How to Solve Emotional Overeating – Major Cause Of Obesity

Do you know that your body is a reflection of your mind?

Our emotions guide us significantly because, in the battle with the logical mind, they usually win, leading to emotional eating.

Being overweight is often the result of emotional eating. We succumb to emotional eating when we feel negative emotions such as fear, anger, tension, and shame.

To feel better, we reach for food for its happy effect (caused by the release of hormones), burying our negative emotions with piles of calories.

That’s when you were feeling sad or self-critical and reached for ice cream or comfort foods like pizza, donuts, and other chewy foods. Or in the cinema, we snack on popcorn because we feel tension and impatience, and the feeling of crunch under our teeth gives us relief.

What else do we know about emotional overeating?

Normal hunger develops gradually, the longer you starve, the hungrier you become.

Emotional hunger appears out of the blue, you suddenly crave certain foods (for example, crunchy chocolate).

Each type of negative emotion creates a craving for a certain food texture:

Fear or shame — creamy, soft food that melts in your mouth

Anger or tension — hard food cracks under the teeth

A combination of two groups ( Fear + Anger or Tension for example) — chewy foods that are neither hard nor soft, donuts for example

The next time you catch yourself feeling emotionally hungry, analyze yourself

1) What food do I crave? Creamy, hard, or chewy?

2) Based on the texture and the previous scenario, determine the negative emotions you felt.

3) Ask yourself why you feel this way and make a list of steps to prevent it from happening. Think positive and look for a lesson. Talk to your friend/partner. In our mind, there is only room for positive or negative emotions, which replace each other. Therefore, do something that excites you instead of turning to comfort food.

How do I stop the magic loop of overeating and finally get the body I want?

1. Analyze the situations that precede negative emotions and find a solution to prevent them.

Are you stressed about your partner? Talk to them about problematic topics looking for a solution.

Bad grade? Sit back and learn more!

2. Be proactive!

Make a list of desired changes and choose the most important one with the greatest impact.

Would you be happier with an exercise routine, a reduced alcohol intake, a goal achieved, a raise, or an exam passed?

The happier you are, the less room there is for negative emotions and the resulting overeating that prevents you from being fit.

Accomplish this simply by forming a new habit. We are the result of our habits.

The habit of a professional athlete is to train for the 100-meter sprint every day, which allows him to be the best in the discipline.

Someone fit, exercises regularly, and eats nutrient-dense foods 80% of the time. In contrast, an overweight person may drink too much alcohol and eat junk food because they don’t cook.

3. If you can’t stop at one cookie but clean out the whole box, then buy a small portion to cover your calorie needs for the meal.

Don’t bring home food that you have no control over. If it’s not near you, you can’t eat it when the crisis hits.

Do what makes you happy, therefore you will have fewer negative emotions. As a result, you will have fewer food cravings which will help you stay fit and therefore increase your happiness.