Quiet the Voice of Emotional Eating

* Emotional eating is usually a process that is ongoing and prolonged. You can't seem to be satisfied and continue eating. The urge is driven by feeling a sense of fullness inside you and is not driven by physical fullness. One of the behaviors associated with eating over emotions is searching. You eat something and then search for more or something else to feel full and satisfied. With physical hunger, you can stop eating when you feel a sense of satiety.

* To eat from your emotions causes you to feel guilt and shame afterwards. Negative self-talk usually results after emotional eating. Eating in response to physical hunger does not result in negative emotions or self talk. Eating to satisfy physical hunger is an act of self-care and nurturing, resulting in positive feelings from taking care of yourself.

Food can be a welcome distraction. If you are worried, i.e., about your presentation or a parent-teacher conference, food can take you away from your worry and distract you from your feelings. The distraction is only temporary and the situation or feelings return. In addition to the situation or feelings that you initially emotionally ate to cope, you now have added the negative feelings from the emotional eating episode.

When we have a headache or a physical discomfort, we take medication. Eating out of your emotions is the same in that when we feel discomfort emotionally, we want to eat to stuff or bury the feeling or diminish the intensity. Food is for nourishment not for medicating! Emotional eating also serves to numb you and allow an emotional escape.

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