expert help or an intensive program to help us to overcome this pattern for good.

Tackle these two things and you will lose weight without dieting. Then you can work on improving your diet for health and prosperity without sabotaging yourself along the way.

Emotional Eating Link : http://www.ShrinkYourSelf.com

Stop Cravings Link

For many people, simply following a balanced diet and exercising is not enough to lose weight. Many find it impossible to stick to a diet and to control what they are eating, despite their best efforts. Maybe you are one of these people?

You already know how to lose weight – you know you must eat more nutritionally but you seem to slip up at every turn. So what is getting in your way?

The answer is most likely a mix of physical addiction to food and emotional eating. Emotional eating is the hardest part to overcome and is what I will discuss below (physical addiction will be discussed in a later blog post).

The thing I have found is that a lot of the information available out there (including diet programs) is that they do not addresss this issue and if they do, they just touch on it.

However this issue is a big one and can stand in the way of someone achieving the healthy lifestyle changes they want. Especially if you are following a diet that restricts you in anyway. For some this can lead to a blind panic and before you know it you will have just engulfed a large chocolate cheesecake and will still be wanting more.

Food is a security blanket for many and to be restricted can make us feel vulnerable and exposed, even if we aren’t completely aware of it (which we usually aren’t because by the time we have become rational again, after a good old binge, we are too numb to feel anything).

What is emotional eating?

Emotional eating means to eat to satisfy emotional hunger. You eat food for comfort or a way to help you cope in life. You eat for reasons other than nutritional.

We all do this. Emotional eating is part of our culture. We use food to celebrate, to deal with upset, to deal with a hard day at work and even boredom (ever sit in front of the TV eating mindlessly?) It is a part of our culture. The problem with this is, it isn’t really seen as a problem in society, but it is one.

We spend so much time numbing ourselves, that when we do not have an opportunity to do so, we don’t know how best to deal with the emotions that arise in us. Food also has physically addictive properties within it that can affect our mood as well (I will discuss this later in a blog post) so everything can be very overwhelming. When we don’t live in the present moment and allow emotions to flow through us, but instead numb ourselves, we carry a lot of baggage around unknowingly. Sometimes this can surface in a bout of aggression or other form. The thing is, if we don’t face it, don’t learn to deal with our emotions then we just continue to live a life of numbing, of bingeing or craving. You miss out on the potential of life, of embracing emotions.

People suffering with this way of eating are driven to eat so they don’t have to face what is bothering them internally. They become addicted to the way they handle life. This is why dieting and calorie restriction doesn’t work. And since most diets do not teach you about emotional eating, we never become fully aware of it and think it is something wrong with us.

If others can do it, why can’t I?

Unless you learn to stop emotional eating and deal with your emotions in the present moment, you will find it impossible to lose weight and keep it off. Not to mention you will find it pretty hard to enjoy life fully if you are constantly battling with this issue with your weight loss.

If this resonates with you, then you are not alone and you can overcome it.

Kelly Aziz is an expert in the field of nutrition and addiction psychology. She is the author of the acclaimed “Free to Eat” Natural Weight Loss plan and Combat your Cravings ebook that helps you eat well and combat cravings for good.  For more information please visit: http://www.Eating-Naturally.com

For more information about emotional eating please visit www.ShrinkYourself.com

If you binge eat, overeat and can’t help yourself you are not alone. Lots of people binge, overeat, put on weight and feel endlessly guilty about it. They can’t understand why they don’t have control, so hopefully this article will give you some insight.

Compulsive overeating is food addiction. Compulsive overeaters rely on food to comfort them in times of stress, depression and helplessness. It is often rooted in low self esteem and feelings can be so overwhelming that the compulsion to overeat is unstoppable.

The issue lies in the compulsive overeater’s inability to deal with emotion. When you have learnt to cope with life by eating, it can be very hard to break out of that habit.

Our society is all about repression of feelings. We hide behind masks because we don’t want others to know we are upset. We use food in celebration and mourning. It is just what we know. It seems harmless but when it consumes us on a daily basis then we need to take drastic action.

Most compulsive overeaters are overweight and are only aware they have an issue with food because of the extremity in which food is part of their everyday life. The only problem is, they do not know how to change this issue and do not know how to cope with emotions in a more beneficial way.

What makes compulsive overeating harder to manage is that it usually comes with a lot of shame and guilt. People who suffer from this usually have low self esteem and do not feel good enough, which makes the eating worse (it is a vicious circle). Food is how compulsive overeaters deal with their need for acceptance and love.

When we overeat to such a large extent it is because our emotional needs are not being met. In order to overcome compulsive overeating we need to take a good hard look ourselves and learn how to face our emotions.

The first step to any recovery plan is to nourish the body properly to eradicate physical cravings. This can allow us to focus on the emotional issues surrounding food. Usually with compulsive overeaters, journaling and support from friends may not be enough and professional help may be necessary. There is a great 12 week intensive online program for emotional eating that can be beneficial if direct one on one counselling isn’t possible and relying on journaling and friends isn’t enough for you to be able to overcome your eating issues.

It is hard; you should not beat yourself up over this. Emotional eating is something that you have to learn how to deal with by allowing yourself to feel. Once you begin feeling, you will find that feeling isn’t as scary as you thought. The initial process may be overwhelming (because your body has old bottled up feelings to release on top of the new present ones) but will make you feel great afterwards – satisfied and calm. This is something food will never be able to do for you.

Love yourself and stop loving the comfort food because comfort food will never love you the way you love it.