How I cope with being an emotional eater?

I am an emotional eater
I am an emotional eater

My emotions drive my eating, I eat when  stressed, sad or overwhelmed. It took me many years to admit that I have a not so desired habit of reaching for “comfort food” when I am feeling down.

Through my journey of discovering I am an emotional eater, I realised that I have an emotional relationship with food. It’s part of my culture and how I was raised. Every life event, food was involved. If it’s a birthday, we celebrate with cake.If someone is sick, we nurse them with food, if someone passes away, we take food to their home. If we are celebrating a promotion, we go out to a restaurant, if anyone is having a bad day at work, we give them a chocolate and it goes on and on!

I started seeing food as a pick me up, a reward or just comforting and not fuel for my body. My relationship with food and my emotions are intertwined.

On my healthy journey over the last 2 years, I realized that my emotional eating did not really make me feel better, it actually had the opposite effect. I have skilled myself to overcome the urge to stuff my face in response to every negative emotion I felt. At the end of the day, this choice made me  empowered which made me feel better about myself….I made a choice and I did not live with feelings of guilt afterwards for abusing my body because of my emotional reactions.

My first step in coping with this not so desirable habit was to come up with some ways to manage it.

1. Rant Journal

Journal
Journal

Yes you heard right, these exist (I purchased mine from Typo). It’s a journal that allows me to scribble in my rants. I vent on paper and find it very therapeutic.

2. Tea makes my world a better place

Brew yourself a cuppa
Brew yourself a cuppa

Most of you that know me, know that I love tea and I have a cupboard dedicated to tea. Brew yourself some herbal tea, or some simple fresh ginger, lemon and mint tea. These pots of hot comfort make me feel warm and fuzzy. You will be hydrating and diminishing sugar cravings…Bonus

3. Dance to your favourite song

Dance
Dance

Getting my body moving to my favourite jam helps with the endorphins…natures happy medication. Dance with your partner or child…perfect time to spend quality time together. This does wonders to  lift my mood and get my mind in a more positive space.

4. Intuitive eating

Eat the colours of the rainbow
Eat the colours of the rainbow

Eat the rainbow of colours. I like to make my plate of food look colourful with brightly colored fruit and vegetables….smoothie and Buddha bowls are perfect for this. Focus on and love your food, smell your food and show gratitude for the meal.Lastly show appreciation for the flavours you are experiencing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 thoughts on “How I cope with being an emotional eater?”

  1. Love this post. I think I too am one, but have like you over the years noted that stuffing you’re face really does not make it better. You feel much worse. Soooo I dance! Whitney Houston “ I wanna dance with somebody” is my jam!
    Reply
    1. Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to resonate with my blog post. Love your jam. See you over at social media ;-)
      Reply
  3. I'm an emotional eater too. Not as much as I used to be but I still sometimes find myself wanting to stuff my face when I'm feeling down. I like these tips that you mention. I don't know how good I will fair when I think of doing a little dance instead of stuffing my pie hole when I'm upset, but the thought is going to cross my mind and maybe I will make a better decision on what I put in my mouth. I guess we've gotta start somewhere.
    Reply
    1. It’s a tough journey and requires consistency to make it easier.I also have those days that leaves you yearning for the comfort food.
      Reply
  4. I love this post! I actually clicked on the link when you published it, but somehow never got around to actually reading it until now. Thank you for sharing this. I also only recently realized how closely linked my bad eating habits were to my emotions, and it’s not easy getting a handle on it. Thank you for these tips. xx
    Reply
  5. It is really hard to when you have an emotional attachement to food it makes it easy to indulge, particularly at those times you mentioned - birthdays, celebrations, feeling down etc. These ideas to overcome that are great though! And congratulations, someone loved this post so much they added it to the #BlogCrush linky! feel free to collect your 'I've been featured' blog badge :)
    Reply
    1. Thank you so much. Apologies for the delayed response, I have been adjusting to having a house of sickies from the change in weather and starting a new job. Thank you for reading. Wow I did not even know, how do I collect the blog badge and how do I engage on this link? All the best
      Reply
      1. Just pop along to my blog and you can grab the badge from any of the #BlogCrush posts. It's a snippet of code you can add to the html of your post. You can also see how to join the link up if you fancy it :)
        Reply

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